The creation story from Genesis is probably the most controversial story in the bible.
It has caused a lot of arguments. It is from this section of scripture, that you hear theologians teach that you can't trust science. When you read commentaries about this, you see people start with their points of view, and look to find people and teachings that agree with them and label everything else as fake news or in the case of theologians trying to sound pious, heresy. It is funny to me how many people can't see the story over the words (Yes that is a play on the "they can't see the forest because of the trees" ciche.) The words that I am talking about do not change the story, just the way that the person wants to read the story.
I believe that when you look at these first few verses in Genesis, there are a couple of things that you need to remember. First things is that the book of Genesis is believed to have been written during the events described in Exodus or Numbers and for a developing nation that just miraculously escaped slavery. That means that more time had passed between Genesis 1:1 and the writing of Genesis, then between the writing of Genesis and now. The second thing is that science cannot prove or disprove God. Science can only show how God did something.
Instead of going verse by verse like I might do in a bible study, let me make a few observations how science and theology can work together to tell and understand this story. The NET Bible states the first 5 verses like this:
"1 In the
2 Now the earth was without shape and empty , and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep , but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water . 3 God said , “Let there be light .” And there was light ! 4 God saw that the light was good , so God separated the light from the darkness . 5 God called the light “day ” and the darkness “night .” There was evening , and there was morning , marking the first day ."
Verse two points out the God had assembled all the ingredients needed for creation. The verse also points out that God was there. Verse 3 is the verse that brings in "The Big Bang". God starts off by light exploding into the dark space. When light enters into darkness like this, it is always like an explosion as light overtakes and expels darkness. It is this entrance of light that causes the ingredients to come together. Now the bible doesn't say what that light was (I think that it was the glory of God) ,but it does show that it was important. The first way that God shows that is by the way that God sets up the Hebrew Day by starting at night and then by day. There was darkness, then God brought in the light. In the New Testament, Jesus is referenced as being the true light and that would bring the Israelites thought - back to creation. Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, which was to be remembered as the day that God brought in the light. The believer's new birth or new creation of the soul is a reminder of this part of creation.
Now we get to the sticking point of the word "day" here. Now at this point of creation there were no 24 hour days. That would not happen until day 4. However the words used here seem to show that they were talking about a 24 hour day. I have a couple of thoughts about that as well. As I said before, this book book was written thousands and thousands of years later during the time when Israel was becoming a nation. Although the 7th day would play a big point as a day of rest, I think that everyday was suppose to be a reminder of creation. So the first day would be the day of light, 2nd day would be sky or atmosphere, day 3 would be ocean, land and plants, day 4 would be sun moon and stars, day 5 would be birds and sea creatures, day 6 would be land animals, man and woman and the famous one, day 7 is a day of rest after completing the creation.
So, now we get to a big sticking point of whether each of these events happened within that 24 hour period. I don't think that changes the story either way you want to believe, but here is an interesting tidbit of knowledge that might help reconcile the long history that archeology suggests and the 24 hour days that a lot creationists believe. Gerald Schroeder is a Jewish physicist who has a theory that an explosion of that first day would have caused a stretching of time (another way of describing a time warp buble as described in sci-fi shows, books, etc.). He even developed a mathematical equation to reconcile the two dates. Well, if you are a sci-fi geek like myself, that is fascinating.
Another scientific theory is evolution. This belief that is taught in schools actually works best when paired with creation. In the verses of scriptures that we looked at, God doesn't explain how He created everything. Evolution simply shows that creation begat creation. God used what he created to create other things. It would also show why we are not getting all types of new things now. I mean that although we are getting stuff like mules, zorses, and zonkeys, from horses, donkeys and zebras; we are only getting species that is similar to the old species that they came from and not getting something that is - nothing like anything else alive.
A lesser discussed theory is the ideal of Pangea and Panthalassa. This is the ideal that when the Earth was created, instead of the seven continents that we see today, there was only one super size island called Pangea. Pangea would break up and form the seven continents. Panthalassa was one super sized ocean that surrounded Pangea. Genesis 1:9 supports this by saying that the oceans gathered in one place.
"9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.: (NET)
I don't know if this post will actually help anyone (I hope that it does), but getting this off my chest gives me a sense of relief, and if you are still reading this at this point, I just want to say thank you.
