Alpha Omega |
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A Genesis Odyssey
By comparing the opening verses of Genesis with the Big Bang explanation of the origin of the universe one should be able to perceive the similarities between the two. Both begin with the creation of light! However, in order to understand Genesis one must also understand the knowledge capabilities of its ancient narrator. This ancient prophet lived thousands of years ago. His knowledge of God and the creation process was extremely limited. Comparing his knowledge of the creation process to someone living today is much like comparing the knowledge a small child has of the creation process with the knowledge a college graduate has of it. Such a child may be totally conscious at play and be of superior mental ability but his knowledge of the creation process cannot possibly match that of today’s college graduate. So too was it with the ancient narrator of Genesis. He can not possibly be expected to understand or to explain the creation process in today’s scientific terminology. This ancient child of God tried to explain what our Lord revealed to him about this creation process. In his own way, he tried to explain what he understood about our Lord and what he understood about how he believed God created the heavens and the earth. This revelation by our Lord had to parallel this ancient priest’s conception of the creation and it had to be an explanation that this prophet could comprehend and believe in. Yet, it had to be the truth or God will have begun His salvation of mankind with a weak, impotent beginning — something no Master would do. If this explanation falls short of today’s scientific explanation one should not allow such a description to corrupt one’s thoughts. Would one condemn the efforts of a five-year-old child to draw a picture of his father? The same is true here. One should not condemn this ancient prophet’s efforts in his attempt to explain God and the creation process as he understood it. Rather, one should look upon this ancient priest’s effort and applaud his success; however slight it may be and however short of today’s scientific explanation he may have fallen. One must not forget that this ancient child of God knew nothing of galaxies, nebulae, microscopic bacteria, photosynthesis, evolution, dinosaurs or any of the other scientific discoveries since the Copernican Revolution. The narrative he composed was what our Lord revealed to him. This “poem” was in a form that this ancient prophet, with his very limited knowledge of science and the things of this world, could understand and, most importantly, could believe in. Yet it is completely acceptable to one living in today’s highly developed technology. Before continuing, one should note that the terms child of God, servant of God, priest and prophet are used here interchangeably. The reason for this is that one does not know if this ancient child of God was a priest or a specially chosen prophet of God. One does not know if he was some kind of high priest of his tribe or just a shepherd, like the prophet Amos, who was chosen by our Lord for some special mission. One must leave this type of information to the theologians to figure out, for they know more about such subjects than the amateurs. At first glance, verse one seems to be a contradiction because one knows that heaven has always been in existence with God and that the earth was not the first thing God created. The first “things” that God created were the laws of nature and the universe. But this ancient child of God could not possibly comprehend such. What he comprehends is God creating heaven and earth and his poem reflects what he understood. Hence, instead of God creating the laws of nature and the universe, the first verse says that God created heaven and earth. By perceiving the first verse this latter way, one has an understanding of it. But the universe (or earth as the ancient servant of God explains it) was dark and void of God’s Spirit. Then the Spirit of God crossed the great gulf that separates His spiritual world from this physical world, (v.2). (This void or chaos is also mentioned by our Lord in the gospel of St. Luke, Lk.16:26.) Before God entered the universe it was void and empty and filled with darkness. God then filled the universe with light by creating Ylem, the primordial star from which everything else has evolved. Thus, God created the universe and the laws that govern it and the first light of the universe. One should note that many bibles incorrectly translate verse two by stating that “a mighty wind moved over the waters.” This makes it almost impossible to interpret the verse correctly. One knows that it is incorrect by comparing it with St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. He uses the words Spiritus Dei, which means Spirit of God or possibly breath of Life or even wind of God. But Spiritus Dei cannot be translated a mighty wind. It was God, not a mighty wind, who created the first light. This act of creation by God was not done a mere six thousand years ago, as the heresy of fundamentalism incorrectly claims. Rather, the universe was created closer to sixteen billion years ago, as it was noted in the first chapter of this trilogy. Thus, scientific discoveries and the Holy Bible agree on what was the first thing created on the “first day” of creation. This is the “unmistakable evidence” sought by Dr. Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996) for the existence of God. In his science fiction story, Contact, he says that God could very easily have left a “record for future generations to make His existence unmistakable.” The opening chapters of Genesis are those “few enigmatic phrases that have been passed on unchanged,” for which he sought. This is the information that man “could not possibly have known three thousand years ago.” Yet, it is there in Genesis! It is probably those verses of chapter one that deal with the seven consecutive days that has caused so many people to misinterpret Genesis. These people have mistakenly interpreted these verses to mean that God created the universe, the earth, life and man all in six days with a resting period on the seventh day. But, as one has learned from science, such a belief is unreasonable and just not true. From anthropological studies one knows that the priests and shamans of many ancient civilizations relied on visions and dreams in order to explain the unknowable. Almost every theologian can confirm that many of the ancient prophets and priests of God also relied upon dreams and visions in order to receive our Lord’s message. Genesis is just another example of God revealing His message in dreams. Because of the way he ended each step in his explanation, one can conclude that the ancient narrator of Genesis apparently received his information from our Lord through dreams. Hence, if one were to perceive the first chapter of Genesis as having been revealed by our Lord in a series of dreams to His servant over a seven-day period, it might be more understandable. Every night in a dream God revealed to His servant a certain event. Upon waking the following morning this ancient prophet would compose a poem or rhyme-like verse describing what was in his dream. Thus, it is written: “And there was evening and morning one day . . . and the evening and morning were the second day . . . third day . . . and so on,” the entire revelation taking seven days to complete. However, if one allows a little ambiguity to temporarily enter into the epistle of St. Peter in order to explain the situation, the chief of the apostles has given one another way in which this may be understood. By comprehending it in the light of Albert Einstein’s treatise on the relativity of space and time one has another understanding of the seven days mentioned in the first chapter.
According to Einstein’s model of the relativity of space and time, a passage of a short period of time to one person may seem like the passage of a long period of time to someone else. By comparing Einstein’s treatise with the above verse it should be easy to see that it could be used to describe the “days” of Genesis. Thus, seven of God’s days could be sixteen billion years to man.
The ancient priest of God had a dream the second night. In the vision he presumably saw a big, slushy whirlpool swirling in what one today would call a solar nebular. However, because of his lack of scientific knowledge, this ancient child of God obviously did not, could not, conceive of a cloud of chemicals swirling in outer space. Thus, when he saw in his vision of the night the whirlpool (which he describes as water) begin to breakup and divide to form the planets and the Sun, he presumably thought that it was a great, raging sea situated somewhere in the heavens. Some of the “water” went above the sky during the breakup, while the rest fell under the clouds. To someone living thousands of years ago, who believed that the earth was at the center of the universe, this whirlpool was to divide and form the planets and other celestial objects above and form the earth below. If one rationalizes for this ancient narrator’s lack of scientific knowledge, then this is a vivid description of a solar nebular contracting, revolving and breaking up into a solar system. To his understanding, the “water” that went above the sky formed the celestial objects, while that which fell below the clouds developed into the earth. Again, when one considers the lack of knowledge this ancient servant of God had about the development of a solar system, one must agree that he describes it quite accurately for someone of his limited intellect. Thus, scientific discoveries and the Holy Bible agree for the “second day” on how the universe and the earth were created. Before going on to the third day one should note that some bibles incorrectly translate verses six and seven. Such translations claim that our Lord created a dome over the sky and that it keeps the water in two separate places. Again, this makes it almost impossible to interpret them correctly and compare them with scientific fact. But St. Jerome, writing in Latin, used the words Fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum. When translated this means: “He made a firmament in the middle of (or amidst) the waters.” This latter is more easily compared with what science says about the creation of the solar system.
Verse nine presents a clear description of the earth forming while swirling around in the “chemical soup” of the solar nebular. Our Lord’s servant describes this chemical soup as waters, thus, keeping rhythm with the waters of verses six and seven. Then in verse ten, Panthalassa and all the other seas and lakes of the ancient earth begin to condense as the earth cools off Rodina, the ancient super continent later known as Pangaea, begins to form. The waters mentioned here represent good old fashion H2O. Then, in verses eleven and twelve, green plants begin to cover the barren land. From the narration one could assume that in his dream the ancient prophet saw plants of all kinds, including angiosperms (flower and fruit bearing plants). However, one knows that the angiosperms did not evolve at this time. Panthalassa and Pangaea did not finish forming until the Precambrian Period of the Archeozoic Area, while angiosperms did not appear in the fossil record until millions of years later in the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Area. But what the ancient priest is obviously attempting to describe are some of the earliest forms of life in this world. These are the photosynthetic autotrophs from which all metaphytes and metazoans have evolved. From science one has learned that the waters of the earth as well as all the lands were already teeming with many kinds of photosynthetic organisms long before the vertebrates began to emerge from fresh water lakes and ponds. The message here is that the photosynthetic autotrophs evolved before the vertebrate animals. However, this ancient child of God did not have any taxonomic division of plants and animals and other life forms. To him a plant was a plant and an animal was an animal; there were no other types of life. The ancient prophet saw the land covered with photosynthetic plants in his dream and this is what he described. If one perceives his “plants” as photosynthetic autotrophs, then one has an understanding of the verse. Thus, scientific discoveries and the Holy Bible agree for the “third day” on how the universe, the earth and life were created.
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