“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
“Bereshith bara Elohim hashamayam waharets,” so wrote Moses as he wrote the first five Hebrew words in the Bible. Now, our English text reads, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Then Moses explained, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Then God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” says the record.
Archbishop James Usher, who died in 1656 and was eventually buried in Westminster Abby in London, contended that the earth was created in 4004 BC, a figure that was widely accepted until science said, “Whoa! The whole thing is a lot older than this.” And when did God create the heavens and the earth? Actually, the Bible doesn’t say, which then gives science considerable latitude—something which some would deny.
However—and this is the point of today’s commentary—it is amazing how scientists, discovery by discovery, are demonstrating the basic framework of the Genesis account of creation without even realizing that what they really are and it falls with the framework of what Moses wrote almost 3500 years ago.
John Noble Wilford, writing for the New York Times, said, “In the most distant observations yet by the Hubble Space Telescope, some astronomers think they are seeing evidence that the universe emerged from its initial darkness in a dawn of light that came up like a thunder across the cosmos.” He contends that “the light of the first stars apparently did not wink on gradually here and there, like a drowsy village coming awake, but burst into spectacular profusion, “a fireworks of creation,” to use his words. (See Orange County Register, January 9, 2002).
Actually, I think ol’ Moses would probably have agreed with that assessment. And how was this accepted by the scientific community? Well, not exactly welcomed. “If this is true,” reported The New York Times, “many theories have to be revised.”
Shortly after that, a geologist with impeccable credentials, Dr. Eldridge Moores, drew on years of research and the study of ancient rocks to argue that quite suddenly dry continents appeared on a planet which previously had been 95 percent underwater. And what would Moses think about that? He would probably say, “Hey, don’t you remember what I wrote?” Then he would remind us of what Genesis says. “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas.’ And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-10).
Moores’ hypothesis was readily accepted in the scientific community, right? No, dead wrong again. His colleagues tried to discredit his findings, calling this a dead horse which he keeps flogging, or suggesting that his vision of old, hard-to-cipher rocks isn’t very good. Nonetheless, Moores is convinced he is right, and his research corroborates what Moses wrote long ago.
The real conflict is not between the Bible and science. Rather, between what individuals say the Bible says and what it really says, and what some contend is findings of science and what are the true findings of science.
Now, there are not two gods—a God of the Bible and one of science—just one great God who has revealed His words in the Bible, His works in nature. The Bible is a textbook on living, but it teaches us how to live. And that is a fact.
Resource reading: Genesis 3.
