The Beginning
1 In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. 2 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.
3 And God said, “Let
there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was
good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God
called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there
was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let
there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So
God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above
it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And
there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water
under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”
And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the
gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the
land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that
bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The
land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and
trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that
it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the
third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be
lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let
them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and
let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it
was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to
govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also
made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light
on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to
separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And
there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the
water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across
the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of
the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves
about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to
its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and
said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and
let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and
there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land
produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the
creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to
its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according
to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures
that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it
was good.
26 Then God said, “Let
us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they
may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the
livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along
the ground.”
27 So God
created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said
to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and
subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over
every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you
every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has
fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the
beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that
move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give
every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had
made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was
morning—the sixth day.
The above account of creation of Earth
given in the Book of Genesis of the Bible though said to be a religious
narrative by many religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam to my understanding does not contradict what scientists believe.
In the Bible it describes a
theological understanding of the origins of the Earth and life, emphasizing the
role of God as the Creator.
Scientific theories, on the other
hand, are developed through empirical evidence, observation, and the scientific
method. The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the origins of the
Earth and life is the theory of evolution and the understanding of the
universe's development through processes like the Big Bang.
Let us have a look how the verses
in Genesis fit in exactly as astronomers and scientists believe. Let
us look what Science tell us vs quotes from the Bible.
Billions of years ago, Earth, along
with the rest of our solar system, was entirely unrecognizable, existing only
as an enormous cloud of dust and gas. Eventually, a mysterious occurrence—one
that even the world’s foremost scientists have yet been unable to
determine—created a disturbance in that dust cloud, setting forth a string of
events that would lead to the formation of life as we know it. One common
belief among scientists is that a distant star collapsed, creating
a supernova explosion, which disrupted the dust cloud and caused it
to pull together. This formed a spinning disc of gas and dust, known as a
solar nebula. The faster the cloud spun, the more the dust and gas became
concentrated at the centre, further fuelling the speed of the nebula. Over
time, the gravity at the centre of the cloud became so intense
that hydrogen atoms began to move more rapidly and violently.
The hydrogen protons began fusing, forming helium and
releasing massive amounts of energy. This led to the formation of the star that
is the centre point of our solar system—the sun—roughly 4.6 billion years ago.
In Earth's Beginning
At its beginning, Earth was unrecognizable from its modern form. It was
4.543 billion years ago which was Day 1 in creation by God (Genesis
1:1)
On Day 1 the earth was extremely
hot, to the point it was almost entirely of molten magma without any
specific shape or structure.
Over the course of a
few hundred million years, the planet began to cool, and oceans of
liquid water formed. But earth was still very hot and ocean waters were mainly
an envelope of steam enveloping the entire Earth without separation of the
waters below and the atmosphere above. In other words, there was no clear-cut
filament to separate the sky above and the waters below. Everywhere on earth
was misty with extremely hot steam enveloping the entire earth. The Earth was
still dark as hydrogen in the Sun has not accreted yet to beginning nuclear
fusion to give it light and heat. The Sun was formed about the same time as
earth. Earth was empty of all life and was very dark with the Sun yet to form.
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 (Genesis 1:2)
Earth’s
early atmosphere was most likely composed
of hydrogen and helium. As the planet changed, and the
crust began to form, volcanic eruptions occurred frequently.
These volcanoes pumped water vapor, ammonia, and carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere around Earth. As earth slowly cooled, the waters as
hot steam above began to condense into water and fell as continuous rains and
oceans began to take shape, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
In the course of a few million
years, hydrogen in the Sun began to fuse together by its immense gravity and
nuclear fusion began to give light and heat.
And God said, “Let there be
light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:3)
4.5 billion years ago the earth was rotating in darkness probably in only 7 hours a day instead of a 24-hour
day. The current slowing down of earth's rotation is due to loss of
rotational energy caused by tides - tidal frictions across the earth's surface due to the gravitational pull of the
Moon.
Earth began to face the Sun in
brightness, for the first time, and thus there was a separation from light
(day) from darkness (night)
God saw that the light was
good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there
was evening, and there was morning—the first day (Genesis 1: 4-5)
As earth cooled further, there was
now a distinction between the skies above that still had a lot of water and
heavy clouds. In other words, there was now a filament (horizon) that separated
the waters above and the oceans of condensed water below. That was just
the second day of creation for God.
And God said, “Let there be a
vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So
God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above
it. And it was so. God called the vault
“sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
(Genesis 1:6 – 8)
As earth cooled further, heavy
elements began sinking past the oceans and magma toward the centre of
the planet. As this occurred, Earth became differentiated into
layers, with the outermost layer being a solid covering of relatively lighter
material while the denser, molten material sank to the centre. Then land below
the oceans began to rise by geological upheaval to form solid land above the
oceans to separate the oceans from the land above
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).
The earth was still barren of life,
devoid of oxygen, but it has a lot of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Thus,
simple cyanobacteria capable of filling the atmosphere with oxygen and later
more plants and vegetarian must come first to provide oxygen using
photosynthesis.
This was around 2.5 billion years
ago, cyanobacteria evolved, leading to the process of photosynthesis. This
event significantly increased atmospheric oxygen levels.
Then around 1.5 to 2 billion years
ago, more complex eukaryotic cells emerged. These cells are the building blocks
of more complex multicellular organisms. The first multicellular organisms
appeared around 1 billion years ago, followed by the first land plants that
evolved around 500 million years ago. These were likely simple, non-vascular
plants, but they provided they much needed oxygen for even simple animals to
live.
- After the plants and vegetation only came the first
animals that evolved around 600-700 million years ago. These early animals
were likely simple, multicellular organisms.
- Then almost suddenly came the Explosion of Life
(Cambrian Explosion) around 541 million years ago. There was a rapid
diversification of life known as the Cambrian Explosion or Cambrian
Radiation. This period saw the emergence of a wide variety of complex
multicellular organisms, including many animal phyla.
This was clearly stated in the
order of creation here:
Then God said, “Let the land
produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear
fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
The land produced vegetation:
plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with
seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And
there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11 -13)
It was only when oxygen through
plants, vegetarian and photosynthesis became available in abundance, that
animal life could exist to populate earth, starting with fishes in the oceans,
then reptiles and dinosaurs, then birds in the air as “gloried reptiles” and
the rest of other mammals that followed in the course of natural evolution
which took tens of millions of years in the eyes of humans, but was just one
day in creation for God.
And God said, “Let the water teem
with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault
of the sky.” So, God created the great creatures of the sea and
every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in
it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its
kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them
and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas,
and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there
was morning - the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the land produce
living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the
creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to
its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to
their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that
move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good.
(Genesis 1: 20 – 25)
Consider this analogy of a scientist conducting some experiments on rats over a certain period. Naturally as a creator, the scientist would use his time to measure the period and length of his experiment according to his clock. He would never use the short lifespan of the rats to measure time. Likewise, God as a Creator uses His clock and time to describe the length for each stage of His creation. There is no reason why He should use the short lifespan of humans to describe the length of His creation. His ‘one day’ - a watch in the night, is probably hundreds of millions of years to us. There is no comparison. This is important to consider not use a day in Genesis as our 24 hour-day. In fact 4,500 – 4,400 million years ago after the accretion of Earth, this planet could be rotating in darkness in just 6 or 7 hour each day instead of the current a 24-hour day. The slowing down of Earth's rotation is due to loss of rotational energy caused by friction from tides that sweeps across the surface of Earth including over solid land from the pull of Moon's gravity. Atomic clocks show that the modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century ago,
It was long after all the plants
and other animals have already populated earth that God decided to create
humans in His image.
And God said, let
us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So, God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
And God blessed them, and God said
unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moved upon the earth.
(Genesis 1: 26 – 28)
Aren’t all these stages of life
evolution tallied so neatly with the verses line-by-lines as given in Genesis
of the Bible that I could see it.
This was 250,000 – 160,000 years
ago when Homo sapiens (modern human species) arose. But before that, human-like
creatures called Hominids arose
– a group consisting of all modern and extinct Great Apes (that is,
modern humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, plus all their immediate
ancestors).
Please understand the Bible is not a science book where it needs to write
the entire creation in scientific details. It is a book about how God needed to
deal with man and ultimately and more importantly for his salvation which is
much more crucial for man than revealing all the technical details about
creation of earth and the evolution of life.
But if others are interested in
scientific details on evolution and its timeline see my explanation below:
“A Summary on The Creation of the
Universe and Evolution of Life on Earth”
“A Summary on The Creation of the
Universe and Evolution of Life on Earth”
Unfortunately, other scientists and
the church cannot agree with each other.
The disagreement between Science
and the Church is mainly because the Bible account of the entire Creation took
place in 6 days, whereas in the eyes of astronomers, geologists,
palaeontologist and other scientists the creation of the Sun, Earth, other planets
and life on Earth took place 4.568 billion years ago from the
gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud. This initial
cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars.
Unfortunately, humans use their
short lifespans at 120 years maximum as a yardstick to compare time that is
eternal for God.
“For a thousand years in thy (God)
sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night”.
(Psalm 90:4).
“You do not know what will happen
tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little
time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).
Given the distinct nature of
religious and scientific explanations, there are often differences between the
two accounts. The Genesis narrative is not a scientific explanation in the eyes
of a scientist (but not to me)
Genesis in the Bible scientists
claim is a religious and cultural text that provides a theological framework
for understanding the origins of the Earth and life.
Many religious individuals and
groups reconcile their faith with scientific theories, viewing them as
complementary rather than conflicting. This perspective is often referred to as
"theistic evolution" or "evolutionary creationism," where
individuals believe that God guided the evolutionary processes to bring about
the diversity of life.
Many people cannot differentiate
the different purposes and methodologies of religious and scientific accounts
and understand that they serve different aspects of human understanding and
inquiry.
Fortunately, some people like me
with God help can agree on creation given in the Bible verse-by-verse, and the
stage-by-stage given by scientists. They tallied so neatly in my eyes.
In short, I can integrate their
religious beliefs with my personal scientific training on astronomy and
evolution, while others maintain a clear separation between the two domains.
Creation in my eyes:
Astronomical Big Bang 13.8
billion years (4.3549488 x 10 ^ 17 seconds) ago
Age of Earth
4.543 billion years = 1.43366 x 10 ^ 17 seconds ago
1 day = 86,400 seconds
1 year = 365.25 days = 31,557,600
seconds
100 year = 3,155,760,000 seconds
If the Creation of the
Universe through the Big Bang was 13.8 billion years
ago, and if our human life span at
maximum last for 100 years, then our lifespan last only 7.3 x 10^-9
(0.0,000,000,073) of this, and only
2.2 x 10^-8 (0.000,000,022) of a
fraction compared the creation of
Earth 4.543 billion years
ago.
Another way of putting this
is, if the age of the Universe at 13.8 billion years was just one day of
Creation, then 100 years of our lives lasts for just 0.23
second.
But if the age of Earth at
4.543 billion years was just one day in Creation,
then 100 years of our lives last
just 0.7 second
Age of Earth and History of
Evolution of Life on Earth:
1. 4,500 – 4,400 million years ago
(Mya). Accretion of Earth
2. 4,200 million years ago (Mya)
Atmosphere and oceans form
3. 4,000 million years ago (Mya)
Prebiotic chemistry became possible
4. 3,800 million years ago RNA
world shown by the first chemical fossil
available (viruses)
5. 3,600 million years ago the
first DNA protein life came into existence
6. 3,500 million years ago LUCA:
Archaea / Bacteria spilt and also
photosynthesis (autotrophy) began.
7. 2,700 – 1,900 million years ago
the first eukaryotes / sexual reproduction
became possible.
8. 1,000 Mya?
9. 650 Mya Metazoans
10. 575 Oldest large organisms
11. 555 Mya Oldest sponge fossils
12. 542 – 488 Mya Cambrian
Radiation
13. 525 Mya Earliest vertebrates
14. 440 Mya First vascular land
plants
15. 425 Mya First jawed vertebrates
16. 420 Mya Earliest terrestrial
animals
17. 396 Mya First insects
18. 365 Mya Plants evolves seeds
and first tetrapods
19. 354 Mya Insects flight
20. 350 Mya First land-dwelling
vertebrates
21. 240 Mya First dinosaurs
22. 210 Mya First mammals
23. 200 Mya Pangea breakup begins
24. 150 Mya Archaeopteryx / birds’
flight
25. 140 Mya Flowering plants
26. 128 – 124 Dinosaurs flight
27. 125 Mya Mammalian gliding
flight
28. 105 – 95 Mya Gondwanaland
breakup
29. 90- 80 Mya Formation of
Galapagos geological hot spot
30. 57 – 53 Mya Whale ancestor
31. 55 Mya Australia breaks away
from Antarctica
32. 51 Mya Mammalian powered
flights (bats)
33. 50 Mya First fossil Equidae
34. 45.6 Whale ancestor
35. 40 Mya Primate order diverges
36. 35 Mya First grasses evolve
37. 30 Mya Old-world / new-world
monkey spilt
38. 25 Mya Old-world monkey / apes
split. Also, Drosophila melanogaster / D.
obscura split.
39. 15 Mya Apes migrate to Asia
40. 6 -7 Mya Sahelanthropus
41. 5 - 4 Mya Common ancestors of
chimps and humans. Formation of current
Galapagos Islands
History on the Emergence of
human-like and humans:
42. 3.6 Mya Panama Isthmus rise /
Lucy fossil / Australopithecus afarensis
footprints
43. 2.5 Tool use
44. 1.8 Mya Homo habilis out of
Africa
45. 1.6 Mya Homo erectus in Asia
46. 600,000 years ago Human /
Neanderthal spilt
47. 500,000 years ago Homo erectus
use fire
48. 355,000 Homo heidelbergensis
footprints
49. 200,000 years ago Anatomically
modern human
50. 250,000 – 160,000 years
ago Homo sapiens arose
51. 120,000 Homo language possible
52. 100,000 years ago Wolf / dog
split
53. 79,000 – 15,000 years ago Start
of Wisconsin glaciations
54. 50,000 years ago. Humans
migrate from Asia to Australia
55. 45,000 years ago. Megafauna
extinction in Australia
56. 30,000 years ago. Human
migration from Asia to North America
57. 14,000 – 10,000 years ago.
Domestication of dog and Megafauna extinction
in North America
58. 12,000 years ago. Early
agriculture
59. 8,000 years ago Domestication
of cattle
60. 6,000 years ago Domestication
of horse
61. 3,000 years ago Iron tools
Major extinctions of life took
place during:
62. 445 Mya in the Late Ordovician
63. 375 Mya Late Devonian
64. 251 Mya End Permian
65. 200 Mya Late Triassic
66. 65 Mya Cretaceous-Tertiary
Lim ju boo
(3,709 words in 9 pages)
