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Thursday, January 07, 2010

Where Genesis and Science agree


I almost always find myself reading Genesis in January and it strikes me that we very often focus on the areas of conflict between contemporary scientific theories and the Book of Genesis and miss out on the very many areas where the two agree. Here are some that I've noted:
  • The forming of the universe was almost instantaneous (Gen 1:3 & the split seconds of the Big Bang - whichever theory of it you choose)
  • The earth began formless, empty and mostly watery (Gen 1:2 & history of the earth)
  • Genesis says the order was something like water, earth, plants, fish, birds, animals, people which is pretty much what science says - although we all know they differ on how long that took! (Gen 1:2-26 & origins of life)
  • Essentially life came from the dust (Gen 2:19 & primordial soup)
  • We use the sun and moon to mark days, years and festivals (Gen 1:14 & solar calendar, lunar calendar)
  • Man names the animals (Gen 1:19-20 & species)
  • Men & women are like each other but not quite like animals (Gen 1:23 & humans)
  • Humans basically rule the earth, albeit not always wisely (Gen 1:28-30 & humans)
  • The creating of new life has been completed (Gen 2:1)
Any more?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The creating of new life has probably not been completed.

Anonymous said...

I like it.

How about this from Robert W Jenson to his granddaughter: 'if you'll look at the story, you'll see that it moves from less complicated things to more complicated. You start with the big bang of light, then you get the sorting out of heavy and light stuff - water, earth, air - [clever reference to the period just after the big bang] then you get plants, and then fish...'

Mark P

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