I recently wrote in the course of replying to a thread a lengthy post reflecting on the startling accuracy of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, which I feel I should preserve here for future reference.
Introduction
An honorable member argued correctly the Bible is not a science textbook. However, I felt compelled to show how it is, at the very beginning, not only uniquely compatible with science as religious texts go, but also was for over twenty five centuries the only accurate account of how the world came to be. Only in the 19th century did knowledge advance to the point where in the 20th century, we could actually know what happened with a high level of accuracy, and while most people make the error of dismissing Genesis on the basis of trivial details, if we step back and examine it closely, the parallels between the creation narrative and science are astonishing.
Interpretation
To begin our exegesis, we must make clear the creation story in Genesis 1, in addition to being a prophecy of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, also is fully compatible and indeed I would say an honest narrative of the creation of the Universe, if we understand day as referring to an epoch of arbitrary length.
The really interesting thing is that it gets the sequence of prehistoric events on Earth, and the evolution of life exactly right. To prove this, I shall outline what happens on each day:
Rationale
Christianity is the only religion whose primary account of Creation can be easily reconciled with Science, as shown above (the narrative of the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis Chapter 2 can also be reconciled, but is more complex, and a different matter, but Genesis 1 is clearly the primary creation narrative, and its importance is emphasized by St. John the Apostle beginning his Gospel, which is the primary Christological reference in New Testament theology, according to the form and structure of the first chapter of Genesis, in what some people might call a riff, and others would call a variation, and which in Greek hymnography is called an irmos (meaning link).
And the fact that the creation narrative got the evolutionary sequence of plants to sea creatures to insects and creatures such as birds and lizards derived from dinosaurs, then mammals, and finally, human beings, in the correct order, is truly remarkable. The Jews of antiquity, and the early Christians, lacked the scientific knowledge to know how profoundly accurate Genesis 1 actually is, but they accepted it on faith. Some aspects were misunderstood, for example, the nature of celestial bodies and the Firmament as the word has historically been conceptualized, but the Faith of God’s Chosen People, which we now call Christianity, which was always open to all (the ancient Hebraic and Judaic religion accepted converts) is unique among the world’s religions in that it alone has always taught the truth about the creation of the world, in a manner that people with no scientific knowledge could understand.
Now, if we take a look at any other religion, such as Hinduism, or Shinto, or ancient Roman Paganism, or the indigenous religions of the Americas, or traditional Chinese religion (usually administered by the Taoists, but not Taoist per se), or even religions somewhat closely related to Christianity, such as Islam, or Mandaeism, or Yazidism, or Yarsanism, or Alevism/Bektasism, or Zoroastrianism, or the Mormon religion, or Scientology, their creation myths are absurd, in many cases laughable, and totally irreconcilable to science.
Conclusions
As I pointed out in the Introduction, from the time the Book of Genesis in its present form was completed, until the 20th century, it constituted the only accurate account of how the Universe and Life came into existence. This is astonishing when one considers it; I regard Genesis 1 as a holy miracle, and as proof that Christianity is the True Faith. No other religion even came close to explaining the origin of life and the cosmos.
And furthermore, no one could possibly have known, or guessed, at the origin of the universe, without Divine Revelation. This is proven by the failure of the great philosophers of antiquity, in Greece, and in China and India and Persia, and every other advanced civilization, indeed, even Pythagoras, Euclid, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle, to apply their knowledge, which represented the apex of human intelligence and education in antiquity, and the dawn of science as we understand it, to develop any theory which resembled the actual creation of the Cosmos from the Big Bang, the formation of this planet, and the progressive evolution of life thereon.
Genesis proves the existence of the Holy Spirit and shows us an example of Him inspiring a holy prophet with truths that were beyond the comprehension of mankind.
This also reinforces the idea contained in Psalm 95 v. 5 in the Septuagint (which corresponds to the weaker Psalms 96:5 in Old Testaments based on the Masoretic text), which states that the gods of the gentiles are demons (the Masoretic declares them to be idols, but we already know that, so clearly, the Septuagint has the correct reading in this case, as allusions to the demonic origin of every other religion are numerous in the Sacred Scriptures). And this is shown by the truth of Christianity and the blatant falsehood of the other religions. I suspect the demons know the truth (being fallen angels, and presumably knowing the contents of the Scriptures) but choose to tell inconsistent lies in order to spread discord and ensure deadly wars occur, resulting in horrific violence against Christians and other people of faith, wars which are in turn exploited by the architects and leaders of evil anti-Christian regimes such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Islamic State and the People’s Republic of China to legitimize further horrific violence against Christians and other religions.
Introduction
An honorable member argued correctly the Bible is not a science textbook. However, I felt compelled to show how it is, at the very beginning, not only uniquely compatible with science as religious texts go, but also was for over twenty five centuries the only accurate account of how the world came to be. Only in the 19th century did knowledge advance to the point where in the 20th century, we could actually know what happened with a high level of accuracy, and while most people make the error of dismissing Genesis on the basis of trivial details, if we step back and examine it closely, the parallels between the creation narrative and science are astonishing.
Interpretation
To begin our exegesis, we must make clear the creation story in Genesis 1, in addition to being a prophecy of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, also is fully compatible and indeed I would say an honest narrative of the creation of the Universe, if we understand day as referring to an epoch of arbitrary length.
The really interesting thing is that it gets the sequence of prehistoric events on Earth, and the evolution of life exactly right. To prove this, I shall outline what happens on each day:
- “Let there be light” is the creation of the Universe, which we now know to have been the result of the Big Bang, which still exists in the form of photons (the quantum particles of light); specifically as microwave radiation, the Cosmic Microwave Radiation.
- The firmament and separation of waters can be interpreted as referring to the formation of the planet, with elemental hydrogen, oxygen and carbom, and the formation of our watery atmosphere and surface.
- The formation of discrete continents and oceans follows, and the soil becomes fertile Earth. Plant life emerges.
- The only event that does not correspond to the scientific chronology is apparently the formation of the moon, the sun and the cosmos. However, before we write this off as an error, it is quite possible that in the carbon-rich atmosphere of the early earth, which one assumes is like that of Mars, rich in carbon dioxide, but whereas Mars most likely only ever had microbes, the Earth had increasingly abundant plant life. Venus is an example of a planet with an extreme greenhouse effect, and from the surface of Venus one could not see the stars, nor a moon if Venus had one, and the Sun is diffuse, like in clouds or heavy fog or haze on Earth, but infinitely moreso; so this epoch I believe refers to the atmosphere clearing up and becoming breathable due to plant life.
- Animal life emerges, in the oceans, and then on land in the form of insects and birds - birds are the distant descendants of dinosaurs, and are much older than mammals, so this is again the precise sequence of events.
- Mammalian life is the last major genus to appear, and ultimately this leads to human life. God sees to it that human life is in His image; since God the Father is boundless and unconstrained and has according to Orthodox theology, unseen (Isaiah beheld the Ancient of Days, which the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox insist was Jesus Christ, and this makes sense based on everything else we know about the Holy Trinity), and God the Holy Spirit can assume different physical appearances: the dove descending at the Baptism of our Lord is an explicit example, the tongues of fire on Pentecost another explicit example, and therefore created in the image of God must mean created in the image of God the Son. And lest someone object that the incarnation had yet to occur, John chapter 1 states that by the Word of God (Christ Jesus) all things were made; this includes time, and since time is a creature, God has dominion over it; God is also described in scripture as omnipotent, omniscient, eternal and unchanging, and all of this clearly shows that the Holy Trinity is in no respect constrained by the linear progression of time experienced by humans; indeed the concept of timeless eternity is incomprehensible to us. So, we were created in the image of the Son of God incarnate in the flesh.
- God rested. This is where the connection to Pascha (Easter) occurs, because on the Fifth Day God gave us the means of everlasting life through the Eucharist, on the Sixth Day he remade man in His image through His Passion and death on the Holy Cross, which Christ transformed from an accursed, horrifying means of execution into a blessed and venerable icon of Life, and likewise, he recreated humanity; to quote Fr. John Behr of Oxford, formerly the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, God died on the cross to show us what it means to be Human, which Pontius Pilate (probably unwittingly) expresses when he declares “Ecce homo” (Behold the Man). On the Seventh Day, God rested in a tomb having recreated man, just as He rested having created man on the Seventh Day, and then the next day, which can be reckoned as both the First Day and as the mystical Eighth Day, God arose from the dead, trampling down death by death, freeing the souls trapped in Hades who wished to follow Him, and brought about a new Light, the Light of Everlasting Life, which we will encounter if we are blessed to experience (after the dreadful Day of Judgement) God recreating the Universe at the end of time, with the uncreated light of God illuminating us.
Rationale
Christianity is the only religion whose primary account of Creation can be easily reconciled with Science, as shown above (the narrative of the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis Chapter 2 can also be reconciled, but is more complex, and a different matter, but Genesis 1 is clearly the primary creation narrative, and its importance is emphasized by St. John the Apostle beginning his Gospel, which is the primary Christological reference in New Testament theology, according to the form and structure of the first chapter of Genesis, in what some people might call a riff, and others would call a variation, and which in Greek hymnography is called an irmos (meaning link).
And the fact that the creation narrative got the evolutionary sequence of plants to sea creatures to insects and creatures such as birds and lizards derived from dinosaurs, then mammals, and finally, human beings, in the correct order, is truly remarkable. The Jews of antiquity, and the early Christians, lacked the scientific knowledge to know how profoundly accurate Genesis 1 actually is, but they accepted it on faith. Some aspects were misunderstood, for example, the nature of celestial bodies and the Firmament as the word has historically been conceptualized, but the Faith of God’s Chosen People, which we now call Christianity, which was always open to all (the ancient Hebraic and Judaic religion accepted converts) is unique among the world’s religions in that it alone has always taught the truth about the creation of the world, in a manner that people with no scientific knowledge could understand.
Now, if we take a look at any other religion, such as Hinduism, or Shinto, or ancient Roman Paganism, or the indigenous religions of the Americas, or traditional Chinese religion (usually administered by the Taoists, but not Taoist per se), or even religions somewhat closely related to Christianity, such as Islam, or Mandaeism, or Yazidism, or Yarsanism, or Alevism/Bektasism, or Zoroastrianism, or the Mormon religion, or Scientology, their creation myths are absurd, in many cases laughable, and totally irreconcilable to science.
Conclusions
As I pointed out in the Introduction, from the time the Book of Genesis in its present form was completed, until the 20th century, it constituted the only accurate account of how the Universe and Life came into existence. This is astonishing when one considers it; I regard Genesis 1 as a holy miracle, and as proof that Christianity is the True Faith. No other religion even came close to explaining the origin of life and the cosmos.
And furthermore, no one could possibly have known, or guessed, at the origin of the universe, without Divine Revelation. This is proven by the failure of the great philosophers of antiquity, in Greece, and in China and India and Persia, and every other advanced civilization, indeed, even Pythagoras, Euclid, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle, to apply their knowledge, which represented the apex of human intelligence and education in antiquity, and the dawn of science as we understand it, to develop any theory which resembled the actual creation of the Cosmos from the Big Bang, the formation of this planet, and the progressive evolution of life thereon.
Genesis proves the existence of the Holy Spirit and shows us an example of Him inspiring a holy prophet with truths that were beyond the comprehension of mankind.
This also reinforces the idea contained in Psalm 95 v. 5 in the Septuagint (which corresponds to the weaker Psalms 96:5 in Old Testaments based on the Masoretic text), which states that the gods of the gentiles are demons (the Masoretic declares them to be idols, but we already know that, so clearly, the Septuagint has the correct reading in this case, as allusions to the demonic origin of every other religion are numerous in the Sacred Scriptures). And this is shown by the truth of Christianity and the blatant falsehood of the other religions. I suspect the demons know the truth (being fallen angels, and presumably knowing the contents of the Scriptures) but choose to tell inconsistent lies in order to spread discord and ensure deadly wars occur, resulting in horrific violence against Christians and other people of faith, wars which are in turn exploited by the architects and leaders of evil anti-Christian regimes such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Islamic State and the People’s Republic of China to legitimize further horrific violence against Christians and other religions.
