GENESIS 1
In my last post I talked about the concept of "accommodation theory", meaning that the Bible is written in a way that is correct, but simplified in such a way that is understandable by ordinary people. A good analogy is to a "children's sermon." In lots of churches, the message the adults will hear is simplified so that young children can understand it. The core of the message is the same, just expressed in such a way that children can understand.
I like to think that what's presented in Genesis 1 fits in the category: an essentially correct, but simplified version. So what's the evidence for this? David Wolper demonstrated the essential truth of this when he "mapped" what is recorded in Genesis 1 to the known science. His article appeared in the March 15, 2010 edition of The Huffington Post.
He noted that according to Genesis, in the beginning, God said, "Let there be light." This would certainly be consistent with the big bang theory. Between the formation of the universe, likely about 13.8 billion years ago, and the formation of our sun, about 4.5 billion years ago, light appeared in many places due to the formation of stars.
According to Wolper, the second day of Genesis 1 corresponded with the period between 4.5 billion and 3.75 billion years ago: "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." The scientific evidence suggests that at that time, water-rich asteroids and protoplanets collided with prehistoric earth, bringing water. Later, gaseous emissions from volcanoes added additional water. This occurred approximately 4.4 billion years ago.
Over the next several billion years, as the earth cooled, water vapor began to escape and condense in the earth's early atmosphere. Clouds formed, and enormous amounts of water fell on the earth. The waters were separated, water on earth and water in the atmosphere. Wolper's conclusion was that day two of the Genesis 1 story fit with our understanding of science and is in the correct order.
According to Genesis, during the third day,
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. 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.
Wolper concluded that the third day corresponded with the period of about 3.75 to 3.5 billion years ago. Evidence indicates that about that time, the separation of land masses occurred on earth. However, what happened next during the third day appears to be in conflict with the scientific evidence. Plants, grass, and fruit-bearing trees didn't appear until after sea creatures. Though microscopic, single-cell algae (bacteria or archaea microbes) are plants and appeared at that time, they weren't the advanced forms of plant life seemingly implied in Genesis.
During the fourth day, according to Genesis, "God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night.'" The available scientific evidence indicates that the sun was created prior to this time, so why was light mentioned at this point?
Wolper noted there were a number of scientific theories that might explain this. Gerald Schroeder, a professor of nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences at MIT, contended that the sun, moon, and the stars were already there but that the atmosphere was opaque. With the cooling of the earth and the rise of atmospheric oxygen, the atmosphere became transparent, and there was light.
Another interesting theory was presented by Alan Parker, an evolutionary biologist and research fellow at Oxford University. Parker speculated that this second reference to light on day four referred to the evolution of vision. If there was no vision, then there was in a sense no light. So the lights were turned on, so to speak, in the evolution of sight in animals. "To separate day from night" refers to the time before and after sight.
The fifth day of Genesis appears to correspond to the period ranging from 3.5 billion years ago until about 635 million years ago. According to Genesis, "And God said, 'Let the waters teem with living creatures … Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the waters in the seas." This is exactly what scientific evidence suggests happened; life began in the sea. The earliest fossils of life, called single-celled bacteria, are found in ancient rocks deposited in the oceans about 3.5 billion years ago. By 1.2 billion years ago, the first complex, multicellular life had evolved. The oldest evidence of full animal life in the oceans comes from about 635 million years ago.
Also appearing during the fifth day, according to verse 22, were birds, but this appears to be in conflict with scientific evidence. However, there is evidence that flying insects appeared at this time. As noted by Wolper, this could be an explanation.
During the sixth day, "God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to their kind." Between 250 million years ago and about 6,000 years ago, that is exactly what happened.
Overall, the scientific evidence seems to agree with Genesis 1. Only with a partial aspect of the third day does there seem to be an inconsistency, but I would argue that it is minor; overall, there is broad consistency. Thus, I believe this shows that Genesis 1 is an "accommodated" understanding of what really happened. The description is simultaneously consistent with what really happened, but it didn't literally happen the way it was described. So one can argue that the Bible is correct, but just as we saw we need to be careful about scientific conclusions to be drawn from a reading of Joshua 10 (The Battle of Aijalon), so we also need to be careful about any scientific conclusions we might draw from the text of Genesis 1.
In our next post, we'll explore Genesis 1 from the perspective of a noted Old Testament scholar.
