Rejoice in creation’s first season interpreted by nature! The structured circular poetry conveys an outline of our universe viewed by science. Without the overburden of unbiblical “perfectionism,” the ancient text matches the evidence perfectly.
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (NIV).
The poet starts with his creed of faith and an act of worship. In one line, he conveys the entire poem’s theme and content, and the entire brew cosmology. One God made everything above and everything below. No exceptions.
In early human knowledge, heaven and earth (up and down, spiritual and physical) were the essential elements of everything. Today, we lump these into the singular concept of the universe. Creation is one, as its Creator is one.
2a Now the earth was formless and empty (NIV).
The poet began at a point before anything he knew existed. No matter how he viewed his vision, his words describe the scientific understanding of the initial singularity. Such a “space” is dimensionless, as it had no width, length, or depth. Once the singularity began to inflate, it contained no type of matter, thus an empty void. Nothing since then has come close to formless and empty.
2b darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (NIV).
The writer may or may not have envisioned the “primal ocean,” which was common in the creation stories of the region. However, God’s inspiration lets the words express the Big Bang.
The initial inflation (faster than lightspeed) was so hot that no particles existed; therefore, the universe was dark. As everything began to cool, plasma formed into the first kind of matter. This type of energy behaves as a fluid. The poet used the word water, something he understood.
For hover, translations also use the words “move” or “flutter,” the image of a mother bird settling on her nest, a very tender cuddle. At God’s movement, the tiny particles in the plasma responded, and collisions fused the bits into the smallest atoms. The universe slowed down.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (NIV).
With the slower expansion, plasma cooled enough to release photons. For a short time, the entire universe glowed brilliantly and uniformly. That era is the closest we have to heaven, a place of pure light with no darkness.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness (NIV).
As particles and atoms formed, they absorbed the photons, and the universe became dark again. Expansion and cooling let gravity clump atoms together. The largest mass collapsed inward to start fusion, the first star. The light separated from darkness. Biblically and scientifically, there were two first lights.
5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night” (NIV).
This verse hints at the poetic structure of Genesis 1. Instead of going straight to day 2, the poet opens the universe on day 1 then fills it on day 4, which continues the same concepts of day and night. In the same way, the content of day 2 pairs with day 5, and day 3 with day 6. The main details within these pairings form complete poetic circles of relationships.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day (NIV).
The Hebrew word “day” is not exclusively 24-hours. The context defines its duration. The “day of harvest” in Proverbs 25:13 is an unspecified number of days. Or in Isaiah 4:2, a future era of undetermined length is not just one day. With this definition of “day,” the words interpreted as “evening” and “morning” merely end one epic and begin the next. The natural evidence determines how long that “day” lasted.
This Bronze Age poem matches the Big Bang theory. Amazing.
To be continued:
One Response
Good job.