Introduction.
There has been endless discussion of the differences between the Scientific and Biblical views of Creation. This has unfortunately caused major splits in the Christian Church and an even bigger split between scientists and many Christians.
For many years I have wondered what all the fuss is about!
Scientists believe in empirical evidence of creation which commenced with the Big Bang 13.7 Billion years ago – https://www.space.com/13347-big-bang-origins-universe-birth.html.
This is based on gazillions of items of cross correlating evidence between all of the science disciplines. This information has been captured and put together since the Babylonians and Egyptians 4,000 years ago.
‘True Creationist’ Christians believe in a literal 6-day creation commencing 6,000 years ago. This hypothesis is based on just the first 29 verses in Genesis – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=NIV. About a page!
Could the story of creation be encapsulated succinctly in one page! Let’s find out! More importantly what would the relatively educated person of 4,000 years ago have known about creation?
Premise of discussion.
In this short paper the timelines of the Scientific and the Biblical view of creation are compared.
When the ‘defining episodes’ (which I’ve termed PERIODS 1 to 6) are put in order then it is shown that there is little difference, of each view, in their respective ‘order of creation’ events.
The only remaining point of discussion then becomes the small discrepancy of about 13.7 billion years of when Creation stated 🙂 .
Scientists generally only go back to the start of our universe – what was in existence before then – God only knows :).
Analysis.
The stages of Creation of both Scientists’ and the Bible ‘days’ of Genesis 1-29 are compared graphically below. Read carefully on the chart.
The two creation schemes follow almost identical stages – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life.
I will leave the reader to analyse the differences from studying the figure. There is minor juxtaposing in the central timeframe. The main difference is, of course, the timeframe itself!
I believe in the longer timeframe and of course creationists believe in the short one😊. Empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports the longer timeframe.
Other than the timeframe, the scientific (geological, biological, geophysical, fossil and all other science branches) evidence, and the Biblical statement of the sequence of events in creation are almost identical.
So that negates the creationist’s argument that there is no merit in the scientific view of creation. If this were the case then there is, by default, no merit in the creationist’s own arguments!
I presented this little analysis at my local church 10 years ago and met with a lot of ‘muttered’ comments 😊 😊. However, when I finished the little talk with the comment ‘that of all the Ancient Religions’ views of creation the one that comes closest is the Biblical (Hebrew) one’ there were a few muttered “Thank God for that”, to which I smiled!
Conclusions.
I hope this has, and will be of use, to those who like to analyse why we believe things and that sometimes even things that seem ludicrous (from both sides) can be in agreement. It’s time that creationists looked at this evidence and stopped driving scientists away from Christianity by arguing over something that differs in detail only.
And maybe some scientists could have a critical look at the supposed ‘fables and myths’ of the Bible and other religious teachings instead of deriding them.
Six hundred years ago the Biblical account of creation would have been more correct than the scientific account! Hindsight is wonderful!
Cheers and happy pondering and revelations!
Bob Watchorn