The age of the universe
By David Wallace and Tom Cameron
Presented at T4:12 in June 2006 and at a Thinking Aloud discussion in October 2006
David's presentation: Layers of interpretation in Genesis 1
Any questions?
We asked some of the young people what their questions about creation were and this is what they said:
- Does science conflict with religion.
- Has science removed the need for a Creator God?Why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the Bible? How do dinosaurs fit in?
- How come science says it took millions of years for the earth to form, and Genesis talks of 6 days?
- How could the world be made in 7 days – is it something to do with different perspectives on time?
- Could God have used the Big Bang?
- What about people who say God can’t be real because everything has been explained by science?
- If we are evolved from monkeys, how come we are still not evolving?
- Where do you draw the line in believing the “descended from monkeys” story?
- Does it matter if man came from monkeys?
- Why did God want to make us anyway?
- Why did God make Adam first?
- Why do women get such a hard time – periods, pain in childbirth.
The first set of questions are all about the creation of the universe and the world, covered in this presentation. The second set are about human origins, which is covered in another session.
What the general public thinks
Just under half of Britons accept the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life, according to an opinion poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for the BBC's Horizon series in 2006
Over 2,000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:
• 22% chose creationism
• 17% opted for intelligent design
• 48% selected evolution theory
• and the rest did not know.
More than 40% of those questioned believe that creationism or intelligent design (ID) should be taught in school science lessons.
In the USA, a similar poll in 2004 asked which of the following statements came closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings.
- 45% said God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so
- 38% said human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process
- 13% said uman beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process
Genesis and science
A
parallel reading of Genesis and science
Evidence for the age of the earth
Tom's presentation explains the evidence from the scientific disciplines of
- Geology
- Geography
- Astronomy
- Biology and
- Physics
which seem to agree that the universe is 14 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
In 1650,
Archbishop Ussher of Armagh calculated from the genealogies in the Bible that the first day of creation must have been Sunday 23 October 4004 BC. The Genesis 1 account of creation speaks of God creating everything in six days.
Thus there appears to be a conflict between the science and faith accounts of how it all began. How do we deal with this conflict?
Interpreting Genesis 1: layers of meaning
Today we are going to look at the Creation account in Genesis and ask ourselves. What does it mean? What was the original author trying to communicate? What we will find is that there are several layers of meaning. Just like Pass the Parcel has many layers of wrapping paper and there is something valuable in each. But Christians sometimes disagree about how many layers there are. So we’re going to gradually unwrap the Creation Story and think about the layers of meaning that can be found in it.
Layer 1: relationship
But just as Creation is about God’s work, I’m going to ask Sally to tell us about her work, and then there will be a quiz so listen carefully.
“Who is this? (show Darren Gough photo)
From what you have heard,
What does Sally do at work? – Meets people (You didn’t know she is a doctor from the story, did you)
Can you tell how long she spends at work? No
Can you tell what order she does things in at work? No
Why do people tell little irrelevant stories like this about their work? (It helps us get to know them)
Some people think that the Creation story is basically an irrelevant story apart from helping us to get to know the author a bit better.
The first layer of meaning is relationship – it helps us get to know the author.
Actually just about everyone agrees that layer of meaning is there even if they only consider the human author. For us who recognise God’s part in writing the Bible, sometimes he shows himself to us as we read. How many people have ever had an experience where God has suddenly seemed more real as you read the Bible?
Layer 2: principles
Let’s look for another layer.
“My work is like being a repair man. People expect you to be able to tighten up some nuts and bolts, put in some oil, unblock a few tubes, put in some spare parts and get everything good as new. Sometimes it isn’t that easy.”
“My work is like being a gardener: looking after little seedlings, feeding and pruning them, removing pests, trying to help the plants be at their best”
From the story,
What does Sally do at work? Fixes something. Tries to makes something better.
What do you call that way of describing things? Metaphor, analogy or picture.
Can you tell how long she spends at work? No
Can you tell what order she does things in at work? No
The second layer of meaning is Principles.
Sally used a metaphor (picture) to describe her work, and it tells you quite a lot of the principles of her work, but you shouldn’t take it literally. Some people think the Creation story is just a myth – it has some important spiritual principles in it, but you shouldn’t take it literally.
Here are some of the important principles that you can find:
- The physical world is good
- Humans are special
- It is good to be creative and make things
- It is good to have a pattern of rest in your life
Layer 3: what happened
Let’s look for another layer. Pay particular attention to this way of telling a story.
“At 8 o’clock I leave the house
At 9 o’clock I have a meeting with the other doctors
At 10 o’clock I see some patients, find out what’s wrong, and help them get better
At 11 o’clock I see some more patients ?do some paperwork
At 12 o’clock I visit a sick person at home
At 1 o’clock I have lunch”
What does Sally do at work?
In what order does she do things at work? (Sometimes, not always)
How long does it take her to get to work?
How long does her meeting with the other doctors take?
But what about all the times Sally said? Was she lying? No – telling a story like this is a literary framework often used in children's stories. She didn’t mean the times to be exact. How long does she spend at work? Don’t know
Some people understand Genesis 1 is a literary framework – it has layers of spiritual truth and it also explains what happened, without necessarily telling us the sequence or length of time involved.
So as well as the spiritual principles we also have information about what happened:
- God created everything out of nothing, then gathered and used the basic chemical components to make other things
- The creation is separate from God
- It was created in stages: it was formless and empty and he formed it and filled it
- The universe is orderly
You can see the literary structure of Genesis 1 illustrated in the next diagram:
So why this particular literary framework?
Some scholars believe that Genesis was written during the Babylonian exile to challenge the "enuma elish" creation myth of that culture. The Enuma Elish is written on seven tablets, each are between 115 and 170 lines long. The Babylonian god finished his work within the span of 6 tablets of stone. The last and 7th stone exalted the handiwork and greatness of the deity's work. Thus the comparison is made that the 7 days of creation found in the Bible.
Here is a summary of the enuma elish version of events:
Marduk challenges sea-godess Tiamat to combat and destroys her. He then rips her corpse into two halves with which he fashions the Earth and the heavens. Marduk then creates the calendar, organizes the planets, stars and regulates the moon, sun, and weather. The gods pledge their allegiance to Marduk and he creates Babylon as the terrestrial counterpart to the realm of the gods. Marduk then destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu using his blood to create mankind so that they can do the work of the gods.Striking characteristics of this account are:
- Creation is the outcome of anger and fear, war & destruction, hatred and violence, betrayal and murder, chaos
- Subjugation of females by males among the gods
- Humanity an afterthought, of little value to the gods
- There are gods of Light & darkness, Sky and sea, Sun moon & stars, Earth and vegetation, Animals
- Kings and heroes are gods
The Genesis account of creation challenges all of these points.
Layer 4: Sequence of events
Let’s look for another layer.
“I started work on my most recent project just before Christmas last year. On Day Zero we all got together in Reading and worked out how we would build the website and call centre and get it all ready to go live on Day One – a date which was not allowed to move. So that meant we left out lots of things and put them in the plan for what we called Day Two.
“How long did it take to get the website and call centre ready to go live?” 4 months.
“So when was Day Two?” 3 months later
“How come you said it was Day Zero, Day One and Day Two?” Day Zero is like Ground Zero – it means the start of the project. Day one was the first day of our new system. We called it Day 2 because that was the day when our second lot of work was finished. It is jargon to explain the stages of work and the order of doing things.
Some people understand Genesis 1 by saying
Not only have we a layer of principles
Not only have we a layer of what happened
But we also have a layer of truth about the sequence: the days are stages or ages, and they can be as long as was needed. Day age theory – the sequence is the important thing. “A day in the sight of the Lord is as a thousand years”.
So these people have no problem with the dating theories of the physicists and geologists that suggest that the universe is 10-15bn years old, Earth 4.5bn years, life 50-100,000 year.
But people who choose the Day Age theory still a bit of explaining to do when some aspects of the sequence in the Bible differ with scientific theories of the day. And you will find research that tries to tie them together. Here's
a well-crafted version of the day-age theory.
Layer 5: how long it took
Lets look at one more layer.
Let’s look at all the layers
You now know Sally better.
You know what’s important to her at work? Helping sick people get better
What does she do at work? Meetings, Sees patients
In what sequence does she do things at work?
What is the extra thing you know this time?
[open final layer before present]
You now know how long each part of her work takes? Sally was telling you her timetable.
Some people understand Genesis 1 by saying
Not only do we get to know God
Not only have we a layer of principles
Not only have we a layer of what happened
Not only do we know the sequence
But we are also to understand how long each stage took.
Young earth creationist – the entire universe (or sometimes just the earth) is understood to have been created in six 24-hour days.
The real challenge is to harmonise the scientific evidence with this understanding of Genesis. Very big in America, and is often called Creation Science. There are many websites devoted to this subject.
A range of interpretations
I want you to realise that each time Sally and I told the truth about our work. Sometimes we intended just to give you a glimpse of our principles, sometimes it sounded like they Sally was talking about a timetable but she wasn’t, and in the end she actually was talking about a timetable. But they were all telling the truth.
Genesis 1 is true, but what layers of truth did the author intend to teach us? How should we interpret it. In fact Christians have a range of opinions, so your project can be to ask around the room today. You will probably find that some people are confident about some layers of truth, but aren’t quite so well-thought-out about other layers. That’s OK, we haven’t all read enough geology and physics to inform our opinions. So respect the fact that there are different views here, and when you are talking in your groups try to think about helping one another in the situations where it becomes an issue, watching television, at school etc.
When we take into account evolution (next session) we will see that there is an even larger spectrum of interpretations.
But one thing you do need to know. Science will never prove or disprove God.
Heb 11:3 says “It is by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command.” Many respected physicists like Polkinghorne and Houghton take that view.
And finally, a
n exuberant version of Genesis 1, by Rob Lacey, author of The Word on the Street.
David Wallace and Tom Cameron, 29/10/2006