Leeds Vineyard

In the beginning was the Big Bang


A joint reading of Genesis 1 and a scientific account by John Polkinghorne
GE 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning was the Big Bang

[2] Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

For a while the universe was a hot soup of quarks, gluons and leptons, but by the time it was one ten-thousandth of a second old, matter took the familiar form of protons, neutrons and electrons.
Nuclear reactions continued until the cosmic age of three minutes. Three quarters of the universe was hydrogen and one quarter was helium. Just the nuclei because it was far too hot for atoms to form for another half million years.
The universe became transparent and continued cooling for 15 billion years until it was 3 Kelvin and two radio astronomers in Princeton detected it.
Gravity battled with the expansion caused by the big bang in a finely balanced tug of war that prevented the universe becoming too dilute so quickly that stars would never form, or imploding again in a massive collapse.
The early universe was almost uniform in its constitution, though small fluctuations were present, producing sites where there was excess matter. The effect of gravity enhanced these irregularities until, in a snowballing effect, the universe (after a billion years or so) began to become lumpy and the galaxies and their stars began to form.

GE 1:3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Within the stars, nuclear reactions started up again, as gravity caused the stars to heat beyond their ignition temperature.

[4] God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. [5] God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.

Hydrogen was burned to become helium, and when that fuel was exhausted, a delicate chain of nuclear reactions started up, which generated further energy and the heavier elements up to Iron. The elemental building blocks of life were beginning to be made. Every atom of carbon in every living being was once inside a star, from whose dead ashes we have all arisen.

GE 1:6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." [7] So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. [8] God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.

After a life of 10 billion years or so, stars began to die. Some died very dramatically in a supernova explosion. In this way the elements they had made were liberated into the wider environment, and at the same time heavier elements than Iron were produced.

Then a second generation of stars and planets condensed and on at least one planet the combination of chemical composition, temperature and radiation were such that the next development could take place.

GE 1:9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. [10] God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

A billion years after conditions became favourable, through biochemical pathways still unknown to us, and using the subtle flexible stability of the chemistry of carbon, long chain molecules formed with the power of replicating themselves.

GE 1:11 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. [12] 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. [13] And there was evening, and there was morning--the third day.

They rapidly gobbled up the chemical food in the shallow waters of the early Earth, beginning the 3 billion years of the history of life on earth.

A genetic code was established, a biochemical alphabet in which the instructions for terrestrial life are universally spelled out.

GE 1:14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, [15] and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. [16] God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. [17] God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, [18] to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. [19] And there was evening, and there was morning--the fourth day.

Primitive unicellular entities transformed the atmosphere of Earth from one containing carbon dioxide to one containing oxygen, thereby permitting important developments in metabolism. The process of photosynthesis evolved, the method by which the sun’s energy is trapped and preserved for the maintenance of all living beings.
Eventually and with increasing rapidity, life began to complexify through a process which certainly included the sifting of small variations through the environmental pressures of natural selection.

GE 1:20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." [21] So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [22] God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." [23] And there was evening, and there was morning--the fifth day.

Seven hundred million years ago, jellyfish and worms were the most advanced forms of life.  About 350 million years ago, the great step was taken by which some life left the seas and moved on to dry land.

GE 1:24 And 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 its kind." And it was so. [25] God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

70 million years ago the dinosaurs suddenly disappeared, for reasons still a matter of debate, and the little mammals that had been scurrying round at their feet seized their evolutionary chance.

GE 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Three and a half million years ago the Australopithecines began to walk upright.
Archaic forms of homo sapiens appeared a mere 300 thousand years ago and the modern form became established within the last 40 thousand years.

GE 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
GE 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
GE 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. [30] And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
GE 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.
GE 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

The universe had become aware of itself.

GE 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. [3] And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

David Wallace, 29/10/2006