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The word "Genesis" means beginning. At first glance, it seems that Genesis is trying to account for the origin of everything. It talks about "In the beginning God created…" and describes the Creator bringing into existence light, darkness, earth, water and all living things including mankind. This six day process takes us from "the earth was without form, and void", to "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." It wasn't until the Renaissance that humankind started to question the accuracy of the Biblical account.
Is the Bible a scientific book? Should it be relied upon as the source of all that we need to know about the origin of everything? I don't think so. There is much more to be known about what exists and how it came to be than the Bible would tell us. The Bible is not a textbook on science, or history for that matter. The Bible is a textbook that deals with Theology. As a theological work, its purpose is to explain God's dealings with humankind.
We don't know for sure how the universe started. The Big Bang and Creation are both theories. Nothing has been proven either way. Many have convinced themselves to believe one or the other. Scientific proof will not be found because scientific proof requires the same result under the same conditions. How can that be done?
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the writer in the age when he was writing Genesis. These writings are a primitive attempt to understand all that has gone on before. No doubt, the writer was a Jewish man who knew that the seventh day was a day of rest. It was only natural that God should be shown to also take Saturday for rest and reflection. There was no understanding of cells and biology and physics or chemistry in the BC era. Ancient man wouldn't have understood the truth even if he had it!
When comparing faith with science, we need to ask if there is any conflict. Has science shown us anything that would discredit the Bible? Does "God created" stand in the way of evolution? Genesis is a poem of praise and wonder. The definitive statement that it makes is: This is no accident, a Supreme Power has created and planned everything. When he saw the starry skies at night, the oceans teeming with fish, the reliability of the sunrise, he praised the one who made it.
The ancients had no idea how the universe was constructed and functioned. Would the writer of Genesis have been shocked to learn that the universe is billions of years old and that our earth was not the center of it? At the turn of the first millenium, most people still believed that the world was supported on pedestals or pillars. The waters of the deep were under the earth and over the dome we call sky. The Bible is a book of Theology and whatever theories may conflict concerning evolution and science, the point of Genesis 1:1 is that somewhere in the distant past, there was a beginning and God caused, or brought into being, everything. However those first things developed from there is for science to discover.
The Bible tells us that whatever there is, is there because God willed it to be. He is the power that caused and empowers everything that exists and lives. This is the important assertion of Genesis. Of course, the universe was not created in six days with Adam and Eve coming on the scene in day 6. As a hymn or poem, Genesis is an attempt to set some order to all that seemed to exist at the time.
Another important declaration of Genesis is that "God created man in his own image." This makes us unique in all of God's creation. It gives us a reason to treat each other with respect because we are more than animals, more than our value on a balance sheet.
A third revelation of the creation account is that "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." This is God's world and everything in it was made for our benefit. We are trustees of this earth and responsible to use the resources wisely.
In conclusion, there really is no conflict between the Bible and Science. The Bible is a religious book, an ancient attempt to understand an awesome universe and our place in it. The writings are poems and hymns of praise. Science is discovering new facts about creation every day. What would Moses have thought about genetic engineering? He and his contemporaries thought that the sperm held a seed and that it had to be "planted" in a woman. That's why she had to be "fertile". What science is learning is just how awesome our God is. If you don't want to believe in a God, that has nothing to do with science. It's a personal, theological decision!
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