These are my notes from the book "Genesis and the Big Bang" by Gerald Schroeder a scientist with over thirty years of experience in research and teaching. He earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate degrees all at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with his doctorate thesis being under the supervision of physics professor Robley D. Evans.
His Doctorate is in two fields: Earth sciences and physics.
Schroeder’s formal theological training in biblical, talmudic and kabalistic interpretation includes fifteen years of study under the late Rabbi Herman Pollack, Rabbi Chaim Brovender and Rabbi Noah Weinberg, of blessed memory.
The first letter of the first word in the sacred writings (Genesis) is the Hebrew letter Beth. It is on this first letter that the ancient sages base their understanding of creation--that any knowledge of what preceded the beginning of creation before Adam’s creation is unattainable by investigation. That is, the investigation of the mere mind of man.
The shape of the letter Beth is that it is closed on three sides and open only in the forward direction. It’s shape is similar to our C, but with the opening facing left, like this ב. Hebrew is written from right to left. The sages saw the meaning of this opening letter, the Bet or Beth, as being bounded on all sides except forward (the opening faces forward). Therefore all events that occur after the beginning (the creation of Adam) are those which are accessible to human investigation (the open end of the bet). Those that precede the beginning, the time of creation, the back of the bet, are not open to investigation--only God has knowledge of these events and how they unfolded.
Hebrews count time, as we know it from the creation of man, Adam. Therefore in the years 2014-15 on the Gregorian calendar it is 5774-75 on the Hebrew calendar. This is calculated by using the genealogy’s which are written in the Bible. According to that calculation, since Adam was created 5,775 years have passed. What went on prior to Adam is calculated by God, not in time as we know it.
GENESIS 1:3
In science, photons colliding with electrons keep light from breaking free. When photons break free and are able to freely travel there is light. Light was held within the primeval mass (darkness) until God set it free. “Let there be light.” The division by God between light, which is totally composed of photons, and darkness takes on a significance consistent with its literal meaning…“and God separated between the light and the darkness.” Gen 1:4
Nahmanides (1194-1270) a Jewish sage explained the terms “light and darkness” refer to the phenomena as perceived by mankind. That is, light is light, and darkness is the absence of light. The darkness of Gen 1:2 was not merely an absence of light. In this verse it includes the meaning of the elemental source of energy. This very darkness, the sages say, contained the source of energy that was to power the forces that led to life.
Isaiah 45:7 tells us that hoshek (Hebrew for dark) is not merely the absence of light. It (dark) is a created, possibly the created substance of the universe: I (God) form the light and create darkness (hoshek). According to this verse, it is darkness, not light that was created. “Darkness was upon the face of the deep….” Gen 1:2
The darkness was a black fire; a type of energy that emitted no light (like a black hole), just as the surface of the universe was black as long as photons and free electrons were mixed in a confused turmoil of energetic collisions.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. John 1:4-5
I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8:12
I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. John 12:46
... Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Romans 13:12
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6
Light is life--Jesus is life
Light is energy--we are energized by God
Light shows us the way--He is a light unto our path
Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. Isaiah 60:1 God has set light free--released it--and we are the light of the world.
The word of God stands on its own. Science will come to the word. The science of cosmology kneels before the word of God!
In the Jewish view, and I have spoken to Jewish scholars about this, the first six days of creation are in a “time” that only God understands. These first six days are a period of unknown time they say, therefore it can be billions of years in our understanding but a mere blip to God.
Time is relative to location. Clocks run faster on the moon because gravity has an effect on the passage of time. A plane traveling in the direction of the earth’s rotation will cause a clock to gain time. Flying in the opposite direction the clock looses time.
From our vantage point in the universe time appears to stand still--the stars appear stationary. They are in reality moving away from us at great speed.
Creation was six days in God’s time frame--but 15 billion in ours--both are correct. In the science of cosmology, the big bang theory and Einstein’s theory of relativity confirm that 6 days and 15 billion years are one and the same. If science and the sacred writings (the Bible) take the time to examine each other they line up together.
The differences in motions and gravitational forces among the various galaxies, or even among stars in a single galaxy, make the absolute passage of time a very local affair. Time differs from place to place as we saw above on the moon. Until Adam was created on the sixth day, God alone was watching the clock--and that is the key.
The first Sabbath God rested--He caused a repose to encompass the universe that He had made during the first six days. Our perception of this repose, according to the sage Maimonides (1137-1204), is that from this first Sabbath and for all hereafter, the laws of nature, including the flow of time, would function in a “normal” manner as it is relative to us here on earth. Our perception of time, that is.
DAY ONE - The sages say that prior to the existence of the universe, time did not exist. Gen 1:5...and there was evening (disorder) and there was morning (order), DAY ONE. (Jewish days begin at evening at 6 PM). In the Hebrew it does not say the first day. That would have implied an already existing series of days when in fact on “this day one” there had been no prior time to this day one. There was nothing to which one could relate this day. It stood alone as DAY ONE.
For all the remaining days in that first week of Genesis, the ordinal terms, second, third, etc are used. By Day #2 and there after, a series of days had been established. Although it is difficult to comprehend, the creation of a physical universe brought with it a concurrent creation of time (as we know it).
Both sages reached a similar conclusion: Prior to the creation of the universe, space did not exist. The creation of the universe, they said, brought with it not only the time into which it flows, but also the space into which it exists and into which it expands. Thus the presence of the energy and matter of the universe not only causes the existence of time but also of space.
The Cabalists (500 years ago) said to form the universe, God chose from the infinite realm of the Divine, ten dimensions or aspects and relegated them to be held within the universe. These dimensions are hinted at in the ten repetitions of the statements, “and God said”, used in the opening chapter of Genesis.
The Cabalists believed only four of the ten dimensions are physically measurable within today’s world. The other six contracted into submicroscopic dimensions during the six days of Genesis. Today we refer to the four measurable dimensions as length, width, height, and time--the criteria by which we describe our every move.
To conceptualize a contraction of dimensions visualize an ordinary pencil. At close range it is seen to have length, width, height, color, and surface roughness. As we move away from the pencil these dimensions gradually become less clear until only a thin colorless line is visible. We have contracted the original five dimensions of the pencil into one!
Amazingly today, particle physicists talk of the string theory, a unified description of our universe in ten dimensions. Having ten dimensions allows a unified explanation of the fundamental forces that operate among particles of matter. The dimensions, according to the physicists are the four we know: length, width, height, time, and six others! God’s word stands alone. Science comes to the word.
EINSTEIN’S THEORY...Einstein’s theory of relativity deals with the perceptions of the same three quantities discussed in Genesis: space, time, and mass.
The creation of the heavens and earth from absolute nothing is at the root of Biblical faith. The Hebrew word used for creation is barah, the only word in Hebrew that means creation of something from nothing! Biblically it is applicable only to the actions of God. It is the second word of the Bible.
Psalm 148:4-6 Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the LORD, For He commanded and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away. The heavens are eternal and were commanded into being.
Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night. God sees time much differently than man.
Biblically the age of the universe is the six days of Genesis prior to Adam’s creation--plus the 57 + centuries since Adam. The Bible talks in the language of mankind. Can mankind even comprehend billions of years?
It took Einstein and the law of relativity to teach us that there is no absolute passage of time. Time is as flexible as the possible differences in the force of gravity and the speed of motion across a boundary separating an observer from the observed (universe). That is, the universe expanding, but as we watch it seems to not be moving
The passage of time on any one star could be as different from the passage of time on another star as 6 days is different from 15 billion years. As such there is no one correct age for the earth or the matter it contains. Until the observer and the observed are joined in a single space-time frame, there is no one-to-one correlation.
For the Creator and the created, the union of frames of reference occurred when mankind, represented by Adam and Eve, absorbed the image of God, some 5,700 years ago.
Man merely has theories on the creation of the universe--God has knowledge of how it was done. We can only bow to the Lord and marvel. Science comes to the word--the eternal word of God.
Hebrews 11:3... By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
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