An Up-to-Date Ancient Cosmology
One ancient cosmology resolves the problems inherent in other ancient cosmologies. Surprisingly, this ancient cosmology refers to the three discoveries. It is completely consistent with the confirmed results of precise science. This cosmology is the creation narrative, found on the first page of the Bible, the beginning of the book of Genesis.[i] God creates the heavens and the Earth at first as an empty, formless darkness. The first visible part of the creation, light, appears as a result of making the material, just as Einstein said was possible. Penzias and Wilson detected the first light, and many astrophysicists since have photographed it. In verses six through eight, Moses says five times that God put expansion in the heavens.
[i] Holy Bible, New International Version (East Brunswick, New Jersey, International Bible Society, © 1973, 1978, 1983).
The First Book of Moses
Genesis 1:1–8
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
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.*
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.
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* The translation should be “one day” or “a day”
Moses mentions the expansion after the first light. It had to affect the first light. Stretching the heavens stretches out the waves of light. This had a reddening effect on the galaxies that Hubble observed. From the reddening Hubble deduced that the universe is expanding.
The Biblical cosmology is the only ancient cosmology we know that agrees with these details exactly. All of the three discoveries are counterintuitive, especially the idea of the expanding universe. It is so strange that even the Biblical references to it had no plausible explanation before Hubble’s discovery showed that the Bible reference to the expansion is literal.
The literal translation of the Hebrew word for expansion brings out some other accurate details in the Biblical creation narrative. Once the dense regions became compact, they had strong gravity that defined the directions “up” and “down.” Gravity separated the waters below, in the region where the Earth would later form, from the waters above, those in all the other compact regions. (The waters were as yet unformed.)
According to the narrative, God caused the expansion. In the Bible God is the ultimate cause, but He uses immediate physical causes. The heat and pressure of the first morning were the immediate cause that put expansion into the heavens.
The first five books of the Bible are called the books of Moses, after the person who first appears in the story in Exodus, the second book. Critics may question whether Moses really existed. Their doubts do not affect this analysis. The creation narrative is certainly ancient. Someone who lived long before our epoch wrote it, yet it anticipates three key cosmological discoveries of the 20th century.
Clear references to the creation narrative appear in the Isaiah scroll, found in a cave in Qumran near the Dead Sea. This scroll is 2 000 years old, according to several converging lines of evidence. The evidence includes knowledge of the historical setting in which the scroll was copied, paleographic analysis or dating by the handwriting style of the time, and radiocarbon dating of the scroll’s linen wrapper. The scroll ensures that the Genesis creation narrative is more ancient still.
The creation narrative certainly had one and only one author. The idea that an editor pieced it together from old traditions, or that a committee wrote it, is preposterous. No committee ever wrote anything this good. Novelist and playwright Herman Wouk[ii] says that the books of Moses are clearly the work of a genius. Geniuses seldom collaborate because there are few geniuses living at any given time, and it has always been hard for them to get together. However, one creative genius recognizes the work of another. This is a good reason for believing Herman Wouk rather than the critics. For the sake of clarity we will continue to refer to the author of the creation narrative as Moses.
[ii] Herman Wouk, This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life, New York: Pocket Books, 1973.
Commentators frequently say that the great religious contribution of Moses was monotheism. He wrote of the one and only God. According to Moses, God is supreme, uncreated, eternal, and has no need of anything. He alone created all other things. Moses did not get his ideas from the peoples around him. He was probably familiar with the pictorial cosmology found in the Egyptian tombs, but he incorporated none of its ideas in his cosmology.
[i] Holy Bible, New International Version (East Brunswick, New Jersey, International Bible Society, © 1973, 1978, 1983).
The First Book of Moses
Genesis 1:1–8
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
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.*
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.
———————————————————--
* The translation should be “one day” or “a day”
Moses mentions the expansion after the first light. It had to affect the first light. Stretching the heavens stretches out the waves of light. This had a reddening effect on the galaxies that Hubble observed. From the reddening Hubble deduced that the universe is expanding.
The Biblical cosmology is the only ancient cosmology we know that agrees with these details exactly. All of the three discoveries are counterintuitive, especially the idea of the expanding universe. It is so strange that even the Biblical references to it had no plausible explanation before Hubble’s discovery showed that the Bible reference to the expansion is literal.
The literal translation of the Hebrew word for expansion brings out some other accurate details in the Biblical creation narrative. Once the dense regions became compact, they had strong gravity that defined the directions “up” and “down.” Gravity separated the waters below, in the region where the Earth would later form, from the waters above, those in all the other compact regions. (The waters were as yet unformed.)
According to the narrative, God caused the expansion. In the Bible God is the ultimate cause, but He uses immediate physical causes. The heat and pressure of the first morning were the immediate cause that put expansion into the heavens.
The first five books of the Bible are called the books of Moses, after the person who first appears in the story in Exodus, the second book. Critics may question whether Moses really existed. Their doubts do not affect this analysis. The creation narrative is certainly ancient. Someone who lived long before our epoch wrote it, yet it anticipates three key cosmological discoveries of the 20th century.
Clear references to the creation narrative appear in the Isaiah scroll, found in a cave in Qumran near the Dead Sea. This scroll is 2 000 years old, according to several converging lines of evidence. The evidence includes knowledge of the historical setting in which the scroll was copied, paleographic analysis or dating by the handwriting style of the time, and radiocarbon dating of the scroll’s linen wrapper. The scroll ensures that the Genesis creation narrative is more ancient still.
The creation narrative certainly had one and only one author. The idea that an editor pieced it together from old traditions, or that a committee wrote it, is preposterous. No committee ever wrote anything this good. Novelist and playwright Herman Wouk[ii] says that the books of Moses are clearly the work of a genius. Geniuses seldom collaborate because there are few geniuses living at any given time, and it has always been hard for them to get together. However, one creative genius recognizes the work of another. This is a good reason for believing Herman Wouk rather than the critics. For the sake of clarity we will continue to refer to the author of the creation narrative as Moses.
[ii] Herman Wouk, This is My God: The Jewish Way of Life, New York: Pocket Books, 1973.
Commentators frequently say that the great religious contribution of Moses was monotheism. He wrote of the one and only God. According to Moses, God is supreme, uncreated, eternal, and has no need of anything. He alone created all other things. Moses did not get his ideas from the peoples around him. He was probably familiar with the pictorial cosmology found in the Egyptian tombs, but he incorporated none of its ideas in his cosmology.