The contrast between ancient myths and modern cosmology: In
ancient India it was noted that everything falls, but the earth does not fall. This
fact was explained by saying that the earth rests on the backs of four huge
elephants. The elephants do not fall because they are standing on the shell of an
even larger turtle.
Many ancient
peoples explained natural processes by projecting their own image large on the
heavens. An ancient pictorial cosmology was found in the pyramids of Egypt.
Mother earth, Geb, is a recumbent woman wearing a suit decorated with sheaves of
grain. The heavens are the goddess On. She never seems to tire of making an
arch of her body over Geb and Shu, the goddess of the air. The sun is the god Re,
supreme in the pantheon of the Egyptians.
All the
ancient cosmologies suffered from the same problem. The gods, goddesses, and giant
animals needed a super world in which to live. The giant turtle, On the heavens, and
Geb the earth all existed in some super universe and rested on some foundation beneath the
earth. Who was the creator of the super universe, the foundation beneath the earth,
and the superior beings that lived and formed the universe we know?
One ancient cosmology is up to date: There was one ancient
cosmology that resolved the problems inherent in other ancient cosmologies.
Surprisingly, this ancient cosmology refers to the three modern discoveries. It is
completely consistent with the confirmed results of modern science.
This cosmology
is the creation narrative written by Moses, found on the first page of the Bible. It
is often said that the great contribution of Moses was monotheism. Particularly, he
wrote of the one and only God. According to Moses, God is supreme and has no need of
anything. He is Himself uncreated and eternal, and He needs no place to live.
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
tombs, but he incorporates none of its ideas in his cosmology.
Astrophysicists
recognize the parallels between Genesis and modern cosmology: Many people, without
professing to be believers, have noted the parallels between modern cosmology and what
Genesis says explicitly. Dr. Robert Jastrow, in "God and the Astronomers,"
shows how, throughout the twentieth century, great scientists have been reconciled to the
mounting evidence that the universe had a beginning. This beginning was, in its
physical aspects, as the Bible says. Moses interweaves correctly the three great
cosmological discoveries of the twentieth century into the first eight verses of his
narrative. Out of an empty, formless darkness the heavens and the earth were
formed. Light, the first visible part of creation, appears as a by-product of that
process. The same first light has been photographed by a N. A. S. A.
satellite. In verses six through eight, Moses says five times that God put expansion
in the heavens.
A question: The agreement between scientific discoveries and
the Bible narrative is mysterious. It leads to a challenging question. Moses
lived 3,000 years ago, when there were no telescopes or satellites or cyclotrons. How could Moses incorporate correctly into his creation narrative all the
fundamental discoveries of twentieth-century cosmology? Moses explains
(Exodus 33:11) and God confirms (Numbers 12:7-8) that Moses talked with God face to face,
"as a man talks with his friend." This is an extraordinary claim.
Skeptics would say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Moses
has that kind of evidence. He got the true story right.