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Summary: What do the Hebrew language experts have to say?
Review: The Bible uses allegory, figures of speech and other literary devices on occasion. Often this is obvious, but occasionally scholars disagree on whether a passage is literal or symbolic. But is this the case in Genesis 1-11? What do the Hebrew grammarians, lexicographers and linguists have to say? The answer is a resounding "no". There is no way in which the Hebrew text of Genesis 1-11 can mean anything other than what the fresh-faced child, picking it up for the first time without preconceptions, has always seen as obvious. The following is an extract from a letter written to David C.C. Watson on April 23, 1984, by Professor James Barr, who was at the time Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. Please note that Professor Barr, consistent with his neo-orthodox views, does not believe that Genesis is literally true, he is just telling us, openly and honestly, what the language means. Professor Barr said, "Probably, so far as l know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the 'days' of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know." There are many theologians (as opposed to Hebrew language experts) who insist on long days, for example. But the above makes it clear that it is hardly likely to be the text itself that leads them to this conclusion. Rather, it is almost certainly the desire to accommodate and harmonize opinions and world views (in this case, the idea of long geological ages) which arise from outside Scripture. Of course, arising from outside Scripture does not necessarily make anything wrong; but in this case, the clear, unmistakable teaching of the scriptural text is completely incompatible with, even opposed to, the extra-biblical viewpoint we are considering. It is, therefore, completely unacceptable to claim that Scripture may actually be teaching this view! Faced with such a unanimous consensus of scholarly linguistic opinion (backed by the common sense understanding of countless millions of Christians through the ages), it is no longer intellectually honest to say that the issue of the time and mode of creation (or the related issue of global versus local flood) is in the same category as disagreements over mode of baptism, church government, or prophecy. Disagreements over these latter issues arise from different understandings of Scripture itself, not from seeking to accommodate (or to defuse debate over) a world view that directly opposes a teaching of Scripture which is unanimously declared by experts to be the plain meaning of the text! I suggest that the only intellectually honest approach for a Christian is either to believe what the writer of Genesis is saying, or reject it as untrue. To disbelieve it brings the following problems: 1. How can you know which other parts of Scripture are in error as well--that is, how can you reliably know anything at all about Christianity? 2. What about the New Testament evidence that Jesus and the Apostles (including Paul) regarded Genesis 1-11 as inspired Scripture, giving us 'true truth' about historical characters and events? 3. What happens to the very basis of the Gospel - that is, the Fall into sin, death and bloodshed of the whole creation for which the Saviour shed His blood in death (I Corinthians 15:21, 22; Romans 5:12; Romans 8:19-22)? Those who insist that the days could be millions of years often forget that these "millions of years", in the popular view, are represented by layers of fossils which are interpreted not as the results of the biblical Flood, but as creatures having lived (with struggle/pain/bloodshed) and died before anyone called Adam could have appeared. To put it simply, there were Genesis "days" before man appeared and if you read the days as "ages" (remember that these "ages" are said to be shown by layers containing dead things called fossils) you've just put death and bloodshed before Adam! If the reader is by now feeling despair, the answer to the dilemma is to look again at the modern world view you may have been trying to harmonize with Scripture. It is not--it cannot by definition be--based on the scientific method (repeatable testing and observation). It is based on faith in the opinions of men who were not there at the beginning, and who are part of a humanity in rebellion against its Maker. Finally, there is a large amount of scientific evidence consistent with a recent, six-day creation and a global flood. To accept, by faith, the biblical statement "Thy Word is true from the beginning" (Psalm 119:160) is a reasonable position, which reasonable people, including large numbers of highly qualified, intellectually honest scientists, have accepted over the popular, atheistic, philosophical alternative. For additional information, I recommend visiting the "Answers in Genesis", "Institute for Creation Research" and "True Origin" websites. Also, I'd recommend picking up a copy of books like, "Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe" by Steve Austin, "The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods" by John Woodmorappe and "The Revised Quote Book" (available from the Answers in Genesis online book store).
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Summary: A Wonderful synthesis
Review: This book brings intuitive notions into full view. The beauty of Schroeder's idea is how simple and harmonious the connection between observed reality and biblical revelation can be. That the two seemingly incongruent viewpoints of faith in science and faith in god can be reconciled seamlessly is a worthy investigation even for the most skeptical among us (including the author himself). Highly recommended for those who find themselves on either side of the debate.
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Summary: A Wonderful synthesis
Review: This book brings intuitive notions into full view. The beauty of Schroeder's idea is how simple and harmonious the connection between observed reality and biblical revelation can be. That the two seemingly incongruent viewpoints of faith in science and faith in god can be reconciled seamlessly is a worthy investigation even for the most skeptical among us (including the author himself). Highly recommended for those who find themselves on either side of the debate.
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Summary: A Book Worth Reading
Review: This is definately a book worth reading and particularly comparing to the books by Hugh Ross. I found some of the arguments to be unique and well thought out. WARNINGS: if you would like to better undertand the theory of relativity, Hawking does the best job of explaining it, so it may be a good idea to read 'A Brief History of Time' in order to fully understand what Schroeder is proposing. ALSO: check out his theological statements with a good concordance handy, and if you are a Christian, understand that some of the traditional Jewish methods of understanding scripture are not used by serious Christian Theologians. Overall this book is good, it has some new interesting ideas, and if read with the above in mind, is very enjoyable, and is a book worth reading.
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Summary: Genesis & the Big Bang
Review: This was one of the best books on the subject of Science and Religion and the support each gives to the other, I have ever read. Many insights supported beliefs I already harbored, some provoked new thoughts or touched base on what had not occured to me and definitely inspired me to read more. I have now read all three of Gerald Schroeder's books each one as inspiring as the last. And never once did I feel that there was any conflict with the traditional Biblical account I learned through years of church influenced study. I highly recommend all of Mr. Schroeder's books to anyone who is seeking personal growth and understanding of their beliefs.
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Summary: Genesis & the Big Bang
Review: This was one of the best books on the subject of Science and Religion and the support each gives to the other, I have ever read. Many insights supported beliefs I already harbored, some provoked new thoughts or touched base on what had not occured to me and definitely inspired me to read more. I have now read all three of Gerald Schroeder's books each one as inspiring as the last. And never once did I feel that there was any conflict with the traditional Biblical account I learned through years of church influenced study. I highly recommend all of Mr. Schroeder's books to anyone who is seeking personal growth and understanding of their beliefs.
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Summary: Falls flat
Review: To anyone that knows a good deal about physics, this book is a joke. There have been many attempts to harmonize the six days of creation with modern sciece, and none of them have come even close. Most obvious example - the sun would have become visible much sooner than plants started appearing on the earth (plants were allegedly created on the third day, the sun on the fourth.) And the idea of six days meaning 15+ billion years simply doesn't work, for reasons mentioned previously by another reviewer. The average reader may be fooled into thinking that Genesis 1 and modern science are compatible, but the educated know better. Now, let's try to see someone harmonize science with the creation story found in Genesis 2! Do men have less ribs than women? I think not!
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Summary: Bad Science
Review: To the unscientific mind - a good reader and perhaps inspiring. To those who have any knowlege of the basics of the special theory of relativity and/or cosmology - utter rubbish! In fact I was surprised to find so many fundamental errors from a physicist. For a start - the equations regarding time dilation are wrong - implying that moving clocks run fast and not slow, as is implied by the Special theory of relativity. In fact to call it "the law of relativity" is quite a bold statement in the first place. Second - As we can't tell that we are moving through the Universe - we cannot tell that our clocks are running slow - this is one of the two principles of the theory (the other being the invariance of the speed of light). Based on the cosmological principal that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic - all cosimic time is the same (Harrison - Cosmology, 2nd Ed. 2000). So there is no way for us to convert 6 days into 16 billion years. AND even if we could detect our motion through the Universe - a dilation factor on 1,000,000,000 would be required and so we would have to be moving at a speed of 0.9999999999 the speed of light - pretty fast, and it would be us who measure the 6 days and G-d the 16 billion years. And last of all - assuming that most readers of this book have little or no knowlege of physics to the depth where they could understand the actual "PHYSICS" of the matter, such a book should be read and presented with caution and not to try and convince anyone of any religious beliefs.
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Summary: Science and the Bible not at odds.
Review: When Torah and natural science seem to conflict, one or the other is being incorrectly interpreted. That's the principle Gerald Schroeder propounds and defends in this remarkable volume. And I can only think that Moses Maimonides would have been delighted. What Schroeder argues, basically, is that the biblical account of creation in six days can be read as taking place over six _literal_ days -- and that not only does this reading fail to conflict with modern science, indeed science itself supports that reading. The solution? The six days are "God's time," reckoned from within one frame of reference, and the millions of years with which science deals are "earth time," reckoned from within another. The two are reconciled by the theory of relativity. Moreover, this reading is firmly grounded in traditional Jewish texts that predated the theory of relativity by one or two thousand years. I'll let Schroeder fill you in on the details. But whether those details are sound or not, his _approach_ is refreshingly sane. On the one hand, we have various sorts of Bible-thumper insisting that all our knowledge must come from the Word of God and nothing else -- an insistence that turns easily into anti-intellectual ranting against science. On the other, we have various sorts of scientistic yahoo insisting that religion is bunk and science is the royal road to truth. Rubbish, on both counts. The Torah does indeed bear signs that it is a Divine communication, and people who believe this are being entirely reasonable. (See, e.g., Lawrence Kelemen's _Permission To Receive_ for a defense of this view.) However, the Bible itself insists that human beings are made in the Divine image, that rationality is that very image, and that the "natural" universe provides abundant evidence of the workings of the Divine. And it is _this_ view, in one form or another, which -- as a matter of history and logic -- gave rise to modern science in the first place; without the "substrate" of rationalism implied by the view that the entire universe is the creation of a single rational Mind, "empirical" science can't even get started. There's no need to decide between the Bible and science; they can't really be separated anyway. So it may be that some of Schroeder's details require revision (and I understand that some of them are in fact revised in his next book, _The Science of God_). Nevertheless the lesson to learn from this book is still sound: that whenever science and Torah seem to be at odds with one another, the proper procedure is to suspend final judgment, think, and wait. Further information may provide unexpected resolutions. (And by the way, the review below picks on Schroeder for an absolutely ridiculous "error." The big, round figures used in those calculations aren't anywhere near precise enough to locate us in the "middle of the fifth day" as opposed to the sixth, and Schroeder doesn't say they are.)
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Summary: Genesis and the Big Boobie Prize
Review: While some attempt to refute the bible with science, others attempt harmonisation. _Genesis and the Big Bang_ is one such example. Gerald Schroeder is described as being an applied physicist and theologian. It is my belief that the latter rather than the former is the victor when it comes to Schroeder's belief system. He is a very clever man that has a dream to reconcile those ever persistent foes: religion and science. If you don't have a very scientific background and you believe in a God (whatever form, shape and name you care to ascribe to him/her/it), then you will love this book. Schroeder carefully assembles a set of arguments using scripture and scientific discovery to convince the reader that the universe which is billions of years old and the account in Genesis (Six days of creation) are the same. He uses Einteinian physics to declare that from God's perspective the creation took 6 days, however from our perspective it took billions of years. He harmonises the two by briefly(!!) going through the theory of general relativity and explaining how this could be so. There is unfortunately a large flaw in his argument. His theory will hold as long as science doesn't change its mind as to the age of the universe. Already it has been reported that the universe is indeed slightly older, and therefore Schroeder's theory comes tumbling down. In my opinion this book is basically for those readers that would like to explain away the discrepancies between Science and Reigion using 21st century scientific technology. This is an insult to anyone who knows better. I personally am of the mind that religion and science should remain in their separate domains. Unfortunately, when they are brought together, feathers fly when analysing all the inconsistencies. Another important point that I might mention is that Schroeder lectures in Israel, to would-be orthodox Jews and attempts to fill their young impressionable brains with his theories to comfort them as they swim in a world of science. What might be shocking to some of the more conservative amongst his readers is that he fully acknowledges the concept of biological macro-evolution. Usually in orthodox circles this is a no-no. However he interestingly integrates the concept of prehistoric man in his theory claiming they were one of the animal varieties in the garden of eden that Adam didn't want a relationship with. This is an interesting twist to the theory, however as with many of the apologetics that ooze from the mouths of theologians with an agenda, it is pure speculation and has no factual basis. Furthermore, if one looks hard enough in the Bible or post-biblical writings, one can find a proof or justification for virtually anything. Unfortunately, for every point of view that you find justifying your position, you can find two that contradict it. Overall, I must admit that I enjoyed reading the book, unfortunately Schroeder was unable to convince me that his theory was anything more than a product of a very vivid imagination. I do recommend that people read the book and come to their own conclusions. Jewish readers may find this book more relevant to them as it cites many post-biblical Jewish sages, however it is written in such a way that it can be relevant for any type of audience.
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