By Hugh Ross
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Abstract: a clear and sound harmonization between the most recent results of the natural sciences and the Genesis account; neither materialist/liberal nor fundamentalist
Difficulty: 2 (popular)
Hugh Ross. The Genesis Question : Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis. Colorado Springs, Col.: Navpress, 1998.
ISBN: 1576831116
Pages: 235.
Index.
Order the Hardback version with:
Foreword
Chapter 1: A Personal Journey
Chapter 2: Reasons for Resistance
Chapter 3: Creation of the Cosmos
Chapter 4: Creation Events-Days One and Two
Chapter 5: Creation Events-Days Three and Four
Chapter 6: Creation Events-Days Five and Six
Chapter 7: The Source Controversy
Chapter 8: Rest-Day Seven
Chapter 9: A Spiritual Perspective on Creation-Genesis 2
Chapter 10: Modern Criticism Arises
Chapter 11: 'Creation Science' and Genesis
Chapter 12: How Far the Fall-Genesis 3
Chapter 13: Cain's Wife and City-Genesis 4
Chapter 14: Dating the Origin of Humanity-Genesis 5
Chapter 15: The Possibility of Long Life Spans-Genesis 6
Chapter 16: Sons of God and the Nephilim-Genesis 6
Chapter 17: The Boundaries of God's Wrath-Genesis 6
Chapter 18: The Flood: Global or Local? -Genesis 7-8
Chapter 19: The Ark and its Passengers-Genesis 6-9
Chapter 20: The Origin of Nations and Races-Genesis 9-11
Chapter 21: Dispelling Myth About Genesis
Appendix A: Biblical Origins of the Scientific Method
Appendix B: Word Studies in Genesis 1
Appendix C: Scientific Discoveries Supporting Genesis 1-11
Copyright © 1999 Luigi Farricella, Voorburg, The Netherlands
Of course, the stories that are told in the first chapters of Genesis are a myth! How can you think that the "heaven and the earth" could have been made in six days! And, after all, days did not yet exist! The sun was created afterwards! So the whole story is either nonsense or, at best, a myth that wants to tell us about the fact that a superior being, called God, had something to do with the beginning of our universe.
This is what many people think nowadays. In Europe I can say that the great majority of the population, including Christians, has such a view of the first chapters of Genesis. This was also my position, until a few years ago.
A few year ago I started reading and studying to understand if my Christian faith, inherited from my family and enhanced by a conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism (a rather unusual happening in Italy!), was just "unjustified belief" or if it could be possible to be a Christian and at the same time remain a reasonable person ("reasonable" in the sense of a person that uses his logic rational faculties and does not subdues these faculties under an accepted "faith").
I made quite a few steps forward (I discovered the ancient apologists and Aquinas, the modern American apologists and the few Europeans that are active in this field) but the "Genesis Question" remained unresolved. Myth or reality?
A couple of years ago I read another book by Hugh Ross: "Creation and Time". The book did not really deal with the problem of the scientific reality of the events in Genesis but it contained a very interesting explanation for the story of the creation days. The author assumes the existence of an observer on the surface of the earth in the first period after the forming of the earth from the cloud of debris that surrounded the sun. Of course no live observer could be present at that time, but an hypothetical being that was sitting on the (hot) surface of the earth at that time would have seen events that really could be described as they are described in Genesis.
Since the proposed explanation by Ross seemed to be interesting, I bought also this book and read it with much interest to see if the "Genesis Question" could be solved. Was it solved? I do not want to give an answer: the interested person should read the book himself. What I want to say is that everything Ross wrote in this book is "plausible". The sequence of the events on the earth in the million of years since its formation, the apparent incongruence between Genesis 1 and 2, the meaning of the Hebrew words used to define some of the controversial concepts (seven "days" of creation, the name of the animals...), the flood and so on.
Some of the topics did not really raise my interest because I consider them of little importance in the defense of the "reality" of the Christian faith. The possibility of long life spans, the existence of the Nephilim do not seem to be such controversial issues that could jeopardize a good defense of the Christian theism. But finally I thing that the approach taken by Ross is correct: he takes the whole of Genesis, not only the most relevant sections. If the Bible is true then people before the flood lived several hundred years. Otherwise, if this is myth, than the whole of the Bible is myth.
I am not really convinced by all his reasonings but, I have to admit, they are all PLAUSIBLE. Maybe other explanations could be thought but at least Ross has the merit to have given a good demonstration that the "myth" of Genesis has good credentials to be coincident with the "truth" of science.
Gigi Farricella
Copyright © 1999 Luigi Farricella, Voorburg, The Netherlands
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