Does Genesis 1:1 Describe the Big Bang?

There are Old Earth Creationists, Young Earth Creationists, and the scientists, all who have a different version of how the universe was made. Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth". Is there any connection in the first passages of Genesis that could be interpreted as supporting the science view, which is "The Big Bang"?

 According to science, the beginning of all that we see and know, happened about 13.7 years ago in an event called "the big bang", as Sir Fred Hoyle sarcastically called it about 60 years ago. Their description begins with the universe bursting forth from a singularity, a point without any size, in an instant and expanding outward, continuing that expansion today. The universe at that point in time was infinitely dense and infinitely hot. There is an abundance of evidence that the scientific description of that event is accurate, and billions of dollars are being spent in an effort to further describe the process.

This event would have been followed by a tremendous burst of radiation and LIGHT. In the first few milliseconds of the event there was no matter, only plasma and radiation,  expanding outward at an unimaginable rate. As time continued, the radiation cooled and subatomic particles and atoms began to form, but there was no such thing as solid matter, only plasma and gasses due to the extreme temperature.

Eventually, due to expansion, the gasses cooled and the first particles formed into solid matter for the first time. However at this point there was darkness everywhere because stars would not form for another billion years or so, when enough matter could accumulate in one place for gravity to create the fusion reaction necessary for a star to form.

Genesis 1:3 says "And God Said, Let there be light: and there was light.

According to the description above, also according to science, light was the first thing created in the form of intense radiation. Does this mean that the science version and the Genesis version of creation agree? Genesis 1:4 goes on to say "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. This seems to agree with the science description of  the first matter being formed when there was darkness in the form of dust and matter, mixed with the radiation from the initial burst.

 It is the next verse that presents a problem. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:5 describes the first day as happening before the earth is formed, or the Sun.

 This could not possibly be an "earth" day as the earth didn't yet exist as a planet but as a formless void, and there was no sun yet to come up as it wasn't created until verse 14, which says "And God said, Let ther be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night". He had declared a day and a night to have passed before He divided the day and the night by the creation of the sun.

What this suggests is that the Day and Night referred to in verse 5 was a day of God's time, not man's.

 In verse 6, we have, "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters".

 This could be referring to the point in time just after the burst of radiation when the "plazma" state of matter was changing to a solid state. Its interesting that the science of fluid dynamics deals with plazma as if it were a fluid, like water. When the plazma cooled, we had solid matter separating out of the "fluid" for the first time, "dividing the waters from the waters".

While this interpretation may not be the traditional way to interpret these passages, it does demonstrate that its possible that the original text of Genesis does describe a scientific event, but has been translated to read in terms that appear unscientific. The one factor that indicates that the above statement is true is the sequence of events. Both narratives say that the universe was created in steps that are identical in sequence.

The statement in Genesis 1:3 where God says "Let there be Light", has always impressed me as something that shouldn't be there if we accept the book of Genesis as simply an ancient fable. Why would light be important to an ancient people if they were simply writing a "creation story". The most important event in both creation versions is the creation of LIGHT as one of the first events.

Ask any physicist what light is and he will tell you we still don't fully know. We know it is composed of a particle called the photon but it is surrounded by mystery as it has no mass and travels always at a constant speed. It apparently was very important to the creation process, because God stated it was "good".

As we struggle today to understand all the processes of the "big bang", we have yet to find any part of the process that contradicts the description in Genesis. Its been said that Genesis is not a "science book", yet there may still be truths in it that we have not yet discovered. Such truths will only be known if we are willing to re-think our interpretation of the original words and texts of this gift from God.

Perhaps such an interpretation was only intended to be revealed to a generation that could understand it.

For the book from which these thoughts were taken, visit:

http://www.beyondgenesis.com