Yes. The Big Bang describes the inflation and expansion of the universe, not the creation.
An agnostic scientist, Robert Jastrow, wrote this:
There is a kind of religion in science ... every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause ... This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced wth trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implications - in science this is known as "refusing to speculate" - or trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker."
This scientist describes the Big Bang not just as expansion and inflation but as "the origin of the world." So apparantly some scientists do regard the Big Bang as the origin, ie. "creation" of the world.
This particular scientist founded NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. I assume he knows something about cosmology. He says he is an Agnostic concerning theism.
Oh, where to begin with the silliness of that statement....
So when you hear things underwater, you're not really hearing them because there is no air? Is that what you're saying?
Good point. I guess I'd beging by saying the air is in the human ear? If not air then, in the universe to carry the sound of Bang, then
liquid doesn't seem to make the language problem go away.
Sound is the fluctuation of a medium. At the time of the Big Bang, the universe was not empty. In fact, all matter was condensed into a tiny space. I dare say if you had audio equipment that could have survived, there would have been quite a lot of sound.
Fascinating.
My point is that the expression Big Bang could be well considered as scientifically imprecise language. Such language of imprecise expressions according to modern standards are also found in Genesis.
But on top of that, "bang" refers to more than just sound. Again, you must deal with context. When a word has multiple meanings, you cannot simply substitute one for another and expect to have a legitimate interpretation. To do so is the logical error of equivocation.
I'll take that point. Bang could mean a soundless Bang I guess.
Instead, since we are dealing with a scenario described by language, you have to use the tools of language to interpret it. The reason "bang" is used is because it is a useful descriptor for what happened: A tremendous explosion in multiple senses. Not merely a throwing out of matter and energy into space but also a huge expansion of space, itself.
I haven't yet been able to get my mind around space expanding into ...
?, that which is not space.
Again the limitation of language has to be accounted for. I don't know why the same realization cannot be had in reading a revelation about the origin of the world in Genesis.
It seems some Bible skeptics use leeway for modern Cosmology but cut no slack to the writer of Genesis 1.
Again - Big Bang? What was Big? What defines Big there? Space is being somehow created ?
Or are you going to tell that space is compressed and expanding but not being created?
Either way, I think I have to make allowances for the limitation of human language.
Light coming into being on Day #1 and
light bearers coming in at Day #4 is not implausible to me. It is not less plausible than space compressed or space expanding beyond the boudary of which space does not exist.
If I can do fancy mental feats to fit into my thinking what you discribes as the Big Bang I can also do the same with some difficult concepts in Genesis chapter 1.
Indeed. That's my point. Because we haven't mastered that telepathy thing, we use language to communicate ideas. Therefore, we use words to convey the meanings we want to get across. Since there are plenty of ways to express a long period of time in Hebrew, why use a phrasing that specifically indicates a literal, 24-hour period of time? If you didn't mean it, why would you say it?
And I see God as wanting to get across to the maximum number of people, not an exhaustive discription of how He created everything, but an accessible general and economical explanation.
If He wanted to give all details then maybe there would have been 20 books just to describe the nature of water. The minute details that went into the measurements of the tabernacle, ark, garments and pristly utinsils show that the author of Genesis, Exodus certainly was intelligent enough to master technical details.
me:
Strictly speaking, we cannot insist that the Hebrew says the sun was created on the fourth day. Rather that light bearers were made. That is a more specific receptacle to hold light:
Oh, please. Let us not play dumb.
I am not playing at anything.
"The greater light to rule the day" is not ambiguous. It is a reference to the sun.
Of course it is a reference to the sun. The sun was one of the light-holders. You can see light without being able to locate the origin of it, its holder, its bearer.
The RcV brngs this out in the translation because the light of verse 3 is a different word from
light bearers in verses 14-19.
"The lesser light to rule the night" is not vague.
Once again, the Recovery Version brings out in the translation that the word for light bearer Day 4 is not the same for light on Day 1
It is a reference to the moon.
That's right. Have you ever noticed that the moon or sun behind cloud can give the sky a general glow of light? But on a very clear night or day, you can see the "light bearer" in a more specific way. I am simply saying that it could have been shown to the prophet in this way.
It is no less plausible then "space expanding" or "space inflating".
And since it follows those statements with a direct statement of "he made the stars, also," there is no question as to what was going on: The creation of the sun, moon, and stars.
No, "made" does not have to mean that the sun, moon, and stars were created out of nothing on the fourth day. You cannot insist on that sense in the Hebrew.
The word is also used for trimming a beard or trimming finger nails. It is used for preparing a meal.
You do not have to insist that the only meaning there is that, before the fourth day no sun existed. The dry land came up from under the water and was made to appear on the third day.
I think that something similar could have actually been what is being discribed. Other creation accounts in the Bible show God stretching forth the heavens before laying the foundation of the earth. For example:
" ... This declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him." (Zech. 12:1)
If here stretching forth the heavens includes not only space but thge atronomical bodies in the heavens, then this passage would mean the stars were stretched forth before the earth's foundation was laid.
me:
I can imagine that the seer had a vision of a diffuse and undefined light and darkness before these fourth light-bearers were seen in the expanse of heaven.
you:
Indeed...but since all the light we have on this planet comes from the sun and other stars (the moon having no light of its own), there's a small problem as to where this "diffuse and undefined light" came from during days one through three since the sun and stars wouldn't be created until day four.
No problem at all. It could come from the sun. But as it was unvieled to the prophet in a series of revelatory visions, he didn't see where it was coming from until the fourth day.
me:
On the third day the dry land was made to appear. It came up from under the waters where it was not dry and was hidden.
thou:
And that's in direct opposition to geology. The dry land came first. The waters came second.
LOL. I'm as stubburn to prove that it is possible as you are to prove that it is bogus.
Okay, assuming that all geologist /astro physicists agree with your statement, it still does not render Genesis factually incorrect.
We have this as verse 1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth became waste and emptiness and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
Regardless of whether the earth was first solid land or ocean over land, there is room in the original language to understand that it BECAME something else. And what is worked with from verse two is the something else which it BECAME.
The word there translated
became in some translations is the same which is translated became when, for example, Lot's wife BECAME a pillar of salt when judged by God in chapter 19.
I'll close this post with another reference to the Big Bang. Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies wrote this about the Big Bang. And I have no doubt that after reading it you will seek to discredit the scientific credentials of the man. This is what most Bible skeptics do when I point out this quotation:
In a nutshell this scientist (a self confessed agnostic) believes that it is now scientifically proved that supernatural forces were at work in the origin of the universe:
"Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover...
That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact."
["A Scientist Caught Between Two Faiths: Interview with Robert Jastrow," Christianity Today, August 6, 1982, emphasis added.]
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