Mr joseph vempeny Posted on : 28/01/2008 04:36:07

Adam and Eve

Reading Genesis in the 21st century

The author or authors of the first book of the Bible was not or were not well versed in quantum physics or the evolutionary sciences of modern cosmology or biology. Even so, the view held by certain scholars, that the first few chapters of Genesis form part of a myth cannot be accepted as such. The verses of these chapters are pregnant with meaning if you read them in the right spirit of humility, realizing that we do not have nor will ever have the answers to all questions regarding the universe and life, realizing that we shall never be omniscient like God. Once we have all the answers, once we know everything, we cease to be humans. The horizon of knowledge is as elusive as the horizon of the cosmos. That is what science is all about. That is why we do not expect scientists to put an end to their investigations by accepting that God created everything and controls everything. We, humanity, must go on the never ending search for the answers for the mysteries of the universe and of life and at each new finding we must be able to say, ‘How great thou art my Lord’. While agreeing with the view that the verses of these chapters should not be taken too literally I believe that there is a lot of sense there and in the following pages I am making a humble attempt to read and understand some of these verses in the light of modern cosmology and biology.

(The verses of the Bible are given in italics.)

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

There was a beginning, 13.7 billion years back (according to cosmologists in the year 2003) when God created singularity - a something that was almost nothing in size but everything in mass - that included all the matter of our universe. Time and space, energy and matter, all had their beginnings at this instant of creation. Here the term ‘heaven’ can be taken to mean space-time continuum and ‘earth’ to mean matter-energy conglomerate.

And the earth was without form and void.

There was no Bang, Big or Small, no fragmentation, only inflation. The space-time-matter-energy complex was quark-gluon porridge, without form- no spiral or oval galaxies, no circular or elliptical orbits - no shape. There were no atoms or molecules, no pulsars or quasars, no stars or planets, the cosmos was void.

And the darkness was upon the face of the deep.

The radiation era had not yet started, there was no light. The then universe, the event horizon, all was dark. At the moment of creation the temperature of the singularity was infinite according to modern cosmologists. So also the density and pressure. Though it was so hot there was no heat or light radiating from it - no photons. It was almost like a black hole, but different. Black holes do not allow radiations to escape. In singularity there was no radiation at all, internal or external.

And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Cosmic and chemical evolution, to be followed by biogenesis and biologic evolution, started under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit of God, to bring order from chaos, to balance gravity with antigravity, to accelerate or decelerate the rate of inflation or expansion, the rate of evolution, to continue the sublime process of creation.

And God said, let there be light, and there was light.

A hundred million years after the beginning, after electrons had taken up their positions in the orbits of hydrogen and may be helium atoms, after the intensity of gravity eased and the universe grew into something more than a black hole, the photons began to be emitted - the radiation era started and there was light.

This was the first phase of creation - day one.

And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of waters and let it divide waters from waters.

At the time of the birth of our universe or soon after that, the enormity of the matter in such a small space would have produced such strong gravity enough to snuff the universe out of existence. This did not happen and this could have been due to another force that opposed gravity. This is known as anti-gravity or vacuum force and could be the same as the cosmological constant in Einstein’s equations. This is the same force that is said to be responsible for the recently observed acceleration in the expansion of the universe that is taking place right now. The scientists had expected the rate of expansion of the universe to be decreasing and while attempting to test this hypothesis they found that the rate is increasing. If this force was present throughout, the matter of the universe would never have accreted into galaxies and stars.

About one billion years after creation gravity overcame the force of anti-gravity (How? Somehow!) and the lumps in the cosmic porridge began to accrete into galactic clusters, galaxies and stars. Thus empty space or firmament was created between the waters of the world, between stars and between galaxies. The cosmos was no more without form or void.

This was the second phase of creation - day two.

Now follows a mix-up of days three and four. Writers and speakers had been telling us that we should not take the words of Genesis literally, only the message. And one of the cases they cite is that there could have been no light before the sun was created. But now we know that the sun was created billions of years after the start of the radiation era, when light started to shine in the cosmos. But the mix-up of days three and four cannot be overlooked. A writer, even if he did not have the privilege of divine inspiration, did not need lessons in modern biology or cosmology to know that plants and trees did not exist before sun and moon, before seasons, before days and night came to the scene. The most probable cause of this discrepancy could be a human error of one of the early scribes in copying the available text, unless it was a pointed reminder that things should not be taken too literally like 144 hours for creation. Now let us proceed to the next phase in creation, switching days three and four.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.

In the galaxies that were formed about one billion years after the cosmic genesis, stars started full scale production of heavier elements by the fusion of the nuclei of the lighter elements. Once a star had spent all its nuclear fuel, it ended its life as a white dwarf, neutron star, black hole or in a supernova explosion. From the immense amounts or gases and particles in the empty space as wells from the debris of the dead stars or supernovae, from these star dusts, new stars were born. Some nine billion years after creation a new star was created with an orbiting nebula of dust and gases containing all sorts of elements from the star dust. In course of time this nebula accreted into planets, satellites and asteroids orbiting the star, the sun. One of these planets, the earth, had its rotation, revolution and tilt

so accurately planned to have ideal conditions of suitable lengths of day and night, changing seasons. This unique planet also had all sorts of elements some very rare elsewhere in the universe. The elements heavier than iron are not formed in the nuclear furnace of even the biggest of stars. The scientists do not yet know how these elements have been created. Some suggest the collision of neutron stars, itself so rare an event, as a possible cause of the production of these. Somehow this unique planet was created to be the ideal home for life, for the human beings.

This was the third phase of creation - day three.

And God said, “ Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let dry land appear”: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of waters, he called the seas.

For more than a billion years since its appearance, the earth was covered by water. Volcanic activity slowly brought to the surface dry land as small islands or archipelagos. It was much later still that large land masses or continents formed.

And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind.

Creation of the solar system and of the earth was followed by the creation of life. Plant life came before animal life. Even among the plants first the simplest of plants followed by herbs and bushes and finally large trees. It could be argued here that many animal species had evolved before flowering plants came on the scene. But what is important is that plants come before animals. Animals depend on plants. Even among plants the grass is a flowering plant that appeared much later. But the stages of evolution - simple to complex - are brought out here. Instead of grass, herbs and trees we may speak of ferns, conifers, and flowering plants to be more scientific.

One point that must be emphasized in this context is the fact that the appearance of life on our planet or elsewhere is not just by the chance combination of molecules. Any one who knows the complexity of the DNA or gene will understand this. Life is something special that God created and put into the molecules so expertly synthesized by Him. Inanimate matter on its own cannot become ‘alive’.

Biogenesis and evolution of simple forms of life was the fourth phase in the story of our universe - day four.

And God said, let the water bring forth the moving creatures that has life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

After plant life comes animal life. Here again we must note that life begins in water and then in air, and this is how it was in actual fact. At least dragon flies occupied the air before animals occupied land.

Evolution of animal life in water and air forms the fifth phase - day five.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after his kind, cattle and creeping things and the beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so.

Mammals, the highest of the vertebrate animals were the last in the evolutionary ladder. Among these the highest were the primates that included old world monkeys, apes and the hominid ancestors of humans, but not humans themselves. Creation of humans is treated separately in the next few verses.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image; in His own image He created them, male and female he created them.

In the Bible humans are not considered to be animals. To those who believe in the Bible, humans do not belong to the animal kingdom but to a separate kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. We are the ‘children of God’ created in his likeness. In a household only the children resemble the father, not the pets. Even so in this case only we humans resemble God. What was created in His image was obviously not this body with a head, trunk and limbs, but the spirit that is the true self of the human being. If what was made in the likeness of God was the body the animals also would be like God.

The creation of Homo sapiens was the last phase in our story of Genesis - day five.

The Anthropic Principle

Most Biblical scholars, especially those of the mainstream churches agree that the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis is from a source very different from the story in the next few chapters. In the first chapter human being is created at the end, after everything else had been created. In the second chapter we see that the plants and animals were created after the human being was created. First and foremost this apparent , contradiction could be seen as a pointer that we must give importance to the message of the Bible and not to the literal meaning of every verse. Secondly we can take the first chapter as giving the chronological, evolutionary sequence of creation and the second chapter pointing out that God created everything, the universe, the plants and animals for our sake, that we are at the center of creation - what some cosmologists call the Anthropic Principle. The first few verses of the second chapter seem to have been added to serve as a link between the two chapters, the seventh day of creation, in continuation of the first six days of the first chapter. It could be assumed that the Hebrew author of the second chapter added the seventh day to the non-Hebrew story of the six days to bring in the concept of Sabbath, the seventh holy day.

The Garden of Eden

And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and thus he became a living soul.

A potter or sculptor, has to work with great patience and diligence, choosing the right type of the soil, mixing the correct amount of water, making many a piece of art before he does his masterpiece. Even so, the evolutionary process from biogenesis to the final product - the masterpiece, the homo-sapiens - had taken long time and energy in the hands of the Great Sculptor - the Greatest Artist. What God fashioned out of the dust of the earth, the masterpiece, was the final product of evolution, the homo that was still an animal. That animal became man when He breathed the breath of life into him. In many parts of the Bible, the words life and death are used in connection with human beings to signify eternal life of the spirit or the soul. “He who believes in me shall never die but shall have eternal life.” “On the day you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall die.” In this passage describing the creation of man, ‘the breath of life’ that God breathed into him is the soul. That act describes the special act of creation of the soul, the creation of ‘man’. The soul is not the product of evolution. Till this act our ancestor, the Homo-Erectus or Homo-Habilis, Homo-Ergaster, whatever, was an animal, had animal life, but not eternal life. With the creation of the soul, when the ‘breath of life’ was breathed into his nostrils, that homo became Homo sapiens - that animal became human, spiritual life of the immortal soul was added to the physical life of the mortal body.

And the Lord God planted a garden; eastward in Eden, and there He put man whom He had formed.

If we ask the question ‘eastward of where?’’, the answer we could come up with is, ‘eastward of the potter’s field, eastward of the sculpture garden, eastward of Africa’, where for over 6 million years a unique process of evolution, from a common primate or ape through various stages of bipedal hominids towards humans had been going on. And it is only reasonable to assume that the location of the garden, east of Africa could very well be somewhere in Mesopotamia, not far from Jericho where the most ancient signs of grain cultivation had been discovered. What we could assume here is that the development of our earliest ancestor into a fully human, with all the faculties of the soul such as free will and conscience happened here in “the garden”

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Two things, more than anything else, that set humans far apart from the animals are, the spiritual life and the ability to distinguish and chose between good and evil. The garden where the trees of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were planted is the heart of man, his consciousness. The ‘tree of life’ is the awareness of spiritual realities - of God, immortal soul and eternal life - and the fruits of this tree are the spiritual gifts, the food for the spirit, divine grace. The other ‘tree’ is the awareness of the existence of evil as a ‘hole’ in the fabric of goodness, goodness of love, contentment and selflessness. The ‘trees that were pleasant to the sight’ could be considered to represent the aesthetic sense, a third factor not found in the animals.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree in the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat: for on the day that you eat from it you shall die.

This commandment, written in the heart of man, gave him responsibility for his actions, thereby introducing ‘free will’ and conscience. The accompanying warning meant that if ever he chose to disobey the dictate of his conscience he will fall through the ‘hole’ out of the fabric of goodness, of grace, of paradise. That would be the end of the life of grace, of joy, of never ending peace and that would be also the beginning of the life of misery.

How are we to understand the last few verses of the second chapter? Animals and birds as partners for Adam? Woman made out of the rib of man? Perhaps we can get three lessons, three messages, from these.

One: We are at the center of creation - the Anthropic Principle. Everything else, all animals and birds, even as rivers and plants, are made for us

Two: Man should live for his wife and children, not for material possessions or wealth. In the early days of human existence, in the nomadic and pastoral life style the riches of man were the domestic animals and fowls.

Three: Husband and wife are not two separate entities; they are a single unity. They are from the same stock; one flesh and blood.

The fall

Now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

The serpent is known for its poison. Poison is evil. The serpent here seems to be poisoning the mind or the thought process and not the body or the blood stream. The serpent that entices Eve to eat the forbidden fruit is the tempter, the devil, the Satan whose sole aim is to overcome goodness and propagate evil. Does devil really exist or is it just a figment of our imagination, a myth? About devil, Dr. Piet Muller of South Africa has this to say, “Yes, there is devil. I see him every day when I look in the mirror.” In other words, temptation is not external but from inside us. It arises out of the free will. Temptation is nothing but the hesitation in choosing when a choice is there, to pick this or that, good or evil.

And the serpent said to the woman, surely, you shall not die (of eating the forbidden fruit), for God knows that the day you eat that your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took that fruit, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her; and he also did eat.

‘How could she do this to us?’ we are often tempted to ask. Well, we could say that she was trying to be human. Like most of us today she was not content with what she had. Her attitude was; ‘We have enough to eat, but why can’t we have that too?’ This is not very different from our attitude; ‘I have enough clothes, but I want that dress too.’ ‘For our status we need more classy furniture.’ ‘Those cosmetics or clothes shall make me look younger and prettier.’ And so on and so forth. And what Adam did was not different from what most husbands do today - give in and go along. The basic cause of evil, then as well as now, is putting the ‘I, me, my - attitude’ at the center. “Why can’t I have it?” In sIn, the ‘I’ is at the center always. Greed, selfishness, possessiveness all arise in this manner. One must however concede that there is a positive side to this action of Eve and Adam. This could be called ambition instead of greed - the ambition to know more, to gain wisdom of knowing right and wrong, to gain knowledge, to promote science.

This first act of transgression, the original sin, is some times referred to as ‘Felix culpa’ - the lucky sin or the blessed sin. The reason is this. This is the act that set in motion the process of salvation, the process in which the Son of God became man so that we can become children of God. The original sin could be called Felix culpa in another sense as well. By this first exercise of the free will, by choosing to act against the dictate of the conscience, Eve and Adam crossed the border from the animal world into the human world, from an animal guided by instinct to one guided by intelligence accompanied by free will.

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow in procreation, in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.

There is a price to be paid for everything, for becoming wise, for having a large brain. Evolutionary scientists speak of these as trade-ins. The larger brain meant a larger head. At the time of birth of a human baby the mother has to suffer labor pain because of the large size of the head. According to these scientists, it is very unlikely that we humans can go any higher in biological evolution, very unlikely that we can have a still bigger head as the pelvic structure of women cannot accept this. If the pelvis grows any larger they cannot walk on two legs, they say. So, labor pain was one of the prices to be paid for evolution. According to many experts one pregnancy and child birth would give enough discomfort and pain to the woman that she would, in normal sense, never allow herself to become pregnant again. This could mean the extinction of our species. What prevents this state of affairs from happening is ‘the desire’ mentioned in this verse. Unlike the other animals that do mating only at the ovulation of the female, the humans can do it any time also due to this ‘desire’.

And to Adam He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and has eaten the forbidden fruit, cursed is the ground for you; in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you; and you shall eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it you were taken: for you are dust, and unto dust shall you return.

Another trade-in for the bigger brain was a smaller abdomen. May be we were to spend less time on feeding and more time on intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic matters. We were to do with much smaller quantities of concentrated or quality food instead of spending most of the day trying to chew and digest all sorts of edible materials. For this we had to start farming, keep sheep and fowl for milk, egg and meat, cultivate the land, and grow crops, harvest, store and cook - all new problems of Sapiens’ lifestyle, of civilization. This could be the meaning of God’s words to Adam, “in the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread.”

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now he might put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

At the start, before eating the forbidden fruit, the tree of life was accessible to man. Expulsion from the garden, on eating of the forbidden fruit meant mainly the withdrawal of grace, the denial of the tree of life, the loss of eternal life. (‘On the day you eat of that you shall die’) The tree of life will become accessible again at Calvary when Christ’s mission of salvation is accomplished. That is where death is overcome by resurrection and we get access to the fruits of the tree of life. (‘I am the resurrection and the life.’) This is the history of salvation.