In Paul's second letter to the Thessalonian believers, was he writing to assure them that they had not missed the rapture and were not in the Tribulation?
In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 we read, "Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
"Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one (the antichrist) will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
It is obvious in the passage that the Thessalonians were troubled by a letter purportedly from Paul that claimed the Day of Christ had come. (In other translations, such as the ESV or NET, it is translated as Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is spoken of throughout scripture and called by many names. In Revelation 6:16 it is called the Wrath of the Lamb.) The Thessalonians were "shaken in mind and troubled" by this report. Paul wrote to assure them that the letter was not from him and the claim was false. They were not to be shaken. Paul goes on to explain that the Day of Christ (the Tribulation) had not come. It is obvious that the letter they received contradicted what Paul had previously taught them. So what does this tell us? Why were they so shaken by a report that the Day of Christ, the Tribulation, had come, and how did that relate to the gathering together? To some extent, we have to put two and two together.
The interpretation that makes the most sense to me is that the Thessalonian believers thought they had missed the "gathering together" (the rapture). They believed the Tribulation (the Day of Christ or the Day of the Lord) had come -- or was at least at hand -- and that obviously contradicted what Paul had previously taught them. Paul wrote to assure them that the letter was untrue and not from him. They had not missed the "gathering together" because they were not witnessing the events of the Tribulation or the "Day of Christ." Then he goes on to remind them what the "Day of Christ" would look like. Since they weren't seeing any of those things, they could be assured that they were not in the Tribulation and had not missed the rapture.
But what about verse three? If Paul had taught, and was teaching, that the church would not be raptured until after the "man of sin" was revealed, then why were the Thessalonian believers concerned that the "Day of Christ" had come and the "gathering together" had not occurred? They should have expected it if that was what Paul had previously taught. And if Paul were teaching in verse three that the church would not be raptured until after the antichrist was revealed, and the Tribulation was under way, then doesn't he contradict himself in verse seven when he says that the lawless one will not be revealed until after the restrainer is removed? If not for those questions, this would be a very straight forward passage. If not for those issues, I could confidently claim that the church will be here when the antichrist is revealed.
However, the Thessalonians were upset, and the passage does talk about a restrainer and says the restrainer will be removed before the antichrist is revealed. Those two facts cover this passage in a question mark. But as Peter said, some parts of Paul's letters are hard to understand, 2 Peter 3:16.
So, who or what is the restrainer?
Angels are powerful, and some argue the restrainer is an angel, but I don't believe it will be an angel. Michael, the most powerful angel in scripture, disputed Satan for the body of Moses, but would not even rebuke him. (Jude 1:9). At the end of this age, Michael will rise up to defend Israel. "At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress such as never has occurred from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered." (Daniel 12:1.) Clearly, the restrainer is not Michael since he is not removed. Gabriel is a powerful angel, but he could not withstand the Prince of Persia; only Michael was powerful enough to overcome that principality, Daniel 10:13, but we've already seen that Michael will not be removed. The activity of angels are stepped up at the end according to scripture, not removed. An angel will preach the gospel during the Tribulation. (Revelation 14:6.) They will execute many of the judgments during the Tribulation, and we see numerous angels involved in world affairs throughout the book of Revelation. So angels do not appear to be candidates for the restrainer. They appear to be more active in human affairs than ever at the end. Not removed from them.
I believe the restrainer is either the Holy Spirit or the Church empowered by the Holy Spirit. Nothing else makes sense. Only God is powerful enough to restrain the ultimate supernatural evil. Fallen man can't do it. Man is manipulated by evil -- not in control of it. In addition, this "mystery of lawlessness" has been restrained since Paul's day. That also rules out a mortal man or the shifting seats of government. Those things are temporary. Again, that leaves the Holy Spirit or the Church. If the restrainer is the Church, then the Church will be taken away
before the antichrist is revealed. If the restrainer is the Holy
Spirit, then the Church will still be taken away before the antichrist
is revealed because we are assured He will never leave us. Jesus promised in John 14:16 that, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." Wherever we go, He goes. And vice-versa. Doesn't that contradict what Paul said in verse three? What is going on here?
I find this problematic, and this post is my effort to think through this
problem. I'm not saying I have all of the answers to every question in scripture. I don't. No one else does either. (Though some claim they do.) As I always say, read the Bible for yourselves and pray that the Holy Spirit gives you wisdom, guidance, and understanding; but keep 2 Peter 1:19-21 in mind, "We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
So, with that said, this passage means something specific. What is it?
First, I believe it's important to realize that the rapture, the events which precede the rapture, and the events that occur during the Day of the Lord -- from beginning to end -- are being merged in these opening verses. That's at least a seven-year time span, but they are all rolled up together like a ball of yarn in one short passage. Can the events, and the time between them, be unraveled? The Bible rarely sees time the same way men do. A thousand years are as a day or like a watch in the night to God. (Psalm 90:4.)
In verse one, Paul is speaking about our gathering together to Christ. I believe that is a clear reference to the rapture of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
In that first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul said: "But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."
However, when we return to 2Thessalonians and read past verse one, we see that events begin to merge. Paul is moving between subjects. In verse one, he is addressing the return of Jesus for the Church. In verse two, he blends that with The Day of Christ -- or The Day of the Lord. (The Day of the Lord is revealed to be the Tribulation elsewhere, especially in the book of Revelation.) The rapture and The Day of the Lord are not the same thing though they are closely related. These verses move between these two events without any clear boundaries. Paul has to address both because it seems the Thessalonians believed they had missed the rapture and were in the Tribulation. In verse three we see that an apostasy has to come first and then -- at some point after that -- the antichrist will be revealed. I say "at some point after that" because the restrainer must be removed before the anti-christ can be revealed.
So, and this is an important point. We know that there is a time gap between the apostasy and the revealing of the antichrist in verse three because the restrainer has to be removed first. So, in terms of chronology, it is: Apostasy, removal of the restrainer, (which I believe might be synonymous with the rapture), and the revealing of the antichrist at some point after that. Verse three makes it sound as if the apostasy and the revelation of the antichrist are back-to-back events, but we know from verse seven that they can't be. The restrainer has to be removed first. We also see elsewhere in scripture that the antichrist is revealed three and a half years into the tribulation, but the apostasy precedes that by years. It begins before the Tribulation. So we already see that verse three is not strictly chronological and covers a period of years. The same can be said for the passage in general.
Regarding the apostasy, 1 Timothy 4:1 warns us that in the later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. In 2 Peter 2:1-3 we are warned about false teachers and those who follow them. It says destruction has been hanging over them for a long time. Jude 1:18 also warns about scoffers following their own desires and causing divisions. In 2 Timothy 4:3, Paul said the time would come when people would not tolerate sound doctrine, but would gather teachers to themselves to suit their own desires. These things would continually grow worse at the end, to the point where Jesus asked if He would even find faith when He returned, Luke 18:8. The point is that the apostasy gets worse at the end, and it does not happen overnight. It is something that is going on for a long time.
So I see a considerable time gap just in verse three alone of 2 Thessalonians 2.
There is a lot happening in the 2nd Thessalonian passage. In scripture, we often see events mentioned together that are actually separated by time, sometimes significant periods of time. We see this in the Olivet Discourse. Another example is found in Isaiah 61:1-2. In Luke 4:17-21, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61:1-2a. He does not quote verse two in its entirety because only part of it was being fulfilled. The second part of Isaiah 61:2 would not be fulfilled for at least two thousand years. I think this passage from Paul may be similar to that. Just because the events are all mentioned at one time does not mean that they all occur at the same time -- or that they are even in order or strictly chronological. There are many precedents in scripture that support this statement, including the ones I have already mentioned. My point is that there is a period of time between the apostasy and when the man of sin is revealed. Just as there was a significant period of time between the first half of Isaiah 61:2 and the second half.
Even if I were to deny that Paul was writing about two different topics in verses one and two -- the "gathering together" in verse one and the "Day
of the Christ" in verse two -- or that there is a time gap in verse three, I
still have to admit that the Thessalonians were confused and concerned about them. This passage wouldn't exist if they weren't.
In 2nd Thessalonians, the apostasy, the "gathering together", and the removal of the restrainer all blend together -- as well as all of the events that prove the world is in the "Day of the Christ". We learn that the antichrist will be revealed; he will desecrate the temple, deceive the world, declare himself to be God, and eventually be destroyed by Jesus Himself.
But, as we've already seen, before he is even revealed, there is an apostasy and the restrainer is removed.
Those who hold to a pre-wrath, mid-trib, or post-tribulation rapture frequently point to 2nd Thessalonians 2. They teach that believers will see the revealing of the antichrist and will experience the Day of the Lord. I understand their point. However, it leaves us with an uninspired Paul who contradicted himself. The Holy Spirit is not going to contradict Himself, but people contradict themselves all the time.
In 2nd Thessalonians, Paul begins with the "gathering together"; and, as we continue reading, we see that that event is preceded by an apostasy. We see that the "man of sin" is revealed, but that is preceded by the restrainer being removed. Then the believers are reminded of what the "man of sin" will do: he will exalt himself above God, desecrate the temple of God, and seek to prove that he is God. No matter how I try to deny it, I come back to this point: Paul was writing to assure the Thessalonian believers that since they were not seeing those things, they could not be in the Day of Christ. They could not be in the Tribulation. They had not missed the "gathering together." They had not missed the rapture.
Once again, the 2nd Thessalonian verses are transitioning between events: An apostasy, the "gathering together", the removal of the restrainer, the "Day of Christ", the revealing of the "man of sin", his Satanic rise, his deception of the whole world, his rule, his reign, and his eventual destruction by Jesus. That is the unraveled order and bulk of 2nd Thessalonians.
Perhaps the most important key to unraveling 2nd Thessalonians is that the "man of sin" will not be revealed until the restrainer is taken out of the way. If the restrainer is the church, then the church will be taken away before the "man of sin" is revealed. If the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, then the church will still be taken away before the "man of sin" is revealed because we are promised the Holy Spirit will never leave us.
It certainly appears to me that the Thessalonian believers were being assured that they had not missed the rapture because they were not seeing the events of the Day of the Lord. They were not in the Tribulation. I believe that assurance is for us also. Believers will not see all of these things because, 1) either we are the restrainer, or 2) the restrainer is the One who dwells in us. Either way, I contend that we will be taken away -- raptured -- before the antichrist is revealed and before the Day of the Lord begins. As I said, there is a lot going on in this passage. It covers at least a seven-year time span; it is not in strict chronological order; and it does require some unraveling. However, I believe it not only teaches a pre-tribulation rapture, I believe it demonstrates that the teaching was there from the beginning and not added centuries later.
I know there are a lot of non-Christians (and a growing number of Christians) who mock Bible prophecy and would disagree with everything I've written. Many Christians take Bible prophecy seriously, like I do, and see this passage through a different lens. There might be a dozen different interpretations online, and I have just added mine, but these prophecies have specific meanings. We can't all be right, and pride can easily convince us that we're not the one who is wrong. So, I once again remind my readers, study the Bible for yourself, (which I suspect you do), and ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom, guidance, and understanding.
Of course, it is to be expected that people mock these things and deny them altogether. We are warned about that too. "First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. "Where is the promise of His coming?" they will ask. "Ever since our fathers fell asleep, everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation." (2 Peter 3:3.) So don't let the scoffers bother you, and if they scoff, remember that Jesus commanded us to love -- not tear people into sarcastic shreds.
I will end with this. I believe in a coming seven-year Tribulation. That's obvious from this post. However, I do not believe the Tribulation begins until the Trumpet Judgments begin. The Seals are not part of the Tribulation.
I am deeply concerned about the number of professing Christians who endorse the use of the psychedelic drug, DMT, online. (DMT N,N-dimethyltryptamine.) Some of these “Christians” believe they have actually encountered God and have been guided by him. This is incredibly dangerous. One of these individuals is a popular YouTuber who reaches at least a million users across all platforms. He is encouraging a lot of people to explore paths that the Bible clearly forbids while promoting the use of DMT for “spiritual enlightenment.” But the Greek word for drugs is “pharmakeia” in the New Testament, and “pharmakeia” is equated with witchcraft in Galatians 5:20, Revelation 9:21, and 18:23. The Bible condemns the occult, in all its forms, throughout scripture. It is very clear in the Bible that the occult is a door that should be kept firmly shut. Drugs are one of the keys that open that door, especially psychedelic drugs. I will consider that danger in this chapter as well as what the Abyss is in the Bible and why I think DMT and Near Death Experiences lead us to that very real dimension that exists just outside of our own.
I drowned when I was five; that was in 1963. I had no cultural reference. I had never heard of Near Death Experiences or Out-of-Body Experiences. My grandfather pulled me from the swimming pool—and the dimension that had suddenly opened up around me. That dimension shares the same space with us, but it is hidden from us while we are alive. Apparently, while we are dying, our bodies produce DMT. It is for that reason that I believe DMT opens up the same dimension someone experiences who is actually dying. I believe it is a real place. I experienced it when I was five, and I experienced it again many years later during a second Near Death Experience. While you are in that reality, the spiritual entities that live there can put on any kind of electric light show they like. It has many common points, but it can also be tailor made for each person. I believe it is all a deception. The purpose of the demons that are imprisoned there is to deceive us about the nature of life, death, and God.
I believe that place is what the Bible calls the Abyss. Much of this post is conjecture. However, as I wrote in Gehenna Revisited: Rebutting Francis Chan, I don't believe we need to worry about the Abyss in the future because scripture promises there will be a new heavens and a new earth. All things will be made new, and there will be no more tears, sorrow, or suffering. However, I do have some theories about the Abyss because of my near-death experiences and controversial conversations I have had with people over the last few years.
There is some evidence that the dimension experienced by test subjects might be a genuine dimension because all groups have reported similar experiences. Subjects I spoke with said they had experienced a world—or dimension—of fractals. Fractals are never-ending patterns and induce stress-reduction in observers. These experiences start out pleasant, but as subjects continued using DMT, the experiences became increasingly negative. I personally believe demons operate that way. They may masquerade as friendly at first, but over time, their hatred of mankind will always be revealed. The masks will come off.
I believe the Abyss is a dimension that shares our space on this earth but is not visible to us—much like the "Upside Down" dimension in the Netflix series, Stranger Things.
It is believed that there are colors that are not normally visible to the human eye but can be seen in special circumstances. My question is, “Is the Abyss like that?” If the Abyss is a dimension that shares our space in this world, but is not visible until death, then DMT, which might be simulating death, is a Biblically forbidden way of visibly revealing that dimension. Returning to my Stranger Things analogy, it is that portal to the “Upside Down.” (At this point, especially if you are a fan of the Netflix series, I need to warn you about DMT again. It is “pharmakeia,” and the Bible equates “pharmakeia” with witchcraft. It opens doors that you should keep shut. Opening them might expose you to entities that you do not want to meet. You will find additional warnings in the final paragraph.)
If the Abyss is another dimension—an unbounded “bottomless” dimension—and it is truly composed of fractals, has God given those in that dimension a stress reducer? That’s amazingly merciful if true. It would seem if that is the abode of demons, God is only restraining them there to protect mankind from them. They, of course, want loose. I suspect being restrained is torture for them. I say that because of the account in Matthew 8:28-34 where Legion begs Jesus not to send them to the Abyss. To the demons it is a place of torture. Yet, it seems to me that in His mercy, God may have given even demons something (fractals) to reduce their stress. If it is torture for demons, I suspect it could eventually become a human’s worst nightmare if they continually insist on going there.
Perhaps Jesus went there in 1Peter 3:18-20 and preached to the spirits (possibly demons or fallen angels from the time of Noah's flood) that he had accomplished the salvation of mankind.
In Revelation 20, we are told about an angel that has a key to the Bottomless Pit. There are numerous stories on the Internet about CERN, as well as books about supposed secret government experiments that have punched a hole into another dimension, and “beings,” that many describe as demons, have come through. If we have opened a hole into another dimension—the “Pit,” or the “Abyss”—does the angel in Revelation 20 have the key to shut it again? Once again, for fans of Stranger Things, think of it as Eleven’s opening and closing of the “Upside Down.”
If demons live there, what about humans? Are the souls of unsaved men and women kept there until judgment? I don't know. One subject I spoke with said the last time he used DMT, he thought he had died and was in that place of fractals for eternity—even though it had really been just a few minutes. He said he wasn't afraid, unlike those trapped in Stranger Thing's "Upside Down," but that it would "suck" to be there eternally in a conscious state. If that is the Abyss, I don't think anyone stays there for eternity. As I said when I began, I believe the Abyss will be destroyed when God creates the new heavens and a new earth. I believe all sin and all unrepentant sinners will be punished and then eternally destroyed at the Second Death in the Lake of Fire. Who do you think will be cast into that Lake? Will it be filled with pedophiles, abortionists, homosexuals, transgenders, adulterers, fornicators, liars, religious hypocrites, pornographers, thieves, and all other unrepentant sinners? Or do you think such things are okay? The Bible makes it clear what God considers sin. It also makes it clear that all of us are sinners and in need of a Savior. And there is only one Savior--Jesus. Without Him, no one will inherit eternal life and the Kingdom of God.
In light of scripture, I can warn you that God does not embrace the "progressive" views of our corrupted and degenerate cultures. Please don't seek out a world that turns God's plans "Upside Down." Please do not embrace the darkness in this world. It will only lead you further and further from God, and eventually it will shipwreck your faith. The Bible says friendship with the world is enmity with God, James 4:4, Romans 8:7. No matter what many modern churches teach, God does not alter His word to accommodate our sins. Scripture makes it clear that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He condemns all sin and judges it.
It is a frightening thing to consider, but all of us will die and be judged—each and every one of us. I believe everyone should fear that judgment and the Lake of Fire far more than they fear the "Upside Down," the Abyss, or being mocked and persecuted for not embracing "progressive" "values." If you call yourself a Christian, but refuse to give up your sin—and believe God does not even require it—then please understand that you are calling God a liar. John says those who do that are deluding themselves and deceiving others, 1John 1:6.
Read the second and third chapters of Revelation. How many times does Jesus command us to repent and be victorious over sin? He never commands us to tolerate sin, laugh at it, celebrate it, embrace it, take pride in it, or wallow in it. He never lessens the Bible's definition of sin. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands it. It isn't just the act that is sin. It is also the thought. The thought leads to the act. In John 17:17, Jesus said that God's Word is truth and we are made holy through it. When He said that, He affirmed what the Old Testament taught about sin. This culture might not like it, but the Bible commands us to sin no more. It might make us feel uncomfortable, but we are called to be holy and sin will be judged.
In the Bible, part of judgment is perdition, but what is perdition? Could the Abyss be “perdition?” As I wrote in Gehenna Revisited: Rebutting Francis Chan, the Greek word translated as perdition is apōleia, Strong’s G684. According to Strong’s, apōleia is used as 1) destroying and the utter destruction of vessels. 2) a perishing, a ruin, and the destruction of money; as well as the destruction which consists of eternal misery in hell.
I agree that apōleia is utter destruction, but I disagree that it consists of eternal misery in hell. If apōleia is the utter destruction of things, it is the utter destruction of people as well. In Revelation 11, we see a beast that ascends out of the Abyss and goes to perdition. Therefore, the Abyss and perdition are not the same. If perdition is hell, as some believe, then that argues against the Abyss being hell because the beast that ascends out of it goes to perdition. My argument is that the beast coming out of the Abyss is headed for ultimate destruction. Many teach that Satan and the fallen angels will not be destroyed. In essence they teach that Satan and the fallen are immortal. Yet the Bible states only God is immortal, 1Timothy 6:16.
The belief that Satan and the fallen will not be destroyed comes in part from the pseudepigraphal work, the Book of Enoch. It was written long after the Biblical character of Enoch lived on this earth, and by several different writers with different agendas, so it could not have been written by Enoch. When it comes to the Canon, books that claim they were written by an historical figure but were not, are immediately disqualified. Even if there is some truth to be found in the Book of Enoch, I am still not inclined to give much credence to a book that claims to have been written by a man who lived thousands of years before the book was even "penned". If something starts off with a lie, it will continue with lies.
Others believe the Abyss might be "Outer Darkness." In the context of the three Matthew passages where the phrase occurs, "Outer Darkness" appears to be the Tribulation—the time of Jacob’s Trouble—which is described as a day of darkness in Joel 2:2. We know in Matthew that it is used in the context of those who do not make it into the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in Heaven. In Revelation 22:15 we see something similar, but those people have not made it into the Kingdom Rule of Christ on earth during the Millennium. Revelation is not a strictly chronological book. This verse may be at the end of Revelation, but I don’t believe it is speaking to the time of final restitution—when God has made all things new and all pain, suffering, and tears have ceased. During the Millennial reign of Christ, there will be those who survived the Tribulation but are not holy. I think those people will also be outside the Holy City, and I believe it is another possible explanation of Outer Darkness. I see it as something akin to the toxic "Upside Down" reality of Stranger Things and not a place we want to be.
I have not written this post to promote DMT, its testing, or the occult. As I wrote earlier, the Greek word for drugs is "pharmakeia" in the New Testament, and "pharmakeia" is equated with witchcraft. The Bible condemns the occult throughout scripture. It is very clear in the Bible that the occult is a door that should be kept firmly shut. I have written this post to consider what the Abyss is and what these DMT accounts might tell us about Near Death Experiences and that very real dimension that exists just outside our own. I have not been involved in any way in these experiments or DMT usage, but I have spoken with people who have been. I have already written about my views on other dimensions in my two blog posts about my Near Death Experiences. I believe the Abyss might be the second heaven that Paul alludes to in 2Corinthians 12:2, and I believe it is the abode of demons. While unsaved humans are in their dimension—going through the stages of death—I believe demons have the ability to put on any kind of electric light show that they desire, positive or negative. That's all I believe Near Death Experiences are—Electric Light Shows. I believe the purpose of these shows is to deceive people about the afterlife. I believe they are real experiences, but I believe they are deception. If Legion did not want to go to that dimension, neither should you. You might bring something back that you do not want in your life or the life of your loved ones.
"The six days of creation were literal, 24-hour days, but they contain all the ages of the universe," Dr. Gerald Schroeder.
I first learned of Dr. Schroeder's books, "Genesis and the Big Bang" and "The Science of God," twenty years ago. His teaching on time in the Bible's book of Genesis has fascinated me ever since. After creation, it wasn't just the universe that expanded -- it wasn't just space and matter that expanded -- it was also time. Einstein demonstrated that time, space, and matter are connected. We can't change one without changing the others. So when space is changed, time and matter are changed as well. This blog post will look at that teaching in depth.
According to Dr. Schroeder and the theory of the Big Bang, when the bang occurred, (and if it did occur, God was the banger), the universe was smaller than an atom. As the universe expanded, time, space, and matter expanded. Scientists claim that the universe's expansion rate, (since the time of the big bang), is a million squared. So, an inch at the big bang is now a million, million inches. What was a "second" at the big bang is now a million, million seconds. When we look back, we see billions of years, but that's because of the Universe's expansion. What I find even more fascinating is that when scientists take the universe's expansion rate and go backwards -- dividing by a million squared -- they end up with approximately six days. Just like the Bible said in the book of Genesis.
I trust the Genesis account, but as Dr. Schroeder points out, we are looking at Genesis from two different perspectives: God's perspective and man's. God looked forward from the creation event: before the universe expanded -- before time, space, and matter expanded. Man is looking back at the creation event from a vastly expanded universe -- after the expansion of time, space, and matter. It is Einstein's lightning bolts outside of a long train again. What we see depends upon our location.
The first thirty-one sentences of Genesis describe the creation with an almost detached accounting, as if the observer were outside a construction site looking in. If we could look forward from that same creation perspective, we would see the universe -- the "construction" -- expanding out, getting bigger and bigger. However, it is not just space that stretches. If we were to send out information from the beginning of time -- one bit of information followed by another bit of information a minute later -- the time between those transmissions would get stretched out too. Information that was separated by only a minute at the creation event, would be separated by millions or billions of years over time. Conversely, if we could send information back in time -- to a perspective when the universe was smaller than an atom -- the distance between that information would shrink and get closer together. If we were watching a video of the construction of a log house -- beginning when the seeds (which would provide the logs) were first planted -- until the house was complete and landscaped. And then we reversed the video -- all the way back to when the seeds were first planted that provided the logs -- it might give us a weak illustration of this concept.
We look back in time to the creation event and see billions of years. The Bible looks forward in time at the creation event and sees six days. The difference is perspective, and we are looking back from a large universe. What we see is necessarily different from what God saw -- on an almost infinite number of levels.
The Bible looks forward from the beginning, and immediately the universe is expanding. So the perspective is changing day by day. As the universe gets larger, day by day, so each day will have a different duration, and what counts is the rate of change. Every time the universe doubles in size, the time relationship halves.
So each time the universe doubles in size, the time it takes to double will change. When the universe is small, it doubles in size very rapidly, but each time the universe doubles, it takes longer to do so, and the relationship is exponential. Most of the change would take place in those first days. As you get to the higher numbered days -- fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, -- the amount of change is slower. When we look back, that million squared expansion rate that science has given us can be broken down. We can calculate the duration of each day. We can calculate when they began and when they ended. The Bible tells us what happened on each of those days, and science tells us what happened throughout time. The below chart shows how the two line up, and they are a perfect match as Dr. Schroeder demonstrates.
Each day of creation was 24 hours each, and they were from the perspective of looking forward. Since we're not God, we don't have that option. We have to look back in time. As we see in the above chart, the first day comes out to be eight billion years: The second day is four billion -- then two, one, a half, and a quarter. Right? Because the rate of change is slower, we expect each day to have less and less time. After Adam, this calendar is abandoned, and a new calendar begins. From Adam forward, time switches to human time. Throughout the rest of scripture, it sees years as we see years and not as God sees them.
(As an aside, young earth creationists have a problem with this chart because it means death existed prior to the fall. However, that Adam understood death becomes clear when we examine the names he chose for the animals. In many cases, the Hebrew meaning of the words relates to how the animals killed their prey. The disagreement in part comes from Genesis 1:29-30, "Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.' And it was so." Some deny that there were carnivores prior to the fall because of that passage in Genesis One; however, it does not state that the animals were not allowed to eat meat. If they could not, then it is difficult to explain why Adam named many of the animals on the basis of how they killed their prey. As Rich Deem writes at God and Science, "The Hebrew name for lion is derived from the Hebrew root that means 'in the sense of violence.' In addition, Adam named some of the predatory birds using a Hebrew word with the meaning 'bird of prey.' In naming the eagle, Adam used the Hebrew word whose root means to lacerate. So, scripture suggests that there was animal death before the fall of Adam and Eve." http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/millions_years.html)
The world was created in six days, and those days were not eras. They were 24 hours each, but they contained all the ages of the universe. That is what these videos are about. If this doesn't make sense yet, I hope it will after the videos.
I mention these two videos in my book, Gehenna Revisited: Rebutting Francis Chan. Since they have been so important to me, and since I have mentioned them repeatedly here, I have decided to post them again. This time, however, I am going to include the transcripts. (And, of course, my above condensed version of the theory.) I am cutting out the show's opening and closing, and the transcripts are not strictly verbatim. They would have been difficult to read if I had transcribed them word for word. People don't always talk in perfect sentences; they often interrupt themselves; begin new thoughts before finishing old ones, misspeak; and talk over each other. These foibles of speech make it difficult, if not impossible, to understand what is said in the videos at times. However, for those who don't have the time to watch the videos, I decided to make these modified transcripts available -- even if they are a little flawed. The transcripts will follow the videos as closely as I can make them and still keep them readable. Though, I admit, there were things being said that I could not make out at all, and some things were said that I understood but chose to leave out. Those things were extraneous.
Transcript for Part One minus the opening.
Zola Levitt: "... Gerald is an eminent nuclear physicist. He knows his stuff, but beyond that he knows the scriptures. He's a Bible man. He has studied cosmology, origins -- the beginning -- especially in terms of Genesis and its story of creation; and he has some very fascinating ideas. Gerald believes that the world was created in six, 24-hour days. Evening/morning -- a day. Evening/morning -- two days. Six of those for creation. He also believes that the world is 15 billion years old. And what confounds me, Gerald, is you believe that the 15 billion years we see in our fossils and so on, some say, and those six days, are the same period of time."
Schroeder: "Yes, I do, Zola. Bitter silence. Yeah, it's a hard act to follow. But, yeah, I do. And I mean six 24-hour days as measured on a watch -- not make-believe days. Real days. And I believe 15 billion years, also as measured on a watch -- if the battery would last -- both happen in the same time. The six 24-hour days -- days as we know them, and the 15 billion years -- as we know them, occur in the same time; and that's the heritage of the book of Genesis and of Albert Einstein.
And it's merely a reality seen from two different perspectives of the same reality, and that's the key to understanding the text of the Bible; that it sees the world from perspectives that are different, necessarily, than we're used to. The very idea that we have to dig deeper into the text is pretty clear. As you said, evening and morning. Each of the days goes there -- it's evening and morning, day one; evening and morning, a second day; more things happen -- we're going through the six days of Genesis -- evening and morning, a third day; and we come to the fourth day, and we discover -- the Sun. I mean..."
Zola: "It says created on the fourth day."
Schroeder: "We have the Sun appearing on the fourth day. We wonder why we have evening and morning for the first three days. The author of the Bible, I mean God, I don't think it's a mistake; or I mean... it's teaching us something. That to understand evening and morning and days -- even though the days are 24 hours each -- we have to dig deeper into the text. There's a text and a subtext, and every ancient commentary says the same thing. The six days of Genesis are 24-hour days, but they contain all the ages of the universe. Six, twenty-four hour days contain the ages of the universe. Six -- days like this -- true days, contain the billions of years, and they both happen in the same time."
Zola: "You're sort of telling me I can pour a gallon jug of milk into a thimble."
Schroeder: "Almost, almost, but not quite; but you know, you might be able to; but not milk because milk is not compressible. But you could pour a gallon jug of hydrogen gas into a thimble, couldn't you? Because you could compress the hydrogen gas into a thimble."
Zola: "Okay."
Schroeder: "And I think time is more like an expandable gas than an incompressible liquid. So had the Bible wanted to say the days were eras, not as you hear many apologists today say, "Oh, we don't really mean day, we mean era." Well, biblical Hebrew, not the Hebrew of today even, but biblical Hebrew -- when the number of words is much smaller -- there weren't borrowed words like telephone. I mean if you come to Israel, you can use the "telephone" ... if the Bible wanted to say "era" there's a word, t'kufah -- onah; mow`ed -- meaning indescribable but long periods of time. The Bible didn't have to say..."
Zola: "Like era or eon or age."
Schroeder: "Exactly. The Bible could have said, "There was the first Eon; the first t'kufah; there was the second Eon the second t'kufah." It didn't have to say evening and morning, a day..."
Zola: "And evening and morning are "erev" and "boker". That's the Hebrew, and it's commonly understood."
Schroeder: "Understood. Again, understanding, just to jump off and ... to understand the depth within the text: "erev" and "boker" -- before the sun -- raises a bit of a problem for an adult reader. Once he looks into the text."
Zola: "Evening and morning: How do they exist before the sun?"
Schroeder: "How do they exist before the sun... Performing my undergraduate work at MIT, I had lots of Chemical Engineering -- lots of thermodynamics -- and my graduate was in physics...when you look at these words, and you see the sun on day four, and evening and morning for the first three days, and the other six days as well; it can't mean evening and morning.
Let's look at the "root" of the word, in Hebrew "shoresh". The root of the word 'erev' (ayin, reish, beit) -- which is translated evening -- means "chaos", "disorder". And the root of the word "morning", "boker", (beit, kuf, reish) means orderly; able to be discerned.
Why does "evening" mean "chaos"?
Because when the sun goes down in the evening... vision becomes blurry, chaotic. That's why in Hebrew, you called "evening" -- "chaos". Literally. And "boker" -- "orderly" -- able to be discerned. Like the court -- to visit. So you have a flow here -- not from sunset to sunrise -- that's why God told us and mentioned -- even if the sun was present before -- the fact that God mentions the Sun on day four -- and not until day four -- comes to say, "Zola, Gerald, everyone, look deeper into the text." And you'll see a phenomenal thing. A flow from evening to morning. A flow from disorder to order. Higher and higher and higher levels of order.
So the six days of Genesis, we start off. (Note: see the illustration at the 7:11 minute mark in the video.) The world was unformed and void, right? The second verse of the Bible... "tohu va vohu" -- the earth was unformed and void -- a chaos. And you end up six days later with the symphony of life -- humanity. And the Bible wants you to be amazed by this.
And it tells you this: there was evening and there was -- no. There was disorder and there was order. Higher and higher levels of order, and we have to be amazed by this -- that the laws of nature could take a chaos -- a "tohu va vohu" -- an unformed earth -- and end up with trees, beauty, humans; and it flows to higher and higher levels of order. And anyone that studies either statistics or thermodynamics knows that order can never arise from disorder by random processes. It cannot happen. Statistically, the flow is always to greater levels of disorder."
Zola: "Oh, you just have to study the top of my desk." (Both men get a good laugh out of that. As did I.) All right. I remember you saying this in Jerusalem, that it implies a director, a leader, to cause order to rise from chaos."
Schroeder: "Something is built into the system. When God creates the universe, it isn't just time, space, and matter that's created. There's time, space, matter, and the laws of nature. These phenomenal, God-given gifts to the world that write us into the universe. The most secular of scientists whom I know when they study the conditions of the universe back here, in relationship to the laws of nature, say it's clear to them the universe knew we were coming."
Zola: "Oh, that's fascinating."
Schroeder: "We are written into the universe."
Zola: "The universe was created to support life. To make life anticipatory."
Schroeder: "Yeah. Which is a fairly difficult statement for an atheist -- or let's say an agnostic. I don't like to say a person's an atheist. Agnostics are searching."
Zola: "But those scientists say that, even though they're not believers, they concede that the universe was created to make life and to sustain it."
Schroeder: "Tuned for it... I can tell you, we're in Dallas, in Austin, Texas; Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize winner, writes in "Scientific American" in October 1994; "Scientific American" is the most widely read science journal in the world. This is a person who, in his own writing, says he feels that the Bible is a myth. His words are, "the universe is incredibly finely-tuned for life."
Zola: "Now back to your 15 billion years and six days, you have them on the same line there." (Note, see image at 9:53.)
Schroeder: "Yeah, because... like the idea of the evening and the morning... we have to understand even "day." Let's get into some deeper meanings -- like we got into the deeper meanings of evening and morning. Maybe there's something in the word "day" that perhaps Einstein can give us a bit of a clue about. How six 24-hour days can contain all the ages of the universe. There's a hint to this in Psalms, remember Psalm 90:4? "A thousand years in your sight are like a day that passes."
Zola: "That's repeated in the New Testament. In 2Peter 3:8, "...one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day."
Schroeder: "Okay. The same. Well, what are we learning here? We're learning that maybe there are different perspectives. When the Bible looks at time, perhaps it's a day; perhaps it's a watch in the night. But we would look in time and see a thousand years or a millennia. Who knows? Billions of years; and that's really what we're trying to understand... how six 24-hour days can contain all the ages of the Universe.
So there are a few clues to this, inside the text, even in the five books of Moses. Okay, these books, the five books of Moses, especially Genesis, are all mankind's heritage. And it's the heritage for the Western world. They've changed the world. And first thing I notice is that when I'm looking at the description of time, as we move along the timeline, there's a break at Adam and Eve. Okay? And that break is as follows: the description of time for the six days is quite bizarre. It says, as we were saying before, there was evening and morning, a day; other things happening -- evening and morning, a second day. In other words, there was evening and morning.
But from Adam forward -- that description -- that rather almost abstract description -- like you're looking in from the outside -- there was evening and morning; there was evening and morning; that is never repeated in the entire Hebrew Bible for the rest of the text. It's Adam and Eve lived 130 years; they're the parents of Seth. Seth lives 105 years. He's the father of Enosh. And so on. From Adam forward, the passage of human life drags on time. From Adam forward, time is human time. Because with Adam and Eve the soul of human life is created and implanted on the earth. The "neshamah", the Hebrew word for the soul of human life, the "neshamah" appears, and the biblical time becomes linked with human time. Before the "neshamah", before the soul of human life, the Bible can see the world from anywhere, and that's really the key, isn't it? The Bible can see the world from anywhere."
Zola: "...I hope Gerald is stretching your minds. He certainly stretched my mind when he was in Jerusalem... He wrote Genesis and the Big Bang and The Science of God, and they are fascinating... a terrific read, Gerald... and the thing I discovered was that you really can show from the theory of relativity that the 15 billion years and the six days really are the same thing."
Schroeder: "It's phenomenal, Zola, and what's exciting is the numbers are not my numbers. The numbers are numbers that appear in every physics textbook. These books have undergone peer review by scientists. The science that is in them is true. The numbers that we're about to talk about are numbers that appear in physics laboratories around the world -- and reviewed journals around the world. And let's get to this ... chart. I mentioned it a moment ago. Can I explain a bit of it?"
Zola: "Please."
Schroeder: "Okay, what's here is essentially a timeline, and it shows the beginning of the universe -- the Big Bang..."
Zola: "Okay. Again, in the beginning everything was in a small pea, and it blew up."
Schroeder: "Creation. Which is important in itself... that science has come to accept the fact there was a creation. I mean, Zola, we have to all remember that just 40 years ago, most scientists said, "Beginning? There was no beginning." ... It's amazing. Science has come to confirm the first word of the Bible. There was a creation. The "in the beginning" is now scientific fact. The Big Bang. (Again, see illustration. We're now at the 15:10 minute mark.)
And then the timeline runs -- comes here through six days to Adam and Eve -- and continues -- and comes to a number somewhat less than six thousand years. This number appears often, but it's a question. We use this number as a working number -- somewhat less than six thousand years."
Zola: "It's the Jewish year."
Schroeder: "It's the Jewish year. This year. Taken by adding up the generations. So we have this flow of time, and we have six days here ... these days are separate because they're described separately. Right? ...Moses breaks it in. If anyone looks into Deuteronomy 32:7, we see that Moses says, "consider the days of old, the years of the many generations." So Moses himself says..., "Shape up folks if you want to see God in the world."
Schroeder touches the illustration of the 15 billion years and the six days occurring on the same timeline (at the 15:55 minute mark), and says, "If this doesn't blow you away with this phenomenal science of the six days, then watch the social history. But the six days of Genesis -- consider the days of old -- the years of the generations from Adam forward. We're dealing with six days, and the question is, "how can six days contain all the ages of the universe?"
He points to the lower half of the illustration. "Because down here is a timeline that's not biblical. Its scientific. It starts off about fifteen billion years ago with the creation. Then the beginning of time... time separates out. The physics says exactly the same thing today. It's beautiful. I mean, it gives you chills sometimes how science has come to match the Bible. The Bible doesn't change. Science makes -- not gigantic changes -- but little. It's like pouring water in a funnel. It's not that science is jumping all over. It has started out with a big picture, and it's focusing in. And do you know what it's focusing in on? Genesis. That's what it's focusing in on.
We have here now a timeline: The beginning -- it runs for 15 billion years -- and it comes to today. The key is -- as you mentioned -- when the universe first began... The universe is a tiny speck -- the entire universe."
Zola: "God was there."
Schroeder: "Everything was. God is here now also, but the entire universe. It wasn't a speck in a vacuum -- the vacuum of space. The entire universe -- everything was inside. It was energy, and this energy expands out, changes into matter, and the universe expands to a huge size today.
Now, look what this has to do with the phenomena of time. It turns out, (we can't draw this to scale obviously), that this circle (see illustration again 17:37) this is the universe today. And this dot is the beginning, if I take the numbers that are listed in every major physics textbook. For example, "The Big Bang" by Joseph Silk, published by W.H. Freeman -- one hundred percent secular science -- we learn today that the universe is a million million times. It's called the scale of the universe. The size, the scale, is the jargon -- is a million million times larger today than it was then."
Zola: "One million squared."
Schroeder: "Now what does this mean? A million million. A million squared? It means that the space of the universe has been stretching and stretching and stretching and stretching, and look what this would do to a piece of information. Supposing we're back here when the universe is small. Okay. And we have a consciousness back here, God, giving us the information in the Bible. Not out here at Sinai, but being formed back here at the beginning. Okay. And we're told -- let's take an example -- that God has a laser -- a pulse of light. Boop. And God sends out a pulse of light. Now light travels at 186,000 miles a second...
I mean, 186,000 miles a second. And the first pulse of light goes out, and on that light is imprinted (a message), "I'm sending you a pulse of light every second." Just a slice of light that's going to travel through space, and imprinted on that light is, "I'm sending you a pulse every second." A second later, another pulse goes out -- then another pulse -- but those pulses are separated by 186,000 miles, right? Because that's how far it would travel in a second. ...And now they're going to travel for millions and billions of years until they reach us here in Dallas on a big dish antenna.
And we're searching space, and bingo, they arrive. The first pulse arrives, and written on it is, "I'm sending a pulse every second." But look at what has happened in the past. The pulses left -- one - one -- I'm just going to do two pulses. Now they are going to travel for billions of years. But Zola, while they're traveling, what's happening to the universe? Is it getting larger?"
Zola: "Yeah, it's expanding."
Schroeder: "It's expanding. Space is stretching. So as these pulses travel through space, what's happening?"
Zola: "They get further and further apart."
Schroeder: "They get further and further and further apart. And bingo, the first sliver arrives. And we get it on a big dish antenna. And you call all your friends, "Come on! Let's watch this!" ... and the next second, and you turn up the gain, the amplification; the second goes by, and nothing comes to pass; a year goes by, and you're getting grayer. Where's the second pulse? Well, was it a lie back here? Was it sent out a second apart? Yes, it was a second, but by the time that information reaches us here, it's so stretched out that it could be a year apart, a million years, or a billion years -- depending upon the amount of stretching. And which would be true? Is it true that the pulses were sent out one second apart? Is it true that we received them a year apart? Yeah."
Zola: "It depends where you are."
Schroeder: "It depends upon your perspective of time. The Bible says, "and there was evening and there was morning, day one; and there was evening and morning, a second day, a third day, a fourth day." So the commentaries asked why does the Bible say there was evening and morning, day one? That's Genesis 1:5. Why didn't the Bible say there is evening and morning, a first day? The Hebrew is explicit, "yom echad." Day one. It does not say, "yom rishon." I'm sure you have many in your audience who know Hebrew. It says, "yom echad," day one. The second one says, "yom sheni," a second day; "yom shlishi," a third day, a fourth day, a fifth day, a sixth day. But the first one says day one. Why does the Bible say "day one?"
We're told -- two thousand years ago -- that the Bible says, "day one," to teach us two things: one is that "one" -- the word one -- is absolute. The word "first" is comparative. The fact that the Bible tells us "day one" tells us, first of all, that, at this time, there was no time with which to compare it."
Zola: "It's the beginning."
Schroeder: "It's the beginning, and that the Bible is seeing time from the beginning. That's why it has to say, "day one." The Bible looks forward in time and sees the universe from our perspective squeezed back down to its perspective."
Zola: "Gerald, let me recap as I understand it, and, of course I've had the advantage of hearing you say this before on our upcoming shot and also at lunch; but let me say it my way. Okay, the 15 billion years and the six days are the same thing, but they're looked at from different points. If I'm standing back where the Big Bang occurred, from right where the little dot is, (on Schroeder's illustration) I look out there, and I only see six days of creation.
But standing out here on the earth -- at this time -- looking back at the history; because the light coming in from those distant, expanded stars have so stretched out, I see 15 billion years of history. And it really is 15 billion years of history, and it really is six days. It depends where you stand.
It's like if I come into a class in geometry, and the teacher draws a square on the blackboard, and I happen to be in the center of the front row. I look at it, and it's a square. I've come to class the next day, and I'm seated way over to the side of the room. Now if I look at that blackboard, that square has turned into a rectangle from where I'm at. If I back up far enough, the square is just a dot. I don't see it as a figure at all. It depends. In that case, space dilates according to my perspective. Well time simply does the same thing."
Schroeder: "Isn't that phenomenal? That's Einstein's discovery -- that time does the same thing as space."
Zola: "Well Gerald, it's not just phenomenal, it has relaxed my thinking... I had trouble with fossils, with history, with geology and so forth. But this takes it all in for me. It was six days, and it was 15 billion years."
Schroeder: "And it's scientifically correct. I make that very clear. It's scientifically correct. I can give you a quote... just let me..."
Zola: "Yes. Quote from The Science of God."
Schroeder: "I mean, what's extraordinary here is that -- this is a quote from Peebles' book, The Principles of Physical Cosmology. This is a book in graduate school cosmology used around the world. It's certainly one of the two or three, maybe the best book, on cosmology -- graduate level -- the cosmology science of the universe. The Principles of Physical Cosmology, and he uses the term "the redshift." The redshift is this stretching of space. Okay. So that's what you remember. I want to quote directly. That's what it means. 'The standard interpretation of the redshift as an effect of the expansion of the universe predicts that the same redshift factor (the same stretching factor) applies to the observed rates of occurrence of distant events.'
That's exactly what you just said in English -- as opposed to..."
Zola: "Cosmology gibberish."
Schroeder: "Yeah. That the same exact number -- and what's so phenomenal, Zola, is I didn't pick out the number. That's the principle. So I said, "that's interesting. Let's see what the number is." I went to probably a dozen textbooks -- written by people who have no vested interest in the Bible -- my friend -- none whatsoever. And the same number appears again and again. (He points to the illustration again - 25:37 mark.) If you want to take this as a grouping -- at a later time I hope we can talk about each day -- but take this as a grouping. The ratio, the difference in the expansion rate, which is the rate of observed events -- is a million times a million. A million squared. That's a one with 12 zeros after it. Any one of your viewers -- on the back of an envelope -- can make that calculation."
Zola: "Now, okay, let me tell you how I made it. I'm gonna have to close, Gerald. Thanks so much for being with us, and we will make another program on that chart of the individual days.
Listen, do this on your calculator. It's quite simple. Put 15 billion years -- or take off some zeros if your calculator won't hold all that -- and equal it out with the other numbers. But, anyway, you're going to divide 15 billion by 1 million squared -- the one with the 12 zeroes. You'll get .015 of a year. Now you multiply that .015 by 365 days in a year, and you will get approximately 6 days.
(Divide 15,000,000,000 by 1,000,000,000,000 equals .015 multiplied by 365 days in a year equals approximately 6 days.)
(By the way, even though I am not including them, for my own calculations, I multiplied .015 by 365.25.)
It's just that (easy). Anybody can do it. You can do it with a pencil. I mean -- in a minute -- you don't have to be a physicist."
Schroeder: "Absolutely."
End of my transcript for part one.
Since doing these videos, Dr. Schroeder has tweaked his theory to adjust for what effect "the increase in the rate of universal expansion has on the current cosmic microwave radiation background." You can find those adjustments in the last paragraph at this webpage. http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx. Also, estimates of the age of the universe now place it at approximately 14 billion years old. Even at the younger estimate, we are still looking at 5 full days and part of a 6th when we adjust the above calculations.
Here is the second video with an approximate transcript. Once again, I have cut off the beginning and end credits.
Transcript for Part Two:
Zola: "If you tuned in last week, your head is probably still swimming because professor Gerald Schroeder held forth with his fascinating theories of cosmology and the Bible. Gerald is the author of the book Genesis and the Big Bang... and The Science of God... they're fine, wonderful, and a fascinating theory -- which he is going to explain with charts...
Review again your theory that the six days of Genesis and the 15 billion years of history -- that some say we see on earth -- are the same thing."
Schroeder: "Yeah, well, I'd like to take credit for the theory, but I have a feeling that it is really physics that has taught this to the world. Essentially, the two main factors are: the six days of Genesis -- that start with the creation of the universe and end with Adam -- are seen from the biblical perspective of looking from the creation forward. (See the illustration at 2 minute mark.) Remember? The Bible taught us that by saying there was evening and there was morning, day one.
Day one -- being from the beginning.
We look back in time and see billions of years. The Bible looks forward in time and sees six days. But, the difference in this perspective, Zola, is that we're looking back from a large universe.
(He points to the illustration from video one again, using it as a model of the universe.) ... The Bible -- in Genesis chapter 1, the first 31 sentences of Genesis -- looks forward from the beginning:
(From the fact that the Bible is telling us there was evening and morning, day one. Day One is the beginning of time. It is not the "first day". It is Day One as was covered in the last video).
Schroeder: "...So we look forward. The universe expands out, and as the universe expands out in dimension, it gets larger and larger. This stretching of space does more than just stretch space. As we noticed, it stretches any information that is traveling in the space. So information that is put forward here as seconds (at the beginning of creation) would be seen possibly as millions of years. Alternatively, if you were looking at events that take place today, with our huge universe, and sending them back in time -- back, back, back in time to a perspective when the universe was tiny -- that shrinking -- that mental trip backward -- shrinking the space more and more -- would do exactly the same thing to the passage of time. (It would shrink time.)
And that was the quote I mentioned last week from a textbook of supreme authority, The Principles of Physical Cosmology, Princeton University Press. I mean, you can't get a print imprint better than that as far as physics goes. That the exact same relationship between the stretching of space -- or going back, the shrinking of space -- relates also to the rate at which you have observed times. So a minute at the beginning of time would be a million squared now -- a million million minutes. Six days from the beginning of time would be 6 million million days now. And I think, wasn't it last week you asked the people on the calculator to just...
Zola: "Yeah. I can tell you how to calculate this. It boils down to simple arithmetic. Just take a calculator. Put on there 15 billion years, which is the history of the world as seen with fossils and geology and so on; put 15 billion. Divide that by the factor at which time has dilated -- a million squared. That is a one followed by 12 zeroes. You may have to cancel some zeroes to get this on your calculator. But anyway, you're dividing 15 billion by 1 million squared. You will get 0.015 -- one and a half percent of a year. And you multiply that times 365 days. You'll find that's about 6 days."
(Divide 15,000,000,000 by 1,000,000,000,000 equals .015 multiplied by 365 days in a year equals approximately 6 days.)
Schroeder: "Yeah, it's amazing. I always say this is quite a good guess for a book that is 3,000 years old. You know, I mean, but I guess it wasn't a guess."
Zola: "I just love it. I think it's wonderful. I've, you know, the six days and the fossil history and everything that goes into them. Then it looks -- like I said in one of my books -- the Bible has seemed to learn a lot lately. Oh, as prophecy happens, that was my point. In that way. The Bible seemed to learn that the Jews were going to come back to Israel. The Bible has seemed to learn they are going to have trouble. That, and by gosh, now it seems to learn that there was room enough in those six days for all that creation to happen."
Schroeder: "Sounds like the Bible is getting smarter all the times; or maybe it's that we're finally starting to understand the Bible. That might be closer. So the key is looking forward in time from the perspective of the book of Genesis or looking back in time from 1999, (when the video was recorded), and we only have our perspective. We have to look back in time, and that of course is the entire key to the whole phenomena."
(Schroeder now switches to the new chart at the 5:55 minute mark. This is a version of the chart used in the video. It is not an exact match:)
Schroeder: "The Bible is looking forward in time. We look back in time."
Zola: (Looking at the chart at the 6:15 mark) -- "So we have Bible looking forward -- an arrow going that way, and science looking backward from where we are."
Schroeder: "And so what we have on this chart now is the six days of Genesis ending at a time when Adam -- first of the humans -- gets the soul of human life. The Hebrew word is "neshamah" -- the soul of human life. And the blue line here, (at 6:17), this double line that's written right here, indicates the end of a calendar -- of a biblical calendar -- and the beginning of an earth-based calendar. A calendar in the Bible -- from Adam forward -- that sees years as we see years now. The moment the soul of human life -- the "neshamah" -- is implanted on the earth, the Bible abandons its view of looking forward, and adopts a human view; because now humans are in junction with God to perfect the world. I mean, Adam knows God. So the two become similar.
One thing I have to emphasize over and over, these biblical days are not eras. They are 24 hours each. (He points at each of the six days of creation.) Ditto, ditto, ditto -- all the way down. The idea that people say, "Well the days are eras," is a 20th century phenomena trying to apologize for a misunderstanding. There is no ancient commentary that says anything other than -- every ancient commentary says the following: The days of Genesis are 24 hours each by a clock -- as we said last week -- but they contain all the ages of the universe. And Albert Einstein taught us the reality of these two differing views of the universe. Phenomenal insight. And once we get into that flow then the question is, 'What is the duration of each day?'
When we look back, that million million -- it refers to taking this whole together. But we don't have to settle for an average; because now, and what's so great, Zola, being here (alive) today. Only in about the last ten years can we now know the universe so well that we can calculate the duration of each day. The Bible looks forward from the beginning, but immediately the universe is expanding. So the perspective is changing day by day. As the universe gets larger, day by day, so each day will have a different duration and what counts is -- I won't go into the quote that we talked about last week -- but the idea of looking forward versus backward -- this rate of change... Every time the universe doubles in size, the time relationship halves.
So if you double, double, double, double -- it's going 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16. But when you think about what this means, when the universe is small, its doubling in size very rapidly -- because it only has to move out a small amount. By the time the universe is big -- I mean, if it takes an hour to go from here to here -- it's twice as big. Now it's going to take 2 hours, then 4 hours, 8 hours. Two, four, eight, sixteen. Anyone that has any knowledge of mathematics, will know that that's exponential. And so beautiful. It's just so exquisite. The exponential relationship is the most common relationship that exists in the universe. We find it in the shape of the Nautilus seashell (shows images beginning at 9:16 mark) one that I have from Cape Town, current. An ammonite -- 270 million years ago -- somewhere on day five. The seeds on a sunflower. The stars in a galaxy."
Zola: "All with the same curve."
Schroeder: "From galaxies to sunflowers, Zola, the most common relationship in the universe is the exponential spin, and what we're seeing here -- what it means by exponential is that each swirl is a given factor -- like twice as big or three times -- it depends on what the factor is. But a given factor bigger than -- if you're going out -- than the previous swirl. Or smaller than -- if you're going in. And when we apply this to the universe, in linear time, that is, if we unroll that spiral and look at how it would look; we would see a curve going like that (he gestures at the 10:07 mark, moving his hands apart and arching outward.)
Where most of the change would take place -- would be in the first days -- and as you get closer and closer to the higher numbered days -- four, five, six, -- the amount of change is slower. (I rephrased that part, and some other parts, to make them clearer.)
Because the universe is bigger. It takes more time to double. And these are the numbers. (He points to the chart of days.) Zola, when I first did this calculation -- you know, we talk about it now, but when I was struggling with it -- and after two years of trying to understand this, the numbers came out. I ran to my wife, I said, "Barbara...you can't believe it. The numbers are phenomenal... (points to the chart at 10:52).
...And this is what it comes out to. Each day, 24 hours each from the perspective of looking forward -- but we don't have that option -- we're not God. We look back in time. The first day comes out to be eight billion years. The second day four billion -- then two, one, a half, a quarter. Right? Because the rate of change is slower. So we expect each day to have less and less time. And then this calendar is abandoned, and a new calendar began. If we maintained this calendar, we would see that we were today in the late, late, late afternoon of the sixth day. Interesting. The Sabbath is about to occur.
(Note: I talked about that in my last blog post.)
Schroeder: "I'm not saying we can predict it. I'm not going to get into that discussion, but it is interesting."
Zola: "That is fascinating. It certainly is. Okay, and you have gone on... and your chart not only has the timings but then you have what the Bible says happened on each day and what science also says happened on each day...anyway...this is fascinating, Gerald. Now you showed us the 24-hour days... the first was 8 billion years; the second was 4 billion, and so on. Now let's go back to your chart. We can learn when each day started, right?"
Schroeder: "Yeah, once we know how long each day lasted, we can start adding back to see when the days began. That's really powerful. Because now we'll be able to see what the Bible said happened in this particular time: namely day 1, 2, 3, 4 -- and what science says. Because now we have the correlation. So, if day 6 lasted a quarter of a billion years, that means it started about a quarter of a billion years ago -- if we neglect the 6,000 years -- it's a small difference. If day 5 lasted a half a billion years, then we have to add this (day six - a 1/4 billion years) and this (day 5 - a 1/2 billion years), and we find that day 5 began 3/4 of billion years ago. (And so on.) Day 4 began 1 and 3/4 billion years ago. Day 3 began 3 and 3/4 billion years ago; day 2 began 7 and 3/4 billion years ago; and day 1 began 15 and 3/4 billion years ago. You know, that just happens to be the guess coming out of..."
Zola: "That squares with cosmology."
Schroeder: "Yeah. Isn't that amazing? The Bible gets smarter and smarter. It's just amazing. So now that we know the periods of the days -- we know the beginning of the day and the end of the day -- down through each day. We can see how science squares up with the Bible. The Bible is fixed. It can't change. Let's just see what science has to say.
So the Torah, the Bible, in Genesis chapter 1 says, in the beginning. Well, that had the scientists rolling in the aisles for about two thousand years. Aristotle and Plato said, "Beginning? Come on, there's no beginning. The universe is eternal." And in 1959, a survey showed -- published in "Scientific American" -- two thirds of the scientists surveyed, when asked the age of the universe; said, "Beginning? The universe is eternal." Not any longer, Zola. The Big Bang is essentially accepted. We had a beginning. The universe had a beginning. Science has come to confirm the first word of the Bible. There was a creation. Score one for the Bible."
Zola: "Okay."
Schroeder: "A few other things; we'll just go through the key events. But moving straight ahead, we have a beginning. We actually have light separating from darkness. It says here that God says, "let there be light... God said it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness." Why you'd have to have light dividing from darkness confused people for ever. It doesn't make sense. You have light. You have darkness. Now we know it makes a lot of sense because when the universe was young -- just in this period, right? Shortly after the beginning. It was so hot that in fact light and dark were actually mixed together in what's called a plasma -- when information is just all squeezed together. And as the universe expanded, and the heat that was held in here became more and more dilute -- because the universe is getting bigger, it was getting cooler. The same amount of heat in this volume keeps a lower temperature (in a greater volume). Finally the plasma cooled and what happens in technical terms is electrons bound around protons -- atoms formed in other words -- and light broke free. Literally. Light separated from darkness. So two key statements that are mentioned -- the key events of day one -- are matched exactly, in this time frame, by science. It's phenomenal."
Zola: "Okay."
Schroeder: "We just take it for granted, but it's just mind-boggling."
Zola: "Okay."
Schroeder: "So day two says, "let there be a firmament... and divide the waters from the waters and let there be the firmament of the heavens." Well, when we look up in the sky -- the firmament of the heavens -- that's the globe of stars you see on these wonderfully black desert nights. Come to the Negev sometime -- or outside Jerusalem -- no wonder Moses found it so magnificent. It's just magnificent. And you see this canopy of stars. All those stars are in the disk of the Milky Way. And the Bible says this "raqiya shamayim" -- this firmament of heavens -- forms somewhere in here -- between seven and three-quarter billion years ago and the end of that day. And, by golly, the age of the disk of the Milky Way -- it's a hard number to pin down -- but the number that appears most often? Well, what would you guess? I'll give you a hint. It's on the board -- 7 and 3/4 billion years ago, the disk of the Milky Way forms."
Zola: "I see. So, they're the heavens, the firmament."
Schroeder: "The firmament. The sun actually forms here (points to day two -- at 17:28 mark), but it becomes visible here (points to day 4). Our sun is 4.6 billion years old. It's a main sequence star. Bingo. Right in the middle of day 2. Point after point. The Milky Way -- the Sun -- one after the other. Matches.
Day number three really goes out on a limb. For day number three, the Bible says, "let there be water." The oceans form. "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered to one place and let the dry land appear." It's Genesis 1:9. So we have the oceans in the world -- we have dry land and water. It's the first time, we're told by the ancient commentaries, that the Hebrew word "mayim" -- which appears -- waters -- means now -- water, liquid water, on the earth."
Zola: "Okay."
Schroeder: "My doctorate at MIT is in two fields: oceanography and nuclear physics. It's a two field doctorate. There's only one doctorate but it's two fields. So when I got this number, I mean, the age of water on the earth I happen to know like I know my address -- which I sometimes forget -- and 3 and 3/4 billion years ago is an exact match. Check one for the Bible.
And the first life -- this is mind-boggling for science and biology because it had always been assumed that water forms in the earth and then billions of years would go by to life forms somewhere down here billions and billions of years later. (Points to day 5 on the chart.) In fact, Nobel Prize winners waxed poetic. I mean... just read some of these statements that go back maybe 25 - 30 years about how (it took) billions of years of random reactions to form life and the soup that Darwin always talked about. Not any longer."
Zola: "No."
Schroeder: "Liquid water forms on earth and life forms on earth, and they both form in the day three period. Life -- the fossils of life -- the oldest fossils of life -- not large fossils like these; but algae, bacteria, the first earliest plant life -- goes back three point six to three point eight billion years. An exact match with what the Bible says on day three: Let the waters appear; and the earth bring forth plant life (Genesis 1:11). It's an exact match. It's just extraordinary.
We'll move on. That was day three. Day four says that God creates -- and by the way, on Day three, the word 'creation' doesn't appear. It's quite extraordinary. You think, well when does God create life? It's the wrong phraseology. The Bible is very careful when it uses the word 'create.' The Bible says there's a creation back here, (Genesis 1:1), and that brings into the universe time, space, and matter and the laws of nature. And every colleague I have -- secular -- religious -- doesn't matter what -- sees these laws of nature as if we are written into the universe from the beginning; and hence, when life appears on day three, it just says God said, "let the earth bring forth life." The earth is tuned for life -- not human life -- not animal life -- but plant life. You don't need a special creation for it, or the word creation would appear on day three. It's a hard thing to internalize... but we should give God credit for... it's a designer universe."
Zola: "And so it generates life."
Schroeder: "Yeah. Life -- as far as the first formed -- the more primitive forms of life -- they are built into the system from the beginning. It's a phenomenal thing that the word creation does not appear on day three when life appears. The earth brings forth life, and I'm sure we will find eventually -- we'll discover things call catalysts -- which speed reactions -- which allowed life to start immediately. What luck those catalysts were there all along, you know. But we'll never say, "Well, gee, how did those catalysts get there?" Who put the the catalysts there? Who put these forces present to force life to come into being?
Nonetheless, water and life start immediately. It's a mind-boggling revolution in biology because go back 20 years ago, read the literature -- billions of years passed between water and life. No. Not even hundreds of millions of years. The fossils of life coincide almost at the same time with the origin of water on the earth.
Now we go further. We come to day four, and we're told that God makes the Sun. The word creation does not appear on day four. God makes the Sun and the moon. Now, the difficulty in ancient -- in ancient Hebrew commentary at least -- the Talmud for example and the Kabbalah -- it's not clear because there are different opinions. The Talmud says the Sun appears back here (points to day one) but becomes visible here (points to day four). Now if I was reading this in your Bible -- which translation is this?"
Zola: "This is the King James, the Scofield Bible."
Schroeder: "And so it's a new translation. It says on..."
Zola: "On day four."
Schroeder: "It's a subtitle. I was reading it just before we went on. It was on..."
Zola: "This is verse 4. God saw the light."
Schroeder: "That's the first day. Let's get over here to day four, and on day four it says here that the sun and the moon and the stars become visible."
Zola: "Uh-huh."
Schroeder: "Become visible. Okay, because this is taking in some modern understanding."
Zola: "Oh yes. It becomes visible."
Schroeder: "It becomes visible -- even though the text actually says God makes them. Because what happens here is that the atmosphere changed from being translucent back here (points to day three) -- the earth was still warm -- to transparent here (points to day four) and that's exactly what happened as the atmosphere clarifies; oxygen goes up..."
Zola: "Then you can see the heavenly bodies."
Schroeder: "Exactly."
Zola: "And that's why when the verse goes on it says, "And let them be for signs and for seasons. Well then you couldn't have used them for signs and for seasons during the translucent because it would always just look smudgy, but now that you could see the sun rise and fall -- so-called -- and the moon -- you could use them that way."
Schroeder: "It's extraordinary... on day number five, the Bible goes out on a great limb, as if the author was sure of knowing the truth. So day number five, which starts at about verse 20, says, "...let the waters swarm abundantly with teems of moving creatures." So the Bible says three things here: this is the first mention of animal life. Okay, and there's a creation -- the "nephesh" -- the soul of animal life. The Bible says in verse 20 that the waters -- aquatic life -- swarm. It's an explosion of life. With teems of animal life. It's the first animal, so on day five the Bible claims at least three things happen: First there is animal life, it is in the waters, and it's and explosion of life."
At the 24:13 minute mark, Schroeder quotes from "Scientific American, November 1992, "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution". He reads, 'About 600 million years ago' then stops -- oh! dear, right in day 5 -- 600 million years ago... it falls right here. (He points to the center of day five on the chart). He continues reading the article, 'An explosion of life brought into being' -- simultaneously -- 'brought into being the basic body plans of all modern multi-cellular animals.'
Hear what they are saying? An explosion of life about 600 million years ago. (He points to what the Bible says about day 5 on the chart). Simultaneously, every body plan that exists today. That wasn't the way I learned it in school. And that's "Scientific American." I learned it in school very differently -- that things gradually changed slowly. But instead, the Bible tells us that it's aquatic -- every one of those body plans was in the waters; it's an explosion of life; and it was sudden; and it happens exactly here (points to the dividing line between day 5 and day 6 at the 25.10 mark). So it matches exactly between day 5 and day 6. About 250 million years ago -- a quarter of a billion years ago -- there's a decimation -- 90% of all animal life disappear in the fossil record, and land animals repopulate the land.
The Bible, on day six, says land animals come; then comes mammals; and then comes humans. The fossil record says exactly the same thing. First comes land animals, then mammals, and then humans. In a few minutes, we're able to squeeze together, in 31 sentences (all this)! Remember, we have 50,000 books at MIT describing these things. And the Bible, in 31 sentences, brings it together.
...science and the Bible have been fighting for too many years. It's destructive to science; its destructive to Bible; and it's destructive to society."
End of my transcript for video two.
There are many things that I disagree with Dr. Schroeder about. He is not a Christian. I am. He does not believe the flood of Genesis was a global event. I do. Also, Schroeder is given to mysticism, and I believe the Bible strictly warns us against that. He relies on extra-biblical writings like the Kabbalah or Talmud. Those are man-made traditions and philosophies. Jesus warned us about man-made traditions over and over. If anything detracts from, contradicts, adds to, replaces or elevates itself above scripture, it is deception. Everything must be measured against the truth of the Holy Bible. It alone is God's Word. Not man-made philosophies. Jesus made that very clear, and He rose from the dead validating His teachings as true. I find some of Schroeder's philosophical ideas to be akin to New Age teachings and Wicca. He denies his ideas are New Age, but Jesus saved me out of the New Age. Schroeder's ideas are very welcomed in those circles. I agree with his teaching on the six days of creation, and some of his scientific observations, and, like him, I do believe that the six days of creation were literal, 24-hour days, and they contain all the ages of the universe.
Since this post deals with origins, I have decided to add this video from Dr. James Tour. The Origin of Life Has not Been Explained.
Here are two more videos. They are by Dr. Hugh Ross and also deal with creation and cosmology. Dr. Ross is an old-earth creationist and a Christian. He believes the six days of creation were eras; however, like Dr. Schroeder, I do not believe the days were eras. There is a lot to learn from Dr. Ross, and his teaching has some crossover with Dr. Schroeder's. Dr. Schroeder can be difficult to follow at time, but Dr. Ross is very easy to follow. In terms of beliefs about God and scripture, I don't always agree with Dr. Ross. In fact, there is only one source that I agree with 100% of the time, and that is scripture. But I am not infallible. No one is. I have said that many times here. I'm sure I misunderstand things in scripture at times, but I believe it was inspired by God Himself. I don't believe anything else was. I am an unapologetic Christian and a firm believer in God's Word. It is compromising the truth of God's Word that has gotten the West into the mess it's in now.
