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.
I hope you enjoy all of these videos.
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