THE GENESIS 1 PREMISE

I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

— Isaac Newton, English physicist and mathematician, 1642–1726

Part 1

What Is Genesis 1?

When people read the Bible, they typically begin with the first chapter from the book of Genesis; making its thirty-one verses the most read words in the history of all literature. The Bible (Greek for "the books") is a collection of the primary religious texts that comprise the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible and the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible. The ancient Hebrew Old Testament texts are known as the Torah, and the first five books of the Torah are referred to as the Pentateuch. Traditional religious belief teaches that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. According to the Bible, Moses was a Hebrew child who was raised by the Pharaohs daughter as an Egyptian prince, and later became a Hebrew religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet. However, most modern biblical scholars doubt that he authored Genesis 1. Instead, they suspect that a group of Hebrew authors wrote the Pentateuch while they were in Babylonian captivity around 600 BC, and completed it by the start of the Persian Period around 400 BC.

The first book in the Bible is the Book of Genesis (Greek for "origins") and this book is the first component for the canonical scriptures of both Christianity and Judaism. The first chapter in the book of Genesis (Genesis 1) is the story of our origins — an ancient creation account of the earth, plants, animals, and humans. This story is told in thirty-one concise verses in what is known as the "creation story."

Part 2

The Premise

An unknown scribe, whom I refer to as the author, wrote the thirty-one verses of Genesis 1 over 2,500 years ago. In the following chapters of this book, I will reveal an ancient message that he embedded in these verses and which has been passed down to us to today. The significance of this message is so powerful that it will unquestionably challenge many of the modern theories of science, as well as long-held beliefs of many religious traditions. It answers two of the most fundamental questions people have ever asked. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Unbelievably, the author provided an elegantly scientific and chronologically accurate answer, but the underlying significance of this message has been lost in translation with the many biblical versions and translations that followed.

For the first time in history, and as impossible as it may seem, my investigation will offer compelling scientific evidence that the Genesis 1 author accurately summarized both the geology of the earth and the evolution of plants, animals and humans in thirty-one brief, precise verses. However, critical misinterpretations of his words have resulted in what many consider to be apparent inconsistencies of the creation events contrasted to current scientific knowledge of the earth's beginnings. This disparity has resulted in one of the root sources for the contentious divide between religion and science. It is this gulf that has caused the adversarial and conflicting positions that divide these two very influential groups.

Much of our scientific knowledge for the formation of the universe and the earth has been acquired only in recent times. Previous generations did not have this information, making it impossible to validate the scientific accuracy of the Genesis 1 verses until now. The science and precise chronology the author presented 2,500 hundred years ago can now be correlated to Earth's geology, the fossil record, and the numerous, archeological and historical discoveries. For the first time, this information will reconstruct an accurate scientific picture of Genesis 1 as no one has ever seen it before.

With that being said, then there is an obvious question. If this claim is true, then how did the author acquire this knowledge? As previously mentioned, many believe Moses authored the creation story, but the problem with this belief is that he could not have been there to witness the beginning of heaven and earth. Traditional religion has a simple explanation for this mystery. Many faiths teach that he wrote the Pentateuch including the thirty-one verses of Genesis 1 with divine inspiration from God; however, there could be another explanation. The author of Exodus 2:5-10 wrote that the Egyptian Pharaohs daughter raised Moses. Egyptologists tell us the 2,800 year-old Egyptian empire had a wide-ranging knowledge of the earth as seen by the technology, architecture, the sophisticated artifacts that have been found, and the wonders of the Great Pyramid of Giza. So is it also possible they also had a profound knowledge of the earth's beginnings? Could Egyptian scholars have taught Moses what they knew, and then corroborated with him to write the Genesis 1 verses? This book will offer some intriguing possibilities for the answers to these provocative questions.

Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the earth and our beginnings. Earth is a unique planet, and as far as science knows there is none other like it, making it the perfect refuge for life — especially complex conscious life — to not only exist but to thrive. For this reason, scientists have nicknamed Earth the "Goldilocks planet," and there are eighteen separate and compelling reasons why it was given this description. In the following chapters we will explore each one of these eighteen conditions and the reasons why it was given this name, and reveal a statistically impossible connection they all share.

Part 3

Lost in Translation

Modern scholars are not sure where the Genesis 1 creation story originated or who authored it. They do know that it was originally written in biblical Hebrew, the dialect of classical Hebrew. This ancient language was spoken by the Israelites from about the 10 century BC through 70 AD in the lands east of the Mediterranean Sea known as Canaan/Israel. Originally, the Bible was translated from the Hebrew language into Aramaic and Koine Greek, but over time it went through many other translations. The following is a short list.

1. 380 BC to 250 BC — Hebrew to Greek is the earliest known Bible translation

2. 348 AD — the Greek Bible into the Gothic Bible (early German)

3. 381 AD — the Greek Bible into the Latin Vulgate by St. Jerome

4. 1384 AD — the Vulgate to English by John Wycliffe

5. 1611 AD — the Vulgate to the authorized King James Version

6. The Bible has been translated into 518 languages

7. There are about thirty-five English translations alone

With this many translations, especially from one language to another, many critical misinterpretations of the author's intended Genesis 1 message have been lost in translation. It is for this reason I relied on the English version of the Hebrew Bible as my source for the words contained in the thirty-one verses. When I compared the ancient words of the Torah to the modern English translations of the Bible, such as the King James Version, I noted many dramatic differences, especially with what many would consider to be the less significant words. As will be revealed, the historical Hebrew definition of every word, in each phrase, and in each verse is crucial to gain an understanding of his intended message.

The Hebrew Culture

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, German poet, literary critic, philosopher, 1772-1829

Part 4

The Vocabulary

As impossible as it may seem, there is convincing evidence that Genesis 1 is an accurate scientific account for the beginning of the earth that was presented to the ancient Hebrews as a short story. The author may have based the content of the thirty-one verses on science, but he wrote this story in the context and using prose that best reflected their understanding of the natural world. They did not think in scientific terms as we do today, and they certainly had no awareness of the earth's geologic eras or the evolution of plants and animals. When reading Genesis 1, the sequence in which many of the creation events are presented may seem to be out of the natural order. These inconsistencies are a reason many misinterpret the author's intent, and the skeptics then ridicule these seeming contradictions, casting doubt on the legitimacy of what he wrote. It is for this reason I felt it was necessary to get a glimpse into the ancient Hebrew culture where Genesis 1 originated. I began by taking a brief look at where and when he wrote it, in an attempt to understand how he could have communicated scientific concepts to an unscientific culture.

People typically read Genesis 1 in their own language — not ancient Hebrew. Many readers are not aware that numerous words used by the Hebrews sometimes had several different meanings and were not necessarily used in the same context as those same words would be used today. Personal interpretations of these words can then lead to mistaken impressions if the reader does not interpret each one in keeping with the author's original intent. Compared to modern English, the Hebrew vocabulary had far fewer words to describe the world and to convey people's thoughts. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 distinct English words, not including the many technical, scientific and slang terms. In comparison, the ancient Hebrew language had a vocabulary of barely 7,500 words. Many of their words had multiple definitions that would mean something entirely different if we were to use them in another context. The author chose his words very carefully and how one discerns the nuance of each word is essential to understand the Genesis 1 verses.

Modern English is a difficult language to translate because many words have several pronunciations, different spellings, and subtle definitions. When foreign and pop-culture words are included, it is no wonder many find English a difficult language to understand. However, none of these complications can come close to the translation difficulties found in the biblical literature of ancient Israel.

"In regard to the Old Testament, the Hebrew language, as anciently written, was the most difficult of all languages to translate, it was written from right to left; the words contained no [written] vowels; there were no intervening spaces between words, and no punctuation marks."

— John E. Remsburg, biblical scholar 1848–1919 (January 1901) one of the thirty weekly installments of his periodical The Truth Seeker entitled The Bible

For example, the five English words bag, beg, big, bog, and bug, are easy to discern, because each one has a different vowel giving each word an entirely different meaning. However, omit the vowels, which was true of the Hebrew vocabulary, and then there is one word, with five different meanings. The ancient Hebrew language was largely a collection of words with many definitions, which made it very difficult to translate, especially from one language to another. This complexity is particularly true in regard to the word day which has up to five definitions, but in each case is spelled the same. As will be pointed out in later chapters, it can be said that this particular word is one of the primary causes for the divide that separate religion and science.

Part 5

Ancient Storytelling

Before the advent of the written word, ancient people passed relevant information down through the generations by word of mouth and with memorized stories. Stories were not only a form of their entertainment, but a captivating tale made it easier for them to remember important events in matters regarding the community. When travelers ventured away from home, they shared their stories with others in faraway lands. Good storytellers always found an audience that welcomed them with a meal and lodging. When they returned to their villages, they brought back new tales about the people and the places they encountered. They also delivered God's word as a series of stories, including the creation events of Genesis 1. It is also possible that the Genesis 1 creation story is a shortened version of an older more comprehensive manuscript; however, it is the ancient Hebrew version of thirty-one verses that has been passed down and distributed throughout the world for thousands of years until today.

Part 6

The Written Word

Initially, the early Mediterranean civilizations composed their script on painted hieroglyphics, symbols etched on clay tablets, cuneiform cylinder seals, and stone tablets. Not surprisingly, the writings at which the ancient scribes labored were not made available for the community at large. They were used by merchants to record their wares, by temple priests, and by the military for planning battle tactics. People still relied on word-of-mouth communication for public discussions, and for passing information

The river plains of Mesopotamia, an ancient Greek term for "the land between rivers," are regarded as the cradle of civilization. This region is where archeologists have found the origins of agriculture, large city/states, and the written language. During the advent of inscribing words and symbols on a hard surface, clay was readily available and out of necessity it became the material of choice on which to write. The scribing tool was simply a piece of reed that was cut to form a rectangular end. The corner of the reed was then pressed into damp clay, a style of writing known as "cuneiform." These clay tablets were then dried and hardened in the sun, making them an almost indestructible archive, which is why so many of them have survived. However, clay tablets were burdensome and were not convenient for delivering important matters to the community or for carrying information long distances.

The development of a lightweight, flexible material with a smooth surface that could retain ink without smudging or distortion was first introduced around 3,000 BC. It was made from papyrus, a species of rush grass that grows by the Nile River. Weavers wove it into mats, filled them in with adhesive, scraped them to a smooth surface and then pieced them together to form scrolls. The manuscripts from the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, such as Egypt, Greece and Persia used papyrus scrolls as the medium for their writings spanning a period of more than thirty-five hundred years. It is also likely that papyrus was the material on which the Hebrew scribes originally penned the Torah. In fact, all the scrolls, documents, and writings of the ancient world continued to be written on papyrus until parchment made from calfskin was introduced sometime around 260 BC. Writers used this new medium until the fifteenth century when the invention of the printing press was first introduced in Europe.

Part 7

The Author

Genesis 1 seems to have been written at a much earlier time than the other books of the Bible. There is convincing evidence that its words are the original Hebrew writings of the creation story, and successive biblical authors then used these verses as the model for their writings. The author is an exception among biblical writers, and there are several examples that illustrate just how unique Genesis 1 is compared to the other Genesis chapters. This distinction becomes evident when comparing Genesis chapter 1 with Genesis chapter 2. To illustrate this point, one only needs to read the Genesis 2 author's version for the creation of humans and compare it to how the Genesis 1 author portrayed the same event. In the first example, the author wrote that God created both males and females on the sixth day.