ANOTHER LOOK AT GENESIS 1-2

CIRCUIT PASTORS CONFERENCE
 Dr. Alvin H. Franzmeier
August 2000

Summer vacations with your grandsons are supposed to be about fishing, and eating ice cream and hot dogs at the ball game - not quantum mechanics. But at one point this summer my grandsons, ages 12 and 14, were more interested in the recent movie about Michael Crichton's book Timeline than my fishing stories. They are like most kids today, raised on special effects, and computer games. In the movie historians from the year 1999 step into a time machine, pass through a "quantum foam wormhole," and step out into feudal France around 1357. My job in their spirited discussion was to explain the quantum mechanics of wormholes, which they think I should know as much about as fishing. I admit that I was woefully under prepared. Astro-physics was not covered at seminary, my graduate work in both theology and counseling, or even in "How to be a Grandpa - 101." We have all learned in the real world of pastoring, that we are often called upon to do that for which we are unprepared. Many times we are called on to reconcile descriptions of the physical world we live in with Biblical principles.

     How is this related to our understanding of Genesis 1-2? None of us Christians - grandkids, grandparents, or pastors - dispute the fact we live in a physical world created by our Lord. Because it is physical, measurements and physical laws can be used to describe the world. These physical descriptions do not diminish in anyway, the wonder and magnitude of God's creation. In my forty plus years of ministry I have come to wonder whether we haven't done a disservice to our children and grandchildren by maintaining an apparently dogmatic approach to descriptions of the universe. The leather-bound King James Bible from Concordia Publishing House that I received at the time of my Confirmation back in 1946 listed the date of the creation of the earth in the center column as 6,004 BC. The Irish-Anglican Bishop James Ussher, based on his studies of OT genealogies, established that date in the 17th century. Those were man-made calculations, and we have no evidence they were divinely inspired. Are they anymore valid than the medieval church position that the sun revolved around the earth? I believe we Pastors must learn the vernacular of contemporary people who study the physical world created by God. We need a common language to explain God's Biblical account of creation to today's children who grow up with the concept of virtual reality. Quantum mechanics helps us do that. 

     In the years following my Confirmation I read the works of our own synod's professors. For instance, I read with great interest Paul A. Zimmerman's, "The Age of the Earth," in Darwin, Evolution, and Creation (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959) and the later work by John W. Klotz, Genes, Genesis, and Evolution (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1970). These men and many like them still today do their best to reconcile the Bible with the scientific world of measurements and scales. Based upon studies similar to Bishop Ussher they labor long and hard to demonstrate that the age of the earth must be numbered in terms of thousands rather than millions of years. However, in doing so they must discount huge stacks of information coming from the world of science. In fact, young-universe creationism requires, at a minimum, the abandonment of essentially all of modern astronomy, much of modern physics and most of the earth sciences, to say nothing of biology. 

     We have all heard and read about the tension between creationism and evolution. It is in the national news weekly. As I write this, the focus in the media is upon a high school teacher in Minnesota who wants to teach in his public school classes that there is some validity to creationism. Part of that battle is what we should teach to our children about the true age of the earth. 

     Typical of young age creationists is Henry M. Morris and The Institute for Creation Research. That Institute publishes books and papers, conducts many seminars and has a very active website (http://www.icr.org/). Currently one can find many books and websites that support the young age creationist approach. These are fellow believers-some of them are Lutherans-and many of them insist that one cannot believe in the inspiration of the Bible and in an old age for the universe at the same time. They link any belief in an old age universe to accepting Darwinian evolution and atheism. 

     Frankly, I have never been convinced by these arguments of my brothers and sisters in the faith. They force us to set aside that vast body of physical evidence to insist that only the scientific studies they quote are the way a Christian can reconcile modern science with the authority of Holy Scripture. That is not so. There is another equally sound Christ-centered and Bible-honoring approach. There are many devoted Christians who find no conflict with the Bible and an old age for the universe. These people do not discount the studies of modern science, but demonstrate very plausibly that there is no real conflict between true objective science and the Bible. 

     My original assignment was to reflect on and interpret all of Genesis 1 and 2. This is an impossible task in the very short time allotted to me. There are simply too many issues to be addressed in these chapters. So I will zero in on just one of them, namely the question of the age of the earth particularly as it relates to the six days of creation. I will demonstrate that we must take very seriously the Biblical account of six 24-hour days. Unless there is some indication in the context where the word 'day' occurs or some suggestion from the analogy of faith, it is always necessary that we interpret a word in its most obvious and literal meaning. So it is with the word 'day'. It refers to what we generally know as the 24 hours it takes our planet to make one spin on its axis. This is how we must take the term unless there is some clear indication otherwise. Much more has been said about that issue. ¹. 

     At the same time we will consider that the universe may not be measured as only being something like 6-10,000 earth-years young. Every plausible measurement we have suggests that it is somewhere around 15 or more billion years old when measured in earthly years. We must always keep in mind that time is a creation of God of course. He is neither bound by time nor space. He is above and outside His creation. What He presents to us in Genesis 1 is His perspective on time from the beginning. It may be called universal time. Universal time and earthly time can be reconciled. Now if that sounds impossible, be patient with me. We will carry on a very elementary discussion between the modern studies of our physical universe and theology in the process. This must go on if we are ever to grasp even a small amount of what is written in Genesis 1 and 2 and if we are to have a common language for the dialogue between the modern scientific community and the Bible-based Christian community. 

     The Lord Himself calls us to enter into this dialogue. It has been going on since the beginning. God speaks to us both in His creation and in the revelation of His plan and will in Holy Scriptures. Both the heavens and the Scriptures give Him glory and honor. He does not lie or deceive in either book. God did not create a deceptive universe that merely appears to be very old, but actually is not. He does not lie to us. He is a God of truth and the universe speaks truthfully about His power from age to age as well as His divine nature, just as the Scriptures speak truthfully about the Gospel.

Psalm 19:1-4 says,

     The heavens declare the glory of God; 
          The skies proclaim the work of His hands. 
     Day after day they pour forth speech; 
          night after night they display knowledge. 
     There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 
     Their voice goes out into all the earth, 
          their words to the ends of the world. . .

     This Psalm calls upon us to listen carefully to the book of creation. It is not in conflict with the Bible, God's Book of Revelation. God the Creator speaks to us from the heavens. What do they say to us? What speech is poured forth, what knowledge is displayed? This is a voice heard around the world and we are called upon to listen to it. We are called to listen to what astro-physics is teaching us about the universe. We don't have to be physicists in order to do that. Lots of information and knowledge is available even to the lay science student. 

     With that in mind I will now proceed to summarize what astro-physicists are teaching about the age of the universe and why this is not in the least in conflict with the Scriptures. In fact, they complement one another. As they do so we are learning that there are depths to the Scripture yet to be plumbed. That is why long ago Jewish Rabbis taught that the Pentateuch must be viewed as a poem. Obviously not all parts of the five books of Moses were written as poetry. However, what Moses wrote has implications and meanings that are not immediately obvious, just like poetry. This observation is based upon God's calling His revelation to Moses a song or poem (Cf. Deut.31: 19,27,30).². This song is to be handed on with the greatest of care. 

     Because the Scriptures are from God the ancient people of God taught that the Scriptures must be coped by hand. This practice continues to this very day in the Torah scrolls of the Jewish community. Every letter and every stroke of the pen is critical, as our Lord Jesus Himself pointed out (Matt.5: 17-20). The addition or removal of a single letter or even changing the shape of a letter invalidates an entire Torah scroll. With our "edited", translated and typewritten copies of both OT and NT texts we are tempted to forget the high significance of everything written in the Bible. Despite our seminary training, most of us parish pastors are not equipped to give such careful attention to the Scriptures. We must rely upon our own scribes and scholars to assist us. It's good to remember how important they are nevertheless. 

     So, having said all that by way of introduction, I will now focus upon this one issue raised in the first two verses of Genesis 1, namely the age of the universe and the meaning of the word 'day'. It all has to do with light. It is even related to our Lord Jesus calling Himself the light of the world (John 8:12). Jesus makes claim to the fact that He is the Creator of our Universe and that all things in it were made through Him. He is both the life and the light of men (John 1:3-5). 

THE LAW OF LIGHT

     For thousands of years everyone knew what light was. It was what happened when the sun shone on the earth. You couldn't touch it. You didn't really know what it was. It was just there. When it was not there, it was night. Then in the 17^th century Johannes Kepler looked into the night sky and saw how the tail of a comet acted. When leaving the sun, the tail went ahead of the comet. That led him to conclude that radiant energy, such as light, might also have a mechanical or pushing force associated with it. That suggested that light must have mass or weight. Up to then it was always assumed that light was without substance. 

     In the middle of the 19^th century James Clerk Maxwell theorized that light, called electromagnetic radiation by scientists, moves as waves at the same fixed speed through space (299,792.5 kilometers per second in a vacuum). This light includes a spectrum of colors from red to blue. The light by which we read is visible light, but the sun also emits invisible light, including infrared radiation (that warms your skin), ultraviolet radiation (tans your skin), microwave radiation (like your oven), radio waves, X-rays and so forth. All of this "light" is included in the term electromagnetic radiation. The difference between these different kinds of light is the length and frequency of their waves. The higher the energy of the radiation, the shorter is its wavelength and the higher its frequency. 

     As the 20^th century began Max Planck observed that electromagnetic radiation gives off energy in discrete units, like the shooting of a rapid stream of pellets. Planck called these pellets "quanta" and thereby gave birth to quantum mechanics. These quanta are light and so they must move at the speed of light. However, not all quanta have equal energies. The energy of a quantum, he proposed, is in proportion to the frequency at which it vibrates as it speeds through space. In the visible range, we measure the frequency at which quanta pulse with our eyes. We call them the colors of light. 

     But now comes a paradox. How can pellets or particles be described in terms of frequencies? Frequencies are associated with waves, not particles. This is very confusing, especially since the speed of light, to our knowledge, is always constant. Also what happens if the object emitting the light or the subject observing the light is moving? Does the speed of that motion add to the speed of the light? That would seem logical, but then the speed of the light would not be constant. In fact, studies already in the last part of the 19^th century demonstrated that this motion has no effect whatsoever upon the light. 

     Into this confusion came Albert Einstein in the beginning of the 20^th century to solve the problem with his theory of relativity. Using Planck's quantum theory Einstein explained that quanta of light or what are now called photons, literally knock electrons out of their atomic orbits.³. These photons have mass while in motion, but have no mass when stopped. At the same time photons also have the properties of particles. They occupy space while in motion, have a given mass and can thus push things around. Yet at the same time they are also waves. They have frequency of vibration in proportion to their energy. 

     In the photon matter and energy are intimately connected. Einstein described this relationship in his now famous formula: E=MC2 . The observed energy of the photon of a gamma ray, E, equals its mass (while in motion), M, times the speed of light squared for added weight, C². Einstein saw that this relation was applicable to all masses and all forms of energy. It is the basis for the now well-established law of relativity 4. or what we might call the law of light. Light is thus understood to be outside of time. This is a fact proven in thousands of experiments. At the speed of light time does not pass. However, when light becomes matter, it enters the realm of time and space. Einstein's formula teaches us that light and matter are two forms of the same thing-energy. Photons are the ethereal, fragile form of energy and matter is the tangible, condensed form. An analogy is steam and ice being two forms of water.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE 

     Amazingly enough, as the 20^th century closed scientists were still gathering evidence that the revolutionary physicist Albert Einstein got it right when he developed his relativity theory early in that century. It is actually no longer a theory. It is now basically understood as a physical law of the universe. It is the standard. Using this knowledge we have been able to develop nuclear energy.

      By using this knowledge about the nature of light men and women who study our physical universe have also been able to draw certain conclusions about the age of the universe, always of course from our earthly perspective. Consider three major considerations: 

      As a result current cosmologists universally accept the Big Bang as the Standard Model. That is what is consistently taught in all of our public grade schools, our high schools and in nearly all universities around the world. 

     The notion that the universe is this old is a conclusion that took a very long time to reach. As I said, it was first suspected only in the twentieth century, in light of certain features of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Before that, the universe was assumed to have no age at all. It was considered to be static, having existed forever with neither beginning nor end or to be relatively young: a few thousand years old or so. The boldest scientific thinkers-and kooks-occasionally proposed larger numbers, but only slightly: tens or hundreds of thousands of years at most. And that is where most young age creationists still find themselves, in opposition to a major part world of modern-day science. Their scientists believe that the universe is indeed only thousands of years old. It is outside the scope of this paper to discuss their conclusions. You will want to visit some of the websites listed in the bibliography to learn more about that.

THE BIG BANG THEORY

     Now, with this under our belts, let's take a look at the Big Bang Theory itself. We can start by summarizing what most modern scientists have concluded about the Big Bang. I do not have room in this paper to go into the details. You may study them on your own. By working backwards from what we currently observe in the universe, scientific consensus (not universal, however) has arrived at the following points: 

ANCIENT JEWISH WISDOM

     Interestingly, some ancient Jews arrived at the same conclusions about the age of the universe over eight centuries before our time. Compare the general conditions at the creation, which their oral traditions insisted, might be understood directly from the account in Genesis-properly interpreted. Note that the commentators referenced below lived and died in the Middle Ages: ⁸. 

     Note the striking parallelism of this eight centuries old com-mentary to the discoveries of modern science. 

     The Kabbalist whose studies of the creation account in Genesis are the most precise and authoritative was Nechunya ben HaKanah. Among other matters in which he was expert, Nechunya specifically asserted that the 42-lettered name of God ¹⁰. allowed one to deduce from the creation account the correct age of the universe. Because in his day this kind of information was considered religiously sensitive (as it is today), another Kabbalist who followed closely in Nechunya's footsteps-Rabbi Yitzhak deMin Acco-laid out the calculations precisely. 

     Thus, Nechunya claimed that if you properly understand how to use the 42-lettered name, Genesis provides for a period of time between the origin of the universe and the creation of man, namely 42,000 "Divine Years." But a "Divine Year" isn't 365 ¼ of our days; it's 365,250 of our years (Psalms 90:4 - "1000 years in Your (God's) sight are like a day that passes, a watch in the night"). So, between the origin of the universe and the creation of man there transpired 42,000 x 365,250 years. In other words, says Nechunya, Genesis tells us that the universe came into existence 15.3 billion years ago! ¹¹.

THE DAYS OF CREATION

 What remains is the need to correlate the 24-hour days of Genesis with the findings of modern science. This has always been the stumbling block. How can we believe that God made the earth in six 24-hour days, as the text says, and still believe in a universe that is over 15 billion years old? The answer is to be found in the discoveries about the nature of time/space and the conversion of energy to matter as outlined in Einstein's formula. In that sense, it is critical that we understand that time is a creation of God and that He stands outside of His creation. 

     Since our information about the creation of the universe is from God. He alone was there to measure the passage of time. He alone was, as it were, watching the clock. And that is the key for which we have been searching. During the development of our universe and prior to the appearance of Adam and Eve, God had not yet established a close and intimate association with the Earth. Note carefully that for the first one or two days of the six, the Earth did not even exist. It was void and unformed. In the first day God created (ex nihilo) the substance or building blocks from which He then "made" the universe and our Earth (Exodus 31:17). 

     Note also that the law of relativity or light makes it absolutely impossible in an expanding universe to describe the elapsed time experienced during a sequence of events occurring in one part of the universe in such a way that will be equal to the elapsed time for those same events when viewed from another part of the universe. The variables of motion and gravitational forces among the galaxies and the stars of even a single galaxy, make the absolute passage of time a very local affair. Time in our corner of the universe differs radically from time in some other part. 

     So, what we have in Genesis is time from the perspective of the Creator who stands outside His creation. On day six God formed Adam and "made" him in His image and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. From that time on God's time and the time of Adam and of us, the descendants of Adam, are bound together. And later, in the fullness of that time, God sent His Son to become the second Adam, One with us. So we stand here with the Apostle and reflect, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great…For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer" (1 Timothy 3:16; 4:4). 

     On the day following His creation of the universe and the forming of our Earth, God rested. This was the first Sabbath. This does not mean, of course, that God needed a "rest" after all His hard work. Compare the text of the commandment to remember the Sabbath and its description of God resting (Exodus 20:8-11) with the use of the word to rest in other places, such as 2 Samuel 21:10. There we read about Rizpah, the deceased King Saul's concubine, spreading out sackcloth on a rock and staying there for days to protect the bodies of her sacrificed grandsons. She wouldn't move. When you view 'rest' from that perspective, the first Sabbath marks the beginning of what we now call the norm. This is the way it now stays. This is how time works from now on-for us. This is how the laws of nature work-for us. Everything stays the same from now on, in contrast to what happened in the first six days. The first Sabbath marked the start of the post-Adam calendar, the calendar of mankind bearing the image of the Creator.¹². 

     Now if we go back to study radioactive decay in rocks and meteorites and fossils, we discover that there is a record of time. That time is measured by our frame of reference. Instead of looking at it from the Creator's frame, we measure these things by our earthbound reference frame. These are correct times, but they are earthbound. Other clocks in other reference frames in other parts of the universe would record them at very different, but equally correct, times. ¹³. 

     So when we return to the six days of creation and forming, we are dealing with the time of the universe itself, what we might call "universal" time, not earth-based time. Ever since that first Big Bang the universe has been expanding and stretching. We know that because we have been able to measure the temperature of the background radiation (CBR) all around us. As indicated above, ¹⁴. the current 3.5 ⁰ Kelvin had a frequency a million million (10 ¹²) times greater than today's cosmic background radiation. So from that time to now the universal or cosmic clock's perceived time has been expanded by a million million. So the universe's minute is equal to our 120 million minutes or 2 million hours and the universe's hour is equal to 120 million earth years. 

     If you want to go into the details of what this means I refer you to Gerald Schroeder again. In his second book, The Science of God, he details the math that leads to the chart below. He emphasizes that this cosmic background radiation (CBR) fills the universe. This is the temperature of the black of space and the clock of the cosmos. I quote from his chapter on "The Six Days of Genesis," 

 THE SIX DAYS OF GENESIS 

     With this understanding I can now return to my grandchildren to discuss with them what we are discovering about quantum mechanics, time and the age of the universe without fear and trepidation. When my oldest grandson stopped by recently on his way to a retreat for incoming college freshmen at Texas A&M University, I happened to mention that I was working on this paper. He was immediately interested and demanded that I allow him to read the draft. He sat down and for an hour quietly read. Then we had a long discussion. 

     We talked about singularities, the Big Bang, time and science fiction. We reflected on the purely unscientific fiction of warp drive in the Star Trek movies and TV series. And as we went along I mentioned to him that God has revealed to us that one day soon He is going to bring the universe as we know it to a climactic end and then recreate everything. He immediately wanted to know where the Bible talks about that. So we looked at some passages in 2 Peter and Revelation. As an incoming engineering student, he was discovering some exciting links between science and theology. On the basis of that conversation I am confident that as other discoveries arise for him on his university journey, he and I will have much more to discuss. We have a common language now and a common understanding. Science and theology are no longer at war. 

     The Apostle Paul said it long ago: "Since the creation of the world (universe) God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Romans 1:19-20). 

     More and more scientists are acknowledging that the universe is an awesome place of design and order created by an unbelievably wondrous Creator. In his 1988 book, The Cosmic Blueprint, British Physicist Paul Davies wrote that the laws of physics seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design and that the universe must indeed have a purpose.¹⁶. This is why a growing number of scholars nationwide are conducting intelligent-design research and many universities have held conferences addressing the topic. Baylor University, Waco, Texas, for instance, just recently opened up such an intelligent-design research center. ¹⁷. 

     Of course that does not mean that anyone will come to faith in the true God by studying this wondrous universe. Faith is God's gift worked through His Word of Revelation about Jesus Christ. But, as Paul points out, anyone who does read this universal book we call Creation and who denies that there is a Creator is surely without an excuse. It remains for us who have been led to faith in Christ to tie Creation and Revelation together, as does the writer to the Hebrews: 

"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe" (11:3).

Ahf. ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Notes 

1.  I have in my possession an unpublished paper by Dr. Douglas McC. Lindsay Judisch of Concordia Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, shared with his exegetical class. I quote: "Those who propose to interpret the days of creation in Genesis 1 as eras admit that this idea would not have occurred to the author and original audience of Genesis. Such a position, however, negates the essential hermeneutical rules that the one meaning of a given work in any one grammatical connection is the signification intended by the author and, indeed, this one meaning is the signification understood by the original audience unless the context or the analogy of faith requires the exegete to accept a different meaning (which, of course, neither does in this case). 
   "Even those who propose to interpret the days of creation in Genesis 1 as eras often admit that this interpretation springs not from any testimony of Scripture, but rather from an evolutionary theory of origins. In the first place, however, the interpretation of Yom as "era" fails to harmonize evolutionary thought with Scripture since evolutionists do not accept the same order of origin as Genesis 1 records (e.g. birds in an era before land animals or plants in an era before the formation of the sun). Secondly, Gene-sis 1 excludes the evolution of one Min (kind) of plant or animal into another (vv.11-12, 21, 24-25). Thirdly, to interpret Genesis 1 on the basis of modern evolutionary theory is to overthrow the sola Scriptura principle of theology: "For, by virtue of its divine authorship (suggestio verborum), Holy Scripture constitutes the sole legitimate source and norm of doctrine; consequently, no external evidence may be used to change the otherwise apparent understand of any assertion of Scripture" (1999, p.6-7). 
2. This thought comes from two medieval Rabbis, Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), 1135-1204, The Guide for the Perplexed, which is available in an English translation by Shlomo Pines, U. of Chicago, 1974 and Moses Ben Nahman (Nahmanides), who lived nearly a century later from 1194-1270. His Commentary on the Torah is available only in Hebrew and I rely upon others who quote and translate his writings. See, for instance, The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented (Brown Judaic Studies, No 271) David Novak, 1993 and Ramban: Philosopher and Kabbalist: On the Basis of His Exegesis to the Mitzvoth by Chayim J. Henoch, 1998. 
3. An electron is a subatomic particle in the lepton family having a resting mass of 9.1066 x 10^-19 coulomb. The lepton family of particles includes the electron, the muon and their associated neutrinos, all having spin equal to ½ and masses less than those of the mesons. A coulomb is a meter-kilogram-second unit of electrical charge equal to the quantity of charge transferred in one second by a steady current of one ampere. Physicists say that the neutrons and protons within ordinary matter are actually built up from combinations of quarks, particles that were first postulated in the 1960s. Quarks are the smallest known constituents of matter. The quarks are bound together through the exchange of particles whimsically dubbed gluons. Before the CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) experiments in early 2,000, science had seen quarks and gluons only in the "trapped" state they have existed in since three minutes after the Big Bang. 
4. For a much more detailed discussion of these matters consult Gerald L. Schroeder, "The Age of Our Universe: Six Days and Fifteen Billion Years," The Science of God, pp.41-59.
5. Hugh Ross points out that the balance between many supernovae at the beginning and few since forms a pattern of events without which life would not be possible, "Scientific Evidences for the Universe's Age," Creation and Time, p.94-95. 
6. S.W. Hawking and G.F.R. Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge University Press, 1973, p. 364. 
7. For a much more complete description of special and general relativity, consult Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder's explanation of the stretching of time in Genesis and The Big Bang, pp.34-54. 
8. See note 2. about Maimonides and Nahmanides. 
9. The term Kabbala is now used as a technical name for the system of esoteric (intended to be understood only by a particular group) theosophy (speculation based on mystical insight into the nature of God and divine teaching) which for many generations played an important part, chiefly among the Jews, after the beginning of the tenth century of the Christian era. It primarily signifies teaching received by oral tradition, and, secondarily, a doctrine derived from it. Its application has greatly varied in the course of time, and it is only since the eleventh or twelfth cen-tury that the term Kabbala has become the exclusive designation for the system of Jewish religious philosophy which claims to have been uninterruptedly transmitted by the mouths of the patriarchs, prophets, elders, etc., ever since the creation of the first man. 
10. Kabbalists discovered that from the first Hebrew letter in the Bible, the letter B or Beyt, there are exactly 42 letters counting to and including the next Beyt. They saw this as the 42-lettered name of God that hints at God's activities before the creation-but only by means of 'many permutations.' 
11. "The Age of the Universe," by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/torahscience/bigbang3.htm 
    See also Satinover, Cracking the Bible Code, William Morrow & Co. Reprint edition (June 1998), chapter 6. I
    n an email correspondence, Sun, 20 Aug 2000, 02:39:29 -0400, Mordechai Haviv wrote: "From Dr. Satinover's book Cracking the Bible Code (p.68/footnote p.311): 
    "In the Jewish tradition, God has a number of names each of which reflects some distinctive aspect of His nature. The best known of these is the so-called Tetragrammaton; the four-letter name transliterated in lay English as "Jehva" and in the scholarly literature as "YHWH" [in the Bible the Hebrew letters are yud, hey, vav, hey]. Other names of special interest to the kabbalist contain twelve, forty-two, or seventy-two letters. These names were obliged to be pronounced, with strict attention to accuracy and clarity, on certain solemn occasions, and only then. 
    "He goes into more detail in his book. I would also recommend the books The Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet by Artscoll, and Letters of Fire by Feldheim publishers for more on the secrets of the Aleph-Beis. This area of Judaism is subsumed under Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism."
12. Schroeder, The Science of God, p.165. 
13. For a fuller discussion of the stretching of time consult Schroeder, Genesis and The Big Bang, pp.27-54. 
14. Schroeder, p.4 
15. Schroeder, The Science of God, p. 62. 
16. Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p.203. 
17. Houston Chronicle, July 1,2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Jewish Resources 

Henoch, Chayim J., Ramban: Philosopher and Kabbalist: On the Ba-sis of His Exegesis to the Mitzvoth. Jason Aronson, 1998. 

Kabbalah Home Page, http://kabbalah-web.org/ 

Kellner, Mennachim, "Maimonides On Judaism and The Jewish People" http://www.sunypress.edu/sunyp/backads/html/kellnerjudaism.html 

Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides). The Guide for the Perplexed. Translated By Shlomo Pines, U. of Chicago Press, 1974. 

Novak, David, The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented. Brown Judaic Studies, No. 271, 1993. 

Seeskin, Kenneth, Ed. A SUNY Series in Jewish Philosophy, State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246-0001 http://www.sunypress.edu/sunyp/series_pages/jewish_philosophy.html 

Satinover, Jeffrey, "The Age of the Universe."  
      http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/torahscience/bigbang3.htm Cracking the Bible Code. William Morrow & Co., 1998. 368 pp. Paperback. 

The Judaical Library, http://www.judaicalibrary.com/ 

Torah Science. http://members.xoom.com/torahscience/

Modern Science and Intelligent Design

Access Research Network Intelligent Design Discussion Forum:
 http://www.arn.org/ 

American Institute of Physics, http://www.aip.org/ 

     Creation Process.
 http://www.egroups.com/group/CreationProcessAge. Founded 8/2000, this group aims for an open discussion about Biblical hermeneutics, language, antiquity of the universe and the use of extra-biblical material in exegesis. 

Gould, Stephen Jay, Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin. Three Rivers Press, N.Y., 1996. 

Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books, 1988. 

Hawking, Stephen and Ellis, G.F.R., The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge University Press, 1973. 

Matson, Dave. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/additional_topics/supernova.html . By observing light emitted from supernovae, it can be determined that the speed of light has not changed appreciably in the last 170,000 years. 

Moreland, J.P. (Editor), Phillip E. Johnson (Designer), The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer. Intervarsity Press, 1994.

Science for the Millennium, University of Illinois. http://wwwdoctest.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Expo/main.html. Look particularly at the sub-site on the cosmos: Our Hierarchical Universe, http://wwwdoctest.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/HierarchUni.html 

Stenger, Victor J. Has Science Found God? Examining the Evidence from Modern Physics and Cosmology. http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/god.html

Talk Origins. http://www.talkorigins.org/ Usenet newsgroup devoted to the discussion and debate of biological and physical origins. Most discussions in the newsgroup center on the creation/evolution controversy, but other topics of discussion include the origin of life, geology, biology, catastrophism, cosmology and theology.

Webster's World, An Online Guide to Physics. For young students and their teachers.
       http://www.msms.doe.k12.ms.us/ap_physics/links/links.html

Old Earth Creationism

 Cea, Ed, Creation, Evolution and Adam:
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/ixthus/index.html 

Christianity and Science Resource Center
         http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4264/relsci.html 

Davies, Paul, The Cosmic Blueprint, Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 1988 

     The Mind of God, Simon & Schuster, N.Y., 1992 

Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 
http://www.biblical.edu/15critic.htm

IBRI Research Report #10 (1982) 
David C. Bossard, "Information and Order in the Universe: How Much Is There?"

IBRI Research Report #15 (1982) 
Robert C. Newman, "A Critical Examination of Modern Cosmo-logical Theories"

IBRI Research Report #21 (1984) 
Robert C. Newman, "Some Perspectives On The Image of God in Man From Biblical Theology"

IBRI Research Report #40 (1990) 
Perry G. Phillips "Are The Days of Genesis Longer Than 24 Hours? The Bible says, 'Yes!'" 

Newman, Robert C. and Eckelmann, Herman J. Jr., Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth, Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1989. 

Peters, Marc, "Understanding the CHAOS in CREATION," Theory Center,
                 http://www.futurescience.net/center.htm 

Polkinghorne, John, Quarks, Chaos & Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion. Crossroads, N.Y., 1998 

Pullen, Stu. The Theory of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: Darwin's Mistake
                http://www.darwinsmistake.com/Domains/darwins_mistake/design.htm 

Ritter, Mark, "In the Beginning: A Biblical/Scientific Parallel of Prehistory"
                http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4264/begin.html 

Ross, Hugh, The Creator and the Cosmos, Navpress, Colorado Springs, Co., 1993

Creation and Time, Navpress, 1994 

Beyond The Cosmos, Navpress, 1996 

Reasons to Believe: Institute, P.O. Box 5978, Pasadena, CA 91117 

"A Brief Look at A Brief History of Time"

        http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/4264/hawk.html 
Schroeder, Gerald L., Genesis and the Big Bang, Bantam Books, N.Y., 1990 

The Science of God, The Free Press, N.Y., 1997 

Sluder, Kevin, God, Genesis and the Big Bang. 
http://www.kiva.net/~kls/index.html 
     Many links at this site. 

Stoner, Don, A New Look at An Old Earth, Harvest House, Eugene, Oregon, 1985
             http://www.answers.org/newlook/NEWLOOK.HTM#top

Young Earth Creationism

Brown, Walt, The Center for Scientific Creation. 
http://www.creationscience.com/ 

Dolphin, Lambert. On the constancy of the speed of light. 
http://208.55.129.251/constc.shtml 
The measured value of the speed of light has decreased over the years. 

Ham, Ken. Answers in Genesis.
 http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/about.asp 
The mission of this site is to restore confidence in Genesis, the foundation of the Christian faith.

 Humphreys, D.Russell. Starlight and Time : Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe. Master Books; ISBN: 0890512027, 1996 

Klutz, John W., Modern Science in the Christian Life, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1961. Genes, Genesis and Evolution, Concordia, 1970.

Liberty, Charlie, Creation Science Information. 
http://www.sixdaycreation.com/

Morris, Henry M., The Institute for Creation Research. 
http://www.icr.org/

Theory Zimmerman, Paul A., "The Age of the Earth," Darwin, Evolution and Creation. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1959.