Gerald Schroeder, a Jew, has written a series of books on creation and science, offering perspectives from Jewish history often missed by Christians.
Moreover, Schroeder holds a doctorate in physics from MIT, making him truly qualified to address cosmological issues.
In The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom
What few people know is that the same thing is true of gravity. Time slows in the presence of very high mass. And what has more mass than the universe? (Mass distorts the fabric of the universe, so that light has to travel further due to the curvature of space from a very massive object. But since light cannot slow — having a constant speed — time has to slow to keep the speed of light constant.)
In particular, if you were an observer of the Big Bang in the first few moments, you’d be in the presence of a universe 1 trillion times denser than it presently is, because it would be that much smaller.
The universe began from nothing but the Logos, who willed it into existence. And thanks to high energy particle colliders, we’ve been able to see how matter behaves within less than one-second after the Big Bang at these incredible densities. And when the universe was 1 trillionth of its present size, quarks first formed. Quarks are the bricks out of which protons and neutrons are made. They were the first matter.
And time moved much more slowly than it does today — by a factor of 1 trillion.
So try this math.
Assume a universe of 13.82 billion years old. This is the current thinking of cosmologists.
Divide by the change in redshift (how much the frequency of light from the creation has been stretched by the expansion of the universe) since the formation of quarks (a factor of 1 trillion). You get 0.01382 years.
Add 10% to adjust for the recently discovered acceleration of the universe’ expansion. This gives 0.015202 years.
Convert to days by multiplying by 365.25 days per year. You get 5.55 days. Round, and you get 6 days! Or as Schroeder points out, the time from quark confinement to the creation of Adam, presumably around midday of the sixth day.
Pretty cool, huh? If you were God, watching the universe be created from nothing but Logos, at the moment matter is first created, the universe would appear to take 6 days for humans to appear.
So who was saying that science contradicts the Bible?
So how can it be that Ancient Near East temple construction stories, in which the god rests in his new temple on the Seventh Day, and modern cosmology, built on the Theory of General Relativity, with data taken from high energy particle colliders, all come together so beautifully? Well, it requires an Intelligence far beyond our own.
I presume you meant 14.8 billion years. Although the number I’ve seen is 13.8 billion. Can you clarify what numbers are used in your calculations? Thanks.
Jay, You said the universe is 14.8 million years old. I think you meant billion. In addition quark particles are the smallest we have observed but there may be smaller particles still.
Thanks to the readers for their corrections. Billion is of course right. As is 13.82 billion. I was working off very old notes and failed to update the age to reflect the latest findings. This actually produces a better fit for Gen 1.
Genesis and the Big Bang by Schroeder is a great book.
now that is some fun stuff.
coarse that is a compared to what…
now then
how did a universe, that could support life come out of a big bang of chaos, a random bunch of stuff, come together.
IF THE mass of the all elements and the bang was not controlled.
for instance
if the mass of hydrogen varied by 10% , our universe, our galaxy, our solar system,would not exist,
and that is just one of them.
the variables of the combinations is more than a Google.
yep
their is no GOD
AND YOU JUST CAN’T FIX stupid.
RICH
IF I REMEMBER RIGHT….
KINDA SORT OF…15 years ago
if all of the random variables that could a happened,
are kinda taken into consideration
it would be akin to,
a man shooting at a target ON the opposite side of the universe and u guessed it.
that be random number theory again.
rich
so…
life started out like my football coach told me that i musta started,,,
mind ya i was the quarterback, and defensive free safety…
i was always goofin off doing dumb stuff until it was time to play.
he catch me. and yell Out.
CONSTANT!!! SHAKING HIS HEAD IN DISBELIEF….
I KNOW A PELICAN MUST OF shit ON A ROCK AND THE SUN HAD TO OF HATCHED YA.
ANYWAY
THAT’S KINDA LIKE THEORY WANTS PEOPLE TO BELIEVE WHERE LIFE STARTED…
although the pelican is an asteroid that had so stuff on it and the sun hatched it…
hopefully that makes fun nonsense..
🙂
My head is spinning. But it is a cool theory.
What timing. A cool article came out today:
“Paleontologists in Argentina say they recently discovered fossils belonging to the largest dinosaur on record. During its lifetime, the new species of titanosaur is believed to have stood 65-feet-tall, was more than 130-feet-long, and weighed 77 tons (155,000 pounds).
“Given the size of these bones, which surpass any of the previously known giant animals, the new dinosaur is the largest animal known that walked on Earth,” researchers Dr. Jose Luis Carballido and Dr. Diego Pol told the BBC.”
Jay, how did you get into this? I feel your pain? Cp
Question: why did God make dinosaurs?
answer: to thrill five year olds … And not a few adults
Jay,
I am missing something in the understanding of the importance implied of the Sixth day and the creation of humans. As I was reading the post I was expecting that there was a time being projected as to when the creation would support life. Plants created on day Three, fowl and sea creatures the Fifth day, land animals and man created on day Six. What created the connection of the calculations to arrive on the Sixth day. Was this the earliest time that land creatures could exist?
Jay,
After my previous post I was re reading the post and encountered your comment. “Pretty cool, huh? If you were God, watching the universe be created from nothing but Logos, at the moment matter is first created, the universe would appear to take 6 days for humans to appear.”
Are we to assume that God stood back and watched while this Logos (I am assuming to be his Word) designed and created?
Did he just watch while Jesus (The Word) assembled creation?
Then humans just appeared?
Larry,
In Schroeder’s book, he attempts to equate each day of the Gen 1 account with what would have appeared to be a “day” in relativistic terms.
Larry,
“If” means if.
Even with all the known explanations about the origins of the universe and all the current knowledge of the Bible… there are discoveries yet to be made and in decades from now the explanation today may have to be revised to account for new discoveries in science and in the Biblical text.
It is my understanding that the Ancient Near East thought in block logic rather then chronological logic.
RJ,
Block Logic is a new term to me, but what it means is very familiar. http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=3324
Block Logic
by DR. Aaron Wilson:
Wilson, Marvin “Our Father Abraham” c. 1989 Eerdmans