Cosmology in the Bible.
(1). Big Bang—The Bible Taught It First.
(2). Big Bang Cosmology in the Bible.
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(1). Big Bang—The Bible Taught It First.
July 1, 2000
By Dr. Hugh Ross
Most science textbooks that address cosmology credit Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson with the discovery that the universe arose from a hot big bang creation event.
While it is true that they were the first (1965) to detect the radiation left over from the creation event,1 they were not the first scientists to recognize that the universe expanded from an extremely hot and compact state. In 1946 George Gamow calculated that nothing less than the universe expanding from a near infinitely hot condition could account for the present abundance of elements.2 In 1929 observations made by Edwin Hubble established that the velocities of galaxies result from a general expansion of the universe.3 Beginning in 1925 Abbé Georges Lemaître, who was both an astrophysicist and a Jesuit priest, was the first scientist to promote a big bang creation event.4
The first direct scientific evidence for a big bang universe dates back to 1916. That is when Albert Einstein noted that his field equations of general relativity predicted an expanding universe.5Unwilling to accept the cosmic beginning implied by such expansion, Einstein altered his theory to conform with the common wisdom of his day, namely an eternally existing universe.6
All these scientists, however, were upstaged by 2500 years and more by Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other Bible authors. The Bible’s prophets and apostles stated explicitly and repeatedly the two most fundamental properties of the big bang, a transcendent cosmic beginning a finite time period ago and a universe undergoing a general, continual expansion. In Isaiah 42:5 both properties were declared, “This is what the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out.”
The Hebrew verb translated “created” in Isaiah 42:5 is bara’ which has as its primary definition “bringing into existence something new, something that did not exist before.”7 The proclamation that God created (bara’) the entirety of the heavens is stated seven times in the Old Testament. (Genesis 1:1; 2:3; 2:4; Psalm 148:5; Isaiah 40:26; 42:5; 45:18). This principle of transcendent creation is made more explicit by passages like Hebrews 11:3 which states that the universe that we humans can measure and detect was made out of that which we cannot measure or detect. [Rather interesting then this quote* from Stephen Hawking: “…M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained…”.April 2013, Pasadena.] *Not part of the original article written by Dr Hugh Ross.
Also, Isaiah 45:5-22; John 1:3; and Colossians 1:15-17 stipulate that God alone is the agent for the universe’s existence. Biblical claims that God predated the universe and was actively involved in causing certain effects before the existence of the universe is not only found in Colossians 1 but also in Proverbs 8:22-31; John 17:24; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2; and 1 Peter 1:20.
The characteristic of the universe stated more frequently than any other in the Bible is its being “stretched out.”Five different Bible authors pen such a statement in eleven different verses: Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; and Zechariah 12:1. Job 37:18 appears to be a twelfth verse. However, the word used for “heavens” or “skies” is shehaqîm which refers to the clouds of fine particles (of water or dust) that are located in Earth’s atmosphere,8 not the shamayim, the heavens of the astronomical universe.9 Three of the eleven verses, Job 9:8; Isaiah 44:24; and 45:12 make the point that God alone was responsible for the cosmic stretching.
What is particularly interesting about the eleven verses is that different Hebrew verb forms are used to describe the cosmic stretching. Seven verses, Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 51:13; and Zechariah 12:1 employ the Qal active participle form of the verb natah. This form literally means “the stretcher out of them” (the heavens) and implies continual or ongoing stretching. Four verses, Isaiah 45:12; 48:13; and Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15 use the Qal perfect form. This form literally means that the stretching of the heavens was completed or finished some time ago.
That the Bible really does claim that the stretching out of the heavens is both “finished” and “ongoing” is made all the more evident in Isaiah 40:22. There we find two different verbs used in two different forms. In the first of the final two parallel poetic lines, “stretches out” is the verb natah in the Qal active participle form. In the second (final) line the verb “spreads them out” (NASB, NIV, NKJV) is mathah (used only this one time in the Old Testament) in the waw consecutive plus Qal imperfect form, so that literally we might translate it “and he has spread them out . . .” The participles in lines one and three of Isaiah 40:22 characterize our sovereign God by His actions in all times, sitting enthroned above the earth and stretching out the heavens, constantly exercising his creative power in His ongoing providential work. This characterization is continued with reference to the past by means of waw consecutive with the imperfect, the conversive form indicating God’s completed act of spreading out the heavens. That is, this one verse literally states that God is both continuing to stretch out the heavens and has stretched them out.
This simultaneously finished and ongoing aspect of cosmic stretching is identical to the big bang concept of cosmic expansion. According to the big bang, at the creation event all the physics (specifically, the laws, constants, and equations of physics) are instantly created, designed, and finished so as to guarantee an ongoing, continual expansion of the universe at exactly the right rates with respect to time so that physical life will be possible.
This biblical claim for simultaneously finished and ongoing acts of creation, incidentally, is not limited to just the universe’s expansion. The same claim, for example, is made for God’s laying Earth’s foundations (Isaiah 51:3; Zechariah 12:1). This is consistent with the geophysical discovery that certain long-lived radiometric elements were placed into the earth’s crust a little more than four billion years ago in just the right quantities so as to guarantee the continual building of continents.
Finally, the Bible indirectly argues for a big bang universe by stating that the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, and electromagnetism have universally operated throughout the universe since the cosmic creation event itself. In Romans 8 we are told that the entire creation has been subjected to the law of decay (the second law of thermodynamics). This law in the context of an expanding universe establishes that the cosmos was much hotter in the past. In Genesis 1 and in many places throughout Job, Psalms, and Proverbs we are informed that stars have existed since the early times of creation. As explained in two Reasons To Believe books,10even the slightest changes in either the laws of gravity or electromagnetism would make stars impossible. As already noted in the accompanying article, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics yield stable orbits of planets around stars and of electrons around the nuclei of atoms only if they operate in a universe described by three very large rapidly expanding dimensions of space.
Co-authored by John Rea
.Dr. Hugh Ross
Reasons to Believe emerged from my passion to research, develop, and proclaim the most powerful new reasons to believe in Christ as Creator, Lord, and Savior and to use those new reasons to reach people for Christ.
References:
1.Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, “A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s,” Astrophysical Journal142 (1965): 419-21.
2.George Gamow, “Expanding Universe and the Origin of the Elements,” Physical Review70 (1946): 572-73.
3.Edwin Hubble, “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 15 (1929): 168-73.
4.Georges Lemaître, “A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Increasing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extra-Galactic Nebulae,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society91 (1931): 483-90. The original paper appears in French in Annales de la SocietéScientifique de Bruxelles, Tome XLVII, Serie A, Premiere Partie(April, 1927): 49.
5.Albert Einstein, “Die Grundlage der allgemeinenRelativitätstheorie,” Annalen der Physik49 (1916): 769-822. The English translation is in The Principle of Relativity by H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl with notes by A. Sommerfeld and translated by W. Perrett and G. B. Jeffrey (London: Methuen and Co., 1923), 109-64.
6.Albert Einstein, “KosmologischeBetrachtungenzurallgemeinenRelativitätstheorie,” Sitzungsberichte der KöniglichPreussichenAkademie der Wissenschaften(1917), Feb. 8, 142-52. The English translation is in The Principle of Relativity, 175-88.
7.R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament1 (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 127.
8.Harris, Archer, and Waltke, vol. 2, 916.
9.Harris, Archer, and Waltke, 935.
10.Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, 2d ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1995), 115-16; Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God, 2d ed. (Orange, CA: Promise Publishing, 1991), 84-87.
(2). Big Bang Cosmology in the Bible.
Taken from: “Cosmic Inflation: It Really Happened”
By Dr. Hugh Ross; August 3, 2015
For more than 2,500 years the Bible and biblical commentaries were the only books proclaiming the fundamental features of big bang cosmology:
(I).A singular beginning of matter, energy, space, and time,
(II).Ongoing expansion since that beginning,
(III).Constant laws of physics,
(IV).A pervasive law of decay that implies a continuously cooling cosmos.
(I).A singular beginning of matter, energy, space, and time:
(Genesis 1:1;2:3;2:4;Psalm 148:5; Isaiah 40:26; 42:5;45:18)
Genesis 1:1New American Standard Bible (NASB)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1Amplified Bible (AMP)
1In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 2:3New American Standard Bible (NASB)
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created [a]and made.
Genesis 2:4New American Standard Bible (NASB)
4 [a]This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.
Psalm 148:5Amplified Bible (AMP)
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created
Isaiah 40:26New American Standard Bible (NASB)
26 Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the [a]strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.
Isaiah 40:26Amplified Bible (AMP)
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see! Who has created these? He Who brings out their host by number and calls them all by name; through the greatness of His might and because He is strong in power, not one is missing or lacks anything.
Isaiah 42:5New American Standard Bible (NASB)
5 Thus says God the Lord,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its [a]offspring,
Who gives breath to the people on it
And spirit to those who walk in it,
Isaiah 45:18New American Standard Bible (NASB)
18 For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it [a]a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited),
“I am the Lord, and there is none else.
(II). Ongoing expansion since that beginning.
(Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Zechariah 12:1)
Job 9:8 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
8 Who alone stretches out the heavens
And [a]tramples down the waves of the sea;
Psalm 104:2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
2Covering Yourself with light as with a cloak,
Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.
Isaiah 40:22 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
22 It is He who [a]sits above the [b]circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
Isaiah 42:5New American Standard Bible (NASB)
5 Thus says God the Lord,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its [a]offspring,
Who gives breath to the people on it
And spirit to those who walk in it,
Isaiah 44:24 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
“I, the Lord, am the maker of all things,
Stretching out the heavens by Myself
And spreading out the earth [a]all alone,
Isaiah 45:12 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
12 “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it.
I stretched out the heavens with My hands
And I [a]ordained all their host.
Isaiah 48:13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
13 “Surely My hand founded the earth,
And My right hand spread out the heavens;
When I call to them, they stand together.
Isaiah 51:13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
13 That you have forgotten the Lord your Maker,
Who stretched out the heavens
And laid the foundations of the earth, …
Jeremiah 10:12New American Standard Bible (NASB)
12 It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom;
And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.
Jeremiah 51:15 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
15 It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom,
And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.
Zechariah 12:1 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him,
(III). Constant laws of physics.
(Genesis 1–3; Ecclesiastes 1, 3; Jeremiah 33:19–26; Romans 8:18–23; Revelation 21)
Jeremiah 33:19-26 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
19 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 20 “Thus says the Lord, ‘If you can break My covenant for the day and My covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, 21 then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers. 22 As the host of heaven cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.’”
23 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 24 “Have you not observed what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which the Lord chose, He has rejected them’? Thus they despise My people, no longer are they as a nation in their sight. 25 Thus says the Lord, ‘If My covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed patterns of heaven and earth I have not established, 26 then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his [f]descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.’”
(IV). A pervasive law of decay that implies a continuously cooling cosmos.
(Romans 8:18–22):
Romans 8:18-22; New American Standard Bible (NASB)
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, [a]in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
Romans 8:18-22Amplified Bible (AMP)
18[But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and[a]for us and[b]conferred on us!
19For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship].
20For the creation (nature) was subjected tofrailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope
21That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
22We know that the whole creation [of irrational creatures] has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now.
Owing to a multitude of observational verifications of the big bang creation model, Christians possess a powerful tool for demonstrating the inspiration, inerrancy, and predictive power of the Bible.