Genesis for the Scientific Mind

By Brian Mahieu

Religion and science agree on some points already, the big bang for one.  Do they agree on other points?  This is a modern translation of the book of Genesis highlighting  other matching ideas between religion and science.  Science and religion may have been at war, but not so anymore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mahieu
• Release date: Dec 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393108580

Book preview

An enormous flash of light and The Big Bang begins the modern universe.  Science and religion do agree on this point.  Simple animals and plants came before the more complex ones.  Science and religion also agree on this point of our history.

Given that we have that single point of creation, the big bang, science and religion then tell a similar story for at least part of the time line of history.  One may argue whether The Big Bang was merely nature unfolding with an awesome and unnatural force, or The Power of G-d touching the universe at this point of creation, but those physical effects, the matter and the light, the explosion outward, it's all well documented in both science and religion.

Simple animals and plants came before the more complex ones.  Pick any Bible translation you like and read the first page and you shall readily see the framework for species developing.  The complex species follow in the time line after the simple ones.  Fruit trees come after the simple grasses.  Animals in the water come before animals on the land.  And looking deeper into the Hebrew words we'll find some additional precision.

Old Hebrew words have several meanings, several definitions.  All of those words we are used to hearing such as day, deep, sea serpent, and water, they have curious alternate meanings in Hebrew.  Shockingly, the alternate definitions begin to match, to compound, to tell a story very similar to the one we've heard in church with some nuanced differences.  Those old religious words then begin to agree with modern science, to snap into alignment with it.  Or is it actually the other way around?

This is a modern translation of The Book of Genesis highlighting some pleasant and interesting overlaps between science and religion, places where science and religion match up with one another in the overall time line of creation.  And then religion isn't at war with science, no not at all.  They agree.  The words match, and quite precisely, to create a huge number of parallels between the two.

Furthermore, I'm not the first to see these parallels.  Although it may be lesser known and not widely published, many other people, scientific people, religious people (including the Pope) have discussed these fascinating parallels between the very modern astrophysics research, and the very old written religion.  Other people have seen it too, and now you can see it for yourself.

People have for a long time looked for secret, hidden meanings inside of these poetic, ancient, spiritual words.  But these ideas I now present are not hidden, and neither are they cryptic.  This new translation stems from simple, straightforward, literal word definitions, meanings in old words, definitions taken from long published, highly respected, well documented and vetted sources (read: big, dusty, reference books).  I will give you the evidence from these tomes of English / Hebrew translation so that you can judge for yourself.  Some of the connections between religion and modern science are likely to surprise you.  But don't worry; don't worry even a little bit.  The parallels between science and religion are pleasant surprises, interesting to people of faith, and to scientists as well.

Looking into those old words, the original words, religion begins to match up with modern science.  So we'll look into Big Bang Theory, star formation, the diversification of species.  Everywhere we look in science and in Genesis there's another match.  Genesis is written in ancient Hebrew verse.  The Book may run towards the poetic in it's telling, but it is describing the very same history.  In Hebrew it actually reads like a science textbook, if a poet who knew everything in the universe wrote a science textbook in only thirty paragraphs.  We'll also find out that a day is much more than a twenty-four hour day, in ancient Hebrew.  I think you'll find Genesis quite an illuminating read.

Table of Contents

... Genesis for a Scientific Mind .......

... Is a day precisely a day? .......

... A First Light ..................

... A Second Light ..................

... A Third Light ..................

... A Fourth Light ..................

... Translation Notes .......

... References .......

Genesis for a Scientific Mind

I am about to present you with a translation of religious text.  It can be viewed through several different lenses.

One such lens is the lens of faith and of religion.  That's perfectly OK.  Nothing in this book will distress the faithful, nothing at all.  This is a translation of First Genesis that highlights some matches between the religion and the modern science while touching on some old word definitions.  That's all it is.  For the faithful, it is a book full of good news, curious words, and some pleasant surprises.

Yet we can also look at Genesis through the lens of the scientist.  Here we will sift through old information, discern evidences, weigh differing possibilities.  An agnostic scientist may then decide if I present here enough evidence to open up a new place in your heart, or not.  A scientist who already has their faith will likely see the match between the science and religion as a reaffirmation of belief.  Read in ancient Hebrew, one certainly does begin to dovetail together with the other, to coexist.  A scientist will tell you that logic and mathematical proof works like this:

If A implies B

     Then if A is shown true, it follows that B is also true.

I won’t say that I can prove G-d; minds greater than my own such as Newton and Leibniz have pursued it.  What I can show is advanced knowledge of astrophysics and biological science.  I can show that something scientifically interesting was written down in the Hebrew language a very long time ago.  I can and will show that Genesis describes ideas closely mirroring science.  There is advanced knowledge of The Earth’s history, and that advance knowledge matches up super closely with modern science.

Advanced knowledge of science and Earth's early history, that's the part I will demonstrate and prove.

How close does that advance knowledge of science match up?  It's razor sharp.  The old Hebrew is descriptive, well documented, and it's specific.  The knowledge of The Earth’s history goes way, way beyond what one might expect to see in a 4000+ year old culture.  It matches up with modern science so exactly that it will make you look twice, doubling the words of modern science in a myriad of highly specific and fascinating ways.  Genesis comes close enough that it reads like a modern miracle, difficult to do in the twenty-first century.  Of course you'll want to see evidences, multiple sources listed, references, comparative translations.  I do here provide them.

I will say it again, showing this advanced knowledge of Earth’s early history isn’t going to prove the existence of G-d.  It will show that many highly unusual and highly advanced ideas were written down in Hebrew within the verses of The book of Genesis.  The reading may shift some preconceived ideas about The Bible.

Let's look at a first example, a verse in translation.  Hebrew is read right to left, but don't worry because the same text is then translated into English several times:

א:כא   ויברא   אלהים   את   התנינם   הגדלים   ואת   כל   נפש   החיה   הרמשת   אשר   שרצו   המים   למינהם   ואת   כל   עוף  כנף   למינהו   וירא   אלהים   כי  טוב

And G-d enlarged the very large reptiles, the great elder ones, and they breathed the air, hordes of them moving, creeping, coming from the waters became a species, and birds themselves covered with feathers became a species, and G-d saw that it was beautiful.

In this example, it seems that someone 4000+ years ago wrote down something very similar to evolution of the species.  There were some big reptiles.  They were coming up out of the water, walking on the land.  That historical event should sound familiar.  And evolution is a nice clean match with modern science.  As written, it would bring a little piece of science into agreement with religion.  It may be surprising to find evolution of species written into a religious text, but there it is.  Then there's something even more interesting as we look a little bit closer, something that gets even one step closer to the modern science.

I'll call your attention to certain words.

(tanniyn  תנינם): big reptiles, great monsters, land monsters, dragons

(gadowl  גדל): great, mighty, older

Those are the real definitions for old Hebrew words.  We notice big reptile and dragon in the list and now arrive at a highly recognizable animal from Earth’s ancient past: a dinosaur is an old, big lizard.  A dinosaur is exactly that: a really big, really ancient lizard.  Another piece of scientific history has just snapped into alignment.  We have a translation of Genesis that now matches up with science.

Reading the lamed prefix as turned into or became the passage reads cleanly as an evolution of reptiles, evolution of reptiles that began in the water and moved onto land.  That was a clean match with science.  The verse dovetails with a piece of evolutionary science: evolution of big ancient lizards.

We already know these things happened.  Science says so.  The Bible says so.  Those are real word definitions.  The translation presented is grammatically correct.

Suddenly, The Book of Genesis reads a lot like a textbook on evolutionary science.  Science snaps into a perfect agreement with four thousand year old verse.  We know that yes there were some ancient reptilian creatures coming from out of the waters, crawling up onto the land, and breathing the air.  Today, we’ve given those animals the English title of dinosaurs.  In Hebrew the word for a big, big, monster reptile is tanniyn (תנינם).  To describe one of those reptilian animals as even yet older, as even yet bigger, as even yet greater, you add the word gadowl (גדל).  It's now described as a really old, and really big reptile.

Look even closer and Genesis gets spectacularly close to the modern science.

The big, ancient reptiles have feathers.  Or one could read it as they become birds.

I encourage you to check the words and the sources so as to verify them.  That dinosaur/bird connection is recent (modern) science, and all the old words are there.

You are reading in this translation something very close to the literal ancient Hebrew.  This is not creative idiom, or stylized interpretation.  The Hebrew is there, in sequence, untouched, correct definitions followed to the letter.  Words have several definitions.  Pick one definition.  Watch all the science match up.  Pick another definition and you'll then arrive at a more traditional translation.  But these words and these definitions are all real.  But let's back up a moment, catch our breath.  You're asking perfect questions already and I must go on to address them as we move throughout the book.

Here an even closer look into that same passage.

The word (gadowl גדלים) magnifies that word (tanniyn תנינם) and increases the size of these dragons into something even larger and older.

These were apparently some very big reptiles indeed.  One translation might describe the animals as great big monster reptiles another translation could read huge monster dragons another translation could be written as gigantic big reptiles or even great sea serpents.  Those would all be perfectly correct translations, renderings of the ancient Hebrew that keep super close to the original meaning(s).  The words are written in the plural, so there were evidently more than one of these creatures.

(ramas  רמש): creeping, to creep, to swarm, trample, move

Given the word (רמש) we may say that there were walking swarms of them.  That word matches the science also, many things walking.  Multiple words in the passage steer us toward a species of animal that walks, that is large, and reptilian.  These great reptilian land monsters were apparently really, really big.  Not only were they big, but there were hordes of these great, great big, reptilian land monsters, and they were walking, swarming, creeping, trampling across the earth, hordes of them.

(owph עוף): fowl, bird covered with feathers

Genesis moves us a next step closer to the science.  The hordes of walking, great big, reptilian land monsters were swarming across the earth and they had feathers.  One could also translate the Hebrew words as the animals became a species (a kind) of birds.

(kanaph  כנף): wing, the word is also translated variously as feathered, overspreading, or a pinnacle of a building

Two words are used in succession, both of them indicating birds/feathers. Two words together will reinforce and clarify the bird/feather meaning.  It's exact, very specific.  It's as if the author really wanted to make sure that you made the connection.  It's talking about birds with wings and feathers.  It's very specific.  Adding to our translation of the passage, there may have been either a peak, a pinnacle to the kind (species) in these hordes of great, great, big reptilian land monsters with feathers.  So, the early reptiles eventually (evolved/became) those birds with the feathers and wings.

Science got it right and Genesis got it right.  We've just read about evolution of reptilian species and then birds in The Book of Genesis.

And here’s that passage for you one more time... 

And G-d enlarged the very large reptiles, the great ones, and they breathed the air, hordes of them moving, creeping, coming from the waters turned into a species, and birds themselves covered with feathers turned into a species, and G-d saw that it was beautiful.

Big reptiles came from out of the water and became a species.  The feathered birds became a species.  In the history of creation, reptiles (really big and old ones) preceded and evolved into the birds with feathers.

Those words all read razor close to our modern science of the dinosaurs.  There is the idea of species evolution.  They became a species.  It’s written right there.

Paleontologists (scientists studying the old Earth species) will agree on this point.  There once were swarms of trampling great land monster reptiles, coming out of the waters, breathing the air on land, and then becoming a species with feathers.  That's an exact match, dead on with modern science.

Now, Genesis was written 4000-5000 years ago.  So we might say that at least one person 4000-5000 years ago knew about—or perhaps guessed about—big lizards getting even bigger, coming out of the water, with feathers, walking on land, and breathing the air.

It's scientifically interesting, because the dinosaurs weren’t studied in 4000 B.C.  They weren’t studied formally until the 1800’s.  Hordes of dinosaurs roaming the earth aren’t found in other historical books we’ve uncovered.  Scientists weren’t talking about dinosaur feathers until pretty darn late in the twentieth century.  And yet these words are coming straight from ‘The Book’ so to