Yolande wrote:Have you read The Genesis Enigma: Why the bible is scientifically accurate" Andrew Parker. Doubleday publishers, 2009?
The Genesis Enigma: Why the bible is scientifically accurate Andrew Parker
Has anyone read this? Is it worth reading? Is there anything new?
Some comments I've found:
It might be worth it just to see how he gets eyes out of thisThe author of the Genesis Enigma accepts an evolutionary view of 'creation' and attempts to show that the sequence of the physical and biological events in creation corresponds to the sequence given in Genesis 1. Taking a very broad view, its easy to see that this ought to be the case, since Genesis 1 starts with the appearance of light (the sun?) in Day 1 and ends with the appearance of mankind in Day 6. The real test of 'accuracy' would be a convincing explanation of why those events in Genesis 1 which seem to be out of sequence are placed where they are - specifically, the creation of the sun, moon and stars on Day 4 (after light and after plant-life) and the creation of birds on Day 5 (before land animals). Dr Parker discusses both of these. Day 4 he argues corresponds the evolution of eyes and the ability to see. It is certainly and interesting idea, but he hardly attempts to justify this as a reasonable interpretation of the Genesis narrative in Genesis 1:14-19. There is a chapter devoted to the evolution of birds (and how painters captured the metallic colours!) but no real attempt to explain why Genesis 1:20 places them with the aquatic creatures rather than the land animals - as their evolution from dinosaurs ought to suggest. The final section on who wrote Genesis was not really relevant to the key issue of sequence, and although it seems clear that Genesis was edited at some stage (conceivably as early as the time of Moses) I do not find the JEPD view of the Pentateuch sensible and much prefer Wiseman's tablet theory.
In other words, Genesis Enigma makes some points of interest, but fails in my view to fulfil the promise of its subtitle "Why the Bible is scientifically accurate". It seems to be written by someone who is keen on natural history, but not really sure about the the Bible or its veracity.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
At least he is not a literalist. As I have noted before, there is no remarkable similarity. Genesis has water before light.The book describes the remarkable similarity between the order of events described in the first chapter of Genesis and the scientifically known series of macro-evolutionary steps in the history of life on earth. Parker asks how a text written some 2,500 years before the development of modern science could have captured this order of events, and says it was either a lucky guess or a matter of inspiration.
This sounds like the same old drivel we've been hearing all along from those who want to accept science but are unwilling to abandon revelation.
