The Big Bang and the Bible (Genesis 1:1)
The Bible begins with these words:
In the beginning, God created the skies and the earth.
There are two bold claims in this simple statement:
- There is a God who created everything we see.
- The universe has not always been here. It had a beginning.
The second point is a claim that can be tested with science.
For most of history, there wasn’t any way for science to tell us whether the universe had a beginning or not. We simply didn’t know enough about the universe to have an answer.
So some people just accepted what the Bible said as truth. Others assumed that the universe had always existed.
But recent scientific discoveries have provided an independent answer to this question.
Between 1905 and 1915 Albert Einstein published revolutionary papers about his theories of relativity. He believed that time, space, and gravity were are interconnected with matter. For example, he suggested that energy could be converted into matter, and matter into energy. This led to the invention of the atomic bomb, which unlocks the incredible power inside of matter.
As Einstein’s theories were confirmed and other discoveries were made, scientists eventually came to an inescapable conclusion: the universe had a beginning.
Here is a short description of the current scientific understanding of the origin of the universe:
from nothing, our universe begins. … a fraction of a moment after the dawn of creation, the universe underwent a sudden dramatic expansion. … it changed the universe from something that you could hold in your hand to something at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger. — Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pages 10, 14
When this “Big Bang” theory was first introduced, many scientists rejected it. First of all, it doesn’t make sense. How could our universe come from nothing…unless it was created from nothing by God? Indeed, many were uncomfortable with the Big Bang theory simply because it confirmed what the Bible had always claimed about the origin of the universe. But in time, theories about an eternal “steady-state universe” were proven wrong, and scientists were forced to accept that the universe had a beginning.
And there is more. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was created in “a sudden dramatic expansion.” Space was literally stretched out of nothing. And how does the Bible say God created the universe?
He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, And stretched out the heaven by His understanding. (Jer. 51:15, NKJV)
Is this just poetic language? If so, why is it mentioned more than ten times in the Bible, by five different people who lived at different times? Take a look for yourself at all these verses: Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; and Zechariah 12:1.
In the past 100 years, scientists have finally come to understand that the universe had a beginning and that it was stretch out from nothing. The writers of the Bible recorded these details thousands of years before science discovered them.
How did they know?
What do you think?
Did a bunch of liars make a lucky guess about the origin our universe? Did a bunch of crazy men accidentally stumble on the truth? Or did the prophets who wrote the Bible record they mysteries that God revealed to them? What is the most reasonable explanation?
Many people think that science has disproven the Bible. But as we will continue to see, the opposite is true. Scientific discoveries have actually continued to confirm the Bible again and again.
That’s not to say that scientists and theologians agree about everything. They certainly do not. But if you carefully examine of the facts with a sincere desire to find the truth, you will discover that disagreements between science and the Bible revolve around flawed interpretation of facts, not the facts themselves.
The Bible begins with these words:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
The Bible begins with two bold claims:
First, it claims that there is a God who created everything out of nothing.
Second, it claims that the universe has not always been here. It had a beginning.
This second claim is a claim that we can test with science.
For most of human history, there wasn’t any way for science to tell us whether the universe had a beginning or not. We simply didn’t know enough about the universe to have an answer. Some people believed what the Bible said, and others believed that the universe had always existed.
But recent scientific discoveries have provided an independent answer to this question.
Between 1905 and 1915 a man named Albert Einstein published revolutionary theories about how the universe works. As Einstein’s theories were confirmed and other discoveries were made, scientists eventually came to an inescapable conclusion: the universe had a beginning.
Here is a short description of the current scientific understanding of the origin of the universe:
From nothing, our universe begins…. a fraction of a moment after the dawn of creation, the universe underwent a sudden dramatic expansion…. It changed the universe from something that you could hold in your hand to something [billions of billions of] times bigger. — Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pages 10, 14
This is called the “Big Bang” theory. When this theory was first introduced, many scientists rejected it.
Why?
First of all, it doesn’t make any sense. How could our universe come from nothing…unless it was created from nothing by God? Indeed, many were uncomfortable with the Big Bang theory simply because it confirmed what the Bible had always claimed about the origin of the universe. But in time, all of the theories about an eternal “steady-state universe” were proven wrong, and scientists were forced to accept that the universe had a beginning.
And there is more. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was created in “a sudden dramatic expansion.” Space was literally stretched out of nothing.
Notice how the Bible say God created the universe in Jeremiah 51:15:
[God] made the earth by His power, He established the world by His wisdom, And He stretched out the heavens by His understanding. (Jeremiah 51:15)
The Bible says that God created the universe by stretching it out.
Is this just poetic language? If so, why is it mentioned more than ten times in the Bible, by five different people who lived at different times? (Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22_;_ 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; Zechariah 12:1)
In the past 100 years, scientists have finally come to understand that the universe had a beginning and that it was stretched out from nothing. The writers of the Bible recorded these details thousands of years before science discovered them.
How did they know?
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In the next lesson I will show you what the Bible says about the age of the earth.