Time in the bible is not always literal and study of the bible requires a cross-references and an understanding of how time works biblically and time is not always literal. How does the bible and Christianity tell us evolution is compatible with the bible? I have researched this and found that there is no contradiction. Found some good info related to this, as well as going back to reading the bible myself to further confirm.
In Genesis, we have two creation stories and we have a description of the creation of the earth, and we also have it in Isaiah, so the bible has quite a bit to say about the earth, its’ destruction and re-creation. The dying out of species and even a first group of persons, if one takes the stories as two separate ones and also refers to Isaiah, one can see the extinction of part of the species and the re-shaping of the world.
Let’s focus now on Genesis and the wisdom of those such as St Augustine. St Augustine pointed out wisely that the term heaven’s refers to the invisible world of angels and earth to the material world, the physical world. Within the world the laws of the universe have always existed, just as God has always existed. When the bible states “In the beginning”, it is referring to the time when all there was in existence was the ethereal, the gases and such. When it states “God created…” it is talking about the physical. Genesis tells us that all manner of creatures were created, and it began with light, a bang on blinding light that took the void of earth and all that was dead, to give it life again. We also should take in to account that the bible talks about God creating a new heaven and new earth. In addition, if one reads a Messianic bible and the original Hebrew, it talks about heavens, plural. Thus, we can see that there are different heavenly bodies with different properties that were created. God hovered and was like a wind, rotating, well when the planets had to be re-groups and such, the force of God was like a wind and thus you see the spheres formed around the heavenly bodies.
The waters talked about are separated in the bible. If one researches and looks at science, you see that this is an accurate description of the forming of the universe, as regards gasses and the planets, things separating. High and low separate as God re-arranges things for the new heaven and the new earth. History Cycles has a great article and talks about the six levels of evolution and the bible. The six days are six levels, so once one understands the bible adequately, there is no contradiction. When no understood, there is ignorance. In Hebrew “day” does not necessarily mean a 24-hour day. It can also refer to an undetermined amount of time. The bible talks about a generation and a day, you get a sense that a day is beyond a day according to God’s sense of time. For God the day is as 1,000 years, so let us be mindful when we get all huffy, puffy and anti-science. God gave science so that we might know truth, his truth of life and creation, not abuse it, or use it for ill, but know and understand it.
Again, keep in mind always that for God and the spiritual realm there is not such thing as time, but when God was imparting revelation and when he imparts it still on us humans, he must do so in ways we can comprehend. Therefore, when the writer says days, it is not necessarily one day that God used to create the world. Also as things are living organisms, they did expand and grow over time. When we look at the bible and its’ compatibility with science we have to do lots of research, as there is lots of cross referencing and deep levels of understanding required to get to the truth of the bible. Fundamentalists, who reject science and refuse to go beyond the literal word per word, do God a great disservice.
Born in New Jersey, August 1965, this Italian-American has always had a great interest in music, particularly the Oldies, Country and Ethnic music, including Irish. For over 10 years Ms. Appello passionately taught ESL to students of varying ages. Grounded if her Christian faith and spirituality, Katherine endured a range of issues, including a great deal of pain, which was finally diagnosed to be associated with Fibromyalgia. The essence and the power of music, of words, allow Katherine to overcome these struggles each and every time. We are all blessed to have Katherine’s strength, wisdom, and words