-About the author (Wikipedia)
-Author's Official Website
-Dr. Schroeder speaking on cosmology: a 30 min. clip from the documentary, "Has Science Discovered God?"
Watch This! It's long, and poor video quality, but worth it.
"The medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote that conflicts between science and the Bible arise from either a lack of scientific knowledge or a defective understanding of the Bible. This is a continuing problem. Acknowledged experts in science may assume that although scientific research requires diligent intellectual effort, biblical wisdom can be obtained through a simple reading of the bible. Conversely, theologians who have devoted decades to plumbing the depths of biblical wisdom often satisfy their scientific curiosity through articles in the popular press and then assume they can evaluate the validity of scientific discoveries. The "opposition" is viewed with a level of knowledge frozen at a high school or pre-high school level. No wonder the other side seems superficial, even naive. To relate these two fields in a meaningful way requires an in-depth understanding of both. Nobel laureate and high energy physicist Steven Weinberg is unsympathetic to the idea that ancient commentators on the Bible foresaw modern cosmological concepts regarding the origin of our universe. Yet in his recent book Dreams of a Final Theory, he readily admits, It should be apparent that in discussing these things....I leave behind any claim to special expertise."
"Here we come to a basic tension between religion and science: biblical literalism. Haven't those who demand a literal reading of Genesis noticed that Genesis is literally filled with contradictions? Two millennia ago, long before paleontologists discovered fossils of dinosaurs and cavemen, long before the data from the Hubble and Keck telescopes hinted at a multibillion-year old universe, the Talmud stated explicitly that the opening chapter of Genesis, all thirty-one verses, is presented in a manner that conceals information (Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 11b, 112a, 500 C.E.). The kabalistic tradition has come to elucidate that which is held within those verses. Kabalah is logic, not mysticism, but logic so deep that it might seem mystical to the uninitiated. Literalism is simply not an effective way to extract meaning from the Bible." (10)
"The first step in a rapprochement between science and Bible is for each camp to understand the other. Distancing the Bible from a few misplaced theological shibboleths will do wonders in furthering this mutual understanding.
I have already treated several. Earth need not be at the center of the universe for biblical religion to survive. As Genesis 1:1 stated, first came the heavens and then came the Earth. Western religion has learned to forgo its misplaced dream of a universe revolving around Earth, to accept gravity as a part of nature and not the machinations of a perverted mind, and most important, to read the Bible, as Moses insisted three times on the day of his death, as a poem, as a text having within it a subtext harboring multiple meanings (Deut. 31:19, 30; 32:44)" (11)
"The conflict between science and the Bible is ironic. Throughout the Bible, knowledge of God is compared with the wonders of nature. As stated so well in Psalms (19:2): "The heavens tell of God's glory and the sky declares his handiwork."
Eight hundred years ago, the medieval philosopher Maimonides wrote that science in not only the surest path to knowing God, it is the only path, and for that reason the Bible commences with a description of Creation. In some communities that thought was sufficient cause to burn his books.
I am not so naive as to claim that current scientific opinion can explain the workings of all events described in the Bible, or that biblical wisdom foresaw all that modern science has discovered. However, in biology, paleontology, cosmology, among a sweep of topics the confluence is remarkable.
Maimonides claim has proven itself. God is back in the discussion of science, and with good reason.
The perception that religion requires faith alone is a misperception. Religion requires belief and belief is built on knowledge. For knowledge, we live in an opportune era. The discoveries in the past few decades in astronomy, high energy physics, and paleontology have revolutionized the understanding of our cosmic genesis. They have taken us to the threshold of time and the beginning of life.
We have learned that there was a time before which there was neither time nor space nor matter. Discoveries related to the explosive development of life have forced a reevaluation of the process and direction of evolution.
Although the popular impression is otherwise, with the professional scientific community, most of us realize that the Bible is not about to be replaced with a formula that can fit on a T-shirt. The quintessential admission of this appeared in an article written by Harvard University professor Stephen jay Gould: "Science simply cannot adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature." Knowing the plumbing of the universe, intricate and awe-inspiring though that plumbing might be, is a far cry from discovering its purpose.
The flow of time and events from the big bang to the appearance of humankind is summarized in the thirty-one verses with which the Bible begins: Genesis 1. These few hundred words describe sixteen billion years of cosmic history, topics about which entire libraries of books have been written. With a superficial reading of Genesis, and certainly with a superficial reading of the text in translation, we haven't a prayer of understanding the details.
But then, superficiality is a loser in all endeavors. If we relied on casual observations of nature, we would still believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. That is certainly the simple perception we derive, day by day, from sunrise to sunset.
Unlike abstract concepts of faith, biblical religion has a track record that can be evaluated. As Paul Johnson articulated so incisively, the Bible is the earliest identifiable source of the great conceptual discoveries essential for civilization: equality before the law, sanctity of life, dignity of the individual, individual and communal responsibility, peace as an ideal, love as the foundation of justice.
Might it be, as Einstein and Ben-Gurion concluded at their meeting so many decades ago, that a contingency, an ingenious coherence transcending and joining all aspects of existence does pervade the scientific maze we call our universe?
Rather than merely discarding such a premise as rubbish, or embracing it as the logical and obvious truth, the Bible and science both have the identical response: study the data and from a position of knowledge determine the probability of this coherence having happened by an unguided nature.
Let's look at the universe, its cosmic genesis, and see if we can discern hints of a transcendent Creator historically active in the creation. If we do, we can move on and investigate how we might capture the all-too-rare rush of joy sensed when we chance upon the transcendent. Instead of waiting passively for it to happen, imagine being bale to have that joy as a permanent partner in life. That would be getting the most out of life." (17-19)
"The Bible relates in thirty-one verses, in a few hundred words, events spanning sixteen billion years. These are events about which scientists have written literally millions of words. The entire development of animal life is summarized in eight biblical sentences. Considering the brevity of the biblical narrative, the match between the statements and timing in Genesis 1 and the discoveries of modern science is phenomenal, especially when we realize that all biblical interpretation used here was recorded centuries, even millennia, in the past and so was not in any way influenced by the discoveries of modern science. It is modern science that has come to match the biblical account of our genesis.
Scientists at times get annoyed with discussions like this one. It can be construed to imply the following syllogism: (a) Science confirms the Bible's wisdom. (b) The Bible already has all the answers we need relative to an understanding of humanity's place in the scheme of existence. Therefore, (c) science is unnecessary as a tool for understanding man's place in the scheme of existence. As a lifelong scientist, I would hardly want to encourage such a nonsensical line of deductive reasoning. Though the Bible is eerily true and filled with wisdom that would not have been known widely, if at all, when it was written, nowhere does it claim to have all the answers. The Bible may be the primary source for claiming that a purpose underlies our existence. But understanding the cause of that purpose can only be found, as Maimonides stated so many centuries ago, in a knowledge of the physical world. For that knowledge, the theologian must turn to the scientist." (70)
"Humans also are strongly driven by these basic desires of survival and pleasure. We and all animals are pleasure seekers. But humans have a source of pleasure not evident in other animals. It arises from the neshama, or link to an all-encompassing unity that underlies what superficially appears to be a diverse and multi-faceted universe. The neshama whispers to us of a pleasure that transcends our limited physical existence." (172)
"...dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible. In Genesis 1:21 we are told that on day five God created the basis for all animal life. Among the categories of animals listed in one named taninum gedolim. Gedolim means big, and so we read "the big taninim." Pick up five different English translations of the Hebrew Bible and you're likely to find five different meanings for the word taninim: whales, alligators, sea monsters, even dragons. Yet taneen, the singular of taninim, is a word that appears elsewhere in the Bible and its meaning is known.
In Exodus 3, the Eternal spoke to Moses from the burning bush and told him to return to Egypt to lead the enslaved Hebrews to freedom. Moses felt incapable of the task and so the Eternal gave him several signs, one related to his shepard's staff. When Moses was told to throw his staff on the ground "it became a nahash": (Ex. 4:3). Nahash is the Hebrew word for snake. After Moses' return to Egypt, when Pharaoh asked for a sign, Moses' staff was again thrown to the ground and "became a taneen" (Ex. 7:10). Why didn't it become a nahash, a snake? And just five verses later, the Eternal tells Moses: "Get to Pharaoh in the morning, behold he goes to the water, and stand by the river's edge and the staff which turned into a nahash take in your hand" (Ex. 7:15).
It's the same staff. The change is first referred to as a nahash, then as a taneen, then as a nahash. we know that nahash means snake from its use elsewhere. Taneen must be a general category of animals since it appears in the creation chapter of Genesis, where, other than Adam, only general categories of life are listed. So taneen must be the general category within which nahash - snake - falls. The general category for snakes is reptiles. Thus Genesis 1:21 translates as: "And God created the big reptiles...." The biggest reptiles were the dinosaurs. But the author of Genesis did not specify dinosaurs directly, because that would have been inconsistent with the pattern of the chapter. The entire account of Genesis is stated in terms of objects known or knowable to the myriad of witnesses present at Sinai, 3,300 years ago. Dinosaurs were not part of their world. But the hint, along with so many other hints, were there in the text for later generations to discover." (193-4)
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