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Big bang, small voice

Reconciling Genesis and modern science

How far with the Bible?

BIG BANG, SMALL VOICE
Reconciling Genesis and modern science
By P.G. Nelson
Whittles Publishing. 158 pages. £4.50
ISBN 978-1-904445-05-5

The aim of the author was to look at the tension between the scientific account of the origins of the universe and the biblical account.

He does this by first assuming that the scientific account is correct and examining how far the Biblical account can be reconciled with it ‘without weakening the Bible’s authority’. Secondly, he examines ‘how far the scientific account can be reconciled with the biblical account without distorting science’. The author writes with a minimum of technical language and makes the book accessible to those with a particular interest in the topic, but without education at university level.

Dr. Nelson proposes that, as the biblical account of origins was written for all generations, it must be at least partly figurative. Otherwise, later generations would have advantage over the earlier one in understanding it, because they would have a greater scientific knowledge. As a result, the ‘literal’ account he uses to compare with the scientific account is, in fact, partly figurative. He discusses a variety of options as to what could have happened and concludes that there is no irresolvable conflict between the scientific account and the biblical account. However, he does not contrast the theory of evolution with the view that the early chapters of Genesis are an historical rather than figurative account and continuous with the later chapters that record as far as the death of Joseph.

I was disappointed that the book did not deal with the conflicts between the nature of God as revealed in Scripture (‘One who purposes and executes all things according to his will from before the foundation of the earth to its culmination in the day of judgment’) and the nature of evolution, which by definition is a random, purposeless process with no end in mind. An interesting read.

Dr. Nancy Darrall,
church member, Radcliffe Road Baptist Church, Bury