This blog is Part One of a two-part series.
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On June 5th of this year, I wrote a blog titled, “Simple Mathematics.” In the blog, I explained why I changed my mind from believing Adam and Eve were allegorical fictional characters, to the belief that they were in fact, the first two people God created and placed on this earth.
Today I suspect more and more people believe the Genesis account of creation is an allegorical fictional story. However, I have read of two brilliant scientists whose lives have been rocked upon reading the creation account found in the first few chapters of Genesis.
Dr. John Lennox is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, a Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, and a Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton, Oxford. He is an author and popular lecturer on the interface between science, philosophy, and theology.
Lennox relates a fascinating story about a gifted scientist in England, a man by the name of Andrew Parker who is the director of research at the Natural History Museum in London. He holds professorships at a Chinese university as well as an Australian university. Lennox said he has known him for several years and that he is an expert in “bioluminescence,” a field that studies the production and emission of light by living organisms. Specifically, Parker studies marine life that emits light, and, in his research, he concluded that the eye has played a central role in evolutionary biology.
One day Parker was giving a lecture on the subject of bioluminescence and a reporter in the back of the room raised his hand and said, “Sir, you sound like Genesis.”
Parker asked, “What do you mean? Genesis what?”
The reporter answered, “You sound like Genesis in the Bible . . . Let there be light.”
Lennox said his friend had never read the Bible and so he bought one and started to read it. And he couldn’t let go of it. It astounded him.
Night after night Parker would read the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1. Dr. Lennox said Parker finally contacted him because he knew Lennox was a Christian and would therefore be interested in these things. Parker said, even though he was not religious, he would like to talk with him about science and religion.
The net result? Parker published a book called The Genesis Enigma: Why the First Book of the Bible is Scientifically Accurate.
Parker leads off with a caveat and then continues with the argument,
“I’m not a religious man and I do not want religion, particularly at this time in my life. But what I have discovered is the most remarkable correlation between the order of events as I see them in the history of life and what Genesis says. There’s no way the Hebrew writer of Genesis could have known that light was important, that marine life was important.”
Then Parker goes through a whole list of points, facts as he knew them to be as a scientist, and then he concludes, “The writer of Genesis has it all in the right order. Could this be the evidence of God?”
Lennox says as intelligent as this book is it has been rejected by academics primarily because it is so unusual for a scientist who is not a religious man to be so forthright in correlating science to the book of Genesis.
We will continue with Part Two of “It All Started With Genesis” next Monday. Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.