God according to God, by Gerald Schroeder - Second post

God according to God by Gerald Schroeder

1. Schroeder says that the expression God uses in Exodus 3:14 to explain his name to Moses is better translated: I will be that which I will be. The KJV translates it I am that I am. This appears more static, perhaps more Greek. He suggests this comes two steps away from the Hebrew, The KJV is translated from Latin and that translated from a Greek version of the original Hebrew text. The Hebrew suggests using a future tense. God is not static but very dynamic.

2. He explains on page 86 that he will use the major ancient Hebrew commentaries to help interpret God’s word: 1) Talmud (compiled 400 AD), 2) Rashi (1040-1105), 3) Maimonides (1135-1204), and 4) Nahmanides (1195-1270). He likes these because they came before the invention of modern science so they will not be influenced by its teachings.

3. He decided the first thing God created was energy. This has serious theological ramifications.

Energy coalesces to matter and that is how the Big Bang happened. Somehow God is the agent behind the Big Bang. Schroeder is a great believer in the Big Bang. He believes that the account of creation in Genesis fits in well with this scientific explanation.

4. Going back to the account of the seven day creation Schroeder suggest that the fact that God called it “very good” seven times might imply that is was not so good in between his pronouncements. He believes that creation from nothing only happened once. This fits with Big Bang. On day three the earth “brought forth” plant life. It did not come from nothing. Exiting matter was used to make the plants.

5. His major example is from Rashi. Rashi suggests that the first rebellion did not take place in the garden. In Genesis 1:11 “And God said let the earth sprout vegetation, herbs yielding sees, fruit trees yielding fruit after its own kind with seed in it …” In verse 1:12 the response of the earth is to yield “trees yielding fruit”. Rashi tells us that this is not exactly what God commanded. God commanded fruit trees that bore fruit but the earth produced trees bearing fruit. Is this difference significant? We might disagree but Rashi says yes. He says that the earth rebelled by not doing exactly as God commanded. How is it different, fruit trees bearing fruit and trees bearing fruit? I’m not sure. I do not think Schroeder ever clearly tells us. On page 89 he says “Perhaps God’s demand exceeded nature’s potential. Can the wood of a tree ever be a fruit?”

6. Schroeder takes great pains to explain that a planet like the earth is very rare in the universe. This is something I did not know. I did know that scientists are looking at nearby stars for evidence of a solar system like our own and none has been found. Some stars seem to have large planets that might be dead stars. But nothing like a multiple system with an iron rich planet with a lot of liquid water. All of these conditions need to be present to create a planet amicable to life: spiral galaxy not in collision, low concentration of stars nearby, in a galaxy that has a high concentration of metals to produce a metal rich solar system, a star like our own that is just the size to produce a constant amount of energy for five billions years, a low (relative to asteroid composition) content of carbon and a low (relative to asteroid composition) content of water to allow some land masses, molten core of iron to allow continents to float and drift, planet of nearly circular orbit, a system with huge outer planets to protect it from meteors, a planetary rotation similar to ours to allow distribution of solar energy, a moderate tilt of the planet’s axis to allow for seasons, a more uniform distribution of solar energy in the north south direction, and even a large moon (for tidal mixing of the oceans). He figures the odds of a planet meeting these requirements is 1 in 1018. The estimated number of stars is 1022 meaning there are likely 10,000 planets like ours in the whole universe. That is one planet like ours in every ten million galaxies.

The point is ours is a pretty special planet. We are not likely to find one like it close by. This clear an explanation was new to me.