In the beginning ...

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  (Genesis 1:1)   Most Biblical scholars believe that Genesis was written by Moses around 1450 BC to 1400 BC.  Of course, Creation happened before Moses was born - Duh!  So how did he know what to write?  

• Undoubtedly, Moses knew stories of earlier events (called "oral history"), that were told and handed down from father to son through the line of Adam - Seth - Noah - Shem - Abraham - Isaac - Jacob, etc.  
• But it's also likely he had written records to refer to, as well.  How can we know this?  Over 1800 complete clay tablets were discovered at Elba in the 1960s - proving that extensive written records were being kept at least 1000 years before Moses!  Written around 2500 BC in a cuneiform script, the language on these tablets was a pre-Canaanite dialect closely related to Hebrew.  They told great details of the flourishing city-state of Elba, some having as many as 3000 lines on a single tablet!  So it's possible that Moses had access to records written centuries before his time.
• Whatever combination of oral and written records were available to him, we can know for sure that Moses was guided by the Holy Spirit as to what all he wrote down, since we know that "All Scripture is inspired by God." (2 Timothy 3:16).    

Genesis 1 tells us that God spoke everything into existence supernaturally.  His creative acts were one-time-only, unique, supernatural processes -- that can't be fully understood by what scientists can observe today.  Although not all scientists believe in "divine creation," there are many who do believe.

As did Jesus Himself!  Who relied on Scripture -- word for word, cover to cover.  Including its first 5 words, “In the beginning, God created ...”

Fast-forward to 1990 => The Hubble Telescope was launched about 3400 years after Moses wrote Genesis, and we can now SEE into portions of the known universe.  And the more we see, the more we are amazed!  Backed by pictures and data, scientists have written to the best of their abilities a variety of theories about how it all began ... but even the most brilliant man's mind is limited because we are human.  By contrast, God is not limited by a finite human mind!  He created us and operates outside of time and space as we know it, so we can never fully know or explain how an All-Knowing, All-Powerful God set the universe in motion!

What we DO know for sure is that "All Scripture is inspired by God," right?  Therefore everything in the Bible is true -- whether we can wrap our minds around it or not.  (Who are we to say, that we don't believe what God said is true??? Yikes!!!)  So we honor the Biblical creation story in faith. Let's open our Bibles and read these verses along with Pappy ...  

We love you,
Pappy & GiGi

P.S.  How amazing it is that our beautiful earth is just a tiny part of God’s creation!  But it’s not that tiny, is it?

In this episode, you'll hear Pappy mention that Alpha Centauri is the nearest star to our planet.  (Just so you know, it’s 4.367 light years away.  That’s roughly 25 trillion miles away, give or take a foot or two.)  Alpha Centauri is only one of over 100 billion stars in our Milky Way, yet the Psalmist says God calls each of them by name. (Psalm 147:4)

We. Stand. In. Awe.