The Bible and science (3)

Bienvenido Macaraeg Jr.

Third of four parts

WE wrote last time that from the biblical accounts documenting the angelic cosmic battle that we read about in the previous installment of this article, we will go next to the latest scientific reports as reported over BBC, the National Geographic and other scientific journals and see the incredibly cataclysmic and unbelievably devastating results inflicted on planet earth as a consequence of that “war in heaven”!  Here it is.

You must have already read of scientific reports saying that a gigantic asteroid or asteroids hit the earth 66 million years ago causing the sudden death of the dinosaurs!  Indeed!  And when could that have better happened if not during the very time of the angelic cosmic battle!

Jan Smith, Earth Scientist in the VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands wrote about the dinosaurs’ extinction event.

He wrote that in Chicxulub in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is the incredible impact mark of a space rock.   Alleged to be a mountain-size blazing asteroid, it hurtled to the earth at a speed of 64,000 kilometers per hour!  Gouging a crater, 185 kms. in diameter and several kms. deep!

Scientists figured that the impact equaled 10 billion times the power of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima Japan in 1945!  If you can comprehend that!  Or another way of putting it, the asteroid or comet that came crashing packed an explosive power believed to be over 100 Trillion tons of TNT vaporizing thousands of cubic tons of rock in almost an instant!  Simply mind-boggling!

In a report titled “Dinosaur Apocalypse,” Paul Renae, geoscientist, Berkeley Geochronology Center, Calif., US stated in a science journal that “the impact [of the asteroid] formed mountains in minutes, spawned towering tsunamis that buried plants and animals (dinosaurs) under thick piles of rubble.”

The report disagreed with the theory that the dinosaurs’ demise was a gradual decline of their population for some reasons over the span of a few million years.  On the contrary, Dr. Smith said that “these dinosaurs were running alive before they were hit by tsunamis” and buried.

Dr. Renae’s theory is more credible considering that our fossil fuels today came from buried combustible geologic deposits of organic materials from plants and animals resulting to crude oil, coal and natural gas.  But they only can be formed with heat and pressure in the earth’s crust.  Which means that these animals and plants must have been buried alive suddenly.  Otherwise, if they just died and got decayed on the surface of the ground they could not turn into fossil fuel because of the absence of heat and pressure.

The tsunamis were one of the consequences of the awesome power of the asteroid or comet impact!  One incredible proof of gargantuan tsunamis is the presence of fossils of fishes from the oceans found high up in mountain strata hundreds of kilometers inland!  Simply unbelievable!

But the blast was not the lone killer.  There too was the darkness that followed!  How did the darkness come about?

Geoscientist Renae further reported that “the impact triggered global catastrophes, earthquakes that measured beyond the Richter scale and volcanic explosions spewed into the atmosphere!  Debris rained from the sky.  Soot and dust filled the atmosphere and spread like giant sunlight-blocking shade over the entire planet.”  The soot is estimated to be about 70 billion metric tons.  Equal to 211,000 Empire State Buildings in New York in weight!  That mind-boggling volume of soot spread in the atmosphere and covered the entire planet earth bringing about complete darkness!

Further on the volcanic eruptions triggered by the asteroid impact: on the other side of the planet were supervolcanic eruptions (in what is now India).  The Deccan Volcano eruption is said to have spewed out 1.3 million cubic kilometers of molten rocky debris and caustic gases.  More than enough to bury the whole of Alaska to the height of the world’s tallest skyscraper!  “The lifted debris into the atmosphere darkened the skies around the world.  Earth chilled and stayed that way for a long time.”

Remember what we read earlier in Genesis 1:2?  “And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Talk of the Bible being ahead of its time! Talk of the Bible stating scientific facts thousands of years before modern scientists discover it and repeat the very same Bible statement almost word for word!  Whoever said that the Bible is out of date! Truth is, it is way, way ahead of its time!

Additionally, the immensely powerful earthquakes triggered by the impact caused whatever vaults of water stored in the bowels of the earth to break out into springs contributing massive floods to the already inundated land areas due to the tsunamis.  Hence, we read in the Bible passage above referring to the surface of the earth as “the deep” meaning covered with water!

We can cite more scientific proofs but this article was never meant to be exhaustive.

Just one more thing though. While some surmise that the continents were once connected by “land-bridges,” it is more logical to theorize that millions of years ago, the total land area of the earth was one land mass. Look at a globe. Notice how the continents and islands look like parts of a giant jigsaw puzzle pulled away from each other!  The cataclysmic impact/s of the blazing asteroid/s must have caused the earth’s plates to crack and drift away into continents and islands.

Supporting this view is the fact that geological scientists tell us that the continents continue to move. A very pronounced one is the Australian continent inching towards Asia and the eastern portion of Africa slowly peeling off from the continent.

Interestingly, I found that my theory is supported by scientific studies!  I invite the reader to read up on the topic of “Pangaea, Ancient Supercontinent.”  And you will find that scientists from the US Geological Survey report that millions of years before the presence of the dinosaurs and overlapping their time, the Earth was only one massive supercontinent called “Pangaea”!

We now go back to Genesis 1.

Gen. 1:2, last part: “and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.”  (Remember that the earth’s surface was submerged in water.)

This now is the time which most believe to be 6,000 years ago allegedly based on the computation of genealogies as appearing in the early chapters of Genesis. But even 6,000 years is inaccurate. Dr. Merrill F. Unger, an eminent Bible scholar and author of so many excellent Bible study aids like the Unger’s Bible Dictionary, commentaries and many other Bible helps asserted that man’s history per the Bible is at least 10,000 years or even more. That is because the genealogies in Genesis are not complete and had many omissions.

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.”  This is the time when God began to recreate the earth after it “became without form and void”!  This was not the original creation but a re-creation or repair work of the destruction and devastation of the planet.  You will see this “repair work” as well as the creation of whatever was needed, as we go through the related verses in the first chapter of Genesis.  God’s main purpose now was to prepare the earth to be conducive for the habitation this time of human beings He now intended to create beginning with Adam and Eve.

But wait! How about the ape-like creatures that existed five to seven million years ago?  And the Homo Erectus and Homo Neanderthalensia about 200,000 years ago?  Weren’t they the first humans?  Weren’t they our prehistoric ancestors?

We will be answering that question in the 4th and last installment of this article. (to be continued)

(Bienvenido D. Macaraeg Jr. has been a Bible scholar and exegete since 1962 who took Advanced Biblical Studies in the US in the ’80s.  Now retired, he had served as senior pastor in Metro Manila and from as far North as the Ilocos to South in Zamboanga. He is currently director and founder of Speechmasters CDO. E-mail: goodconqueror@websprinter.net)