13 January 2009

Christian, Muslim or Jew

I decided to save myself a ton of time and research the findings of scholars who have dedicated their careers to studying ancient cultures and their creation stories. That way I could see if they knew of any world religions that matched up with how we know the universe came to be. That is through the Big Bang Theory, which is pretty well established throughout the science community. The latest information on the big bang is that the whole universe prior to it's expansion was the size of a pin point or more likely according to many cosmologists...nothing. Which is fascinating because I've never heard of something coming from nothing that wasn't in some fantasy novel. They also say that the initial state of our expanding universe would have been pink light, since hydrogen is the most prominent element throughout our universe. Then from that energy the light condensed into matter.
It so turns out that the only creation story on the planet that claims the universe both came out of nothingness and that there was a beginning of time and a beginning to matter all starting with light is the creation story found in the ancient manuscripts of the infamous Dead Sea Scrolls. It also happens to be the creation story of which Muslims, Christians and Jews all ascribe to. It is the creation story of Genesis which in Hebrew means beginnings.
I was floored with the comparisons in Genesis where God says "let there be light" to "ex nihilo" which in the Hebrew literally translates, out of nothing. Then from that light he separates the darkness and creates matter. And then goes on day after day until you have Adam and it only took some 120 hours. Unless you do a little bit more research into the Hebrew language once again. It turns out that the word used for a day is Yom in Hebrew. It's the very word that's used many other places in scripture to refer to an epoch or a period of existence of time. Like "In the day of King David". But what really led me to not understand this to be referring to a literal day(not to mention the dilema of there not being any sun to begin with to establish the 24 hour period we know of as a day:) is that the creation story in Genesis is actually a Poem. And It's actually a very structured and beautiful poem that's easy to remember. It's set up as three days of separating what God is creating and then three days of filling that creation. And the real beauty of the poetry is that it actually matches up with reality. It starts with God speaking things into existence and then blowing life into Man. Funny enough many cosmologists even compare the shape of our Universe to a balloon which I find rather ironic. Then this light was sculpted into all sorts of celestial mobiles culminating in a masterpiece that God once again breathes life into. In fact in the New Testament the greek word Poema which means masterpiece is used only twice. Once to speak of the creation of earth and then referring to us, His masterpiece.
There were many other connections with the beautiful poetry of the Torah that rang true with the now knowable universe. Which has only been in the last decade that we can actually see into the depths and unlock the secrets of our universe thanks to the Hubble telescope. For instance, in the poetry of the prophet He talks about God stretching out the universe! And how he sits above the "dome" of the earth, implying that it's a sphere. (Isaiah 40:22) And that's just scratching the surface.
But now I had to wrestle with which of the three faiths was the right one. Or at least I thought that's what I had to do. After all, if your not a republican then you're a democrat right? But It seemed to me that the fight was more than just over the tiny plot of land called Israel. But didn't it really boil down to just one question? The question that split time Before Christ into the present Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord). The question who really is Jesus?

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