When it comes to science and the Bible, many see these two as foes, enemies always at war with each other. They are seen as strikingly opposed to another’s views. One can either believe in the nature of the Bible or one can believe in the evidence of science. One cannot believe in both. I am here today to build a claim that the latter can actually be true. It may be possible to believe in a God who created the universe by the work of his hands and also believe in the evidence of science. How is this possible? How can one believe in science and the Bible since they contradict one another? The answer is going to be the thesis of this study. 

I want to present the scientific evidence that is commonly accepted by many scientists and then compare that to scholars and the words of God in the Bible. We will primarily be using Genesis 1-3 as our proof text for creation. We will be highlighting the issues of the genealogical time scale and evolution compared to what Scripture says about these issues. The results may surprise you. 

As for the genealogical time scale, according to many geologists the earth is approximately 5 billion years old, give or take a few billion years. Again these are estimates since no one was around to write all this down and date it. Once the earth was formed, there have been 4 major eras of time. The Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, the one which we are currently in. In each of these eras, many things on earth took place that we could only imagine. There was water before land appeared. Single-celled organisms began to live. Plants were the first to make it to dry land. Then birds and sea creatures and dinosaurs roamed the earth. After the extinction of dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans evolved and now reside plentifully on the earth. 

This genealogical time scale follows a similar lineage of the creation narrative in Genesis 1. I have made a simple chart to demonstrate. 

Era	Creation Day
PreCambrian	Days 1-2
Paleozoic	Day 3
Mesozoic	Day 5
Cenozoic	Day 6 and continuing Day 7

Now of course, there are going to be major gaps in this theory but this is a start to say that perhaps science and the Bible haven’t been that far off from each other all these years. Perhaps they have been displaying the same ideas but with different language. The issue in this chart is that there is no day 4. Now the day 4 in the Genesis account is when God appoints lights in the sky (sun, moon, and stars) to give light and to be for signs. So if this doesn’t happen till day 4, how could life (like plants) survive millions of years as science proposes without the sun? 

Here’s a theory. The evidence suggests that light did not appear until the end of the Paleozoic period and the beginning of the Mesozoic period. The earth was dark until that point because the atmosphere was so thick. It could be that it was during this time that the light was able to reach the surface of earth allowing plants to grow. This would align similarly to what the Genesis account claims. It doesn’t say these lights were created on day 4, the Hebrew suggests that God “appointed” lights in Genesis 1:14. In other words, the lights started to shine on day 4 as science suggests that the sunlight reached earth during this time period. 

This all works out unless you don’t come to terms with the amount of time the creation “days” were in Genesis 1. Many have traditionally believed, as did I, that these were 24hr day cycles much like we experience today. This is further argued by saying that each day is marked with the phrase “evening passed and morning came”. This phrase would seem to indicate that there was an evening to each day, night came, and then morning came which marked the beginning of a new day. This seems like a valid argument until one realizes that the sun, (which marks the days) didn’t appear until day 4. So why would the author of this narrative mark days when there was no sun to go by? Furthermore, whenever the word “day” appears, it doesn’t have to refer to a single 24hr day. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, that word “yom” can refer to a period of time or an age. We don’t have to limit this word to a single day but a period of time, which would further align the science and this account of Creation. 

We will probably never see the full, perfect alignment of Scripture and science because we are human and God is God. However, I do believe that science is not always at odds with Scripture and vice versa, and there’s no reason they have to be. The Genesis account is not meant to be taken literally because it too has gaps and information missing from all that was created. The point of the narrative is not to be a textbook but a piece of literature written to claim that God created this wonderful universe and He created us in His image. We must not forget why it was written in the first place.