Science, religion, and public school education.

Creationists and other fundamentalist Christians continue their attempts to introduce their ideas into American school classrooms. Their efforts become monotonous, wearisome, and absurd, but they must not be ignored. Too often in the debates about the findings of modern science, the biblical thinking that lies in back of creationist efforts is ignored.

Over thirty years ago, in the Beverly Hills home of one of his supporters, I met with the famous South African paleontologist Louis Leakey. He was talking about discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge that traced human evolution back over a million years. For some reason, he felt compelled to say that these findings did not contradict the Genesis creation account because "we don't know how long a day was then--it could have been a million years." I was a guest, so I refrained from comment. His statement, was, of course, nonsense. Evolutionary research is scientific; the Genesis accounts are temple tales--religious folklore or mythology--and the differences are significant.

To begin with, the Genesis I account opens with a recognition of the existence of primeval waters as the stuff of creation--just as other ancient Near Eastern creation myths do. "When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep" is the more exact translation of the opening verse than that of the King James' version ("In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."). The latter is the basis for the "creation out of nothing" theory.

Creation, in Genesis 1, consists of placing in the primeval waters an inverted solid bowl or "firmament" (the Hebrew word indicates something "beaten out" like metal) or sky, which separates the waters "above the firmament" from those below. On the second day, a pocket is created in the primeval waters as the waters under the firmament are pressed down, so to speak, and earth is created to hold out the waters which are now beneath it. The image is that of a cheese dish submerged in a pool with the glass hemisphere keeping out waters above the dish and the wooden board keeping out the waters below. This same representation of the universe lies behind the flood account in Genesis 7 where, we are told, windows in the firmament are opened to allow the primeval waters to pour in from above, and the waters under the earth burst through to flood from below.

The concept of a day as extending from sunset to sunset is in accord with Jewish reckoning. One need only be in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem as the sabbath approaches to witness the significance of sundown for marking both the beginning and ending of this Jewish holy day. Leakey's efforts to transform the hours of the day into millions of years were pure allegory.

It is important to note that the Genesis evening-morning pattern is, in effect, before the sun is created on the fourth day. Plants came into being on the third day--before there is a sun. Impossible! Jewish temple priests could ignore photosynthesis; modern agricultural science cannot.

In 1946, Alexander Heidel published The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels--a work supported by a subvention from the Lutheran church, Missouri synod. Heidel notes that the biblical account of creation in Genesis 1 follows precisely the same day-by-day developmental pattern presented in the Babylonian version of creation. Inasmuch as the Babylonian narrative is much older, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Hebrew account reflects the impact of Babylonian religious thought on the Hebrew clergy--which would occur, most probably, during the sixth century BCE when the Jews were in exile in Babylon. Indeed, modem scholarship dates the writing of Genesis 1 somewhere in the late sixth to fifth century BCE.

If the Genesis 1 story is unscientific, consider the older (tenth century BCE) Garden of Eden story that begins in Genesis 2. Here the order of creation not only differs from that of Genesis 1 but is actually absurd. Yahweh's garden estate is already in existence and the deity needs a gardener to look after it. Man (Adam) is created by the deity who, acting like a potter, molds damp red earth (adama, which is feminine) and then animates the clay figurine by blowing into its nostrils. The portrayal of a deity shaping the first humans out of clay appears in both ancient Egyptian creation mythology (where the god Khnum is the creator) and Sumerian myths (in one story the god Enki is the creator and in another the goddess Ninmah).

Man, now caretaker of the divine garden, is lonely. Yahweh, following the same creative procedures as before, brings into being millions of animal and bird forms to be companions for Adam. For each creature the man has to devise a name--what a task! The woman, Eve, shaped from one of the man's ribs, appears to be the final effort in producing a suitable companion. Adam, who must have been exhausted and frustrated by this time, says, "At last!" The order of creation--man, animals, woman--makes no sense and is certainly not science.

Efforts to find in biblical creation stories some parallels to modern science consist of reading into Genesis one's own interpretations rather than permitting the texts to speak for themselves. What was written 2,000 to 3,000 years ago reflects the thinking of men and women of those times struggling to understand their cosmos, their environment, and themselves. The results are anything but scientific.

We are not where the writers of the Bible were. We live in a technological and scientific age. Theories must be backed up by factual evidence. Thanks to Copernicus, Galileo, and other freethinkers who challenged prevailing notions about a flat Earth and the sun orbiting around it, we now have in our possession sophisticated, scientific understanding of our planet and universe--knowledge that is constantly expanding. It is important that we keep separate ancient religious speculation and modern scientific investigation--particularly in our public schools where we are shaping the thinking of tomorrow's adults.

Gerald A. Larue is professor emeritus of biblical history and archaeology at the University of Southern California and chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. As a biblical scholar, he has led archaeological expeditions, served as technical consultant for television documentaries, and lectured widely. He is a prolific writer and was honored in 1989 as Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.