Customer Reviews

The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate

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Evolution AND God?
Andrew Parker, a broad-based biological scientist, who is up-to-date on the latest understanding of evolutionary evidence, proposes that yes, there is room for both -evolution and God. Scientists and theologians don't need to fight and argue any longer. The Bible isn't at odds with scientific findings after all, and therefore can be trusted.

Some of Parker's professional colleagues, including Professors John Lennox, Alister McGrath, and Alan Millard at Green Templeton College, Oxford University, all well-versed in religion, inspired him to further explore the science versus theology controversy.

In the Genesis Enigma, Parker weaves together his insights from Christian art, biblical archaeology, development of the biblical texts, and evolutionary science to arrive at a stunning conclusion: The Old Testament is true, and more specifically, the Genesis 1 creation sequence corresponds to the current scientific understanding of life's evolutionary history.

After establishing the validity of the Old Testament through archaeological findings in Chapter 1, Parker devotes each of Chapters 2-8 to the main events of Genesis 1. He carefully documents the history of the various fossil discoveries and the resultant evolutionary thought and conclusions regarding the stages of life on earth. To his own surprise, he discovers a match between the sequence of creation events in Genesis and the modern scientific account of how the universe and life came to be. It needs to be mentioned, however, that in some cases the correspondence between the Genesis creation account and scientific understanding of origins is not as clear cut as Parker tries to convince the reader.

In the last chapter, Parker examines the place of God amidst the scientific evidence. In a middle-ground solution, he proposes God to be the entity behind the Big Bang and the creator of the initial energy which gave rise to the material universe.

Drawing on the thoughts of C.S. Lewis and others, Parker observes that a universal moral law has existed in the various civilizations throughout human history. In addition, the sense of beauty and spirituality is almost universally integrated into the human psyche. These realities point to the existence of a Higher Power.

Another fact that Parker points out is that we live in a virtual reality world - an enormous amount of data about what exists is simply unavailable to us. Furthermore, our sensory system distorts the information that we do collect. Since our senses are extremely limited, we must accept that we'll never fully understand the universe. There are indeed mysterious elements that are outside or even beyond scientific explanation, one of which is the question of origins.

Because of the limitations of our senses and brains, it can be concluded that there is the potential for God's existence - the possibility of an intelligent, complex, and to us incomprehensible, Force behind all that exist is very real. C.S. Lewis, and before him the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, postulates that "God" may be more like a mind behind the universe - something unknowable and beyond human comprehension.

Parker's conclusion is that the Bible is a metaphorical text as only metaphor can express what literal language cannot. The "writer" of Genesis didn't have the understanding of modern science and yet was able to record events so that they seem to match with today's scientific discoveries. This is strong evidence for God and divine inspiration.

The Genesis Enigma will not please conservative Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Creation account and a young Earth, because Parker rejects this thinking without much justification. The book may, however, be enjoyed by those who like science and already feel that parts of the Bible are written in metaphoric language. They may find the systematic description of the various scientific discoveries and their possible biblical parallels of interest.

Parker broadens the traditional Christian concept of God by pointing out new possibilities for life's origins. All in all, however, any book of this nature is of necessity speculative because human limitations prevent both scientists and theologians to ever arrive at the full knowledge of what happened at the beginning and how it all came together.

Eva Peck ([...])

Andrew Parker is a well-known and respected scientist. His knowledge of evolution and the Big Bang is extremely impressive, and in his new book, The Genesis Enigma, Parker attempts to show how a metaphorical reading of Genesis 1 actually has numerous parallels to the scientific understanding of world. Eventually, Parker posits some views on how science and religion can coexist, finding room for God to fit within the boundaries laid out by scientific thought.

In theory (no pun intended), this was an interesting idea for a book. The "Battle over the Beginning" has been fought for years, and I was mildly interested to read a book that claimed to find a middle ground. What I found this book to be instead was a science textbook that explains the origins of the universe from the Big Bang on, then uses some extremely questionable exegesis to say that the Bible agrees with the science. I say questionable because, for example, connecting the mention of "lights" in Genesis 1:14 to the development of sight was very unconvincing. What you basically have is a scientific history book (both of the earth and the scientists who developed the theories behind evolution) with a few theological claims tacked onto the end.

Two things were exceedingly evident to me as I read this book: 1) Parker has an immense knowledge of science and can explain complex theories quite well. 2) He is not a theologian and does not understand the theological implications of most of his claims as he attempts to reconcile religion and science. He clearly doesn't believe the Bible is God's Word, and he just doesn't seem to understand why Christians would have a hard time with even the claim that God just created the energy for the Big Bang and then stepped back to watch. Even a cursory reading of the whole of scripture, however, reveals that God is intimately engaged in this world that he created. Additionally, I kept coming back to this as I read Parker's claims: If God didn't personally create us, forget Him. He would have no claim on us, no right to enforce a moral law on us, and the need for Jesus to redeem us from our rebellion against that law and God would disappear. Christianity falls if God is not our Creator (See Romans 5).

Throughout the entire book, there were numerous moments where Parker was forced to admit that science has no answer to something (i.e. Where did the energy for the Big Band come from? Why do animals reproduce at all? Why does religion exist at all if it serves no evolutionary function?). In the final chapter of the book, Parker addresses many of these questions to get to his claim that there is "room for God" within a scientific understanding. The problem with this is that the God Parker arrives at in his understanding (sort of, he seems mostly agnostic) doesn't resemble the God presented in the Bible at all. As I said, Parker doesn't seem to have a problem with this, but Christians will.

That's why I'm not exactly sure of his audience for this book. Christians will clearly see that he's pulling the foundation away from all of Christianity, and non-religious people will likely not care whatsoever that Genesis can be metaphorically interpreted to somewhat match up to science. Parker doesn't aim at reconciling science with God (consistent with Christianity), he just wants to reconcile it with the possibility of a god.

I enjoyed reading parts of this book simply to get a good summary of what science says about the earth's origins, but that's really all. In terms of thinking through how to reconcile that science with Christianity, there's nothing very new or helpful here.

I'm going to echo some of the other reviewers' sentiments - Parker is a gifted scientist and communicator, so I learned a lot about biological history. I suppose this is especially valuable to me since I never received a basic education in evolution, growing up under young-earth creationist teachings. His discussion of the development of the first eye was inspiring! What a dramatic moment in the history of life, and in my mind a very plausible explanation for the pre-Cambrian explosion. Like the other reviewers,though, I find his attempt to equate the development of the eye with "lights" in the Genesis account to feel strained a bit beyond belief.

Still, there are enough other odd components to the Genesis creation account to make his basic idea worth considering. God told the earth to "bring forth life"? Focus on life in the sea by a landlocked ancient writer? Interesting.

Parker's discussion of whether religion and science need conflict was also very interesting to me, as was the appendix,a study of the authorship of the Pentateuch.

If you're intrigued by the basic thesis of the book, I don't think you'll be disappointed by reading it.

Professor Andrew Parker is one of those scientists who are Christians that do not see a dichotomy between science and religion. Presently he teaches at Green College at the University of Oxford and at the University of Sidney. He is also the Research Leader at The Natural History Museum in London. With his impeccable scientific background, Parker attempts to approach the first two chapters of Genesis - the Creation account. He takes pains to establish at the beginning of the book of his belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. However he takes issue with those who takes the first two chapters of Genesis literally. The first two chapters should be understood as an account on how life was established on earth as by one who narrates an event. Thus the 'days' are not literal 24 hours but periods of time.

Starting from the Big Bang and using the latest scientific discoveries, Parker relates the scientific account of evolution to the first two chapters of Genesis. In the first chapter of Genesis, there is twice when God said, "Let there be light" - verse 2 and verse 14. Parker attributes the first light (v.2) to be the event after the Big Bang when energy is converted to matter thereby forming atoms and later suns, galaxies, and planets. Then he shifted his focus to earth where in the hot, volcanic surface of the earth, complex molecules came together to form single cells organism. These cells became more complex by using photosynthesis to store energy. The first complex organisms to populate the land were plants thus agreeing with the Genesis account.

It is in the second account of light (v.14) that Parker proposes his bold assertion. He suggests that the second account is when eyes were evolved. These newly evolved organisms were better at survival because they can see (see the light?). This, Parker postulates, is the reason for the fantastic expansion of new species in the Cambrian Period in earth's history. This is his 'Light Switch Theory' which won him the 'Scientist of the Year' award by The Royal Institution (London) in 2000. It is the evolution of eyes that aided in the evolution of sea creatures, birds and land animals. Parker is convinced that the evolution theory is no longer a theory but established facts. Thus he implies that creationism and intelligent design is not rational.

The main thesis of this book is that there is no way the author/authors of the first two chapters of Genesis can know enough about the Big Bang and evolution to describe so accurately the order of events for the development of life on earth. This and the question of 'what is energy' before the Big Bang is the Genesis enigma. Parker suggests that the answer can only be God.

While the scientist in me cheered Parker on as he describes the various scientific processes in his book, however the theologian in me was troubled by the way he try to fit together the Genesis account and the theory of evolution. Parker's discovery of the development of the eye as the Big Bang of evolution is a major milestone in evolution theory. However I was not comfortable when he applied it to explain the second account of 'let here be light' (Gen.1:14).

This is an admirable attempt to reconcile the theory of evolution with the first two chapters of Genesis by an eminent scientist. However, like eminent theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher in the nineteenth century who tried to reconcile Christianity to the scientific worldview, it creates more questions than answers. There will always be gaps in our understanding of God and his handiwork.

This is a good book and I will recommend it to those who wants to know more about what happens after the Big Bang and how life appears on earth.

The Enigma gives an amazing amount of scientific and historical information on the scientific stages of creation corresponding to the seven stages (days or "Yoms") of the Biblical account. It does however suggest that man descended from the apes and speaks of a missing link. Spencer Wells in The Journey Of Man, a genetic search for and about man's origin, denies there is any genetic evidence that we descended from apes and that missing links are not possible in terms of genetic principals. In his suggestion that we decended from apes, Parker's view also disagrees with an internet article "Common Descent In Human History" which states,"Most scientists who carefully examine the evidence agree with the following general outline: There was a branching of our evolutionary family tree (with apes evolving in one way, and our ancestors in another way) about 8 million years ago; during the next 2 million years the distance between these branches increased, as their differing sets of genes (and the associated physical & mental characteristics) continued to diverge; in our branch of the tree about 6 million years ago, humans and chimpanzees still had the same common ancestor; then humans and chimps evolved in different directions, with humans developing bipedalism (walking on two feet instead of four), plus opposable thumbs, larger brains, speech capabilities, and other distinctly human characteristics." With the extent of knowledge Parker displays, I don't understand how he contradicts what seems to be commonly held views in the scientific field(s). Otherwise, I am quite impressed by his work.

Evolutionists dismiss Genesis as a fable because they believe one has to read it as "seven 24hr days" (we have the young-earth creationists to thank for that, who have people thinking there is no other choice, there is: A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy. Many turn to theistic evolution because they are told the only other choice is young-earthism). Parker is one of the few evolutionists who admit that Genesis is true. In that way, this book is groundbreaking. He shows how science and Genesis do agree. However, it is clear that he uncritically follows evolution and overlooks its problems. There's little evidence in this book that he has ever left the bubble of evolution and studied the critics. This is common among evolutionists, just compare their books to those supporting intelligent design. The latter see well-versed in evolution, but the former often never do more than a superficial study (if that).

Take the reviews of this book: "astounding" & "compelling and convincing." You guys should get out more. Over ten years ago astronomer Hugh Ross wrote The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis reconciling Genesis and science. In many ways it is the superior book, especially since Ross shows a much better understanding of all sides and the biblical texts themselves.

So while Parker's book is a big step in the right direction, it has many flaws. Here is a brief survey (of the paperback edition): Page xv: He implies religion is for "comfort" and is about "faith" and not being objective. These are talking points from those atheists and marginally religious people who try to placate or marginalize their critics. Sorry, but Christianity has never been about some talk-show-comfort-system-of-the-week. It has always asked its people to "test everything" and "love God with their minds." This is the religion of reason, not blind faith. Page 13: He thinks Christians "separate" their beliefs from the rest of their life. This is irrational, how does one separate their core beliefs from the rest of their life? Only in the mind of pluralists and relativists does this make sense. Again, this "separate" claim is another popular talking point as those on page xv.

Page 33: Is it logical to say God created the universe but left absolutely no evidence? How do you know he created it then? This is the logical dilemma of theistic evolutionists. Throughout the book, even though Parker concludes Genesis must be divinely inspired, he still occasionally refers to it as figurative and can't see design in nature (but in Genesis). Like many evolutionists he just doesn't want to let go and falls into these conundrums. Like on page 61 where he refers to Earth being the "right distance" from the Sun and other "coincidences." Parker has failed to add up all these coincidences, because when you do, you find the absolute improbability of chance producing anything (see The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Latest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God).

Page 45: A "direct translation" of Genesis "reveals a rapid, seven day creation" only if you read it superficially and ignore the Hebrew and context (see ). Page 65: Design theory does not presuppose God. Detecting design is something we do even as babies and forms the basis of many scientific disciplines (like archaeology and forensics). Parker obviously doesn't get basic design theory. Page 66: No "plausible explanation" of the watchmaker argument has been provided by evolution. Page 81: Who claims missing links within minor species changes? Page 82: Who has traced all life to one cell? Page 83: How does chance produce codes/information in DNA? Or even DNA itself? This is one of evolutionists fatal flaws (see The Cell's Design & Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design ). Chance can't produce cells once, let alone "again and again" (p. 130).

Page 84: Miller's famous atmosphere experiment has been discredited for awhile now (see Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong). Page 86 is a good example of the uncertainty and guesswork in evolution. "Spontaneously generate," "under the right conditions," "with the appropriate," etc. Sounds more like magic and hope than science. Page 90: The Hebrew for Genesis 1:14 indicates the lights appearing from something already created, thus undermining Parker's already flawed "first-eyes" theory. Page 96, more magic: "certainly," "must have," "clearly." Then there is the famous "given enough time" talking point that evolutionists use to paper over holes. Sorry, but 14 billion years isn't enough time for such complexity. Page 109: What is "enough" mutations? Most mutations are negative. Page 110, the computer model assumes all positive mutations (whereas we know most are not that). Page 112, so by calling the eye less than "ideal" (what we think is ideal), we somehow erase its complexity? Parker is ignoring the problem. How did life just suddenly realize one day it needed eyes if it was living without them?

Page 127, he admits the Cambrian explosion shatter's Darwinism. He, nor any other evolutionists, has ever explained away this problem. They hope by saying earlier life was less likely to fossilize you will think all of the transitions are gone and not notice that thousands of life forms suddenly all appeared at once. If evolution is true, why aren't there thousands of transitional forms instead of a handful of debated fossils? Is the Achaeopteryx (p. 157) a dinosaur-like bird or a bird-like dinosaur? And why are there fully-formed birds prior to it in the record? On p. 163 he admits evolution is made up of "fits and starts." There is no record of gradual development.

Page 145, like many evolutionists, Parker paints this as religion vs. science. Yet much of evolutionary theory is driven by naturalists or militant atheists whose own beliefs hinge on evolution being true. There's no science in the books of people like Dawkins, only religious beliefs. Parker also pulls out the evolution is based on "scientifically validated data" and critics use "tricks" to undermine evolution talking points. Has parker even picked up a book on design?

Page 196, the famous human/chimps share 99% of their genes talking point. Genetics is more complicated than this (see Who Was Adam?). Parker claims (p. 197) design is "flawed" and "forced" but provides no examples, yet design in Genesis is acceptable. He also throws out the "design is considered ridiculous" by everyone in science talking point. Yet, he talks about many of the scientists through history who clearly thought the opposite.

In the appendix Parker reviews the theory that Genesis was written by multiple authors, not Moses. It seems he has studied the "JEDP" theorists, but none of the multitudes of scholars who think it is false. Parker doesn't pretend to be a theologian, but lacks any real depth in study.

So while Parker has opened the door to the factualness of Genesis, he has ignored all the critics of evolution and thinks stating "evolution is a fact" over and over constitutes proof to the rational thinker. Along with the books already mentioned, I would add these to those who don't want to be bullied into thinking evolution is a fact and design is not science: Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Origins of Life, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, More Than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation.

Andrew Parker seems to be conversant with the latest thinking on evolution. He proposes that there is room for both evolution and God and that the Bible is not at odds with scientific findings.
In the Genesis Enigma, Parker convincingly presents the reader with the conclusion that the Old Testament is true, and that creation corresponds to the current scientific understanding of human evolution and history.
He also quotes the French philosopher Rene Descartes, as having made contributions to natural philisophy, now known as (physics). We must however be weary of Descartes, as he in the 16th century made the following erroneous statement. " I perceive it to be possible to arrive at knowledge in life, useful in making us the masters and possesors of nature!" We will never posses nature.

Throug careful documentation of various fossil discoveries, combined with modern thoughts on the subject, he points to a link between the creation story in the Bible and new theories on how the universe and life came about.

Parker approaches the existence of God with scientific evidence and sujests there is an intelligence behind the Big Bang theory which ceated the universe, and that a higher power must exist because of our sense of beauty and inherent spirituality.
This higher power he writes does exist,bu is beyond our present comprehension.
This book will not be easily eccepted by believers of the literal creation account in the Bible of 6,000 years.
By pointing to differnt sources of the possible origins of life
he diversefies the traditionally accepted identiy of God.
This book would make a great addition to any serious collector of books on the creation of the universe and life itself, as our limited minds and present understanding are as yet not capable of comprehending the vastles of all of this.

Hans Liszikam, author of "The God Code in the Seven"

Despite the title and the stated thesis of the book, the author rarely addresses his thesis, and actually devotes about 80% of the book to feeding the reader his own, rather skewed, version of history of the universe, earth, life and science. For such a radical interpretation of Scripture that the author presents, I would at least expect that the author would spend significant amounts of time detailing his arguments and reasoning. But for some odd reason, very few pages actually address his thesis in any manner at all.

The worldview that he is trying to replace with his book is `Young Earth Creationism' (YEC). So one would expect the author to offer a substantial critique, or at least some form of discussion about it. But quite on the contrary, he explicitly refuses to even address it; "a direct translation of the Bible reveals a rapid, seven day creation. But for the purposes of this book we must remain rational, and refuse to accept the seven day timescale."
One wonders why his thesis should be taken seriously when he refuses to offer a robust justification of it. He is content to belittle YEC without ever addressing it.
I don't really understand why he would do this. I'm left to think that either he couldn't be bothered researching YEC, or he did, but found it too difficult to refute.

When building his thesis over YEC, the author portrays the false image that all matters of evolutionary origins are completely and utterly settled. When in actual fact, most models of origins are still highly contentious, with many different ones all competing for recognition. Unfortunately, most readers won't have a deep enough knowledge of origin science to know this.
One can only assume that the author's intent with this is to trick the reader into believing that naturalistic evolution is 100% fact and without detractors, something that they otherwise wouldn't fall for. It really seems as though he is trying to laud evolution, by vastly exaggerating it's achievements, over YEC, by totally ignoring it.

When it comes to correlating evolution with the creation account in Genesis, the author really hits rock bottom. He shows a shocking habit of `cherry picking' the odd correlation, skewing others and then totally ignoring the vast numbers of obvious discordances.
The most glaring example is his attempted correlation with day five of creation. Genesis clearly states that this is when all sea creatures were created, whales are also specified, but more importantly, so are birds, all of these were created on the same day. While Parker correlates the creation of sea creatures with the Cambrian Explosion, he totally ignores the fact that birds and whales only evolved over 400 million years later!
So here we have only one example, of the many, that totally demolishes any attempted correlation of evolution and the creation week of Genesis. But rather then admit to the reader the existence of all these vast inconsistencies in his correlation, he confidently touts many bogus comments such as; "I thought Genesis would fall at the first hurdle or two [of the correlation], I'm amazed that we have made it to the end unscathed."

The most disturbing trend that I noticed throughout the book is that the author seems to be assuming the role of the "wolf in sheep's clothing". What I mean by this is that he is pretending to be the theist's friend, who `innocently' wants to only show the reader how evolution harmoniously fits with the creation account of the Bible. But in reality he rarely bothers to discuss this alleged correlation, and instead continuously attacks conservative Christians with allegations that naturalism really made everything, and God is actually not necessary anymore.
He even goes as far as telling all his Christian readers that prayer is totally useless because only science can save us!

The only good point that I can find about this book is the author's acceptance of the Israelites history as being thoroughly accurate. He actually spends a decent portion of the book substantiating this.
But I can't help but think that he is only playing "good cop, bad cop" by wooing creationists into a false sense of security in the hope that they will accept his anti-Christian attacks latter on. But then again, maybe I'm just paranoid!

All in all, I can't find much reason to give this book any more than one star. Unfortunately the author never actually substantiated any of the claims in his thesis, this is really the book's greatest downfall.

One Star

The reviews are polarized as they should be. My problem with the atheists and the atheism is that they pretend to be absolutely impartial and scientific, while atheism is just another faith. The faith that proclaims that science can provide all answers to all questions. It certainly did not, so far anyway.

Also, all their arguments are nothing more than explaining away the facts of life. So far, no one was able to create a single living cell from a scratch. Scientists can not even assemble a single protein molecule that has few dozens amino acids in the row, using the most sophisticated laboratories there are. In sports it is called "Monday morning quarterbacking". In engineering such arguments are called simply..., well, you know what. If you can not do it, do not tell us that you know how it was done. If you truly know how it was done, go ahead! Replicate it!

Similarly, I have numerous problems with Creationists.

Look at all the great scientists of the past: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Mendeleev, Einstein, and even Darwin. Were they atheists in the modern sense of the word? Were they creationists?

Andrew Parker is my kind of guy. He truly wants to know how it is, irregardless of the outcome. That is how it should be.

Larry Tsimmerman.

Anyone who has an appreciation for what science has learned about our world and a suspicion that Somebody Up There might have had a hand in all of it will enjoy exploring the parallels Doctor Parker perceives between the order of events in the Biblical creation story and accepted scientific knowledge about how the world was created. I must admit, I've been waiting for books on this subject to appear ever since my own mind began plaguing me with the thought: what if, when God said, "Let there be light", he meant not just light, but the entire electromagnetic spectrum? Where does that lead in the interpretation of God's remaining six days' work? Please let the speculation continue. We are far from a complete or certain understanding either of science or of the Bible. Both require our most open-minded contemplation. This book is a step in the right direction.