Mike,

I went to one of Gerald Schroeder's lectures back in the 80's before he became 'famous'. I read some of his book. Most of his 'evidence' stems from trying to make a 'day' in Genesis equivalent to how a clock would register at the 'edge' of the universe (with 'days' slowing down logarithmically). The recent age of the universe is around 14 billion years, so he is probably on the high side at around 16.X billion years.

In any case, I'm just having fun. I think we can always retrofit a situation based on hindsight. Of course, it's interesting that with hardly any effort on my part I felt like I did a pretty good job in joining Genesis with science. But, I still prefer to think of this as a little tongue and cheek.

***One problem with your first day is that according to current theory, the protoplanets formed after the sun ignited. The initial explosion pushed much of the solar nebula away from the sun - and of course the heavier elements did not get pushed as far as the lighter ones did, thus the inner rocky planet and the outer gaseous planets.***

Thanks for that correction. But, of course, that would only strengthen the first few verses of Genesis since it begins with saying that the earth was void and without form when God said 'Let there be light'.

***The author of the book I mentioned above defines the first day as the moment of creation to (I think) the moment where electrons were able to be bound yo nuclei, thus allowing photons to travel (mostly) unimpeded throughout the universe.***

I could never figure that out (I even believed I asked him this question). It seems that Genesis is a history of earth, but I'm not a biblical scholar either.

***One more thing - replace "God" with "The laws of Physics" and I'd say you got something there! ;)***

It would make for an interesting discussion at some conference if you passed out a retranslation of Genesis 1 using this 'interpretative method' and asked for comments from the audience. I mean, disguise it better using modern language, etc, and then tell everyone after the discussion that they had just been discussing Genesis 1. Hmmm...

Warm regards, Harv