{"id":3566,"date":"2025-04-30T00:41:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/de\/?p=3566"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:26:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T15:26:22","slug":"beria-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/beria-creation","title":{"rendered":"Beri’a = Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wilderness of Zin, 16th century BC. \u2013 The mood was at rock bottom. Discouraged by their scouts’ report about the enemy’s strength, the people had withdrawn their allegiance from Moses and Aaron and were to face the consequence: except for the youth under twenty and the faithful Joshua and Caleb, they would all spend the rest of their lives wandering the desert \u2013 and die there. When they subsequently attempted to enter the Promised Land on their own, they were defeated by the Amalekites and Canaanites and forced into a deep retreat. In this tense climate of disappointment and bitterness, old rivalries resurfaced and exploded in open rebellion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korah, a leading Levite, rose up against the fact that only Aaron and his sons were permitted to serve as priests. Princes from the tribe of Reuben \u2013 Jacob\u2019s firstborn \u2013 felt cheated out of their natural position of priority. Supported by 250 influential leaders, they attempted to overthrow the existing order. The showdown took place outside the desert camp, and only in light of this grave background can God’s powerful response be understood: the ground opened up and swallowed the rebels, and fire from heaven consumed their followers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is much to learn from the story of \u201cKorah\u2019s rebellion\u201d as recounted in Numbers 16. But here, let us focus on a seemingly tiny detail. When Moses publicly announces God\u2019s judgment on the rebels, he uses unusual phrasing: \u201cBut if the LORD creates a new thing…\u201d \u2013 as translated by the New King James Version. That \u201cnew\u201d literally means \u201ca creation (i.e., something that has never happened before).\u201d The Hebrew word \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9\u05d0\u05b8\u059e\u05d4 (beri\u2019a)<\/em> is the noun form of the verb \u05d1\u05b8\u05bc\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0 (bara = to create)<\/em> and appears only in this single verse (Num 16:30). An event in which the earth splits at the prophet\u2019s command, swallows a specific group of people and their possessions, and immediately closes again, had never occurred before. It is a demonstration of God\u2019s creative power and defies any scientific explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This verse teaches us what “creation” means. From God\u2019s act of creation comes beri\u2019a<\/em> \u2013 something new, never-before-seen, unparalleled, unheard of (as various Bible translations suggest). Thus, it is not the result of natural law, since the defining feature of a natural law is the regularity of the processes it describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This applies to the creation of heaven and earth as described in Genesis 1 and 2. The contrast between that account and the processes expected from natural laws could not be greater. It is therefore surprising that many Christians believe one can reconcile the two by simply stretching the timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From a cosmological point of view, a lone rock planet covered in water in an otherwise empty universe makes no sense \u2013 nor does light from a physically undefined source. The simultaneous appearance of all land plants before any marine life, the emergence of all celestial bodies around the green Earth on the fourth day, the appearance of birds before land animals, and the creation of a rational, communicative human being \u201cwithout a past\u201d \u2013 none of these things can be coherently interpreted within today\u2019s recognized natural laws. Equally puzzling is how an ecosystem without death could function solely on plant-based nutrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s astonishing how many different ideas exist today attempting to harmonize the Bible\u2019s clear testimony with the paradigms of natural science. Whether through theistic evolution or other forms of \u201cOld Earth Creationism,\u201d none are truly scientifically consistent, since they require a \u201ccrossing of boundaries\u201d by invoking a Creator God \u2013 and they stand, to varying degrees, in contradiction to God\u2019s Word. Yet things could be so simple. The six-day creation (Hexaemeron) of Genesis 1 is later summarized as: \u201cFor in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them\u2026\u201d (Ex 20:11). To refer to this creative work as Creatio ex nihilo<\/em> \u2013 \u201ccreation out of nothing\u201d \u2013 is actually an oversimplification. Hebrews 11:3 tells us \u201cthat what is seen was not made out of what was visible.\u201d The Greek word phainomenon<\/em> refers to something that can be perceived with the senses (or instruments). So, God did not use anything physically existing in creation. He did not create from nothing<\/em>, but from Himself<\/em> \u2013 Creatio ex Deus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I have decided to allow the existence of the spiritual entity \u201cGod\u201d into my worldview \u2013 and acknowledge that it cannot be measured using scientific methods \u2013 then it makes no sense to immediately try to limit that same entity with scientific arguments. We should simply accept that questions of origin do not fall within the realm of scientific inquiry but are answered in the Bible through divine revelation. It is reasonable to draw a distinction here, as French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623\u20131662) advised:
\u201cOne must learn to doubt where it is necessary, to affirm where it is necessary, and to submit where it is necessary. Those who do not follow this course fail to respect the power of reason. Some break all three rules: they claim everything can be proven because they understand nothing about proof; they doubt everything because they do not know where submission is required; or they submit to everything because they do not know where judgment must be exercised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who declares a question as \u201cscientifically inaccessible,\u201d thereby defining an area in which one must \u201csubmit,\u201d as Pascal put it, risks the accusation of abandoning science. In the case of the origin debate, there is an illustrative parody known as \u201cLast Thursdayism,\u201d which claims the world \u2013 including all its inhabitants and their memories \u2013 was created last Thursday. This theory is smarter than it first appears, because if the idea of \u201ccreated age\u201d is allowed in scientific discourse, then why not last Thursday?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, satire is satire, even if the serious statements of the Bible may sound similar to some. Creation was not completed on a Thursday but on a Friday. Whether Adam was created with \u201cmemories\u201d is unknown, but it is evident that he immediately possessed cognitive abilities that humans typically develop over a lifetime. However, this didn\u2019t happen last week \u2013 it happened about 6,000 years ago. A lot has happened on Earth since then, and its turbulent past has left evidence that science can<\/em> access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be beneficial if believers engaging with questions of origin operated within the paradigm of \u201cscience in a created world,\u201d where the original creation is accepted as a non-negotiable axiom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who do not get lost in the futile endeavor of trying to explain God\u2019s creative work scientifically can instead focus on showing how the Bible is the key to understanding Earth and world history, or why naturalistic theories for the origin of matter, life, mind, language, morality, and spirit fail. Our era is, on the one hand, characterized by Romans 1:22: \u201cClaiming to be wise, they became fools.\u201d But the verses before that (19 and 20) gain new relevance in light of modern scientific discoveries: \u201c\u2026because what may be known about God is plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God\u2019s invisible qualities \u2013 his eternal power and divine nature \u2013 have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilderness of Zin, 16th century BC.
\u2013 The mood was at rock bottom.
Discouraged by their scouts’ report about the enemy’s strength, the people had[\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"remove_blocks_before_content":false,"remove_blocks_after_content":false,"disable_reading_progress_bar":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-prehistory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3566"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5175,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3566\/revisions\/5175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parquediscovery.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}