In The Beginning: Biblical Creation And Science / IN THE BEGINNING: Biblical Creation and Science Dr. Nathan Aviezer, Professor of Physics, Bar Ilan University Of all the accounts of creation, the first chapter of Genesis is perhaps the most fantastic, with its sweeping pronouncements of the birth of the universe, of the world and of man. In comparison to our advanced scientific understanding, it seems to rely on an almost fairy-tale logic. While many present-day theologians and believers play down this seemingly incongruous history lesson, Professor Nathan Aviezer, a world-renowned physicist and orthodox Jew, offers a balanced counterpoint. Combining a technical understanding of modern evolutionary science with the scholarly insight of three millennia of rabbinical commentary, Aviezer is able to forge remarkable connections in this dichotomy of approaches to creation. Although the sages Aviezer quotes (Maimonides, Rashi, Nachmanides et al.) aren�t widely known to the non-Jewish public, the explanations they propose are both divinely inspired and scientific, and valuable to any believer in the modern world. At a time when champions of atheism such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens top the bestseller charts with an almost cultic belief in Darwinism, Aviezer�s reconciliation of science and religion comes as a refreshing alternative. In The Beginning: Biblical Creation and Science provides an antidote to this growing divide by elucidating the core of all religious belief � the question of how we came to be Nathan Aviezer, a professor of physics, analyzes the story of Creation as it appears in the book of Genesis and current scientific theory on the beginning of the universe and concludes that they match to a surprising degree.
