Selah.

Dr. John Hartnett’s 2007 book, Starlight, Time and thew New Physics, extends on Russel Humphrey’s intriquing Starlight and Time attempting to solve the problems of the original proposition. He does so with fascinating results.

The problem that both books try to do solve is that of a young creation being able to see the stars when they were created. Because even light from the nearest star, not our own, takes years to reach earth, it is not possible for the biblical account of creation to be correct: in that account, Adam, the first man, could already see the stars. If, in fact, they could see the stars that would imply creation is not young but very old and thus contradictory to the young creation the bible appears to talk about.

The question then is: How did Adam see starlight in the first week of creation?

As a poignant aside, note how christians differ from others when given a contradiction in their bible. The one who doesn’t believe the bible already sees an apparent contradiction and dismisses the entire thing. The one who does believe knows their bible and trusts it because they know it has told the truth a vast number of times before. Therefore, they give the bible the benefit of the doubt and go out and see if they can brainstorm how it might have come about according to God’s word. Many times in the past we’ve doubted the bible and then some years later it turns out it was quite right after all.

Christian cosmology effectively came out of nowhere to some pretty good ideas  in the past 30 years. Humphrey gave us all a kick in the rear by thinking outside the box and using Einstein’s theory of relativity to explain that time on earth may have proceeded slower than time out in the universe. It might sound like crazy talk but Einstein’s theory has been tested and found quite valid for a long time now. The key is a catalyst that would alter the time of clocks locally and remote.

Humphrey’s model was a good starting point but had problems. Hartnett attempts to solve those problems and he makes some decent sense of it. Definitely worth a read. Harnett’s writing is necessarily dense but not overladen beyond what the uninitiated can handle. I highly recommend this read.