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Isaac Asimov's book "In the Beginning": Part Three- Chapter 2

In my last post I attempted to show how Asimov, although an atheist, understood that the Biblical text of Genesis chapter one clearly teaches a young earth and six, literal, 24-hour days.  I introduced the fact that Asimov believed the J.E.P.D. theory that denies that Moses wrote Genesis.  According to this fraudulent theory, multiple hypothetical writers and editors took multiple hypothetical accounts of origins and combined them into what we know as Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch.  Asimov thought that the writer of the P document gave us Genesis 1:1-2:4a, and the rest of Genesis two was written by the author of the J document.  I won't waste time wading through all of the useless speculations and groundless proclamations that Asimov presents in chapter two of his book.  My treatment of this chapter will be to present just a few observations.

In explaining Genesis 2:17, where God prohibits eating from the tree of knowledge, he says this:
"Eating the fruit may kill the man spiritually, destroying his innocence and filling him with sin.  Or else eating the fruit may simply make him mortal.  He may not be dead at the moment of eating, but he will know from that moment that it will be inevitable that someday he will die."[1] 

Although he presents the consequences of disobeying God's command as a false either/or statement, at least Asimov arrives at the proper two aspects of Biblical death.  The correct Biblical understanding is a combination of the two options that he mentions.  The Bible presents both spiritual death and physical death as the wages of sin.

Asimov continues:
"The implication is that if the man were to refrain from eating the fruit, he would never die but would be immortal.  This, of course, has no basis in fact as far as the scientific study of the history of humanity is concerned.  There never was a time when human beings were immortal or when any multicellular creature was."[2]
This comment is worthy of discussion.  Asimov makes an unfounded, untestable, blanket statement.  Let me explain.  In order for a scientist to positively prove that there never was a time when human beings or other creatures were immortal, that scientist would have had to have lived throughout all of history, and in every place in the universe simultaneously, and would have had to been able to observe all life, from the largest animals to the smallest multicellular creatures, all at the same time and be infallible in all of his observations.   In other words, that scientist would have to be a god.

Of course, there is someone who has lived throughout all of history, in every place in the universe simultaneously, and is able to observe all life, from the largest to the smallest, all at the same time, and is infallible in all of his observations. That person is the God of the Bible.  He wrote down for us His eyewitness account of the time when humans and all animals were indeed immortal; the time between the completion of His perfect creation until Adam and Eve broke His command and introduced sin and death into the world.

One final thought.  In addition to knowing what happened in the beginning, God even knows the future.  He says that there is another perfect world awaiting all of those who trust in the death of His Son, Jesus, to pay for the punishment that they deserve because of their own disobedience to God.
“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God." John 3:16-18 (HCSB)
In my next post I will discuss Asimov's chapter three.

NOTES:
[1] Isaac Asimov, In the Beginning... (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1981), 94-95.
[2] Ibid., 95.

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