End of Times Report

Just like Jehovah’s Witnesses promise the so-called «other sheep» a paradise here on earth, the church communities obviously assume that the paradise promised in the Bible will be re-established on a renewed earth. This is a misinterpretation of Biblical prophecy and in particular of the Biblical Creation Report that can easily be verified. Already in the apocalypse of John it is emphasised that the present heaven and the present earth will forever disappear. John writes:

It seems almost incomprehensible that at the «end of times» our heaven and our earth and also the sea (!?) should disappear; particularly if one also takes into account the «resurrection from the dead».

Questions arise for which we search an answer. But it is of no help if due to lack of understanding the following explanations are given in Bible commentaries: Heaven and earth would only disappear so that they can be renewed (Stuttgarter Jubilaeums-Taschenbibel of 1964). (Stuttgart Jubilee Pocket Bible of 1964)

If this emergency solution were really true one would have to ask oneself why John whose statements are very precise hasn’t also written down this version! Instead he emphasises:

Where can the new heaven, the new earth and paradise be found is a question that can be answered without difficulty; as the explanation is already hidden in the Biblical Creation Report - a divine report transmitted to us in the Genesis which we shall now peruse in detail. Until the cosmological recognitions of the 20th century it was as the following explanations vividly confirm still a long and thorny path full of mistakes and confusions.

In the 15th century finally the idea that the earth is round became of speculative interest. When Columbus set out to reach India via the western seaway it was feared that he, the further he sailed westward, would fall into nothing upon reaching the border of the earth with his ships.

The first available and practical evidence that the earth is round was supplied by the Portuguese navigator, Fernando Magellan (1480-1521), after sailing around the world.

At the beginning of the 16th century the earth was still considered the centre of the universe around which moon, sun, stars and planets orbited. The knowledge however grew. In 1543, in the year of his death, Nicholas Copernicus published his famous book in which he allocated the sun in the centre of the universe.

Copernicus’ work dealt only with the planets and their orbits. The stars themselves were regarded merely as shining specks stuck to an enormous ball; and the sphere of fixed stars was wrapped around the entire universe with the sun in the centre.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) later informed that fixed stars are in reality suns equal to our own in size, strength and brightness. He also recognised that the universe is infinitely larger than the limited system occupied by the solar system. In 1592 he was betrayed and fell into the hands of the inquisition that took him to court particularly because of his teachings concerning the infinity of the world and the multitude of world systems (which were against the science of Aristotle and the Christian cosmology). Bruno was sent to Rome in 1593 where he was burnt at the stake after seven years imprisonment.

Galileo Galilee (1564-1642) discovered in 1609 with a Dutch telescope that he had rebuilt that the star clusters and the milky way consist of individual stars. In a letter to the Benedictine B. Castelli he wrote his view about the relationship between the Bible and the nature discoveries, especially with regard to the heliocentric system (Copernican’s system with the sun in the centre of the planetary system) necessitating a reinterpretation of the Holy Scripture. This lead to a first controversy with the Roman Church at the end of which Cardinal R. Bellarmino (1616) admonished that all of his “deceptions“ were to be given up. When Cardinal Barberini (1616) as Urban VIII ascended the throne, Galilee hoped to find in this learned religious emperor an advocate for the teaching of Copernicus. In 1625 he published arguments for this teaching but without expressly declaring them to be true. He travelled to Rome in 1630 to attain imprimatur for his «dialogue about the two main world systems, the Ptolemean and the Copernican». Due to a delay by the censorship the book was not published until 1632 and withdrawn by the church already in the same year. Galilee was summoned before the inquisition on 1st October 1632 and convicted on account of misdemeanour of an order that was allegedly decided in the year 1616. On 22nd June 1633 he gave up «his error» as a faithful Catholic.

Now at least the Roman Church should have taken the opportunity to welcome the scientific recognition of Galilee and reconsider its existing false interpretation of the Biblical Creation Report. The truth was instead trampled underfoot and upright men with much more knowledge of cosmic relations persecuted.

The Roman Church however was not able to suppress the truth forever. The cosmological conceptions of science became more precise. By the 18th century the universe was imagined to be a mighty cloud of stars in the shape of a lens appearing like a silver band of the milky way.

Immanuel Kant was the first to interpret the dim nebulas between the stars as foreign milky ways.

When in 1917 the at that time largest telescope of the world on Mount-Wilson-Observatory in South California, was pointed to the nebula, individual stars were detected in the brightest part of the nebula. At last final evidence of the existence of other milky ways was obtained.

Owing to its narrow-minded perspective, the church was in severe distress. It was no longer considered as being serious. Even worse was the fact that it extensively lost its credibility. It was thus not difficult for the sceptics of the Age of Enlightenment, when the world was changing and one was in search of new values, to turn away from the yoke of the church and to turn toward scientific materialism.

In the 20th century when people withdrew from the church at an alarming rate and the interest in religious life in the Christian West declined, the church in its plight searched for a solution out of the crisis. Instead of searching for evidence for a belief such as Abraham’s and through trust in God at last - as already demanded by Galilee - welcome a since long required new interpretation of the Biblical Creation Report, the church helplessly went from one extreme to the other. The church is in a hurry obviously in view of the scientific discoveries to ensure that the Genesis merely corresponds to the ancient world view of the Biblical authors and is for this reason no longer applicable for scientific research. Or, as the theologian, Hans Küng, expesses in his book „To be Christ“: the Biblical stories about God’s Creation Report are based on the ancient environment.

In a five volume strong edition of the Bible recommended by Catholic and Evangelic bishops and appraised by the Austrian Catholic Bible Work, we read the following commentary on the Genesis:

If it were really true that the Genesis is merely the «miserable effort of Israeli Theologians» as suggested in the commentary of Catholic and Evangelic Bishops - a combination of ancient oriental mysticism and Israeli experience - and not, as Jews and Christians have believed since ancient times, the written word of God (2. Peter 1; 21), then this would not only shake Christian belief to its foundations but also the credibility of Jesus himself would be doubtful. Because no less a person than him, the true and faithful witness, has demanded the observation of the historical exactitude of the Old Testament in general (Mt.5; 18; Joh.10; 35) and the Genesis in particular. (Mt.19; 4; 23; 35; 24; 37).

Not all theologians have devoted themselves to the unfortunate spirit of the age and succumbed to the immense deceptions of modern times. They have maintained their faith and uninterruptedly adhere to the reliability of Biblical facts (2. Thess 2; 9-12). This applies also to the evangelical religious scientist, Jakob Kroeker. After a detailed examination of the origin and authenticity of the Biblical Creation Report he arrives at the following conclusion:

It will certainly be impossible to trace the origin of the Biblical Creation Report, especially since our investigations chiefly depend on presumptions.

In Jewish mysticism there is a very interesting aspect concerning the origin of the Biblical Creation Report throwing a completely different light on our problem. First of all it reinforces our presumption that - as Jakob Kroeker later expressed - the Genesis was adopted by the writer of the Biblical Report already as divine heritage from the great history of his nation. According to Jewish tradition, Adam received a book from God after being expelled from paradise which supposedly answers his obsessive questions about the future.

This divine book also known as «the book of the first man» was handed to Adam by the angel that said:

Thus the Bible has its very own cosmology that is neither applicable to the myths of ancient times complete with numerous godheads nor to the modern world view of the scientific materialists. For this reason when interpreting the Creation Report care must be taken not to interpret the obsolete philosophy of the antique into the Genesis out of prejudice. If we strictly follow only the wording of the Bible will we be able to conceive the full significance of the divine report and solve problems that to this day appeared insoluble. (Dan.12;4; Rev.13;18; 17;9).

«The research results obtained by us indicate that thousands of millions of years ago the entire substance and energy of the universe was compressed to infinite density. This infinite density exploded in an unimaginably tremendous outbreak of energy under extremely hot temperatures - the Big Bang. The temperature of the exploding universe however dropped quickly. Matter developed from the sea of energy that existed first. Matter concentrated as galaxies. In these milky ways on the other hand the mass concentrated as stars - billions of stars in each milky way. Finally our universe developed and while it developed into its present form it cooled down increasingly during many billions of years. Today it is very large, very cold - and still continues to expand.» 33

Astrophysicists see proof of the «Big Bang-theory» in the redshift of the spectral lines in the stellar spectrum and define it as Doppler effect. Accordingly the wavelength of light emitting from a mobile light source is perceived by an unmoving observer as larger if the source moves further away, and as smaller if it comes closer. Therefore, they also assume that the redshift is an indicator for the speed at which the galaxies move farther away.

Of course they know that the «Big Bang» cannot be explained by physics; because if one imagines that the unimaginable amount of substance of all galaxies, yes, the entire matter of the whole universe was infinitely concentrated, it is absolutely illusory to obtain any scientifically satisfying concepts about the condition of matter at the time of zero, i. e. at the outbreak of the explosion. They would largely contradict all existing and recognised natural laws. The American scientist and Noble Prize Winner, Steven Weinberg, states:

Certainly also the global idea of an expanding universe is not accepted without objection, especially as it is absolutely speculative and practically nothing has been verified. Weinberg points out to the following in his book „The First Three Minutes:

The Universe is not Expanding.

According to an article in „Naturwissenschaften“ (Science) (Issue 17 - 1962), a magazine of the Academy of Science in Goettingen, the Soviet physicist, N. P. Suworoff, Moscow, has examined the connection of the Hubble-constant, that describes the apparent expansion of the universe, with the effect that a gravity field has on light quantums:

The physicist, civil rights campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Andrej Sacharov, who also played a leading role in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, stresses the lack of knowledge and unsatisfactory concepts regarding the condition that prevailed before the so-called «Big Bang». He writes:

The same objections against the Big Bang theory, as submitted by Sacharov in 1968, can be read in the PM-Magazine 3/1997. Under the title: «News about the Big Bang: It never happened» the following questions were raised:

The «Big Bang theory» established in 1948 by the Russian-born American, George Gamov, and since then taught as „standard model“ at the universities, is also subject to categorical doubt. Substantial doubts have been raised for quite some time; because scientists recently discovered countless new mysterious phenomena that question the Big Bang. Is the explosion in space possibly only an illusion? Astronomers had for instance calculated that the Big Bang must have left behind a kind of „echo“, a weak, but a to this day measurable radiation. In fact: It was coincidentally discovered in 1964 by the US researchers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Apparently one more evidence of the Big Bang. But appearances are deceptive: This radiation that according to the theory should be consistent from all directions showed minor irregularities - thus the Big Bang cannot have occurred in this way, as we have assumed....

Another aspect makes it increasingly difficult for astronomers to arrive at a uniform theory: The abundant data attained by increasingly better telescopes and more ingenious methods. Steven Weinberg, one of the most famous US astronomers and critiques of the Big Bang theory: „The more details we discover about the universe the more difficult it becomes for us to reconcile them.

As we can gather from the explanations of leading scientists, it is not possible for them despite all endeavours to state something concrete about the origin of the universe. All knowledge that we have to this day gained is either wild speculation - in no other field are there so many speculations as in cosmology - or daring presumptions for which the initial conditions for the development of the universe were partly based on assumptions that contradict the natural laws of current physics.

It is certainly discouraging for scientists when they have to admit that they have reached the limit of their understanding of science that is fixed by dogmas. But even if they should succeed in achieving clarity about the early conditions of the universe despite all obviously insurmountable difficulties, the decisive questions about the origin of the infinitely dense matter will remain unanswered. Did it develop out of an absolute NOTHING? Did it arise out of itself? Has it always been there? Or, how can its existence be explained from a materialistic point of view?

Many scientists deny that these questions are meaningful. According to their opinion they are beyond the range of exact sciences. They object that to find an answer one would have to return to a past time that existed even before the Big Bang. This is impossible as the origin of space and time and the laws of physics that describe space-time was the Big Bang.

Prof. Hoimar v. Dithfurt, who has become popular through various TV programmes, expressed the following in his book „In the Beginning was Hydrogen":

Steven Weinberg gives the following suggestion:

The difficulty in exploring the mystery of the creation of the universe as well as the evolution of life lies predominantly in the fact that, although they look over the wall of finity like through a dense veil, their materialistic world view - a world without God - doesn’t allow them to go beyond what is concealed behind the border to metaphysics that for them is strictly out of bounds.

The well-known Bio-informatic scientist Hubert Yockey writes: «Since science does not dispose of any concept about the evolution of life on earth... it would only be fair to admit this to the scientists, the moneylenders and the general public. Leading scientists that speak ex cathedra should stop polarising the mind of students and younger productive scientists with statements that are exclusively based on faith.» (factum 10/83, p. 23).

It appears to even the most engaged representatives of the atheistic theory of evolution that the ideas about «self-organisation of matter» are occasionally unrealistic. As J. Monod stated: «It is absurd and absolutely foolish to believe that a living cell develops by itself; but nevertheless I believe this, because I cannot imagine anything else.» (factum 9/82, p. 15)

The English anthropologist and Darwinist Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955) arrived at the following conclusion: «Evolution is unproved and not provable. We believe this, as its only alternative is the act of creation of a God and that is unthinkable.» (PM 3/1983)

Not all leading scientists have adapted the view of established sciences. The German astronomer, Peter v. d. Osten-Sacken in his book „The New Cosmology“ - Astronomers in Search of the Reality of our World - arrives at the following conclusion regarding these questions:

Dr. Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, has given the following explanations in an interview on current themes of our time:

The Biblical Creation Report also assumes the existence of a spiritual universe; because if we read in the Genesis: «At the beginning God created heaven and earth», this does not mean that God originated at the time of creation. This image of God is found in ancient myths. Therefore it can only mean that God was there before he started creation.

Considering the events of the first day of creation and attempting to represent them in a diagram, we obtain the following picture:

On an empty piece of paper symbolising the „spiritual universe“ we draw two differently large circles:

The only «water» hitherto mentioned in Genesis is the «second flood» or the «primeval sea» respectively, that is a component of the primeval earth of the first day of creation.

So if it says: „Let there be a  s o l i d  f i r m a m e n t  in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters!" „water“ can signify only the «primeval sea» into which God placed another heaven on the second day of creation, an object that God describes as «solid firmament» or «solid heaven».

This results in the only possible logical conclusion that creation disposes of  t w o  heavens: one over the „primeval heaven“ of the first day of creation, and one over the «solid heaven» created on the second day of creation in the midst of the waters of the primeval earth.

But before we take a closer look at the heavens of the first and second day of creation we should first of all consider the events of the third day of creation.

It should be of particular interest that God already on the third day of creation - i e. already before the rising of the sun on the fourth day of creation - put fresh green, plants and trees on the earth. In actual fact we could expect plants and trees to evolve after the sun; from experience we know that the plant world requires sunlight to grow.

On the other hand we also know that the ultraviolet rays of the sun would erase all life on an unprotected earth without the protecting ozone layer that forms in the terrestrial atmosphere only from molecular oxygen under the influence of the short-wave UV-radiation of the sun.

As it is to be excluded that the creator of heaven and earth made a mistake when planning creation, there must be another explanation in which way the life-sustaining oxygen was able to develop on earth without sunlight for the fish, birds, animals and man that were to appear afterwards.

The photosynthesis researcher, Daniel I. Arnon, was able to find a convincing answer to this problem. On 16th April, 1963 the following article appeared in the FAZ:

Professor Hermann Merxmueller, chairman of the Institute for Systematic Botanics at the Munich University explained the following in his talk on the 169th meeting of the research team in Duesseldorf:

In view of the unexpected fact that God created «fresh green, herbs and trees» before the sunlight, we face a difficult question: Was the sun as the centre star of our planetary system really created after the earth; this can be regarded as physically unlikely.

The answer isn’t as complicated as it initially appears. After a further development of the theory of Kant-Laplace about the evolution of planets by C. F. von Weizsaecker (theory of turbulence) our solar system could have evolved for instance out of a slowly rotating primeval nebula that was much larger than today’s planetary system. When the nuclear fusion in the core of the sun began, thus providing energy for the lighting up of the giant gas ball, the evolution of the planets was obviously extensively completed. However, it must have certainly taken some time until the sun slowly attained its full brightness.

Presumably the earth that certainly also possessed an adequate intrinsic warmth from the very beginning was located in a moist tropical climate underneath a dense cloud-cover that lead to a steady temperature at ground-level that doesn’t exist any more today. The temperature is estimated to have been between 10 and 40 degrees Celsius, and this nearly evenly from one pole to another, so that at first in darkness and then later when the sun lit up gradually increasing its radiation a rich vegetation progressively spread on earth.

Dedicated researchers in the field of photosynthesis have always been surprised about the fact how little amount of light plants require for this process even today. Nowadays jungle plants being the most similar to the ancient plants of the dim past are twilight plants. Growing best in shade, bright sunshine is unbearable for them. (Prof. Heinz Haber, - „Unser blauer Planet/Our Blue Planet“ - 1965).

When Paul was entranced into the «third heaven, in paradise» he envisioned the «new world», a «new creation» that can certainly not be compared with worldly standards and which we can obviously only inadequately describe for lack of words.

Apostle Peter when counting the heavens also included the heaven submerged by the deluge informs us why Paul mentions a «third heaven»:

«Your hearts fear not! Trust in God and trust in me! In my Father’s house are many homes; if this were not so, I would have told you: because I am leaving to prepare a place; and when I am gone and have prepared a place, I return, and will take you with me, so that you may be where I am.» Joh. 14 (1. Thess.4; 13-18; 1 Cor. 15; 50-58; Hebr. 8 ff)

«And I, John, saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her bridegroom. Then I heard a loud voice calling from heaven: „Behold, the house of God is with man! and he will live with them, and they will be his people; yes God himself will be among them and will dry all tears in their eyes, and death will be gone, and also sorrow, no cries of grief and no pain; because the first is over"

Then he who sits on the throne said: "See, I make everything new!" He continued: „Write! because these words are dependable and true!“ Further he said to me: „It is done. I am the A and the O, the beginning and the end; I want to give the thirsty from the spring of the water of life freely. He who overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.» Rev. 21; 2-8.

Having concerned ourselves in detail with the Genesis in the previous chapter, we are now confronted with a number of fundamental questions. The chief question is about the meaning of life and the purpose of the creation of the world. Another question of no lesser importance generally posed by the sceptics is, «Why is evil dominating the world, if it has been created by a «good God»? This is indeed a prominent question for a Christian causing fierce headaches to many people that sincerely contemplate the meaning of life. Since they don’t know any convincing answer such epigonic phrases more frequently lead to rejection of God, as nobody wants to believe any more in an „almighty God“ who tolerates all the misery in the world. Large numbers of Christians maintain this standpoint.

Naturally such reactions are to be expected in a glittering fake world of cities and industries determined by scientific materialism that has submitted itself to the force of the capital. But if convinced Christians that have preserved their faith in God and Christ despite of everything dwell on such dull thoughts, and - for whichever reasons - are tempted to be blind to reality they will barely be in a position to grasp the deeper meaning of life and solve painful problems considering terrible wars, ethnic persecution and global environmental and nature catastrophes.

Obviously we don’t have to search long for an answer. It is hidden since long in the Biblical Creation Report; because in some Bible translations containing concrete information about the events on the first day of creation, we are able to find explanations about why God has created the world and why it was doomed to destruction already from the beginning, and why only man - contrary to all other beings on earth - has the ability to discriminate between good and bad. In the Bible translation of Dr. Hermann Menge we find the following interesting comment:

The expression: «pondering» used here suggests that after the «primeval heaven» and the «primeval earth» had been created, God intensively thought about something and pondered over a plan that obviously is closely related to the creation of light, as it further reads in the divine report:

Now the question arises: what kind of plan did God think about? And what reason did he have, «to divide light and darkness»? But first of all what happened to the «light» that was created on the first day explicitly considered by God as «good»? It could not have been sun, moon and stars, because they were created only on the fourth day of creation and installed in the «solid heaven» according to the Biblical Report.

Jesus, giving the answer to us himself, clearly explained: «I am the light of the world»; whosoever follows me, will not wander in darkness, but have the light of life. (Joh. 8)

Jesus describes himself as the beginning of the creation of God in the apocalypse which states:

«In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God (i.e. together with God; facing God - The term «the word» (gr. the logos) refers here (as also v.14 and Rev. 19; 13) to God’s son as the one who reveals and executes the Will of God) and God (divine being) was the word. This was with God in the beginning.
All things were made by this (word), and without this, nothing was made, (of all) that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not taken it (comprehended it)

A man appeared, he was sent from God, and his name was John; he came to witness, to bear witness of the light, so that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but he was to bear witness of that light. The light was there, the true light, that enlightens every man that comes into the world; he was in the world, and the world was made by him (that was the light), but the world did not recognise him. He came into his own (= his possession), but his own did not receive him; but those that received him, were given the power to become the children of God, namely those that believe in his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.

And the word was made flesh (= man) and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory, given by the Father to his only son; filled with grace and truth.» - Joh. 1; 1-14 (Menge).