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The science of the BIBLE: From time being slower when the world was created to Moses being on drugs, researchers reveal how miracles may really have happened

Gerald Schroeder says he can explain how universe was created in 6 days
His theory is based on using Albert Einstein's theory that time is relative
Noah's flood may have been result of climate change, say some scientists
Moses was taking a local hallucinogenic substance derived from leaves of the ayahuasca plant when he heard the voice of God, one researcher says

By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

Published: 14:19 EST, 25 September 2015 | Updated: 19:46 EST, 25 September 2015

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The bible says the universe was created in six days. Scientists say it was created in 13.8 billion years.

Gerald Schroeder has famously attempted to reconcile this difference using Albert Einstein's theory that time is relative.

The physicist, who teaches at the College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, claims 'time is different [for humans] than it is from the perspective of the Creator.'

The bible says the universe was created in six days. Scientists say it was created in 13.8 billion years. Gerald Schroeder has famously attempted to reconcile this difference using Albert Einstein's theory that time is relative. The physicist, claims 'time is different [for humans] than it is from the perspective of the Creator'

But Schroeder isn't the only one who has attempted to explain miracles in the bible with science.

From Moses being on drugs to global warming being blamed on Noah's flood, some scientists believe there's a logical explanation for every event in the Old Testament.

The creation of the universe

According to an in-depth report by Atlas Obscura, Schroeder's believes time when the universe was created was about a trillion times slower, due to what he calls the 'stretching factor' in Einstein's equations.

Einstein's model of 'general relativity,' the faster things go, the slower time moves. And Schroeder says because light moves so fast, it affects time.

Schroeder argues that change in perspective changed the meaning of the six days. Six of these 24-trillion-hour days come out to a little over 14 billion years

'When the Bible describes the day-by-day development of our universe in the six days following the creation, it is truly referring to six 24-hour days,' he writes.

'But the reference frame by which those days were measured was one which contained the total universe.'

Schroeder argues that change in perspective changed the meaning of the six days. Six of these 24-trillion-hour days come out to a little over 14 billion years.

His theory has been widely dismissed. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar, said its 'absurd that you can actually find physics in Genesis I.'

UK researchers claim that 'Adam' walked the earth 209,000 years ago, contradicting a recent study that suggested the Y chromosome predated humanity

Life on Earth came out of clay

The Bible, Koran and even Greek mythology claim that all life on Earth came from clay.

In religious texts from ancient Egypt to Chinese legends, God moulds clay into the shape of man and then breathes life into him through his nostrils.

Even Genesis talks of man being born from dust and returning to dust when he dies, with scholars translating this from the ancient Hebrew as also meaning clay or the earth itself.

A study in 2013 attempted to back up these claims. It said clay acts as a breeding laboratory for tiny molecules and chemicals which it 'absorbs like a sponge'.

The process takes billions of years, during which the chemicals react to each other to form proteins, DNA and, eventually, living cells, scientists told the journal Scientific Reports.

Biological Engineers from Cornell University's department for Nanoscale Science in New York believe clay 'might have been the birthplace of life on Earth'.

In his book River Out Of Eden, the atheist Richard Dawkins set out to take us back to one common ancestor. He used a mathematical model to work backwards through DNA genealogy, saying: 'There has to be a woman of whom this claim can be made. The only argument is over whether she lived here rather than there'

Adam and Eve

In his book River Out Of Eden, the atheist Richard Dawkins set out to take us back to one common ancestor - a black woman who lived in Africa a quarter of a million years ago.

He used a complicated mathematical model to work backwards through our DNA genealogy, saying:

'There has to be a woman of whom this claim can be made. The only argument is over whether she lived here rather than there, at this time rather than at that time.

'The fact that she did live, in some place and at some time, is certain.'

So to the extent that Eve is our common ancestor, even the Godless believe she existed.

And last year a study found most common male ancestor, 'Adam' existed 9,000 years earlier than scientists believed.

UK researchers claim that 'Adam' walked the earth 209,000 years ago, contradicting a recent study that suggested the Y chromosome predated humanity.

Their findings puts 'Adam' within the timeframe of his other half 'Eve', the genetic maternal ancestor of mankind.

Another event in the Bible that has been targeted by scientists is Moses's parting of the Red Sea, in time for the Israelites to cross and escape the Pharoh's encroaching army. In 2010, Carl Drew, transformed the Exodus's story of the Red Sea parting into a computer model (pictured) to show it could have occured

Parting of the Red Sea

Another event in the Bible that has been targeted by scientists is Moses's parting of the Red Sea, in time for the Israelites to cross and escape the Pharoh's encroaching army.

In 2010, Carl Drew, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), transformed the Exodus's story of the Red Sea parting into a computer model.

He changed the 'strong east wind' into ones that were 63 miles per hour, applied it to a reconstruction of a spot in the Nile Delta,

He concluded that this could indeed have 'divided the waters.'

In the book of Genesis, God despairs of human corruption and decides to flood the Earth, instructing Noah to build an ark to save himself, his family and a pair of each animal species. Researchers have suggested that, during a warming period in the cycle of the Earth's temperature around 5600BC

Noah's flood

In the book of Genesis, God despairs of human corruption and decides to flood the Earth, instructing Noah to build an ark to save himself, his family and a pair of each animal species.

Researchers have suggested that, during a warming period in the cycle of the Earth's temperature around 5600BC, melting glaciers caused an onrush of seawater from the Mediterranean.

This cascaded through Turkey's Straits of Bosporus - dry land at the time - to the Black Sea, transforming it from a freshwater lake into a vast saltwater inlet.

FLOODS AND FAMINE MAY HAVE KICKSTARTED WORLD'S RELIGIONS

They often form a central part of most biblical stories, but it appears that floods, famines and plagues may have also helped to start belief in some gods in the first place.

Researchers at North Carolina State University found that belief in all-powerful and moralising gods tended to appear at times of hardship in human history.

They claim that believing in such a supreme deity helps to ensure people within a society live by certain moral rules that are necessary when living in harsh environments or in times of hardship.

The researchers studied the origins of 583 religious societies around the world.

They compared these to climate, rainfall and plant growth data for each area to build up a historical picture of the conditions each society was living in.

The findings may help to shed light on how religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam first emerged and why stories of hardship play such a central role.

In the 1990s, drawing on archaeological and anthropological evidence, Colombia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman claimed that 'ten cubic miles of water poured through each day', and that the deluge continued for at least 300 days.

More than 60,000 square miles of land were flooded, and the lake's level rose by hundreds of feet after merging with the Mediterranean, triggering mass animal migrations across Europe.

The researchers, whose findings have been backed up by carbon dating and sonar imaging, claim that the story of Noah's flood had its origin in this cataclysmic event.

This is a pivotal moment in the Passover story, in which God speaks to Moses from a burning bush and tells him: 'I am come down to deliver [the Israelites] out of the hand of the Egyptians.' Scientists believe the bush was either growing over a natural gas vent, or could have combusted because of local volcanic action

The Burning Bush

This is a pivotal moment in the Passover story, in which God speaks to Moses from a burning bush and tells him: 'I am come down to deliver [the Israelites] out of the hand of the Egyptians.'

Scientists believe the bush was either growing over a natural gas vent, or could have spontaneously combusted because of local volcanic action.

Norwegian physicist Dag Kristian Dysthe has studied the subsurface combustion of organic material in Mali, West Africa, and concludes such events do happen in the natural world.

As for the voice of God, Hebrew University psychology professor Benny Shannon proposes that Moses was taking a local hallucinogenic substance derived from leaves of the ayahuasca plant found in the Negev and Sinai deserts.