by Daniel J. Dyke, M.Div., M.Th., and Hugh Henry, Ph.D.

Our last article reviewed uses of the words kabash (“subdue”) and radah (“rule”) in the Old Testament beyond Genesis 1. In all cases, they imply strong control exerted in the face of fierce resistance—or potential resistance. This helps us understand the true meaning of God’s instructions to man after his creation:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over … every living thing”(emphasis added).

Such commands cannot refer to the benign stewardship characteristic of the popular “blissful Nirvana” interpretation of the world before the fall. A command to subdue the earth and to rule over other living things implies conquest and subjugation of creation, as in: defeating and/or brutally ruling a strong enemy; subjugating another into slavery and/or bending slaves to a master’s will; fighting humanity’s sinful nature, and so on. By comparison, these are not the instructions given to a new CEO of a smoothly running company. These are the kind of instructions given to a CEO who must shake up an inefficient but potentially profitable company. God is commanding humans to confront and control a “very good” creation that needs organization and management.

The implication of violence and brutality in kabash and radah does not suggest humans should destroy creation—as some new CEOs will destroy a company to “save” it. The point is that creation will resist humanity’s management like a strong army or like a free man resisting enslavement. Humans are to carry out God’s goal of improving a creation that is already “very good” (tob meod). Creation can only realize its full potential through management by humankind.

Therefore, a logical interpretation of Genesis 1:28 is that men and women are formed in the image of God to continue God’s work of bringing order out of chaos. God gives them the power and ability to complete His work by channeling and directing creation toward maximum productivity. In this way, humans fulfill their destiny as God’s image-bearers. Yet, the task is not easy. God challenges men and women, as a father challenges his children, in order to mature them.

God’s instructions to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” do not only mean to reproduce. Humans are to make God’s creation more fruitful by cultivating the soil, domesticating animals, etc.

It is indisputable that fallen humanity has abused its role as steward of God’s creation; that is called sin. But human sinfulness does not detract from the central responsibility of completing creation by making it more productive. Edible fruits and berries grow on their own, but do so in much greater quantity and quality when they are cultivated. Anything cultivated and harvested becomes plentiful; and this includes both plants and creatures.

What changed with the fall? What was different after God “cursed” the ground with “thorns and thistles,” and man was doomed to procure food “by the sweat of your face”?¹ The options are:

1. A radical system change, including the death of vertebrate animals for the first time (necessitating the transformation of certain creatures into carnivores, which includes modifications to their mouths, digestive systems, and instincts). This is the view taken by many young-earth creationists, as represented by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati in part one of this series.
2. A minor system change, something less than a radical modification of certain creatures into carnivores, but perhaps a hardening of the soil and allowing “thorns and thistles” to grow.
3. A change of venue by removing Adam from a garden with perfect growing conditions to something more typical of the world today.
4. An internal change in man, such that work which was fun or easy before becomes arduous or difficult. This could be a physical and/or mental modification.
5. A combination of two or more of the above.

By using the words kabash and radah in Genesis 1:28, Moses, the likely author, strongly implies that creation was harsh in the beginning. Conditions before the fall did not reflect the popular perception of the “blissful Nirvana.” Hence, the radical system change suggested in the first option seems unlikely.

It is much more likely that the change in conditions after the fall principally represented a change in degree, as suggested by options 2-5. There is substantial evidence for this position. For example, God’s curse on Eve after the fall was “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children” (emphasis added). A simplistic translation of the Hebrew even reads: “in pain I shall increase your pain.” God does not introduce pain after the fall. Pain existed before the fall; God merely increases it!

The same holds true for God’s warning to Adam about the forbidden fruit: “in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.” The Hebrew mot tamut reads “to die you will die,” which implies that Adam is probably familiar with the concept of death.

What is the degree of change after the fall? Which of the options 2-5 is more likely? An important clue is found in the work God tells man to perform before and after the fall. Before the fall, man is to “cultivate the ground”; after the fall, his task is still to “cultivate the ground”. The same Hebrew word, abad, is used in both cases. However, the instruction from before the fall is subtly different from after the fall. (The implications of this difference will be addressed in a subsequent paper.)

Nevertheless, Adam and Eve before the fall were not lounging about eating grapes and drinking nectar like Greek deities, as the “blissful Nirvana” view suggests. Adam had to put out effort for his food. Without humans, the world could be an overgrown jungle, where fast-growing, unfruitful vines crowd out food-producing plants (as the kudzu vine does in the American southeast if not aggressively controlled).

At the very least, the world could not fulfill its potential without human beings. This point is emphasized by the unambiguous statement in Genesis 2 that before humanity, there was “no shrub of the [cultivated] field” and “no plant of the [cultivated] field” (also using abad). One of the reasons for this was the absence of humans to do the cultivating. Without humans, herds of sheep provided easy prey to “a lion or a bear” and other predators. By contrast, with people in control, fruitful vineyards are carefully pruned to maximize production and herds of sheep are led “beside still waters” by shepherds prepared to kill their predators.

Humans sinned at the fall and, therefore, “creation groans” due to mismanagement. But the fall did not usher in a radical system change to God’s creation, introducing conditions such as decay and the death of vertebrate animals where there were none before. Harsh conditions were part of creation in the beginning. Indeed, men and women were created to manage and control those conditions.

Endnotes:

1. Genesis 3:17-19 (NASB)

Mr. Daniel J. Dyke received his Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary 1981 and currently serves as Professor of Old Testament at Cincinnati Christian University in Cincinnati, OH.

Dr. Hugh Henry received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1971, retired after 26 years at Varian Medical Systems, and currently serves as Lecturer in Physics at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, KY.

Keith McPherson received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993, and currently works as an electrical engineer in Melbourne, FL, in the fields of communications and signal processing.

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In part 1 of this series we learned how the genetic system is an information-processing system, and outlined several reasons why we could expect to find coding techniques in play to protect the genetic data. Such coding techniques are known and used by engineers to protect the data processed by many modern digital communications systems.

We now turn our attention to a few analogies of such coding techniques.

Analogy: Optimality of the Genetic Code and Gray Mapping

The first analogy will show from a qualitative and quantitative perspective that the genetic code is in fact an optimal (or near optimal) mapping from codons to amino acids. (See here for a table describing the genetic code.)

The genetic code seems optimized to the specific nucleotide error probabilities quite well, as is the case for a good code from an engineering perspective. For example, the first and third nucleotides of a codon (see here) are more likely to be misread during translation), and this error appears to be taken into account in the genetic code mapping. These most common errors, or mutations, translate the desired codon into a codon that codes either for the same amino acid, or for an amino acid that has very similar physicochemical properties, thus minimizing function loss. (This is similar to Gray codes used in digital communications.) Gray codes are a very fundamental concept used in virtually all digital communication systems.

More specifically, the genetic code seems to be specifically designed to code for the same or very similar amino acids for the most common types of substitution mutations (errors), thereby minimizing protein function loss. In like fashion, Gray codes used in engineering are specifically designed to code for the most similar bit patterns for the most common types of symbol errors, thereby minimizing information loss.

I noticed the similarity to Gray coding after reading a paper by Dr. Fazale Rana in 2002. The Gray code interpretation was highlighted by Manish Gupta in a paper published in 2006. Gupta plotted the 64 codons used in the genetic code in terms of nucleotide distance (see Figure 3 here), and remarked on the correspondence to Gray codes used in engineering. The concept of nucleotide distance and the illustrated plot establishes the validity of the Gray map interpretation.

Recall from part 1 that many genetic code mappings are possible due to the high level of redundancy. Therefore, from a qualitative perspective, and from an engineering perspective, the genetic code is superb, perhaps much better than one may expect from a naturalistic perspective.

Recent work shows just how remarkable the natural code is. (See here and here.) Researchers studying the error-minimizing properties of the genetic code noticed that prior work concluded that the natural code ranked in the top 0.02 percent for efficiency, but that the prior work overlooked bias in mutations.¹ When this bias is taken into account, the natural code makes a radical leap forward from the top 0.02 percent to literally one in a million.

Dr. Fazale Rana comments further on the error-minimizing properties of the genetic code:

The genetic code’s error-minimization properties are actually more dramatic than these results indicate. When researchers calculated the error-minimization capacity of one million randomly generated genetic codes, they discovered that the error-minimization values formed a distribution where the naturally occurring genetic code’s capacity occurred outside the distribution. Researchers estimate the existence of 1018 possible genetic codes possessing the same type and degree of redundancy as the universal genetic code. All of these codes fall within the error-minimization distribution. This finding means that of 1018 possible genetic codes, few, if any, have an error-minimization capacity that approaches the code found universally in nature. ²

In summary, qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that the natural genetic code is highly optimized and, in fact, tuned to the most common type of errors (mutations). In addition, this work highlights an underlying analogy between the genetic system and modern communications systems—the so-called Gray code.

The next article in this series will look at another coding analogy between modern digital communications systems and the genetic information-processing system.

Notes/References:

1. Bias includes the fact that not all codons are equally mistranslated to other codons, and that certain nucleotide positions within the codon are more prone to error. Purine/purine and pyrimidine/pyrimidine errors (transition mutations) are more common than purine/pyrimidine errors (transversion mutations), and the ranking of the positions is 3rd, 1st, and 2nd in terms of being more error prone.

2. Fazale Rana, “FYI: I.D. in DNA; Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code,” Facts for Faith, Quarter 1, 2002, 14-23.

Discovery of Old Lab Vials Erupts New Interest in a Famous Origin-of-Life Experiment

It never ceases to amaze me what turns up when I clean out our garage: forgotten stuff that brings back memories, and occasionally, old things that still have value.

And this is exactly what some former students and associates of the late origin-of-life researcher Stanley Miller discovered when they cleaned out his lab after his death. Old vials from leftover experiments that bring back memories of his famous spark-discharge experiment may shed valuable new light on how prebiotic materials could have formed on the early Earth.

The Miller-Urey Experiment

Miller’s work, conducted in the early 1950s, was the first experimental validation of the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis. Based on the principles of chemical evolution, this model was one of the first scientific theories to describe a mechanistic pathway between simple chemical compounds and life.

To test this hypothesis Miller filled the confines of a carefully assembled glass apparatus with methane, ammonia, and hydrogen after diligently excluding oxygen from the system. At that time, scientists thought the gases Miller used in his experiment existed in early Earth’s atmosphere. A boiling flask of water connected to the glassware introduced water vapor into the headspace and simulated early Earth’s oceans. Miller passed a continuous electric discharge through the gas mix to simulate lightning. The results showed that the primitive atmosphere of the early Earth could, in principle, generate amino acids, one of the key building blocks of life.

Status of the Miller-Urey Experiment

Today, the Miller-Urey experiment is generally considered to be irrelevant to the origin-of-life question. Current understanding of the composition of early Earth’s atmosphere differs significantly from the thinking of the 1950s. Most planetary scientists now believe the Earth’s primeval atmosphere consisted of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor. Laboratory experiments indicate that this gas mixture is incapable of yielding organic materials in Miller-Urey-type experiments.

In May 2003 origin-of-life researchers Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano, long-time associates of Miller, wrote an essay for Science commemorating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Miller’s initial results. They pointed out that the Miller-Urey experiment has historical significance, but not scientific importance in contemporary origin-of-life thought. Bada and Lazcano wrote:

Is the “prebiotic soup” theory a reasonable explanation for the emergence of life? Contemporary geoscientists tend to doubt that the primitive atmosphere had the highly reducing composition used by Miller in 1953.

In his book Biogenesis, origin-of-life researcher Noam Lahav passes similar judgment:

The prebiotic conditions assumed by Miller and Urey were essentially those of a reducing atmosphere. Under slightly reducing conditions, the Miller-Urey reaction does not produce amino acids, nor does it produce the chemicals that may serve as the predecessors of other important biopolymer building blocks. Thus, by challenging the assumption of a reducing atmosphere, we challenge the very existence of the “prebiotic soup,” with its richness of biologically important organic compounds.

Revived Interest in Miller’s Experiment

By sifting through the items left behind in Stanley Miller’s laboratory, his former students and associates uncovered vials of material from his original experiments that they think gives new importance to the Miller-Urey experiment.

Miller actually performed three versions of the spark-discharge experiment. All three permutations yielded amino acids and other organic compounds. Miller decided to focus his efforts, however, on the version that now appears in biology textbooks because he thought that it most closely modeled the atmosphere of early Earth.

Still, Miller held on to cartons of vials containing materials from the other two variations of the spark-discharge experiment along with notebooks that carefully documented the experimental work he performed.

After stumbling upon the vials and corresponding notebooks, Miller’s colleagues decided to re-analyze their contents using state-of-the-art analytical methods not available to Miller fifty years ago.

To their surprise, Miller’s associates discovered that the “textbook” version of the Miller-Urey experiment wasn’t the most successful. The most productive synthesis was one that introduced water into the headspace as a fine mist using an aspirator. This particular experimental rig produced more amino acids with a greater chemical diversity than the textbook experiment.

The design of this forgotten experiment intrigued Miller’s collaborators because it models volcanic emissions that could have occurred on early Earth. Accordingly, volcanic lightning would have served as the energy source that generated prebiotic compounds as it passed through volcanic gases and steam—assuming that the volcanic emissions on early Earth consisted of reducing gases.

Miller’s cohorts now argue that this re-discovery gives new relevance to Miller’s old experiment. Perhaps the sources of prebiotic materials on early Earth were volcanic emissions, not chemical reactions taking place in the atmosphere.

Were Volcanoes the Source of Prebiotic Compounds?

The proposal by Miller’s former associates is not the first time that origin-of-life researchers have appealed to volcanoes as the source of prebiotic compounds. As Hugh Ross and I describe in our book Origins of Life, other scientists have suggested this possibility.

Based on the chemical composition of volcanic emissions today, there doesn’t seem to be much hope that prebiotic materials could form in this environment. The gases spewing from volcanoes today consist primarily of water, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. This is a highly oxidizing mixture of gases that will not generate prebiotic materials in laboratory simulation experiments like the ones that Miller performed.

But were the gaseous emissions of volcanoes on early Earth different? Did they consist of gases like the ones used by Miller in his spark-discharge experiments? Research conducted a few years ago indicates the opposite. It appears as if the gaseous emissions of volcanoes 3.9 billion years ago were identical to the emissions today. This result means that the conditions of Miller’s experiment were not relevant for either the atmosphere of the early Earth or volcanic environments at that time.

Miller’s work and his status as a scientist remain fixed in a prominent place in the history of science. However, perhaps it’s best that Miller’s vials are removed from the lab once and for all, and sent to a museum for posterity.

History disfavors any theory placing Earth in a geometrically special location. Early scientists, such as Ptolemy of ancient Greece, thought Earth resided at the center of the solar system. However, geocentric cosmology eventually gave way to heliocentrism most notably associated with Nicolas Copernicus. Since Copernicus’s time extensive observations have demonstrated that the Sun does not reside at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG). Nor does the MWG reside at the center of the Local Group of galaxies or the universe. Scientists refer to the fact that Earth is not in a central, specially favored position as the Copernican Principle.

Although this view provides a foundation of cosmological research, scientists don’t simply accept the Copernican Principle. They continue to test it.

One area of research particularly suited to testing is the universe’s mysterious dark energy. The first need to invoke dark energy to explain features of the universe arose as astronomers tried to understand observations of distant Type Ia supernovae. The supernovae appeared dimmer than expected and the simplest explanation was that dark energy was causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. However, dark energy is not the only explanation.

The same supernovae data would arise if the MWG resides at the center of a large region (something similar in size to the observable universe) with a lower density than that of the surrounding regions. However, placing the solar system (located within the MWG) at the center of such a special region clearly violates the Copernican Principle. Nevertheless, scientists do not simply reject the low density region, also called the void model. They seek to test its validity.

In a previous TNRTB I highlighted one test of the void model that used the cosmic microwave background. Now scientists have developed another test using supernovae data. Reseachers started by characterizing void density profiles that could explain the supernovae data. Then they modeled in detail how the supernovae data would appear with a much larger sample than currently exists. They found that with a sufficient sample of supernovae data from a specified distance, the void model produced different results when compared to dark energy models. Observations over the next few years should definitively tell which model is correct.

If dark energy models prevail, cosmologists will continue to face the great challenge of trying to understand what it is and why it exhibits such extraordinary fine-tuning in order for this universe to support life. If the void models prevail, a guiding scientific principle will need revision. Either way, exciting times lay ahead.

If you would like to see a question about the multiverse addressed in this forum, send it to multiverse@reasons.org.

In part one of this series I attempted to explain how Jesus Christ could experience the eternal wrath of God in just several hours of suffering on the cross.

I proposed that Jesus Christ could accomplish the eternal result of redemption in a short temporal period of time because he is ontologically (relating to the study of being) an eternal personal being. The theological point is that an eternal personal being (Christ being God Incarnate) can offer an eternal sacrifice by the very nature of his being without consideration to time factors.

This article will address a related question:

Why must nonbelievers suffer eternal judgment for a mere temporal period of sin?

In other words, if a person sins for seventy years here on Earth, what is the justice in God punishing the sinner for all eternity? Why an eternal punishment for a temporal period of infraction?

My answer to this question is very similar to the answer that I gave to the earlier question in part one. I propose that the answer to this perplexing question is found in the historic Christian view of God.

God is an eternal personal being of complete justice and holiness.

According to Christian orthodox theology, God is an infinite, eternal, tri-personal spiritual being—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This God is also a morally perfect being (reflecting complete holiness, justice, and goodness). Paul describes God thusly:

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen (1 Timothy 1:17).

The Book of Revelation describes God in these ominous words:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come (Revelation 4:8).

So how does all this impact the original question?

Why must nonbelievers suffer eternal judgment for a temporal period of sin?

The answer is that God is an infinite and eternal holy being. Therefore to sin against this God is to commit an eternal offense.

The substantive theological issue here is not how long the person sinned while living temporally on the Earth. Rather the crux of the matter rests upon whom the sin was committed against.

To commit sin against an eternal God is to commit an eternal sin. Temporal sins against an eternal God bear eternal consequences. Eternal punishment is the cost of offending an eternally perfect moral being.

Part three of this series will address another difficult question concerning God’s justice in punishing sinners eternally.

For more on the study of Christ’s person, nature, and work, see chapters 9 and 11 of my book Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions and chapter 8 of my book A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test.

by Daniel J. Dyke, M.Div., M.Th., and Hugh Henry, Ph.D.

One point of contention among those who believe in creation is the issue of death and decay in the original created order. The question, simply stated, is whether or not death, decay, disease, harsh conditions, etc., exists as a part of the world before the fall of Adam.

When God proclaimed creation “very good,” (tob meod) was the world blissful, like the popular concept of Nirvana—or did it function under harsh conditions?¹ Was it “perfect,” with self-sustaining agriculture and lions that literally ate straw? Or was it a world full of potential, in need of taming and management? Did fruit trees need pruning and did lions “lie in wait in a thicket” to “hunt the prey”?

Many old-earth creationists (OEC) hold that death and subsequent decay did occur in the original created order, but just not for man in his closed environment called “the Garden of Eden.” Young-earth creationists, on the other hand, often have a more restrictive interpretation. For example, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati writes, “A straightforward interpretation of Genesis shows that death of humans and vertebrate animals (Hebrew nephesh chayyah, “living creature”) is the result of Adam’s fall.”² Is this as clear as Dr. Sarfati asserts—or does the Bible suggest another interpretation?

The answer to this question may be found in the words kabash and radah (rendered “subdue” and “rule,” respectively, in most English translations) as used in Genesis 1:28. God instructs Adam to,

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over … every living thing” (emphasis added).

Popular interpretation of the pre-fall world as a “blissful Nirvana” has become the de facto position and, for some, a test of orthodoxy. Before the fall man is believed to have lived in a paradise in harmony with nature. Thus, God’s command to “subdue” and “rule” is viewed as a nebulous, benign stewardship. Animatronic figures of children and dinosaurs playing together on display at the Creation Museum in Kentucky illustrate this in the extreme. It seems that, according to this interpretation, man’s only task was not to mess it up by eating forbidden fruit.

However, this unspoiled paradise scenario is not consistent with the meanings of kabash and radah. A Hebrew lexicon defines kabash as “subdue, bring into bondage;”³ and it defines radah as “have dominion, rule, dominate.”⁴ These words imply an aggressive, forceful stewardship, and suggest that the “blissful Nirvana” interpretation is wrong. Instead, the Bible teaches that the pre-fall world required humanity to tame and manage it. Land needed cultivation, fruit trees required pruning, and lions probably laid in wait to hunt prey.

In order to paint a good picture of conditions in the pre-fall world, it is necessary to review the uses of kabash and radah elsewhere in the Old Testament. Eleven other uses of kabash all refer to violent action against strong resistance. Specifically kabash is used in regards to:

1. Military conquest against a strong enemy a. The Israelites conquering Canaan.⁵ b. King David conquering neighboring peoples.⁶
2. God freeing his people by throwing off the yoke of their captors with the coming of the Messiah. ⁷
3. Enslavement a. Israelites capturing and enslaving residents of Judah. ⁸ b. Jews selling themselves into slavery. ⁹ c. Forced enslavement of Jews by their Jewish brothers.¹⁰
4. Haman charged with intent to assault Queen Esther. ¹¹
5. God destroys the sins of those who repent. ¹²

Old Testament uses of radah beyond Genesis 1 always imply total control and/or conquest—even total destruction—in the face of violent resistance (or the potential for violent resistance). Radah occurs five times in Mosaic literature after Genesis 1, in regards to:

1. Management of slaves. Leviticus 25:43, 46, and 53 seem especially revealing. Verses 44-46 give Israelites carte blanche with regard to slaves who are “aliens among you,” but verses 43, 46, and 53 repeat specific instructions not to “rule” (radah) Israelite slaves “with severity” or “ruthlessly.” Use of a qualifier to decrease severity suggests radah might have an element of brutality.
2. Rule of the Israelites by cruel enemies if they reject God’s laws and commands.¹³
3. Conquest and destruction of evil opponents by the Messiah and/or David.¹⁴

The usage of radah is similar in 14 instances throughout non-Mosaic literature:

1. Solomon’s absolute control of the territories and “kings” within his empire.¹⁵
2. Control of taskmasters over the conscripted workers in Solomon’s building projects (including the temple).¹⁶ The work was not carried out joyously, but under great severity; if the dialog in 1 Kings 12 between the people and King Rehoboam after Solomon’s death is literal, the conscripts were controlled and directed with “whips.”
3. The severe rule of the Israelites by their enemies.¹⁷
4. Rule over the wicked by the righteous after death.¹⁸
5. God’s vanquished enemies (“them”) ruled (or led) in the victory procession by the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest and weakest tribe.¹⁹
6. The Messiah’s absolute rule, as prophesied by David.²⁰
7. Absolute control by Israel of her enemies when God restores His people by defeating their enemies.²¹
8. Rule of the people by priests, allowing or blocking access to God.²²
9. Radah with a negative—implying no control.²³ God through Ezekiel promises a restored Egypt will exert no control over its neighbors.
10. Mistreatment and abuse of the weak in Israel by their stronger brothers.²⁴

In the context of the popular “blissful Nirvana” interpretation, it is useful to evaluate the “minimum requirement” of the text. That is, what is the least restrictive usage of kabash and radah?

1. The minimum use of kabash seems to be assault.²⁵ Other uses involve enslavement and killing people, both of which increase in the level of brutality involved.
2. The minimum Mosaic use of radah seems to be God’s instructions to the Israelites not to “rule with severity” over slaves who are fellow Israelites.²⁶ Mosaic literature says elsewhere that an Israelite slave provides “double the service of a hired man” to a fellow Israelite.²⁷ Hence, the minimum use implies submitting to the will of another, such as an employer or a benevolent master.
3. The minimum non-Mosaic use of radah is probably control of taskmasters over the conscripted workers in Solomon’s building projects (including the temple).²⁸ Based on 1 Kings 12, they were at the very least treated like Israelite slaves; however, if whips were really used, they were governed more severely.

Words have meaning. When the various uses of kabash and radah unanimously convey such a strong connotation—with no clear indication of any other meaning in the context of Genesis 1—it is statistically significant. That same strong connotation must be deemed to apply to Genesis 1.

Our next article will discuss application of the meanings of kabash and radah to the question of the condition of the world before the fall.

Endnotes:

1. Note that this is the Hebrew comparative form of the adjective, not the superlative; this implies that the world was in better condition, but not in perfect, or even in the best, condition.

2. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross (Green Forest, AR: MasterBooks, 2004), 195. In reading the quote and the title of this work, the reader should note that Dr. Sarfati engages in a type of argument known as “poisoning the well.” The term “compromise” carries the idea of unfaithfulness and rejection of biblical authority.

3. Francis Brown et al., ed., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 461.

4. Brown et al., ed., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 921-2.

5. Numbers 32:22, 29; Joshua 18:1 (subdued, NASB).

6. 2 Samuel 8:11; 1 Chronicles 22:18 (subdued, NASB).

7. Zechariah 9:15 (devour and trample, NASB).

8. 2 Chronicles 28:10 (subjugate, NASB).

9. Nehemiah 5:5 (forced into bondage, NASB).

10. Jeremiah 34:16 (brought into subjection, NASB).

11. Esther 7:8 (assault, NASB).

12. Micah 7:18 (tread under foot, NASB).

13. Leviticus 26:17 (rule, NASB).

14. Numbers 24:19 (have dominion, NASB); this is Balaam’s prophesy.

15. 1 Kings 4:24 (had dominion, NASB); Psalm 72:8 (rule, NASB). Since Psalm 72 is Messianic prophesy, this use of “rule” also refers to the Messiah’s rule. However, since the context is comparison with the rule of Solomon, it seems appropriate to group Psalm 72:8 with 1 Kings 4:24.

16. 1 Kings 5:15, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 8:10 (ruled, NASB).

17. Nehemiah 9:28 (rule, NASB).

18. Psalm 49:14 (rule, NASB). The severity is less clear in this instance, but the context of the psalm is that good people triumph over the wicked after death—even if the wicked may triumph in life.

19. Psalm 68:27 (ruling, NASB). Although the antecedent of “them” is ambiguous, it is unlikely that the antecedent is “the princes of Judah” since Benjamin ruled Judah only during the reign of Saul and the context of the Psalm is God’s defeat of His enemies and bringing them under the rule of God’s people

20. Psalm 110:2 (rule, NASB). Although precise meaning of the phrase that the Messiah will “rule in the midst of [his] enemies” is not clear, the context of the psalm implies absolute Messianic control, in particular His judgment of the nations (Psalm 110:6, NAS) after He “shatter[s] kings” (Psalm 110:5, NASB).

21. Isaiah 14:2, 6 (rule, subdued, NASB).

22. Jeremiah 5:31 (rule, NASB). The context of this passage is the unfaithfulness of the people of Judah, which will bring about conquest by Babylon. Although the passage makes clear that the unfaithful majority “love” the fact that unfaithful priests ignore God’s laws, the book of Jeremiah also details how these unfaithful priests severely persecuted those who followed God, like Jeremiah, Uriah, and Baruch.

23. Ezekiel 29:15 (rule, NASB).

24. Ezekiel 34:4 (dominated, NASB).

25. Esther 7:8 (assault, NASB).

26. Leviticus 25:43, 46, 53 (rule, NASB).

27. Deuteronomy 15:18 (NASB).

28. 1 Kings 5:15, 9:23; 2 Chronicles 8:10 (ruled, NASB).

Mr. Daniel J. Dyke received his Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary 1981 and currently serves as Professor of Old Testament at Cincinnati Christian University in Cincinnati, OH.

Dr. Hugh Henry received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1971, retired after 26 years at Varian Medical Systems, and currently serves as Lecturer in Physics at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, KY.

Keith McPherson received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993, and currently works as an electrical engineer in Melbourne, FL, in the fields of communications and signal processing.

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It’s no secret that we are highly dependent on electronic devices. We use them for managing schedules, communicating, staying “connected,” and storing, managing, and using various media such as music, photographs, and videos. These information processing devices have become an integral part of our everyday lives. It is vitally important that these devices utilize robust methods to protect the integrity of the data that is stored and processed by them.

Information theory, information processing, and error control coding¹ are relevant fields behind the technological systems and devices of our time. Engineers work diligently to protect the integrity of data processed by various terrestrial and satellite communications systems in place today. These systems and associated machines enable reliable communications on a truly global scale. Critical to successful communications and reliable information processing are coding techniques² that engineers have discovered and developed. These techniques play an important role in maintaining the high reliability of data in spite of many error-inducing characteristics of a typical communications link. As remarkable as this technology is, it turns out that within our own cells there exists an even more elegant set of information processing miracles.

Strict and rigorous analogies of information processing systems and several man-made coding techniques occur in nature, specifically in genes. In this series, we will explore the genetic system and will see that it is actually an information processing system.

Genetic System Overview³

The so-called “central dogma of molecular biology” acknowledges that, at the most fundamental level, the construction of proteins involves a one-way flow of information. Proteins are the workhorses of the cell and are vital for all cell functions. Information for protein construction is stored in the cell’s DNA, which is contained in the nucleus. From the nucleus, DNA is transcribed to mRNA; mRNA then takes the information out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm for protein construction. At the ribosome, the process of translation takes the information copied into the mRNA and builds the sequences of amino acids, which will eventually fold to construct the protein. This entire process is called protein synthesis. The flow of protein-building information from DNA—and also in DNA replication—shows that the cell’s bio-machinery is an information-based system.

Every cell nucleus contains DNA composed of two long strands of nucleotides. The set of nucleotides (adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and thymidine) used comprise a four-letter chemical alphabet (A, G, C, T). The combinations that arise from this alphabet describe how to construct each and every protein in the cell. Each strand of the DNA is complementary to the other strand, and they are intertwined to form the famous double helix. Coding portions of DNA describing the construction of proteins are called genes.

The structure of RNA is similar to that of DNA, with the main exception that RNA consists of a single strand, and so is not characterized by a double helix. Also, uridine replaces thymidine so that the nucleotide alphabet for RNA is A, G, C, U. Three sequential nucleotides form a codon, the fundamental unit that describes the amino acid sequence that forms the protein. As an example, the codon AUC codes for the amino acid isoleucine.

Sequences of amino acids are constructed to form polypeptide chains. These chains fold into complex 3-D shapes determined in part by the chemical forces and bonds within the amino acid sequences. Polypeptide chains assemble to complete the construction of the protein. DNA has to specify one amino acid at each link in the chain. Out of more than 80 possible amino acids (each with right- and left-handed versions), only 20 left-handed ones are relevant for biological systems.

The genetic code refers to the mapping between the codon in the DNA and the 20 biologically relevant amino acids. Since there are 4³ = 64 possible codons, and there are 20 amino acids, there is redundancy in the code (~3x) and many mappings are possible. Moreover, since there are different degrees of similarity between the 20 relevant amino acids, the specific details of the mapping become very important. In the event that one of the nucleotides in the codon is in error, a good mapping chooses a replacement amino acid as similar as possible to the desired one, thereby maximizing the possibility of a functional protein in spite of the error.

Error Control Coding and Genetic Information Processing

Given that living systems process information, there exist several good reasons to expect error-correcting codes to be in operation:

Life itself depends on robust information transfer.

There are real impairments that must be overcome. For example, though mutations already exist within their genomes, organisms maintain functionality.

The low error rates observed in the genetic system demand an adequate explanation.

Genetic information is inherently digital in nature (i.e., genetic information is specified using a finite set of discrete objects) and is characterized by redundancy.

Furthermore, in the words of leading researcher, Gail Rosen,

Since DNA is a finite, symbolic sequence, it is natural to extend the use of coding theory to sequence analysis.⁴

Redundancy, the most basic property for any error-correction scheme, exists within the genetic system. All error-correction schemes require redundancy in the coded data protected by that scheme. At its root, the genetic mapping code exhibits such redundancy, and coded genetic sequences themselves also exhibit redundancy. Other leading researchers comment,

All the methods of error-control coding are based on the adding of redundancy to the transmitted information. As the genetic information is redundant, and since the genetic code is also redundant itself, the possible existence of error-control mechanisms represents a somehow natural hypothesis related to the biological task of ensuring a high degree of reliability in the transmission and expression of genetic information.⁵

We have established that living beings are information-processing systems, and that the genetic communications system is ideal for digital information-processing and error-control coding. In future articles, we turn our attention to a few analogies between modern digital communications systems and genetic information processing.

Notes/References:

1. In general, the techniques we will discuss in this series fall under three broad categories: error-correcting codes, error-detecting codes, and Gray coding. “Forward error correction (FEC)” and “error-control codes” are terms also commonly used to refer to error-correcting codes in the technical literature. See here and here for a brief introduction to error-correcting and error-detecting codes. See here for a brief introduction to Gray codes.

2. See note 1.

3. See 6, 7, and 8 for complementary overviews of the genetic system and further evidence for design in the genetic system.

4. Gail Rosen, “Examining Coding Structure and Redundancy in DNA,” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine 25 (Jan. - Feb. 2006): 62 - 68.

5. D. L. Gonzalez, S. Giannerini, R. Rosa, “Detecting Structure in Parity Binary Sequences,” IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine25 (Jan. - Feb. 2006): 69 - 81.

6. Fazale Rana, “Biochemical Synonyms Optimized, Part 1 (of 2) ,” Today’s New Reason To Believe, August 21, 2008.

7. Fazale Rana, “Biochemical Synonyms Optimized, Part 2 (of 2),” Today’s New Reason To Believe, August 28, 2008.

8. Fazale Rana, “FYI: I.D. in DNA; Deciphering Design in the Genetic Code,” Facts for Faith, Quarter 1, 2002, 14 - 23.