Beginning ~ with creation

The Genesis Enigma: Why the First Book of the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate ~ by Andrew Parker, 2009.  Here are the first two paragraphs:

It has been said many times, by rational people who believe in God, that the truth of the stories in the book of Genesis is not to be measured by their agreement with the facts of modern astronomy and biology.  Rather, it is argued, their truth is bound up with their effectiveness in explaining for the Old Testament writers the origin and destiny of the world and humanity in the light of their belief in God.  In other words, the creation account at the beginning of Genesis helped the ancient Israelites who produced it to cope with and understand their world.  In some way, this story of how they and their world came about satisfied their inner consciousness.  But no one in more recent times would ever have considered that this creation account could be scientifically accurate, which is why modern theologians have felt compelled to arm themselves for debate with the rationalization above.

Things may be about to change.

When I taught religions of the world in the 1990s, I would tell my students — who wanted to argue about creation — that the Bible's creation sequence seemed to me to line up perfectly with the theory of evolution.  First came light, even before the sun was created, and that could be explained by the big bang.  Can't you see the "light" of an explosion?  Next, there were waters under the "dome" of sky.  Check, watery atmosphere in place.  Then dry land was separated from the waters, and things started growing on the land.  At this point, halfway through the description of creation, sun and moon and stars are noticed — though it's already the fourth "day" of creation.  Next come swarms of creatures in the seas and birds in the air, and finally all the creeping things and wild animals appeared, with humans arriving last.  Sounds like a description of evolution to me.

So I'm curious about what Andrew Parker has to say about the creation story of the Bible being scientifically accurate.  The very next sentence, after what I quoted above, says:

In this book I will be arguing that the latest understanding of how the world and all life on it came to develop and evolve, as demonstrated by solid, evidence-based science, reflects exactly the order of events as set out in Genesis.

Okay, show me.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays. Click here for today's Mister Linky.