The Questions that Drives the Quest

The motivation for doing the research that led to the creation of Ages of Joy came from a question I asked myself over 38 years ago.

My father, now retired, is one of the all-time great high school science teachers.  The kind that invented amazing demonstrations and setup intricate laboratory exercises for his students to get real hands on experience.  As a first and second grader living on the frozen tundra of bush Alaska, where my dad was teaching school at the time, the best entertainment came from visiting the high school science lab after school and in the evenings watching reel-to-reel science films on the "big screen".  My love for science was born of such experiences.

We moved to a small town in rural Minnesota and as a third-grader, I discovered the school library and began devouring every science book on the shelves - especially those about space and dinosaurs. I loved to learn.  Back in those days, "surfing the internet" was called "thumbing through the unabridged dictionary looking for the pen-and-ink drawings".  Anything worth making a drawing for must be very important to learn about.  I discovered a drawing depicting the geologic column - a fascinating diagram providing a glimpse into Earth's deep history.

At about the same time, I was given a Bible in Sunday school.  As I started reading it, I was quickly fascinated by the account of God creating the Earth and immediately compared it to the geologic column.  This is what jumped out at me:

Dictionary	Bible
Ocean	The Deep
Continents	Dry Land
Plants	Plants
Birds	Birds
Cattle	Livestock
Humans	Man

Of course, I saw some differences and parts that I did not know how to fit together. Yet, since God created the Earth, the Bible must have it right, I figured.  At the same time, I wanted to know more details than what the Bible provided.  I wanted to know everything that had happened and the Bible was providing an overview - kind of like an outline or summary of the most important events.  Now I had learned my science from a small town library.  Some books were written in the 50's, some in the 60's, and a few in the 70's.  So I innately understood that scientific understanding was changing over time.  And thus, the question was born:

"When scientists finally work out the history of planet Earth with enough accuracy, will they be able to fill in the details surrounding the events in Genesis 1?"

There is another question that lingers in many people's minds.

"Do the events in Genesis 1 really line up with the history of earth as described by geologists and paleontologist?"

Over the years, I have come across some great material that helps to answer these questions, but still I wanted to know more and to be able to share what I was learning.  So a couple of years ago, I launched my own quest.  I started a list of all the events identified in Earth's history that seemed important.  I began by reading wikipedia and searching for journal articles and followed up by scanning for articles on Science Daily to get the latest scoop.  What I have found thrilled me enough to motivate this website.  I hope you enjoy seeing the details emerge along with me as I continue this exploration.

 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. Proverbs 25:2