I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens

A review of "Panspermia: What It Is And Why It Matters: An Introductory Essay" 

This is a short tract by Michael Heiser, in which the author (a relatively conservative Christian) attempts to harmonize the Bible with the notion of panspermia. Heiser seems to believe that some form of the panspermia hypothesis is correct, and is worried about the consequences for Christian faith should it ever become standard science. The author suspects that New Age beliefs, paganism and/or outright atheism will get a boost by panspermia. Interestingly, he is also worried about the dangers of excessive literalism in Bible interpretation, including “six solar days creationism”. It's not entirely clear what his alternative is, although it seems to be a form of “hard” theistic evolutionism in which God oversees the evolutionary process. This would be similar to Michael Behe's position.

Heiser makes one interesting admission: nobody (or almost nobody) *really* interprets the Genesis creation story absolutely literally. He further admits that different interpretations of Genesis are plausible, and that it's may not be entirely possible to chose a correct hermeneutic. Heiser is also aware of the fact that the ancient Israelites regarded the Earth as flat and enclosed behind a celestial dome filled with water, a view presupposed in several Biblical passages. But wouldn't this bizarre cosmology disprove the very idea that the Bible is divinely inspired – unless “divine inspiration” is taken very loosely?

The author's attempts to save the Bible while embracing panspermia includes the idea that the Hebrew syntax of Genesis allows for a gap of millions of years already before the first verse, with the creation story being about God's refashioning of matter created at some earlier point. The verse about “the earth giving forth living creatures” could be interpreted as God giving the Earth certain properties which makes the emergence of life possible. Interestingly, Heiser argues that “the image of God” isn't a reference to a human *property* but to a *function*, humans being God's representatives on Earth. (Islam has this exact notion, presumably derived from some form of Judaism.) Since being created in the image of God means having a unique station on Earth, Christians need not worry about intelligent extraterrestrials not having “the image”. Indeed, God may have used ETs as intermediaries in seeding life on Earth through directed panspermia even though the aliens lack “the image”.

Since I'm not a conservative Christian, Heiser's project of intellectual harmonization between science and “hard” Biblicism strikes me as misguided. Why not admit that the Bible isn't a divine revelation in the narrow sense presupposed by theological conservatives? That being said, this booklet might nevertheless be interesting to some readers, and I therefore give it three stars.