OLDEST CONFIRMED BIBLE EVENT

Meteorite Predicted from Genesis Identified

(Investigator 224, 2025 September)

The King David (or "Tel Dan") inscription written about 800 BCE mentions King David. The Moabite Stone prepared around 840 BCE mentions kings, places and events from that era. The Merneptah Stele, carved about 1210 BCE, mentions Israel, which confirms that Israel already existed by then. The city of Ur is mentioned in the Bible as Abraham's birth place, roughly 2000 BCE. Abraham is not archaeologically confirmed but the founding of Ur is estimated at 3800 BCE.

That's as far back as scientific support for any biblical events went — 4000 years if we include Abraham's connection with Ur.

ENORMOUS IMPACT DISCOVERED

The idea that Earth suffered asteroid impacts so gigantic that the energy released boiled oceans or pushed oceans over continents or splash them into orbit, is entering mainstream science.

Hannah Peart (2025), summarizing research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about an impact in South Africa, writes:

The meteorite, S2, was first discovered in 2014. It hit the planet about 3.26 billion years ago and is estimated to have been up to 200 times larger than the space rock that later killed the dinosaurs...

The meteorite struck Earth when it was still ... a water world with only a few continents sticking out of the sea...

The giant meteorite caused a tsunami to sweep across the planet ...  caused the topmost layer of the ocean to boil off, while also heating the atmosphere ... and darkness that likely harmed shallow-water photosynthetic microbes in the short term.

Note, when asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere they're usually called "meteorites".  Other names are "space rocks" and "bolides".

The "200 times larger" refers to mass not diameter. Drabon et al (2024), in the original report in Proceedings..., state: "The S2 impactor had an estimated bolide diameter of 37 to 58 km, by mass ~50 to 200 times larger than the K-Pg bolide."

BIBLICAL CONNECTION

In 1974 I concluded that the description, in the second verse in the Bible, of planet Earth before "God created", matches what the impact of a giant asteroid into the ocean would have done.

Genesis 1:2 describes a sunless, dark, lifeless world, covered in water, "formless and void", and with an "awesome wind" blowing over it. The word "asteroid" or "meteorite" is not there but the description alone is definitive. My insight was assisted by the speculative book Bombarded Earth (1964). Years later I cited this book for science at University but the idea was poorly regarded. "Uniformitarianism", the belief that geological change on Earth is gradual had been scientific doctrine for 1½ centuries, and big instantaneous change from asteroid impacts was still science fiction.

Only after 1980, with evidence that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs, and the later discovery of the actual crater, did belief in asteroid impacts gain status. But this increase of status did not include belief in impacts so massive that oceans surged over continents, produced a dark "water world", or got splashed into Space.

The S2 impact reported by Drabon et al in Proceedings... occurred when the only life was microbes in the ocean.

THE WIND

That ancient impact would have generated storms or winds greater than any ever experienced by humans. Winds so great that if they occurred now they would smash cities into dust and rubble and blow the dust and rubble away.

Perhaps, having read this far, you rushed to get your Bible and opened it to Genesis 1:2, but don't see the word "wind".

Most Christian denominations interpret ruach in Genesis 1:2 as the "Holy Spirit" of the Trinity doctrine and most Bible translators translated ruach in 1:2 as "Spirit". The New RSV Bible, in contrast, says: "a wind from God swept over the face of the waters." The Good News Bible says "power of God", but in a footnote suggests "an awesome wind".

If ruach in 1:2 means "awesome wind", it makes the description of Earth before God created, an entirely non-supernatural description. The description alludes to climate, geology, oceanography and astronomy, and is therefore potentially testable with third-millennium science.

Genesis 1:2 says "And darkness covered the face of the deep..."  Drabon at al (2024) similarly say: "The impact caused a tsunami, partial ocean evaporation, and darkness... Early Earth impacts would also have generated large clouds of dust that may have blocked sunlight."

ASTEROID SIZE ANTICIPATED

Although getting my first insight on Genesis 1:2 in 1974 I  had no way of sharing my insight. It wasn't anything anyone wanted to know. Then in Adelaide in 1988 Investigator Magazine arrived. The editors were willing to publish ideas from "the fringes of science" but with the threat that skeptics and atheists might respond.

In Investigator #38 in 1994 I suggested that an asteroid of 40 to 50 km diameter crashing into an ocean would produce worldwide conditions as described in Genesis 1:2.

I estimated this size from the effects of the smaller 10km asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs. The dinosaur asteroid for example did not flood the entire planet. Tsunamis surged onto north America only a few hundred kilometers. A planet-flooding asteroid impact, therefore, would need to be much larger and I estimated 40 to 50 km.

My estimate in 1994, as you notice, is in the middle of the range — 37 km to 58 km — estimated 30 years later in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!

INDUCTIVE REASONING

I rely on science to investigate the accuracy of the Bible. This, however, means that proof of the Bible is an ongoing process which cannot proceed faster than science makes discoveries.

Therefore, when the Bible seems wrong on some point, as it did regarding Genesis 1:2, I sometimes predict that future discovery will confirm the Bible. I acknowledge previous confirmations of biblical statements and, based on the observed string of confirmations, predict more will occur. It's called inductive logic or inductive reasoning.

It's the logic everyone is using when they trust another person who has always been trustworthy; or if they expect tomorrow's sunrise because the sun rises every day; or if they choose a surgeon by his past high surgery success rate. Merely speaking involves inductive logic because opening your mouth to speak only makes sense if you've done it before and therefore know it works.

Would you stand in front of a speeding train and expect to survive? No. That would be anti inductive, irrational, because the correct prediction or extrapolation from similar past events is that the train will kill you.

More thought along these lines shows that everyone uses inductive reasoning, although not always consciously, every minute that they're awake. And the same logic can confirm the Bible. The Bible has turned out correct repeatedly even in instances when the whole world disagreed with it or ignored it — as with Genesis 1:2. Therefore, the rational decision is to anticipate more of the same. The Bible is the book you can trust to prepare you for eternity because of its record of being  correct.

Some skeptics, published in Investigator, argued against inductive reasoning, and felt silly afterwards, or they should have. Inductive reasoning is necessary for intelligent life to live. Inductive logic and physical laws seem to have a deep complementary unity.

Jesus taught inductive reasoning when he said: "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much." (Luke 16:10)

GREAT ASTEROID IMPACTS

4.5 billion years ago. A Mars-sized impact reduced planet Earth to a molten state and threw molten debris into Space which coalesced into a ball-shape and became the Moon.

In March 2025 dated at 3.47 billion years; original crater 100 km wide; but a new assessment has reduced these estimates.

3 billion years. In 2023 confirmed as the largest and oldest impact structure on Earth. Original crater up to 500km wide.

Yarrabubba Structure (Western Australia)
2.23 billion years. Until 2020 the oldest reliably dated impact structure known; the original crater 70km diameter.

In this list the 3.26 billion-year-old S2 impact, found in 2014 and reported in Proceedings... in 2024 would go in second place. Its original crater size is estimated at 500km — perhaps the greatest devastation event on Earth in the past 3¼  billion years!

DISCUSSION

The ancient Earth experienced many gigantic asteroid impacts. Look at the Moon where the biggest impact structure (Aitken Basin) is 2500 km across! 

Thomas Sumner (2015) citing the work of geologists D.R. Lowe and G.R. Byerly writes: "Evidence from ancient rocks suggests that asteroids slammed into our planet around 3.3 billion years ago. The impacts would have released ... so much energy that this heat baked the skies and boiled the oceans.... Lowe estimates that the massive rocks measured 50 to 100 kilometers ..."

Therefore the S2 impact discussed in this article may not be the correct one to associate with Genesis 1:2. We need to wait and see what future science discovers. It's possible that other giant asteroids (perhaps the Greenland impact) also caused destruction matching the Genesis description. Evidence for the real one, if it's not S2, might also have disappeared due to continental drift, subduction of continental plates and volcanism.

Nevertheless, the 2014 discovery shows that conditions as described in Genesis 1:2 did happen at least once, and once is enough to confirm Genesis 1:2. The Bible's first phrase "In the beginning..." followed by the description therefore denote the oldest events in the Bible that have scientific support.

Theologians should have recognized that Genesis 1:2 is a physical description, and that to interpret ruach as a member of a Triune God is out of context and incongruous. They therefore failed to predict a scientific discovery, and the world missed out on credible evidence for the Bible's inspired origin.

References:

Drabon, N., Knoll, A.H., Lowe, D.R. and Mucciarone, D.A. Effect of a giant meteorite impact on Paleoarchean surface environments and life, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 121, No. 44, October 21, 2024

The Bible investigated by consulting the discoveries of science,
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