Divine lithography

Archeopteryx lithographica. Jurassic period

Somewhere out there without God?
There are some proud people who believe that man has created God.

According to this view if we go far enough from humanity to the space there is no God up there. Similarly, if we do time travel back to the period people had not yet entered this planet there is no God. For these thinkers God is a local earthly invention of men. Religious belief is just a phenomenon in psyche and society related to the beginning of consciousness on Earth as the planet moved to the current "psychozoic" era in Pliocene with the arrival of homo.

Well. They are wrong.

Jews, Christians and Moslems believe that God created heavens and earth in the beginning, way before man was created.

For Christians the Trinity is there from the very beginning and is also present in the first three verses of the Bible:

Father בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ
Holy Spirit והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשׁך על־פני תהום ורוח אלהים מרחפת על־פני המים
Word of God ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי־אור

From this faith it follows that never mind how far from planet Earth we travel, we cannot escape the eyes of God.

From this faith it follows that we will never be able to locate a phase in the 4.5 billion year history of our home planet when God was not there.



Earthly Paradise
But why would we try to run away from Him?

After all, He loves us.

"If so", you may ask, "why did He not make of this world a Paradise?"

Dear friend, He did.

We humans have kind of spoiled it for each other. Kind of. And to all God's creation on rain forests, oceans, mountains and planes. We got ourselves out from that paradise God has made.


Naming animals
God often took a critical look at what He had just created. Usually He was pretty pleased with Himself and said "this is good".

And God saw the light, that it was good Gen 1:4 KJVA

But He kind of likes a second opinion from us, people. Being justly proud of what He has achieved He likes to hear us agree with Him and say "this is indeed well-made, Father". And indeed, when we realized that He created that chicken and that rise to feed us we kind of naturally say "Thank you, Lord".

Trying to please Adam God brought a number of animals to him as company in the Garden of Eden. Adam had this funny job to invent names to those nameless but beautifully made creatures.

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Gen 2:18-19 KJVA

We have been busy giving names to animals and other living things ever since and we do a pretty good job in it each in his or her own language. Latin has proved to be a useful common language for scientific naming of animals and plants.


God's bird
God created and He saw that things were good. But sometimes they were simply excellent and truly outstanding.

God was thinking "Well, it would be nice to show also this to Adam and get a name for it."

There was a small problem, however. God was planning that Adam would be created from the dust of earth some 130 million human years later. How to arrange things so that he would both see this excellent creation and give it a name understanding its value?

God so loved yet to be created humans that he arranged in a most marvellous way the matter showing some truly long-term planning according to our human concepts. For Him thousand years is like a single day for us (Psalm 90:4)

Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice, that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day. 2 Peter 3:8 KJVA

First God made a unique soft layer of soil so fine that it is like a photography plate. This layer is located in what we call Europe in a place the Germans call Solnhofen. It is so far the only place on this planet where such fine material is found in a geological layer.

The Jurassic Solnhofen limestone is so extraordinarily fine that the Austrian Johann Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) used the stone to print pictures inventing a method called by the French lithography. The technique is still in use today. Click on the picture below to admire the quality and beauty of lithographic printing.

Afghan royal soldiers in a 19th century lithography

God used this unique layer of soil on the surface of Earth He had so finely made in order to preserve His work. He did this so that Adam and Eve could admire the wonder and praise Him for this most amazing creature.

It makes also our life today so wonderful upon this planet. For what would this world be without birds?



The discovery
God's timing is perfect.

Adam would not have understood what was in front of his eyes earlier.

And sometimes it is hard to believe what you see but even more often it is hard to understand what you see.

So first - after a very long patient teaching of the human race - God opened the eyes of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) to understand the birds of Galapacos Islands. In 1859 he published a book, one of the more important publications in the history of natural science and in science in general: The Origins of Species.

Now the time was right!

Jurassic feather fossil found in 1860
in a slab cut from Solnhofen limestone

A feather.

This absolutely amazing fossil was found in 1860 and described next year by German palaeontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer (1801-1869).

The Solnhofen limestone made by our God is truly amazing and it has preserved the finest details of His master work. Adam has named this animal officially by the name given by von Meyer: Archaeopteryx lithographica (the ancient winged one). Germans call it Urvogel.

I call it God's bird.

Artist's reconstruction of Archaeopteryx

The complexity of the first bird known to man is way beyond the comprehension of modern day science and we really have no idea about how it learned to fly. We are not quite sure if it knew how to fly. But for what other purpose God would have created those wings and tail and light bird bones if not to make itl a frequent flier?

But perhaps we can comprehend the miracle of the feather. Click on that beautiful photo of a feather to see it in its all gloray and say with me Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

what a work of engineering, art, combination of beauty and practicality!

Miracle of God's creation - a feather

Fourth Day of creation
Evolutionist theorists have a hard time to explain how the same skin of bird grows so different kinds of feathers in different spots. How can we explain that at the beginning, as far as we know, that is in the Jurassic period the feather is already a complete masterpiece as shown by the Solnhofen fossil?

Bible does not explain how?

It just says by whom:

"And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

Genesis 1:19-22 KJVA


(ceterum censeo, the finest commentary on the fourth day of Creation has been written by Joseph Haydn. A pair of doves brings mind his lovebirds and the flight of an eagle reminds of the fabulous aria Adler in this majestic oratorio written in honor of our God)