The Serpent's Promise

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A unique contribution to the God/religion debate: a scientific take on the Bible that doesn't take sides.

Many of the subjects studied by physicists or by biologists are found in the texts of the world's religions: the origins of the universe, of life and of mankind; fate, sex, age and death; and the prospects of eternal life or of fiery doom. The Bible is a handbook for understanding Nature and, in its own way, it succeeds. As a factual account, of course, it is out of date, but many of its statements can be rephrased in modern terms. Distinguished geneticist Steve Jones has done that: written a rivetingly accessible work on recent advances in our understanding of ourselves, using the Bible as a framework. His narrative is structured around the Good Book's grand themes, from Genesis to Revelations, and weaves a series of unexpected facts into a coherent whole.

The struggle of rationalism with its opposite has, after decades of torpor, returned to centre stage. Polemics against and in favour of religion and atheism fill the shelves. Instead of adding to that pile, Steve Jones stands back and take a fresh look at that issue in a volume that is not an attack or a defence but which explores scriptural motifs—Creation, the Garden of Eden, original sin, the Exodus, virgin birth, the Resurrection, and the Last Judgment—using the methods and results of the latest scientific research. It is a remarkably quick jump, shows Professor Jones, from Adam to astrophysics.

Although some of the questions raised are beyond the capabilities of science, at least a scientist can ask them in a new way. Steve Jones shows there is a better route to understanding the universe than through doctrine.

STEVE JONES is the former Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London and has worked at universities in the USA, Australia and Africa. He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of biology, especially evolution. In 1996, his writing won him the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize "for his numerous, wide ranging contributions to the public understanding of science in areas such as human evolution and variation, race, sex, inherited disease and genetic manipulation through his many broadcasts on radio and television, his lectures, popular science books, and his regular science column in The Daily Telegraph and contributions to other newspaper media."