8 h 29 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the earth’s ancient past were part of its creation, rather than a history it actually lived?
In Omphalos, English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse confronts a clash between rocks and Scripture. The earth seems to record vast ages, while Gosse reads Genesis as an account of creation in six days. His daring proposal is that a world created in a single act must already bear the appearance of a past.
Gosse builds his case from the cycles of living things. He moves from Adam’s navel to the rings inside a tree, then outward to rocks and fossils. At stake is his hope of keeping both geological observation and his reading of the Bible intact. But that hope raises a hard question: can an apparent past be anything other than a false record?
What you’ll discover
- Life without a starting point Follow Gosse’s reasoning as he makes the cycles of life the foundation of his argument.
- The puzzle of Adam’s navel Explore why a bodily mark becomes the central image in Gosse’s theory of creation.
- Rings, rocks, and fossils Trace his proposal that signs of age need not prove an actually lived past.
- A hoped-for peace Meet a close observer of nature trying to hold his specimens and his Bible together.
- The challenge of false evidence Consider the objection that a created fossil record would make the creator seem deceptive.
Who will love it
For readers who love the history of science and religion, and anyone curious about how a gifted naturalist tried to reconcile his faith with geology.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Life moves in a circle without a start
- Adam must have had a navel
- Trees, rocks and fossils carry the same mark
- Science and Scripture both keep their ground
- The objection of a deceiving creator
- How the book fared and what it left
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Omphalos
by Philip Henry Gosse · 1857
From Adam's navel to fossils, Gosse argues that a world created whole must carry signs of a past it never had.
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In short
Omphalos is a book by Philip Henry Gosse, an English naturalist, published in 1857. Its full title promises an attempt to untie the geological knot.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Life moves in a circle without a start
Gosse begins with a plain observation. Living things do not move in straight lines. They move in circles. An oak grows from an acorn, and the oak drops acorns that grow into oaks. A hen comes from an egg, and the egg comes from a hen.
He spends many pages on this point, drawing on his training as a naturalist. He describes how an animal passes through its stages of life, from the embryo to the grown creature that breeds in its turn. Each stage leads to the next, and the last leads back to the first. Where in such a ring would you say the ring begins?
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What is Omphalos about?
Omphalos argues that the earth could have been created in a finished state, with the look of great age. Philip Henry Gosse used this idea to reconcile a literal reading of Genesis with the evidence of geology and fossils.
What does Omphalos mean?
Omphalos is the Greek word for navel. Gosse uses it because he argues that Adam, though never born, would have been made with a navel. It stands for the idea of a created world that shows a past it never had.
What is the Omphalos hypothesis?
It is the claim that the world was made with signs of a history that never occurred, such as fossils, rock layers and tree rings. Because those signs would be built in, they cannot prove the world is old.
The author
Philip Henry Gosse
1810–1888 · English naturalist
Philip Henry Gosse was an English naturalist and writer, born in Worcester in 1810. He lived in Canada and Jamaica before returning to England, later settling in Devon. He wrote The Aquarium, published in 1854, and Omphalos, published in 1857. He died at St Marychurch, Devon, in 1888.
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