Tate Gallery, The Associated Press William Blake depicted God as an architect. An explosives expert might have been equally appropriate.

The Biblical account of the creation of the universe is in "complete and remarkable agreement" with the latest findings of modern cosmology, a leading Israeli physicist maintains.

"At least regarding the first chapter of Genesis, the era of contradiction between Torah [the first five books of the Bible] and science is over," says Nathan Aviezer, who visited Canada last month.

Chairman of the physics department at Bar-Ilan University, Aviezer has done important research in the theory of the electrical resistivity of metals. An observant Jew, he has developed a sideline of arguing the Biblical story of creation has a scientific basis. His book In the Beginning: Biblical Creation and Science has been reprinted seven times since it was first published in 1990.

The creation of all matter out of nothing (ex nihilo); the divine wish for illumination as expressed in the phrase, "Let there be light;" the primeval chaos out of which the world was born; the separation of the light from the darkness -- all of these events, as described in Genesis, are "completely consistent" with our understanding of the stages of the universe's first moments, he says.

According to the Newtonian or "steady-state" model prevalent until the early 20th century, the universe was eternal and matter could neither be created nor destroyed. Views changed radically after Einstein, Aviezer notes. In 1946, an astronomer, George Gamow, proposed the big bang theory, which posits that the universe exploded into being in a giant fireball some 15 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since.

Aviezer reviews some of the major scientific findings that have helped to reinforce the big bang theory. A key finding came in 1965 when two American scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, detected electromagnetic radiation coming simultaneously from all corners of outer space, presumably left over from the big bang explosion.

Astronomers such as Edwin Hubble later showed that the universe is expanding, just as the theory had predicted; the rate of galactic expansion, known as the Hubble constant, is still a matter of intense debate. More than half a century of diverse discoveries and measurements, Aviezer says, has all but confirmed that creation occurred according to the big bang cosmological model.

"Today a scientist can take clear measurements to show that the universe was created. It's no longer a matter of faith. The creation of the universe has become an established fact."

Even illustrious physicists such as Stephen Hawking of Cambridge ("an atheist"), Aviezer says, do not dispute the universe was created and has existed for a finite period of time. "The term 'creation' has clearly left the private preserve of the Biblical scholar and has entered the lexicon of science."

The big bang theory posits that all matter initially occupied a relatively tiny space at such an extraordinarily high density and temperature that its atomic structure was crushed into a thick chaotic soup of protons, electrons and neutrons, known as plasma.

Because the particles that make up plasma carry an electrical charge, they trap light.

"Light is incapable of shining through plasma," Aviezer says, explaining that when the nascent universe pushed outwards at breakneck speed,"suddenly the plasma became transformed into atoms and molecules, and light shone throughout the universe."

The appearance of light occurred as instantaneously as if someone had thrown a switch, he says. This step, in his view, corresponds to the statement, "Let there be light."

"When the plasma became transformed into atoms and molecules, the light was suddenly 'decoupled' from the dark plasma -- the light was suddenly separated from the darkness."

While Scripture says these events occurred in one day, the word "day" should not be interpreted to mean a 24-hour period. "The Biblical days are not intended as periods of time at all. They are phases in the development of the universe."

In his Guide of the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides, a great 12th-century philosopher, rabbi and physician, "said that we are not to understand the Biblical days literally -- that they are figurative and meant to represent stages in the creation of the universe."

Aviezer disagrees with secularists who dismiss the Torah as a collection of myths, superstitions and fables. "They call it folklore from a primitive tribe that wandered around in the desert thousands of years ago. This has become the opinion of many people in Israel -- but not the scientists."

To those believers who are suspicious of scientific inquiry because of its changing views, he observes that while the steady-state concept of the universe was based "more on what a man felt in his kishkes [internal organs]," modern cosmology is based on a solid bedrock of empirical observation.

"The big bang theory is the first cosmological theory based on hard evidence that we can measure with our scientific instruments and our telescopes," he says. "There has not been a theory in the history of science with so much proof. Come back in 50 years and I'll be telling you the same thing."

Though the Torah is not a scientific treatise, Aviezer says it is largely compatible with recent developments in astronomy, cosmology, geology, biology, archeology and other sciences. "If there are questions, let there be questions!" he exclaims. "Nobody every died from a question. Questions should never be a cause for concern. I think the absence of questions should be a cause for concern.

"Today, faith is not blind. There is harmony between the Torah and science. The Jew of the 21st century doesn't have to choose between the latest scientific theories and being faithful to Torah traditions that are thousands of years old. You can have your cake and eat it too."