Topic: The Moon

On Christmas Eve 1968, somewhere above the forbidding landscape of the moon, the voices of Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders carried to earth dwellers the story of creation as found in Genesis 1:1-10.

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth," intoned Anders in Apollo 8?s unannounced litany broadcast as the astronauts TV camera flashed back a remarkable picture of the deeply-shadowed lunar landscape.

Borman closed the lunar telecast with these words: "Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you upon the good earth."

The trio then closed the moonship's fourth telecast and began preparations for the successful blast out of lunar orbit to return to the "grand oasis in the vastness of space, earth."

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The complete broadcast:

Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts: Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders did a live television broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon as seen from Apollo 8. Lovell said, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.

William Anders:
"For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you".

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

Jim Lovell:
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

Frank Borman:
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Borman then added, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

The militant atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair later caused controversy by bringing a lawsuit against NASA over the reading from Genesis; she wished the courts to ban US astronauts -- who were all Government employees -- from public prayer in space. This was eventually rejected by the courts, but it caused NASA to be skittish about the issue of religion throughout the rest of the Apollo program. Buzz Aldrin, on Apollo 11, took communion on the surface of the moon after landing; he refrained from mentioning this publicly for several years, and only obliquely referred to it at the time.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/a/ap/apollo\_8.htm

Attribution:
Title: Astronauts Orbitting The Moon Read Genesis 1
Article Author: Richard Bennett

These words were posted at one of Shepherd's Care Ministries Sites called Wisdom Moment. This site is located at:
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