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For more, read Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder's article on the Age of the Universe

I did. I am not impressed. For example he says:

In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang in the black of the sky at night, and the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning

There is nothing in what those two discovered (evidence of the Big Bang) that says it was the "beginning"—only the veindece of an event which could have happened billions of times before. Also, there is no God in what they discovered. People put their God of Gaps into it.

So, right from the "beginning" he starts off with an a priori assumption for which he has no proof whatsoever.

Then he goes into the Jewish belief that souls were preexistent (which is also the Gnostic belief), which is, fyi, antithetical to anything Christian.

Look at the phenomenon of the Six Days, and the development of life in the universe which is mind-boggling

Spoken like a true scientist/s. Imagine that: the world is mind-boggling! Any time someting boggles your mind, pull the God of Gaps out of the drawer to "explain" it...

Other words as well are not to be understood by their common definitions. For example, "mayim" typically means water. But Maimonides says that in the original statements of creation, the word "mayim" may also mean the building blocks of the universe

So, the universe is made up of water? Can anyone take this seriously?

The rest is no different. That's what you get when you mix science with Cabala.

On your first issue concerning what constitutes "fact" I once again offer my testimony:

God is not a hypothesis. He lives. His Name is I AM. I've known Him for a half century and counting.

On your second issue concerning the beginning of space/time and multi-verse theory, I once again offer these insights:

Physical causation requires both space and time and there was a beginning of real space and real time. From the 1960s forward, measurements consistently agree that the universe is expanding, that there was a beginning of real space and real time. Indeed, that was the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science. (Jastrow) “In the beginning, God …”

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Truly, all physical cosmologies rely on physical causation – space and time – whether inflationary, multi-verse, multi-world, ekpyrotic, cyclic, imaginary time, etc. All of the prior universe models superimpose this universe’s physical causation, space/time and indeed, physical laws onto prior universes all the while admitting that there is no such requirement that a prior universe would be like this one.

The big bang is the most widely accepted point of agreement among them, but a singularity is not nothing – the big bang also requires space and time:

Mathematically, the dimension of a space is the minimum number of coordinates (axes) necessary to identify a point within the space. A space of zero dimensions is a point; one dimension, a line, two dimensions, a plane; three, a cube, etc. That is the geometry of it. In zero dimensions, the mathematical point is indivisible.

It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.

In ex nihilo Creation (beginning of space/time) - the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.

There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesn’t exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.

In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.

Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is “0” and the next it is “1”.

Wave propagation (e.g. big bang, inflation) cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.

Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.

For instance “0” at point n^t causes “1” at point n+1^t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1^t+2 etc..

Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality. Again,

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Both space and time are required for physical causation.

The wise man asks: Why this instead of nothing at all?

And he realizes that only God, beyond space/time and physical causation, can be the uncaused cause of causation, the first cause, The Creator of the beginning.

Space, time and physical causation are not properties of God the Creator. They are properties of the Creation. Only God is uncaused.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20

The origin of space, time and physical causation – although striking - are not the only open questions that vex physical cosmologists. There is also no explanation for the origin of information (Shannon, successful communication,) inertia, semiosis, autonomy and so on. And yet the universe is logical – if it were not, we could not understand it at all.

Order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system whether one is using chaos theory, self-organizing complexity, cellular automata or whatever to analyze complexification, entropy and order.

Indeed, to me, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) is God’s copyright notice on the cosmos.

Logos is the Greek word which is translated “Word” in the following passage. It is also the root for the word “Logic:”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

And finally, concerning your sidebar with xzins, I say here as I have said on many threads before that Paradise/Eden and Adamic man, like the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple and the Holy Mountain, are not strictly physical.

The insight of some Jewish mystics may be helpful on this point. They perceive the firmament is not a geometric separation between "here" and "there" but rather the boundary between the physical and the spiritual. Some have further conjectured that the separation may be the speed of light, the speed limit of the universe, or pressure waves.

That said, in higher dimensional dynamics (e.g. P.S. Wesson's 5D/2T) the separation can indeed be geometric and yet overlapping at some or all points (think a tesseract four space versus a cube, a three space.)

Likewise, some Jewish mystics offer an insight that might be helpful in comprehending that God is the Creator of "all that there is" including space, time and causation. More specifically, they use the term Ayn Sof to refer to Him as the Creator. The term literally means "no thing" and conveys the point that any word we mere mortals would use to describe Him (e.g. time, space, causation) limits our ability to know Who He IS to the term that we used.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. - Revelation 1:8

Man is not the measure of God.