RE: No previous era. It's a descriptive term used in a special collectors (hardcopy) edition of Scientific American magazine on Extreme Physics, the idea that matter, energy, space and time begin abruptly with the big bang.
The future of the universe is also covered, one possibility being that in a 100 trillion years, the last stars burn out, then what will God do (on the dole) Do you now start to see the impossibility of any deity ?