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Why Does the Universe Look So Old?
- 06/19/10
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As you know I’m at Ligonier Ministries’ annual conference this week. I was going to give you some thoughts on the conference today but maybe I’ll do that another time. Today Al Mohler spoke on an exceedingly difficult topic—why does the universe look so old? And I think he did an exceptional job of providing an answer that affirms a young earth, 24-hour, 6-day view of creation while also maintaining theological and intellectual credibility. I thought I’d share my notes with you (and I’ll endeavor to let you know when the talk is available online).
Mohler began by saying that there are really only two options for us to follow when we seek an answer: either the world is, indeed, old or the world looks old but is not as old as it appears. He began by reading Genesis 1 and, having done so, affirmed that a straightforward reading of the text tells us of 24-hour days, 6 real days of creation and one real day of rest. And, indeed, this was the overwhelming, untroubled consensus of the church until the 19th century. However, since then four great challenges have arisen:
- The discovery of the geological record
- The emergence of Darwin’s theory of evolution
- The discovery of ancient near-eastern parallels to the biblical account
- The development of higher criticism and new approaches to the Bible
When we ask why the universe looks so old, we have to keep each of these challenges in mind. But first we need to ask just how old the universe appears to look. This span of time has grown exponentially since people first began to ask the question so that the age of the earth has gotten older and older. Currently the consensus (such that it is) for the age of the earth is that it is roughly 4.5 billion years old while the universe is 13.5 billion years old.
Mohler then asked this: what is the urgency of this question? The answer is that there is great urgency in adequately addressing this question. There are some recent developments that indicate why this is so. The controversy concerning Bruce Waltke is just one example—Waltke said recently that unless we embrace evolution, evangelicalism will be reduced to the status of a cult. Meanwhile, we are constantly faced with supposed facts that science presents a challenge that must be embraced by the church. The current mental environment in which we live is an environment shaped by the intellectual assumption that the world is very old. To speak in confrontation to that environment comes at a significant cost. Even greater urgency is pressed upon us by the new atheism.
Mohler presented four major options available to us when we think about the age of the earth and the interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis.
The traditional 24-hour calendar day view. This is the most straightforward reading of the text and affirms that the Bible teaches a sequential pattern of 24-hour days.
The day-age view. In this view what is argued is that the Hebrew word for “day” need not always refer to a 24-hour calendar day but might refer to an indefinite and presumably long period of time. Such days are overlapping and not entirely distinct.
The framework theory. This theory leaps over the question of the length of the days saying that this is only a literary framework and that the early chapters of Genesis represent a literary way of discussing a scientific reality. We are not to trouble ourselves about the length of time or the order and sequence of the days, but rather are to see that this is God providentially ordering creation for his glory.
The literary theory. Here we take the first eleven chapters of Genesis as literary, understanding that the Creation story is merely myth, a story as understood by ancient Hebrews.
We must note that only the first of these options necessitates a young earth. All of the others allow for, even if they do not require, a very old earth.
The literary theory has to be rejected out-of-hand since it otherwise contradicts inerrancy. We cannot hold to a robust theory of biblical inerrancy and interpret the chapters in this way.
The framework theory is held by some prominent evangelicals but it is one of the least defensible positions when we realize that it is based not just on a long period of time but that the sequence does not matter. It is simply not credible that God gave us a text with such rich detail and sequential development so we might only learn about his providential direction.
The day-age theory involves far fewer entanglements but still involves important issues related to theology and exegesis.
Mohler proceeded to argue for the theological necessity of understanding a young earth and 24-hour calendar days. He presented two great issues that arise when we allow for a day-age theory or any other old-earth understanding of creation.
The first issue concerns the integrity of Scripture. He conceded that many of those who hold to a day-age view are seeking to believe it without doing violence to the inerrancy of Scripture. And yet there are many issues that must be addressed. What is sorely lacking in the evangelical movement today is a consideration of the theological cost of such a view. This entire conversation is either missing or marginalized in the church today. The exegetical issues are real and the exegetical evidence based on a Reformation understanding of Scripture leads to a natural understanding of 24-hour days in creation. Mohler would allow that it might be possible that he is over-reading the text in this regard. For this reason we must hear the warnings of those who hold to an older view of the universe since it is possible that we may be creating an intellectual problem that is not necessary. And yet he simply finds that the exegetical cost and the theological cost is just too high.
An old-earth review raises at least two important issues. First, it raises the issue of the historicity of Adam. Paul bases his understanding of human sinfulness and Adam’s headship over the human race on a historical Adam and a historical Fall. An old earth understanding has serious complications because the old earth is not merely understood to be old but also through its age telling a story. The story it is telling is of billions of years of creation before the arrival of Adam. How then can it account for a historical Adam? An old earth understanding requires an arbitrary intervention of God in suddenly creating Adam and depositing him in the world. This presents problems both in Genesis and Romans.
The second question it raises regards the Fall. We understand from Genesis 3 and the entire narrative of Scripture that what we know in the world today as catastrophe, as natural disaster, as pain, death, violence, destruction, predation—that all of these are results of the Fall. We end up with enormous problems if we try to interpret a historical fall in an old-earth rendering. This is most clear when it comes to Adam’s sin. Was it true that, as Paul argues, when sin came, death came? Keep in mind that if the earth is old, and we determine it is old because of the scientific data, it also claims that long before the emergence of Adam there were all the effects of sin that are biblically attributed to the Fall. No Christian reading of the Scripture alone would ever come to this kind of conclusion. And once you come to such a conclusion it is very difficult to reconcile with the Bible. If the animosity between the lion and the lamb predates the Fall, what joy or purpose is there in saying that they will be reconciled in the consummation?
The avoidance of this question about the age of the universe will come at the cost of our own credibility. But disaster ensues when the book of natural revelation is used to trump the book of special revelation. We would not be having this discussion today if these questions were not being posed to us by those who assume that general revelation is providing to us compelling evidence that forces us to reconstruct our understanding of the biblical text, that the assured results of science are forcing us to rethink what the Bible seems to say. Great caution is in order when we begin to cede to science. The assured results of science—what do they tell us about a virgin birth? About a resurrection? About sexual orientation? Are we going to submit special revelation to what science says in all of these areas? The end of this process is theological disaster.
When it comes to the confrontation of evolutionary theory and the gospel we have a head-on collision. It is our responsibility to give an answer to this question of why the universe looks old, but the most natural understanding comes to this: the universe looks old because the Creator made it whole. When he made Adam, Adam was not a fetus but a man. By our understanding this would have required time. But for God it did not. He put Adam in the garden, which was not merely seeds, but a fertile, mature garden. God creates and makes things whole. And secondly, it looks old because it bears the effects of sin, the flood, catastrophe. Creation is groaning and in its groaning it looks old and worn, giving us empirical evidence of the reality of sin.
In the end the conclusive answer to this question is known only to God. This is where we are left; and it is a safe place to be.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (111)
Typo:
I meant to say: “Suppose the Bible said this: “Joshua picked up two stones and then picked up two more stones. Joshua now had FIVE stones.”
My apologies.
I have no problem that God created a world of plants and animals and every living thing (except man) that was designed to die, to eat one another, decay etc. How else would Adam knew what death would have meant. Aren’t the weapons of death built into so many creatures? Didn’t God provide food for the lions and wild beasts - and it was good food - meant for its purpose. So says the Psalmist.Or did God suddenly create this order of death as a result of Adam’s sin?? I think that would be strecthing the texts far beyong what is revealled.
The whole subject of creationism is one which is blown way out of proportion for my liking. and I find some elements of YEC have done more damage for the name of Christianity and are very divisive.
I once held rigidly to YEC and now would rather move on, not really knowing but leaning to some form of an old earth. YEC presents too many furry answers for my liking (and yes I speak as a scientist).
Michael Garner siad:”I’m surprised that none of the young-earth creationists seem the least bit bothered by the fact that EVERY argument they are presenting is exactly the same as the Christians use used to deny that the Sun was the center of our solar system and not earth. ”
This is not only overstated, it is imply not true. The church adopted the science of its day. For centuries, the Ptolemaic worldview ruled astronomy which was geo-centric. In fact, it was a long time before the helio-centric model was accepted because the Ptolemaic model made better predictions at first. The point is, the church regarded the scientific consensus as authoritative and that drove their interpetation of scripture. Unfortunately those who marry the scientific consensus on these questions today will be widows tommorrow. On questions of origins it is best to leave science aside which can only engage in speculation about how the universe began and stick with what God has already clearly revealed to us in His far more authoritative word.
Who are you going to trust, the speculations of fallible scientists who can provide no testable evidence for origins or the one who was not only there but who in fact brought it all into existence? Special Revelation is a testimony to the ‘acts’ of God and the first great act of God recorded for us was to speak the universe into existence over the course of 6 days. Science has no way to verify such an act, you must simply take God’s word for it and believe he is the greater authority in these matters.
Well this argument is going in circles.
I think both sides have made their points pretty clear and its almost become more about talking past one another than it is talking with one another.
I think this disagreement is going to persist and hopefully we have unity over essential issues like the nature of the gospel, and we can leave this discussion as an in-house debate.
God bless,mike
Michael Garner, General revelation is not equal to Special revelation. This is the mistake many, many Christians make. Our interpretation of general revelation is distorted due to sin. If general revelation is equal to special revelation, who needs the Scriptures anyway? Young earth creationists do not deny General revelation, but we simply put it in its place, under Special revelation. Man’s interpretation of General revelation changes regularly, which is evidence if our infallibility.
Here’s the question: if general revelation (science in this discussion) is fallible, and since old earther’s believe special revelation in Genesis is unclear (or allows for all kinds of views), why then not go with the one more sure, the literal reading of God’s Word?
Andrew, you said “And to the argument that: “the church has always embraced the young earth creationist view so just roll with it” is laughable. Aren’t those the same types of things the catholic church said to Martin Luther?”
No one, including myself, phrased it this way. Luther did not denounce everything, only those doctrines where the Roman church had gone astray. The Reformers looked back to what the Apostles and church fathers believed. What did the church fathers believe about creation? Literal 6 day, 24-hour interpretation. If a doctrine has been widely accepted in the orthodox faith for 1800 years (actually for 3455 years, which is when Moses wrote it), then we should be extremely careful to change that view.
I’ll respond since you directed that at me:
“Our interpretation of general revelation is distorted due to sin.”
I don’t see how you can say this but leave off the other truth: “Our interpretation of special revelation (such as Genesis 1) is distorted due to sin.”
“Here’s the question: if general revelation (science in this discussion) is fallible, and since old earther’s believe special revelation in Genesis is unclear (or allows for all kinds of views), why then not go with the one more sure, the literal reading of God’s Word?”
1) Both our interpretations of general and special revelation are fallible. And I don’t know where you say that YOUR reading of Genesis is the “one more sure” reading. It certainly is not. And there are several “literal” views, as the word for “day” (yom) is not confined to meaning a 24 hr period. In several places it is used of ages, lengths of time, days, etc. So what you’re doing is forcing a wooden literal translation and then claiming that it is the “more sure” reading of God’s word, when in fact, that’s simply not the case.
And it is incredibly inaccurate that the only view for 3500 years is that the world was created in 6 twenty-four hour days. And again, I’m happy to talk about the “Christians” view of the relationship of the Sun and the Earth for 3500 years and ask if we should allow a “more sure literal” reading of Special Revelation to trump obvious General Revelation on that topic.
Mohler makes this statement:”The second question it raises regards the Fall. We understand from Genesis 3 and the entire narrative of Scripture that what we know in the world today as catastrophe, as natural disaster, as pain, death, violence, destruction, predation—that all of these are results of the Fall.”
Why is predation and animal death a result of the fall? Did not God design animals to kill one another anyway - that is the mystery of creation that is shown so well in todays Attenborough documentaries. Do people really consider that God made all creation perfect and as a result of the fall (of man into sin and man death) that He then recreated animals with new natures, teeth and claws, stingers and venomous glands, and amazing tonues to reach out for food etc… We call things natural disasters - are they not God just working His purposes out (in a benevolant providential way)?
For those interested in a view of animal death before the fall please read this:http://www.reasons.org/resources/non-staff-papers/animal-death-before-th…
Psalm 104:19-28
19 He made the moon for the seasons; the sun knows the place of its setting. 20 You appoint darkness and it becomes night, in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. 21 The young lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God. 22 When the sun rises they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23 Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening. 24 O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your possessions … 27 They all wait for You to give them their food in due season. 28 You give to them, they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good.
The young lions seek there food from God who gives them food in their season. And maybe there would be some lambs amongst that food. The lions seem satisfied with the good that God gives them.
The above article gives an exegesis of Rom 5 & 8 as well.
You should look into Russell Humphrey’s thoughts on Starlight and Time. He is an astrophysicist who worked at Sandia National Laboratories, ICR, and now Creation Ministries International. As he gazed into the universe and saw the light from supernovas arriving on earth from 10 million light years away, he would ask himself the question, “Why would God show me something that never occurred?”
This puzzled him because he is a 6 Day/24 Hour believer. He then postulated that God used a “white hole” to expand the universe to its current size. That original thought has been expanded in recent years by John Hartnett also.
You can read more about it here.
http://creation.com/d-russell-humphreys-cv
Scroll down to Web Articles and click on “New Creation Cosmology.”
Michael Garner, where in the Bible does it give us an inaccurate view of the relationship of the sun to the earth? When we discover the earth rotates around the sun, we don’t have to change our interpretation of Scripture. Today we still say the sun rises, do we not? Yet we know it is really the earth rotating.
Special revelation and general revelation are not equal. To say they are equal is to deny that God gave us special revelation for the very reason that we could no longer understand general revelation due to sin. General revelation was insufficient after the Fall. Special revelation is understandable and always has priority over general revelation. Please read any book on presuppositional apologetics, including Bahnsen, Van Til, Frame, etc. To think special revelation is equal to general revelation is to drift back to Rome, if not cross the Tiber entirely.
Michael,
The fact that we continue to use “Sun rise” is exactly the point. What if I tried to force you into the most natural literal reading of your own sentence? However, GIVEN that I know that the SUN does not move, I’m able to use my interpretive abilities and realize that you are saying something DIFFERENT than the “natural literal reading” of your sentence. We do this when you speak about the Sun moving. We do this when the Bible speaks of the sun rising. You are fine with using out scientific knowledge to guide our hermeneutic on that point. But when we do the same thing with Genesis 1 you decide that we don’t care about Biblical authority and are all of a sudden sacrificing Special revelation on the throne of cultural acceptability.
And I have never said the Special and General revelation are equal.
I’m assuming that you aren’t intentionally presenting strawmen arguments and random appeals to authority, but that is exactly what is happening. Suffice it to say, I’ve read a wide spectrum of works, including Van Til, Frame, etc., and I still disagree with your point. I don’t disagree with you because I am ignorant of your view. I disagree with you because I believe your view is in error.
Andrew, thanks for a very pertinent and thought-provoking comment. I’d like to see more of your thoughts and I hope to find them here.
I’ve read many appeals to the ‘literal,’ ‘plain,’ or ‘natural’ reading of Genesis in these comments, as well as statements that those of us who believe something other than the literal reading of Genesis 1-2 have been wooed away from God’s truth by scientific evidence.
While some Christians have abandoned core Biblical teaching in favor of science, that is not the case for many of us theistic evolutionists. For me it was first seeing the problems with the hermeneutic of literalism in the domain of eschatology, and then generally, which led me away from demanding the literal meaning of all Biblical texts on an a priori basis. I only started to question my young-earth creationism several years later. Through that whole process, I never doubted the authority, infallibility, or inerrancy of Scripture.
That’s all to say that there are hermeneutics other than literalism which are faithful to the Scriptures. In fact, many—if not most—of the readers of this blog as I understand it are Reformed or Reformed Baptist. And the hermeneutic confessed by those traditions (which includes myself) is the principle that Scripture interprets Scripture (with the understanding that not all passages are alike plain in themselves).
That’s not to say that Reformed believers will think that all literalistic interpretations are wrong (after all, some Reformed (Baptists), like Al Mohler, are young-earth creationists), just to say that appeals to literalism may fall on deaf (or, at least, unpersuaded) ears if those ears are confessionally Reformed. I’d also stress that just because a Christian rejects a given literalistic interpretation does not necessarily mean that they reject the Word of God; they simply may be guided by another hermeneutic. Any discussion of the relative merits of specific interpretations at some point has to take the hermeneutics question into consideration.
I recommend highly Kim Riddlebarger’s series of talks, ‘Amillenialism 101,’ for a critique of the literalist hermeneutic, and Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture for a historical account of the literalist hermeneutic, including its outgrowth from Common Sense philosophy and the role that the debate over evolution played in its development and spread.
Seems like this topic will now become exhausted because we all exercise an opinion just as we all have belly buttons….
Maybe the only truth hanging onto with this Mohler article can be found in the last paragraph:
“In the end the conclusive answer to this question is known only to God. This is where we are left; and it is a safe place to be.”
Great review! I linked over from JIm Hamilton’s blog and was glad he shared the link. This is a very important topic, to be sure. I don’t adhere to a literalist understanding of the Genesis narrative. There are too many moments within the first five chapters of Genesis that make a literalist interpretation difficult. I wanted to comment on something you noted in your review concerning the idea that our understanding of the literal 6 day creation carries over into our acceptance of Paul’s teaching on original sin, and even our acceptance of the virgin birth of Jesus. I’m interested to know where we find that Paul held to the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin? I’ve not found any expression of this in his writings. In fact, from what I’ve read Paul seems to understand that Jesus BECAME God’s son at the moment of his ressurection (“…who as to hishuman nature was a descendant of David, and who as to his spirit wasAPPOINTED to be the SON OF GOD with power by his resurrection from thedead…” Romans 1:1-4). Paul mentions that Jesus was “born of a woman” but in no way makes the distinction that his birth was anything other than a normal birth.
In order to direct this question toward a proper conclusion a few things must first be observed and then proceed to bound the limits of the conclusion. Given innerancy, natural science has atleast these significant problems which would warrant any conclusion based off of them at least inconclusive and at most fantastic.1. Randomness does not exist. Even the most complicated computer random generator does not produce a random number. The architect behind the algorithm can always calculate the next number in the sequence (because he programed the computer and computers only do what you tell them to do). Even quantum mechanics contains no randomness. In order to evaluate particles at the subatomic level, you have to bombard them with other particles so that the information you get about the particle under examination is outdated as soon as the bombarding particle returns. Biblically ‘the die is cast into the lap but its every decision is from the Lord’.2. Chance does not exist. It is a word we use to describe the apparent (not actual) distribution of a series of apparently repeatable actions. Heraclitus even said ‘you can’t step into the same river twice’. No experiment is repeatable. Chance has no substance, no causative power, and cannot do anything. The apparent results we have derived from our use of the word chance only suffice insofar as they are pragmatically useful. Consider the navier-stokes equation in aerodynamics. It is unsolvable even for a supercomputer. Some constant must be presupposed to make it solvable. Although our approximations are highly useful (enough to put a man on the moon), they still assume that constants aren’t changing (which they are but in very small quantities). Also, when the constants (which are changing) are analyzed, it is only a matter of laziness as to how the nature of that change is derived. Motion gives way to acceleration which gives way to rate changes of acceleration and so on to infinite.3. Force and energy are unexplainable apart from the Biblical God. Ask any phycisist what energy is and you will inevitably confound him. Is it a substance? Is it located somewhere? Most likely you’ll get an answer to the effect of ‘energy is the ability to do work’. But the question was not what can energy do but rather what is energy itself. Energy does not exist as a thing out there by itself.What does it mean to say that the universe even looks old to begin with? By whose standard is something old or not? Does the universe really look billions of years old, or is the expected state of the universe billions of years old based on faulty assumptions. Remove chance, remove randomness, remove the assumption of constant constants, and there is little scientific reason to suppose the universe is very old. And without this bias of supposed science, I would suggest reapproaching the exegetical considerations involved do not suggest anything other than a 24-hour 6 day period. Someone should go to a foreign country where modern science is unknown giving the people there a copy of genesis and see if they would interpret the days of creation as an old earther or young earther. If they interpret it as young, it would seem clear that the bias of problematic science is what leads an exegete to conclude that the text means anything other than 6 24-hour days.The hailing of science as the final arbiter in todays modern world is highly misguided. The idea of (following the facts wherever they lead) is unbiblical. Being a presuppositionalist I believe there are no neutral facts. They’re either interpreted by a Christian or no, God being the archtype. Jesus said ‘whoever is not with me is against me’. Science is approached from a biblical worldview or no, and not the other way around.
Steven:: What’s your point mate? Jesus said ‘whoever is not with me is against me’.Am I correct in hearing that you believe that OEC (old earth creationists) are against God?
As I said in my post above, the Bible says nothing explicitly about the duration of the creation days (whatever one believes about that is based on inference); moreover, there is no reason why anyone would assume that the first three days, which were not “ruled” by the sun, would NECESSARILY be of 24 hours duration. Although that may seem like a natural assumption, it is certainly not a “necessary” inference from the text. Why therefore would anyone insist on that point dogmatically? I suspect that the whole obsession with defining the duration of all six days and making that a “test of orthodoxy” is a post-Darwinian development. The creation days were clearly all literal days of light followed by darkness (just like the “long day” of Joshua 10— which was not of 24 hours duration); each creation day had a “morning and an evening;” but I challenge anyone to tell me the chapter and verse where it says that all six days were of uniform twenty-four hours duration. Let us speak where Scripture speaks, and be silent where it is silent. It is enough to affirm that God made the earth in six literal days of light followed by darkness, with a morning and an evening, whose precise duration is known to God alone. That is the natural way of reading the text. It says what the Scripture says, and remains silent where Scripture is silent.
Steven, paragraphs are your friend, use them.
I think your argument against historic creation is best summarized in your statement: “Remove chance, remove randomness, remove the assumption of constant constants, and there is little scientific reason to suppose the universe is very old.”
Now, straw-men are always the easiest opponents to beat, since they aren’t real opponents. But young earthers need to create false opponents, because the text of scripture doesn’t align with their own view. The fact is- historic creationism doesn’t rely on chance, or randomness. It relies on the text of Scripture, expounded in observable creation, particularily the text of Genesis 1:1-2.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” ESV
Why didn’t the author end this little account with “and there was evening and morning on the first day”? Because it wasn’t the first day. The first day is described in verse 3-5.
Now, as I stated before, this is the point that a young earth creationist starts shaking and darting their eyes quickly back and forth. Because the text itself testifies against their own case. To ignore simple, and daresay, observable truthes found in Scripture is plain foolish.
What’s clear from Scripture is that the 6-days of forming and making the earth, seas, atmosphere, plants, animals, birds, and humans, first relies on a void and formless earth. We can only speculate on how long God took to do this. Did he take a week or a hundred zillion years? It doesn’t matter. No one was there with a stopwatch.
The typical young earther also typically responds to this by saying, “Well you are limiting God’s power by saying he couldn’t create this void and formless universe in a split second”. I could say the same thing about God taking 6 days instead of 1 day. Not an argument.
And to say the church fathers also believed in the the literal 6-days of creation (while ignoring verses 1&2) is pure argumentative dribble. We have no evidence either way how they interpreted Genesis 1:1&2. Just as we have no idea whether they thought the earth was the center of the universe. That type of speculation is only documented in the last 1000 years of church history.
So in the words of Martin Luther-“Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures or evident reason (for I believe neither in the Pope nor councils alone, since it has been established that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures adduced by me, and my conscience has been taken captive by the Word of God, and I am neither able nor willing to recant, since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience. God help me. Amen”
While we can talk about “the sun moving” being from a human perspective, I have a hard time with that argument when we’re talking about events before there was no “human perspectives”.
On the other hand, I’m kind of surprised that the issue of how young earthers can talk about 24 hour days so certainly when the sun didn’t appear until the 4th day hasn’t been brought up. Or the issue of the length of the 7th day (which I have seen argued that Biblically this day still is ongoing today in the sense that God is still “resting” from his creation,). Then again, I’m not personally up with the latest arguments, and this blog comments are not exhaustive.
BTW, I have no idea whether “radical atheist” Douglas Adams was referencing young earthers in any way or not or whether the argument was on his radar, but when he refers to the building of earth by the custom planet builders and how they put the dinosaur skeletons in the earth’s crust (in “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, mentioned by Slartibartfast, but his name isn’t important) in light of the above poster referring to God doing this, I can’t help but laugh at Adams and the above poster (I know that the young earthers I’ve read say dinosaurs died out during the flood except for the ones on the ark, and they died out later).
I’m not sure if I’m a young earth adherant or not, but if I decided I am, and the issue came up in a discussion with a non-believer in some kind of apologetic/evangelistic context, and of course they object to a creationist or young earth view, my answer would be simple “There are many people who would agree with you yet believe in Jesus Christ and are Christians. I would disagree with them on this point, but there’s plenty of room for people who hold a non-creationist or young earth view and are Christians as well. If this is what’s holding you back from being a Christian, its not a valid reason.” If they say its the fact that there are young earthers and creationists in Christianity’s ranks, then I would say “If you want to continue to labor this issue, why don’t you become a Christian and then we can continue the argument.” This approach tries to turn the focus back on the most essential issues.
John,I appreciate very much your sensitivity to turn apologetic/evangelistic discussions back to core Christian doctrines if evolution comes up. However, I think there’s an even more direct way to do it. Read Genesis 1 like the Apostle John does: it’s all about Christ. ‘In the beginning … was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Christ is co-eternal with God, he is the agent of creation, and Genesis 1 is all about Him, more than it is about the mechanics of God’s creating act. Beyond that, discussion about the identity of Adam should send us to Romans 5, where Adam is seen to be a type of the Christ to come. The fall leads us to justification, the garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem, death to the resurrection, etc. It’s all about Christ and his redemptive work.
So when this issue comes up, we don’t need to say ‘Christians have different views on this so it’s not a big deal, let’s talk about Jesus instead.’ Rather, we can say (like Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch reading Isaiah 53, or like the resurrected Christ talking to his disciples on the Emmaus Road), ‘let me show you how Genesis 1-3 is about Christ.’
We live in an age where people pay a premium price for torn jeans. Why, then, do we insist that if something appears like something that is older, it must also BE older, lest deception be occurring, even when we have a reliable report that it is not? No one claims that people who manufacture ripped jeans are being “deceptive,” because everyone has the means of knowing they’re brand new. So we also have the means of knowing that the earth is of a certain age that is different from its putative appearance, so where’s the deception?
Pentamom,You write, “So we also have the means of knowing that the earth is of a certain age that is different from its putative appearance, so where’s the deception.” You are assuming, however, the very point that is in dispute— that is, whether the Scripture teaches unequivocally that God made the universe in 144 hours. We know he made the universe in six days similar to our own days of twenty-four hours, but the ‘non-solar’ character of the first three days calls us to exercise some caution in asserting the precise duration of the entire creative period during which God brought the universe into being. At the same time, however, we know that the fossil record must be ‘post-fall’ in orign because of what the fossil record IS— a record of catastrophic judgment, violent death, disease, and predation— all features of a “fallen” earth. So while the biblical record itself requires us to date the fossil record after the fall of Adam, that same record leaves open the question of the precise duration of the creation period. In other words, we must distinguish the issue of the age of the earth and the universe from the issue of the age of the fossil record. These are two separate issues, in my opinion.
Who approached Eve? Is is possible for Satan to inhabit an un-fallen snake? I would think not.
Thus, we have - in SOME sense - fallen-ness on earth before man’s sin. We know that Satan’s pride and ambition got him thrown out of heaven at some point before man’s Fall. We also know that Satan inhabited earth. Would it have been possible for him to inhabit earth without the earth feeling his wrath? Could there have been a fallen earth dominated by Satan, and a pristine Eden inhabited by sinless man, the last bastion, the remaining “Jubilee” of creation?
In the first 2 chapters of Genesis, man is given dominion over the animals, even naming the animals. Yet, we know that:1) Satan was already there.2) Adam wasn’t even living on the whole earth - only in the garden3) Satan is the (current) prince of this world.
I get the impression that Eden was supposed to be the starting point, and that Adam was supposed to subdue the whole earth, restoring it. However, he and Eve succumbed to Satan, and the task fell to Jesus (as God knew it would when he created man).
Maybe, but the most common response to this view is that the Hebrew grammar doesn’t really allow a gap between 1:1 and 1:2. I don’t know enough Hebrew grammar to know if this is true or not. There is a bigger problem, however, which is that pretty much every method we have of determining age is dependent upon decay, which presumably didn’t happen until after the fall. If so, than this explanation is pointless, because any “age” of the earth prior to the fall would be immeasurable anyway. Incidentally, this view does work with cosmology and solar dating, but it just doesn’t address the age of the earth.
It really appears that an old earth creationist will deny an natural reading of Genesis 1. It’s simply denying the truth to say that a natural reading of Genesis 1 & 2 would lead to millions or billions of years. Some comments here have even said “the Bible says nothing explicitly about the duration of the creation days.” How ironic that this commenter calls it a “creation day” and then says the Bible says nothing about the duration of time in creation!!
A day is a day. It’s 24 hours. Jews in Moses, Jews in Jesus’ time, Christians in Paul’s time, etc, etc would have read it as a 24 hour day. Why must we continue to read back into the text? Even in the case of Gideon’s “long day” it wasn’t billions of years but just a few extra hours. It completely defies logic to think Moses wrote Genesis around 1440 B.C. and it wasn’t until the 1800s with the concept of modern geology that could really understand creation.
I’m done debating on this comment thread, as it appears logic and reason have long since left. But for those who like to argue with young earthers, go here:
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/06/trojan-horse.html
Michael, There is a difference between an “old earth creationist” and an “undefined age creationist.” An old earth creationist like Hugh Ross insists that the term ‘day’ is metaphorical for billions of years, despite the fact the Bible clearly portrays the creation days as like our own days in that each day had a “day” and a “night,” one period of light followed by one period of darkness. These are clearly literal, 24-hour like days, similar to our own days; but at the same time, can you deny the fact that the first three days are mysteriously unlike our days in their light source? We don’t know where the light came from during those first three days, or even if it shone on one hemisphere at a time. Calvin admits the possibility that God may have lit up the whole planet with light (both hemispheres at once), then withdrawn the light at his sovereign pleasure . In that case, earth’s rotation on its axis would not have been the mechanism for changing day to night during those first three days. In that case, how can we be dogmatic about their duration? My question is, why must we insist that those days were of identical duration as days ruled by the sun? If God could call the long day of Joshua 10 a ‘day’ then that is biblical proof that a day/light cycle which is not 24-hours long can still be regarded as a day— and a literal day at that. The day of Joshua 10 was certainly not a metphorical day! Is that not interpreting Scripture by Scripture?.
Martin, yes, those are two separate issues. I’m merely addressing why the “deceptive age” argument falls flat. Those who believe the earth is young also believe God already told us how old it is. If He already told is, deception is impossible. That’s my point. Other points (including whether the Bible actually teaches a young earth) have to be argued separately.
The early church had mixed opinions about the days of creation. Many of our church Fathers thought the days referred to long periods of time. For example:
Origen: “we found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world, and quoted the words: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”
Origen was correcting those who were being too literal about Day.
St. Justin Martyr talks about the word “day” in Genesis meaning a period of a thousand years by pointing out that despite God telling Adam he would die within a day of sinning he lived over 900 years. That is to say that the days were not literal 24 hour periods.
Irenaeus corrects the literalists as well in his book, Against Heresies, in AD 189, saying:And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since “a day of the Lord is as a thousand years,” he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them”.(Against Heresies, 5:23 [AD 189])
St. Cyprian of Carthage was convinced that each day was 1000 years:
“”As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years, as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God(Treatises 11:11 [A.D. 250])
Clement of Alexandria says that we cannot know when creation took place from reading Scripture:
“”That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: “This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.” For the expression “when they were created” intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression “in the day that God made,” that is, in and by which God made “all things,” and “without which not even one thing was made,” points out the activity exerted by the Son.(Miscellanies 6.16 [208 AD])
St. Augustine also comments on his view of the word “day” in the Creation Week in City of God St.
“But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world’s creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!”(City of God 11:6 [AD 419])
Many ancient Torah commentators and Jewish Rabbis also thought of the days of creation as long periods.
Anonymous clearly shows that this was not an invention in the 1800s to fit in with contemporary science.
“A day is a day” rhetoric is just tiring and shows that the commenter does not understand the lexical freedom of the Hebrew word. The same word is used for a 24 hour period and also for long periods of time. So while “day” might mean only a 24-hour period of time in English, it simply is not what ‘yom’ means in Hebrew. But then again, it’s a lot easier to ignore things like that and just make pithy statements that do not really address the main arguments that opponents have.
The strawmen have really taken a beating in this discussion, but there has been very little substantive critique of any views actually held by those who claim that creation took longer than 144hours.
I find it interesting in scrolling down through the comments, very few people if anyone made their argument exegetically from the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 or from 2:4ff.
I held rather strongly to YEC prior to taking 4 semesters of Hebrew. After doing so, I found the view unable to be sustained. A straightforward reading of the English text may lead most modern people to conclude that the Bible is directly affirming that the universe was literally (scientifically/historically) created in 6 24hr days. But that is because we come to the text looking for a scientific explanation, something that the original audience would not have.
The unspoken assumption most evangelicals bring to Genesis 1-2 is that it is giving the historical facts while the other 9 or so creation accounts in the Bible are merely poetic (ever try teaching Psalm 74 as literal?). That assumption though cannot be very sustained in light of the Hebrew text itself, or chiefly in light of the fact that the order or events follows almost to a “T” those in the Egyptian creation accounts.
Having just exited Egypt, it makes rather perfect sense for Moses to by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, pen a creation account that is like the Egyptians (which is what the readers would have been most familiar with) while demonstrating that is was Yahweh who created everything, and that the natural elements are not divine like they are in Egypt. Moses did this by using common imagery from those other accounts and structuring the narrative to follow the same pattern. His readers would have immediately understood what was happening. We unfortunately are separated by several thousand years, a language barrier, and a different cognitive environment that is enamored with scientific explanations.
I could say more, but I’ve written about it extensively elsewhere, and have explored the background in depth for a doctoral seminar.
One more thing though that no one has seemed to hit on. Regardless of the age of the earth, death at least at the cellular level was present prior to fall, if we are to assume that Adam had an epidermis. If Yahweh created him fully grown, he certainly would have had the same dead collection of skin cells that we do. This was a point made by John Walton in his Lost World of Genesis One, which I would recommend, more so than anything of my puny writings, to help understand the backdrop against which Genesis 1 emerged, and why YEC is not as feasible as it might seem when on just reads the English text with modern presuppositions.
Mike Garner,When you read literature you take words in their denotative (i.e. primary) meaning, and then only connotative (secondary) meanings when the context makes it clear (i.e. such as when taking a term in its denotative meaning it turns the context in which it is used into gibberish). The denotative meaning of ‘yom’ is a normal day consisting of 24 hours. Now you could take ‘yom’ in a connotative sense as refering to something other than a normal day. For example, the use of ‘yom’ in Gen. 2:4 is clearly a connotative use. ‘Day’ here refers to an unspecified period of time as most readers of that verse would agree. It is not outside the realm of possibility that ‘yom’ as it is used in the specifi ‘days’ of creation could have a similar connotative meaning. But there is nothing explicit in the text that would naturally lead you to do so. In fact, quite the opposite is the case.
The specific account of each creative day goes overboard to make it clear that ‘yom’ is to be understood in its denotative meaning. It does this first of all by adding ordinals to the use of ‘yom’ (i.e. “first day/ second day”, etc…). Hebrew has no example of ordinals used with ‘yom’ in which it does not refer to a normal day in the denotative sense (In fact, this is the case with virtually any language that uses ordinals unless the context clearly indicates otherwise).
And if that was not enough, Moses adds the refrain “… and there was evening and there was morning” to each use of ordinal+’yom.’ Now if you know anything about Hebrew culture this represents the reckoning of a normal day. Give an example where such markers indicate something other than a normal day and I might consider the argument, but I doubt you will be able to supply one. The use of ordinals and the comman designation of reckoning a Hebrew day are clear indicators that we are dealing with historical narrative literature consisting largely of denotative meanings for terms and especially for ‘yom.’ The text is not focused on proving that each day was a literal day, but it sure goes out of its way to make it clear to the reasonable reader. I don’t know how much clearer it needs to be without drawing undue attention to an aspect of the account that is not that important. Yet interestingly, Moses thought it was important enough to supply these added indicators of what he intended when he used the world ‘yom.’
As a further note, the ‘toledot’ structure evidenced throughout Genesis 1-11 also indicates that we are dealing with historical narrative literature. This is not poetry, it is not an oracle, it is not apocalyptic, it is not proverbial or non-proverbial wisdom literature, it is narrative literature. It has no marks of any other kind of literature found in Hebrew. Because of this, there is no reason to take terms other than in their primary semantic range (i.e. denotative meanings).
The creation narrative in Genesis chapter one cannot be taken as historical fact any more than the account of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from The Garden can. If you insist on taking it as fact then you must also take as fact what Genesis 2-3 says regarding “the Fall”. But most Christians don’t view these verses literally because if they did, they would not find any basis for “original sin” leading to eternal damnation and Hell. Systematic theology has taken these ancient narratives and woven a story where disobedience ultimately leads to man’s eternal seperation from God and his condemnation to Hell, but the LITERAL reading of Genesis does not express this idea at all.
The account of Adam and Eve’s fall from the Garden began as oral tradition and became a literary explanation for why life on earth is so difficult. Six thousand years ago the struggle to sustain life was daily and grinding. The Genesis story depicts the consequence of Adam and Eve’s disobedience as their being cast to the mercy of cruel and unforgiving Nature. No longer are they provided for and protected; they must make their own way in the harsh world, securing their own food and shelter by the sweat of their brow, carrying on the species through the agony and uncertainty of child-birth. The Genesis story does not express, however, the idea that their disobedience destined them to Hell. In fact, a precise reading of God’s admonishment to Adam in Genesis 3:19 bears this out: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return.” The teaching that an original disobedient act thus destined all humanity - and all of creation - to eternal separation from God in a physical location called Hell is established thousands of years later and is not specific to the early books of the Bible.
If we are going to take the six day creation account as literal fact, why do we not do the same with regard to the literal facts about the Fall?
“and then only connotative (secondary) meanings when the context makes it clear (i.e. such as when taking a term in its denotative meaning it turns the context in which it is used into gibberish)”—————————————-
Right … So for example when you have evenings and mornings BEFORE you have the sun and the separation of days and nights, I’d consider it gibberish to take the word in this sense.
Further, I’d say that this is where we can let general revelation inform our special revelation. When Psalm 19 speaks of the run rising and traveling across the sky, my natural reading of the text (in its denotative sense) would be that the sun is moving. However, when I let my science inform my reading, I see that it is probably using figurative language to highlight a point.
I realize the differences between historical narrative and poetry, and my point is NOT that Genesis 1 is figurative language. My point is that we CAN let General Revelation help us in our exegetical understanding of a particular passage, ESPECIALLY, when the straight-forward denotative definitions of words give us gibberish (such as having mornings and evenings before day/night are separated.
YEC’s are right to run from “non-literal” interpretations of Genesis 1 which arbitrarily abandon the literal meaning of the text without warrant. The genre of Genesis 1 is clearly that of Hebrew historical narration, as Exodus 20:11 affirms. Moreover, since Jesus and the apostles clearly regarded Adam and Eve and the fall as literal history, the burden of proof is on the person who says we must read Genesis 1 as anything other than literal history. However, I would not insist that the days of creation, if literal, must all be of 24 hours duration. It seems to me that there are three possible meanings of the word “day” in Genesis 1:1) a non-literal, metaphorical day— this is the view of the day-age theorist. I find it unconvincing, because it fails to account for the description of each days as being composed of two periods— a period of light called “day” and a period of darkness called “night.” Moreover, each day is said to have a morning and an evening, which clearly points to a literal day.2) a literal, 24 hour day— this is the view which says that each day of creation was identical to our days in every way, including their duration. This may seem to be the most natural meaning of the word day in context; but there is a third possible meaning of the word ‘day’ in Scripture that must be considered.3) a literal day whose duration varies from the norm— the Bible clearly uses the word “day” in this way in Joshua 10:13-14, where we read that, “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a DAY like it before or since, a DAY when the Lord listened to a man.” The use of the word “day” in verse 14 does not fit either definition #1 or #2 above. The day mentioned in Joshua 10:14 was not a metaphorical day, but neither was it a literal day of 24 hours duration. It was, rather, a literal day whose duration varied from the norm by the sovereign will of God. It was approximately twice the length of a normal day, although we are not told the precise number of hours it lasted. Now, it seems to me that an honest examination of Moses’ language in Genesis 1 would lead us to conclude that either definition # 2 or definition # 3 above would fit a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, but not definition #1. In other words, Moses is clearly talking about literal days in Genesis 1, but those literal days could be (and perhaps most naturally are thought to be) of 24 hours duration, or they could be like Joshua’s long day, with a duration that varies from the norm. Either view would fit the descriptive language of Genesis 1. Neither view involves an abandonment of the literal sense of the text. For that reason, it seems best to affirm that each day of creation was a literal day, but we cannot be sure if they were all of uniform, twenty-four hour duration, or if some of them varied from the norm, like the long day in Joshua 10. It is best to describe them, therefore, as six “natural” days, and to leave it at that.
MiKe G.Establishing the pattern of the day was more important than the permanent marker for the day. God didn’t need the sun to establish that pattern. Light was already created on the first day and so the pattern was easily established. We might ask why was establishing such a pattern important? And why did God choose to make the universe in 6 days instead of say 15? We need only turn to Exod. 20:11. The day/ week cycle was established as a pattern for the work week/ Sabbath cycle.
Now of course Exod. 20:11 is quite useful for our consideration of denotative versus connotative meanings. What pattern was God establishing for Israel? Were they free to interpret the 6 days of labor connotatively? IOW, could they view 6 days of labor and the 7th day of rest as undefined periods of time? I suppose they could have at the risk of death (See Exod. 31:14). Now what is the basis for the 6 day work/ 7th day sabbath pattern? It was the fact that the Lord made the heavens and the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th.
Now suppose some Hebrew know-it-all came along and said, “Wait a minute, we know that God didn’t actually create the universe in 6 days - they were eons of time. So that means I can interpet the 6 days of work as eons of time as well. In fact, the sabbath is also an eon of time. And come to think of it, it is the sabbath right now. This is my eon of rest after which sometime in the distant future I will get to the regular work week. Of course I might be dead by then.” Actually, if his fellow Hebrews took Exod. 31:14 seriously he would be dead much much sooner.
What is the point of all this? Simple - if you held an old earth view in the OT economy it held the death penalty.
If you find that argument convincing, then so be it, but it is not convincing for me at all. I’ll just quote Geisler on this one even though I don’t think his answer is as thorough as it needs to me — it still touches on some key points:
“It is true that the creation week is compared with a workweek (Ex. 20:11); however, it is not uncommon in the Old Testament to make unit-to-unit comparisons rather than minute-for-minute ones. For example, God appointed forty years of wandering for forty days of disobedience (Num. 14:34). And, in Daniel 9, 490 days equals 490 years (cf. 9:24-27). What is more, we know the seventh day is more than twenty-four hours, since according to Hebrews 4 the seventh day is still going on. Genesis says that “on the seventh day [God] rested” (Gen. 2:2), but Hebrews informs us that God is still in that Sabbath rest into which He entered after He created: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his” (Heb. 4:10).”
I guess I don’t have enough seniority around here to warrant a response to my question of how Satan could inhabit a snake’s body in an unfallen world?
Scot C,
I am having a hard time following this logic: “God didn’t need the sun to establish that pattern. Light was already created on the first day and so the pattern was easily established.” How was there light if our sun - and all of the universe’s other suns - had not yet been created? Light comes from suns, our solar system’s sun, and all of the billions of star/suns that inhabit space. Without those “heavenly” entities there would be no light and no way to create a pattern of morning and evening. Morning and evening happens because of the earth’s rotation in relation to the existing sun and the light it projects. If the earth was rotating in a black space devoid of suns and exploding stars it wouldn’t matter which side of the planet one stood on, it would be dark all the time (not to mention, uninhabitably frozen).
EFCA Guy, your observation is astute, I think. It is another indication of how we cannot credibly take these texts literally. These are stories, written accounts of oral traditions. The Genesis account does not say that the serpent was Satan. Literally, what does it say? “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the WILD ANIMALS THE LORD HAD MADE.” Gen 3:1a The serpent was a wild animal created by God. The idea of the snake actually being Satan was developed years later. This opens up an whole other discussion (which isn’t apporpriate to this discussion) concerning the fact that Satan - as he’s portrayed in New Testament, apocalyptic thought - is hardly present at all in the Old Testament.
Scott you said: “What is the point of all this? Simple - if you held an old earth view in the OT economy it held the death penalty.”
LOL.I remember this kind of argumentation from elementary school. All I really want from you Scott is a chapter/verse that you got that from. Oh wait, nevermind, found it. That’s clearly stated in 2 Hesitations.
RD Said:
“Light comes from suns, our solar system’s sun, and all of the billions of star/suns that inhabit space. Without those “heavenly” entities there would be no light”
I am afraid you are mistaken on this count. Light does not come from these sources. It comes from God. So I’ll let you figure the rest out.
RD,To ask “How could there be light if there was no sun?” is sort of like asking “How can a grown man walk on the surface of the water?” It’s an unanswerable question because we’re talking about acts of God that transcend our comprehension. Man’s comprehension is not the limit of God’s power. It is entirely possible that when God said, “Let there be light,” He caused the earth in some mysterious way to radiate its own light at first. The light did not have to come from some “light source” in outer space; the whole planet could simply have been filled with light, and that shows that God, not the sun, moon, and stars, is the ultimate source of light. Those created “light bearers” are mere instruments that God now uses to regulate the transition from day to night— to ‘rule’ the day and the night; but it was not so at first. For the first three days, there may have been no physical ‘mechanism’ at all that God employed to regulate the transition from day to night (such as earth’s rotation on its axis, or light beams streaming from a distant star). There was only the sovereign will of God, at whose command light shown, and at whose command light faded.
Andrew,
Don’t get too riled up. The Old Covenant is no longer in force, so you don’t have to worry about your personal fate - ;)
Mike Garner,
So you are saying it was okay for the Israelites to interpret the work week and sabbath in Exod. 20:11 as eons of time?
EFCA Guy:
You ask how Satan could inhabit a snake’s body in an unfallen world. The answer is that he couldn’t. Satan had no power over creation before sin entered the world. You seem to be presenting the serpent as proof to the contrary, but to do so, you are depending on an a priori assumption that the serpent was a possessed snake. That assumption will have to be proven before your question can be considered.
What makes you think the serpent was a possessed snake? God didn’t say that Satan inhabited a serpent (whatever that may have been) or even that he came in the form of a serpent (although it seems likely that he appeared in some familiar reptilian form). He simply calls him “the serpent.” If Satan had come in the host body of a creature, it seems odd for God to call him the serpent. God prepared a fish for Jonah, but Satan was the serpent.
Yom is used by Moses as a 12-hour period, a 24 hour period, the creative week, forty days, several months, a lifetime, and eternity. Yom, as do many words (and not just in Hebrew), has different meanings, in which the context must be used to determine the meaning.
For an English version of this, consider the word ran. Pretty sure that any of us can come up with a number of uses of the word, all of which mean something different, all of which depend on the context. (I ran for School Board, My nose is running, I ran yesterday morning, etc.)
YEC insist on their literal translation, when of course they have no idea what literal is. If your going to base your belief system on an English translation, with no consideration of the actual word usage in the original language, prepare to be disappointed.
David,
I find it quite odd that a snake should receive a special curse from God if a real snake was not even involved in the event.
Are you claiming that it was a real 24 hour day, but not a real snake?
David,Our English word day has a similar range of meanings as the Hebrew word “yom.” We speak of the “day” of the horse and buggy, meaning by it the period in which the horse and buggy was used as a means of transport. So context is always the key for interpreting what “yom” or “day” mean in a particular instance. And it seems clear that the days of creation were composed of two periods, a period of light which God called “day,” and a period of darkness that God called “night.” Hence, we read at the end of the first day that “the evening became and the morning became”— which is what the Hebrew says literally. This is clearly a reference to the fading of the light of the first day, leading to darkness, as the evening of the first day gave way to the morning of the second day. At face value, this is clearly a literal, solar-like day (albeit the first three were not “solar days” in a technical sense).
One thing that Geologists and Botantists have always noticed in the geologic timescale, is that these periods of creation (Cambrian, Ordovician, Devonian, Devonian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, etc) seem to have a beginning, middle and end. At the beginning there is a sudden explosion of species, Steven Jay Gould speaks of the Cambrian Explosion. Then there is a long period of stasis followed by a time of stress, change or in some cases an extinction before the next period begins. In the case of dinosaurs there literally was a long period of darkness when an enormous meteor kicked enough material into the air to create an ice age which became the twilight of thir species. In short, each period of creation that geologists have identified seems to have a short morning, long day and evening. Niles Eldredge calls it “punctuated equilibrium. Moses called it morning, and evening of each Yom day period.
Most of our sciences depend on a long period of creation. Astronomy, Physics, Astrophysics, Biology, Botany, Geology, Oceanography, Palentology are all based on billions of years of creation. That’s because every clock we have all seem to point to a 13.5 billion year old universe and a 4.5 billion year old earth. When an astronomer looks at a star far away, he may say it is 15 million light years away. That means, based on the speed of light, the red shift, quaser markers, etc., the light took 15 million years to get here. Half lives of radiation, sedimentation, ice core layers and many other measurements all indicate the same age of the earth. Subterranean pools of oil were once vegetation and take millions of years of heat and pressure to become petroleum.
David said, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” God intended us to study the record. Revelation in the scriptures and revelation in nature inform and complement one another. To ignore the clear evidence of the heavens and the earth is to make God a deciever. God expects us to use our brain. Sure, It’s possible for Him to create in six earth days. It’s also possible for Him to create the world yesterday a 2pm, implanting us all with false memories and fake belly buttons. If we cannot trust our observations, if the world is not rational, if we are surrounded with deception, then we live in a surrealistic world and scientific knowledge is a sham.
EFC Guy,
As I said, you’ll have to prove your a priori assumption that the serpent was a possessed snake before your question can be considered. Merely dismissing any other possibility as seeming odd to you does not quite accomplish that.
David,
Let me get this straight. I am supposed to accept literal 24 hour days based on a literal interpretation of the word ‘yom,’ but when the text speaks of a literal snake receiving a literal curse, the snake now becomes spiritual?Sounds like the burden of proof is on you, my friend.There is no reason to read Gen. 3:14 and assume there is no actual snake involved. I do not need to prove the snake is physical. I merely need to read the text according to your own hermeneutic.