I don’t think a young Earth is a ‘new’ idea among Christians or Jews. The ancient age of the Earth was just something most people couldn’t determine prior to 3-4 hundred years ago. However, I didn’t it was seen as an essential Biblical interpretation for most as well. There were long standing and well known leaders in Christian philosophy who thought that Genesis account was mythological rather than literally true.
However, one can trace the emergence of the recent, coherent movement that did strictly adhere to and promote a literal six day creation as unseperable, Christian belief. One can review the history of the modern movement in historian Ronald Number’s book, The Creationists.
If you don’t know any you aren’t reading all of the posts here. In fact, the article you posted does and I provided the quote to prove it. There are none so blind as those that refuse to see.
The Church also taught geocentrism for almost as long. Does that mean we need to go back to that model or perhaps we should use science to show us it was wrong.
Your interpretation is just as human and fallible.
Science shows us the truth in God’s creation. There are no inconsistencies when you realize the Bible doesn’t teach science.
Critics may disagree with the subject matter or philosophical stance of Flat Earth University, but disagreement is not equivalent to illegality. The First Amendment and the educational freedom recognized under Wyoming law protect the right to study and promote alternative theories, including geocentric cosmology.
Claims of “fraud” are legally baseless so long as our institution continues to be forthright about its nature, scope, and limitations. Our legal counsel has reviewed relevant state statutes and confirms that our model is compliant with Wyoming’s private education regulations.
Conclusion
Flat Earth University, operating under the Journal of Geocentric Cosmology LLC, is a lawful private educational institution in the state of Wyoming. Our right to issue degrees in geocentric cosmology is protected under both state law and constitutional principles of educational and philosophical freedom. While our views may not align with mainstream science, our legal standing is secure, and we remain committed to academic transparency and intellectual exploration."
The guy opening it demonstrates that he is not a Christian theologian: he objects to a statement about evolution without even noticing the Christological issue that immediately follows it! He’s a hack, demonstrating the YEC problem of leaving Christ on the sidelines.
At 3:12 he’s claiming to be concerned about orthodoxy, but he hasn’t uttered a single word about theology, so he’s plainly not interested in orthodoxy!
Then he lies about Biologos . . . so not just a hack, but a liar.
After which he immediately dives into using logical fallacies . . . .
Pretty clear that he is exactly what Paul warns against in Romans 16:17-18!
No need to listen farther – he is a false teacher.
What you are ignoring is that this assertion has been shown to be in error – in order to hold it you have to abandon the ordinary use of language.
That’s a spot-on description of what YEC does by tossing the actual message of Genesis in the trash and replacing it with a supposed newspaper report.
Since it starts out ignoring bad theology and proceeds to make use of lies . . . no, it relies on the Deceiver, who is superb at quoting scripture in ways that point away from Christ.
It was clear within three minutes of the video that the guy doing the opening doesn’t care about actual theology and is perfectly content with lying to support his points. Mervin watched more than necessary.
You write that yet are perfectly content to let people whom you agree with employ lies.
You are correct that plants are not nephesh (creature), but they still are chay (living). This is because a creature visibly moves and breaths but plants don’t. While not your average tree, there is the Tree of Life (chay) in the midst of the Garden.
‘life’ (2416. חַי chay) - Alive, living, life. From the root word (2421. חָיָה chayah) - To live, to be alive, to revive, to restore to life
Also:
Psalm 58:9 (BSB) Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green(chay) or dry—He will sweep them away.
Having green mean living has me thinking of the “green herb for meat”.
Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
Topical Lexicon
Root Imagery and Scope
יֶרֶק (yereq) evokes the fresh “greenness” of tender shoots, vegetables, grass, or any lush plant growth. Scripture uses the term both literally—for edible vegetation and pasture—and figuratively, to portray life’s vitality or its swift fading.
So there was indeed some sense that plants are living, and at least figuratively represent life. Today we know they are alive.
Both mankind and living creatures are nephesh chay. ‘Creature’ and ‘soul’ are the same Hebrew word nephesh.
(5315. נֶפֶשׁ nephesh) - Soul, life, self, person, heart, creature, mind, living being
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature(nephesh) that hath life(chay), and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living(chay)creature(nephesh) after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living(chay)soul(nephesh).
Man is made of the ‘dust’ and is not yet even a “living soul” (became is in the imperfect, a process over time) if you want to apply this only to vertebrates. As inspiration, perhaps God had Moses think of the smallest thing he could think of to describe mankind, and he thought of dust. We know there are things smaller, at a microscopic level like microbes.
Then mankind was split in half and brought back together as one flesh representing clonal or multicellular organisms:
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Adam called her woman at first and then later gives her a new name Eve:
Gen 3:20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living (chay).
‘Eve’ (2332. Chavvah) - Eve, life-giver
The word ‘was’ here is in the perfect tense. It is now complete. We have chay which may include multi-celled plants but not yet a nephesh.
Gen 2:21 Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
‘skins’ (5785. עוֹר or) Skin, hide, leather. From uwr; skin (as naked); by implication, hide, leather – hide, leather, skin.
I agree with you here. God puts flesh skin upon them here, just after that had sinned, and they become nephesh upon leaving the Garden. I hope you can see the progression… and it continues as they are not yet made in God’s Image.
Jesus IS the Image of God, and to be made in God’s image we must be found in Him, to be reborn of Spirit!.. He is the One to give us dominion over every living soul. We must be fruitful (spiritually), fill the earth with the gospel and subdue our sinful flesh nature.
Paul believed that Adam was a literal person, but Paul was a human from the first century and did not have any understanding of modern science. I believe Jesus knew, but He did not come to earth to reveal things before their time. We inherently know there was an original sin somewhere along the line and Adam represents that truth.
Hi Ethan,
thanks for your thoughts. For me, the Holy Bible ever so clearly tells us that death, suffering, and disease were NOT part of the original creation. Rather, they came as the direct result of Adam’s rebellion of disobedience to God’s clear command that constitutes sin, which affected the entire creation from that point forward. 18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. {the…: or, every creature} Romans 8:18 - 22
With respect to your comment about plants, the Scriptures have always meant to me that green plants are for food:
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
The fact that plants grow and produce sustenance for animals and other plants is I think obvious to all. What I think may be missed here is that from a Biblical perspective, plants are God’s provision for food, and are not considered the same as nephesh chayyah creatures that since the fall of Adam, all see death.
The WHOLE of Creation came under the curse when Adam sinned and Death entered the creation for the FIRST TIME.
Plants clearly, and are considered alive in our modern understanding, but it is a different thing from the Bibles perspective regarding Death that first entered the creation when Adam sinned; for what its worth, that is my understanding.
My understanding for this verse is once again, straightforward and exactly as stated.
God made man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, right then at that moment, my understanding is there was NO DELAY or protracted process over millions or billions of years, God acted, AND IT WAS SO.
That is surely crystal clear; at least it is to me?
I must admit that I’m not at all clear on what you are meaning or thinking here with the words “mankind was split in half”; but once again, the Holy Bible provides us with sufficient information to know that God created woman from the same material as the man was made, i.e., the makeup of the same bone and flesh is in both the first man and the first woman.
The Holy Bible is exceedingly clear about what occurred in Genesis 2: 21 - 23
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
20 And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. {Eve: Heb. Chavah: that is Living}
The main take away for me from this is that Adam and Eve are REAL PEOPLE, indeed the VERY FIRST PEOPLE on Earth. They were supernaturally created by God and are the Federal Heads of humanity.
Until they had children, they were the only people in existence.
Hence ALL people on Earth are related to Adam and Eve.
It is not my understanding that they only became ‘nephesh’ upon leaving the garden. I have always believed that Adam and Eve were fully human in every way when they were created by God and they were both innocent and blameless before God, as new creatures who were made ‘in God’s image’, i.e., they had self consciousness, they understood that they were alive and walked with the One and Only Holy Living God without shame, without sin, without death.
It is only after they sinned that Death entered the creation for the very first time, and that doesn’t include plants as previously explained.
My understanding is from reading the very straightforward text in Genesis 1:26 -28
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. {moveth: Heb. creepeth
Paul believed that Adam was a real person because it is ever so clear in the Holy Scriptures that Adam was a real person in the Holy Bible.
The myth that ‘modern science’ has somehow changed that reality is not in any way consistent with the Holy Bible.
God is NOT a God of confusion, He is a God of order.
Truth is immutable, IT DOES NOT CHANGE, Truth is constant.
As Paul well knew that Adam was the First man from whom all of humanity has descended as Truth, it is abundantly clear to me at least, that is still the case and will always be the Truth from now to eternity.
Yet, more misinformation and propaganda of deception. Adam is 100% correct, even a child can see that, yet you shamelessly deny the demonstrable Truth.
Doesn’t the Holy Scripture teach us “judge not lest you yourself be judged”, that is what I have always believed. I do not judge anyone. I cannot speak for what any other people may say or do.
Exposing deception where it exists, is not judging anyone, rather it is revealing the fallibility and false stories and explanations that deny Biblical Authority by elevating mankind’s secular worldview of ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’ as real that clearly contradicts what the Holy Bible so plainly teaches and what Jesus affirmed.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) {through God: or, to God} 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;2 Corinthians 10:3 - 5
What ‘the Church’ taught is irrelevant!
It is what the Holy Bible and Holy Spirit teaches us that matters.
The Church was and is made up of a mixture of good people and evil people, in any case all are fallible men, and if they rely on the ‘science’ of their day, then they are bound to have taught any number of falsehoods throughout history
Which is precisely why, we should always put the Holy Bible first as the final Authority on matters that are written down for our edification, such as the creation historical narrative and the Global Flood narrative. They were Real events
Our Brilliant Creator has ensured that the Biblical text is so utterly clear that I believe anyone reading it in the original Hebrew or Greek, thousands of years ago, or now in an English or French or German or Russian or Spanish or Italian or Portuguese, or Dutch, or Korean, or Icelandic or whatever translation, understands the creation message and the Global Flood as REAL HISTORY.
The Biblical text is not complicated, it is not hard to understand, our God has ensured that ALL people can understand His Holy Word to mankind.
Who ever suggested that the Holy Bible teaches science?
Science has limits, and one of those limits is that soundly conceived rigorous operational science simply cannot be performed on events that happened thousands of years ago
I know there are some here who claim they can perform science and determine what occurred in the past, but I assert, that is either through arrogance of their own abilities or naivety about what is realistically possible to determine information about events thousands of years in the past.
The irrefutable reality is that the researchers worldview has a profound effect on any science performed, and whether or not any here admit it, there are of absolute necessity many assumptions that must be made to construct a workable hypothesis to determine information about events thousands of years in the past.
Hi Ar,
there may have been a small number of people who thought otherwise, but I think it’s beyond contention that the vast majority of people in ‘Western’ countries believed the Holy Bible as written, i.e., a young creation less than 10,000 years old prior to Huxley, Wallace and Darwin in the mid nineteenth century.
I would agree here, I don’t think it was seen then ‘as an essential Biblical interpretation’ and I would add that I don’t think that Creationists in general, right now, see the ‘Young Creation’, ‘as an essential Biblical interpretation’ per se, except where it is necessary to highlight what the Holy Bible clearly teaches us, in the process of refuting false arguments and every pretension that sets itself up in contradiction with Gods revealed Word of Truth, such as the myths of ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’. Both inane philosophies based upon indoctrinated worldviews, assumptions, and an amazing paucity of tangible evidence.
Hi Ron,
absolutely, I want the Biblical view, not any other man-made construction, but the profound text that God in His omniscience knew would be meaningful to ALL people at ALL time throughout man’s time on Earth in this age.
And the Biblical view is just that, clear, uncomplicated, and absolutely TRUE.
The Bible tells us that the flood was upon ALL the Earth over the high mountains, so it was clearly a GLOBAL FLOOD to destroy ALL flesh that dwelt upon the face of the Earth.
There is no way to magically insert billions of years of evolution into the Biblical Historical narrative of the relatively Recent Creation and the Global Flood.
Of course you will disagree, but that doesn’t change the reality of what the Holy Bible ever so clearly teaches us about the creation and Global Flood.
Science is a wonderful endeavour that I have had the joy of performing in various roles over a lifetime, and I know that science is not in conflict with the Holy Bible.
But what some people here will not admit, is that science has real limitations in what it can’t and can do, and determining events in the distant past is not one of them it can do with any degree of certainty.
For that you either need a TARDIS (obviously joking here), or an eyewitness, and that is exactly what we do have in the Holy Bible, and God is the eyewitness.
Genesis is accurate historical narrative of Real events performed and witnessed by God Himself.
The idea that the Bible “teaches science” in the modern sense is more a product of cultural debate than of the Bible itself. Historically, very few within the mainstream church claimed Scripture was a science textbook. Here’s a breakdown:
1. Early Church Fathers
Augustine (4th–5th c.): Explicitly warned Christians not to claim scientific authority for the Bible, lest they be ridiculed by educated pagans. He taught that Scripture speaks in the language of ordinary experience and that true discoveries of science would never contradict it.
Basil the Great, Origen, others: Interpreted Genesis in theological, sometimes allegorical, ways rather than as “scientific cosmology.”
For the Fathers, the Bible’s purpose was theological (God, creation, salvation), not to give physical science.
2. The Reformers
John Calvin: Taught the doctrine of accommodation: God “lisps” to us, using ordinary language (like “sun rising”) rather than scientific precision.
Martin Luther: Rejected speculation but still accepted the plain sense of Scripture as historically trustworthy.
They did not think Scripture aimed to describe the universe in technical scientific terms.
3. Modern Era
17th–18th century (Galileo, Copernicus): Conflicts arose when interpreters insisted biblical passages (e.g., “sun stands still” in Joshua 10) must reflect scientific reality. Galileo famously argued that the Bible teaches “how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
19th–20th century: Some conservative interpreters (esp. in reaction to Darwinism and higher criticism) increasingly read Genesis as “scientific history.” This became especially strong in fundamentalist circles and later Young Earth Creationism (YEC), which argues that Genesis gives a true scientific account of origins.
4. Contemporary Perspectives
YEC (e.g., Answers in Genesis): Argues Genesis is a literal scientific record (6-day creation, global flood, young earth).
Old Earth / Theistic Evolution (e.g., BioLogos, Hugh Ross): Argues the Bible is theologically true but not intended as a science manual.
Mainstream theology: Holds that the Bible’s purpose is salvation history and theology, not scientific explanation.
Summary
The Bible itself never claims to “teach science.”
Its authors spoke in the phenomenological language of ordinary human experience (e.g., “sun rises”) rather than scientific terms.
The idea that the Bible should be read as a scientific account is relatively recent, arising mainly in the modernist vs. fundamentalist debates of the 19th–20th centuries.
The age of the earth being a lot older than several thousand years was suspected by some geologists in the 1690s, and was basically certain by the 1770s, before any of those three were born.
Again, Michael Tuomey in 1848 said that attributing the fossil record to the deluge was not a current view, and that “no one, who has ever examined a fossiliferous deposit for five minutes, can hold such an opinion.” BEFORE anything widely-known was published by Darwin, Wallace, or Huxley. As I said already, the last geologists who hadn’t concluded that the Bible skipped over a bunch of theologically-irrelevant pre-human history came to that conclusion roughly in the 1820s, when Darwin (the oldest of the three named) hadn’t finished at university yet or joined the Beagle expedition.
Hello!
Well, they didn’t know how old, given they had no good means of evaluating at the time. It’s similar to not knowing about germs, a heliocentric solar system or the existence of galaxies. Even the idea that heavier things fall faster than lighter things persisted. What many of the church ‘fathers’ or early theologians suggested was, don’t bank on knowing the age from Genesis. And 10k or 100k years in the past was largely at the limits of comprehension. So, I don’t think one can make the case for a young Earth interpretation based on popular belief at the time. As you note, it’s not a fundamental or necessary position for Christianity (or Judaism), though like in all things, opinions vary.
Science, and common sense, clearly informs us that the earth is billions of years old, and there was no recent global deluge. That conflicts with your literalist interpretation.
I really do not care if you go to church on a Saturday or Sunday, how you receive communion, or if you are old earth or young earth. Believe what you will. If you think that your doctrine conflicts with science, then avoid science and leave it in peace. But as YEC insists on slandering science with apologetic nonsense and misrepresentations like intrinsic 14C in diamonds and flood transported sediment, then honesty and integrity demands a response.
Are you uncertain that there was a supernova in the large magellanic cloud in the distant past with the light and neutrinos directly observed by us in 1987?
We have eyewitness history that the pyramids were already built at the YEC timeline for the flood. Tree ring calibrated carbon dating independently confirms that history. From a recent study
The contextualized 14C dates together with re-evaluation of historical evidence on Djedkare’s rule, results in a new model of temporal probability density which can be further refined with any new data from archaeological research. It shows that Djedkare’s reign can be currently modelled between 2503 and 2449 BCE (95.4%), thus slightly older than expected by literature.
Yes, Lyell and Darwin shared an excessive uniformitarianism, and both were born after basically everyone in geology agreed that the earth was much older than 10,000 years. In the 17th century, the big question for ages of deposits was whether many fossils could have survived long enough to be from the Deluge, given how ruined most ancient buildings were. Late in the 1600s, people started suspecting from how many layers there are, that they looked similar to deposits under ordinary conditions, and that only the absolute youngest had any traces at all of human activity, that the earth was rather old. The most conclusive finding (1770s) was when geologists realized that some of the mountains in the Massif Central region of France look a lot like eroded down remnants of volcanoes (other like less-eroded remnants of them). There were no records of or even myths about volcanoes in the area, so they had to pre-date any human occupation. People also knew from places like Etna or Vesuvius that building a big volcano takes a while–eruptions may be only every few hundred years, each one forming a new layer of the mountain, and those mountains have a lot of layers. There also had to have been enough time for the eroded ones to erode down before the newer ones formed, and going from something like Etna to something like Aubrac is not fast.
The best current guesses in the early to mid-19th century were “Maybe 20,000,000 years for history of life?? And another comparable duration for the Primary rocks??”; Darwin suggested more like 2.5 billion each, which actually gave about the right age for the earth overall, he just way overestimated how long the more recent layers took to form and how incomplete they are.
For the Fathers, the Bible’s purpose was theological (God, creation, salvation), not to give physical science.
Summary