How do you join up those dots?
[And meta- means beyond in the prior context. So The Second Person of the Triune Godhead only did that on this insignificant world after concurrent infinities of them from eternity?]
The things is: an honest interpretation and translation of what the Bible actually says or the Authors of the Books and Letters will bring direct confrontation to the current understanding of Science.
To be honest, the Books and Letters where written by authors who had the prevailing contemporary views on the Universe. This is a fact that I will never deny.
Below is a description of the Universe by Dante’s inferno which was endorsed by many Catholic Church officials at the time of its publication which I believe at least represents the consensus at that time.
I’ve never seen such concurrent infinities of multiverses.
But, even in this Universe, we haven’t seen any trace of other intelligent beings except if we take the Pentagon Reports of UAP as Aliens from another multiverse or galaxy which is, now, a realistic alternative.
I believe that is the significance of Humanity as the image of God created by His hands through the evolutionary process that is guided in His predestination and at His will.
There is a difference between believing in some the ing and believing a mythology was wrote about it versus believing that they believe it because of a myth.
Could Jesus have believed in a young earth? Sure. It’s very probable that Jesus believes in a young flat earth with a dome over it. However that belief would not have came from Jesus confusing genesis 1-2 as a historical narrative. Jesus would have recognized that genesis 1-11 was written in a completely different way than places like exodus or the gospels.
Take Star Wars. Star Wars is based off of the premise that man kind will eventually take to space , find aliens and we will have wars and ect…
When people now days believe that we will eventually go to the stars, find aliens and go to war it’s not because of Star Wars. Star Wars did not create the fantasy. The fantasy in place shaped Star Wars.
In the same way the beliefs of ancient Jews would have gave birth to the way the genesis mythology was written. The genesis mythology most likely was not the reason why they believed what they did.
Jesus was not all knowing. It never says thst. For a fact it points out he did not know everything.
It states that Jesus grew in wisdom and favor.
Luke 2:52 NASB
52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people.
In order for Jesus to increase in wisdom it means he was. It all knowing. In order for Jesus to grow in favor with God means he was not particularly as favorable by God at a younger age.
So as he grew in wisdom and in favoritism with God he begin to be blessed by God and God worked through Jesus. All power Jesus had was not of himself, but from his father. Same as it was his father who gave him a name above all names. Jesus grew in favor because he steadily was committed fully to the will of God.
Jesus also did not know the time of the prophecy concerning the exact day of destruction. The father did not share it with him.
So no reason to believe while in earth before his resurrection that he knew everything. He learned just like anyone else.
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Evolution shows no such ‘guidance’. We can never empirically detect the worlds rationally teaming with life in our galaxy, at least an order of magnitude of which will be sapient, any more than we can the rational multiverse. We don’t need to. If Jesus had been born this year in Bethlehem, where there would be no Muslims or Christians, there’d have been no Crusades, He’d have no problem with that rationalism.
There is no conflict whatsoever between Jesus and His contemporaries, and science. There is no overlap by 1800 years.
In 2051 it would be a different story. In a very different world that would take some making assuming no 4 BCE incarnation. Unless of course, that never happened.
I have read a little about that reconciliation.
As I recall, the reconciliation that I saw relied on the idea that the plants were in the ground but had not grown when Adam was formed.
The problem with that is that the first creation story says that the earth brought forth vegetation on Day 3 — so that reconciliation didn’t match what the scripture actually says.
But perhaps I recall it incorrectly.
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I struggled with this before but as John Lennox says, the Bible is not a science book. God chose to tell us about what is relevant to us as humanity, salvation etc. God is eternal (alpha and omega) so even if the earth is 13.8 billion years old it does not make God irrelevant. The way we calculate the time, is not exactly applicable to the days in Genesis because the sun, stars etc were created on fourth day whatever that means. Day is time period not literal.
If God chose not to tell us the story of creation in exact detail (which creature was created, how many billion/million years ago) then it is up to Him because we can still have faith that He created them when He chose to do it. That is how I understand it anyway.
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So, I take your response as a Yes to my question.
Jesus did believe to the traditional view on the Universe and Creation which by today’s terms called as the “Young Earth Creationism.”
My intention in posting this topic is to share my view and to see the views by several members and admins/moderators who believe that Lord Jesus Christ during His mortal incarnation already knew the state of the Universe as it is and hence did not believe in the traditional view on the Universe and Creation which by today’s terms called as the “Young Earth Creationism” or has huge overlapping with today’s “Young Earth Creationism.”
This analogy does not work at all. Being a flat earther several thousand years ago is not the same as being one today—which implies being a deluded conspiracy theorist with psychological trust issues and groupthink-confirmation bias.
Today one has to consciously reject an overwhelming amount of information to the contrary in a very irrational fashion. It was simply conventional knowledge for many a few thousand years ago. Same with age of the earth.
God incarnated as a first-century Jewish human being. He came into the world in a specific time and place. He observed the sun rise everyday. That worldview is not the same as ours. Most here have correctly rejected your cartesian bifurcation which ends up asking why oranges don’t have a core and red skin. You are simply mixing up fruits. This was a non-issue at the time and based on a complete lack of evidence to the contrary, we have no reason to suppose Jesus was at all interested in the question.
A better analogy would be provided by seeing the silliness in wondering why Jesus didn’t comment on the NASA moon landing. It’s anachronistic to compare Jesus to a modern YEC. The same way you can’t compare the Gospels to modern history or the biblical authors belief in the inspiration of the Bible to those of wooden, fact-literal westerners.
So yes, the human Son of God probably thought things were done as early Genesis said. Why should we care? What now? What is the point of this exercise?
Vinnie
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A reason to believe Jesus knew more than the rabbis was his answer to the question of whose wife the many-time widow would be in heaven: Jesus knew more than the other rabbis and He knew that fact which is not revealed in the Old Testament.
He did not bother to reveal the marital status information until there was a specific purpose (rebuking the temple leaders), and He never had a specific reason to teach history of creation.
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I guess it depends on how detailed you get. I don’t see any reason to believe that Jesus believed in the creation account the same way modern creationist believe in it. Modern creationist believes that Adam and Eve was the first humans and that they was born 6k years ago and that all humans in this planet is their descendants. I doubt Jesus believed that.
Jesus would have been aware that genesis 1-11 was written as mythology. Jesus would have been aware of what it mean that before the first day of creation there was already water there. It never says when water was made. Jesus would have been aware that if taken literally, genesis 1 and 2 contradicts itself. Jesus would not have been aware of a 13 billion year of universe or a almost 4 billion year old earth. Jesus would have no knowledge of evolution. Jesus would have been aware that Cain’s lineages contained no ages in genesis 4 and that the super long lineages of Seth was not literal and that the genealogies was heavily gapped.
So no I doubt that Jesus would have believed in a literal week long creation, or have believed in tracing the genealogies to Adam and ect…. I don’t think or see any evidence of a old
Earth vs a young earth debate among ancient people. Jesus would not have looked at genesis 1-2 as anything other than theological truths ( Yahweh is our creator and god ). He would not have believed that Adam literally sat around and named off millions of animals. Jesus would not have the same debate we are having and would have dining viewed it as their creation mythology. I doubt it accurately reflected his cosmic and historical view.
What I was saying is that he probably believed in something more similar to yec without any serious commitment to the details and that he would not know anything about billions of years old earth, evolution, or that the moon was not emitting light and ect… he would have no idea the stars was light years away and huge and ect…
You’re trying to make the claim did Jesus believe like modern creationist or that he knew about scientific truths mike we do. It was neither.
I don’t think judging Jesus’ knowledge by regular people is a viable plan.
Incarnation. Fully human. It’s the only plan.
Had to grow in wisdom, did not know the day or hour. Had no clue who touched his robe. Possibly thought it wasn’t his time but his mother convinced him otherwise (unless he just caved to the pressure of using his gifts given to him to save the world to make alcoholic beverages for people). Falling on the floor in the garden of Gethsemane 3 times. The Gospels themselves show the knowledge of Jesus was ordinary if you sift through them carefully. We can certainly accept Jesus, a man in constant prayer could have received revelation from the Father. This hardly necessitates that it’s all revelation or that he knew everything or had even read the entirety of our modern Old Testament—or that he could even read to being with!
Vinnie
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Yet they also show He supernaturally knew what Nathaniel was doing when Nathaniel was out of sight.
Yet He could walk on water and heal others.
Yet He knew there was no marriage in heaven.
Yet He knew Peter would deny Him before the rooster crowed.
And He knew the temple would be destroyed during the lifetime of that generation.
So there were ordinary aspects to His knowledge and extraordinary aspects.
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You mean that Jesus knew because He is Divine.
Maybe, but a 6-day creation was not your question. You asked if he believed in young earth creationism.
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There are already Rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Genesis by the time Jesus started His ministry and these commentaries assume a literal interpretation.
But, Jesus, during His Ministry, used parables and allegories.
If we assume He has the perfect knowledge of the Universe which no one on Earth had in the first century, yes.
No, I saw that YEC claim Jesus believed in YEC and I read many comments in BioLogos Forum that imply Jesus didn’t believe in YEC because He already knew the state of the Universe and hence He must believe in Evolution Theory or at least had no issues with such view.
What I am asserting: it is extremely unlikely that Jesus in his finite Human form had already been equipped with modern science. And, hence we must admit the YEC claims that Jesus would have sided with them had we brought this discussion back to the first Century Israel.
But, the fact that Jesus believed in the literal 6 days creation doesn’t necessitate that the context of contemporary understanding at that time must be imposed upon modern day Christians.
Young earth creationism implies a 6-day creation and 6-day creation implies a Young earth creationism.
Because by definition, Young Earth Creationism rejects any additional information except those in the Bible and any slightest deviation from the literal interpretation of the Scripture.
So, do you mean because Jesus believe in the 6-day Creation and Young Earth Creationism, Christians must accept these views literally as the truth and reject the notion of Young Earth Creationism?
Dance on, Fernando.
There are two creation accounts in Genesis which do not agree. So you can’t take them both literally at the same time.
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