Do Evolutionary Theory And Scripture Contradict Each Other?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Let’s not play Hebrew magic game. But if you insist here’s an entry on the word Yom:
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3117.htm
And Genesis 2:17
http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/2-17.htm

Yes, that’s why it’s helpful to bring in other forms of knowing (like science) to help us interpret tough words. There are even about 400 words that only appear once in the Hebrew Scriptures–Archeological finds have been particularly helpful in understanding some of these:

Probably not, as the stars are explicitly mentioned as being different from the lesser light.

Well considering Adam was 130 when he fathered Seth (who was conceived after Cain killed Abel and Cain was afraid). That means Adam and Eve would have had all the kids before then (that Cain was afraid of). Good luck making thousands and thousands of babies in that short amount of time.

I’m just saying the Bible makes no sense if you read it literally in Genesis 1 and 2 (and beyond as well but let’s stick here for now). There are lots of problems and lots of questions that arise and strange explanations need to come into place that don’t match anything in reality. My poorly written point above was related to why does the Bible mention the seeds and the Earth bringing forth trees. And why does it describe trees getting created in the Garden when they supposedly were created three days earlier on day 3. This language matches that of Psalm 90:1-5 which also apparently was written by Moses which uses the phrase ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ just like Genesis and likens a day to a thousand years.

In light of this, and all of modern science (reposting the link: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_against_a_recent_creation though you probably won’t look at it and consider it), I go for a more figurative interpretation.

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@J.E.S

The discussions with you (if I understand them) are on six days of creation, and “God uses evolution”.

On the six days of creation, I agree the Bible teaches us to work for six days and rest on the Sabbath, and my own view is that the Sabbath rest is so important, that the six days are given to us as a reflection of God creating the heavens and earth. By this I mean we are to regard our own work as Biblically oriented, and thus God oriented, so that we may enter the Sabbath rest blessed by God. This blessing is given to us - as others point out, God does not need to rest.

On evolution, I reject any phrase that claims we know what God used, be it chemistry, biology, physics or flying spaghetti monsters. God created by the power of His Word, end of story.

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I stumbled upon this verse from 2 Peter today:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

Then I stumbled upon this verse on Psalm 90:

“For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)

That being the case, what’s the problem?

Biblically, getting worried about the age of the earth is making a mountain out of a molehill. The only thing that we need to worry about with regards to the whole issue is making sure we’re not discrediting the Word of God by trying to back it up with clueless arguments and falsehoods.

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What do you think are the 4 best examples of supporting evidence (articulated in about 3 lines each)?
@cwhenderson

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@pevaquark
A couple things…
I’ve been told that “In the day” is a Hebrew idiom for “after this happens, this will happen…”
But I will abstain from the “Hebrew Magic Game” in the future (unless we disagree on the meaning of a word again, in which case I may have to dig it out…).

Mind telling me where?

I see. Maybe not “thousands and thousands,” but there could have been hundreds of children and grandchildren around at this time. If someone lived to be 130 today, imagine how many kids he’d have by that point (assuming he had a lot in the first place)!

This seems to be a VERY strong assertion. Mind providing more evidence?

Here’s the exact words:
“'And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit which is their seed, each according to it’s kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And There was evening and there was morning, the third day.” (Genesis 1:11-13)

It doesn’t appear to say “the seeds and the Earth bringing forth trees”???

Where does it describe “trees getting created in the Garden when they supposedly were created three days earlier on day 3”???

It appeared when I just read it (albeit rather hurriedly) that God simply “put” the man in the garden… but that is described in a previous post of mine.

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@GJDS
Agreed…

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@jammycakes
These verses show us the eternal nature of God…

Would you mind enumerating on this one?

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You’ve probably been told a lot of things that might not be correct. Here’s another way of thinking about it (http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/genesis-creation-and-ancient-interpreters-on-the-day-you-eat-of-it). Possible wrong things could be like that there is any scientific evidence for a young Earth position of any kind (there’s not). Also, why don’t we just translate the Bible better. I get confused trying to read the plain sense meaning in English.

How about Genesis 1:16

God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night—as well as the stars.

What does this mean? Does it mean that they instantaneously poofed up? What does it mean for the Earth to sprout vegetation? A plain sense reading means that the Earth began to grow plants, not that they poofed up instantly. And then why does it mention that the trees bear fruit according to their seeds? The text literally says that “the earth brought forth vegetation” (which actually takes time as any Hebrew who farms knew) not that God instantaneously popped them all into existence.

Ok let’s try:
Day 2 of Genesis–God made a literal dome that separated the waters from waters (God opens this literal dome later in Genesis with the flood). Note: there is no literal dome that holds back water…
Day 3 of Genesis–I already mentioned this one above
Day 4 of Genesis–There are two great lights, the sun and the moon (which is not the stars)–the moon as we already debated does not emit any light of its own
Side note:

Let’s look at Genesis 1 (G1) vs. Genesis 2 (G2)

  • In G1, God creates habitable space: light, separation of waters, dry land/plants – then he fills those spaces: heavenly lights, sea and sky creatures, land animals and humans (male and female) together

  • In G2, God creates the man before any plant life then creates a garden, then he creates the animals (birds and land animals) for him, then he creates the woman

  • In G1, God speaks divine commands to create and then rests from a job well done

  • In G2, God does not speak this from on high from above, but forms the man like a potter, breathes into him, plants a garden, forms the animals from the earth like a potter (even though our chemical make up is not the same as dirt), and then builds a woman from part of the man’s side

Here’s another perspective from Harper’s Bible Dictionary on what the original people who the text was written to literally thought about the world:

The ancient Hebrews imagined the world as flat and round [disk], covered by the great solid dome of the firmament which was held up by mountain pillars, (Job 26:11; 37:18). The blue color of the sky was attributed to the chaotic waters that the firmament separated from the earth (Gen. 1:7). The earth was thus surrounded by waters above and below (Gen. 1:6,7; cf. Psalms 24:2; 148:4, Deut. 5:8). The firmament was thought to be substantial; it had pillars (Job 26:11) and foundations (2 Sam. 22:8). When the windows of it were opened, rain fell (Gen. 7:11-12; 8:2). The sun, moon, and stars moved across or were fixed in the firmament (Gen. 1:14-19; Ps. 19:4,6). It was also the abode of the birds (Gen. 1:20; Deut. 4:17). Within the earth lay Sheol, the realm of the dead (Num. 16:30-33; Isa. 14:9,15)."

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Titus 3:9 tells us to avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because they are unprofitable and useless. (How much of the creation/evolution debate goes into arguing about whether the genealogies have gaps or not?) For that reason, I personally find the theological side of the debate to be a bit of a turn-off, for the simple reason that it completely misses the point of Genesis 1-11, and indeed the rest of the Bible, which is, of course, all about Christ, redemption, and our future hope, not about the past (see Isaiah 43:18). As I said to a YEC friend on Twitter a while back, we’re Christians, not Adam-and-his-pet-dinosaurians after all.

On the other hand, the scientific side of the argument is where all the damage gets done. Far too often I see over-enthusiastic fellow Christians getting hold of young-earth teaching, getting all excited about the prospect of evidence for a young earth or evolution being a conspiracy theory, rushing headlong into the debate with all guns blazing, and only proving to everyone in earshot that they haven’t the faintest idea what they’re talking about.

I’m personally satisfied on the basis of 2 Peter 3:8, Psalm 90:4, Psalm 19:1, Psalm 111:2 and Romans 1:20 that we don’t need to reject the scientific consensus in order to remain faithful to the Bible. But on the other hand, I’ve no objection to anyone who feels that they must do so in order to keep a clear conscience before God, as long as they’re honest in how they approach it. But misrepresenting the scientific consensus is a completely different matter. Claiming that it makes assumptions that it does not, or that its assumptions are not testable when they are, or that folded rock layers are not fractured when they are, or that oil exploration doesn’t depend on the ages of the deposits when it does, for example, is not faith — it is at best ignorance and at worst flat-out lying. And it does immense damage to the Gospel.

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I would agree with jammycakes. And I’d point to the earliest statements of orthodoxy, the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds. They were concerned with the who of creation, but not the when and how. (They were also concerned that there would be a final judgement, but not at all concerned with any particular millennial position.)

Of course, many of the church fathers did not believe in literal 24-hour days. Everyone knows that the radical Augustine differed by an infinite number of orders of magnitude. But more conservatively, many church fathers (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, …) took the creation days to be 1000 years (i.e. creation took 6000 years, not 144 hours) to solve the problem that Adam lived more than 900 years after he sinned–on which day he was to have surely died. Since 900 years is less than a day–problem solved! (The point is not to argue with their solution–but that they had such a solution, implying that (day == 24 hours) was not cardinal to the church fathers).

(Edited for missing word)

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Thanks for asking, Jonathan. Here we go:

ASTRONOMY
Although not a direct evidence for evolution (ie Reasons to Believe philosophy), astronomy is an extremely compelling argument against Young Earth Creation, at the very least. Elementary-level astronomy teaches an entirely new unit for distance to work on these astronomical scales – the light-year. If astronomers observe events in the universe that are 1 thousand/million/billion light-years distant, then the light produced from the event was sent 1 thousand/million/billion years ago. I do not know of any credible science that can refute this claim.

PALEONTOLOGY
I’m not an expert in this area, but I know that a vast majority of experts agree that the fossil record is strongly supportive of the theory of evolution. Radiometric dating can be done using independent methods without making presumptions about the age of the earth (contrary to what opponents may claim). Here is a link from Baylor University (a Baptist university).

NESTED HIERARCHIES AND HOMOLOGIES
Life on the planet can be fairly neatly organized into groups (hierarchies) of similar characteristics (homologies). For many decades, anatomy was the primary tool for this organization effort. Organisms with similar traits exhibit the same anatomical parts, even if adaptation to new niches would cause the homologies to seem unnecessary and even detrimental. Here is a link with some of the unusual attributes that remain with us humans.

GENETICS
If you check out the previous link, you will see the “GULO” pseudogene (check it out here) can no longer allow us to make vitamin C. It is reasonable to conclude that this gene was once functional in our predecessors, but lost function at some point in the past due to mutation. Not coincidentally, the EXACT SAME mutations are observed in other primates. This is a single example, but there are NUMEROUS similar examples spread throughout the human genome. Check here if you want to read about one of my favorites – endogenous retrovirus (ERV) sequences!

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Pevaquark, I enjoy your expositions and you are providing some great explanations here on Genesis 1. However, I’d like to make one small correction concerning a claim that Bill Nye the Science Guy also makes in his lectures:

There is no lexicographic rule of any sort, neither in English nor in Hebrew, which says that a “light” must emit light of its own generation. (And even if such a rule existed in English, you couldn’t automatically assume that the same semantic fields and distinctions applied to the original Hebrew word.)

Indeed, even a quick look at an English lexicon would show that the English noun light does not specify that the light comes from what a physicist might call a “primary light source” rather than a secondary one. Light generation is not the focus.

For example, one of the meanings of light is a window or window pane. That English usage dates back many centuries. Not only do we see that definition in the compound word skylight, it also arises when one visits a building supply company to buy or special order a door. When I ordered a new front door for my house, the first thing the clerk asked me was “How many lights?” He wasn’t asking me how many light-bulbs would be attached to my door. He was asking how many window panes I wanted in the door in order to help bring sunlight indoors.

Thus, the fact that the sun produces its own light by means of the fusion of hydrogen atoms while the moon is a reflector of sunlight is irrelevant to both the English word for light and its Hebrew equivalent. Both the sun and the moon are lights because they illuminate the earth. How they do it is irrelevant to the word light and I doubt that the average Hebrew gave it any more thought than the average hunter, farmer, or jogger today.

By the way, TV and movie production crews use the word light with similar disregard for its source. Thus, on an outdoor film set some directors will yell to a gaffer, “Get me a light!” In a night shoot that will probably call for an electric light of some sort. But in the daytime, someone will probably grab a 4x4 or 4x8 reflective panel that helps increase the lumens reading when filming under the shade of trees. A light illuminates without regard for whether or not the object called a light is a generator, transmitter, or a reflector of light.

I’ve long been curious how this criticism of Genesis 1, day 4, got started. I’ve wondered if it first appeared in some language where the alleged primary/secondary light distinction was actually valid (even though it never was valid in ancient Hebrew.)

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Hebrews 6:1-3:

Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.

Interesting how none of the teachings that the writer to the Hebrews describes as foundational make any reference to the age of the earth.

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Excellent point, thank you for the correction!

Perhaps this sheds some light on it?

Looking to the book Scripture & Cosmology by Kyle Greenwood he begins a discussion on Heaven’s Luminaries (p. 145 of that book if you or others happen to have it).

He cites first two Rabbis centuries before Copernicus, Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Azariah (source, Neusner, Parashiyyot, p. 55-56). Rabbi Yohanan wrote “only the orb of the sun was created for the purpose of giving light” and Rabbi Azariah agrees though provides a different reason why God made the moon. Another, Rabbi Berekhiah affirms the Biblical text in that both of them were actually lights despite any scientific evidence of the contrary.

And then we move on to Luther and Calvin-
For Luther, both the moon and stars receive light from the sun (see Luther, Lectures on Genesis, p. 41). Calvin maintained that moon was its own source of light (see Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. J. King, Calvin’s Commentaries 1, p. 86).

So if that is an accurate portrayal of history, then we could perhaps date this criticism back to the 1300s at least?

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Certainly we can. When I was a bit younger and had more energy for researching such things, I considered investigating whether the pre-modern German dialects of that era [There were many!] might have made that distinction in the use of the German noun licht. If yes, than that might have complicated the issue for Calvin and Luther.

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Cwhenderson provided four excellent reasons for accepting the overwhelming evidence. I would add one of the most impressive (and relatively recent) slam-dunk confirmations of all: the genomic evidence. The nested hierarchies observed ever since Darwin were confirmed at the molecular level as the DNA of various species were and are compared. (If the Theory of Evolution is invalid, why do we find the same nested hierarchies at the molecular level as well, exactly as the theory predicted? Why would God “plant” so much evidence for evolution if evolution never happened?)

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Thanks! I forgot to include that in a transition from point 3 to point 4.

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@Socratic.Fanatic
@cwhenderson
Mind explining to me what this means/is?

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Here is what I wrote about nested hierarchies and homologies:

I intended to mention that DNA sequencing data supports the already-existing nested hierarchies, but it slipped my mind mid-composition. In recent decades, as DNA sequencing data has increased, a high majority of the hierarchies based on structural characteristics has been confirmed at the molecular level. Time and again, similarities are observed in the nesting without any true necessity for it. The DNA evidence continues even beyond sequences coding for proteins and can be observed in non-coding sequences and even the “junk” DNA!

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What exactly is “junk” DNA?