Thanks for the reply and the explanation, Roymond.
The thing which I don’t understand is, when the “them” is the current Young Earth Creationist.
Didn’t they (the current YEC) know that the earth is spherical, rotate, day and night occur simultaneously on different part of the earth?
Assumed that “my parents are YEC and they teach me like that since I was a kid”, I’m sure my parents know about that.
Yet, despite their knowledge (that the earth is spherical, rotate, day and night occur simultaneously on different part of the earth) why did they still insist that the first moment of day-1 is in the evening ? . Why did they still insist that there was evening and there was morning meaning is a progression of time which starts in the evening?
I hate when they ended my urged question with: Because God told us so. So, stop questioning about that. God works in a mysterious way.
Thanks for the answer and explanation, Jon.
Thanks also for the youtube link.
But I’m sorry, the youtube video doesn’t cover about day & night happen simultaneously on earth. And it seems (if my English is correct to understand what he say in the video), he propose something which to me is even more doesn’t make sense.
At around 14:00 of the video, he say day-1 already occur BEFORE the creation of heaven on earth. So, there was evening there was morning is a progression of time where the first hour of the 24 hours of day-1 already happen before earth exist.
To me it doesn’t matter if YEC say that the creation of the earth is happen simultaneously with the first zeptosecond of day-1, because based on what the video say, the logic will be : day-1 precedes, existence of the earth proceeds which doesn’t make sense because (to me) day-1 can be perceived only when there is already earth+light exist.
At around 19:00 he said “we’ve been off work for six days” then he states “how long will you think “off work” now ? Million of years ?” … but that’s not my point (as I state in my OP that “Evolution” has not known by me yet).
My point is:
if they insist that the first day begin in the evening and they state “earth already experience the first 6 hours dark/evening times of day-1 now”, then the other part of earth will give an awkward statement “well, we don’t even have our day-1 yet now. We have to wait for the next 6 hours, then we have our first hour of day-1”.
Also in around 43:00, the video say “we don’t have pretty much time between the creation and the fall of Satan. So when ?”. Again he say something which doesn’t make sense to me : “it must’ve been before Cain was conceived and after Eden banishment”. Because the one which make sense to me is : “it must’ve been before Adam+Eve fall”.
The Creator, our Saviour and Lord God is not as limited as you would have us believe. He is omniscient and omnipresent and all powerful. He supernaturally inspired the various writers of the books of the Bible. Those writers were ordinary people like you and me; that is, they could no more see the future or the past by themselves any more than you or I can. They wrote the Words of Truth that we call scripture or The Bible. I don’t believe for a millisecond that the One who spoke the trillions of galaxies into existence had any problem ensuring the writing of scripture was understandable for mankind throughout the ages. As the account of creation is clearly history, it is correct to call it historical narrative.
Of course you can read and trust the word of God, today, yesterday, thousands of years ago, or in the future, it makes little difference, faithful and honest translations can be trusted to mean what is so clearly and divinely written. That is the amazing thing about the Bible! There is no other Book like it in the world.
With respect to the creation account, Jesus the Son who exists in eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit was there and had the author write down the events as commanded and observed by Him. To claim anything other than that, misunderstands the all knowing all powerful nature of God.
“Exactly – because He understood that ancient literature was written for the people of the time and place of the original writing, so unlike today’s YECists He didn’t try to change the meaning to be convenient to the people of His day.”
Why do you set yourself up as judge over Christians who believe the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history, and accuse those Christians of changing “the meaning to be convenient to the people of (His) [the present] day.”
Judge not lest you yourself be judged.
“But YECists don’t actually believe that – they believe that the final guide to the interpretation of scripture is refusing to actually understand the scriptures as the ancient literature they are and instead demand that they fit a modern scientific materialist worldview.”
Again, you appear to appoint yourself as a judge over Christians who believe the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history, and accuse those Christians of not understanding what the Lord God has revealed to them. You go on to claim that Christians who believe the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history, “demand that they fit a modern scientific materialist worldview.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact the reality is the precise opposite to what you have written. All the Christians that I know who believe:
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the clearly stated reality of Genesis as real history,
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Adam and Eve as real people,
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the fall in the Garden of Eden as a real historical event that caused the first physical death of Nephesh life to occur, and
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the flood with Noah’s ark that was truly global as is clearly stated in the text,
most definitely do not, “demand that they fit a modern scientific materialist worldview.”
Those Bible believing Christians see through the false materialist, naturalist worldview for what it is, an untruthful stranglehold on most of academia to toe the line, to only interpret science within
the false materialist, naturalist worldview that intentionally excludes God by decree, despite the fact that modern science was born from highly intelligent men and women who understood the one and only Living God is a God of order, not confusion, thus making modern science possible to understand how the things that He created operate.
Why do you set yourself up as judge of those millions of Bible believing Christians who understand the scriptures and know the Lord God our Creator and Saviour?
All that you have written here is a blatant lie and unfortunately can be described in no other way.
It appears you have a very warped view of the millions of God fearing, Bible believing Christians.
You have made many false accusations about what you think Christians who believe the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history, actually believe in your opinion.
It would be revealing if you would support the false accusations you have made about Christians such as myself and the many that I know who believe similarly, with some examples for each item that quote your words below:
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“change the meaning to be convenient to the people of His day.”
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"demand that they fit a modern scientific materialist worldview."
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“Ah, yes, the outfit that makes it plain that they aren’t gong to read the scriptures honestly because they’re going to force onto it a view from scientific materialism. They never stop to ask what the Bible’s definition of truth is, they instead impose a definition that comes from an inherently atheistic human philosophy.”
It appears that you have a misplaced and jaded idea of what Christians like myself believe.
I sincerely hope and pray the delusion you are under is lifted and you understand what our Creator has made clear in His Word to us all in Genesis and throughout the Bible.
Hi Reko,
many thanks for your reply, it’s very much appreciated!
I’m sorry that the video is hard to follow in parts and probably could be better expressed in places, particularly if English isn’t your first language.
The order of creation given in the Bible is straightforward (day/night relevant text are in bold type):
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so.
8 God called the expanse “heaven.” And there was evening and there was morning, a second day
9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.
12 The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years;
15 and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
One day meaning one 24 hour Earth rotation period. A normal day as we now know a day.
It is likely that the Earth was already rotating from the beginning. The lights in the sky, such as the sun by day, and moon by night, did not exist on day one, so it is clear the light came from elsewhere. All we are told is that God created light, so it is reasonable to conclude that light did not exist prior to when God commanded light to exist.
We are not told what the source of the first light was, God Himself may have been the source or He may have just made light by itself without a source as we know light requires today, we just don’t know, suffice to say that light, night and day existed on day one.
A good place to start in answering your query regarding how, “about day & night happening simultaneously on earth” is a very good article at: https://creation.com/literal-days-before-the-sun
I probably should have referred you to the above link that sets it all out much better in text form with clearer examples.
If you are interested in looking further into many aspects of the creation account in the Bible, then
see: https://creation.com/6-days-cab-2
I pray that our Creator will reveal to you the answers to the sincere questions you have.
If YEC is true, then almost nothing in science is. That is not a mere matter of interpretation. Our most basic understanding of geology, physics, biology cannot be correct if the universe is young. You have to choose between the orderly world of science and YEC; you cannot have both. Those who think that they can find refuge in a distinction of historical and observational science understand neither.
They do indeed, and they even acknowledge that they need to set aside their literal “plain reading” of Genesis 1 in favour of a more literary and figurative approach in order to accommodate it. In fact they will even quite rightly tell you that to insist on a strict, literal approach in this matter is to make a mockery of the Bible. Danny Faulkner of Answers in Genesis explained this quite clearly:
Here’s the thing though. The arguments that he makes against the flat earth movement’s approach to the Bible are exactly the same as the arguments that young earthists denounce as “compromise” or “unbelief” when they are made against a young Earth. Basically, young earthists have one set of rules for Biblical exegesis when discussing the shape of the earth, and the exact opposite set of rules for Biblical exegesis when discussing the age of the earth.
You can see this by doing a simple find and replace on Faulkner’s article: “flat” → “young”; “shape” → “age”, "a sphere” → “old”, “a globe” → “old”, and “astronomy” → “geology”:
Basically, either the Bible demands an Earth that is both young and flat, or else it can accommodate an Earth that is both spherical and old. To suggest that it demands one but not the other is to apply two different and contradictory standards of exegesis to the early chapters of Genesis.
Thanks for watching the YouTube video for us. You’ve saved each of us a whole hour. For some reason, young earthists love to post hour-long videos and then accuse anyone who doesn’t watch them in their entirety of “not listening.” When they could easily have gotten their point across much more succinctly by summarising said video and providing time stamps to the relevant places.
I’m not surprised that the video doesn’t answer your question. The issue of time zones is a massive spanner in the works for their argument that “and there was evening, and there was morning” would tie down the days of creation to being 24 hour days of Earth’s time. It’s an argument that only works if the Earth is flat, and it’s one that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a young earthist even attempt to address.
There are a couple of observations worth making here.
First of all, young earthism is not “the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history.” It is a cartoon caricature of “the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history” with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it. Genesis 1-11 has a lot of powerful and important things to say to us, but the idea that The Flintstones is a documentary is not one of them.
Secondly, this comment illustrates just how hostile young earth zealots are towards correction. One thing they like to do in particular is to quote mine the voice of the serpent, taking the words “Did God really say…?” out of context to try and shut down any challenges to their dogma. This approach is totally contradicted by other verses of Scripture such as 1 John 4:1:
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Or 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21:
Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
The Bible commands us to test everything that we are told. Scepticism, when applied properly, is an important weapon in every Christian’s armoury in the battle against deception. Not everybody who claims to be speaking the Word of God actually is speaking the Word of God. Quote mining Genesis 3:1 and Matthew 7:1 in that way to try to shut down critique and scrutiny is the exact polar opposite of what the Bible commands. There is no end to the number of cults and heresies that you could introduce in that way.
Finally, @Burrawang has on more than one occasion accused the entire scientific community of flat-out lying about the age of the earth and evolution. Given that such an accusation must extend to hundreds of thousands if not millions of scientists, over a period of more than two hundred years, acting in tight coordination with each other, it’s a bit rich to say “Judge not lest you yourself be judged” while proposing conspiracy theories on that scale.
It is not a “materialist, naturalist worldview,” nor is it any kind of “untruthful stranglehold on most of academia to toe the line” that tells us that the Earth is far older than six thousand years. It is measurement. Measurement whose interpretation is constrained by strict rules and protocols that are exactly the same whether you are a Christian or an atheist, whether God is at work or not. And it doesn’t just come from academia either. Deep geological time plays a crucial role in searching for oil. Deep geological time even plays a crucial role in improving safety in coal mines. See for example W John Nelson, Geological Disturbances in Illinois Coal Seams, Illinois State Geological Survey, 1983:
This is a situation where geologists have to be scrupulously honest about their findings and their models of the history of the formations they are studying. They can’t afford to adjust their geology to fit their ideology, for the simple reason that doing so would kill people.
thank you for your reply and stating your beliefs.
Your statement, “If YEC is true, then almost nothing in science is.” reveals the final authority on which you base your beliefs is science. We should all, always trust the Word of God over man’s feeble and flawed understanding of the creation and how it operates.
Although you refer to people who make the valid “distinction of historical and observational science” it is clear you do not agree the distinction is valid.
When you use the term “science” here in your claim, you clearly make no distinction whatsoever between real empirical science and historical or forensic science, which includes major aspects of disciplines such as geology and biology with regard to the origins question about what happened in the distant past, e.g.,those questions we all have about the age and origins of the rock formations and strata, and, how the diversity of life on Earth came to be as it is.
There is much in “science” that is empirically testable and repeatable by any other scientists of the same discipline that allows us to draw reasonable conclusions about the subject under empirical investigation.
The conclusions and consequential beliefs drawn from historical origins questions about what happened in the past are most assuredly not the same as conclusions and consequential beliefs drawn from empirically testable science; thus using blanket statements such as “If YEC is true, then almost nothing in science is” is not at all valid or even a reasonable statement.
The Bible does not change. Science textbooks most assuredly do!
What will those who believe like you do, if/when “science” discards evolution as a falsified theory?
Gods Word The Bible is the final authority on the origins question and the history of the Earth.
God is faithful and true and would not mislead us into false beliefs.
I know that Jesus is Lord of ALL, and that He has paid the price in full for my numerous sins and for every other sinner on Earth, through His unfathomable Love for me and every other person on Earth. I will trust the The Bible all the days of my life until my physical existence ceases in this realm.
Well my authority is the Bible, but I’m with @rsewell on this one.
Why? Because the Bible says this:
13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. — Deuteronomy 25:13-16
The Bible has far, far, far, far more to say about how we are to approach science than about what results we should expect it to give. Any creation model, any interpretation of Genesis 1, any challenge to the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth or evolution must obey those verses. This means that there are rules that you must follow and standards that you must maintain. If you want to argue that the Earth is only six thousand years old rather than 4.5 billion, or that humans and animals are unrelated, or that the Flood covered everywhere from the Rockies to the Appalachians to the Alps to the Himalayas, then you must do so without quote mining, fudging measurements, misrepresenting or cherry-picking evidence, exaggerating or downplaying sources of error, claiming that scientists make assumptions that they do not, claiming that the assumptions that they do make are not testable when in actual fact they are, or attacking straw man mischaracterisations of evolution that are not what is taught in any school or university textbook. To do any of these things in the process of arguing for a young earth, a global Flood, or independent human ancestry, is not “trusting the Word of God over man’s feeble and flawed understanding of the creation and how it operates”; it is lying.
This is because “real empirical science” and “historical or forensic science” share a common set of rules. All aspects of disciplines such as geology and biology with regard to the origins question about what happened in the distant past have to obey the same rules. The fact that nobody was there to see things happen is not a licence to quote mine, fudge measurements, misrepresent or cherry-pick evidence, exaggerate or downplay sources of error, claim that scientists make assumptions that they do not, claim that the assumptions that they do make are not testable when in fact they are, or attack straw man mischaracterisations of evolution that are not what is taught in any school or university textbook. It is rules such as these that enable us to determine what happened in the distant past without having been there to see it happen. It is rules such as these that allow us to differentiate between a 6,000 year old Earth and a 4.5 billion year old Earth. It is rules such as these that allow us to differentiate between common ancestry of humans and animals and independent human ancestry. It is rules such as these that people who try to make a distinction between “operational” and “historical” science either do not understand or else wilfully ignore.
Yes, and it is God’s Word, as the final authority, that commands us to tell the truth. It is God’s Word, as the final authority, that tells us that we must not fudge measurements, misrepresent evidence, or make slanderous accusations and conspiracy theories against honest and hard working paleontologists, geochronologists and evolutionary biologists, many of whom are themselves our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is God’s Word, as the final authority, that tells us that obedience is better than sacrifice. You may think that it’s a sacrifice to proclaim a young earth, a global Flood or non-evolution, but trying to support such a position with falsehood, misinformation or fudged measurements is disobedience.
Hi James,
your agreement with Ron is of course your prerogative.
My authority is the Bible as I have already stated.
The inference you make that the Biblical quotation of Deuteronomy 25:13-16 is relevant is hard to connect with what I have stated. The passage quoted is about people cheating other people by using false weights and measures. The relevance to the passage is not there, though I do get that you are insinuating that I am being dishonest and making false statements. I absolutely refute that.
It is not I that is making a dishonest, weird interpretation of Genesis, the reading of Genesis as real historical fact is clear to anyone who reads the verses whether they lived thousands of years ago, or today or in the future.
Evolution, Deep Time of Billions of Years and the Big Bang explanation of origins are very recent beliefs by the many who have passed through the educational system of many countries.
I honestly and sincerely believe that Evolution, Deep Time of Billions of Years and the Big Bang explanation of origins (are false teachings that do serious damage to the good news of the atonement for all of our sins by our Creator, Jesus the Christ and Messiah) are indeed false teachings based on many assumptions and flawed reasoning that presupposes those same beliefs to be true at the outset.
I sincerely hope that each will be exposed as false teaching and falsified by more and more scientists around the world in the not too distant future. As there is a vice grip on academia that doesn’t tolerate dissent from anyone, about all three but evolution in particular, I do not know if my sincere hope will eventuate in the near future.
Of course there are rules and standards that is a given, and they are honestly upheld by the practicing scientists I know and know of, who have published many fine papers in peer reviewed journals and contrary to your assertions believe the Bible as meaning exactly what it so plainly states,Genesis is history, the fall in the garden of Eden was a real event by the first man, Adam and the global flood was a real global event.
Of course the Earth is only around about six thousand years old in Earth years as measured here on Earth; that figure is readily determined by adding the genealogies of the descendant line from Adam in the Bible by taking God at His Word from His Word. There is no dishonesty, or any of the many false and derogatory assertions you falsely claim to be fact.
As all of creation was designed and made by our Creator, the Son, the Lord Jesus, is it hard for you to comprehend that the designer used similar design for the living creatures He made that live in the same environment as each other. I have no difficulty seeing the amazingly brilliant design with built in redundancy, for example, the incomprehensibly complex information transmission technology in DNA that is heritable to each generation in living things including us humans, made in the image of God.
The Bible makes it as clear as crystal that the flood of Noah’s day was global, to suggest anything other than that is dishonest.
Genesis 7
10 Now it came about after the seven days, that the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. 12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
…
17 Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.
18 The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. 20 The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
21 So all creatures that moved on the earth perished: birds, livestock, animals, and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind;
22 of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. 23 So He wiped out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from mankind to animals, to crawling things, and the birds of the sky, and they were wiped out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark.
24 The water prevailed upon the earth for 150 days.
What do you think we should expect to find if a flood as described in the Bible covered the entire planet over the highest mountains for150 days.
The answer is that we would find precisely what we do in fact find, things such as vast continental scale sedimentary formations that are hundreds to thousands of metres thick with exquisitely preserved fossils scattered throughout many parts of the strata all over the globe. The entrapped and buried vegetative matter from the cataclysmic event of the flood that formed the coal, oil and natural gas deposits also found all over the planet including in Antarctica and under the ocean basins.
I am not being dishonest or misconstruing the absolutely clear teachings in the holy scriptures. You imply that I am not telling the truth, I vehemently refute that derogatory false accusation.
Jon, do you advocate for a flat earth or at least a geocentric earth as described in the Bible? Or do you allow your interpretation to be guided by what has been learned by scientific inquiry?
All science must ultimately agree with observation. While “historical science” is a applicable label in a trivial sense, evidence of past processes are not exempt from observational rigor.
Observation generally means careful measurement. The instrumentation of science fuels discovery, which in turn advances instrumentation. We can now sample DNA in dirt, detect the polarization of light from black holes, and measure the magnetic moment of electrons to fantastic precision. That exactness of data provides means to test scientific ideas. As @jammycakes points out, honesty in measurement began with a proper balance scale, and the principle extends to all the instruments of science.
Historical science is similar to much of science which cannot be directly seen. No one has ever directly seen a neutrino. Has anyone ever been there in the core of the sun? But scientists always knew that the creationist claim that nuclear fusion was not responsible for the heat of the sun was disingenuous, because that claim was not based on scientifically established principles, but rather on zealotry for a young earth.
Absolutely. That is why archeological samples are often sent to different dating laboratories to cross validate results. The methods and materials section of journal papers are nothing but empirical. Historical science is as empirical and peer reviewed as any area of investigation.
This really doesn’t say anything. Is that not exactly what you would expect? The Bible is an ancient document that is what it has been for two thousand years. Science is always making new discoveries and refining ideas, and a current text will be up to date. But in the main these changes are details. Do you expect the witchcraft hypothesis of disease to make a comeback? the idea of infinitely divisible matter to gain support? the latest revision of an earth science textbook to recant a spherical planet? Be assured that an ancient earth will remain in textbooks indefinitely, because we cannot unknow the incontrovertible evidence detailing its history.
The Earth rotates.
Day and night occur simultaneously on different parts of the Earth.
The Genesis writer knew nothing of this “the earth is spherical” and “day and night occur simultaneously on different part of the earth”. The cosmology of the writer if the first Creation story was a universe full of water where dry land existed because God had pushed the waters aside and put a solid dome over it.
And that’s the problem with YEC: they won’t let the scripture be what it is, they demand that it be something they can understand without having to do the work of studying to understand what the Creation accounts are.
I vaguely recall contemplating smacking a gal in a Bible study who loved using that to shut down discussion and examination of a passage. If it had been a guy I might have gone ahead.
But my response to “God works in a mysterious way” is “Yes, He respected His chosen writers enough to let them write in their own language using literary forms they were familiar with and applying the elements of their worldview”.
The Bible’s demands for accurate and honest measurements apply to every context in which measurement is used. No exceptions, no excuses. They apply whether buying and selling is involved or not. They apply whether cheating other people in transactions is involved or not. To suggest otherwise is to demand the right to tell lies, and if that’s what you’re doing (as no less than fourteen other young earthists have done before you) then I’m not just insinuating anything; I’m stating it as a fact. Not having accurate and honest measurements is lying, by definition.
Determining the age of the earth and the ages of rock strata involves measuring things. Determining who did or did not evolve from what involves measuring things. Determining where, when or how extensive Noah’s Flood could have been involves measuring things. Studying the historical sciences involves measuring things. Therefore Deuteronomy 25:13-16 applies to those subjects. Period. End of story. It’s not up for discussion. Your choice is simple: accept it and obey it, or be considered a liar.
And no, you can’t just refute something by saying “I refute that.” If you want to refute something then you must provide evidence and sound reasoning to back up your refutation. Otherwise you’re just shouting into the wind.
The fact remains that God has created physical evidence in the world that we live in. That physical evidence contains attributes that can be measured, such as the amount of lead in zircon crystals for example. Those measurements are not consistent with a six thousand year old earth and cannot be reconciled with a six thousand year old earth in any way, shape or form. Attempts to do so consistently break just about every rule of accurate and honest weights and measurements that I’m aware of, often in very blatant and egregious ways. If you want to challenge that assertion then we’ll need to drill down into specifics, and you will need to justify the young earthists’ approach to measurement in accordance with the rules and principles by which measurement operates, but I’ve done an in-depth study of Answers in Genesis’s top ten claims of evidence for a young earth to get you started:
Actually, the flood as described in the Bible is about water rising. There is nothing there at all about sedimentary formations and the landscape being reshaped. In fact, there is continuity of reference to geography such as the Euphrates River. As described in the Bible.
I know nothing of a flat Earth belief. I certainly do not believe that the Earth is flat.
I do wonder somewhat about what verses in the Bible are used by followers of Biologos beliefs to support the belief that people in the day that Genesis was written believed that the Earth was flat.
I do believe that people way back in ancient times around about three thousand years ago, were extremely intelligent, capable people that would run rings around us so called modern humans today.
If they had the collective knowledge that we have today, the difference between them and us would be apparent, and we would be the ones with the lesser intellect and reasoning capacity.
I think they understood the creation very well, and certainly far better than many in the Biologos belief system camp give them credit for in their imaginations.
In contrast I think it is highly likely that the ancients knew very well that the Earth was a sphere, after all they viewed the moon and the sun as we still see them today as circles, it is not too hard to see that with high intellect as I am sure they had, they would have seen those circles as spheres or balls.
Take for example the passage, "It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to live in. "Isaiah 40:22 NASB Notwithstanding the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired the author to write what he wrote, it is clear that they knew then that the Earth was a circle and it is highly likely in my opinion that the correct translation interpretation would be better rendered as globe or sphere.
Quoting Dominic Statham (Scientist and Chartered Engineer) on this matter:
The first line of Isaiah 40:22 reads, “It is he [i.e. God] who sits above the circle of the earth.” Some have argued from this that Scripture teaches the earth to be a flat disc, rather than a globe. However, even if the original Hebrew is correctly understood to refer to a circle, this doesn’t necessarily indicate something flat; a sphere appears as a circle when seen from above—and indeed from whatever direction it is viewed. Moreover, there is good reason to believe that the word translated ‘circle’ might be better translated ‘sphere’.
The Hebrew word in question is khûg (חוּג) which is also found in Job 22:14 where, in many Bible versions, it is translated ‘vault’. For example, the New American Standard Bible reads, “Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; and He walks on the vault of heaven.” Clearly ‘vault’ carries the sense of something three-dimensional and is given as the primary meaning of khûg in the well-known Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Reference:Brown, F. et al., Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Hendrikson Publishers, USA, p. 295, reprinted January 1999 from the 1906 edition; Strong's Hebrew: 2329. חוּג (chug) -- vault, horizon.
In modern Hebrew, a sphere is denoted by khûg, along with kaddur, galgal, and mazzal.
Reference: Ben-Yehuda, E. and Ben-Yehuda, D, Hebrew Dictionary, Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster), USA, p. 252, 1961.
In Arabic (another Semitic language), kura means ball and is the word used in the Van Dyck-Boustani Arabic Bible (1865) to translate khûg in (Isaiah 40:22)
Various sixteenth century Latin Bibles indicate that medieval scholars understood khûg in Isaiah 40:22 to refer to the sphericity of the earth. For example, Santes Pagnino translated this sphaera, and Benedictus Arias Montanus and François Vatable globus. The seventeenth century Giovanni Diodati Bible also used globus and the eighteenth century Dutch Hebraist Campeius Vitringa used orbis. Reference:John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, footnote to [Isaiah 40:22]; biblestudytools.com.
More recently, the Spanish Jerusalem Bible used ‘orb’ and the Italian Riveduta Bible ‘globo’.
I would be most grateful if you would outline why you believe this is an important matter worth raising.
And totally clueless that “evening . . . morning” aren’t the boundaries of a day, they’re the boundaries of a night. In the ancient near east, night was an intrusion of darkness-chaos into the ordered Creation, something the gods had to fight against every time the sun went down in order that the sun could pass through the underworld and start another day. The use and repetition of the “evening . . . morning” motif drives home the point that the period of darkness called “night” is just another thing that YHWH-Elohim made for His purposes, not a manifestation of chaos that has to be defeated over and over.
They tend to just ignore the issue because it’s obvious that an Earth that’s a globe can’t be made to fit the worldview of the writer of the first Creation account. That writer’s Earth was a flat disc with dry land surrounded by waters on the sides, below the underworld, and above the solid dome overhead.
Even taking the account literally that’s a silly statement because we aren’t given a clue as to how long the Spirit meditated over the deep.
Statements like these make me wonder if the man has actually read the text, because the answer is fairly simple: the Adversary fell when he learned that these creatures made of dust were destined to outrank him and he resented it. At his first appearance he is already trying to take Yahweh’s place in the lives of humans by getting them to question what Yahweh had said and casting doubt on Yahweh’s integrity.
So what makes sense to you is actually correct.
Inspiration does not mean God took over the minds of His chosen writers. He respected them enough to let them write in ways that would actually communicate to the intended audience, i.e. using literary forms they were familiar with and working within their worldview.
Ah, good old circular reasoning – or just sheer arrogance, assuming that it isn’t necessary to study in order to understand.
There was no such genre as “historical narrative”, so it can’t be that. In fact the first Creation story is two ancient literary genres at once: ‘royal chronicle’ and ‘temple inauguration’ – and it has to be read that way or you throw out almost the entire message.
And since neither of those is history, the account cannot be history.
Honest translations always lose something in the translation, starting with the ancient literary type being used. As with any writing, unless you know the literary type you have no hope of understanding the writing regardless of how faithfully the translator chose his words.
It has nothing to do with trust, it has to do with how God relates to humans: He lets us be ourselves, which means He lets us write in ways that we understand.
Where is that written?
See, your very foundation isn’t found in the scripture – it relies on making stuff up that isn’t in the text.
“Christians who believe the clearly stated reality of Genesis” would be those who have enough respect for the Holy Spirit to recognize that He did not overrule the minds of His chosen writers but let them write in ways that would mean something to their audiences.
I set myself up as judge over those who arrogantly assume they can understand the scriptures without actually having to study because it’s my duty.
Because that’s what those Christians are doing – they’re reading a translation as though it was some simple form of literature they can understand without having to put any work in.
Yes – because the Creation stories were not meant as history; those Christians are imposing something on the text that is not found in it: nowhere is it written that the Old Testament scriptures are intended to be historically and scientifically accurate; that idea is imported. It’s a definition of truth that can’t be found in the scriptures anywhere but comes from scientific materialism.
Sorry, but that’s exactly what they do the moment they assert that the scriptures have to be scientifically and historically accurate to be true – that definition of truth does not come from the scriptures, it comes from scientific materialism.
I’m not interested in science. YEC operates by requiring the scriptures to be something they never claim to be by insisting that they teach science at all.
That’s a story that fundamentalists have made up; it is not reality. I had adamant atheist science professors and agnostic ones and not a one excluded God in the a priori fashion you put forth – they just recognized, as did my Christian (and Muslim and Hindu) professors that science has no way to measure or test for God.
Again, where is that in the text?
When someone claims that the scriptures have to be 100% scientifically and historically accurate to be true, it’s obvious that they are not believing the Bible because the Bible never defines truth that way – that definition comes from scientific materialism, nowhere else. Very few Christians have bothered to examine their own worldview, they just assume that the one from the culture they were raised in is correct and apply it to the scriptures without bothering to ask if the scriptures actually fit their worldview.
I do, by reading it in the original languages as the types of ancient literature it was written as. Reading it any other way is a trap that has caught many down the centuries, a trap that all too often has resulted in heresy.
Genesis is not clear when read in English with a modern worldview because it wasn’t written in English and has almost no point of contact with a modern worldview.
I absolutely agree, and on that single point, the crux of this matter is exposed, the things which have occurred in the distant past at creation and shortly thereafter, are not observable, i.e. we do not have a time machine, to go back and observe them happening, but we do have an eyewitness account from the Living God who created it all and who holds all of creation in existence, even now.
Of course,
but no matter how much genuinely honest and meticulous experimental rigour is applied to events that occurred thousands of years ago, the derived results do NOT hold the same gravitas as those observed from events that happen in the present, that are directly observable, and repeatable without having to make many assumptions that may or may not be correct.
Are you seriously claiming that radiometric dating does not incorporate algorithms that apply multiple assumptions about the samples history since it was presumed to have formed?
Perhaps you miss the point, that is that, the Bible remains ever current, ever correct and forever applicable whereas science textbooks by their very nature are always imperfect, reflections of the current state of knowledge, and probably not even that as for many years after the Piltdown Man Hoax was uncovered and the Ernst Haeckel Fake Photo’s supporting evolution were exposed, the science textbooks continued to reprint the false and deceptive evolution supporting alleged “facts”.
This is called “making stuff up” – the writer of the first Creation account didn’t know anything about a rotating Earth; his understanding of Earth was a flat disk with a solid dome over it with water all around, i.e. on the edges, below the underworld, and above the solid dome.
It’s also called “forcing your worldview on ancient writings”. You’ll never understand what a writer meant unless you work at seeing things from his understanding.
But again, unfortunately you either misunderstand me or misrepresent what I said. I did not say anything about what the writer of the first creation account knew or didn’t know.
All I said is that, “It is likely that the Earth was already rotating from the beginning.”
I may be wrong too, I certainly do not claim to know for sure, but I have concluded in my own mind, that as the Bible clearly states in Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
it is fairly reasonable to think that the Earth was rotating from the beginning, because when God created light, He separated the light from the darkness as day and night which we know is precisely what occurs even now on the Earth, as half the planet is in day and the opposite half is in darkness. Constantly moving into the future in time, as the planet rotates, day and night move continuously into the future. Time is expressed in the first Chapter of Genesis as the passing of the numbered days, that I understand to be days as we know them now in everyday life.
It makes a mockery of the Holy Spirit as well since a “strict, literal approach” requires that the Spirit have taken possession of the writers’ minds to get them to write in a very alien worldview.
Yep. YEC requires picking and choosing when to read literally and when not, when to force a modern cosmology on ancient writers and when not. The only consistent approach is to read ancient literature as the ancient literature it is – what Dr. Michael Heiser calls “let the Bible be what it is”.
Nicely and succinctly put.
Just the opening Creation story has enough to say to us that it could fill entire books – and most of it is thrown out by the YEC approach. Reading that account in the light of its ancient literary types and in its historical and worldview setting brings out glory that a YEC approach misses.
I heartily endorse the first sentence here!
But I’ve never quite made the connection you show in the rest of it anywhere near as clearly as you put it.
This is true not just in terms of oil and coal; geologists who are assessing the viability of a construction site have the same issue – and in fact in one instance on the US west coast a bit of dishonesty by a geologist got people killed when a building under construction suddenly headed for the beach. I don’t know if there was any ideology involved, but there was dishonesty.
. Why did they still insist that 