I recently came across a YEC apologist named Justin Derby, who has some pretty interesting videos. I found them useful to know about YECs and the arguments they use nowadays. One I found particularly interesting was this one:
Was Jesus really a YEC? Or was he speaking in a different way?
Justin really believes that the age of the earth and age of the universe is due to an environmentalist world view? Kind of hard to believe when the great age of the earth was first proposed 100 years before Darwin. And last time I checked biologists donât try to date the earth.
For someone who claims to have studied apologetics he seems strangely unfamiliar with all of the other interpretations of Genesis. Some of which date back to the early church fathers.
Need I say more?
I did ask someone the other day, âwhen Jesus was on Earth did He know everything? Did he always know that he was supposed to be the Messiah and was the son of God?â
They replied âof course, he is God.â
I told them that at the very least, reading the text literally, you have to admit that Jesus did not know the day or the hour while he was on Earth (Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36). Then I proposed another question, âdo you think Jesus knew quantum mechanics?â
The answer was less enthusiastic at this point, but they leaned more towards the negative at this point (I think this is okay because most people donât know much about quantum mechanics). And then, one more question from me, âdo you think Jesus knew the Earth was round and rotating around the sun?â
That was the end of our discussion.
Note: I havenât watched the video above but it seems quite painful from what @Bill_II and @jammycakes described.
This YEC argument goes like this:
Premise: Jesus referred to Genesis.
Premise: Genesis teaches the earth was created 6,000 years ago.
Conclusion: Therefore Jesus teaches the earth was created 6,000 years ago.
There are two problems with this logic. One, the second premise is not established by either of the NT passages. We are just being asked to take it as a given. Two, the conclusion in no way follows from the combination of the first and second premises. Jesus makes reference to Genesis to teach that marriage is a God-ordained institution.
Would you accept this logical argument?
In Matthew 12:38-41, Jesus refers to the sign of Jonah. We read in the book of Jonah that he was swallowed by a âbig fishâ where he stayed for three days. Scientists at the Institute for Literal Jonah have concluded that this âbig fishâ was a whale shark. Therefore, we can say that Jesus clearly taught that whale sharks can be dangerous, but even in the belly of a whale shark God still hears your prayers.
It basically follows the same form.
Well, he is a very smart apologist, but his arguments are pretty weak, like those he used in his video where he âdebunksâ William Lane Craigâs arguments against YEC.
While his videos refuting Bible âcontradictionsâ are really well made, he definitely knows little when it comes to debunking OEC and EC.
Well, Jesus had to teach using things and stories that his followers were familiar with. He used the story of Adam and Eve for people to understand what he meant.
Say you are a millionaire YEC who had the fastest car in the world⌠the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport ⌠WITH the special little slide out container holding your toll booth change ⌠and you stopped to give Jesus a ride!
Would you let him drive the car home?
Do you think because he is the mortal manifestation of God, he knows
how to drive a stick shift? Do you think the one human being in the whole world who, according to Church
Father doctrine, is of Two Wills but One Body, would be able to infallibly drive a stick shift he had never seen
before without grinding the gears even a little?
2000 years ago, there was no reason not to believe humans were made from dust⌠The Persians believed humans were made from rhubarb plants (red veins in leaves, and so forth) - - at least rhubarb is alive, right?
To me, thatâs the ultimate faith âŚ
âThereâs your problemâ
They believe for some reason that Jesus had God-like powers, though Iâm not sure where the get that from?
If you agree to be in a play, you take on that character. Letâs say your character is a mute person. If you start speaking in the middle of the play, you ruin it. But even if you fully take on the character perfectly, you are still you.
Jesus agreed to our human rules when he became a human. Just like us, He had animal tendencies, that could be overcome through God with the original blessing man was given. He was 100% human in every way. He was tempted, He got tired, He probably banged His thumb a few times with a hammer when learning carpentry, He read and learned from the scriptures, He prayed, and the Holy Spirit gave Him strength to not sin, and to perform other miracles.
Though Jesus had no Godly powers, He was still Him (100% God) He created the wind and the seas, so He still had authority over them. He had authority over sin and forgave some people. But He didnât have knowledge of everything. He didnât know astrophysics, or how a computer works nor how old the earth was, like any human of that time, because He was a restricted fully human, lacking the powers of God.
Sure, God, could have revealed to Jesus the actual age of the earth, just like He could tell us that. Though I see no reason to need to know this, so my guess is Jesus wasnât revealed this. Knowing the age of the earth is such small fries in comparison with loving God and others. We canât be trusted with heavenly things because we get so bent out of shape with earth insignificant things.
It is mind boggling how this guy can think Jesus thought the age of the earth is of any importance. That is like saying the story about the boy that cried wolf is crucial to say wolf because using bear or lion would ruin the message. Sure, Jesus mentions Genesis, like one might say mention wolf when telling that story. But the wolf isnât the point of the story! The point is, not lying to get attention/help because when you need it, no one will believe you. God is glorified in our loving others, not having knowledge of such insignificant things!
I think all these arguments are terrible full of false dichotomies. âJesus was YEC, and said YEC is important, so if YEC is wrong, we canât trust Jesusâ???
God created them male and female before creation or at the beginning of creation. All that means, is He had a plan in mind to create us as we now are, we are an endstate. Before or at the Big Bang, that happened for us, we were known. The earth came from the Big Bang, all the universal constants required for life were known at or before the Big Bang.
If something is created, it is for a reason, with purpose. We were created, male and female at the beginning of creation.
There is nothing Jesus says that rules out evolution.
True that. It occurs to me that you can make a good argument that Jesus makes a point of pointing out that Genesis speaks to the proper relationships both in marriage and by implication with the rest of creation rather than materialistic origins, which he is not addressing in those passages. Therefore, we can say that Jesus believed the Genesis story was relational, but is silent on any scientific views, as you would expect to be the case, given his time in history
@TedDavis and I are collaborating on an article addressing this exact question. Published this week or next. Stay tuned!
Great news!
Jesus is also quoted as saying some things that you would not expect to hear from any sort of fundamentalist enthusiast promoting absolutes. Specifically in one passage (Matthew 19) Jesus uses the curious phrase regarding eunuchs: ânot everybody can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is givenâ ⌠he later adds: âlet anyone accept this who can.â Being God, he could have pronounced on the matter, telling us all that âxy and zâ here is the truth whether you accept it or not. And maybe he actually is doing that in the way of his time. But he attaches a curious humility to the teaching that we donât see echoed in pronouncements by todayâs doctrinaire guardians. He seems to make allowance for people thinking differently about things and perhaps not being ready to accept some teachings; and maybe never being ready! --and that being okay!
That is one beautiful songâŚ
Thank you @ManiacalVesalius. I donât know anyone who was in such a situation ⌠and still old related memories seemed to leak from my eyes⌠thank you for the catharthisâŚ
Hey look, @TedDavis just wrote about this!
My instincts would answer, Yes (the earth is round) and No (itâs also at rest). My assumptions: on this type of thing, Jesus knew what other literate Hebrews in the first century knew; and, Jesus might have known some Greek.
If he was familiar at all with Hellenistic thought (i.e., Greek ideas as found in those parts of the world conquered by Alexander), then he might have known that the earth is round, and perhaps even have had a rough idea of how big it is. Almost all Greek thinkers after the early fourth century BC knew the earth is round, and ideas about its size circulated from Aristotleâs time. Its size was measured pretty decently in the third century B.C. Most Christian thinkers who knew about it (such as Augustine) didnât contest the earthâs round shape, though its size seems not to have been worth mentioning for the most part.
But, perhaps Jesus didnât know about that science. Nothing in the Bible suggests an answer, either way.
I think the best part of your answer is your implied position that God-In-Carnated (God in the Flesh) did not automatically have perfect knowledge of all things.
Itâs difficult to get Evangelicals to sign-up for that position.
Jesus emptied himself to become fully human. A significant part of being human is being limited in physical ability and knowledge. Another way to look at this is that to be human is to be âin timeâ as opposed to being âout of timeâ or encompassing time. Now being fully God and fully man makes it possible to say Jesus knew everything or that he only knew what He learned and and what the Holy Spirit told him.
A safer statement is that Jesus did not care about scientific issues of any sort and gave no support to any possible modern interpretive position. It follows that to assert that Jesus did so is to give false witness.
Here, speaking as a Sunday School teacher and a sometimes lay speaker, God response to Jobâs three friends must be cautionary. Job needed to, and did, offer sin canceling sacrifice for Jobs friends for their misrepresentation of God
Jesus even said that there were things he didnât know, such as the timing of his second coming. (That hasnât stopped his followers from scheduling another rapture every 6 months or so.)
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.
