No resources here, but I know that if you compare them they do not all agree. Not what I would consider to be accurate history.
What biblical reasons are there to accept the scientific view of the earth as billions of years old?
Excellent point. This demonstrates that the ancient Hebrew way of doing historiography is very different from the modern way.
This is the big hang-up that our friend and brother @Mike_Gantt is facing: He is trying to apply modern historical methods to ancient texts which were written with ancient historical methods. Since the two historical methods are so different, he is spending enormous energy trying to reconcile them so there will be agreement when viewed from the perspective of modern historiography
While the motivation is admirable and the amount of work he is doing is prodigious, the effort can only end in tohu wa bohu. You canât square a circle, and you canât get an ancient historiography to conform to modern historiographical standards. I suggest the alternative of recognizing the cultural context of the ancient texts, the better to learn from them. The texts we are studying are the word of God to us, when all is said and done!
Chris, do you think this difference in historiography can close the gap between thousands of years and billions of years? If so, please explain how. If not, why talk about it as if it were material to the question at hand?
Many people have worked on the genealogies. Some to magnify the apparent problems, some to minimize them. Some for yet other reasons. With respect to the problem at hand, however, unless you believe that a different historiography, or even sloppy recordkeeping as some think, caused over 4 billion years to be left out of the Bibleâs historical record, why talk about it as if itâs material?
Hi Mike,
Always good to talk with you!
The reason is very simple: the Biblical texts point very strongly in that direction.
The strength of my conviction does not spring from science/Scripture issues. Rather, I am intimately familiar with how difficult it is to translate some concepts from one cultural context to another, even when those contexts both exist in the same era and share enormous amounts of information. Now add in the fact that the two cultural contexts we have been discussing, the ancient Hebrew and the modern Western, are so vastly separated in time and information exchange, and you see how difficult the task is. This is why it is so important to carefully inspect the meanings of terms in their literary contexts. Walton did so with the term tohu wa bohu, and my own examination of the evidence finds that his conclusions are very well supported.
Therefore the subject of Genesis 1 is how God arranged the creation so that we could dwell fruitfully in it, and so that He Himself could ârestâ in the creation. As Walton discusses, ârestâ is not disengagement from work, but is engagement in work without obstacles. Walton offers a helpful analogy: the six days are like setting up a computer, and God entering rest on the 7th day is like being able to use the computer to communicate with friends or perform other productive labor.* This parallels the view in Hebrews 4, which invites us to enter into Godâs rest. Does this mean we no longer work? No, we do work; but we no longer labor unfruitfully in a vain attempt to accomplish what cannot be done. Instead, we enter into the new creation in Christ, a creation in which God has ordered things anew so that we can work with His energy to accomplish His purposes.
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter
*Although one may question the productivity of participating in internet discussion forums⌠
But, as Iâve been saying to others commenting on this subject, unless you think the inaccuracies can close the gap between 6,000 and 4,543,000,000, whatâs the point?
Variations of this theme show up frequently. An obvious example is that numerical precision is more important to us, and if we judge ancient writings (he had 5000 cattle, rather than he had approximately 5000 cattle) by our standards they sound suspicious. Also, we demand quotes to be exact quotes, while in biblical times a reasonable paraphrase was also a âquoteâ, which may explain slight dialog differences in the gospels. But my favorite arises in the Roman Catholic doctrine of Maryâs perpetual virginity. As a Protestant I was taught this was obviously false, then I was surprised to learn that both Calvin and Luther affirmed the doctrine, and affirmed the RC position that Jesusâ âbrothersâ were probably his cousins. Now, I donât consider this doctrine of any more than academic interest, and I can accept that in Aramaic brother and cousin are apparently the same word, but what about Matt 1:25 but [Joseph] knew [Mary] not until she had given birth to a son. Isnât that clear? That after Jesus was born they had sex? How could John and Martin miss that? Until I learned, again, that we speak differently. In modern English a construct like not until she had given birth to a son implies the situation changed when Jesus was born. But in the east in biblical times, it means âthis only applies up to the until, and Iâm not saying anything about after that, so make no inferences.â
So yes, we have to go beyond having good translations and recognize that manners of speech were different as well.
(Edited for typos)
Hi Mike,
The fact that you are even asking this question implies that you are unable to step outside of the modern, Western way of viewing history.
I know from my experience in West Africa that stepping outside of oneâs own framework is very difficult to do, so please do not take my words as criticism.
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter
The point is: if the bible doesnât need consistent geneaologies (compare Chronicles to Genesis, etc)⌠I find it rather specious to insist on consistency in translating terminology that seems to elude the Bible!
I guess I just find it interesting. I jumped into a discussion of genealogiesâtrue I didnât consider whether the discussion was relevant to the OP.
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The point is the Bible doesnât treat history like you treat history.
Then my objection applies.
Whoa. You have no other verse besides Gen 1:2 to establish that the earth pre-dated âin the beginningâ?
Apparently, ancient Jews did not have a view similar to Waltonâs, else the history of their response to Ex 20:8-11 would be quite different.
As Iâve said before, Waltonâs temple motif is edifying but he demonstrates no textual or logical basis for saying that the Bible is silent about material origins.
Actually my point is that there is no Biblical basis for knowing the age of the earth from the text of the Bible. Not just seeking to know, but knowing the age of the earth from the text of the Bible. As I have pointed out, you have been using the genealogies to try and date the earth. However there is no Biblical basis for using them that way. So you are not reading the text on a Biblical basis.
I donât think itâs about that. God ceased from creating. The creation itself, however, continues to create. New life comes from life all over the place.
I donât see that itâs about that at all.
We know the Bible provides reliable ancient history about the matters to which it speaks directly, including information about origins. However it does not tell us the kind of information which scientists can tell us. Thatâs why we refer to scientists to comment on subjects on which the Bible is silent (such as the age of the earth). We can also use science the way you do, to determine when we are misreading the Bible. Galileo used it that way, and thatâs why his case is still relevant today.
I donât see that itâs an argument about that at all. Let scientists speak on science. As soon as they transgress their boundary and start speaking on theology as if it was science, just ignore them. Simple.
Well yes. But the way youâre mixing them up doesnât look like you have a clear view on these issues.
But summing the genealogies the way you do is not what the Bible tells us to do. Itâs not how the Bible reads itself. Youâre doing something which God never intended you to do with the Bible, and youâre doing it despite the fact that the Bible does something different. Why are you doing this?
You have one single data point on which to base the age of the earth; adding up the genealogies. The problem is that as soon as you start adding up the genealogies to get the age of the earth, you are doing something which you were never intended to do. The Bible doesnât read them this way, and thereâs no evidence that God intended you to read them this way. No one in the Bible gives any indication of caring about the age of the earth, or any evidence that they think we can calculate the age of the earth with the genealogies, or any evidence that they read the genealogies the way you do.
Does God want you to read the genealogies the way you do? No. So why do it?
Thatâs correct. However, this doesnât require you to add up the ages the way you do. If you just stuck to the way the Bible reads them your problem would immediately disappear. There is no reason to read them the way you are reading them.
You donât need to. The problem is you are not reading them the way the Bible intended. You are treating the ages as if they were references to people literally living for centuries. But no one in the Bible shows that they read them this way. You are not reading them the way the Bible reads them.
And as I have pointed out more than once, there is no need to close the gap, because there is no gap. The only gap is caused by the way you are reading the genealogies. You are creating a problem which didnât exist before you created it. Thatâs clear evidence that the way you are reading them is wrong.
Hi Mike,
Always happy to chat.
I am going to keep repeating this until you either realize what it is that Iâm talking about, or you tire of the subject:
Your question reveals that you are using modern, Western historiography to analyze an ancient text that was not written with modern, Western historiographic methods.
In the Genesis 1 text, âin the beginningâ is a reference to the conditions at the start of Godâs establishing order in creation. It makes a vital point in its cultural and literary context: the order in the creation is the work of the God of Israel. Without the hand of Yahweh, everything would be chaos.
There are two ways of responding to your objection. I donât know which is better, so I will mention them both:
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God was accommodating Himself and His revelation to an ancient culture. A proclamation that the universe is billions of years old does not make sense to an observer who is relying on the superficial observations that can be made with the naked eye in Palestine. Getting past that hurdle relies on the ability to solve Einsteinâs field equations of general relativity, or at least to trust those astrophysicists who have the ability. âIsrael wants to believe that the earth was made in 6 days? If it helps them to honor me every week,â God might have said, âitâs not a problem. Einstein will come along later.â
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In many cultural contexts, it is possible to transpose between narratives without insisting on exact mathematical translations. In other words, perhaps the Israelites were sophisticated enough to understand that their weekly routine was a figurative representation of the functional origins account in Genesis 1.
Actually, Walton does not say that at all. You statement seems to be operating under the hypothesis that the Bible is a single book written at a single time with a single audience and cultural context, such that an exegesis of Genesis 1 implies that the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John have to be exegeted in identical fashion. If youâll step back and think about the Bible, though, youâll surely realize thatâs not the case.
In fact, Walton explicitly affirms that the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is supported by Biblical passages other than Genesis 1.
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter
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The two seem to cancel each other out - the first requiring the Israelites to have been so dull they couldnât be expected to imagine anything beyond what they could see, and the second requiring them to be sharp enough to take a non-intuitive leap.
Here are Waltonâs own words from the BioLogo website [emphasis added]:
If we are correct in identifying Genesis 1 as a creation account that intends to inaugurate the functioning cosmic temple, then that interpretation is going to express the truths being conveyed by the biblical author. When we seek to take the Bible seriously, we would therefore no longer have to try to defend the âbiblicalâ view of the age of the earth. The age of the earth is a material issue not addressed in a functional account. Likewise, if Genesis 1 is not an account of material origins, the Bible offers no account of material origins. If that is the case, then empirical science could not possibly offer a view of material origins that we would have to reject in defense of the Bible.
Please explain.
I will say this for Walton, if he is right that there is no âempirical science [that] couldâŚpossibly offer a view of material origins that we would have to reject in defense of the Bible,â then he will have done a service for believers - and for unbelievers as a result - that is of immeasurable value. On the other handâŚ
I first came across Walton a few years ago. I found some of his ANE research edifying, but my study of him reached a point of diminishing returns very quickly. Because so many here at BioLogos view him positively, Iâve tried to take a fresh look at anything of his brought up by someone. But so far, I have been underwhelmed. If you can help me understand the apparent difference between the position he stakes out for himself in the above quote and the position that you think he actually holds, it would help.
By the way, if this is what you think I think, you should not rely on what you think I think.
I donât take your words as critical of me per se, but you do come across as condescending toward me. I donât mind if you think Iâm dumb. But when you seem to think Iâm so dumb that itâs not worth trying to explain yourself, it does limit what I might be able to learn from you. For example, you not only wouldnât answer my question - you didnât even explain to me how I could rephrase it to make it acceptable. Is my question really that idiotic?
The point at which I think Walton and many of his followers, perhaps you included, go too far with the ANE research is to assume that unless one is deeply steeped in it, he cannot understand what the biblical text is saying. Stop a minute and realize that while extending oneâs horizontal view of a given text is helpful, so also is maintaining the vertical view - âhorizontalâ referring to the cultural context, and âverticalâ referring to the succession of texts, most building on each other and referring to each other, that comprise the biblical canon. Whatever we learn from a better horizontal view cannot supersede what we know from a vertical point of view - if for no other reason than for the reason that Scripture interprets Scripture better than surrounding pagan cultures can interpret Scripture.
Obviously the Bible can be interpreted as supporting either an old earth or a young earth. And on the BioLogos forum, itâs probably obvious to you that the majority interpret the Bible as supporting an old earth.
My faith doesnât rest on the age of the earth. It rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In fact, all of Christian truth rests on His resurrection. If He is not raised, there is no Christian truth. We who follow him are but dupes and fools.
Jesus is therefore the cornerstone of truth in my life. In living for Him, I try to find the right stones to lay alongside and atop. Some stones - such as the one that brought me to BioLogos - prove to be particularly tricky. Fortunately, there are a lot of other stones Iâve been able to find that were easier to put in place.
By the way, I have a lot of evidence that the PTA meeting was held at school last night: letter in the mail, note from the teacher sent home with the child, it had been on the school calendar for months, and so on. Yet if my wife told me that she had gone to the meeting and it was canceled, none of that other evidence would matter. She wouldnât lie.
Hey Mike! So again I wasnât saying that in an offensive manner, just wanted to clarify that!
And sorry if Iâm having you repeat yourself. I took the liberty of scanning your discussions with the others to try to get a more clarifying picture of what youâre saying. I guess itâs inevitable to assume that youâre saying something when youâre not (on both sides). I guess from what I can derive from your comments is that humans are at most thousands of years old and that creation happened within 6 literal 24 hour days (according to the Bible, esp the two passages you quoted in Exodus).
So here is the difficult part. And I think it has to do with our idea of the inspiration of the Bible. Not saying this is how you view it, but a common view of inspiration is that of God dictating his own words to the ancient peoples and the authors are pretty much just scribes writing down every word God tells them. Realizing that thatâs not the picture of inspiration we see in the bible was key for me. So instead of thinking of (letâs just say) Moses sitting down and God saying hey Moses let me tell you how I created the world, grab a pen and paper, it helped to see it as the Israelites coming out of Egypt with no identity and culture, parking at Mt. Sinai and then the Israelites, in light of their knowledge and understanding of God and his laws given to them, constructing an account of their origins and identity.
The perplexing question is that, well if Genesis 1-2 isnât literal history, then why do the biblical characters treat it as such (such as the Israelites at Sinai, Paul and even Jesus). At itâs core, to put it bluntly, you would have to say that they were mistaken. I donât want to sound like a heretic, but thatâs just to put it bluntly. And I donât mean wrong as if God ârevealedâ wrong information or something but rather that the authors were products of their cultural environment. This concept for me was weird and almost offensive to me at first, but thinking it through, it has come to make more sense. But also it has also raised a lot more questions that I am still walking through and trying to understand. For example, Matthew 13:31, Jesus likens the mustard seed to Godâs kingdom and calls it the âsmallest of all seedsâ. The smallest seed is actually the orchid seed. So Jesus being the omnipotent God, was he wrong? I mean if you want to be technical and blunt, then you can say yes. But more-so, heâs making a comparison within a cultural context. Also back to Genesis, in regards to the dome in the first chapter, it says that God created it. Did the ancient israelites believe that, yes they did. So them saying that God created the sky-dome, is the sky a hard structure? Nope. Were they wrong, I mean technically but thatâs not the point. Is the sky a result of Godâs creative processes? Yes of course! So I guess it comes down to this, and has been difficult for me to walk through and get a hold of. Some things that the authors believed, arenât necessarily true. So as someone said to you, itâs my conviction that the Bible does say that creation happened in 6 literal 24-hour days and thatâs what the Israelites believed as well. And if I kept my view on that ok here God Himself was revealing scientific information to the author thousands of years ago, then I would have to conclude that the Bible is wrong and God was wrong. But revamping my view of inspiration and authorship, it became clear (to me anyways) that Godâs people were writing from their own convictions and reasons just as Paul decided to write to the Corinthian church to straighten out matters or Luke wanting to fill Theophilus in on some things, rather than it being the verbatim words from God Himself. Reading through the OT has brought me to this conclusion (started beginning of the year, Iâm in Ezra now) and also reading different articles here and there. Reading the prophets and the Psalms and reading how God would shoot his arrows and smite the enemies and heaven (sky) and earth (land) would be shaken and then in Job 39 God says that he made the ostrich âwithout wisdomâ because she doesnât care about her eggs because she leaves them anywhere, made me understand that itâs not necessarily Godâs verbatim words or even understanding, but were cultural expressions of Godâs inspiration (whatever that looks like lol). And so a question to that would be, well whatâs the line between divine inspiration and human writing decisions? Was Paul inspired or did he want to straighten the Corinthians out? Was Luke inspired? Or did he write because, in his words: âit also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certaintly of the things about which you have been instructed (Luke 1:3-4)â? I would say both, but where the line is, I have no clue. Is God involved in you and Iâs creation? Or did our parents decide and the egg and sperm met and cells divided and blah blah. I would say both. How? I have no clue. I believe inspiration follows that same sequence.
Sorry if my response doesnât directly answer your questions again, but I think it all boils down to what I previously stated, if the bible says that creation was 6 literal 24 hour days (which I would say it does) and seems to imply a recent human history, then how can one expect to believe biblically that the earth is billions of years old. Coupled with improper hermeneutics, modern impositions on the text, and asking questions that the ancient authors/the bible never intended to answer (for us anyways), I think that ultimately, it has to come to that hard inference that it does say that creation was six days long but that instead of that being literal history, it was an ancient Israelite cultural understanding and expression. And that the literal truth isnât in the cultural expressions of the details such as the hard sky and six days, but the knowledge of God in comparison with the other ancient gods, namely that he was/is alone, sovereign, loving, cares about right and wrong, and serves and loves his creation, especially human beings. This realization has of course sent a rift through some of my theology (such as the nature of the fall, Adam & Eveâs existence, the flood, the meaning of Jesusâ crucifixion, etc) and thatâs why I say I am still journeying, working out the kinks and everything. I donât have all the answers, honestly itâs kind of troubling at times because itâs so tempting to take the easy way out and say this is too much to learn and figure out lol, but thank God for a strong relationship with him and understanding that I know personally and historically that Jesus lived, was crucified and was resurrected and that one day heâll come again, whatever that looks like. And that though I may never come into full understanding of many things in the bible, I can rest assured in Jesus historicity and his teachings and his promises in regards to our world and his coming again. Please let me know if any of this was helpful at all! Itâs been great dialoguing with you brother!
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Hi Mike,
Itâs called either/or. You are correct that they canât both be right simultaneously. Thatâs not what I was arguing for. I was saying you could take your pick. The fact that they seem to be mutually exclusive does not mean that neither one is right.
Given two statements A and B that are mutually exclusive, we could say:
A â ~B
B â ~A
Does this leave (~A + ~B) as the only reasonable option? I think not. We could just as easily choose (A + ~B) or (B + ~A)
Consider this example. Suppose I were to say: âThere are two possible explanations for the origins of the posts made under the name of Mike_Gantt. Possibility 1: There is really a fellow named Mike Gantt who loves to post to the forum. Possibility 2: There is an imposter running loose on the internet who fabricated the name Mike Gantt, and loves to post under that pseudonym.â
Clearly, the two seem to cancel each other out - the first requiring a true Mike Gantt who posts to the forum, and the second requiring an imposter going by the pseudonym Mike Gantt.
Saying that the Bible is silent about something and saying that it offers no account (in the sense of a narrative) are not equivalent statements. Asserting a truth and giving an account of it are not the same thing. For example, I could plead innocent to a criminal charge, but not give testimony (an account) to support my plea.
In your first statement, you chose the words âis silentâ instead of Waltonâs words, âoffers no account.â Your phrase and Waltonâs are not the same thing.
I think differently now. Knowing that Walton had affirmed creation ex nihilo as a Biblical doctrine, the hypothesis I hypothesized was the best I could come up with. Now that I realize that your formulation of Waltonâs views was based on a misapprehension of his BioLogos article, I now have a better understanding. Thanks for working this out with me.
Youâre not. Youâre just monocultural, as most people are. It has nothing to do with intelligence, brotherhood, virtue, zeal for Christ, or whether the Cubs can repeat as World Series Champs.
I apologize that I did not choose my words carefully enough. Itâs really difficult to realize what it means to step outside of a monocultural perspective. The only thing thatâs harder is helping someone else to step outside of a monocultural perspective. 
My intention was to bring to your attention the following principle:
To gain a proper understanding of how the Biblical and scientific accounts of origins could appear to be so very different, you have to appreciate that they are operating according to very different cultural rules.
Thatâs it. That was my one and only goal, be it ever so ambitious.
Bottom line: If I have been perceiving your questions correctly, they indicate that you are trying to come up with a single set of rules that can be universally applied to both bodies of knowledge (the ancient Hebrew and the modern scientific). This is not even possible. I honestly think you are asking questions that the Hebrew text cannot make sense of.
I was implying that your question about closing the gap between thousands and billions could not be legitimately answered. You might as well ask how the windows of heaven could allow flooding waters to pass down to the land (Genesis 7:11), while the Apollo 11 astronauts did not have to pass through any windows to get to the Moon.
There is no better way to frame your question, because the question assumes there is a way of using ancient and modern methodologies in a way they do not support.
This is interesting to me, given that you are trying to interpret one ancient Hebrew text of Scripture (Genesis 1) with another ancient Hebrew text of Scripture (Exodus 20). Do you think itâs possible that you might misunderstand the implications of both?
Also, do you think that maybe God might have accommodated His revelation to the cultural background(s) of the original hearers of the Scripture? Since Augustine and Calvin both taught the hermeneutical principle of accommodation, to me this seems like a viable option.
Thanks for listening,
Chris
But what if she spoke a parable to you in ancient Hebrew, and you had to rely on a translation committee to render her parable in English? Would there be any possibility of miscommunication?
Like I said before, itâs really, really hard to step outside of a monocultural perspective. Even the way you phrased your PTA analogy is based on a monocultural framework. I hope my re-casting of your analogy helps you to approach the origins issue with a greater understanding of the importance of cultural context.
Grace and peace,
Chris