Six Views on the Creation/Evolution Debate

I do want to turn to points raised by Gabe back in the low 700s on theistic evolution (so don’t abandon this thread yet, Gabe), but it’s not been a huge interest of mine, so I need to do some more reading. In the meantime, I propose next to explore an issue that has come up either directly or indirectly on this thread: the importance of worldview and culture adn context in interpreting Genesis. Thoug very relevant and fundamental to this thread, the topic is also of particular interest to me because of the way that science is used in and by courts. the questions that the two systems ask are different, and the way they ask the questions are different. The interaction between the two is not easy to resolve; I took an entire course in law school on this and am still plumbing its depths.

Worldview and Science

YECs do not share the view of science that the “scientific world” does (by which I mean the professional organizations of scientists and universities, etc., which include both Christians and non-Christians).

YECs already have the answer to all the scientific questions and data related to the age of the earth. The reigning paradigm for the YEC is a young earth (maximum age between 6,000 and 10,000 years). YECs can never ever change their paradigm because it has come down to them from God. Thus the YEC search for truth is closed and no anomaly or data inconsistent with their conclusion can have any effect whatsoever on their paradigm. They only search for answers and data consistent with the answer they have already arrived at. They dismiss all unexplained conflicting data by resorting to either “we’ll find an explanation consistent with our dogmatic conclusion eventually”, or “God must have done it directly”.

But this is not science, even if it uses math and microscopes and other tools of the sciences.

Non-YECs use the word “science” to mean a kind of investigation of the truths of the physical universe that does not have a predetermined outcome. Because it is open ended, one can have “scientific revolutions” or changes in the operating paradigms of science (as noted by T.S Kuhn in his famous book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Hence we had the Copernican revolution in our undestanding of the cosmos. Most YECs have bought into this revolution, so much so that they use the science of this revolution to govern the interpretation of the Bible and reject geocentrism. Geocentrists are much more consistent in their interpretation of the Bible and in their approach to the Bible and science (specific and general revelation). The big bang theory was another revolution that was resisted by astronomers for years because of its theological implications.

But these revolutions occurred despite the resistance, because science is open ended, because in its search for the truths about our universe it has to take into account even data that is anomalous or “troublesome” for the reigning…

. . . for the reigning paradigm. When the anomalies become to significant, and a better explanatory paradigm is available, then the more explanatory paradigm will become the reigning paradigm. This happened many times and despite the biases and prejudices of the scientists involved. Fred Hoyle very much opposed the big bang theory for reasons that included specifically anti-religious ones. He pursued his steady state theory long past its the expiry of its explanatory claims because he wanted no part of something that could fit with a “God started it all” claim. But the big ban revolution happened anyway. Because science is open ended in its search, because it is subject to real publication and peer review and testing and critique.

Such could never, and will never, happen with YECs. That is why one has the spectacle of YEC committed PhD scientists spouting absolute nonsense and committing themselves to ludicrous claims about the earth and the rest of the universe. They have no out, no option for dealing with natural truth. Their search for truth is closed, regardless of the facts and phenomena shown to them.

Consequently, their PhD.’s are now scientifically meaningless. They no longer practice science. They now practice paradigm defence. They are committed to their view of the (young) age of the earth for reasons that are not scientific, but rather are theological. Thus they cannot and will not look at and investigate natural revelation on its own terms, but only through the grid of their commitment to a particular interpretation of special revelation (i.e., the Bible).

Why is this so?

The Antecedants to the YEC Worldview

Even though YECs work hard to demonstrate the historical antiquity of their interpretation of Genesis (as specifying a 144 hour creation period), they do admit that there have also been other interpretations that have equally long, or longer, historical pedigrees. So why is it that they have chosen the 144 hour one over the others?

Especially for 20th and 21st century YECism, the most significant reasons are historical and social. They grew up being taught this explanation by people they loved and respected, and who loved them (or became a Christian–a powerful experience–through YECs). This enculturation into YECism happened in the context of a powerful reaction to attacks on Christianity as a valid and historical faith. As the apostle Paul wrote in Corinthians, if Christ did not actually rise from the dead then our faith is in vain.

The Arkansas v. McLean creation trial is very instructive in this regard. Norman Geisler was called to testify by the defence in regard to the roots of creationism.

Q. What are you going to testify about in connection with the topic of fundamentalism?

A. Uh, try and define it, trying to distinguish different kinds of fundamentalists.

Q. Could you define it for me here?
[cont.]

Q. Could you define it for me here?

A. Uh, yes, I think I could. Fundamentalism, defined historically by its founders, which is — as I told you before, you define things sociologically, doctrinally, and historically. If you define fundamentalism by the first two of those three things I told you, the original people who held it, the doctrines they held, rather than the sociological way, then fundamentalism means — the people in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s, such as Charles Hodge, (sic.) A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield, who were in engaged in what was known as the fundamentalism liberalism debate. Most of these people taught at Princeton. And they said in essence, that certain people have deviated from historic biblical Christianity, which includes about five basic doctrines, and therefore they do not any longer deserve to be called orthodox, because they no longer hold these founding essential doctrines. And those essential doctrines were: the virgin birth of Christ, that Jesus was virgin born; the deity of Christ, that Jesus was God; the atonement of Christ, that Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world; the bodily resurrection, that Jesus bodily rose from the grave; and the inspiration of the Bible, that the Bible is the word of God. Now, some added a 6th one, but these were the five fundamentals. The 6th one that they added is that Jesus is going to return to this earth someday, the Second Coming of Christ. So there are either five or six. So historic fundamentalists were people who believed five or six basic doctrines, and if anyone denied one or more of those, they considered them unorthodox, and excommunicated them from their churches. If the minister denied them, he was — his ministerial license was taken away in that denomination, et cetera.

Q. So to use a phrase we’ve described earlier, fundamentalism as a historical concept is marked by strict doctrinal orthodox?

A. On these five or six at the most doctrines.
. . .

Q. Does this conservatism on social and political issues, which is a contemporary aspect of fundamentalism, does it have any analogue in the historical aspects of fundamentalism?

A. Uh, it has no one-to-one parallel. There are analogues, of course, but there are exceptions both in the contemporary scene, and more so in the ancient scene. For example, one characteristic of the contemporary fundamentalist up until about — uh — let’s say roughly two years ago, was almost a political isolationism, until Jerry Falwell got these fundamentalists aroused, and said, “Hey, let’s get in there and take care of this homosexual issue and abortion and ERA.” They were basically political isolationists. Their personal beliefs might have been conservative, but they weren’t political activists. But the difference in the last two years is that Jerry Falwell, and Tim LaHaye (sic.) and others have politically activated them. They’ve become a potent force in the political world…

Q. Historically, does the concept of anti-modernism have a place in the description of fundamentalism?

A. Oh, yes. Sure. Because if you were — historically that 1880 to 1930 period there, when this whole debate was going on at Princeton, and the split ultimately occurred. That was it, because liberalism theologically understood is synonymous of the term modernism. See, the modernists were those who denied one or more of the fundamentals. The orthodox or fundamentalists were those who affirmed all the fundamentals.
. . .
. That seems to be very dualist in its approach to religion?

A. It is. It is basically dualist, because it’s built on the fundamental rule of all reason. That if you’re for X, you have to be against non-X. See, the fundamental law of logic is that if you’re for something, you have to be against its opposite. You can’t be both for and against the same thing at the same time in the same sense.

Q. Do all religious denominations — are they all marked by this dualist?

A. Yes. Every single one. Because if you’re — whatever you’re committed to — you are ultimately committed to, you’re opposed to its opposite.

Q. The question then becomes, what the fundamentals are?

A. That’s exactly right. I think another defining characteristic of much of contemporary fundamentalism outside of the political — uh — that we talked about and some of the doctrinal things, and its so called separation, is that up until recently, most modern fundamentalists were kind of anti-academic. They were kind of — uh — against higher education type of mentality. That has been, you know, a defining characteristic of the — of a lot of the contemporary sociological fundamentalism.

Q. Anti-science, is that another phrase?

A. Many of them were ant — were anti-scientists, too. Yeah. There is no question about that.

Q. Directing your attention to Geisler Exhibit 4, does this bill reflect the dualist tension that we’ve just described about fundamentalism and its views towards evolution and towards the concept of special creation?

A. Not at all.
. . .

Q. Two models of what?

A. Creation model, evolution model.

Q. The creation-science model?

A. No. He — uh — the book presents both models. He’ll present an evolution-science model, and go through what it holds and what it would believe and what we can expect. And then go through a creation-science model, what it holds, what you would expect if it’s true, and just examines the evidence and comes to no conclusion about either one?

Q. Are you aware of any other models for creation?

A. Oh, yes.

Q. Are you aware of any scientific support for any other models?

A. Well, the scientific support bears on all of the models, so it’s a matter that the models — how defined your knowledge gets. For example, if you say creation, you’ve got to ask what kind of creator, pantheistic…

[cont] For example, if you say creation, you’ve got to ask what kind of creator, pantheistic creator, theistic creator, panentheistic creator, all those world views. Almost all of those I have a view of creation. So when you’re teaching scientific creation, you are not thereby teaching any of those world views, you are just teaching that some of these creators — uh – somehow, somewhere — my theory is built on the evidence — must have created this. So sure, there are a lot of other models. A progressive creation model, as Barnard Ramm, in his book on this list, Christian View of Science and Scripture is not an old theory; progressive creation over millions of years type models, from the theistic evolution models. Uh, Teilhard de Chardin, and many other people hold a theistic evolutionary model. In fact, I personally belong to a scientific organization in which many of the people are theistic evolutionists.
. . .
Q. Does the strict factual view of the Bible, in particular the Old Testament, give rise to any particular age of the earth?

A. Not in my opinion.

Q. Not in your opinion?

A. No.

Q. Is that a view shared by all fundamentalists?

A. No. Many fundamentalists think that there are no gaps in the genealogical record, nor are there any gaps between the days and the days are 144 hours. So once you start with Genesis 1:1 you can add up the genealogical record . Genesis 5 and Genesis 10 and you have an unbroken, non-gap record. And you can add it up and it comes out around 4,000 years B.C. Others believe there are small gaps in the records that maybe comes out to 10,000 BC., but you can’t stretch it indefinitely. And there are others of us that believe that there are possibly large gaps in there and it could be billions of years.

Q. Do you have any basis for your belief that there are I take it that your belief is that there are gaps?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you have any basis for that?

A. Yes. I think there are both Biblical and scientific bases for believing there is gaps.
. . .
A. . . . So, I have scientific reasons. It seems to me there are credible reasons for believing earth is old.

[end of quote from depositions]

Geisler also made points about how evolution is a fundamental of secular humanism, and humanism is a religion. He also made philosophical arguments about why creation science is a science that can and should be taught along side evolution.

My main point, though is made by Geisler in his discussion of the fundamentalist movement in the U.S. and the connection between that and creationism. YECs hold their beliefs strongly for reasons other than Biblical interpretation. It is not simply a matter of “looking at the evidence”. And once YECs are committed to their theological beliefs, then the “evidence” becomes irrelevant. Their beliefs about science and the age of the earth are “true” because of what they believe God said, not [cont.]

Why is Christian belief in Christ’s resurrection and ascension much different from YEC beliefs about creation? All the scientific evidence to date argues against a person totally dying and then coming back to life as a changed life form that can also walk through walls, physically manifest to people, rise up into the clouds, etc. Isn’t belief in Christ’s resurrection and ascension because a Christian chooses, whether because of tradition, culture, deduction, delusion, experience or revelation, to believe the biblical accounts, anonymous and somewhat discrepant as they are, despite all natural and scientific evidence to the contrary?

Their beliefs about science and the age of the earth are “true” because of what they believe God said, not because they believe anything about the science. Any phenomenal or scientific explanations inconsistent with their belief must be apriori (from the get go) wrong, but not for scientific reasons.

When we turn to look at the theological reasons, we do not find overwhelming evidence at all. We find that a 144 hour creation period has not been the only potential interpretation of Genesis held by the church and that historically the church has been open to variant interpretations and that a 144 hour work has never been a test of one’s orthodoxy. We find a commitment by YECs to a fallible interpretation that has come about for sociological and historical reasons (now that may not be true for particular individuals, but it is true for the movement as a whole, which in turn affects all individuals).

The historical understanding of the YEC devotion to a 144 hour creation period is important because we can then see that the reasons for the belief in 144 hours are very different from the reasons that Josephus, and other ancients believed in 144 hours–even though they (recent and ancient believers in YE) both talk about “literal” interpretaton

Moses did not write Genesis to oppose scientific evidences for an ancient earth. Joseph and the YE church fathers did not advance a so-called “literal” interpretation of Genesis to respond to issues of science and scientific evidences of an old earth.

Moses was writing in response to polytheism and mythologies that threatened to pull Hebrews away from the one true God. Josephus and other early century writers were writing in response to Greek theories of eternity. Furthermore, at that time the Bible was interpreted, and held to be properly interpreted, BOTH literally and allegorically. The YEC focus on a purely literal interpretation is a recent phenomenom. Hence, any appeal to the “literal” interpretation of early writers must be done in the context of, in relation to, and with proper association to, the accompanying allegorical methodology and interpretations of the time.

It is inappropriate, therefore, to directly appropriate and use the comments made by church interpreters in the first thousand plus years.

Paul Wilkens, “How to Read the Bible” (March 2008) First Things, astutely describes the disjunction between how the Bible is read today and how it was read even just a few hundred years ago:

Allegory fell on hard times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . .

In truth, the abandonment of allegory was a revolt against the Church’s tradition, including the tradition that is found in the New Testament itself. The practice of allegorizing the Old Testament—giving certain passages a meaning other than the plain sense—was not an invention of the Church Fathers or the Middle Ages; it was the work of the authors of…

. . . it was the work of the authors of the books of the New Testament. And in their exegesis of the Old Testament, patristic commentators consciously imitated what they had learned from the New Testament. . . .

Following St. Paul, the Church Fathers argued that a surface reading of the Old Testament, what Origen calls the “plain” meaning, missed what was most important in the Bible: Jesus Christ. The subject of the Scriptures, writes Cyril of Alexandria, is “the mystery of Christ signified to us through a myriad of different kinds of things.

This then brings me to the important point about ANE beliefs and understanding the Bible stories, and which will reply to Richard’s question about understanding numbers and measurements “literally” and to EricW’s question in his post 856 about the death of Christ: ANE people’s grew up on and lived in a world where texts were interpreted not just “literally” but also “allegorically”. That was their world view. They were adept at understanding texts in “nonliteral” ways.

Here is how Robert Louis Wilken [sorry I mistyped above, it’s Robert, not Paul], William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, puts it:

Allegory is not distinctive to Christian exegesis of the Old Testament. It was used by Greek literary scholars in the ancient world to interpret the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and it was employed by Jewish thinkers—for example, Philo of Alexandria—to interpret the Pentateuch.

In the ancient world, animals had a “story” and were given meanings, “they were emblems of important moral and theological truths, and like the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt they were thought of as the characters of an intelligible language. The elucidation of the natural world in this tradition calls for an interpretive, rather than a classificatory or mathematical, science.” (Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 2). The publication in 1678 of The Ornithology of F. Willughby represented a stark break with similar works that had preceded it, because in its preface it explicitly states that it will deal only with natural history and exclude what was until then part and parcel of studies of the natural world: homonyms, synonums, hieroglyphics, emblems, morals, fables, etc.

This change to a focus on the natural science and natural history of things arose on and grew in the soil of biblical “literalism” introduced primarily by Protestants. “With the new biblical literalism which followed in the wake of the Reformation, many portions of scripture were read for the first time as having, as their primary sense, history. The significance of narrative passages of the Bible now lay in the fact they recounted things which had happened hundreds or thousands of years ago.” (Harrison, p. 122). This then led to…

[cont.] This then led to attempts to mine scripture for historical and scientific information, and there were many attempts made to locate the Garden of Eden.

The world of the ancients was a far more symbolic one than the world we live in and the world of the YECs. So, to answer Richard’s question, yes, the ancients could have understood an evening and a morning as referring to a 24hour solar day, and they could have understood a measure of cubits over a hill as a linear distance and depth. But not necessarily. Their worldview, their oral histories and stories, were steeped in symbolism and the use of symbols and allegory and nonliteral ways of communicating and understanding information and truth.

That is why it is so important to understand how an ANE would have looked at the Genesis text, not how a 21st century American would. That is why it is not, in fact, at all obvious that an ANE Hebrew would have read Genesis 1 and automatically concluded it must be a period of 144 continuous hours (before God rested).

And that is why it is a matter different from the death and resurrection of Christ. There is no natural process that could have lead to his resurrection; it therefore had to be an incident of the direct exercise by God of His power. The Genesis story, on the other hand, can be understood and described by the natural regularities and constants of God’s created universe. In the story God is necessary to initiate, but thereafter the story is open to allowing what God initiated to unfold according to God’s time and timing—both of which are very long term. That is why the Genesis story must be understood in the context of the rest of Scripture, like the scripture in 2 Peter 3:5b “. . . that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water.”

Regards,
#John

And that is why it is a matter different from the death and resurrection of Christ. There is no natural process that could have lead to his resurrection; it therefore had to be an incident of the direct exercise by God of His power. The Genesis story, on the other hand, can be understood and described by the natural regularities and constants of God’s created universe.

But there is no natural process that could have led to a world with the appearance of age being created in 6 days. 🙂

Re Ericw’s post 860

Pinch hitting in Richard’s and Steve’s absence? ; )

Yes, but natural process is not the issue in that case. Either way, the creation was instantaneous by the direct exercise God’s power: either (a) created with the appearance of age and maturity, or (b) created in germ, like a seed, to unfold and develop over time. In both of the theistic systems of OE or YE, the initial creation is a direct exercise of God’s power. After the initial creative act, the use of natural processes is entirely possible in the formation of the solar system and earth out of the intially created materials. Moreover, there are no soteriological implications of creating the earth either way.

That is not the case with Christ’s resurrection. There is no natural process that God the Father could have used to resurrect Christ. Whether Christ did physically rise from the grave does have soteriological implications.

In reading more about the Arkansas trial, I observed that Ariel Roth–of coral fame–agrees with me that YECism is not science:

T. Berra, “Evolution and the Myth of Creationism”. P. 134:

“Many of the “creation scientists” admitted in pretrial depositions that what they practice is not scientific. Harold Coffin of Loma Linda University (A Seventh-Day Adventist college), stated, “No, creation science is not testable scientifically.” Ariel Roth, also of Loma Linda, when asked if “creation science” was really science, said, “If you want to define ‘science’ as testable, predictable, I would say no.”

Peter Harrison makes some perspicacious comments about the rise of the “literal interpretation” that help make snese of where YECs have come from and why they are so adamant about YECism:

We are now in a position to understand that the notion of the primacy of the literal sense of the biblical text arose quite late in the West, and that the related idea that meaning always lies in the single sense intended by the author is one which emerged out of a particular set of historical circumstances. The long historical view, in other words, enables us to see that what might otherwise have been thought of as the ‘natural’ and ‘obvious’ way to approach the biblical text arose out of specific cultural conditions. . . .

If the natural world has lost its authority as a repository of symbolic theological truths, Scripture has also suffered an irretrievable loss of status on account of the shift to the primacy of the literal sense. Fixing the meaning of Scripture in a way originally designed to bolster its authority has paradoxically produced the opposite effect. There is, after all, a difference between reading the Bible literally and holding the words of the Bible to be literally true. Thus the triumph of the literal approach to scripture opened up for the first time in the history of biblical interpretation the real possibility that parts of the Bible could be…

[cont. from my post 861]

Thus the triumph of the literal approach to scripture opened up for the first time in the history of biblical interpretation the real possibility that parts of the Bible could be false. In order to see the force of this, we need only consider the conditions which led to the implementation of allegorical readings of scripture in the first place. It was Origen’s achievement to have put in place a system which virtually guaranteed the truth of every word of scripture. That which was not literally true—and here Origen included the Genesis accounts of creation—was true at some more elevated level. Medieval exegetes also saw as their exegetical task that of reconciling biblical texts with each other and with known truths. Resort to allegory and other non-literal levels of interpretation made this possible. It is not surprising that with the dismantling of the rich multi-layered mechanisms of medieval interpretation the text of scripture was for the first time exposed to the assaults of history and science. While the Protestants’ insistence that passages of scripture be given a determinate meaning proceeded from the purest of religious motives, this inadvertently set in train a process which would ultimately result in the undermining of that biblical authority which they so adamantly promoted.

(P. Harrison, Fixing the Meaning of Scripture: The Renaissance Bible and the Origins of Modernity)

I know a fair bit (for a non-scientist) about evolution, and about intelligent design, but not a lot about theistic evolution, one of the options presented in CMP’s original post.

The website Evolution News & Views (http://www.evolutionnews.org/) has a two part review of a new book about one of Darwin’s contemporaries, Alfred Wallace, who departed from Darwin’s athiestic theory of evolution and instead formulated a theory of theistic evolution. It’s an interesting read, and some of Wallace’s works are on Project Gutenberg.

Here is the title of the book reviewed: “Michael A. Flannery, Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwinism (Erasmus Press).”

Here’s a link to one of Wallace’s works at Project Gutenberg (which I haven’t read yet, but will): http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=462553

And here’s the Alfred Russell Wallace website: http://wallacefund.info/en/aggregator/sources/8?page=8

Gabe, have you always been a theistic evolutionist? How have your views changed over the years? cheers, John

Regards,
#John1453

At last I’ve gotten around to writing this last section. John, I hope you have a chance to respond before this thread dies!

Have you ever read Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis? If you recall, the Pevensie children have come back to Narnia some thousands of years since their last visit, and unbeknownst to them, they are in the ruins of Cair Paravel. Slowly, it begins to dawn on them where they are, despite the obvious differences (most obviously, the castle is in ruins and they are on an island). Once they hit on the hypothesis, though, there are many ways to test the idea. The test, of course, is seeing if everything they recall is present, even if modified; and more to the point, they realize everything is not only present, but in the same spatial orientation as they recall (the most striking example being their discovery of the royal treasure chamber).

This analogy is useful, because we see very similar themes when we compare genome sequences to each other (for example, human and chimpanzee genomes). Not only are the same sequences present, but they are present with the same genes in the same order (for thousands upon thousands of genes). Now, there are some differences, but they are slight and well within the reach of normal processes that shuffle chromosomal material into different orders over time.

The human and chimpanzee genomes are very similar one to another: there are about 3 billion DNA “letters” in each sequence. Of those 3 billion, 2.4 billion line up with one another with only 1.23% difference between them. Other differences contribute to a final difference of 5% between the species in terms of raw percentage difference. Again, remember that beyond the raw numbers, we have the same sequences in the same order. This is very strong evidence that these two genomes were once the same genome (i.e. in the same species).

There is one large scale difference between humans and chimps: we have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but chimps have 24. In order for our species to have once shared an common ancestor either one of our chromosomes should be a fusion of two chromosomes, or one chimp chromosome may have split into two since our species diverged. Looking at chromosome shape under the microscope has long suggested that one of our chromosomes (human chromosome #2) is the result of a fusion of two smaller chromosomes. Indeed, now that we have sequenced this chromosome, we can tell with certainty that this chromosome was once two chromosomes (and the two chromosomes it would have been look just like two smaller chromosomes we see in the chimp). This is further compelling evidence. (cont)

Another line of genetics evidence is that we find defective genes present in the human and chimp genomes in the same relative place. One example is the vitellogenin gene. This gene is used in chickens and other egg-laying animals as a component of egg yolk. Placental mammals don’t lay eggs* yet we have the defective remains of this gene in the same location in our genome as it is found in the chicken genome. Chimps also have it in the same place, as do dogs, and other mammals. (*Note that egg-laying mammals (the monotremes, such as the platypus) do retain a functional copy of this gene in the same place). Did you know that humans make a yolk sac during embryogenesis? It has a few functions still, but it no longer fills with yolk as it does in egg-laying species).

Taken together, these lines of evidence (combined with the other lines of evidence we have discussed) are considered very strong evidence for common descent between humans and chimpanzees (and further still to other forms of life).

If you’d like to see the references yourself, the chimp genome paper is here (pdf).

and the vitellogenin paper is here.

Both are open-access and well worth the read.

John, here’s hoping you weigh in on this issue at some point.

Cheers,

gabe

Thanks Gabe, for your willingness to weigh in, even if you are, (presumably at least), in the minority opinion here. I respect that, and want to hear more as to why you believe as you do.

I respect the scientific explanation you have provided thus far, however, my question is: how do we decide if God separated the two genes, or if they separated by accident, and if so, how do you relate God’s decision in the matter to the scientific points of view(that it occured by some chance accident of nature, and still remain a Christian perspective,that is consistent with the Bible? Perhaps I am dense, but I’m still not understanding that part of it.

This is the thing I find so hard to read to relate to: i;e, why is it an either/or thing (science vs, God) instead of a yes/ here’s how it relates kind of thing. I confess I have the same kind of problem with YEC’s point of view.

hi mbaker,

thanks for the question. I’ll admit I don’t quite understand exactly what your concern is, but I’ll try an answer and ask that you let me know if it scratches where it itches…

I certainly don’t see this as a science vs God thing. I think God upholds, ordains and sustains all things, full stop. I also think science is a God-given activity to investigate His world – how He put things together.

All believers hold that God uses what we call “natural” processes to ordain and sustain His creation. Think about how a baby develops in utero. We now have an amazing understanding of how that works (I’m a developmental biologist / geneticist, so I see this type of science every day). All believers I know rejoice in this information – they see it as the sustaining and ordaining hand of God – even if it is “naturalistic” and “mechanistic.” You see, they are theistic embryologists – they invest a natural process with theological significance- but they don’t put it that way.

Or, think about weather patterns. Weather is ordained and sustained by God (as many verses attest). Do you recoil at the weather report on TV as atheistic? Or perhaps, like me, you see the natural, predictable patterns of nature, the water cycle, etc as a means by which God ordains and sustains weather. Perhaps, like me, you’re a theistic meteorologist?

I could go on, but I think you see my point. No one claims that God acts only through what we call miraculous means. The question then becomes – what acts are “miraculous” and which ones are “natural”? Of course, in the end, all is ordained and sustained by God – and the distinction breaks down ultimately. The “natural” hand of God, however, are the actions that He deigns to hold constant that we, the pinnacle of His creation invested with His image, might study His works and render praise. Biology is one of those fields, and in our studies, we can glimpse how He brought us to where we are. I see it as no less God’s hand if it can through a process we call “natural.” That just means God has graced us to put this question into the realm of science that we might investigate it.

Of course, there are the usual theological objections, and I have pointed to others (John Walton) who are better qualified to comment if Genesis requires we be the product of “miracle” in that we share no common ancestry with other life. Walton (and others, such as Bruce Waltke, another Genesis theologian I respect) say that those questions are not addressed in Genesis. So, I feel free to take God’s general revelation on this matter – revelation, that in its molecular details, shows we have a long and wonderful history, all ordained and sustained by the hand of the Father.

Or so it seems to me. Your thoughts or further questions are welcome.

gabriel, Richard, #John1453, etc.:

Is there any way on God’s green earth that one can say that the biblical statements and teaching that God made man from the dust of the ground and formed the animals from the ground is just an ANE explanation of common descent via evolution and/or that it’s an ANE explanation of God tweaking two chromosomes so they fused into one? If one is quite sure that man was not uniquely formed/created by a special act of God, but arose as a natural or mostly natural result of millennia of genetic evolution, why would one continue to teach Genesis 1&2 (and maybe 3&4) as anything but a fairy tale (fairy tales have moral teachings, too)?

Thanks, Gabe. I certainly understand your points, and appreciate your explanation, but I still have to ask the same question as Eric W. did in #867:

“If one is quite sure that man was not uniquely formed/created by a special act of God, but arose as a natural or mostly natural result of millennia of genetic evolution, why would one continue to teach Genesis 1&2 (and maybe 3&4) as anything but a fairy tale (fairy tales have moral teachings, too)?”

Why would evolution be a natural product of God, when it happens by accident, or adaptation, and there is such structured order in everything in nature? And I can appreciate that as well, since I am presently a freelance photojournalist, who specializes in nature and wildlife. So, yes, I too observe and celebrate God in all His creation, but I do not see signs of evolution taking place at present even though animals and plants have to adapt to many different changes in their environment and the weather.

And, certainly, it would seem that if the genetic mutation of the evolutionary theory is correct, it would continue to bring monkeys and man closer in genetic structure, by having some sort of in between being that would have also developed along with them. Yet there is no evidence that such a composite creature presently exists.

Hi eric,

I would say that Gen 1-3 is exactly how God wanted to communicate His truth using the ANE culture of the original recipients – so they could see the important things: who He is, that He created it all (not the surrounding pagan gods), that He made humans unique in that He bestowed His image on them, and that we are fallen and in need of His redemption.

Even from where I sit, fully accepting the science of evolution, I see no need to revisit those ideas – they were never based on science in any way to begin with.

So, it’s not a “fairy tale.” It’s God’s accommodation to an ancient culture to explain the vastness and power of His person and acts.

gabriel:

I can’t concur with your conclusion. The ANE mind would have been fully capable of understanding it if God had said that after he formed the animals from the ground, he took one of those animals and put his own image and likeness on it and/or shaped it into his own image and likeness, and breathed his spirit into it.

I do not see how one can know and believe that humans were the result of a perhaps-God-tweaked evolutionary development alongside chimpanzees from a common pre-simian ancestor and continue to assert that Genesis 2 is an accommodation to an ancient culture. Rather, one would have to be honest and say that Genesis 2 is false.

gabriel:

The ANE mind was fully capable of such an understanding. Enuma Elish could just as easily have said that the gods took the blood of an animal and/or mixed the blood of an animal with the blood of a god to fashion the humans, which would have been an ANE understanding of genetic fashioning. (FWIW, adam/adamah/dam (man/ground/blood) are etymologically related.)

When Marduk heard the words of the gods,
His heart prompted him to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth, he addressed Ea
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
“I will take blood and fashion bone.
I will establish a savage, ‘man’ shall be his name.
truly, savage-man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease!
The ways of the gods I will artfully alter. (10)

Though alike revered, into two groups they shall be divided.”
Ea answered him, speaking a word to him,
Giving him another plan for the relief of the gods:
“Let but one of their brothers be handed over;
He alone shall perish that mankind may be fashioned.
Let the great gods be here in Assembly,
Let the guilty be handed over that they may endure.”
Marduk summoned the great gods to Assembly;
Presiding graciously, he issued instructions.
To his utterance the gods pay heed.
The king addressed a word to the Anunnaki: (20)

“If your former statement was true,
Now declare the truth on oath by me!
Who was it that contrived the uprising,
And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle?
Let him be handed over who contrived the uprising.
His guilt I will make him bear. You shall dwell in peace!”
The Igigi, the great gods, replied to him,
To Lugaldimmerankia, counselor of the gods, their lord:
“It was Kingu who contrived the uprising,
And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle.” (30)

They bound him, holding him before Ea.
They imposed on him his punishment and severed his blood vessels.
Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.
He imposed on him the service and let free the gods.
After Ea, the wise, had created mankind,
Had imposed upon them the service of the gods–
That work was beyond comprehension;
As artfully planned by Marduk, did Nudimmud create it–
Marduk, the king of the gods divided
All the great gods [Anunnaki] above and below. (40)

hi mbaker,

sorry, I responded to eric before seeing your post.

Your concerns are common ones: (1) can God use what appears to us to be a random process? (2) Why don’t we “see” evolution in action?

The short answers: there are several processes that appear fully random to us that nonetheless we have no problem with theologically, so this is not an issue unique to evolutionary biology, and (2) we do see evolution in action, even though it generally acts on timescales far beyond our ability to easily comprehend.

Longer answers:

1. I know of a physicist who deals with the “random” issue a lot from a theological perspective. Perhaps I can dig up something he has written about it. I would also point you at Lk 13:1-5 and ask your opinion on it. It seems to me that one might understand Jesus as saying random things happen (even if his listeners thought there was more going on theologically).

One example from biology is chromosome segregation – as far as we can measure, this is a random, non-directed process. Yet God speaks of overarching control of the entire process of human reproduction (cf Ps 139). Just because it appears random to us doesn’t mean it is beyond the ordaining and sustaining hand of God. No more so in evolution than in chromosome segregation – unless you wish to brand me a godless Mendelist. 🙂

2. Have you watched those recorded biology lectures back up in post #715? I commend them to you. There is a short segment therein on “ring species” – a fascinating example of evolution in action.

Another point, closer to home, is that we’re not just similar to chimps genetically, but also very close to gorillas and orangutans, and other apes. The same basic issues are in play: high similarity, shared gene order for 1000s of genes, shared genetic scars (pseudogenes), etc. So, we see several species in nature that are “uncomfortably” close to us.

If we look in the fossil record, we see others. Now, we cannot sequence their DNA (although some Neandertal DNA has been recovered and sequenced, and yes, it slots in perfectly between humans and chimps, but closer to human), but in terms of timing and morphology, these species blur the lines between us and other apes. Now, it cannot be proven beyond all doubt that these species are in our lineage or on a closely related branch, but there they are, at the right time, and with transitional features. Examples include the australopithecines, and other Homo species like H. habillis, H. ergaster, H. neandertalensis, etc.

The take-home message is that we are one end point on a tree of branching speciation – and that the DNA evidence helps us decide among the living who we most recently shared a common ancestor with.

Eric says:

I can’t concur with your conclusion. The ANE mind would have been fully capable of understanding it if God had said that after he formed the animals from the ground, he took one of those animals and put his own image and likeness on it and/or shaped it into his own image and likeness, and breathed his spirit into it.

I do not see how one can know and believe that humans were the result of a perhaps-God-tweaked evolutionary development alongside chimpanzees from a common pre-simian ancestor and continue to assert that Genesis 2 is an accommodation to an ancient culture. Rather, one would have to be honest and say that Genesis 2 is false.

Well then, why don’t you tell me how to handle the evidence? Just because you can’t see a way through doesn’t mean that others can’t. I’ll take a theologian’s word for it over yours, though. Walton and Waltke say that Genesis isn’t about the “how” or “when.” I agree with their assessment. You are still trying to pound some “how & when” into the narrative when the scholars say that this approach is reading modern concerns into an ancient text that does not share this concern in the least. Genesis is not “false” – unless you are saying “it doesn’t comport with my understanding of how such a text should be written.” Well, fair enough – but you make this conclusion based on neither exegetical nor scientific expertise (unless you have such – feel free to correct me if you do).

Walton and Waltke say that Genesis isn’t about the “how” or “when.” I agree with their assessment. You are still trying to pound some “how & when” into the narrative when the scholars say that this approach is reading modern concerns into an ancient text that does not share this concern in the least. You are still trying to pound some “how & when” into the narrative when the scholars say that this approach is reading modern concerns into an ancient text that does not share this concern in the least.

If Genesis 2 isn’t concerned with the “how” or “when,” then why does it describe “how” man was created and “when” (as well as “where”) he was created? And if early Genesis wasn’t concerned with the “when,” why does Chapter 5 have a generation list that explains “how” and “when” Noah came to be?

And if Genesis 2 doesn’t correctly or accurately describe the “how” and “when” man was created, then it incorrectly and inaccurately describes the “how” and “when” man was created, for the simple reason that it indeed does describe the “how” and “when” man was created. Therefore it’s false.

eric,

That you, steeped as you are in 20-21st century patterns of post-enlightenment thinking, see “how & when” in these texts is not evidence that it is what the original audience would think, or that it was God’s intent to speak to those issues. It is merely evidence that you are reading the text as a reader steeped as you are in 20-21st century patterns of post-enlightenment thinking. That’s all.

Why not have a listen/read to Walton and Waltke and come back to the conversation once you have understood their scholarship and ideas? I admit that this is not my expertise, so this is something of an argument by proxy. I am a biologist. If ANE scholars told me either I accept Genesis 1-3 in the manner you suggest OR I accept the biological evidence, I would be in a hard place. They do not, however.

I recommend either Walton’s latest book, or Waltke’s recent tome on theology, which has chapters on Genesis – far more thorough and nuanced than one can summarize in a blog comment. (I’ll dig up both references in a bit and post them).

If you’re so certain that Genesis is all about the “how and why”, perhaps you might explain what the firmament is and where it might be found?

gabriel,

I am curious, what do you do with the genealogies that EricW asked about? And how about all of the other genealogies in Genesis? Do you believe that they weren’t at all references to factual people and lifetimes but were just some ANE way of understanding?

If the latter is the case, where do you think actual history starts in Genesis? Or is none of it history at least before the time of Abraham?

eric says:

If Genesis 2 isn’t concerned with the “how” or “when,” then why does it describe “how” man was created and “when” (as well as “where”) he was created?

Do you mean that humans were created during the sixth 24-hour period after the cosmos began? I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’re YEC or OEC – please explain what you see as the “when” for humans as per your reading of Genesis.

gabriel:

You are missing my point. I am not saying that Genesis 2 is about “how and when” (note that I’m limiting my discussion mainly to the Genesis 2 account of man’s creation, though I guess all of Genesis 1-3 could be included), nor am I disputing whatever Waltke or Walton or Wenham (to add another “W” – Gordon Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis) might say that Genesis 1-3 is or is not “about” or re: what the ANE culture wants to know or is capable of knowing/understanding in its creation stories.

I am saying that Genesis 2 does indeed explain the “how and when” regarding man’s creation (or at least a “how and when”), and its explanation of “how and when” is either correct or it’s not. We know from Enuma Elish that the ANE culture could handle and understand a detailed explanation of gods and animals and bloods and life essences and various mixes thereof. So if YHWH Elohim didn’t want the ANE culture to think that the adam was made from dust of the ground in a way unrelated to and separate from the creation from or descent from animals, He could have “explained to them the way of God more accurately.” But He didn’t. And if man indeed arose per the genetic and biological evidence, then Genesis 2’s account is false, regardless of whether it is primarily or superfluously concerned or not concerned with the “how and when.”

The Bible and the ANE culture are concerned with telling the truth. It’s not a 20th-21st-century post-enlightenment distinctive.

hi cheryl –

I am not an ANE scholar, (IANAANES) and I am less well-read on that issue than I am for Genesis 1-3. So, the short answer is I don’t know when “actual history” kicks in. I do note that the very way you phrase the question is problematic, though. You are basically asking “when does Genesis start getting it right?” When I would say “Genesis has it right from an ANE perspective the whole way through.” I understand and sympathize with the question, but bear in mind it has presuppositions loaded into it…

Folks, we need to let Genesis be Genesis, and, like any other portion of Scripture, we need to let it speak to us on its own terms. Anything less is eisegesis, pure and simple.

I have a colleague who is an ANE scholar, and he puts it this way: the church has dressed up Genesis to be a racehorse, when in reality it’s a zebra. It’s a pretty poor racehorse despite the game of dressup – but it’s a beautiful zebra if only you’ll take off the post-enlightenment dressup and appreciate it for what it was originally intended to be.

cheryl, I would recommend Walton & Waltke to you as well- these are not some yahoos, but scholars who love and serve Jesus Christ, and who have taken years to carefully study these issues from a scriptural perspective. I’ll go dig up those links for their books now. Sorry I can’t be more help right now.

eric:

If you’re asking “did God actually create man from dust directly with no intervening biological forms?” then I’d say no.

Does that make Genesis 2 “wrong”? well, that’s where you and I differ. It only makes it “wrong” if you think it was God’s intent to describe how He did things in 21st century scientific terms.

How about the firmament – was that “wrong” too? Or the fact that we see God separate water above and below the firmament – was that “wrong” too? Or the fact that plants precede the sun? Or that birds precede mammals? Are these all wrong?

Or, perhaps your general approach to Genesis is wrong?

As promised, here are those links:

John Walton’s recent book.

Bruce Waltke’s tome.

cheryl, here is a paper from the American Scientific Affiliation (an organization of Christians in the sciences of which I am a member) that deals with Genesis 1-11 and common “trying to fit it into modern science” approaches. I’ve skimmed it, and it looks like it is worth a read. The author takes on Hugh Ross’ concordist model. eric, you might find this informative as well.

The paper can be found here (pdf).

gabriel:

You don’t know my approach to Genesis. I haven’t stated it.

Does that make Genesis 2 “wrong”? well, that’s where you and I differ. It only makes it “wrong” if you think it was God’s intent to describe how He did things in 21st century scientific terms.

So, it comes down to “it depends upon what the meaning of ‘is’ is”? 🙂

If it wasn’t God’s intent to accurately describe man’s creation – since we know He could have done so in the ANE culture in a way that was more congruent with what science and biology and genetics tell us about man’s descent and/or creation than the way Genesis 2 tells it – then was it God’s intent to inaccurately describe man’s creation, perhaps because He was only trying to explain why man is mortal; why man decays into dust; why there are male and female humans; why snakes are loathsome; etc.? 😕

eric, it seems to me that in post 870 you laid out a significant part of your approach to Genesis. That was what I was working off of – if that is in error please advise:

I do not see how one can know and believe that humans were the result of a perhaps-God-tweaked evolutionary development alongside chimpanzees from a common pre-simian ancestor and continue to assert that Genesis 2 is an accommodation to an ancient culture. Rather, one would have to be honest and say that Genesis 2 is false. (eric @ 870)

Your questions are now along the lines of “why didn’t God make Genesis comport more readily with our current understanding?” Well, I have no idea. I guess it wasn’t a concern of His at the time.

Does all this discussion of the theology mean you find the biology (genetics, fossil record) threatening? Or are you just trying to work out the theological implications? It seems like from your post above (quoted from 870) that you see common ancestry as incompatible with the validity of Genesis. Does that mean that if I can “prove” common descent you’ll ditch your faith? Would you really go that far without questioning the idea that perhaps your approach to Genesis might be eisegetical?

Hi John,

welcome back.

You ask about the “evolution” of my views – pretty standard, actually. I went from OEC to ID and then on to TE. Three factors: as I studied biology I became more and more aware of what the data in favor of evolution actually is; I became more aware of, and then sick of, the lies and distortions coming from the OEC and ID camps; and I learned that approaching Genesis on its own terms (from an ANE perspective) leaves the “how and when” open to science.

Don’t trust the Discovery Institute farther than you can throw ’em… cash only with those guys. Spin, spin, spin, this; darwinist, darwinist, darwinist that. Blech. Even if there were real evidence for what they call “design” (there isn’t) I wouldn’t have anything to do with the movement.

oh, and Wallace wasn’t a Christian – theist, yes, Christian no. From what I’ve heard he had some pretty “interesting” theological ideas. Interesting from a historical point of view, but not recommended as an example of a Christian theistic evolutionist, since he didn’t hold to the Christian faith.

To play devil’s advocate:

Genesis & “When”

Genesis does not give a “when”. Genesis 1 is written as two parallel triads, with the second one giving additional particulars. The triads are a literary device, which is also used to sanction the work/rest cycle for humans. The only “when” is relative in that Adam is before his descendents.

Genesis & “What”

There is no “what” either, except in so far as Genesis indicates that Adam’s physical body is made of the same stuff as the rest of the earth: dust. It can’t be dust as we understand it (e.g., dusty road) because dust does not contain all the chemicals and compounds that are in a human body. So it must instead be a generalized reference to the stuff of the earth. If that is so, then it’s just as true a comment to make about all living things. It would also be true if God formed Adam from some ape-like forbear. The ape would be made of “dust”, i.e. the physical compounds of the earth, and so therefore would anything formed from the ape.

It is also not clear from Genesis whether God made new atoms come into existence as Adam, atoms that had not previously existed, or used existing atoms and somehow used his power to gather the necessary atoms together.

Genesis & “How”

There is no particular “how” either. To “form” something is pretty vague. It does not necessarily mean that God used some potter’s wheel and put a pile of clay and organic and inorganic materials on it and then exercised his power to rearranged the atoms until it was a human. It would be just as true for God to take an existing animal (ape) and form that creature into a human.

Genesis and “Frontloading”

Regards,
#John1453

John, define “information” for me as you see it.

Off the top of my head, and without distinguishing between different conceptual categories, I would say that information is not like the organization of non-living things like crystals. Information is non-random, complex, organized communicative, telelogical (directed toward an end), interpreted (i.e., not apparent on its face), etc. What do you think information is? Do you think it’s a relevant concept? cheers, John

Regards,
#John1453

Hi John,

“information” is one of those terms that has been popular with the ID movement of late, hence my asking for your definition.

Off the cuff, many non-living things have “information” as you define it – viruses and mobile genetic elements (transposons) come to mind.

Discussions of “information” usually come up in abiogenesis-type arguments. I recognize that abiogenesis research is limited but I don’t think there is enough known to say one way or another if abiogenesis is indeed a “gap” that needs a God to fill. Personally I doubt it – but it seems like the IDers are heading in that direction – “look! It’s God’s last gap!”

The other place “information” comes up is in the ID argument that you can only lose it, never gain it through “Darwinian” processes. If you’re interested we can explore evidence for information gain through evolution. This evidence is quite robust, but technical in nature.

What of the evidences I’ve presented for human : chimpanzee common ancestry? I’m still hoping you’ll take a stab at it as your schedule allows.

Best,

gabe

EricW,

I’ll add a few short observations on why I think the “dust to man and back to dust” concept is in Genesis.

As Gabe as pointed out, and as Walton and Waltke have readily acknowledged, Genesis 1 contains a very primitive cosmology that we aren’t familiar with, but was very prevalent in the ANE.

This cosmology was the “science” of their day and based solely on what the naked eye could see.

For example, water would come down from the sky, and the sky was blue, so there must be a great ocean up there. Since water doesn’t come down all the time, there must be something solid holding it up, but with gates in it that God opens from time to time. This huge solid thing also held the sun, moon, and stars too.

Likewise, when they dug a well, water came up out of the earth! That means there is another ocean below us too.

When they looked around them they could only see as far as the horizon would let them, so they thought the world was a disk. The huge mountains off in the distance marked the foundations and pillars of the firmament, which we know held back the waters and also, according to Genesis 1:7 separated the waters above from those below.

I said similar things in post #68.

We could go on, but I think you get the point. Genesis 1 is full of ancient cosmology, and according to modern cosmology, is completely wrong.

But it made sense to the Israelites, so God used their current understanding. Its like God using Hebrew to communicate with them and not some great godly language. He was simply accommodating His revelation to them in a way they could understand. He didn’t make them learn a whole new language or give them a superior one; He just used what they already had. I kind of touched on that in post #782.

So, their science wasn’t His concern, but their theology was, and that’s what had to be corrected.

Now with this in mind, I propose a very simple solution to the “human dust” issue.

When people saw bodies decay, they turned into what looked like dust. Since this is what they turn into upon death, they must be made of it.

Dust could also be a reference to man’s place next to God, and would have bearing on man trying to be like God by eating of the forbidden fruit. Adam tried to be like God when he was nothing but dust.

This video of John Walton (http://www.blackhawkchurch.org/resources/events.php#) goes into a little bit detail on how the ancients thought ancient thoughts and which ones made it into the Bible. His lecture is the first one.

You can download it too, and I found the times that pertain to this discussion:

7:40-11:30

Very good, and I recommend everyone to watch the whole video if you haven’t already.

This cosmology was the “science” of their day and based solely on what the naked eye could see.

For example, water would come down from the sky, and the sky was blue, so there must be a great ocean up there. Since water doesn’t come down all the time, there must be something solid holding it up, but with gates in it that God opens from time to time. This huge solid thing also held the sun, moon, and stars too.

Likewise, when they dug a well, water came up out of the earth! That means there is another ocean below us too.

When they looked around them they could only see as far as the horizon would let them, so they thought the world was a disk. The huge mountains off in the distance marked the foundations and pillars of the firmament, which we know held back the waters and also, according to Genesis 1:7 separated the waters above from those below.

I said similar things in post #68.

We could go on, but I think you get the point. Genesis 1 is full of ancient cosmology, and according to modern cosmology, is completely wrong….

When people saw bodies decay, they turned into what looked like dust. Since this is what they turn into upon death, they must be made of it.

Dust could also be a reference to man’s place next to God, and would have bearing on man trying to be like God by eating of the forbidden fruit. Adam tried to be like God when he was nothing but dust.

So, since we operate by and understand a totally different cosmology and anthropology, when we tell today’s people how God created man and the earth and the animals and the cosmos and how man sinned and fell and why he’s mortal, should we give the explanation in terms of what our scientifically-informed eyes can see – i.e., without firmaments, waters above and below, talking snakes, etc.? Why repeat a story that is 1. demonstrably scientifically false, and 2. culturally irrelevant and untranslatable/non-transferable to today’s people – i.e., it does not comport with what they know and “see” (scientifically, that is)?

Re 894

The story in Genesis is not demonstrably false, even though the ANE view of what the heavens were like was demonstrably false. God does not say that the firmanent is a hard shell with doors. What God states in Genesis is to say that He alone created what the ANE peoples saw and what we see today. God said to the ANE Hebrews, “I created what you see”. The ANE Hebrews explained what they say in terms of a hard shell with stars in it and waters on the other side, but that is their explanation, not God’s. The term for what the Hebrews saw in the sky was “firmanent” (in Hebrew, obviously), but the term by itself does not necessiate believing in a certain constitution or make-up of that thing. God is saying to the Hebrews, “what you see and call ‘firmanent’, I made that”.

There is a difference between failing to correct error and teaching error. God does not correct their ANE belief about the locations and nature of the stars; He is focussed on correcting their beliefs about who made the stars and what the implications of that are. God does not need for the Hebrews to understand that stars are billions of miles away and made of atoms undergoing nuclear fusion for them to understand that He made them. That is what accommodationist language does, it works with the language as it is in order to teach new truths. God simply states that there are waters above and below, which is true, but does not go into cosmological detail about what keeps the waters up there. The ANE Hebrews thought there was a shell up there with doors for water to come down, but God who sees all reality as it is because He made it and sustains it knows that that belief is not true.

Yet God is silent on that false understanding when He communicates Genesis because that is not His point in Genesis. Genesis is not about physics and the science of reality, but about who. Who is the true God? Who are the false Gods? Who made it all? Who should be worshipped and glorified? That is also why YECs are wrong to insert science into Genesis. God is not asserting anything about the chemical make up of rocks and stars, or their location, or the speed of light, or radioactive decay.

So rather than being a story that is culturally irrelevant, it is rather a story that is very relevant and continuing in relevance because God did not go into the science of things and did not go into the “true” nature and location of stars and rainfall.

Regards,
#John

What John said.

Because the creation account focused on the functional aspects of creation and not the material, it is able to speak to all people in all cultures and in all times because all people experience all these things within the creation.

A modern scientifically accurate account could not do that.

If I were to explain it to a modern person, and I do so very often, I wouldn’t worry that it isn’t scientifically accurate because that isn’t the purpose of Genesis. I would focus on what is important to the modern person regardless of their scientific knowledge or beliefs. This is also what Genesis focuses on. Time, weather, and food; all these are just as important to moderns as it is to an ancient, and all are established by God in Genesis for our benefit.

When we understand the purpose of the creation account, we reveal the divine wisdom of God that allows a culturally and time-based written account to be meaningful to all people everywhere.

It has been said that the Gospel can be understood by anyone anywhere because it speaks to realities inherent in all humans. Why then can’t the creation account also do the same?

Re 896: Excellent last paragraph, Greg. I hadn’t thought of it that way before, drawing the connection between the two. cheers, John.

A number of participants in this blog believe that the Bible was directed specifically to people of the Ancient Near East and that familiarity with the mindset and thinking of these people is a requirement in correctly understanding the meaning of the text. It is clear that, ideally, this familiarity should include knowledge of the original languages of these people, especially Hebrew and Greek … fluency would be preferred. According to this perspective, such knowledge is not simply helpful in understanding the Scriptures; it is necessary – i.e., without it, a proper understanding of the text is impossible.
Such a perspective is brazenly esoteric and smacks of elitism. Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not saying that such knowledge is not helpful in understanding God’s Word, for I am well aware that scholars in this field have provided many worthwhile insights to biblical scholarship. What I am saying is that such scholarship is not necessary to properly understand His Word. I guarantee you that God did not intend His Word to be understood only by those with a PhD, or a college education … or with knowledge of ANE culture. His Word was meant to be grasped by ALL people of ALL ages. The ancient prophet Isaiah wrote:

“For the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return from there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.
“So shall My Word be which goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
Isaiah 55:10 & 11
(cont.)

If it was true that in order to be properly understood Scripture must be filtered through the lens of ANE culture, most Bible translators and missionaries would be out of work, for only a very select few of the people that they reach out to will ever be exposed to ANE culture, much less become familiar with the languages of these people. The idea that understanding ANE culture and languages is necessary in correctly understanding the Bible completely undermines the entire purpose of Bible translation and missionary work.

Let me provide an example here to underscore the point I am making. The fourth Commandment in Exodus 20 establishes the holiness of the Sabbath day. Verse 20:11 states, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” This fundamental truth is repeated in Exodus 31:17. To the vast majority of people who read this verse, whether in English or any other language, the meaning of the words is perfectly obvious: In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day (since the days here are paralleled to the 7 days of the week, it goes without saying that the days here would be understood by most people to be 24 hour days). Ask people sitting in church pews on Sunday morning what they believe these words mean, and 99% of them would think you were foolish. To them the meaning is perfectly clear; why would you ask such a stupid question? Furthermore, this same 99% would probably have no idea what ANE even stands for. But many, perhaps most, of these same people understand the Gospel perfectly well and have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Without the slightest knowledge of ANE culture, or anything else about the ANE, these people – 21st century Americans, no less – have grasped the central theme of the Bible, exactly as God intended.

Some of you have referred to such theories as the Framework View promoted by people such as John Ankerberg and Hugh Ross to support your contention that the days in Genesis 1 and the above passage in Exodus 20 are not 24 hour days. But, once again, the vast majority of people who read the Bible have never even heard of this theory. God did not intend that people need to be familiar with the Framework View in order to understand His Word.

In conclusion, researching ANE culture and even becoming familiar with the original languages of these people is a worthwhile and potentially rewarding endeavor, but concluding that such knowledge is NECESSARY to properly understand Scripture is completely unjustifiable and, as I stated earlier, brazenly esoteric and smacks of elitism.

Let me provide an example here to underscore the point I am making. The fourth Commandment in Exodus 20 establishes the holiness of the Sabbath day. Verse 20:11 states, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” This fundamental truth is repeated in Exodus 31:17. To the vast majority of people who read this verse, whether in English or any other language, the meaning of the words is perfectly obvious: In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day (since the days here are paralleled to the 7 days of the week, it goes without saying that the days here would be understood by most people to be 24 hour days). Ask people sitting in church pews on Sunday morning what they believe these words mean, and 99% of them would think you were foolish. To them the meaning is perfectly clear; why would you ask such a stupid question?

Which gets back to the original question this post/thread was addressing: I.e., in how many days did God create and/or make the heavens and the earth? ISTM that the author/editor of Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17 believed that God created/made the heavens and the earth in 6 days. If God didn’t, then the Sabbath was and is established on a false notion/idea/premise/basis, whether one has an ANE or USA or EU or POMO understanding and mindset. Did the author of Exodus misunderstand Genesis 1 (assuming he received it by tradition or inspiration and did not himself originate it)? Did he draw a false conclusion from it? If so, what other parts of Exodus (and Leviticus and Numbers) are based on false premises? The food laws? The other Sabbath laws? Etc.? How about the NT teachings about entering into a Sabbath rest (e.g., Hebrews)? If there was no Sabbath in which God rested, but the concept was stated only to fit an ANE mindset, what does that do to NT teachings related to this? If there was no Sabbath, what was it that Jesus said was made for man? If there was no Sabbath rest for God, then what are believers to strive to enter into: The Cube? (bad movie) Fantasy Island?