Seven Days That Divide The World: The Beginning According To Genesis And Science
Abstract
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. 192 pp. £10.99/$16.99.
There is a volatile debate concerning science and Christianity most of which centers on the first chapter of Genesis. Even Christians have wrestled with proper interpretation of the creation account for centuries. Does a six-day creation account match what we know about the age of the universe? Can a Christian who believes in an old universe be true to what the Scripture says? What does the creation story tell humanity about God and nature? John Lennox has written Seven Days that Divide the World to answer these questions and more.
John Lennox is a Christian mathematician and philosopher. He begins his book affirming the truth that God is the author of both Scripture and nature. In the introduction, Lennox says, We think that, since God is the author both of his Word the Bible and of the universe, there must ultimately be harmony between correct interpretation of the biblical data and correct interpretation of the scientific data. He fully affirms the inerrancy and ability of the Bible to inform humanity about nature. He understands there seems to be a troubled relationship between science and interpreting the Bible. Lennox believes that the two are equal in truth-value because God has authored both and that each are meant to illuminate, not dominate, the other.
How Old Is The Earth According To The Bible
I preferred to start with the Bible and go out from there. When I read Scripture, I realize that the history of the world is not an unbroken linear succession of years but is rather broken up into catastrophic events that altered everything in the world. This is what the Apostle Peter meant when he said that in the last days there will be scoffers claiming that things have been as they have always been .
These mockers say that there will not be a cataclysmic in-breaking of the kingdom of God in the second coming of Jesus Christ because, they would say, “Look at history! Everything is just the same as it has always been from the beginning.”
Now, the Bible, and observable data, conflict with anyone who might be tempted to join the scoffers. Those who hold to the biblical record, and the observable record in Creation, are those who hold to catastrophism. The scoffers who dont believe in a flood, in Peters epistle, hold to a philosophy of earth history called uniformitarianism.
The Bible teaches us that there was creation, which was a rather catastrophic rearranging of chaos, and then there was the fall. The earth was without form, and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters .
God Formed The Earth To Be Inhabited
Turn your Bible with me to,
Isaiah 45:18For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens God himself that formed the earth and made it he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD and there is none else.
Our Heavenly Father âformedâ the earth to be inhabited. He formed the earth for people, animals, insects, and plants to thrive.
He did not form the earth âwithout form, void,â full of âdarknessâ and covered in water, nor could life emerge from the earth if it was âan indistinguishable ruinâ.
God did not create the earth âin vainâ which is the same Hebrew word we find in Genesis 1:2, being âwithout formâ. Jehovah, our Heavenly Father is telling us plainly, He did not create the earth âvain,â He did not create the earth âwithout formâ.
Instead, He created the earth with âformâ which means,
âTo mould into a form especially as a potterâ.
Our Father is the Potter who molded the earth into form, He âestablishedâ the earth which means He âperfectedâ it, .
Scripture makes it abundantly clear, our Father âis not the author of confusion,â He is not the Creator of âa desolation,ââbut of peaceâ and âperfectionâ, .
Isaiah 45:18 perfectly aligns with Genesis 1:2 when we understand âwasâ should have been translated âbecameâ.
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How Old Is Earth
verifiedJohn P. Rafferty
Earths age is still an open questionwell, depending on who you talk to. In Jewish and Christian traditions, religious scholars report that the Bible, interpreted literally, suggests that the world is roughly 6,000 years olda claim that is frequently cited by young-Earth creationists. Teasing an answer out of other religious traditions is a bit more difficult. For example, Muslim scholars note that the Qurn, or Koran, hints that each of the six days of creation presented in the biblical book of Genesis lasted somewhere between 1,000 and 50,000 years, but there are few other references to Earths age in Islamic tradition. According to some Hindu texts, Earth has been around for more than 150 trillion years!
Why Do We Find Dinosaur Fossils
In , we read that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the Earth . Perhaps people and animals were killing each other maybe dinosaurs had started killing other animals and humans. In any case, the Bible describes the world as wicked.
Because of this wickedness, God warned a godly man named Noah that He was going to destroy the world with a Flood . God therefore commanded him to build a great ship so that all the kinds of land animals and Noahs family could survive on board while the Flood destroyed the entire Earth .
Some people think that dinosaurs were too big, or there were too many of them, to go on this Ark. However, there were not very many different kinds of dinosaurs. There are certainly hundreds of dinosaur names, but many of these were given to just a bit of bone or skeletons of the same dinosaur found in other countries. It is also reasonable to assume that different sizes, varieties, and sexes of the same kind of dinosaur have ended up with different names. For example, look at the many different varieties and sizes of dogs, but they are all the same kindthe dog kind! In reality, there may have been fewer than 50 kinds of dinosaurs.
God sent two of every land animal into the Ark there were no exceptions. Therefore, dinosaurs must have been on the Ark. Even though there was ample room in the huge ship for large animals, perhaps God sent young adults into the Ark that still had plenty of room for them to grow.
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New Testament: Who Wrote The Gospels
Just as the Old Testament chronicles the story of the Israelites in the millennium or so leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ, the New Testament records Jesuss life, from his birth and teachings to his death and later resurrection, a narrative that forms the fundamental basis of Christianity. Beginning around 70 A.D., about four decades after Jesuss crucifixion , four anonymously written chronicles of his life emerged that would become central documents in the Christian faith. Named for Jesuss most devoted earthly disciples, or apostlesMatthew, Mark, Luke and Johnthe four canonical Gospels were traditionally thought to be eyewitness accounts of Jesuss life, death and resurrection.
12th-13th century depiction of evangelists Luke and Matthew writing the Gospels.
DeAgostini/Getty Images
But for more than a century, scholars have generally agreed that the Gospels, like many of the books of the New Testament, were not actually written by the people to whom they are attributed. In fact, it seems clear that the stories that form the basis of Christianity were first communicated orally, and passed down from generation to generation, before they were collected and written down.
Old Things Are Renewed
Verse 2 of Genesis 1 reveals that our Milky Way home needed to be recreated, leading to the conclusion that our planet’s age in more old than it is young.
Evidence from Scripture, therefore, indicates that in the distant past the Eternal created the heavens and all that is in them . This would include the sun, moon, stars, and so on.
Sometime after the universe’s initial creation Lucifer tried to take over God’s throne by force. The battle and chaos that ensued wrecked the planet. In order to clean up the mess Lucifer caused, our Creator had to recreate and refashion the world in preparation for man during what is referred to as creation week .
Unfortunately, the gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and verse 2 is unknown. Given modern scientific findings regarding the universe, however, it is safe to say that the earth is indeed quite old.
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Mount St Helens: Chilling Audio Of 1980 Eruption Revealed
Mount St Helens entered a period of intense activity in 1980 that killed more than 50 people.
Although tragic, Young Earth Creationists believe the eruption has highlighted a flaw in attempts to date the planet’s age.
According to Professor Meyer, attempts to age the newly formed cap on the volcano using Potassium-argon dating have proven “far from accurate”.
The method and its supposed shortcomings were famously highlighted by Young Earth Creationist Dr Steve Austin and the Institute for Creation Research , when they analysed samples collected from the volcano in 1986.
This has even led to the Mount St Helens Creation Information Center being established “for the purpose of witnessing to the truth of God’s Word in Genesis”.
Professor Meyer said: “The severe faultiness of the dating method should cause everyone who adheres to the belief that the earth is 4,600,000,000 years old to reconsider that belief.
“According to the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal , using the conventional K-Ar dating methods, the porphyritic dacite which solidified on the surface of the lava dome six years after the eruption dates to 50,000 to 350,000 years old.
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“Also, the mineral concentrates from the dacite which formed in 1986 gave K-Ar ages of 60,000 to 2,800,000 years old this pyroxene concentrate was only six years old at the time they tested it.
Scientific Revolution And The Old Earth
Beginning in the 18th century, support for a young Earth declined among scientists and philosophers as new knowledge including discoveries of the Scientific Revolution and philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment. In particular, discoveries in geology required an Earth that was much older than thousands of years, and proposals such as Abraham Gottlob Werner‘s Neptunism attempted to incorporate what was understood from geological investigations into a coherent description of Earth’s natural history. James Hutton, now regarded as the father of modern geology, went further and opened up the concept of deep time for scientific inquiry. Rather than assuming that the Earth was deteriorating from a primal state, he maintained that the Earth was infinitely old. Hutton stated that:
the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.
This 19th century trend was contested. The scriptural geologists and later the founders of the Victoria Institute opposed the decline of support for a biblically literal young Earth.
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Does The Bible Really Say The Earth Is Six Thousand Years Old
from cover till cover
Let us go back to these first two verses of Genesis. The first verse already tells God created the heaven and the earth. Now, many people read this as a kind of summary of the remainder of Genesis 1. However, one can also read this as follows:
- First, God creates heaven and earth.
- Then, something happens. The text does not tell us what happens.
- After this has happened, the earth is without form – chaos, darkness.
- Then, the text tells us that the Spirit of God visits this chaos, and how God turns the chaos in something good.
saw that it was good
With this interpretation of Genesis 1: 1-2, one cannot tell from the Bible how old the earth is. This is not a problem, as the Bible is no science book, but a book of faith.
Man Made In Our Image
The verse Let us make man in our image bears the question, who is the us that is referred to? Many theologians believe that the reference to us is referring to God and his angels. Others believe it refers to a three-tome entity comprised of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. What we know for certain is that the original language used a plural form when referencing God.
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Earth Is About 6000 Years Old Comet Clock
How old are the comets? Comets are composed of water, methane, and ammonia along with dust. That is, they are snowballs. The following statement concludes that the comets give us a maximum age of the universe of 10,000 to 100,000 years.
They orbit the sun in an elliptical pattern and every time they come near the sun, some of the ice is evaporated and blown away by the solar wind thus creating the characteristic tail that always points away from the sun. Because of the evaporation problem, comets cannot survive too many close encounters with the sun and so have maximum lifetimes in the range of 10,000 to 100,000 years. Evolutionists therefore require a mechanism to replenish the supply of comets. They propose that a reservoir of long-period comets exists in the Oort cloud, way out beyond the orbit of Pluto, and a reservoir of short-period comets exists in the Kulper belt, just outside the orbit of Pluto. The Oort cloud has never been observed, and the objects so far located in the Kulper belt are too big to explain the observed comets.
In What Year Did The World Begin According To The Bible
The Genesis account is not the actual beginning of the physicalworld â per se . There is a âgapâin time between verses 1 and 3. Genesis begins with the Earthalready in existence and under water. The ârenewalâ of the worldbegins in Genesis 1:3. The time of man and our present world is thequestion.
According to Archbishop James Ussher, from Armagh, Ireland,writing in the 17th Century, he came to the start date of 4004 BCreasoning that since Christ was born in 4 BC, the 4000 years of theâRule of Manâ or 2/3s where completed and the final 1/3 or 2000 yrsare just ahead of course adjusting for the Error of Denis theLittle dropping the year zero to start the Anno Domini part of theages left with year 1. So we are actually living in the year 2010less 1 year or 2009 as he did not count the year 0 requiring us tonow subtract that error.
Another school of thought has Adam created on 3983 BC andequating to year 1 Anno Mundos or the start of the Reign of Man.This date is calculated by adding up the ages of the line of Adamto Abraham. So under this school of thought, the 6000 year Rule ofMan is now at 3983 + 2010 years to equal 5993 less 1 year or 5992Anno Mundus and would end 2018 AD. The 3.5 year reign of the BeastPower and the False Prophet will have to have started 1260 daysprior to the set date in 2018 â say 2014 AD. If it is a goodcalculation amidst all the prior wrong calculations for the 2ndReturn of Christ, it is really nearby.
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Pastor Column: Bible Tells Truth About Dinosaurs
Dinosaur fossils are fascinating. They have been discovered on every continent of the Earth, and hundreds of different species of dinosaurs have been classified. Sadly, many today accept a lie about the origin of these incredible animals. Gods Word, the Bible, tells us the truth about dinosaurs.
Evolutionists teach that dinosaurs lived more than 200 million years ago. Their theory is that dinosaurs died off long before humans came on the scene. Some sudden catastrophe brought about their demise. Other evolutionists believe the dinosaurs eventually evolved into birds. But the Bible presents a far different perspective about dinosaurs.
According to the Bible, dinosaurs must have been created by God on the sixth day of creation. Genesis 1:24 says, And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
The sixth day of creation was also the day when God created people . Therefore, dinosaurs and people must have lived together on the earth at one time.
Dinosaurs were also originally vegetarians. All animals were. Genesis 1:30 says, And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. Thats a big difference from most modern portrayals of dinosaurs.
Can We Question God
My admission of ignorance concerning the dating of the earth does not bother me whatsoever. The reason is, when Job stopped his complaining before God because he ran out of words, the Lord answered him. Gods answer to Jobs assumptions about the secret counsel of God did not lack for sarcasm, holy derision that underscored the divide between God and Man:
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth.
Ouch. The answers to the Lords interrogation of Job are painfully self-evident:
No, my Lord, I was not around when You laid the foundations of the earth. No, my God, I have no understanding. Father, I have no idea about how you determined the measurements of the earth. No, Lord, I do not know. Morning stars singing together? Lord, this is beyond my ability to comprehend. Sons of God shouting for joy? Can I take a guess? Okay, Lord, I will be quiet. Thou art God. I am not .
There was a flood. Once more, the very constitution of the earth and life on it changed. So, dire events that fundamentally reshaped the earths system of life prevent me from comparing today to the beginning of the world.
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