Posted on 05/10/2009 8:21:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In The Bible, Rocks and Time (IVP Academic), geologists and Reformed Christians Davis Young and Ralph Stearley try to convince young-earth creationists (YECs) to abandon their position. First, they argue that the Creation account in Genesis 1 need not be understood as a historical narrative documenting the creation of the universe and its inhabitants in six normal (rotational) days. Second, they argue that the data from geology point unwaveringly to a planet of exceedingly ancient age.
I particularly appreciated Young and Stearley's historical overview of church beliefs on Genesis and Creation. Their careful documentation puts to rest the claims of other old-earth proponents that the church fathers held views compatible with an ancient earth. They likewise present the origins of modern geology well, particularly within the broader historical backdrop of Christian influences on scientific thought.
But BR&T is essentially a negative critique. Theologically, the authors seek to show that Genesis 1 need not be understood as describing six rotational days. But if so, which competing view should we adopt? They clearly dislike the "ruin-reconstruction theory" or "gap theory" (there was a large gap of time between the first and second verses of Genesis), and display reservations about the day-age view (the six days were much longer periods). The authors favor some kind of allegorical view (e.g., the "framework hypothesis"), but are steadfast that they will not make a positive case for any of these.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
BTW, in this book, the authors also argue strongly against the Flood as a global, geologically formative event in history.
The authors are Christians. They however make no case for what the flood in Genesis 6-9 actually was. They don’t even tell us whether they believe the flood ever occurred.
The reviewer’s point is this —— a robust concept of the Creation cannot be articulated when Genesis 1 is evaluated in near isolation from other relevant Scripture (e.g., Gen. 2, 3, 6-11; Rom. 1 and 8; 2 Pet. 3).
For instance, were Adam and Eve historical individuals?
Where was the Garden of Eden?
Was the Fall an actual event? And how does this relate to evil? These and many other questions are never addressed in this book at all.
Not only that, they began using the word to describe the period of time from Midnight to Midnight, and we all know that's just not right.
Thomas Paine asked if God didn’t make the sun until the third day, then what exactly, were the first three “days”?
I think I have read somewhere that the orginal Hebrew word used may mean other things than one solar day.
Day is an english word.
The key word here is “reformed.”
They are as a group, certainly not Bible believers; they are scoffers on all of the most inportant issues of god’s word. They as a body represent the bulk of the misguided fools known as the “higher critics.”
Would you expect them to demolish their own thesis?
You may well have read that; there are so many lies in print, but that idea cannot be honestly supported by Biblical text.
Maybe I’m . . . torn about the young earth stuff.
Certainly as it’s most often stated, I think it’s not true.
I do happen to think that Genesis creation was in 6 rotational days. But it doesn’t really matter that much, to me, if it was 6 thousand years/a thousand years = one of God’s ‘days’ sort of time line.
I do believe that the earth is much older than 6,000 years.
It may well be that the VOID AND WITHOUT FORM state of the world was 6 or so thousand years ago but I mostly don’t believe that, either. There’s Chinese writing that’s 7,000 years old.
There’s nuclear sites in India that go back a very long time.
I suspect God has used this boot camp a lot for a long period of time, mushing things all over and starting over many times.
It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is what we do with Jesus The Christ in the here and now. Are we ready to meet HIM, OR NOT?
Do we love HIM unsurprassingly, or not.
All else is chaff.
Paine was a bitter man, and his question is a strawman. The Bible does not say that he waited until the third day to make the sun.
If God could create the universe, couldn’t he create the geological facts that we are “reading”? IOW if you accept the existence of God and His omnipotence, who is to say that he didn’t create a world that appears millions of years old.
The supposition always is that Adam and Even were created MAN and WOMAN, not babies.
The logical conclusion would be that God created the earth already aged as well.
This is one of the big reasons why it matters. We cannot get ready to meet him without fully understanding what he has told us. The detailed information given in his word is not without purpose. He placed the information in his word because we need it desperately. Many souls drift due to this old Earth blasphemy.
He could, but He’s not given to deception— that’s the domain of That Other.
The Genesis judgment created every visible feature on Earth.
An observant eye sees a very young Earth in such things as hills that still have deep soil that brings forth new land slides every winter. An old Earth would be nothing but bedrock and rugged, unclimbable cliffs, with shallow oceans full of sediment.
I doubt that many folks have gotten that caught up in it all.
I believe it’s important to know what Christ taught.
It’s even more important to KNOW CHRIST PERSONALLY.
Every verse of the beginning ends in the phrase, "and it was good." The entire point of Genesis was to make us all understand the inherent goodness of God's creation - all of it. The point was never to pass on the geological science of how the Earth came to be.
This is how our parish priest, whom I respected a great deal as a man of God and also as a really smart guy, explained it to me, and it is the most logical thing I've ever heard.
What a novel idea eh!
Moslems think there's a perfect Koran in Heaven that was handed down to men. We recognize that as an heresy, so why impose that sort of standard on our Bible.
BTW, if you don't believe what I believe your chances of attaining salvation are commensurately diminished.
Blasphemy to whom? When was Lucifer created? When did Lucifer rebel? And remember Saul Alinsky in his Rules for Radicals gives praise to the first 'radical' rebellion. That 'fall' was the reason for why this earth looks pretty much the way we find it today. Genesis does not say anything more about the rebellion than what we find in Genesis 1:2... And busy little fingers place the verb was in Genesis 1:2 instead of 'became'. Isaiah says that God did not create this earth void and without form... it became that way. Jeremiah tells a bit about that time, as does Isaiah and Ezekiel. Peter and Paul write about that time also. So when you use the term blasphemy I would like to know who is blaspheming whom.
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