Difficult Passages in Scripture, part 3.2- Genesis 1 and the Creation Days

November 14, 2006 at 3:37 pm (Difficult Scripture, OT-Genesis, Ph-Science)

We continue our discussion of the creation days in Genesis by looking at the Day-Age view. This view, briefly stated, asserts that the word “yom” (”day”) in Hebrew can mean more things than a 24-hour period of time. They point to such expressions as “Day of the Lord.” Furthermore, they base their argument heavily on the purported old age of the earth. Since the earth is obviously much older than 6,000-12,000 years old, then we must interpret the Bible in such a way that harmony can exist between natural revelation and special revelation.

It must be admitted at once that the word “yom” can indeed mean more things than a 24-hour period of time. However, that is not really the question. The question is, “What meaning of ‘yom’ does Genesis 1 evince?” Day-Age advocates often seem to think that their job is done when they prove that “yom” can mean something other than a 24-hour period of time. However, proving that it is possible, and proving that it is are two different things. TWOT is the only lexicon that argues for a meaning other than 24-hour day here. That leaves NIDOTTE, KB, BDB, and TDOT, who say otherwise, as does ISBE I, pg 877, IDB, and most commentators (except for Waltke, Young, Collins, Augustine, and a few others) to say that “yom” means 24 hours in Genesis 1:5.

The main criticism that I have with the Day-Age view is that they cannot seem to avoid using science to trump interpretation of the text. This was utterly obvious in the book The Genesis Debate, where Archer and Ross did almost zero exegesis, and wrote almost entirely about science. But science cannot prove anything. At most, it can theorize. Furthermore, as I indicated in one of my comments on the Hubble entry, scientific evidence is also ambiguous. There is no proof that the world is old, since there are no eye-witnesses except God, and He seems to think in the other direction, in my opinion.

20 Comments

  1. edarrell said,

    November 14, 2006 at 9:18 pm

    “Science cannot prove anything?” Do I sense a great deal of evidence envy?

    Science can disprove with abandon — and the notion that creation is very recent (within hundreds of thousands of years), or the idea that there was a world-wide flood, have been disproven.

    The question is not whether parts of Genesis are allegories. The question is just how much is, and how allegorical those parts are.

    Scientific evidence can be ambiguous. Scriptural evidence used to rebut, however, isn’t even ambiguous.

    There may have been no eye witnesses to much of creation, but we have the photographs of the baby shortly after the birth (see the COBE Project). God provided the stuff to photograph, and it’s definitely very, very old.

    Not to mention God’s little clocks, the atoms, used to date the rocks. They are the most accurate time keepers in the universe. Again, while there may be no eye witnesses, the clocks provide better-than-eye-witness evidence.

    And in biology, we now know that eye witness evidence cannot hold a candle to DNA.

    Don’t sell science short in order to make scripture appear taller than it is.

  2. greenbaggins said,

    November 15, 2006 at 11:52 am

    No, science cannot prove any theory to be true. That is what I meant. Science can, of course, disprove things. However, I would deny utterly that science has disproven a world-wide flood or that creation is recent. They have disproved nothing of the sort. Genesis 1 has the vayyiqtol form, which is characteristic of narrative history. Moses means to convey history, not allegory. This is not to say that Genesis 1 is a science textbook. But it is not allegory.

    We do not have pictures of the creation shortly after birth. What we have is extrapolated theories. We think that this is how the universe looked. But to say that God could not have created the universe to look old is simply begging the question. If that is posssible, then science hasn’t ruled it out. DNA has not proven anything about the earth’s age. Furthermore, various methods of dating are notoriously unreliable, given the Mt. St. Helens eruption, which made everything look old in the matter of a few weeks.

    I come from a family of Ph.D.’s in science. I am a theologian. My family agrees with me that science cannot prove that the earth is old. It can only prove that the universe, in some respects, looks old. That is the best that science can do.

  3. edarrell said,

    November 15, 2006 at 5:54 pm

    I’ve always thought photographs were pictures. Since when did they become “extrapolated theories?”

    To say that God created the universe to look old is to simply say God is a deceiver, and that is inconsistent with Christian theology. Christians have ruled that possibility out, and science works on the assumption that a constant stream of physical-law-defying miracles is not necessary for existence — a view arrived at from Christian thought originally.

    “Looks old” is the same as “is old” for most theology, if we’re assuming (as I do) that God did it. At some point we have to realize that the subtle ways creationism denies the work and existence of God are at least as pernicious as any atheist’s outright denial. God is not a deceiver, and if God’s creation “looks old,” we must assume that it is so.

  4. edarrell said,

    November 15, 2006 at 5:55 pm

    By the way, there is nothing about the Mt. St. Helen’s eruption that dates incorrectly in radioisotope dating done as the methods prescribe. One of the most pernicious things about creationism, to me, is how it makes otherwise good, God-loving people accept and perpetuate false claims. No scientist has ever claimed with good evidence that Mt. St. Helens ejecta looks older than it is. It doesn’t.

  5. greenbaggins said,

    November 15, 2006 at 6:03 pm

    Well, aren’t we the eschatological people of God, and how dare God not tell us everything we would like to know about the origins of the universe! Do you honestly think that if God created the world to look old, that He wouldn’t have told Adam what He was doing? Hardly a fair assumption. We have what we need to know in Scripture.

    Pictures are one thing. The interpretations of those pictures are something entirely different.

    What I am talking about vis-a-vis the Mt. St. Helen’s eruptions are the rock layers that formed that were not there before.

    Other methods of dating are incredibly circular. How do you know whether radio-isotope dating is accurate? Usually people will say “Because of the rock layers.” Hence my attack of dating by rock layers via Mt. St. Helens.

    Creationism pernicious? Absolutely amazing assertion! That we could believe what the Bible says about creation is pernicious! The next thing you’ll tell me is that Jesus saving people from hell is an absolute horror message!

  6. edarrell said,

    November 16, 2006 at 8:24 pm

    Layers of rocks are fine — the trick that the creationists allege by implication is that all rock layers are the same. That’s not so. The layers of debris from different flows, from different causes (mud versus ash, for example), all date the same.

    Layers in the Grand Canyon, dated using the same methodology, would provide differing years — in some cases, millions of years apart, in other cases billions of years apart.

    Layers of rock themselves are not indicative of age. Hundreds of individual layers put down one per year indicate rocks hundreds of years, old; if thousands of layers, thousands of years; if millions of layers, millions of years.

    Then, we date the volcanic stuff. If the atomic age of the vulcanism corresponds to the layer-calculated age, we have corroboration.

    The Mt. St. Helen’s stuff doesn’t deny any of that — in fact, as you describe it, it verifies it.

    How do we know radio isotope dating is accurate? Because nuclear decay is constant, everywhere in the universe. It can only be changed, pragmatically, in the heart of a star. When we say “because of the rock layers” with reference to radioisotopes, we usually refer to rocks found between two volcanic layers, which can be dated accurately because the volcanic action reset the clocks, effectively, and we can accurately say that rock between those layers was laid down between the times of the eruptions. (This is how many of the hominid fossils from Africa are dated, for example — the Laetoli footprints are, conveniently or miraculously, made in an ashfall from the Sandiman volcano.)

    And see, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Some creationist tried to sell you a bill of goods, distorting how rock dating is done, suggesting it has only to do with “layers,” and making false claims about the rocks at Mt. St. Helens.

    Why would a Christian make such false claims? Once the claims are debunked, shouldn’t a Christian be careful to get it right later? But despite the claims about the mudflows and ashfalls and rocks around Mt. St. Helens being debunked with respect to their calling any nuclear or geology principle into question, we still find creationists spreading the false claims. That really bugs me.

  7. greenbaggins said,

    November 17, 2006 at 10:07 am

    edarrell, this whole rock layer dating is based on thin air. For one thing, the rock layers are not all in the same arrangement. They are mixed up in many places. I don’t know how you can say that Mt. St. Helens supports your argument, when the rock layers that appeared were **not** there before! Furthermore, those rock layers that weren’t there before are in the same order as some rock layer orders elsewhere. This is rather difficult for the old-age theory.

    Nuclear decay is not constant as you seem to suppose. First of all, there is no benchmark against which to measure supposed million-year-old items. If you say rock layers, then your rock layers date your fossils (or whatever it is that is being measured), and the fossils date the rocks. And around and around we go.

    The only reason that creationism bugs you is that you don’t want a God out there telling you what is right and wrong. You want to be autonomous, a god to yourself. If we just came into the world by chance, then God (if He even exists) cannot tell us what to do. However, if you think that there is right and wrong, then you have an ultimate irreconcilable contradiction in the way you live. Evolution brooks no morality. It’s a dog eat dog world out there, and the biggest dog wins. If Hitler enrages you, then you believe in God and in moral standards of right and wrong. You cannot erase the image of God in you.

  8. edarrell said,

    November 17, 2006 at 11:43 am

    Rock layers mixed up? That’s another creationist canard. In some places, some layers are moved out of place. In no place on Earth is it true that the order of the layers cannot be carefully and accurately determined (there are several places on Earth where we have complete columns of sediments through the entire history of the Earth, for comparison and corroboration). The layers at Mt. St. Helens are all datable to the eruption recently. They do not support a claim that layers are not accurate measures of time — they demonstrate that they ARE accurate measures.

    Volcanic rock can be benchmarked by radioisotopes. Argon, for example, is a gas that accumulates in the rock once it’s solid. By measuring the amount of argon and comparing it to the mother radioactive substances, we can accurately date rocks to within a few years of the eruption (for Herculaneum, the argon method hit the year exactly).

    If you have any evidence that nuclear decay is not the most steady rhythm in the universe, call the Nobel committee. It is not only as constant as I note, but more constant than any other in the universe. Nothing else compares.

    Creationism bugs me because it leads good Chrsitians astray. As an active, practicing Christian who takes his ordination seriously, I believe we should take a stand for higher ethics whenever possible. I have no doubt that God wants us to strive for accuracy, the better to get at truth. How that could possibly lead to your unwarranted assumption that I don’t want God is beyond me.

    Evolution, of humans, requires a morality of the sort of “do unto others as you with them to do unto you.” Hitler’s stand had nothing to do with evolution (he never mentions evolution, though he frequently claims the support of God — I think we should be careful about bringing the Godwin’s Law end to the conversation).

    Is it a dog-eat-dog world out there? That’s contrary to evolution. Where do the dogs get such ideas?

  9. greenbaggins said,

    November 17, 2006 at 11:57 am

    “Creationism leads good Christians astray.” “Higher ethics.” I can’t believe my eyes, edarrell! Then you have the audacity to quote Jesus’ own words in the Sermon on the Mount (through Jesus the entire created world came into being, see John 1) in support of evolution! Evolution is survival of the fittest, *****NOT***** “do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” Evolution supports genocide, since the stronger race wins. You have to borrow Scripture to support a position completely contrary to Scripture! My point with Hitler is not that he used evolution (contrary to what you said I said, don’t miquote me, or it will seriously backfire in your face) , but that people react so strongly to the moral implications of what Hitler did. That reaction is completely and utterly inconsistent with evolution. Theistic evolution is not a tenable Biblical position, since God made every creature according to its kind, not according to the species it will supposedly turn into. Species do not evolve into other species. Micro-evolution (variation within species) is not macro-evolution. The variations within species is not a going beyond the species boundary. There is zero evidence for intermediary forms. The supposed examples have long been debunked by creation scientists, men with Ph.D.’s in all the relevant disciplines.

    The Nobel committee is often wrong. Any time they support evolution, they are wrong. As my father, a Ph.D. in physics, once said (quoting Gordon Clark, I believe), the scientists are going to climb the mountain of knowledge only to find a bunch of theologians waiting there at the top. Evolution is fast finding opponents even in the non-Christian world. For instance, Intelligent Design has debunked evolution all by itself.

    We are going to have to differ, obviously, on the accuracy of rock layers and radio-isotopic dating methods. You refuse to acknowledge that just because something looks old doesn’t mean it is old. Until you reconcile yourself with that fact, you will always be blinded by the supposed certainty of science, which is nonexistent.

  10. edarrell said,

    November 18, 2006 at 12:28 am

    Evolution is survival of the fittest; as Darwin noted, altruism, and adhering to the Golden Rule makes humans fit to survive. Don’t confuse biological evolution with Herbert Spencer’s Calvinist-fueled screeds that claim poor people get what they deserve by being poor because they’re unfit. Spencer’s stuff was bad social policy then, it’s contrary to biological evolution, and I find it remarkably unChristian (Darwin wondered why more Christians weren’t opposed, and so di I). You should read Darwin, sometime — I recommend chapter 5 of Descent of Man, in which he points out the necessity of morality to the survival of our species, and in which it becomes clear that he found Christianity’s version of morality, as espoused by Jesus (though not necessarily espoused by Christians) to be vastly superior to other forms of morality. In a social species such as ours, cooperative virtue is absolutely necessary for our survival. The urge to practice Golden Rule is “the fittest’s” survival tool. As Darwin took great pains to point out, genocide is contrary to the biological rules — Darwin noted that genocide almost always wipes out a group of people who are better fit for their environment, and therefore evolutionarily superior to those who wipe them out. Genocide decreases diversity, which is what evolution needs to work on to produce fitness for survival. Genocide is no goal for evolution — it’s exactly the opposite of what evolution needs to work, and the opposite of what any species needs to guarantee its survival. “The stronger race” survives only through reproduction and natural selection; the artificial selection of genocide isn’t at all what evolution urges, but is the exact opposite.

    You recall, if you read Darwin, that his job aboard H.M.S. Beagle was to gather the scientific evidence that would once and for all confirm one of the Genesis stories of evolution. He devoted a half decade to gathering the information that all the experts agreed would make that showing, were it true — and then was stymied when the data simply did not fit any creationist hypothesis. God’s creation does not support a creationist model,and Darwin discovered that first. Wallace discovered exactly the same thing a half-generation later. God made each species to reproduce after it’s own kind, not as a clone of the parent. That’s all evolution is. I think it’s telling that scripture does not deny evolution at all, but instead uses language that rather suggests how evolution works, with descendants after the likeness of their parents, not as perfect replicas.

    Species do evolve into other species — at least, I think it would be difficult to get many people to say that radishes and broccoli are the same species now, as they are both descended from the same mustard. My friends in fly research talk of the difficulty of preventing speciation in flies in the lab, especially in pesticide research. The problem is that if the captive flies speciate, the pesticides developed may not work on wild versions of the fly. Meanwhile, Peter and Rosemary Grant at Princeton have a half-dozen papers documenting speciation in birds. Actual speciation — “macro” evolution — has been recorded cleanly at least since 1870. We know of many other examples from history, and speciation is one of the things that plant and animal breeders work to achieve in many different ways. With literally hundreds of examples of such “macro” evolution, I think it behooves us not to claim that such things don’t exist.

    As to intermediary forms, there are hundreds. Consider snakes, alone. We have snakes with no hips, snakes with hips, snakes with vestigial leg bones floating in their bodies, and snakes with legs — a few snakes with legs that still perform functions. Coming the other way we have skinks, skinks that slither like snakes, skinks that slither like snakes and have atrophied legs, and skinks with no legs. We living transitional forms of nearly the entire spectrum of the evolution of snakes from legged creatures. Fossils show the same. In whales, we have a dozen intermediary forms known in fossils. In our own line, there are no fewer than 18 different species between our ancient common ancestor with chimps and modern humans. Intermediary species are common in paleontology, and common in living things as well. If you know of any paper that “debunks” these solid examples, I’d like to know of them. Such papers have never been found for the federal trials on evolution. If they exist, don’t you think the creationists would have brought them out for trial?

    My thoughts are that generally when the Nobel committees are wrong, they are wrong on the conservative side. It’s rather inexcusable that Einstein never got an award for his work on gravity or relativity (though the photoelectric effect was worthy, certainly). Evolution has support in science because it works in the lab. Diabetes, for example, was diagnosed, and all treatments have come from applied evolution theory. Creationism has been dead, scientifically, since about 1820. Intelligent design has never contributed anything to science. Applied evolution theory protects our crops, broadens and improves our food supplies, and treats and cures our diseases. When I reflect that Jesus’ ministries were much about healing, I can’t help but note the close correlation — I don’t think sciences that contribute so heavily to healing would be disfavored by God.

    If you have any example of any evolution-related Nobel being “wrong,” please note it. I can’t think of one.

    The guy who wrote the line about climbing the mountain was Robert Jastrow. “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” (God and the Astronomers, p. 116.) You’d find the book interesting, I think — but Jastrow is no opponent to evolution by any stretch. To suggest that as his meaning is to miss his point entirely. Evolution has many opponents, but no evidence has been produced by the opponents to suggest there is any weakness in the theory, let alone any major weakness. Intelligent design was recently determined in federal court to be vacuous, demonstrating no science at all. Vacuous, non-evidenced claims cannot “debunk” sound theory that is evolution. Telling, to me, was the fact that so many of the witnesses for intelligent design were found to have played fast and loose with the facts — there’s that old creationist ethics problem cropping up again.

    The irony of the rock disagreement, of course, is that radioisotopes don’t “look” old in any classic sense. They simply are old, though they may look young. Until you reconcile yourself with the fact that God’s creation gives evidence, and does not fib, you could continue to be victimized by creationist hucksters. I just hope you won’t pass on the hucksterism.

  11. greenbaggins said,

    November 18, 2006 at 11:33 am

    edarrell, I simply don’t have the time to carry on this debate any further. I suggest you take a good hard look at this website: http://www.icr.org/ and this website: http://www.answersingenesis.org/ for more thorough answers to your wrong thinking. There are *many* creation scientists out there who will echo Mark Twain in saying: “the reports of the death of creation science have been greatly exaggerated.”

  12. edarrell said,

    November 18, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    I have looked long, hard and often at those two websites. They are two among the top five offenders of creatinist sites who show little regard for the facts.

    Is there no creationist site that subscribes to a standard of honesty in academics?

  13. greenbaggins said,

    November 18, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    edarrell, you are only saying that because you have already decided that evolution is true. If you are going to charge those sites with dishonesty, then I don’t think we can continue this discussion.

  14. greenbaggins said,

    November 18, 2006 at 1:10 pm

    Here’s another site: http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page

  15. edarrell said,

    November 19, 2006 at 7:46 pm

    I only charge the sites with dishonesty because they are dishonest. Seriously, how can we trust sites (http://www.icr.org/article/3111/) that claim fossil mudcracks formed under water in extreme saline conditions, when all the evidence suggests otherwise? (Not least the complete absence of evidence of extreme salinity.) How about the claim made at ICR: “The hypothetical ape-like ancestor does not exist, and there is no evidence that it ever did.” That’s total hooey — there are nearly a score of well-documented species predating modern humans known, sometimes with thousands of specimens in the species (here’s one good site to start with: http://www.becominghuman.org/). ICR’s denial of basic nuclear physics is embarrassing to thinking Christians. Answers in Genesis’ bizarre claim that dinosaurs walked with humans provokes laughter among all but the most deluded fans of the Flintstones.

    I think we have a duty as Christians to stand up for a higher level of accuracy than these sites practice. They delude Christians, and anyone else they can — apparently on purpose.

    Is there scripture that comes to mind about people who intentionally mislead us? Does it urge we side with them?

  16. graham said,

    May 6, 2007 at 10:59 pm

    man, edarrel, you have some very concise points. As for green baggins, it seems that in this argument, you have fallen. Edarrel has facts and truth in his argument, while you simply have words that you claim to be true. Edarrel can back up his comments with unflawed sources, while your’s appear to be untrue. I am sorry to say this, but Edarrel is quite correct, and you are quite wrong.

  17. Andrew Malloy said,

    May 7, 2007 at 7:17 am

    Where else in Scripture does ‘day’ (yom) mean anything but a literal 24 hour day?

  18. Ed Darrell said,

    May 7, 2007 at 9:09 am

    “Yom” is used in several places to indicate periods significantly different from a day. Nowhere in scripture, especially in the original autographs, does it say that the periods of creation were exactly 24 hours. Probably more to the point, Genesis 1 is a repeat of the Babylonian creation story, but with this twist: The God of the Israelites does the creating, and all those things the Babylonians worshipped as gods were created by God. It’s written in verse form, and it dates to the Babylonian captivity. Jewish tradition and scripture tell us that the priests held captive in Babylon were concerned the Jews would forget their heritage, and adopted this verse form to preserve the story of God as the creator versus the Babylonian versions.

    So, we should also ask: Where in scripture is it ever suggested that Babylonian science a half millennium or so before Jesus is to be taken as gospel truth by Christians? The answer is, “nowhere.”

    Where is it suggested we should believe the Babylonian scientists over modern science? Nowhere.

  19. Andrew Malloy said,

    May 7, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Where Ed is ‘Yom’ used to indicate periods significantly different from a 24 hr day in Scripture? Why should we believe any science/-ist unless it is first proven by Scripture? We shouldn’t.

  20. greenbaggins said,

    May 7, 2007 at 10:01 am

    Ed, number 18 is pure conjecture with no facts. What do you make of Exodus 20? Are you suggesting that the Israelites would have said that long eras of time formed the basis for them working six days and resting one? Surely Exodus 20 means 24 hours by the term day. And that passage is the very closest to Genesis 1 that we have.

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