Young Earth Philosophy

Hi Robert,

Nowhere does the Bible say that the UNIVERSE is 6000 years old. That concept comes from not considering all of what the Bible says about the creation. Several other passages (eg Job) discussing the creation mention beings watching the creation. This clearly implies the existance of the universe prior to the creation of the Earth. Also if you read carefully the creation events of the 4th day, you will see that the comment about the creation of the stars is in brackets. It is not saying that God created the stars on the 4th day, only pointing out that the stars were created by God, without any comment as to when. The writer mentions it here as he is discussing the creation of the Sun and Moon.

There has been much discussion about the creation of the Sun and Moon on the 4th day. Some commentators believe that this was the actual day that they were created, while others feel that this was the day they became visible. Personally I am not too sure about this. It is a difficult verse. However, a careful reading of the creation account, particularly verse 2, would indicate that the Earth existed at the start of the creation week, but in a desolate, barren state, covered by water.

On your point about how long were the days, your contention that the "days" could have been of any length, this is not in harmony with sound Biblical excegesis. The Hebrew word for "day", "yom", is used with a definite number in each of the verses in Genesis. Elsewhere throughout the Bible, wherever yom is used with a difinite number, (over 1000) it always means a litteral 24-hour day. No-where does it mean aeon. Therefore it is clear that the days of Genesis were litteral 24-hour days.

One final point. In your comment about the basic elements for the ancient world is incorrect. The 4 basic elements were air, earth, water, and fire.

Regards,

Maurice

Well, I certainly agree that the Bible is not a book of science, although these days there are some who try to lay claim to that type of legitimacy. Trying to glean scientific proofs from bible passages reminds me of a little exercise we did long ago in grade school:

The students would all form a circle and one would begin by whispering something to the student next to him or her. That student would then in turn whisper what they were told to the next student in the circle, and so on. By the time the last student was told, the message would be compared with the original. More often than not, the message which was passed around had mutated in meaning well beyond the original.

Imagine the potential for transferred misinformation over the course of history since biblical times. Without even going into the whole fantasy, symbolism and motivation connected with all the writings and interpretations, how could one reasonably be expected to take such information literally? This isn't to say that a book so brimming full of stories isn't going to provide a certain amount of fodder for such "proofs".

It is my belief that those religions leaders (and government leaders as well) who try to encourage the blurring of lines between religion and science, and religion and government are doing a major disservice to all three institutions... and they need to get a clue!!!

There! I'm glad I was able to clear that up for everyone.