Thursday, March 1, 2018

A rebuttal to: Why I reject a Young Earth


   I love Cross Examined and highly recommend their ministry. However, that does not make them infallible. So here is some comments on a post they made.

In response to this article:

Why I Reject A Young Earth View: A Biblical Defense of an Old Earth - Cross Examined - Christian Apologetic Ministry | Frank Turek | Christian Apologetics | Christian Apologetics Speakers
http://crossexamined.org/why-i-reject-a-young-earth-view-a-biblical-defense-of-an-old-earth/

The three main subtopics of that article:

  1. The proper interpretation of Genesis One.
  2. The question of the fall of man, human sin and its consequences.
  3. The scale and scope of the Flood of Noah.

Regarding subtopic 1: Genesis 1:1,2

   The writer is starting with a false assumption that the English language bible is the proper language to critique the bible in. Genesis 1 was originally written in Hebrew, so his point about a perfect tense verb has no value. Hebrew has no verb tenses. See here:
https://creation.com/syntax-in-genesis-1

   Also, creating the universe and stars, but not creating light until much later!?
"(This is of course illogical, for why should God create light in Genesis 1:3 if stars were already shining brightly?)"
https://creation.com/syntax-in-genesis-1
There is a lot of information in the syntax article I link to above, including references to Exodus and Jesus' words in Mark 10.

Another reason to read Genesis 1:1-2 without a gap:
https://creation.com/genesis-13-undermines-gap-theory


Regarding Subtopic 2: death before the fall

   The writer seems to leave out his logic for arguing why death preceding the fall is important for his view to be correct. Normally you only need death before the fall in order to argue for evolution and survival of the fittest.  However, Cross Examined does not support macro evolution. I believe their article is trying to say that the earth may have existed lifelessly for billions of years between verses 1 and 2. If true, this would allow for an old earth and Genesis 1 to co-exist. So why try to posit pre-fall death?

I will try to respond still.

"Some type of death and degradation preceded the fall." 
Response: https://creation.com/nephesh-chayyah

"The Tyrannosaur was a machine designed for killing."
Dinosaurs are not always what they appear: https://creation.com/vegetarian-theropod-dinosaurs


"Then we have the fact that the names of the animals which Adam named prior to the Fall have connotations of violence."
Not so fast. See here: https://creation.com/fall-fish-death
a quote from that article: "The names in the Hebrew Bible for specific animals came after the Flood."

"As I said previously, Adam did not die physically on the day that he ate of the tree, but lived a full life afterwards."
A better translation would have said: "… for when you eat of it you will surely begin to die."
see here: https://creation.com/adam-tribe 


Regarding subtopic 3: The Flood

There is a ton of good biblical articles regarding the flood here:
https://creation.com/noahs-flood-questions-and-answers

They do a much better job than I at showing why the flood should be taken literally and historically.

The writer of "Why I reject a Young Earth" does not make a watertight argument against the flood in his three paragraphs.


Regarding the reading of Genesis 7:19:
 Genesis 7:19, which reports that “They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.”

   Even if we allow for "on the earth" to be ambiguous between the entire earth or just the known earth, what about the later portion of the verse that says, "under the entire heavens"?  To draw the conclusion that the author of this verse did not mean the reader to understand this as referring to the whole earth is difficult when two separate sections of the verse seem to indicate the whole earth.  This verse could have said "under heaven".

"Moreover, it must be borne in mind, the Hebrew word for mountains, har, is a general term referring to any geologic relief, from a small hill up to a towering peak"
 I would think that the word "high" before the word mountains would make it clear which meaning of har is being used, but that is just me. Maybe that is too simple and I missed something?

It seems to me that the author of Genesis 7:19 went to great lengths to be clear. Stating things twice and using adjectives to make sure you knew how tall the mountains were.



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