YEC is not Absolute: Though Genesis Is Literal

[Karaite]

Hi,

As someone who believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis, I would seem to fit the general YEC type. I will subscribe to the belief that the earth was created in six days, and the days, as described in Genesis, would seem to be presented in the same manner as a regular calendar day is presented, i.e. "day and night, evening and morning." Many have attempted to take the word for day, and make it into epochs, but that is not a correct interpretation, and it does not fit the context.

However, I am not closed minded, so I will not deny that it is possible that Genesis could be speaking of days that are different from our perceptions of day. I could also see the possibility of Genesis being symbolic/metaphorical.

There is a theory presented by Dr. Shroeders, "The Age Of The Universe", in his book "Genesis And The Big Bang."

Excerpt:

Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.

(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

The calculations come out to be as follows:

• The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
  
• The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
  
• The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
  
• The fourth day - one billion years.
  
• The fifth day - one-half billion years.
  
• The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

Please go to the link and read the entire article, because unless you do so, you will not understand why Dr. Shroeders makes the above statements. The paper is not too long, but you need to be patient with it, because it is not a short paper, either. And you need to pay close attention to the details, so you will be able to better appreciate the theory.

This is quite a compelling argument, because it is well supported by scientific studies of how time works and/or affects the material world. And the best thing about it is that, it may be possible to hold to a literal interpretation of Genesis, without having to declare the earth to be "young" in a sense. For example, this would mean that the earth (and the universe) were aging at a much faster rate than today, because time would have a greater effect on it.

After reading on Dr. Shroeders' theory, I feel confident in my belief in a literal Genesis, as opposed to trying to use different kinds of tactics to mold the story into my preconceived beliefs.

Blessings!

PS. I will offer another theory, which is not one I like too much, but I find to be of great interest, since it was presented way before the time Darwinism.

 

[obediah001]

Jesus spoke of the days of creation in the New Testament & from His refrence it is clear He understood the days to be 24 hour days.

 

[notto]

]
When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?
[/color]

Modern cosmology also tells us the the while the universe may be 15 billion years old, that the earth is only 4 some billion years old (with our solar system and galaxy being somewhere inbetween). How does this fit into his model? This would seem to place the creation of the earth somewhere between day two and three. Not really biblical.

His model may seem to "fit" modern cosmology at one level but the details would show otherwise.

 

[Karaite]

To Obediah:
Could you explain how that relates to my post? I mean, does that deny my post, or does it agree, or is it non-related?

Did you take the time to look into Dr. Shroeders' article? I would recommend that you do, because it is quite a feed for the mind. If you are intellectually hungry, of course.

 

[Karaite]

Modern cosmology also tells us the the while the universe may be 15 billion years old, that the earth is only 4 some billion years old (with our solar system and galaxy being somewhere inbetween). How does this fit into his model? This would seem to place the creation of the earth somewhere between day two and three. Not really biblical.

His model may seem to "fit" modern cosmology at one level but the details would show otherwise.

It seems that he starts counting on the third day, where the real work with the earth begins, i.e., the water from the middle is removed, and allows vegetation to arise, etc.

The first two days would seem to be more in relationship to the "explosion", which is why (in the article) he mentions that "choschech" (darkness) means "dark-energy". And this he takes from Nachmanides, who commented that, the first creation was this "energy"--the only material creation--and from it all the basic elements of the physical creation were taken.

So, in that interpretation, the first two days would not be speaking of the developing earth, but of the developing universe. The earth would be "a peice" or "a result" of that.

I think you will understand it better once you read the article.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Jesus spoke of the days of creation in the New Testament & from His refrence it is clear He understood the days to be 24 hour days.

No. He spoke of them exactly the same way I might do. At no point did He say they were 24 hours. You are putting words in Our Lord's mouth.

 

[Sinai]

Hi,

As someone who believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis, I would seem to fit the general YEC type. I will subscribe to the belief that the earth was created in six days, and the days, as described in Genesis, would seem to be presented in the same manner as a regular calendar day is presented, i.e. "day and night, evening and morning." Many have attempted to take the word for day, and make it into epochs, but that is not a correct interpretation, and it does not fit the context.

However, I am not closed minded, so I will not deny that it is possible that Genesis could be speaking of days that are different from our perceptions of day. I could also see the possibility of Genesis being symbolic/metaphorical.

There is a theory presented by Dr. Shroeders, "The Age Of The Universe", in his book "Genesis And The Big Bang."

Excerpt:

Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.

(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

The calculations come out to be as follows:

• The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
  
• The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
  
• The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
  
• The fourth day - one billion years.
  
• The fifth day - one-half billion years.
  
• The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

Please go to the link and read the entire article, because unless you do so, you will not understand why Dr. Shroeders makes the above statements. The paper is not too long, but you need to be patient with it, because it is not a short paper, either. And you need to pay close attention to the details, so you will be able to better appreciate the theory.

This is quite a compelling argument, because it is well supported by scientific studies of how time works and/or affects the material world. And the best thing about it is that, it may be possible to hold to a literal interpretation of Genesis, without having to declare the earth to be "young" in a sense. For example, this would mean that the earth (and the universe) were aging at a much faster rate than today, because time would have a greater effect on it.

After reading on Dr. Shroeders' theory, I feel confident in my belief in a literal Genesis, as opposed to trying to use different kinds of tactics to mold the story into my preconceived beliefs.

Blessings!

PS. I will offer another theory, which is not one I like too much, but I find to be of great interest, since it was presented way before the time Darwinism.

 

[Sinai]

I am glad you enjoyed Dr. Schroeder's article. Have you read any of his books yet? They are some of the most interesting and stimulating reading I have ever encountered. Bring along your Bible study materials when you read what he has to say, though, as you will probably want to delve into the original Hebrew as well as taking notes as you go along. After all, Dr. Schroeder is both a respected scientist and a Hebrew scholar.

One of the things I especially respect about Dr. Schroeder's methods is that he relies upon several of the most respected ancient Jewish theologians (whose writings predate the modern scientific era by hundreds of years) so that the biblical commentary will not be tainted by scientific discoveries. He then uses writings by the most respected scientists and scientific journals to show the consistency between the ancient biblical scriptures and the current scientific data.

As you have apparently discovered, his writings will give you a great deal of food for thought.....

 

[Karaite]

Sinai,

I have not read any of his books, yet. But I can believe that his writings would be very much stimulating, especially after reading that article. I used to spend a lot of time reading about the Aish HaTorah website--though not recently--and was able to see a lot of the Jewish writings and their traditions.

I think the great commentarists of Judaism were big time thinkers, and they invested a lot of time into the study of the Torah, but a lot of writings are also purely based on assumptions, and oral traditions that do not have the authoritative weight of the Scriptures. For example, the Kabbalists (who believed in 're-incarnation') when explaining the reason for which Judah slept with his daughter-in-law, thinking that she was a prostitute, they claim that Shelah was not able to have children (or something like that, not sure what it was), and that since the Messiah is supposed to be a descendant of Judah, God/or the Spirit made Judah go and look for this woman, and that the twins that were born, they were the same Er and Onan.

I know I may be wrong in the details, but that is the general idea of what happened, according to the Kabbalist. And that is not too far from the interpretations of some of the other commentarists (Rashi is the greates of the Jewish commentarists, and he was a Kabbalist).

Judaism today is very much influenced by these theories, beliefs, traditions, etc. So, there is going to be a lot of interesting things that they will say, but not all will be biblically rooted.

So, yes, it is a good idea to use your Bible while reading that type of writing. And I don't think his ideas are too far from the Bible, especially when you look into the writings of many christians who make even more outrageous claims.

 

[lucaspa]

Hi,

The calculations come out to be as follows:

• The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
• The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
• The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
• The fourth day - one billion years.
• The fifth day - one-half billion years.
• The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?

Schroeder did here what any scientist should do -- he made a risky prediction. In this case, he predicted that the real age of the universe would really be 15.75 billion years. At the time he wrote it, the range was 10-20 billion years, so it looked like he was safe.

However, since then the age of the universe has been refined and it's not 15.75 billion years. Instead, it's 13.4 +/- 0.3 billion years. That means that there's only 1 chance in 100,000 that the universe is really 15.75 billion years old (taking 7 standard deviations, and I'll explain that if you want). This means that Schroeder is wrong.

Nice try, but his theory got falsified by the data.

But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

That's falsified too. For instance, day 4 specifically says the plants used in agriculture were created. These plants are all flowering plants, and those didn't appear until 80 million years ago -- the 6th day in the chronology. Oops.

So, two falsifications and still counting.

 

[Karaite]

Yes, the points made above (at least some) have been part of the reason why I did not accept his theory as a whole. But the part that I consider is the idea that the 'earth would appear to have been aging at a much faster rate'.

 

[lucaspa]

But the part that I consider is the idea that the 'earth would appear to have been aging at a much faster rate'.

But that's the part that gets falsified by the age of the universe. Schroeder gets the aging via the time contraction of the Theory of Relativity. Using those equation is how he calculates the age of the universe. Since the age of the universe is wrong, his theory -- including the appearance of aging at a much faster rate -- is wrong also. Such aging doesn't agree with the data.

 

[Karaite]

The estimate that he gave is wrong, but that does not mean that the earth could not or was not aging at a faster rate than it is now. That he might have put himself up for failure by giving an exact estimate, is a different story.

 

[bishnu]

how could there be days without an earth?

And how can you take the english bible literally when it has been translated so horrible. I think in the hebrew bible "days" was translated form the word meaning something like stages.

 

[Karaite]

yes, you are correct, the idea of days would be relative to the earth. so, in that aspect, the theory either needs some more explaining, or it is just erred.

But as far as 'day' in hebrew, you need to rethink your argument. There is a topic in this forum dealing with the use of the word. It is not extensive, but it at least touches on the subject.

Also, by your logic, we would have to change every single word in the translations that have "day" and make it into epochs or ages. This would mean that Noah's flood lasted forty epochs, or ages. We would also have to change the Greek, since the Greek is the same. It measn days and epoch. And by that, Jesus would have spent three epochs dead. How much would that be?

 

[Ark Guy]

lucaspa;
But that's the part that gets falsified by the age of the universe. Schroeder gets the aging via the time contraction of the Theory of Relativity. Using those equation is how he calculates the age of the universe. Since the age of the universe is wrong, his theory -- including the appearance of aging at a much faster rate -- is wrong also. Such aging doesn't agree with the data

How old would a tree in the garden look?
You would say, look, that tree once was a seed and now it is a mature tree...certainly it must be at least 20 years old....yet it's only a day old.

 

[lucaspa]

The estimate that he gave is wrong, but that does not mean that the earth could not or was not aging at a faster rate than it is now. That he might have put himself up for failure by giving an exact estimate, is a different story.

Scientists are supposed to put themselves up for failure by saying the data that should be found if their theory is true. They should also put up data that can't possibly be there if their theory is true. Both of these are ways to falsify the theory.

For instance, in discussing natural selection, Darwin stated this:
"If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection." Origin, pg 501.

So, if we would ever find such a structure, then natural selection would be falsified as the theory of how biological organisms were designed. We have never found such a structure.

Now, Schroeder is saying that Specific and General Relativity provides a way to have a 6 "day" creation by having God in one reference frame and the universe in another. In this case, God would be moving at or close to lightspeed so that time is dilated for Him. Never mind the limitation this places on God (creationists say no limitations can be placed on God). One "day" for God = many days in the reference frame of the earth. It is central to Schroeder's entire theory of how to reconcile a literal "day" with scientific findings of age.

This is not that the earth was "aging" faster, but that God is in a different reference frame.

The problem comes when Schroeder uses the equations of SR and GR dealing with time dilation. Using those equations -- which he says are valid -- Schroeder calculated the age of the universe. This is what we should find if his theory is correct. Instead, we find something different. That means the theory is falsified.

What you want to do is avoid the falsification. First, you change the theory to having the earth "age" faster. But that isn't the theory. Time proceeds as always in earth's reference frame.

What you have to do to avoid falsification is to make ad hoc hypotheses about the time dilation.

1. The equations are wrong.
2. God was in some different reference frame.

There may be others you can think of.

However, if either of these is true, then Schroeder's individual time divisions also changes radically and he loses the little correspondence he already has to events in earth's history. In trying to fix the overall age of the universe, he loses everything else.

 

[lucaspa]

How old would a tree in the garden look?
You would say, look, that tree once was a seed and now it is a mature tree...certainly it must be at least 20 years old....yet it's only a day old.

Now you are back to the ultimate in ad hoc hypotheses: God created everyting just to look old. This was tried in 1857 by Paul Gosse in his book Oomphalos. The problem with this isn't scientific, it's theological. What you are now doing is making God into a part-time deceiver. Christianity can't survive that.

Actually, God could make the tree look a year old -- have no growth rings. Just one homogenous mass in the tree. Now, if we take a core of the tree and get the 20 growth rings, then we have to deal with God as deceiver.

If God is a deceiver and faked the whole universe so that it only looks old, just how are we to trust Him on salvation?

 

[lucaspa]

how could there be days without an earth?

The passing of time is not dependent on their being an earth. 24 hours is 24 hours whether there is an earth or not.

[quoteAnd how can you take the english bible literally when it has been translated so horrible. I think in the hebrew bible "days" was translated form the word meaning something like stages.[/QUOTE]
Somebody addressed that. The word used is "yom", which in Hebrew is "day". Occasionally "yom" was also used for a task or festival that took longer than 24 hours. From that usage OECers have tried to make the Day-Age Theory. Talk to Vance. He is the chief advocate of Day-Age around here.

 

[Karaite]

Now you are back to the ultimate in ad hoc hypotheses: God created everyting just to look old. This was tried in 1857 by Paul Gosse in his book Oomphalos. The problem with this isn't scientific, it's theological. What you are now doing is making God into a part-time deceiver. Christianity can't survive that.

Actually, God could make the tree look a year old -- have no growth rings. Just one homogenous mass in the tree. Now, if we take a core of the tree and get the 20 growth rings, then we have to deal with God as deceiver.

If God is a deceiver and faked the whole universe so that it only looks old, just how are we to trust Him on salvation?

No, He did not create it to "look" old, He created it "fully developed", which is different!

For example, which would have come first, (if God created it) the chicken or the egg? I would think that the chicken would have been created first, and once the egg was laid, the chicken would take care of it. But the egg could not take care of itself. The same as we believe that Adam was created a grown man, who could have dominion over all things, a ruler of the earth. A man who could walk and do take care of himself. Not a baby that God had to feed, change diapers, bathe, etc.

So, could God not also create a "world ready for man to inhabit"? Notice, the supposed age of the "young earth" is not necessarily related to the length of time that it would take for any other planet to develop, but the time from its creation to now. The same as the age of Adam was not according to how long it would take for a baby to develop into a grown man and unto death; instead, it is of how long he lived after his creation.