Explain Creation and Evolution

[secretdawn]

Why would God give it as an allegory?..The Bible claims that God created man and woman..he called them eve and adam and talked to them daily..its only an allegory because people today accept the evolutionary version of time..they throw out billions of years without anyone questioning it..quite a whiles back, the earth was 3 bllion years old..now with radiometric dating as proof its 4.5 billion years yet some are suggesting its older because life is being found earlier (see cambrian explosion) than previously thought....again radiometric dating has certain assumptions that must be satisfied..when it gives dates that do not fit in they are thrown out until its within the range acceptable..all of this is a guess..there are theories and measurements and instruments that seem like educated guesses but in the long run the many ideas of evolution can be traced back to ideas by Aristotle and the socalled Great chain of Being
heres one view of this:

"According to the historian of ideas Arthur Lovejoy, there resulted a
conception of the plan and structure of the world which, through the Middle Ages and down to the late eighteenth century...most educated men were to accept without question - the conception of the universe as a "Great Chain of Being", composed of an immense, or...infinite, number of links ranging in hierarchical order from the meagerest kind of existents...through "every possible" grade up to the ens perfectissumum."

So no, its not an allegory according to those who believe the Bible

I know this is off topic, but I have a feeling they weren't named Adam and Eve. Think about it.

 

[secretdawn]

Honestly... my advice to you is read the links people have given you. They may take 30 pages to read, but they do explain evolution in terms anyone can understand if you read the whole paper. If you need another one I can dig mine up.

That would work if I was able to read them, but I get lost in the jargon.

 

[secretdawn]

Several have done a good job explaining evolution, but let me add a bit to the portion regarding old earth creationism. The "old earth" portion means that they accept mainstream scientific evidence regarding the age of the earth and universe. The term "creationism" or "creationist" means they believe it was all created by God. Beyond that point, however, there are a range of differences among the OECs.

There are those who ignore what the Bible says with regard to at least the non-spiritual aspects of creation, or who disbelieve it or discount it, and who support mainstream scientific theory and evidence regarding the forming of the universe, including our planet and the life found on planet Earth. Generally speaking, Christians and Jews in this group hold that the Bible is intended to be a spiritual guide and is not a history or science guide book. They do not feel the need to ignore what the Bible says about spiritual matters or what science says about scientific principles, but rather let each lead to a higher total truth than either could do alone. They choose not to try to shoehorn science to fit the Bible or the Bible to fit science. In other words, they generally consider the Bible to be God's word to us regarding spiritual matters.

There are also many OECs who think the Bible and science do not contradict, and that each of them are valid accounts of God's creative activity. Since they tend to fall into several different groups, it would probably be better if I list them in a separate post.

If the bible is a spiritual guide, then why did God write the creation story? And why wouldn't he say it was just that? Wouldn't He just say what he has to say, not confuse people with metaphores and allegory...Jesus made it clear when He told parable that they were parables, being that They are one in the same, wouldn't He still do that in the OT...just a thought...

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

But God didn't write the OT. Men did. Sure, God spoke through them, but the words and concepts they used to try to express God's revelation to them were their own.

 

[secretdawn]

As I mentioned in my last post, many old earth creationists attempt to reconcile scientific evidence with biblical evidence. Persons who adhere to one of these theories tend to believe that since God is responsible for both the biblical revelation and the natural world, the words of the Bible are true and at the same time are consistent with the facts of nature. In other words, they tend to think that God’s character and attributes are expressed through both channels, and neither negates nor contradicts the other. The theories listed below are the primary explanations I have found thus far that attempt to reconcile science and the Bible:

A. Some OECs favor the Gap theory (also known as the Interval and Restitution theory, the Divine Judgment theory, and the Recreation theory), which was more popular about 50-80 years ago than it is now. The Gap theory is usually largely based upon the fact that Hebrew tends to be more general and less specific than English or Greek. Thus, Hebrew words can often have a wider range of meanings. In the first part of Genesis 1:2 ["and the earth it was formless, void and empty"], the verb hayethah (which is generally translated "it was") can also be translated as "it became." Proponents of the Gap Theory therefore generally claim that Genesis 1:2 should be translated to read "and the earth became formless, void and empty" rather than using the more common translation of the phrase. This theory uses passages (primarily in Isaiah and Ezekiel) regarding the fall of Satan or Lucifer to bolster the theory that the world was created in Gen. 1:1 but became formless and void because of Satan's fall, and then creation continued in verse two. There are, however, some proponents of the Gap theory who go about it slightly differently. Instead of translating hayethah as "it became" they use verse one of Genesis to emphasize that God had created the Earth "in the beginning" of creation, but by verse two, the Earth was formless, void and empty. These persons tend to ignore the fact that Hebrew had no single word for universe and that the Hebrew phrase "the heavens and the earth" is the Hebrew equivalent of the English word universe.


B. Since the Bible does not specifically say that the six days are consecutive, there are those who assert that each “day” is the time God spoke the next period of creation into existence—but there is an undetermined period of time (possibly lasting billions of years) between each day. In other words, adherents of this theory say there were six days of creation (each of which could be 24 hours—or 1,000 years—or some other period of time) separated by other periods of time. Some who follow this theory also point to the staccato pattern revealed in the fossil record, which indicates that there were periods of time when new forms of life suddenly burst onto the scene.

C. A theory that appears to be growing in popularity among OECs is the day-age theory, which primarily rests on the fact that the Hebrew word for “day” is yom, which can mean a 24-hour period of time, a generation, an age, or an indefinite period of time. Thus, those who follow this theory say that each “day” was of an indefinite period of time (even millions or billions of years) and Christians shouldn’t get caught up in insisting that the Bible means something here that it probably does not mean.

D. A relatively recent modification of the day-age theory is one that has been advanced by physicist and Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder. He has proposed that instead of the six yoms being indefinite periods of time, they could actually be six consecutive 24-hour periods of time measured at the speed of outward thrust using Einstein's theory (or law) of relativity and a universal time-clock based on cosmic background radiation and the wavelength of light beginning about the time God initiated creation (what science now calls the Big Bang). Because of time dilation, 144 hours measured at a speed calculated by using such a universal time-clock would be equal to about 15.75 billion Earth-years looking back toward the time of creation.

Amazing post...the best creationist post i have heard since being a member

 

[Jet Black]

D. A relatively recent modification of the day-age theory is one that has been advanced by physicist and Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder. He has proposed that instead of the six yoms being indefinite periods of time, they could actually be six consecutive 24-hour periods of time measured at the speed of outward thrust using Einstein's theory (or law) of relativity and a universal time-clock based on cosmic background radiation and the wavelength of light beginning about the time God initiated creation (what science now calls the Big Bang). Because of time dilation, 144 hours measured at a speed calculated by using such a universal time-clock would be equal to about 15.75 billion Earth-years looking back toward the time of creation.

Just to note, this has been falsified by the data.

 

[Jet Black]

If the bible is a spiritual guide, then why did God write the creation story? And why wouldn't he say it was just that?

perhaps God thinks more of us than that.

 

[secretdawn]

perhaps God thinks more of us than that.

but god is omnipitent or something, so he would know it would be misinterpreted?
whoever said that the hebrew word for day also can mean generation or period of time, also stating that the hebrew word for "it was" can mean "it became", is there somewhere i can find that info...it is interesting...does anyone else have any comments on it?

 

[Dracil]

The word for day is "yom" in Genesis, which can mean a "long period of time". Some people argue that it's bracketed by evening and morning, but someone else brought up a good point. In Hebrew, "The dawn of a new era" would be translated into English the same as "the morning of a new day". So the morning and evening could just mean the end and beginning of new eras in the Bible.

 

[Deamiter]

If the bible is a spiritual guide, then why did God write the creation story? And why wouldn't he say it was just that? Wouldn't He just say what he has to say, not confuse people with metaphores and allegory...Jesus made it clear when He told parable that they were parables, being that They are one in the same, wouldn't He still do that in the OT...just a thought...

My theology professor had an answer for this question. Neither he, nor I, claim that the answer is obviously correct or anything, but if you're looking for a possible answer - here it goes:

In the time of the early Jews, they lived in a world with many gods. Early books in the Bible seem to support this as there's not much mention of God as the ONLY God until the prophets. Before that it is likely that the Israelites believed in the many Gods, but worshiped their YHWH as the one God that was over all others. God said "you shall have no other Gods before me," not "you shall not believe in these false Gods." Later on, it becomes clear that the Israelites are denying the existance of all other Gods, but early on they would have believed that their God was simply the greatest - not like other limited Gods.

The creation story was written to teach this in a world where every other ethnic group was creating Gods out of their natural world. God is essentially seen as greater than the sun, the moon, the plants, the water.... This story was meant to describe aspects of their God as with most of the Pentateuch - not to be scientifically accurate as they didn't live in the enlightenment and didn't find precision the way we see it to be necessary or even admirable. In the time of Jesus, the Greek and Roman philosophy REQUIRED that the world be described more literally, so a parable would need to be identified, or many non-Jews would totally mis-understand the point as they weren't living in the specific culture to which they referenced.

As such, the story lets the Israelites say, "You know your sun God? My God created him." It shows how YHWH is above all of creation and gives us a perfectly rational reason to serve and worship Him as He created us!

I know some of you will jump on me for not taking the entire scripture literally, and others will jump on me for not citing sources, but take it for what it's worth. It's a hypothesis based on fact (though obviously not on ALL the facts as we don't know what was really going on back then) and it explains well where the story comes from and why it is written the way it was.

Obviously the hypothesis isn't verifiable, so it doesn't get used in such a heated debate as YEC vs OEC, but it's been around for a long time - not simply a product of my professor's imagination or even his own research.

 

[secretdawn]

interesting...i had never even thought of the fact it says no god above me, not no such thing as other gods

 

[Sinai]

D. A relatively recent modification of the day-age theory is one that has been advanced by physicist and Hebrew Bible scholar Dr. Gerald L. Schroeder. He has proposed that instead of the six yoms being indefinite periods of time, they could actually be six consecutive 24-hour periods of time measured at the speed of outward thrust using Einstein's theory (or law) of relativity and a universal time-clock based on cosmic background radiation and the wavelength of light beginning about the time God initiated creation (what science now calls the Big Bang). Because of time dilation, 144 hours measured at a speed calculated by using such a universal time-clock would be equal to about 15.75 billion Earth-years looking back toward the time of creation.

Just to note, this has been falsified by the data.

That depends upon what you mean by "falsified by the data." Based upon other posts you have made regarding Dr. Schroeder's theory, I suspect you are referring to the current scientific estimates that the most likely age of the universe is approximately 13.4-14.1 billion years (many reports tend to use 13.7 with a tolerance level that generally carries the figure out a few hundred million years to either side), and that any figure outside that range is therefore falsified by the data. Although the 13.4-14.1 billion year range does appear to be the most likely estimate according to current data, the measurements still tend to range between 12 and 18 billion years. There is, however, sufficient data that almost all scientists in the field feel confident that the universe could not be over about 20 billion years old nor could it be less than approximately 11 billion years old.

You look at the data and say Dr. Schroeder's theory has been falsified. I look at the same data and think it is still in the range of possiblities.

It might also be noted that his estimate of 15.75 billion years was based upon data (now over 10 years old) regarding cosmic background radiation, change in universal temperatures and wavelengths of light. Some of the more recent data that suggests that the universe might be less than 14 billion years old may also change part of the equation used by Dr. Schreder in his calculations.

Another factor to consider is that his calculations used a full 144 hours based upon such a universal time clock. Even Ussher did not claim that all 144 hours were used prior to the final act of God's creation.

I'm not saying I either agree or disagree with Dr. Schroeder on this point; rather, I think it is an interesting theory that--to my mind at least--has not been falsified by the data, though I think I understand your reasoning in claiming it has been.

 

[Sinai]

Amazing post...the best creationist post i have heard since being a member

Thank you for that kind assessment. I hope some of it helped answer some of your questions. And may God bless you....