LCMS and the Pyramids

[FaithT]

The LCMS believes that the earth (and universe) are 6000 years old. The Pyramids were built before the Flood. So how can they still be standing?

 

[Sorn]

They aren't standing, not most pf them anyway. They were all built somewhere else in the world but the flood washed them all away & deposited them in Egypt near each other. Also, most of them are on their sides, only 1 or ended up right way up again. Believe it or not!!

 

[FaithT]

They aren't standing, not most pf them anyway. They were all built somewhere else in the world but the flood washed them all away & deposited them in Egypt near each other. Also, most of them are on their sides, only 1 or ended up right way up again. Believe it or not!!

Sorry. But I don’t.

 

[FaithT]

Anyone else?

 

[Daniel9v9]

I already replied to this question in a direct message, but for the benefit of anyone else, I can say that we don't know when the flood occurred, but we do know that the pyramids were constructed long after the flood. The Egyptian people came from Noah, his son Ham, his son Misrayim which we translate into "Egypt", and from him came many kingdoms, and the Egyptians who built the pyramids.

We can find this in Genesis 10:1,6

 

[FireDragon76]

The LCMS believes that the earth (and universe) are 6000 years old. The Pyramids were built before the Flood. So how can they still be standing?

To my knowledge, this isn't exactly true. I've never heard of any LCMS committed to Young Earth Creationism, that the world is only 6,000 years old. Laity are also not required to adhere to any particular theory of creationism.

These are things that define other Protestant denominations moreso, but historically Lutherans don't take confessional stances on these issues. Lutheranism, even in its more conservative forms, is Christocentric- Lutherans believe in the Bible because they believe in Jesus, not the other way around.

 

[JSRG]

To my knowledge, this isn't exactly true. I've never heard of any LCMS committed to Young Earth Creationism, that the world is only 6,000 years old. Laity are also not required to adhere to any particular theory of creationism.

These are things that define other Protestant denominations moreso, but historically Lutherans don't take confessional stances on these issues. Lutheranism, even in its more conservative forms, is Christocentric- Lutherans believe in the Bible because they believe in Jesus, not the other way around.

According to their website:

We teach that God has created heaven and earth, and that in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, especially Gen. 1 and 2, namely, by His almighty creative word, and in six days. We reject every doctrine which denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture. In our days it is denied or limited by those who assert, ostensibly in deference to science, that the world came into existence through a process of evolution; that is, that it has, in immense periods of time, developed more or less of itself. Since no man was present when it pleased God to create the world, we must look for a reliable account of creation to God's own record, found in God's own book, the Bible. We accept God's own record with full confidence and confess with Luther's Catechism: "I believe that God has made me and all creatures."

This is an explicit endorsement of Young Earth Creationism. However, another page does note:

QUESTION: A person, because of his study of science, does not believe that the universe was created in six literal 24-hour periods. Does this fact, by itself, render this person ineligible for membership in the LCMS?

ANSWER: A person’s private views regarding this question do not automatically disqualify a person from becoming a member of the congregation.

It is possible, of course, that someone holding to a given theory about the “six days” of the creation accounts also holds to views about the Bible that would be troublesome and perhaps in some cases detrimental to saving faith.

But judgments in this regard belong in the realm of individual pastoral care, and are not a matter of hard and fast rules so that someone’s personal opinions in this area would become in effect a kind of litmus test for membership.

It has generally been taught in our church that unless there is a compelling reason, on the basis of the biblical texts themselves, to understand the six days of the Genesis accounts as anything other than normal 24-hour days, we are to believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days (see Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, Question 97 [Concordia Publishing House, 1986, p. 106]).

Official members of the LCMS (congregations, pastors, rostered church workers), of course, pledge to honor and uphold the official position of the Synod on doctrinal issues, including its official position on creation.

This indicates that while people like pastors are required to uphold belief in a young Earth, regular members of the LCMS are not required to.

 

[FireDragon76]

According to their website:

We teach that God has created heaven and earth, and that in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, especially Gen. 1 and 2, namely, by His almighty creative word, and in six days. We reject every doctrine which denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture. In our days it is denied or limited by those who assert, ostensibly in deference to science, that the world came into existence through a process of evolution; that is, that it has, in immense periods of time, developed more or less of itself. Since no man was present when it pleased God to create the world, we must look for a reliable account of creation to God's own record, found in God's own book, the Bible. We accept God's own record with full confidence and confess with Luther's Catechism: "I believe that God has made me and all creatures."

This is an explicit endorsement of Young Earth Creationism. However, another page does note:

QUESTION: A person, because of his study of science, does not believe that the universe was created in six literal 24-hour periods. Does this fact, by itself, render this person ineligible for membership in the LCMS?

ANSWER: A person’s private views regarding this question do not automatically disqualify a person from becoming a member of the congregation.

It is possible, of course, that someone holding to a given theory about the “six days” of the creation accounts also holds to views about the Bible that would be troublesome and perhaps in some cases detrimental to saving faith.

But judgments in this regard belong in the realm of individual pastoral care, and are not a matter of hard and fast rules so that someone’s personal opinions in this area would become in effect a kind of litmus test for membership.

It has generally been taught in our church that unless there is a compelling reason, on the basis of the biblical texts themselves, to understand the six days of the Genesis accounts as anything other than normal 24-hour days, we are to believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days (see Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, Question 97 [Concordia Publishing House, 1986, p. 106]).

Official members of the LCMS (congregations, pastors, rostered church workers), of course, pledge to honor and uphold the official position of the Synod on doctrinal issues, including its official position on creation.

This indicates that while people like pastors are required to uphold belief in a young Earth, regular members of the LCMS are not required to.

That's more or less what I expected, based on LCMS Lutherans I have known about. Alot of people in a congregation have a variety of private interpretations. It would also be difficult to justify excluding a member of a congregation just because they were a biologist or taught biology in a school, for instance, all of which requires understanding and teaching the theory of evolution to some extent.

Lutherans historically have not attacked the validity of science. Many scientists have been Lutherans.

 

[FaithT]

That's more or less what I expected, based on LCMS Lutherans I have known about. Alot of people in a congregation have a variety of private interpretations. It would also be difficult to justify excluding a member of a congregation just because they were a biologist or taught biology in a school, for instance, all of which requires understanding and teaching the theory of evolution to some extent.

Lutherans historically have not attacked the validity of science. Many scientists have been Lutherans.

Hpave there been many Lutheran LCMS scientistsin recent times, since we’ve learned so much about cosmology, anthropology etc.?

 

[FireDragon76]

Hpave there been many Lutheran LCMS scientistsin recent times, since we’ve learned so much about cosmology, anthropology etc.?

Not to my knowledge (which is not exhaustive on this topic, most Lutherans I knew tended to work as civil servants, police, and firefighters), but keep in mind the LCMS are a relatively small denomination, mostly geographically centered in the midwestern and southern US, and don't represent all of Lutheranism.

In the US, Lutherans tend to be under-represented in many fields. There's only been one Supreme Court justice who was a Lutheran (Rehnquist). They are also under-represented in politics, and Lutherans don't particularly wear their religion on their sleeves. So it's not surprising I haven't heard of many contemporary American Lutheran scientists.

 

[Markie Boy]

So according to the link, Lutheran pastors are to stick to the literal 6 days, 24 hours each for creation. I don't see anything on the earth being 6000 years old in that link - did I miss something?

 

[Jacque_Pierre22]

the ancient Egyptians build the Pyramids during the Middle Kingdom, they weren't "pre-flood". The accomplishment of building pyramids is/was not rocket science. The Kushite pharaohs also built a lot pyramids in Sudan. They had all of Africa to basically hire as workers for these mega bulding projects. I watch a lot shows on Ancient Egypt. Ask any egyptologist, even the "Magical Egypt" (Schwaller de lubicz) people (I've seen all seasons) don't doubt they were built by them. The Ancient Egyptian people in the "Old Kingdom" some believe had black features like King Scorpion, so the link between Africa was possibly not from colonialism but an ancient sort of bond. During the time of most OT prophets during the 600s and 700s BC, the black pharaohs were ruling both Upper and Lower Egypt as the Kushite wore the double uraei. So they had plenty of Africans for building stuff. The Meroitic language evolved from the demotic and looked just like hieroglyphics.:

Meroitic script - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ViaCrucis]

The oldest known pyramids in Egypt date to about 3000 BC. Even if one believes in a 6,000 year old earth and that the flood was literally global, I'm not sure how this would result in the pyramids being built before the flood. But it is possible I am simply not familiar enough with Young Earth Creationism on this subject. Even when I was a YEC when I was younger I don't believe I was ever taught that the pyramids were earlier than the flood.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[JSRG]

The oldest known pyramids in Egypt date to about 3000 BC. Even if one believes in a 6,000 year old earth and that the flood was literally global, I'm not sure how this would result in the pyramids being built before the flood. But it is possible I am simply not familiar enough with Young Earth Creationism on this subject. Even when I was a YEC when I was younger I don't believe I was ever taught that the pyramids were earlier than the flood.

-CryptoLutheran

Well, here's Answers in Genesis on the subject:

Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood?

When were pyramids built? Did they survive the Flood? How should we understand Egyptian chronology?

answersingenesis.org

They say the flood happened "around 2350 BC" which seems to fit with the "standard" dates for Young Earth Creationists (there is disagreement of course, but that's around when people usually say). They acknowledge that this would put the flood after the pyramids based on the secular dating of the pyramids, but also acknowledge that the pyramids must have post-dated the Flood. Their explanation is:

So, why the older date for the Great Pyramid in secular literature? Many of the accepted dates for events in ancient Egypt came from an ancient list of pharaohs and the lengths of their reigns recorded by the historian Manetho, who lived in Egypt about 200 BC.

Although there is much more to this, Manetho assumed the pharaohs’ reigns had been consecutive and so tallied them up sequentially to arrive at a very long Egyptian chronology. The problem, it appears, is that some of these pharaohs were reigning at the same time in different Egyptian kingdoms—the Upper Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, or Lower Kingdom. Sometimes fathers and sons seem to have reigned together for a long time, too.

So the dates for the pharaohs are grossly inflated. As an analogy, if we took all the past state governors of the United States and stacked their terms sequentially, the nation would appear to be much, much older than it is! The problem should be obvious.

I don't know anywhere near enough Egyptology to try to say how plausible this explanation is.

Another explanation I have seen offered is to defer to the ages of the early humans from the Septuagint (also known as the LXX) rather than the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint offers larger numbers for the ages of some of the early generations of humans when their children were born in Genesis than the Masoretic Text does. Those numbers then push the date of the Flood to before the year 3000 BC, putting it before the pyramids.