***Somewhere, the Devil is laughing and our Father is facepalming.***
For the life of me I don’t know why some Christians who have a doctrinal disagreement feel the need to insult other followers of Christ…… I’d say that was unbiblical.
First let me say that belief about the age of the earth has nothing to do with salvation, which can only be found by faith in the Deity of and the death and resurrection of Christ. However, it is important doctrinally.
To answer your questions:
1. I have read some of Hugh Ross’s stuff but it has been a while.
2. I’ve not read Gleason Archer’s Commentary (although I will if I can find it). For every commentary like that I can find many distinguished theologians who take the other side. RC Sproul as an example became a YEC a few years ago…. based on scripture.
3. I’ve never read anything from Hovind.
4. I’ve not seen the debate between Faulkner and Ross, although I’ve seen similar debates over the years (but not recently).
5. I’ve not studied the Rabbis from 1400 years ago.
I have (and this has been a while ago as well) read “Refuting Compromise” by Jonathon Sarfati who poses the other side of Hugh Ross’s arguments.
I’ll make these further comments on the subject:
Dr. Stephen Boyd is a professor at The Master’s College. He specializes in Semitic Languages, Old Testament Studies and most importantly, he is considered one of the foremost experts in Biblical Hebrew in the country. Here’s an article about an extensive study that he did:
http://www.icr.org/index.phpmodule=articles&action=view&ID=24
Here are the three conclusions of the study:
(1) it is not statistically defensible to read Genesis 1:1-2:3 as poetry;
(2) since Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a narrative, it should be read as other Hebrew narratives are intended to be read as a concise report of actual events, couched to convey an unmistakable theological message;13 and
(3) when this text is read as a narrative, there is only one tenable view of its plain sense: God created everything in six literal days.
***We live in a time when science overwhelmingly supports the Biblical idea that God is transcendent, eternal, omnipotent, intelligent and wise beyond comprehension, and very interested in the creation of and maintenance of life—and you YEC’s want to throw away all that enormously powerful evidence because you won’t accept the simple truth that the Hebrew word yom can mean a long but finite epoch as well as it can a 24-hour day.***
You’re absolutely correct Buggman. It is overwhelming. As far as the rest of your statement, I’ll just make these observations:
1. Everywhere else in scripture that “morning”and “evening” are used with the word day (yom) it is a 24 hour day.
2. Everywhere else in scripture that a number is used with day (1st day, 2nd day, etc.) it is a 24 hour day.
3. Exodus 20:10-11 (part of the ten commandments) tell us why God created everything in 6 days:
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
4. Most of the “clocks” that are available to scientists say that the earth can’t possibly be millions of years old. Here’s a good article on a few of them: https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/age-of-the-universe/evidence-for-a-young-world/
While I obviously don’t have the mind of God, I’ll close by asking a simple question and then a comment: Why would a God powerful enough to speak the Universe into existence take billions of years to do so?
And the comment: If the earth truly is young and it can eventually be proven… Then the evolutionists and their atheist brothers in arms have nowhere to go.
Oh yes, because the Bible contains no examples at all of the positive use of satire, sarcasm, and snark for the sake of driving home a point. And I've directly insulted no one--I have gone after the willful blindness of a doctrinal position that I consider to be actively dangerous to the Body.
But for the sake of conversation and shalom, I'll tone down the snark, though my final statement was entirely sincere.
1. It's good that you've read his work. Are you familiar enough with it to be able to know what his answers would be to the article you linked me to? That's not sarcasm; I'm just seeing to what extent I need to present the case.
2. "For every commentary like that I can find many distinguished theologians who take the other side." Agreed. The reason I point this out is that many on the YEC side like to act as if there's absolutely no reason other than "compromise with the world" for anyone to disagree with them. Heck, Kent Hovind got all of one line into his debate with Ross before subtlely accusing him of worshipping another god, and that accusation came out in full force by the midway point of the debate, much to John Ankerberg's consternation.
Actually, watching Ross's debates, I have to say that the arguments--and lack thereof--of Hovind, Faulkner, et.al. did more to convince me of the OEC position than those of Dr. Ross!
My point is this: There are good literalists on all sides of this debate, and it is evident that both YEC and OEC (and the Framework Hypothesis, and Analogical Days) fit within the meaning of the original Biblical Hebrew. I happen to think OEC fits better (if YEC is correct, there's no way to tell how long the first three days were and Adam sure fit a lot of activity into the last few hours of day six), but let's say it was a wash: At that point, shouldn't we be willing to look at outside scientific evidence to break the tie, just like we do with archaeology all the time?
3. Just as well.
4. You should watch it. It's long as heck, but it's probably the most gentlemanly debate on this subject I've ever seen. It helps that both men are scholars and colleges and actually behave as brothers in the Messiah should.
5. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I find that when looking into this subject, reading exegetical commentaries from before the 1800s is rather fascinating. That's not to say the rabbis are always right, of course, but they certainly weren't tainted by evolution in the 600s when the Talmud was compiled.
On Dr. Boyd (and I'll read his paper in more detail when I get off from work):
(1) Absolutely agreed.
(2) Agreed again.
(3) Agreed with a caveat: God created heaven and earth in six literal yomim, which may be understood as either "days" or "epochs."
On your refutations:
1. Where else does the Bible use the formula V'eyhi 'erev, v'eyhi boqer, yom [number] for you to compare?
2. That's actually not true (see Hos. 6:1-2), but supposing it was, where else in the Bible would it need to number epochs for you to be able to compare?
3. Yes, in six yomim. However, the Bible is rife with wordplay (it's one of the defining characteristics of Jewish language and thought). Ergo, there's no problem with the idea that God's point was: "I made the heavens and the earth in six yomim/epochs, therefore you mortals can emulate me by working for six yomim/days."
As Archer points out, if an eight-day celebration (Feast of Booths) can symbolize forty years in the wilderness, there's no problem with six days symbolizing six epochs.
4. You might want to check some of the secular science sites on those clocks. They turn out not to be as conclusive as they're made out to be in the YEC community. Moreover, as Faulkner admitted, even though there are some anomalies that might suggest an earth or solar system younger than conventional science suggests, there's absolutely no hard data that would put it at 6-10,000 years.
I'd also point out that there are formations on the earth that either took millions of years to carve out or else God set up nature to deliberately lie to us. For example, we know how fast a river can erode rock. The Columbia River carves a path right through the Cascadia Mountians. The only way that works, since water obviously doesn't flow uphill, is if the river existed first and carved down through the mountains at the same rate that they rose--which means that the mountains had to rise over millions of years, or else the river would have been dammed.
That's just one obvious example. There are plenty of others. And the problem gets worse when you start talking about the age of the universe, since the light is coming from so far away.
Why would a God powerful enough to speak the Universe into existence take billions of years to do so?
First, a counter-question: Why would a Being who exists completely outside of our time domain care about billions of years?
Second, an answer: By taking His time, and then creating a universe with consistant laws of physics that include a finite speed of light, God has actually allowed us to observe the entirety of His creative process from the time light first separated from the darkness, giving us enough data to infer the rest. Ditto on using long creative processes on the earth. He's giving us the means to appreciate the amount of care He put into Creation, as well as the information we would need to backwards-engineer it (via the scientific process) to fulfill the command to "subdue" the earth.
If the earth truly is young and it can eventually be proven… Then the evolutionists and their atheist brothers in arms have nowhere to go.
And if it isn't and it can't?
Shalom