Posted on 11/25/2014 7:41:28 AM PST by fishtank
‘From the beginning of creation’—what did Jesus mean?
There’s no getting around Jesus’ teaching on the age of the earth
by Keaton Halley
Published: 25 November 2014 (GMT+10)
Not everyone welcomes this news, but some of Jesus’ statements imply, of necessity, that the world is young. This is something I regularly point out when I speak in churches about creation, and it is a theme on which we have written previously, in articles such as Jesus on the age of the earth and in chapter 9 of Refuting Compromise. To reiterate the argument briefly, Jesus claimed that human history began at approximately the same time as all of creation came into existence, not billions of years later. This is evident from Jesus’ statements like: “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6). The obvious implication from these words is that Adam and Eve were on the scene shortly after the heavens and earth were created; they were not latecomers to a cosmos that had already endured for billions of years, as old-earth proponents insist. Thus, for those who take Jesus’ words seriously, there is no way to fit billions of years into Genesis 1 prior to Adam and Eve.
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
Exactly. If Adam had the appearance of age, the animals had the appearance of age, the trees were not seeds, but had the appearance of age, why do Christians feel the need to compromise and not see that EVERYTHING was created with the appearance of age.
And, no, God is not “deceiving us” with an apparently old earth.
He told us EXACTLY what he did.
Anybody know at which point the Creator created time?
I conjecture possibly at the Fall of Man, which for all I know, could have been in relation to the Fall of a third of the Angels in Heaven in Eternity.
(What’s bound on earth has already been bound in Heaven and what is loosed on earth has already been loosed in Heaven?)
The universe, on the other hand, exhibits many evidences of being billions of years old. Just to begin with, we're seeing light coming from far more than 6000 light-years away, and we know from over a dozen ways of testing it, as well as the ramifications of E=MC^2, that it's speed hasn't changed.
To say that the universe is only 6000 years old is to say that God deliberately created a lying illusion. I don't buy that.
As far as what Jesus said, the Genesis narrative is clear that God's works of creation ended with Adam and Eve, not began with them. Ergo, "beginning of creation" must likewise refer to the earliest age of creation being finished, not to day 1, and therefore has no effect on whether we read days 1-6 as being 24 hours or long ages.
Shalom
With all due respect, the issue is not particularly a "pick and choose" mentality. The term in Hebrew for "day" can mean "24 hour day", "time", "era" or "age" or several other possibilities. Less than 3000 different Hebrew words serve to fill the entire OT and those words must therefore stretch to a wide variety of meanings, depending on context. Moving them into English correctly is at the root of the problem, since we have approx. 14 million different words.
An example of why some folks believe in a longer creation period is that "morning and evening, one (day)" appears before the moon and sun were in "place". Or at least before they were visible on earth. Thus, they may not be trying to avoid the literal, but are trying to get to actual literal. And, their view is simply bolstered by what science thinks, not controlled by it.
But, if it turns out that all of this happened in 6 24 hour "days", I don't know of any of them that would be angry. They just think the text is literally describing something different.
As far as what Jesus said, His remark, if it refers to the beginning of creation of men and women, is not injured by a longer period of creation.
Mark 13:19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.... where the exact same expression is used, and again has clear reference to a temporal framework inaugurated by God's act of creation.
Hang on. How does the *beginning* of creation (de archeis ktiseios) refer to Day 6, and not Day 1?
Creation ended at the end of the sixth day with the formation of man, right? It didn’t proceed on down the ages through Abel and Noah and Abraham did it? Creation is not still going on is it?
It was a definite time period that lasted 6 days. God’s days if you like but still six days. But whatever way you slice it God made the male and female of mankind at the very end of creation, not the beginning.
Now unless you want to accuse Our Lord of not knowing the Scriptures and His own timeline of creation, I’d be very careful of reading “from the beginning of ALL creation” here instead of “from the beginning of MAN’S creation”.
You may want to take a look at Humphrey’s White Hole Cosmology.
http://creationwiki.org/White_hole_cosmology
Relativistic speeds are implied in these verses:
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
Psa 104:2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:
Agreed.
This is all the young earthers have left? Twisting the scriptures?
Anyone who believes anything Russell Humphreys writes deserves every conclusion they arrive at, including this young-earth nonsense. The guy is an absolute charlatan.
If one accepts the Markan record as theopneustos (God-breathed), then we need not worry about the overlay of the hebrew, because only part of the statement is from Genesis. the remainder is Jesus’ own direct teaching
The Markan passage that you cite does nothing for the young-earth theory, even if it can be demonstrated that the term refers clearly to temporal rather than logical ordering. “Old Earthers” can still hold for creation in time. I’d be interested in substantial scholarly support (meaning a solid discussion of the linguistic evidence, not a list of scholars) to your claim that this term had an established technical meaning, but unless this meaning is both crystal clear and it can be shown that the phrase was only used with regards to the technical meaning, the linguistic difficulties, while not a completely “safe haven” to definitively end the argument, are considerable and cannot be brushed aside.
I think I have their CD ... or was that Twisted Sisters?
It's too bad. When I first read it, I wanted it to be true, but you have to be willing to follow the testable evidence.
Shalom
Yes, a couple of seconds after Adam’s formation, he was perfect. Who’s to say that the rest of creation wasn’t perfect as well (it was). Then the Fall.
We’re seeing light coming from far more than the “Big Bang” estimation of the age of the universe as well, so that isn’t a valid argument.
As far as the “lying illusion”, I’ve addressed that as well. God told us exactly what happened. How is that “lying”?
This is why speciation, which previously happened at an average rate of one new species per year for the past several hundred million years, suddenly stops when Man appears on the scene: The sixth day of creation ended, and God entered his period of rest, which will in turn end when it comes time to create a new heavens and a new earth.
Shalom
Job 38 (where God challenges Job):
Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?
Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.
Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c] or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth?
God makes it painfully clear: When we start to speculate about the mind of God and what happened during creation (beyond what He has revealed to us) we tread of very shaky ground.
Who knows the unfathomable mind of God? For no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? (1 Cor 2:16)
This is why I can't support Ussher's 6000 year calendar that starts at 4004 BC. It is not because it is repeatedly and gleefully used as a cudgel by atheists to beat believers sensesless rhetorically (which is why you see it brought up in the media all the time).
The problem is that a 6000 year timeline is not Biblical. It is based mainly on a misreading of 2 Peter 3:8 (which is quoting Ps 90:4), where Peter states with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Ussher did a basic misreading of Peter. What he did was simple. God created the world in 6 days, a day to God is a 1000 years, so 6 times 1000 years = 6000 years, QED. But don't you see? That's not what Peter wrote! He wrote a thousand years is like a day to Him, not that it literally was.
I am not arguing that it is merely a metaphor. Why? Because I don't have to. 2 Peter 3:8 is not a metaphor, it is something much stronger. It is a simile ('like a'). Peter wrote 'like a' very deliberately, I think, to prevent exactly the kind of bogus literal misinterpretation that Ussher did. To underscore that fact Peter intentionally used two similes and reversed them: that from God's perspective it can go either way. In other words, I think the point Peter is making is actually quite clear: that the passage of time is basically irrelevant from God's perspective.
This is why I give a sigh whenever I see a Young Earth creationist argue the 6000 year timeline with an atheist. Invariably it only serves to reinforce the atheist's unbelief. Why? Not because a I think a belief in a 6000 year-old Earth is scientifically wrong, but because the Bible does not demand it. I will admit that the Earth really might be 6000 years old - I don't know because I wasn't there - but we cannot demand it, and in particular we should not base out witnessing on it to unbelievers as a condition of their salvation.
This is why I think hanging your hat on Mark 10:6 as an assertion that Adam and Eve were created immediately after the stars and the heavens is very dicey. What does 'From the beginning' actually mean to a God that exists outside of time and space? Where you there? Do you know the mind of God? Yes, Adam and Eve were created as the first man and woman, and yes they sinned and Adam fell. But beyond what scripture reveals to us you cannot safely go.
Basically, don't try to put God in a box. He wants us to marvel as His creation, for the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands (Ps 19:1). Just give glory to God and praise Him for the majesty of His creation, of the universe He created with 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars, and revel in coolness of his Plan for us and what He wrought, and be thankful for the underserved gift of salvation that we receive in the blood of Christ Jesus.
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