Old Earth Interpretations

Posted on February 27, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

In some interactions online, I’ve been told that because I do not bring in the outside influences of the Ancient Near East (ANE) histories as an authoritative interpretive principle, then I am a heretic. This is typical of liberal theologies that want to elevate outside sources as authorities like modern academic paradigms, cultural norms, and politics over the Bible. The same person declared that it is important to add words to the Bible to make it accommodate old earthism. Here’s what they have to say:

He wrote those posts in response to my question about the flood of Noah’s day being a worldwide flood instead of his view of a minor local flood in Mesopotamia. I asked the question:

Why do you think it is absurd for me to read what the text says “ALL (H3605) mountains (H2022) under ALL (H3605) heavens (H8064)” in context?

He claims that it is necessary to add the magic words “the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark and the Mesopotamian valley” in place of Heavens and Earth. So, let’s see if this old earth hermeneutic principle is consistent if we apply it to the rest of the writings of Moses in Genesis. Pay special attention to the last few entries in the list to see how taking old earth hermeneutic principles affects the gospel, if they remain consistent throughout. To try to salvage the gospel, they must change their interpretive principles in a way that is inconsistent and arbitrary.

So, that it is clear that I am not showing the following quotes from scripture as my own but from old earthism, I will prefix each entry with OEHP to denote Old Earthism Hermeneutic Principle

OEHP: Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark and the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 1:7-8 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark

OEHP: Gen 1:14 Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark to separate 10,000,000,000 yrs from night, & let them serve as signs to mark seasons & 10,000,000,000 yrs & yrs, & let them serve as lights in the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark & give light on the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 1:20 Let birds fly above the Mesopotamian valley across the expanse of the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark…and let the birds increase in the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the Mesopotamian valley...I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 2:1 Thus the sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark and the Mesopotamian valley were completed in all their vast array

CHP: Gen 7:18 There was a little rain in the Mesopotamian valley & a few high places under sky that Noah could see from the top of the ark in the Mesopotamian valley was covered. Some living things, a few people, some birds, some other living things were wiped out

OEHP: Gen 9:1 Then God blessed Noah & his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful & multiply & fill the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 9:11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will a few living things be cut off by a small local flood. Never again will there be a small local flood in the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 9:19 These were the three sons of Noah, & from them came the people who were scattered over the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 11:8-9 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the Mesopotamian valley…From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole the Mesopotamian valley

OEHP: Gen 12:3 I will bless those who bless you, & whoever curses you I will curse; & ALL peoples in the Mesopotamian valley will be blessed through you.

OEHP: Gen 18:18 Abraham will surely become a great & powerful nation, and ALL nations in the the Mesopotamian valley will be blessed through him.

Please take a moment to look at the REAL passages in the scripture. These posts are intended to drive Christians back to the Bible to see what it says in context. Study. Don’t take my word for it. Look throughout the scripture to make sure that what people teach is in accordance with God’s Word and not with modern academic paradigms, cultural norms, or politics as authorities. As Christians, we must interpret God’s Word with consistency within the context of the author’s intent: in consideration of the gospel of Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is effective for ALL the nations of the earth…not just the Mesopotamian valley.

We can trust what God has revealed about the past, therefore we can trust Him with our future. Praise the Creator!!!

Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 8

Posted on February 24, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

Guided by Theology

One would think Dr. Ross became a biblical creationist in between ch7 and ch8 as he begins this chapter with

The Bible is a harbor of truth. And yet, navigating a harbor safely often requires a guide who offers clear, specific direction around dangerous obstacles especially during a storm. God calls Christians to love Him with all of their minds, and to do so, serious followers must explore the breadth and depth of His recorded Word. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). Good theology helps direct an honest search. Wise church scholars throughout history have acknowledged that determining the precise meaning of a biblical word or passage sometimes requires more effort than a mere surface reading. Many passages that address or allude to the age of the universe and Earth are difficult to interpret. Such sections require careful consideration of both context and relevant theological points.

Failure to be cautious and thorough in analyzing them can lead to inaccurate conclusions.

Amen. Theological considerations should be ever present when reading God’s Word. In sections regarding the origin and state of the universe prior to human rebellion against the Creator is a significant question since we (in the present) see evil, death, suffering, and corruption. Creation and human plight seem somehow marred, broken, and tarnished. Has it always been so, or did something bring the corruption we now see?

For the old earther, death, suffering, cancer, corruption, and thorns have always been a part of the creation despite God calling his creation “very good”.

Is cancer, suffering, death and corruption very good? The old earth would be forced to say ‘YES!’

Dr. Ross continues well when he says,

According to the Bible, God is truthful and He expresses Himself truthfully all His works and words, both in the creation of the physical world and in the inspiration of His written Word. When Jesus, the visible expression of the Visible God, said to His disciples, “I am…the truth,” He identified one of His divine attributes (John 14:6). Many familiar Bible verses declare that God is truthful and He does not lie in word or in deed.’

God is indeed truthful and trustworthy, and I’m starting to think Dr. Ross has matured into a biblical creationist since his next two paragraphs sound like this:

The Bible clearly affirms the God’s handiwork displays His character…According to Christian theology, then, an honest investigation of nature leads to discovery of truths

But sadly, in the very next paragraph Dr. Ross devolves back to his old earth arguments and unsuccessfully tries to make the case that because the modern paradigm disagrees with the text of Genesis that the Bible needs to be reinterpreted to accommodate

In no way does God’s revelation via the universe detract from the importance of His written revelation. Nor does this belief in the trustworthiness of nature’s message imply that God never intervenes in the natural realm by performing miracles. It does mean that when He performs miracles God does not remove, hide, or distort physical evidence for them.

Dr. Ross continues to make clear that when there appears to be a discrepancy between the modern academic paradigm and the Bible, he’s ready to change the definition in the Bible, so it has not problem accommodating the interpretation of observations. So, while he talks about scripture having the highest authority, in practice, he surrenders the Biblical text to academia.

Suddenly, Dr. Ross takes a dark turn on page 82 when he writes:

The accelerating expansion of the universe due to the effect of dark energy will eventually cause the radiation from the cosmic creation event [13.8 billions years ago] to move away from us at greater then the velocity of light.

There’s some serious SERIOUS problems with dark energy and the Big Bang model upon which Dr. Ross hangs all of his theory. If the Big Bang or dark energy/dark matter fail as explanations, old earthism loses all of its foundation.

Let’s look at some recent crushing blows to the foundation of the Rossians.

Ross inadvertently hampers his own argument when he writes,

Writers of scripture compared the number of God’s children with the number of stars in the sky and the number of grains of sand on the seashore – a ‘countless’ number. Hebrew and Greek numbering systems included numbers up to billions. ‘Countless’ suggests at least an order of magnitude greater than billions: tens of billions.

So, when God revealed to Moses how long it took from the creation until He created mankind, God said 6 days. Why did God not use these “Countless” numbering analogies or the simile He used with Abraham: number of days like the number of grains of sand on the seashore. But God chose instead to use definite boundaries and ordinal numbers of the word day to very specifically limit the creation time periods.

In the above inset, Dr. Ross sneers at the old young earth model that proposed light might have been faster in the past and has decayed to its present rate. Unfortunately, he forgets that his own sandy foundation has a light time travel problem. For the universe to exhibit such uniform temperatures as is observed, light would have had to travel much fast in the past or the universe be much older than his error bars could apologize for. Ooops.

Pg 83 turns out to be a rough page for Dr. Ross because he finishes this page with some very poor logic

God’s fourth commandment says the seventh day of each week is to be honored as holy: “Six days you shall labor…but the seventh day is a Sabbath….For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth…but he rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:9, 11). Young-earth creationist leaders often cite this passage as proof positive for the 24-hour creation-day interpretation. However, this passage is just one of five in the Pentateuch (the books of Moses) that address the fourth commandment. For three of these passages (Exodus 35:2; Leviticus 23:3; Deuteronomy 5:12-15), no connection at all is drawn between God’s work week and humanity’s. For the remaining two passages, the “proof” would hold only if neither the word for “day” nor the word for “Sabbath” were ever used with reference to any time period other than 24 hours.

Conveniently, Hugh Ross leaves out Exodus 31:17 which (along with Exodus 20) ties the creation week to the weekly cycle that God’s people are to observe.

Six days you shall labor
For in
Six days the LORD made

The seventh day is a Sabbath
For on
The seventh day the LORD (SHABATH – Gen 2:2) abstained from work

It is made perfectly clear in Exodus that the days of creation week were not only a pattern for God’s people, but the same time duration. Were Dr. Ross’s interpretation valid, then the expectation would be for God’s people to work for 6 epochs of time (upwards of 13 billion years or whatever the current academic paradigm declares the age of the universe to be) and then rest for a single epoch before repeating it all again. Poor logic, Dr. Ross, but he continues

The seven days of our calendar week follow God’s established pattern. His “work week” gives us a humanlike picture we can grasp.

Exactly! So day ≠ billions of years

This communication tool is common in the Bible. Scripture frequently speaks of God’s hand, eyes, arm, even wings.The context in each case makes clear that these descriptions are not to be taken concretely.

But Dr. Ross, the context of Ex 20 and Ex 31 are not figurative or poetic in nature like Psalm 104. The text in question gives no openness to smuggle in your old earthism. There clearly are passages that are poetic in nature, and we honor the LORD because of them by their context. We also honor the LORD when He reveals historic and commandment passages. The context here in both Genesis and Exodus are not figurative, therefore, we must exercise proper exegesis and put the 24 hour boundaries on the days just as God says.

On pg 85, Dr Ross attacks a clear reading of Mark 10:6 in favor of his old earthism

Jesus said, “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). Ken Ham, Henry Morris, and John Morris have claimed this statement implies that virtually no time transpired between the creation of the universe and the creation of Adam and Eve.” Henry Morris asserted that “Jesus Christ…who was there at the beginning of the creation, said that man and woman were there, too!” Morris used this passage to assert that Jesus was a young-earth creationist.”

Jesus IS a biblical creationist

However, even from a young-earth perspective on the creation week, this interpretation of Mark 10:6 cannot be correct. Adam and Eve were not created until the sixth creation day, after the creation of the universe and the earth. Therefore, Adam and Eve could not have been present at the beginning of the Universe.

Let’s look at the 2 opposing timelines of old earthism vs. biblical creation.

You can see from the biblical creation timeline on top, that mankind was created during the creation week…at the beginning. Jesus was not speaking about the initial nanosecond of the creation, but the creation week as has been established in Genesis 1 and confirmed in Exodus 20/31. The word that Jesus used:“beginning” now makes sense because both from the perspective of Moses (who wrote Genesis) and Jesus (who spoke 4000 years after creation) the 7 days of creation week very clearly were the beginning.

Conversely, when we analyze the old earther timeline (which is from Hugh Ross’s website reasons.org), we see humans did not emerge until the very END of time…almost 14,000,000,000 years after creation. In this case, it makes no sense to refer to male and female being created at the beginning since from their perspective, it is at the end.

We can combine the differing perspectives into a single timeline to further highlight the distinctions

Ross makes a similarly futile attempt to discredit the passage in Mark 10:6 as having an anchor in history when he says:

The question asked of Jesus was about marriage. Thus, the context suggests that He was referring to the is beginning of humanity’s story, the story of the first husband and wife. On that basis, the Mark 10:6 “beginning of creation” most likely refers to the beginning of marriage.

Notice, how Ross inserts his own thoughts and words intermixed with Jesus’s words. This is called eisegesis and is a no-no when interpreting scripture. Rather than being content with the actual words Jesus spoke, Dr. Ross changes “the beginning of creation” to “the beginning of marriage”

The chapter is winding down when Dr. Ross adds to the bad logic with:

He (God) will replace this present universe with new heavens, a new Earth, and a new Jerusalem, all having new physical laws and dimensions to make possible our eternal life and rewards in His presence.

Dr. Ross, will the new heavens and earth take 14,000,000,000 years of death, suffering, cancer and bloodshed like you think this creation experienced, before it’s ready for resurrected humans? Why do you assume the current creation took that time to get to where it is in spite of the Bible rejecting that view?

To finish chapter 8 on pg 86 Dr. Ross makes a point that is in strong contention with biblical creationists because of the nature of God.

The clearest evidence of different physics in the new creation comes from the promise of “no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” As Romans 8:21-23 further amplifies, the universe “will be liberated from its bondage to decay.”

Dr. Ross has defined “bondage to decay” as the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The text in Romans does not support this as we read in Romans 8:20

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

Creation was SUBJECTED to futility and its corruption by the curse of sin. Creation has not always been corrupted with death/disease/suffering/bloodshed/evil/thorns as Dr. Ross would have us believe because the passages in Genesis and here in Romans forbid his model of thinking. Dr. Ross, thinking that corruption was part of God’s initial creation is “very good”, but here in Romans we see that God calls it bondage.

Even though Dr. Ross calls this chapter “Guided by Theology”, we see that his theology is poor, and we don’t want to be guided by poor theology. We want to be guided by biblical theology with a proper understanding of scripture rather than eisegesis.

Praise God for the consistent nature of his revelation. As Christians, we do not have to redefine the words in the Bible to accommodate modern academic paradigms or cultural changes in sexuality or political revolutions as we have seen Dr. Ross do. God’s Word is eternal and we can trust God to keep his word regarding the future since we can trust his revelation from the past.

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 7 (part 2)

Posted on February 17, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by Wendy van Zyl on Pexels.com

Anchored in Scripture

Either Dr. Ross was verbose in chapter 7, or he wrote quite a bit that needs reviewing and correcting…maybe a little bit of both

Having viewed many videos of Dr. Ross and even interacting with him online, he ties his old earthism to a unique understanding of Jeremiah 33 and the consequences of immutable physical laws. He discusses this on pg 70 after he discusses the perceived problems of the order of creation. Dr. Ross says that it would have ruined all of God’s creation had (as Genesis 1 reveals) the Creator made Earth first and then on day 4 created the sun/moon & planets. He brushes aside the fact that the Creator of the universe would actually have had no problem with Dr. Ross’s proposed physics conundrum

As a way around these enormous complications, some young-earth creationist leaders suggest that God could have radically altered physics.” While no Christian would doubt that He could have, both biblical texts and astronomical observations support the conclusion that He did not. For example, Jeremiah 33:25 explicitly refers to “the fixed laws of heaven and earth,”

Dr. Ross seems to be saying that “the fixed laws of heaven and earth” actually bind God not to do things that would be considered outside the bounds of physics, chemistry, or biology.

Let’s look at what Jeremiah 33 is actually talking about.

The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Have you not observed that these people are saying, ‘The LORD has rejected the two clans that he chose’? Thus they have despised my people so that they are no longer a nation in their sight. Thus says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.”

So, in the context of God declaring his faithfulness to his chosen people, He references a covenant with the day and night. Might we be able to find in scripture the origin of this covenant?

About 1,500 (actual; not old earther) years after the creation of the moon (when Dr. Ross says there were all sorts of physics problems), God makes his covenant with day and night:

Genesis 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

So, even if Dr. Ross’s wild interpretation of Jeremiah 33:25 is correct (which I will show next that it is not) then the covenant God made with the night and day was not even enacted until a millennium and a half AFTER there might have been perceived problems of physics that would have bound God from doing anything because of the “fixed order/patterns of heaven and earth.”

But Dr. Ross is not correct that God cannot suspend the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology for his glory. We see examples all throughout scripture that God can and does uphold all things for his glory rather than being bound by laws of physics, chemistry, or biology:

Gen 19:24, 26 (physics)
Gen 21:2 (biology)
Gen 30:41 (biology)
Ex 3:2 (physics)
Ex 7-12 (physics, chemistry, biology)
Ex 14:21-28 (physics)
Num 17:8 (biology)
Num 21:8-9 (biology)
Num 22:28 (biology, ethology)
Josh 6:20 (physics)
Josh 10:12-14 (physics, astrophysics)
- Interestingly, the point of the passage in Joshua 10 when God stopped the movement of the sun for about one full day is that ONLY the Almighty could perform such a miracle. The Rossians have this to say about the specific instance in Joshua 10
- “God could have brought about such effects through a supernatural meteorological event that blanketed the region with heavy darkness or refracted or reflected extra light into the desired location”
Judges 6:36-40 (physics)
I Kings 17:1-6 (physics, biology)
2 Kings 4:5 (physics, chemistry)
2 Kings 4:35 (biology)
2 Kings 6:6 (physics)
Isaiah 38:7-8 (physics, astrophysics)
- As in the Joshua 10 passage, ONLY God could perform such a miracle. Why would the Rossians continue to insist that there is a naturalistic explanation for something that ONLY God could have done? It is because they start with the wrong presuppositions…that somehow, God is bound by natural laws. Here’s what the Rossians say about Isaiah 38
- “It is hard to imagine, however, God manipulating meteorological conditions so that sundials over the entire region between Jerusalem and Babylon would have their shadows shifted by 40 minutes without bringing about far more disturbing meteorological consequences. Alternatively, God could have temporarily shone some kind of transcendent light, like His Shekinah glory, into the cities of Jerusalem and Babylon or even upon the entire region between Jerusalem and Babylon.”
- Not once do they even consider what the actual text says… “So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.”
Jonah 2:10 (biology)
Matt 8:3 (biology)
Matt 9:25 (biology)
Mark 4:39 (physics)
Luke 5:20-26 (biology) My favorite Bible story. Jesus is God who can forgive sin. But to validate in their eyes, his ultimate authority He also healed the man’s most obvious physical needs. And everyone praised God!
Luke 24:6 (biology)
John 11:44 (biology)

Doubtless, Dr. Ross would backpedal when confronted with this argument since he probably does believe in miracles recorded in scripture. Why then would he arbitrarily choose the examples in Genesis 1 & 7 during creation & the worldwide flood to hold God accountable for Ross’s interpretation that the fixed laws of heaven and earth cannot be broken? It seems rather fallacious to me.

Ross ends this section of the book with the quote

This exegetical approach not only arises from a modern understanding of the structure of and formation of stars and planets, but also dates back to at least the 1680s.

First, Ross is NOT using an “exegetical approach”. The previous 2 paragraphs are full of quotes like

“2 parts in 10,000,000,000,000,000…”
“past 12 billion years”
“Thus research confirms”
“God transformed Earth’s atmosphere from translucent to transparent”

Exegesis is using scripture to interpret scripture, and none of those quotes are in scripture. Dr. Ross is bringing his outside sources as authorities to interpret scripture, which is called eisegesis.

Secondly, Dr. Ross is saying that for the full extent of human history until the 1680s…or more likely until he wrote A Matter of Days (2nd edition) that the people of God understood God’s revelation of origins incorrectly. (sarcasm font) Thanks Dr. Ross for revealing God’s meaning to THIS generation. Too bad all other generations missed out. (close sarcasm font). We’ve already covered in Chapter 4 of the review that Dr. Ross is incorrect when he claims that the church has ALWAYS thought the creation took billions of years. Instead the church has historically held that the Bible is true in what it proclaimed throughout – God created the universe in 6 literal days.

In the next 2 sections, Dr. Ross critiques the views of biblical creationists’ understanding of the 6th and 7th days. With great personal incredulity, he declares that Adam could not possibly have done the things described in Genesis 2 on a single day:

Considered together, many weeks, months, or even years worth of activities took place in this later portion of the sixth day:

Adam engaged in four different careers, or apprenticeships, on the sixth creation day (gardening, studying animals, naming animals, and learning how to relate to Eve).
Adam and Eve learned how to manage Earth’s resources for the benefit of all life. To be meaningful and beneficial, such important education and training could not have been crammed into only a few hours.

Careers? Four career? Let’s analyze what the text of Genesis 2 actually tells us about Adam’s four “careers”

Gardener – Gen 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.” There doesn’t seem to be a mention of a career there. From the actual text, we see that God did yet even clearly tell him to work the garden…just the Adam was put in the garden to take care of it.
Zoologist – Dr. Ross said Adam had a career of studying animals, but I couldn’t even find a verse in Genesis 2 that would remotely describe Adam as a zoologist. But didn’t Dr. Ross title this chapter: Anchored in Scripture? Looks like AGAIN, Dr. Ross brought his own interpretations into the text. Dr. Ross is indeed an Eisegesis Ninja
Zoonominalogist – This is a career? A Quick internet search shows that approximately 0% of humanity is employed as a zoonominalist. When we read Gen 2:19-20, it’s clear that God brought the beasts of the field and the birds to Adam for him to name. But someone might ask, “Aren’t there millions of species on Earth? How could Adam name millions of animals in a single day.” It’s a fair question, but the (false) assumption is that Adam named each SPECIES. Adam could have taken care of his God-given task in seconds by saying “Mammal, reptile, amphibian, behemoth, birds, and those accursed Philadelphia Eagles.” Perhaps another tactic Adam could have taken would have been to identify them by their locomotion, “quadruped, bipedal, tree-swingers, flighted birds, flightless birds, and those evil Philadelphia Eagles.” This article from creation.com describes how easily Adam could have named the animals in as little as an hour.
Husband – Hardly a career, but truly one of the most rewarding experiences in life is loving one’s wife with God’s love. From the text, again it is clear that Adam was not expected to know everything or be perfectly harmonious with his wife on their 1st day together. I’m not sure where Dr. Ross gets his expectation that Adam had a career’s worth of knowledge in dealing with his wife from the short text of their introduction such that it “could not have been crammed into only a few hours.”

Ross’s case against the clear reading of scripture is based on his personal incredulity, misunderstanding of the text, and his commitment to old earthism.

Of the seventh day, Ross writes:

While each of the first six creation days is marked by a beginning (“morning”) and an ending (“evening”), no such boundaries are assigned to the seventh day, neither in Genesis 1 and 2 not anywhere else in the Bible. Given the parallel structure in the narration of the creation days, such a distinct omission from the description of the seventh day strongly suggests that this day has (or had) not yet ended.

Ross appears to be saying that since the Bible never explicitly defined the end of day 7, that day 7 persists from then to now and beyond. So, he makes the connection, that since he can interpret “day” 7 to be very long, then he can interpret the other “days” to be epochs.

Let’s analyze that first claim about day 7 not having an ending. Is it reasonable to say “Since the Bible did not explicitly state something, then it did NOT happen” ? The Bible never explicitly said that Eve ever slept. Are we to conclude that Eve never slept? Of course not, but this is the progression of thought that Ross is employing here. Secondly, we know that the United States declared its independence from England on July 4th, 1776, and the United States is still a country. Does this mean that it’s been July 4th ever since that time? Again, Ross’s logic is flawed. We can verify this by looking in scripture in Exodus 20:9,11 “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

If as Ross contends, the LORD made the heavens and earth in six epochs and then rested (and continues to rest) for the 7th epoch, were God’s people expected to work continuously for millions and billions of years until God gives them 7th epoch rest?

We can notice from the passage that God’s pattern is clear: Just as He worked 6 days, his people are to work for 6 days. And just as He rested on the 7th day, his people are to rest on the seventh day. The expectation is that the weekly cycle resets after the 7th day, but Ross’s theory fails to consistently address this continual reset.

An inset on pg 74 tries to explain the fossil record from an old earthist perspective. Ross proposes that new species “came into existence” in previous millennia, but he doesn’t say how. If we exegete Ross’s writings, we know he favors naturalistic evolution for the emergence of space, stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, chemicals, water…One has to wonder that although he states his distaste of Darwinism, why he breaks from his naturalistic evolutionary dogma of the cosmos when it comes to biology (?)

Also, instead of using the biblically defined biological categories of kinds, Ross joins Darwinists in his description of the emergence and extinction of life by species, which are not the same as kinds. We’ll show how Ross’s interpretation of the fossil record is full of epicycles and just-so-stories rather than the biblical explanation of the global flood in future chapter reviews. Suffice it to say now that the worldwide flood of Noah’s day accurately accounts for the layers, fossils, and age of the earth in much greater accord than Ross’s incongruent theory.

Ross closes out Chapter 7 with a section titled Biblical Clocks. His idea is that one should be able to grasp the billions of years of history from the texts below:

Bible writers often compared God’s eternal existence to the longevity of the mountains or the “foundations of the earth.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:2)
When there were no oceans, I [wisdom] was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the earth or its fields or any of the dust of the world. (Proverbs 8:24-26)
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever….All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again….It was here already, long ago. (Ecclesiastes 1:4,7,10)
Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. (Micah 6:2)

All these passages depict the immeasurable antiquity of God’s presence and plans. The brief span of a 3,000-year terrestrial history

But 3,000 years IS A LONG TIME! Only from Ross’s old earthist perspective is 3,000 years just a blink. But for the writers of scripture, 3,000 years is 150 generations. From David’s and Solomon’s and Jeremiah’s perspectives, the earth and it’s mountains were ancient. From our perspective today, the 1,000 year old castles of Europe are almost unfathomably ancient. Several times, Ross used translations of Hebrew words like everlasting, which modern translations (ESV) show as “enduring”.

What’s even more interesting to me, is if when Adam and Noah and Moses were given their accounts of creation, why God did NOT choose to refer to the Earth or mountains as ancient from their perspective. Since for Ross, 3,000 years is just a blink, why did God not communicate to Adam that the Earth was ancient? It’s because, as God confirms in Mark 10:6, Adam was formed at the BEGINNING of creation…not the end.

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What Makes Me Question Evolution?

Posted on February 12, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Because God’s revelation in the Bible is incongruent with modern the academic paradigm of evolution, Christians should reject it. But since it is also a scientific dead-end, even naturalists should reject it.

“Mutations break things, they do not produce new information.”

“As I matured in Christ, I also began to understand the theological implications of deep time. I began to understand that if the earth was millions of years old, then God could not be good and Christ could not be the last Adam, nor could He save us from our sins. The theological implications of the evolutionary deep time were such that I could not accept it. Further, there was good scientific evidence that the rock layers that supposedly needed deep time to form, were formed much more rapidly, as a result of the flood. The Grand Canyon and the geological aftermath of Mount St. Helens stood out to me.”

Happy Question Evolution Day!

In His Image

Editors Note: Today, February 12 is the birthday of Charles Darwin. Thus it is very appropriate that the Question Evolution Day falls on February 12th.

It’s that time of year again. It’s the time of year the evolutionists go into celebration mode as they honor the birth of their prophet Charles Darwin. International Darwin Day is February twelfth. It is therefore very fitting that the same day be used to question evolution which the priests and temples of Darwinism do their best not to permit. However, thanks to the freedom that the internet provides, dissent can still reach past the ivory towers of academia to the common people. And it is the common people, the ones the ivory tower looks down their noses at, who most strongly reject evolution.

As an outsider to the ivory tower, but someone who has read extensively in the scientific literature, I kind of have…

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 7 (part 1)

Posted on February 10, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by Alexander Mils on Pexels.com

Anchored in Scripture

I love the title of this chapter. As Christians, we should find solid footing for justifying morality, purpose, and doctrine. Now, let’s see what Dr. Ross has to tell us about being anchored in scripture

The opening paragraph reads:

Genesis 1 records a dramatic story: “within six days” God miraculously Transformed a “formless and void” Earth into a well-furnished home for humanity. He then created two human beings, male and female, to live there. How strange that in the awesome scope of this account the meaning of one word, “day,” should become the focus of ferocity. Is the length of a creation day 24 hours? Or can the word “day” refer to millions of years?

Speaking of “how strange”…how strange is it for someone to read the text of Genesis 1 and be struck with the reflection, ‘I wonder if the word day means millions of years.’ Like we talked about in the introduction, regarding the word puddle. If you were to read the poem Wild Peaches by Elinor Wylie which includes the lines

“The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold;
The little puddles will be roofed with glass.”

Would one reflect on the word puddle to say, ‘I wonder if the word puddle means a tiny collection of rainwater or billions of cubic miles of water.’ That’s what Dr. Ross is asking us to believe the biblical text suggests as possible.

Yet these two examples are in the same range of absurdity. For Dr. Ross to (out of nowhere) ask “can the word day refer to millions of years?” means he is NOT anchored in scripture, but has brought his own modern paradigm into his biblical interpretation. Being anchored in scripture means that God’s special revelation is one’s very foundation for knowledge.

Dr. Ross may give lip service to being anchored in scripture, but we can clearly see, his methodology is to bring his own agenda into the interpretation of scripture…making his agenda the anchor.

On pg 65, Dr Ross makes an attempt to discredit the use of the Hebrew word ‘yom’ from meaning ‘a standard day, or single rotation of the earth on its axis’ in Genesis 1.

The Hebrew word yom, translated “day”, is used in biblical Hebrew (as in modern English) to indicate any of four time periods: (a) some portion of the daylight (hours); (b) sunrise to sunset; (c) sunset to sunset; or (d) a segment of time without any reference to solar days (from weeks to a year to several years to an age or epoch).

One can go through scripture and find examples for sections a, b, c and the 1st parts of d. With scripture as our anchor and so that Dr. Ross could have some justification for applying that usage to Genesis 1, where in scripture is there an example where the Hebrew word, yom is used to mean 10 billion years? Included in the box below is a comprehensive listing of the passages in scripture where yom means billions of years

Then he must have brought that understanding with him into the biblical text since it is nowhere in the Bible.

Maybe Dr. Ross will do better when he tries to explain away the specific context words that define yom to mean a standard day: evening and morning

Some people see the words translated as “evening” and “morning” as evidence that yom refers to a 24-hour period.

This is true. Biblical creationists do see this as a powerful contextual reason to not introduce wild interpretations into the text. He continues

In examining other biblical texts’ occurrences of yom, some people who promote young-earth perspective attempt to make a statistical argument. For example, authors Mark Van Bebber and Paul Taylor wrote, “This phrase [evening and morning] is used 38 times in the Old Testament, not counting Genesis 1. Each time, without exception, the phrase refers to a normal 24-hour-type day.”

That’s not a statistical argument. That’s using the text to interpret the text. If evening and morning are boundaries to a day that is repeated 6 times in Genesis 1, and confirmed 38 other times in scripture without exception, why would you base your entire argument on an unnecessarily imposed outlier?

Another reason that biblical creationists reject old earthism is the sequential nature of the days since the Hebrew words for “the second day, the third day, the four day…” appear in the text. This clearly indicates that the days were ordinals as opposed to cardinals (day 2, day 3, day 4…)

But Dr. Ross fights against this clarity with the following obfuscation

The claim that yom, when attached to an ordinal (second, third, fourth and so on), always refers to a 24-hour period must also be questioned Van Bebber and Taylor have said that 358 out of the 359 times yóm is used in the Bible, outside of Genesis 1 and with an ordinal modifier, it represents a 24-hour day. However, in examining each passage, the reader discovers that only 249 of these usages are the singular form of yom, and all 249 are in the context of human activity or human history. But Genesis 1 speaks of divine activity or natural history apart from, and unrelated to, human activity. Furthermore, no rule of Hebrew usage or grammar requires that when yôm appears with an ordinal it can only mean a 24-hour period.

Again, this is not as helpful to Ross’s case as he would like. Rather than building up his case for why yom can mean billions of years to accommodate his old earthism, he simply asserts that his “50 ton camel” can get through the “eye of the needle” that he claims is left open by Hebrew syntax.

In the following paragraph, Dr. Ross evaluates the writings of theologian Andrew Steinmann, who has shown that the ordinal numbers and evening/morning descriptors of the word ‘yom’ shows them to be standard days,

Steinmann’s assertions may be interesting, but do they constitute an air tight case? A word-by-word translation of Genesis 1:5b from the Hebrew reads as follows: “And was evening, and was morning day one.” Nothing in this sentence explicitly establishes yom’s duration.

Nothing? NOTHING?!?!?

That WHOLE sentence explicitly establishes yom’s duration. Conversely, how would Dr. Ross suggest God be MORE clear that He created using standard days?

Yet, using Dr. Ross’s own wording I would say “Nothing in this sentence explicitly establishes yom being able to mean 10 billion years.” Nothing in the scripture even comes CLOSE to validating the beliefs of Dr. Ross that ‘yom’ can mean anything close to 10 billion or 5 billion or 1 billion or half a billion years.

The last sentence of pg 67 reads

In either case, the wording of this verse [Gen 2:4] challenges the assertion that the word “day” (yom) in the creation account can only refer to a 24-hour period.

And yet, the context of yom in Gen 2:4 is different than the context of yom in Gen 1. Biblical creationists agree with Dr. Ross in this sentence. But the meaning of yom in Gen 2:4 is not in dispute. We are discussing the meaning/context of yom in Gen 1. And as we have discussed, the context of yom in Gen 1 (as well as the exegesis of yom in Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17) demands that the boundaries of yom be standard 24-hour days.

Regarding the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on day 4, Ross is incredulous of biblical creationists when he writes on page 69

The problem with such a proposal is that even in a time period as brief as 24 hours, plants (and, indeed, all life) require more than just the equivalent of the Sun’s heat and light. They need everything God established during the first three creation days-a stable planet no longer hostile to life (or “formless and void”). For a stable, hospitable Earth, many specific solar characteristics, especially the Sun’s gravity, must be operational.25 In the absence of the Sun, Earth’s orbital path, rotation, atmosphere, oceans, continents, and water cycle would suffer catastrophic consequences.

Is creation too large a task for God? Are Ross’s insignificant complaints about the timing and order worth considering in light of Colossians 1:16-17?

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

“In Him all things hold together” Yes, Ross’s complaints of timing and order are insignificant in light of scripture. Especially considering that according to Ross’s beliefs, ecosystems and symbiosis between plants and animals is impossible:

Dr. Ross was verbose in this chapter, and there’s more to analyze, so we’ll pick up the remainder of the chapter 7 review in the next blog post

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Review – A Matter of Days – Chapter 6

Posted on February 3, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Toward Better Interpretations

As Christians, we should all be like the Berians in Acts 17 – examining the scriptures everyday to make sure that the words spoken are true. Dr. Ross has written words in a book, so we will examine the scriptures to see if what he has said is true. The following is a picture from p53

I agree with the bullet point list that Dr. Ross has included. This is a good start, and a point of agreement between biblical creationists and old earth advocates.

On the same page, Dr. Ross writes

Second, the Bible also declares that the record of nature is a reliable and understandable means for God to speak to people

He goes on to list Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:18-20 as confirmation of this statement. But what does he mean by “record of nature”?

As already noted in the Introduction and The Creedal Climate, Ross views the record of nature as the 67th book of scripture – with the same authority as the eternal word, so I won’t go into that same rebuttal here. What I will say is that what Ross means is

record of nature = “the old age interpretation of observations”

But this is NOT true. The record of nature looks exactly as one would expect from a biblical creationist’s perspective.

Ross then raises three reasons why there is a controversy between old and young earth proponents:

Language Barriers
Human Limitations
Inadequate Testing

Language Barrier

In the section on language barriers, he attributes the disagreement between old and young earth views to the English language.

By no coincidence does the creation-day controversy rage most fiercely among English-speaking Christians. Such readers of the Bible may be unaware of the nuances of meaning in the various Hebrew verbs used to describe God’s creative activities in Genesis 1 and 2.

There are English speaking scholars, to whom this topic is quite important, and Dr. Steven Boyd is one such scholar. In his technical paper: Statistical Determination of Genre in Biblical Hebrew: Evidence for an Historical Reading of Genesis 1:1-2:3, Dr. Boyd has determined with 99.9973% accuracy that the text itself is narrative as opposed to poetic.

While I’m quite sure many English speakers are unaware of nuances in the Hebrew language, I’m not nearly as sure that Dr. Ross is aware that the Hebrew calendar is different from the more common (in the west) Gregorian calendar in use today. The Gregorian calendar year, as I write this is 2020. The Hebrew calendar is calibrated to count years forward from the creation week, and the current Hebrew calendar year is 5780. And while modern Hebrew language is not exactly like the biblical Hebrew, it is easily recognizable as the same language. So, the Hebrew-speaking people, who are more familiar with Hebrew language nuance celebrate 5780 years since creation. So, Dr. Ross, shouldn’t claim authority in the Hebrew language, when the Hebrew calendar strongly supports biblical creation rather than old earthism.

In the very next sentence, Dr. Ross says of the Hebrew word “yom”:

With so many words in English to describe long time periods (having specific start and end points), many readers don’t realize that in biblical Hebrew only once such word exists.

This is totally false!

There are several Hebrew words that describe long time periods

Zeman H2165 – appoint time, season (Ecc 1:1)
Eth H6256 – time, occurance (Ecc 1:1)
Qedem – Ancient
Olam – days of old
Tor – Generations of days/nights
Tamid – Continuation of days
Ad – forever
Shanah – Year, or in the plural could mean a very long time

Yet, God chose to communicate his creative works as having taken six days, which is a word that has clear meaning both in the Genesis 1 text and confirmed to be ordinary days in Exodus 20:11. To communicate something like what Dr. Ross proposes, God could have chosen to use

Any one of those Hebrew words for long time periods as shown above
Plural of “yom” in conjunction with a word for a great multitude of days
Poetic language of a great magnitude of days like He did with Abram: Gen 15:5 (stars of the sky, sand on the seashore)

But this is not the case. God used the word “yom” and it has definite boundaries of meaning, which do not include billions of years. Nowhere in scripture can we find anything that means what Dr. Ross would like to attribute to the word “yom”. He has no exegetical grounds to make this claim.

Human Limitations

In this section, Dr. Ross tells a story of “more than one young-earth creationist leader”, who is unwilling to study further or have ongoing dialogue. It sounds like he is leaning towards using the sweeping generalization fallacy against ALL young-earth creationists: Since a few think this way, they ALL must think this way. Had he done any reading on the teachings of biblical creationists at ICR, AIG, or CMI, he would know that Bible study is very important to these well-qualified scientists and scholars.

I wonder if Dr. Ross is willing to reconsider his view based on the rebuttals included herein (or by other faithful Christian scientists/scholars)…or if Dr. Ross’s encouragement for people to “overcome biased and incomplete interpretations” is intended only for his opponents.

Testing Interpretations

In the first part of this section, I am in agreement with Dr. Ross when referring to John Moore’s analysis of creation vs. evolution, where Moore says “(creation) is based on faith” and “(evolution) is based on confirmable evidence.” Dr. Ross writes:

Current culture subscribes to this false dichotomy: facts and faith don’t mix. Yet the Bible claims that faith is built on reasonable evidence. Both the Old and New Testaments emphasize the importance of testing, of making sure the evidence supports the truth claims.

The creation account in Genesis is eye-witness testimony from the Almighty, who knows everything, and is eternally faithful. We can trust his revelation from the historical account in Genesis…so we would expect the observations of evidence to match his revelation. This is exactly what is observed today

Conversely, those who claim that science has disproved the Bible, or in Dr. Ross’s case – forced a radical re-interpretation of scripture to accommodate the modern paradigm, are burdened with conflicting observations:

Ross continues:

Both the and New Testaments emphasize the importance of testing, of making sure the evidence supports truth claims. Moses instructed the Israelites to test individuals who claimed to be speaking or writing under divine inspiration (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). The prophet Malachi quoted God as saying,

“Test me in this” (Malachi 3:10). The apostle Paul urged Christ’s followers, “Test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The apostle John similarly wrote, “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1John 4:1).

I agree, that we should test. The Bible is correct again! Where Dr. Ross stumbles, is the STANDARD by which we are to test. His claims are that we should test against the findings of modern academic paradigms. As Christians, we should test against SCRIPTURE. The standard is God’s special revelation in his eternal Word…not the ever-changing interpretations of observations.

To be fair to Dr. Ross, he does not entirely miss the importance of testing against the scriptures as he writes:

In addition, Luke affirmed the importance of testing by complimenting people in Berea who “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11). The Bereans set an important example for us as they tested Paul’s words and checked his teaching against the law, history, songs, and prophecies preserved through the centuries with confirmed accuracy

Even in that quote, we can see that Ross expects outside sources to be accurate authorities by which scripture can be confirmed. But outside sources (indeed all of creation) must bend the knee to God and his eternal Word.

Later on p57, I find myself again agreeing with Dr. Ross when he pens

History reveals that the scientific method of investigation-a method developed by Renaissance men well-grounded in God’s Word-has its roots in Scripture. Biblical convictions and values, as well as intellectual drive and prowess, gave rise to the scientific age. The modern scientific revolution emerged at both the times and locations of the Protestant Reformation. Scottish theologian Thomas Torrance and an interdisciplinary team of scholars have documented how Christian theology (and Reformed theology in particular) played a critical role in the birth and development of the scientific method that led to amazing advances.

God’s revelation permits and encourages science. Believers need not fear science. ALL truth is God’s truth, and the more that is discovered, the more God’s special revelation is corroborated. The more we can glorify God for his amazing designs

In his section titled “Evaluating Interpretations”, Ross writes

Much of the conflict concerning the creation account comes from the presumption that the biblical teaching on creation resides primarily in Genesis 1 and 2. Christians and non-Christians tend to develop their interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2 without testing them for consistency with the other 21 creation-relevant passages in the Bible.

Ross then includes the chart on the following page:

Since this section is titled evaluating interpretations, let’s evaluate this chart. As Hebrew scholars note, Genesis 1-11 is intended by the author for his readers to see the text as historical narrative and not poetry. The rest of Genesis is also history, but old earthers want to arbitrarily segment Genesis 1-11 as somehow metaphorical in nature to avoid the refutation of their view that comes with consistency. So, Genesis is historical narrative and should be read as intended: history. This is in opposition to the Psalms, which are considered poetic in nature. In Ross’s interpretations, he values Psalm 104 above all other creation-relevant passages because he feels this passage restricts the worldwide flood of Noah’s day to a mere local flood. However, in the same passage that Dr. Ross feels in ironclad proof, Psalm 104 includes these poetic phrases:

You (the LORD) are clothed with splendor
He wraps Himself in light as with a garment
He stretches out the heavens like a tent
He lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters
He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind
He makes the winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants

All of these statements are true, but they are not literal. They are poetic and should be interpreted as such. Yet, counter to proper hermeneutics, Dr. Ross re-interprets the historical account of Genesis 6-9 (and Isaiah 54:9 and 2 Peter 3:5-6) based on this graphically symbolic poetry and mandates that the rest of Psalm 104 is giving historical & chronological accounting. Not good exegesis.

Digging deeper into his chart, Dr. Ross denotes that Genesis 3 tells of the introduction of sin into God’s very good creation. We know that God’s creation (prior to sin) was “very good” because seven times in Genesis 1, God calls his creation “good” and on the pinnacle seventh time, He says “very good.” And we know that animals and humans were mandated to consume fruits, nuts, and vegetables prior to the rebellion of mankind. But Dr. Ross believes there was millions of years death, cancer, suffering, predation and thorns prior to the sin of mankind. Yet, Genesis 3 tells us specifically that the curse of sin is death, suffering, and thorns. How does Dr. Ross get away with such extreme contradictions? He unsuccessfully tries to accommodate death, disease, suffering and thorns as “Very Good” in Chapter 9. We’ll cover more about that in a couple of chapters. But even now, you can see that he simply inserts his own assumptions & definitions into the text in DIRECT OPPOSITION to the actual words to save his old earth theory.

Looking again at the chart, why would Dr. Ross NOT include key creation-relevant verses like Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17, Isaiah 54:9, Matthew 23:35, Matthew 24:38-39, & Mark 10:6? Could it be that he avoided them because they refute his old earth theory? We’ll discuss these specific passages in the subsequent chapters when Dr. Ross does finally recognize and try to account for them.

Testability and Predictability

In this section Ross writes a plea to those who are interested in testing opposing creation models.

One of the most important tests of an interpretive model (detailed interpretation of a particular phenomenon or a related set of phenomena) is how well the model survives vigorous attempts to falsify it and how accurately it ‘predicts’, or anticipates, discoveries.

That’s not an unfair statement, but before considering falsifiability, one must have an ultimate authority. For the Christian, the ultimate authority is God and his Word. So, before any testing of conflicting creation models empirically, the models must be consistent with scripture. As shown and will continue to be shown as the review continues, old earthism fails to be consistent with scripture unless massive redefinitions of key words and passages is performed.

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Scripture Corroborated

Posted on January 31, 2020 by ApoloJedi

Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com

This writer offers an excellent analysis of the argument between a local and global flood. Old earthers argue that if there even was a flood, it was a minor local flood in the Mesopotamian valley. You can see from the critique below, that this local flood view is in direct conflict with scripture and the evidence seen today

The Noachian Deluge: Does Scripture Say Global, or Local?

From the article:

In sum, believe the local flood theory faces many more practical issues than the global view, not the least of which is the lack of support from Scripture.

Any support found for the local view seems to be based on spurious hermeneutics and fallacious exegesis, and the same is true of passages leveled against the global view. Further, as we saw, the local view faces what I think to be insurmountable difficulties both Scripturally and scientifically, and the assumptions involved are the real crux of the matter.

Once we abandom uniformitarian assumptions, the global view is not only possible, but seems to best and most reasonably explain the data from science, Scripture, and even culture.

I therefore conclude that, with respect to the Noachian Deluge, Scripture emphatically says “global!”

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