What are my personal feelings? As one who was once a young-earth
creationist and left the movement in disgust because of the pervasiveness
of bad science in it, I have mixed feelings. I had fallen back on a fairly
nonliteral interpretation of Genesis 1-11 -- once I had become satisfied
that all the essentials of Christianity could be preserved in such an
approach. The framework hypothesis or some variant of Howard's (and St.
Augustine's and St. Basil's) functional integrity view might be a fair
description of how I look at origins. But the flip side of my view -- which
I am painfully aware of -- is the danger of getting too nonliteral -- so
nonliteral that we lose significant parts of what God wants to teach in
Genesis. That was a real danger and I'm well aware of it. And there was the
flood. I believe that the flood was a real flood -- a real event in
history. And it was really difficult to figure out where to put it. Yes, it
could be local, but to be true to how I understand Scripture, it would have
to wipe out all of mankind except for Noah and his family, and at least all
the animals known to Noah, except for the ones he took with him of course.
Egyptian records pass right through the time the young-earth creationists
believe the flood occurred without mentioning it, so actually determining
what the flood was in terms of the region it covered and when it occurred
was difficult. Then Glenn comes along and says, "I have found a real event
in history (well, prehistory anyway) that really fits the criteria. All you
have to do is accept that it happened 5.5 million years ago." My initial
reaction was to dismiss it out of hand. I don't believe it necessary to
interpret the genealogies as literal father-son successions, but 5.5
million years is quite a stretch. However, as I thought more about it I
realized that what I would be accepting if I accepted Glenn's thesis is the
following
1. That the genealogies are only outlines -- not literal 2. That God has
been active in the lives of men for far longer than we had
previously believed.
3. If the flood occurred in 2350 B. C., then one has to wonder why
it isn't mentioned in the literature of many nations in quite a bit of
detail. 4000 years ago isn't very far back in time for the record of such a
cataclysmic event. We would be able to compare the Biblical account with
historical/archeological material from a number of nations. Instead we have
the Biblical account which at least describes a boat that could in
principle float and the Gilgamesh Epic which describes a topheavy boat that
would have turned turtle in a flood. There are other flood legends, but
it's an open question whether they describe the same event, or whether they
describe it as believably as the Bible does. But if the flood occurred 5.5
million years ago, then it is unlikely anything except perhaps some vague,
embellished legends would have survived. But the flood was a significant
event in human history. God conveyed the flood account to Moses to ensure
that men would know that it occurred and why it occurred. 4. That a race of
men capable of building a boat existed 5.5 million years ago,
and that to date we have not found evidence of their existence.
Point 1 seems like a minor disadvantage to me. If I understand correctly,
most Biblical scholars concede that the genealgies have gaps in them.
Points 2 and 3 seem like strong positives to me -- they show that God's
providence has been at work far longer than we had originally believed,
making for us the kind of environment God wants for us, and that He cares
that we should know about events that would not appear in our histories had
he not told us. Point 4 is a problem. But how might that problem be solved?
It's possible evidence of such a civilization might someday be found in the
Mediterranean, but suppose it's not? One explanation might be that God
intervened directly by developing a race of men capable of building a boat
but allowed the evidence of this to be destroyed so that men would not find
evidence of miracles in the physical data. Of course it they had found
physical evidence it wouldn't have been interpreted as miracles. My head
aches!