I'm making this statement public because publicly I have been debating
you.
First of all I will like to express that I do appreciate the work you
have done in trying to reconcile the Genesis account with sound
science. Of those 2500+ hits in your web site, many are mine. I have
been there and spent time reading through the various pages.
Secondly, I do envy some of your tasks such as searching for oil.
Having friends in the oil industry (wildcatters) I have seen their
excitement at the prospect of bringing a well in. Also their
disappointment when it is just dry. But like you, they never give up.
They go at it again.
Thirdly, I sincerely believe that the 6 Scriptural days and 15-20
billion years of cosmology's universe age are one and the same event
viewed from different perspectives. At this point I don't have any
precise way (and in your case a specific sequence of words AKA verse)
that clearly details how it was compressed (or expanded depending ones'
point of view) these billions of years into 6 days.
There were certain events taking place that clearly show that God and
men move in different dimensions. We can't go outside ours but God
does.
For example, just like the final earth, the first three days of creation
had an absence of sunlight. Instead the light came from the Creator.
(Rev. 22:5 "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle,
neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they
shall reign for ever and ever.") . In Genesis the sun isn't created
until the fourth day (or period) of creation. So when God creates
light, it isn't necessarily light from the sun.
Reconciliation and restoration are themes that permeate Scripture. By
understanding God's will to restore His creation to it's original state,
some of the missing pieces of Genesis can be found in the Biblical
eschatological writings. We can read in Isaiah the results of the
redemptive work of the messiah:
Is. 65:25 '"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion
shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the
LORD."
This verse aids in understanding how was the creation before the fall of
man. God states that 'they shall not hurt nor destroy' and this 'they'
is referring to the animals mentioned before. The current state of
nature is violent and in many instances cruel. God commands us to have
mercy, aid the needy and help the invalid while nature will never give
mercy, it will totally trample over the needy and kill the invalid.
This was not the way God created it but this is what became after Adam
through his sin gave up dominion of the planet.
On another point, God Himself gives the reason why Adam and Eve were
expelled from the garden. It wasn't punishment like many have taught
but rather so that they wouldn't eat from the tree of life and live
forever. (Gen. 3:22-24 "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till
the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he
placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword
which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."
It appears that God made a tree whose fruit affects the cells in such a
way that once eaten by a human, eternal physical life is achieved. How
about that for a challenge to botanists? What will it take to
accomplish this feat?
Fourthly, one can't honestly say that the earth isn't very old. The
evidence points to more than 60 centuries of earthly existence. But The
Scriptures aren't historically wrong either. Take the Bronze Age for
example, according to Genesis it all began with one of Cain's
descendants around 3000 years BC. Which is the same date that some
archeologists give to the beginning of the bronze age.
So why will Scripture be historically correct for one event and not the
other?
Moreover, one can conclude that the flood didn't destroy the evidence
for pre-flood life.
Now Glenn, you make a very strong case for a local flood and give ample
evidence of why you believe so. But for certain, the Scriptural
language is all inclusive when describing this event. Was this event
something that happen only in the populated earth (humanly speaking) or
was it a global catastrophe? Will 40 days of rain and 150 days of
flooding leave any lasting evidence for us to find? One thing is for
certain, men lived longer before the flood than after it.
Something happened to the planet during this event that shortened the
lifespan of humans. What was it? What changed?
I don't know. When I lived in the Amazon jungle, every January the
flood came and the river arose almost 20 to 30 feet over it's normal
level in some areas. But after about 3 months the water went down to
the river's normal path. One could walk through this area six months
later and except for a few trees that had the flood marks on their
trunks one could hardly tell that this area was flooded. The sediment
had either been washed away by the post-flood rain or plant life had
grown on it erasing any evidence.
As a matter of fact, nobody built a house close the river unless first
seeing the area during a flood. There was no way of telling how high
will the waters rise (or if the area flooded during the rainy season).
Lastly, I must tell you that you aren't alone postulating your
theories. A Jewish rabbi in the XII century AD wrote about God forming
a being and after a period of time inserting into this creature a soul
thus creating man. So your ideas have been around for a while among
scholarly Jewish circles, even before Darwin et al and his theory.
Well, I must close for now but I just wanted to tell that we may
interpret somewhat differently Genesis, but except for certain details,
we're not that far apart. I don't believe science and theology are
mutually exclusive.
I still don't find room in the Genesis record for macro evolution and
the Hebrew words used are very clear regarding who said what and how
what was made. Plus in several places God forbids man to cross breed
animals or plant seeds together of different trees. If His nature was
mixing and matching genes all over, why would He forbid men to do it?
Was Adam, the first botanist and zoologist in the recorded history of
mankind, incapable of perfoming these tasks?
Best Regards,
Dario Giraldo
Lacey, Washington