Re: [asa] Evolution in the Bible

This seems like a variant of other fairly common interpretations and is
even less convincing than many of them. It seems to me that it is quite a
stretch to delay the Big Bang until verse 3 and the creation of the earth
until verse 9. Isn't verse 1 the obvious place for them?

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

On Fri, 30 Nov 2007, Randy Isaac wrote:

> Someone who I know only by the name of George contacted me by email recently to share his view of concordance between science and the Bible. He sent me the following narrative, which we briefly discussed and I gave him my opinon. He is interested in hearing from others and he approved my sending it to all of you for response. I'll share the thread with him later for some feedback.
> Thank you,
> Randy
>
> EVOLUTION IN THE BIBLE
>
> Today there is a big controversy between those who insist that the Bible means just what it apparently says: the universe and all that is in it was created by God in
> six 24-hour days, and the evolutionist who assert that the universe evolved over many, many billions of years, and that life on earth was not created at all but evolved
> through a natural process. But, says the former, evolution is just a theory; a theory not proven and not likely to be. It is not the purpose of this appendix to refute the creationist as it is impossible to do so. Evolution as claimed by some evolutionist can't be "proven" almost by definition, although there is a mounting of evidence of at least some sort of natural development of the stars and galaxies and of the life-forms here on earth. Nor is creation and evolution contradictory. Both can occur: some things being created and others evolving from those created.
>
> It is the purpose of this paper to show that a literal interpretation of the Hebrew word "yom" in Chapter 1 of Genesis to mean a 24-hour day is not necessary to
> continue to assert the validity of the creation story. Indeed it can be shown that Genesis 1 is completely compatible with modern cosmology and evolution theories. This is accomplished with a verse by verse exegesis of Genesis 1 relating each verse with its corresponding event as depicted from modern theories of cosmology and evolution.
>
> The story of the creation of the universe and of man as told in the Bible is quite consistent with modern scientific hypotheses. It has been said that the first chapters of Genesis are but a rewrite of the Babylonian myth "Enuma elish". Nothing could be further from the truth. But this paper is not designed to answer this criticism directly. Rather it is designed to point out how remarkable is the story of creation as told in Genesis with modern scientific thought.
>
> The writer(s) of the first chapter of Genesis knew nothing of evolution. Indeed their cosmology considered a geocentric solar system as a fact, and that the earth and
> the stars was bowl suspended on a sea of water. The Biblical story of creation utilizes this cosmology throughout its narrative. So how come its correspondence with modern
> evolutionary theories? I don't know. However for the sake of argument let us assume that the writer of Genesis had a dream in which he was at the location where the earth was to be, and the development of the universe was revealed to him. He then attempted write down what he saw in that dream. However in writing what he saw he is
> constrained by the perspective of his current scientific knowledge.
>
> In what follows Scripture is taken from the King James Version (KJV), but alternate translations from the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and the New American Bible (NAB) are compared with the KJV as needed.
>
> Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and
> the earth.
>
> This is a simple statement. God created the universe as we observe it today. ( The JPS has it , "When God began to create the heaven and the earth.") There is no
> ancient Hebrew word for "universe". Now assume there is an observer where the earth
> is to be.
>
> Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and
> darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
> Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
> waters.
>
> Before the Big Bang our observer saw only void and darkness: the earth did not exist. The ancient Hebrew was constricted by their cosmology. The earth was conceived
> as a flat disk floating on a subterranean sea, kept stationary by pillars (Jb. 9:6).
>
> Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there
> was light.
>
> The Big Bang!
>
> Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and
> God divided the light from the darkness.
>
> The stars and galaxies were formed. Our observer noted the blackness among the light from the stars.
>
> Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness
> he called Night. And the evening and the
> morning were the first day.
>
> There is no ancient Hebrew word for "epoch". A Hebrew day began in the evening and lasted until the next evening. What is being designated here is a complete day = time period. (JPS has it, "And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.")
>
> Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
> midst of the waters, and let it divide the
> waters from the waters.
>
> The solar system, or more exactly our galaxy (?), was now formed. (JPS translates "firmament" into "expanse". NAB has it, "Let there be a dome in the middle of the
> waters, to separate one body of water from the other.")
>
> Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the
> waters which were under the firmament from the
> waters which were above the firmament: and it
> was so.
>
> According to the scientific theory of our observer the universe was an ocean. Now there were two oceans divided by a "firmament."
>
> Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the
> evening and the morning were the second day.
>
> Both JPS and NAB translate "Heaven" as "sky". Remember our observer is at the location where the earth is to be. While the earth had yet to be created our observer
> noted the sky.
>
> Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven
> be gathered together unto one place, and let
> the dry land appear: and it was so.
>
> The earth is now created. Initially it was all dry land - semi-molten actually. It was bombarded by meteorites, but the effects of this activity have been completely erased by tectonic activity. The oldest known rocks date from about 3800 million years ago (Ma).
>
> Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the
> gathering together of the waters called he
> Seas: and God saw that it was good.
>
> Now we talk about the earth. An atmosphere came next, and with it oceans. Modern cosmology assumes that this original atmosphere to be quite dense, consisting of water, carbon dioxide and monoxide and other gases expelled by volcanoes. This is called the Archean period and lasted until about 2500 Ma. Evidence from palaeomagnetism suggest that the continental masses drifted as a supercontinent though most of Proterozoic time (2500 Ma-700 Ma).
>
> Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,
> the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
> yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
> itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
> Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb
> yielding seed after his kind, and the tree
> yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
> his kind: and God saw that it was good.
> Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third
> day.
>
> Life must have first originated in an oxygen-free environment; indeed, oxygen only entered the atmosphere as a result of the actions of living organisms. The Bible
> correctly mentions the creation of plant life next. We are in the pre-Cambrian period which started with the evolution of marine algae and perhaps some ediacaran
> (soft-bodied) faunas (not mentioned in the Bible as the writer(s) of Genesis had no experience with them). However it is evident that our observer lumped all plant life,
> including that said to have evolved in the lower cretaceous period. The intent here is obviously to emphasize the order of creation in very general terms.
>
> Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the
> firmament of the heaven to divide the day from
> the night; and let them be for signs, and for
> seasons, and for days, and years:
> Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of
> the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it
> was so.
> Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater
> light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
> rule the night: he made the stars also.
> Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven
> to give light upon the earth,
> Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night,
> and to divide the light from the darkness: and
> God saw that it was good.
> Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth
> day.
>
> Verses 14 through 19 is perhaps the hardest for both scientist and creationist to reconcile. The moon and the sun and the stars obviously were created (or evolved)
> prior to the existence of plants. But remember that our observer was earth-bound, and when the plants were created the earth was covered by a thick atmosphere. The earth-
> bound observer noted the dilution of the dense atmosphere which had hid the sun and the moon. So startling was this event that it is mentioned as a separate "day" in Genesis. Actually the "day"s of Genesis are not related the geologic epochs as envisioned by modern science in a one-for- one basis. Rather they are a rough description of the order of the creative process. To the earth-bound observer
> the sun and moon were "created" when he saw them. Note that the sun and moon are creatures to aid man, not deities to rule over man.
>
> Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth
> abundantly the moving creature that hath life,
> and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
> open firmament of heaven.
>
> Genesis correctly puts the creation of sea life prior to the creation of birds.
>
> Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living
> creature that moveth, which the waters brought
> forth abundantly, after their kind, and every
> winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it
> was good.
> Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and
> multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and
> let fowl multiply in the earth.
> Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth
> day.
>
> The Precambrian-Cambrian boundary coincides with a period when there was an explosive evolution of marine life, but the fifth "day" apparently takes us through the entire palaeozoic and mezozoic periods. It seems likely that the oxygen levels in the atmosphere increased very slowly. As the atmospheric oxygen built up so the protective ozone layer developed to allow organisms to live in shallower waters, and eventually to live outside of water entirely. More highly developed photosynthesising organisms led in turn to the development of animals that could breath oxygen (birds of Genesis 1:21).
>
> Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
> living creature after his kind, cattle, and
> creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
> his kind: and it was so.
> Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his
> kind, and cattle after their kind, and every
> thing that creepeth upon the earth after his
> kind: and God saw that it was good.
>
> Mammals are next created taking us through the palaeocene, eocene and oligocene periods.
>
> Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
> after our likeness: and let them have dominion
> over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
> the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
> earth, and over every creeping thing that
> creepeth upon the earth.
> Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the
> image of God created he him; male and female
> created he them.
> Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them,
> Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
> earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
> the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
> air, and over every living thing that moveth
> upon the earth.
> Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every
> herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of a
> all the earth, and every tree, in the which is
> the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
> shall be for meat.
> Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every
> fowl of the air, and to every thing that
> creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life,
> I have given every green herb for meat: and it
> was so.
> Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and,
> behold, it was very good. And the evening and
> the morning were the sixth day.
>
> And finally man! "Man", the Hebrew Adam, is a collective noun processing no plural. Mankind is meant, as is shown by the plural verb and the pronominal object. All
> that is said in Chapter 1 is that God created man in God's image ("selem" = exact reproduction, duplicate) and likeness ("demut" = resemblance). Man is said to have
> been created as one who is a "copy" of God, yet this statement is immediately modified. There is a superficial resemblance to this narrative in the Babylonian "Enuma
> elis", according to which man is partly made from the blood of a god. Here however a completely transcendent God freely creates man like to himself. It is in the creation of man that Christians truly part company with some evolutionists. No matter by what process that man's body came to be he was created in "the image and likeness
> of God, and God is not a physical being. We look to Chapter 2 of Genesis for a further analysis of this point.
>
> The difference in the divine names of Genesis 1 - 2:4a (Elohim) and that of Genesis 2:4b - 2:25 (Yahweh) may indeed support the hypothesis that these two chapters come
> from different sources; but they are not two different accounts of the creation. Rather Chapter 2 is a supplement to the creation story of Chapter 1: the latter laying out
> the order of creation, while the former is concerned with the details concerning the creation of man. The applicable passage from our viewpoint is:
>
> Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
> ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
> breath of life; and man became a living soul.
>
> Physically man was formed as other animals, out of "the dust of the ground." Then God breathed into man that which make man unique from all the rest of creation: a
> living soul. As evolution only concerns itself with the physical body this is perfectly consistent with the biblical account. The rest of the chapter relates the nature of man of man as a social animal and the nature of woman as processing the same nature as man.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Dec 1 00:10:15 2007