Category: The Creation Account

Lastly in this discussion of the Creation Account and my view of it, I would like to touch on death, how it is quite the wrench within most views of the Creation Account, and can simply knock some down altogether. For one, as I stated earlier, I barely see any way how the theistic evolutionist position can float happily along as a valid theory in spite of the problem of death in Genesis Ch. 3, which will be a focus of this blog-post. But before I acknowledge any of that, what does Genesis Ch. 3 actually say regarding death? Let’s find out.

For the first time in the Bible, death is introduced and a whole lot of stuff goes down because of its sinful collateral damage on all things good and godly, except of course God. After the events of the Creation Account and by the end of Ch. 2 in Genesis, everything seems to be dandy. Adam and Eve are nude and chill, God is done creating His Creation, and the whole Universe has been perfectly fine-tuned to a tee for the centerpiece of Creation: mankind. Yet what follows in Ch. 3 is a different type of epilogue because the story is not done yet. In light of the rest of Scripture, the story has actually just begun for the serpent has slithered onto the scene with sin in mind.

Now who is the serpent mentioned here exactly? Short answer, Satan. Long answer, definitely Satan (1). Wait, so then what is Satan doing in the Garden of Eden if he is evil and everything else is good? Great question, but to answer that we need to backtrack a bit to understand who exactly Satan is to pinpoint his role in this story.

Satan was a prominent angel that was once named Lucifer before his fall from grace (2) and is technically the first to sin (3), but not the one who brought sin into the world as Adam takes the Fall for that one (4). In actuality, Satan’s sin tainted the heavens (the Universe), while Adam’s sin tainted our world (the Earth). When he sinned, God cast the formerly known Lucifer, along with a third of the angels that rebelled with him, out of Heaven as sin can have no part with God’s goodness. Satan’s attempted coup d’é·tat to take God’s throne as his own failed miserably (5) and Hell became the new home for the fallen angels (6).

This moment in history took place sometime after Genesis 1:31 and before Genesis 3:1 because we have evidence leading to the most plausible explanation that the heavenly creatures watched the Creation Account in Scripture (7). As my father, Mark Cribari, put it simply: “The creation of the spiritual must have preceded the creation of the physical, in order for the angels to observe God’s work.” With this framework of Satan’s history and placement in history in mind, let’s pick up where Ch. 3 starts with the serpent of old.

What I find peculiar about Ch. 3 is the very fact that Satan is just there. He has no explanation or backstory besides that he was “crafty,” “more cunning than any other beast,” God made him, and he took on the form of the snake most likely through possession of a serpent. There is no mention of his part in the Creation Account, except what is revealed in the rest of the Canon of Scripture. In a way, Satan’s story in the Bible is told in a nonlinear way with flashbacks here and there to fill in gaps of his own timeline in the grand scheme of things.

From this strange introduction to a stranger being, we find this fascinating encounter between a crafty creature and the femme fatale. The conversation immediately begins with Satan questioning God’s word (8), transitions to Satan’s truth-layered lie (9), and leads to the first sin, but was it the first death? Now that is the point of contention. As one man put it, the first few chapters of Genesis are semi-poetic history and that is part of the struggle with grasping the truth in relation to this tough portion of Scripture. But back to the question of contention: was this the first death or was there death before the death of mankind’s goodness? Let’s look further.

From what I understand from this text, I believe this to be an open-ended issue, but I very much favor the idea that as Romans 5:12 infamously states that “death through sin, and so death spread to all men.” Later on in Romans 5:14, it supports the idea that death is a direct result of Adam’s offense before our perfect God and that death was not present among God’s Creation in the beginning. For if death did exist before the Fall, to what capacity?

Well, the best version I’ve heard is that of everything, except Adam and Eve. Vegetation, animals, fish, birds, etc. for the mere fact that as mentioned previously, we humans are the centerpiece of Creation, not say, the hippopotamus. Our death matters so much more than that of other living things because we bear the image of God, are the focus of the Creation Account established previously, and this death of Adam and Eve is how sin is introduced to our world. I mean, Romans 5:12 doesn’t say “Therefore, just as one hippopotamus sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all of Creation, because all sinned-” That’s just silly.

From this viewpoint, natural death occurring before the Fall is different than the disease of sin corrupting the souls of men as this type of death is the gradual decay of God’s image bearers, us humans. As C.S. Lewis put it nicely (10),

“It is impossible at this point not to remember a certain sacred story which, though never included in the creeds, has been widely believed in the Church and seems to be implied… I mean the story that man was not the first creature to rebel against the Creator, but that some older, mightier being long since became apostate and is now the emperor of darkness and (significantly) the Lord of this world… It seems to me, therefore, a reasonable supposition, that some mighty created power had already been at work for ill on the material universe, or the solar system, or, at least, the planet Earth, before ever man came on the scene; and that when man fell, someone had, indeed tempted him… If there is such a power, as I myself believe, it may well have corrupted the animal creation before man appeared.”

Suffice to say, the argument is valid and worthy of deeper discussion for another time as is this current debate at hand in regards to our origins. This blog series was meant to simply explain very plainly what I believe in relation to the Creation Account and some main points of heated disagreement within the body of Christ that needed to be addressed. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

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1. http://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-serpent.html
2. Isaiah 14:12
3. Isaiah 14:13-14, Ezekiel 28:17.
4. Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22a
5. Revelation 12:3-9
6. Matthew 25:41b
7. This argument was originally from my Dad, Mark Cribari, who quoted the first two passages below in support of this notion in one of our infamous late night discussions of the godly matters of life. He argues that in Scripture, the spiritual always comes before the physical. Therefore, the spiritual Creation preceded the physical Creation. Hence, Satan was created and fell before Adam and Eve were created. The last passage noted here is from my own research that solidifies, in my mind, his theory as full-proof. Job 38:4-7, Psalm 8, and Hebrews 2:5-9 (key phrase: “the world to come.”).
8. Genesis 3:1b
9. Genesis 3:4-5
10. The Problem of Pain (P. 119, 122-123)

Now you may be asking and pondering after reaching the halfway point of this blog series, “But Chris, what about the Big Bang and the theory of Evolution? Does the Bible affirm these too? Are these compatible with the Creation Account?” Well, for some they do see compatibility with the Creation Account, while others do not see compatibility with the Creation Account. I happen to be in the middle where I can understand why one would affirm certain things such as theistic evolution (1), while on the other hand I cannot see how someone could hold a view like “The Cosmic Temple View (2),” as I find that one preposterous in light of the whole canon of Scripture.

Although in reference to the theistic evolutionary position, I find that one only slightly possible (5-10% confidence vs. 90-95% doubt/skepticism). If and only from the Molinist understanding of God’s Sovereignty interacting with us free agents out of our own libertarian free will to enact the progression of the Creation Account, in such a way as that theory entails. Besides that, I have zero confidence or affirmation for the theistic evolutionist view as I see too many holes in the belly of that ship.

Yet when it comes to the Big Bang Theory, I see a different and much more compelling side of things. For when we look at not only the Creation Account, but basic Cosmology I see a very much aligned view of the “how” of the Creation Account, although I am unsure on exactly how the “when” occurs in history. Specifically in Genesis Ch. 1, what we see is quite comparable to the Big Bang Model proposed by Belgian priest Georges Lemaître who was a physics professor at the Catholic University of Leuven and an astronomer as well. He theorized correctly that everything directly points back to a moment where the Universe began and was started somehow by something with his infamous Friedmann-Lemaître Model that eventually led to the Standard Model of the Big Bang Theory released in the late 1920s.

Of course, this discovery spun the academic community for a loop because the majority always assumed that the Universe was infinite without a beginning. Especially naturalists and atheists, for they thought that if the Universe had no beginning, then it must have had no beginner or creator of the beginning. Talk about a wake up call! So despite what others may say, the Big Bang model that Friedmann and Lemaître created came from the mind of a theist, Lemaître that is (3).

So how does the Big Bang Model fit with the Creation Account? Not quite sure on the logistics as I am a writer first and foremost, not an astronomer or cosmologist. But as I have investigated not only the Creation Account in-depth, alongside refreshing myself on the Standard Model of the Big Bang Theory, I find some simple similarities. First off, the Standard Model proposes that the Big Bang happened immediately. There was no pause from the beginning of the Model to where we are within the Model. According to more recent understandings of the Model, nuclear fusion begins and ends within the first ninety seconds of the Big Bang expansion.

Next, the first nuclei form, which are a fancy word for what is described as “the positively charged mass within an atom, composed of neutrons and protons, and possessing most of the mass but occupying only a small fraction of the volume of the atom (4).” In layman terms, this is the core or central part of what will eventually become an atom, as I believe it is to be understood and as always I can be mistaken in this respect concerning the sciences. Another way of understanding it is like saying that the nuclei is a seed and the atom is the tree.

Regardless, what we must conclude from Scripture and the Standard Model for the Big Bang is that they both began immediately from a non-material source. “And God said” plus phrases like “and there was light” combined with “it was so” verify this claim that a non-material source caused a material resource (i.e. the Universe) to exist. What non-material source could do such a thing as that? Well, a transcendent being like God who is outside of the boundaries of space, time, matter, and so on is the most probable source that could input non-material information (speaking things into existence) into what is now a material Universe (5).

But let’s go a step further and see other moments when God commanded something and it immediately happened. Like turning water into wine (6), parting the Dead Sea (7), or even healing various diseases simply by saying so (8). How does this immediacy then comply with the billions of years that the latest version of the Big Bang Theory proclaims? Well, I would argue that the Big Bang did not take the estimated time-span of roughly fourteen billion years, but instead within the time-span of four days. The first four days of the Creation account. How do I support this crazy claim? I have a thought in-line with what John Lennox has been saying for years, but taken to another level.

When we speak, there is an echo from the sound that our words make reverberating in our environment as sound waves. The Standard Model of the Big Bang Theory proposes that since the beginning of the initial cosmological singularity, the Universe has been steadily expanding in a consistent shift of space. This can be seen in the mysteriously unknown force known as ‘dark energy’ that, according to the theory, has been the main agent of this phenomenon and can be followed by the red shift seen in our Universe being stretched across space.

When God created the heavens and the earth (the Universe and all that is within it), did His words have an echo similar to ours as humans when we speak? Is that the effect that we observe with dark energy, the expansion of the universe, and red-shift? Is the action of God causing the Universe into existence evidenced by the reaction of this ‘echo’ observed in His Creation (9)? Not quite sure, but it is a different way to think of the effect that God has on His own Creation. I refer to this idea of mine as the “Echo-Expansion Theory” and will be something later developed as I find it to be a fascinating way to consider the evidences of God within His own Creation.

Also, I think that if the rate of initial expansion of the Big Bang Model were to be increased, while the timeline were to be condensed, then it could be a possible new perspective on the days of Creation in light of the Big Bang discovery. One more thought and that is this: I believe this expansion of the Universe can be displayed in the cycle of every living thing and would argue that it is another evidence for a single architect of the Universe with a single vision for a sole purpose. This one just happens to be a bigger fingerprint than the others left behind by God. For instance, a human newborn displays this expansion I’m talking about.

During the initial first few years of its lifespan, the human newborn will grow immensely at a rate that the rest of the child’s life will never meet again. The first 9 months for the human newborn have the most growth due to the compound growth of human cells (1 cell to 2 cells to 4 cells, etc.) just like the proposed first 90 seconds of the Big Bang (nuclei to atoms). It’s development from childhood into adolescence will be constant, yet less noticeable (like the Universe) then when it was first conceived (i.e. the rate of expansion within the first 90 seconds of the Big Bang versus the current rate of expansion of the Universe in its current form).

Eventually, the adult human will slowly deteriorate and die, which is the unwinding of their lifespan. Now the Universe is said to have a similar experience from those who know the Big Bang Theory well. It started out growing and expanding rapidly (an infant), the rate of expansion remained consistent for a while before picking up again because of a unknown phenomena dubbed ‘dark energy’ (a child going into puberty, which leads to mature adulthood), and then will level out once more at a consistent rate (adulthood), before finally expanding past the point of life (old age until death).

In a concise way, the expansion of the universe is the echo of creation. Is it just a thought of mine? Sure, but I find it to be an interesting parallel that can be seen in plant, animal, and other life cycles. Or maybe this jump to my Echo-Expansion Theory is completely wrong? Which could absolutely be the case. Is there another Model I may be open too? Yep, as a matter of fact there are two: one proposed by John Lennox and one proposed by John Sailhamer (Genesis Unbound). We will look at both briefly before moving on as I find them to be saying very similar things concerning the Big Bang Theory and the Creation Account that do not need further explanation to understand what they are saying.

Lennox suggests that based off of the initial Creation Account’s Day 1 starting in verse 3 and an indeterminate time-frame for versus 1-2 we can conclude that “it would be logically possible to believe that the days of Genesis are twenty-four-hour days (of one earth week) and to believe that the universe is very ancient” (10). The other view from Sailhamer, conjectures that Genesis 1:1 is the period of time that the Universe was created, whereas Genesis 1:2-2:4 refers to an earth-week where divine preparations were made to establish humanity as the primary creatures that inhabited Earth. I believe that the Model proposed by Lennox to be more probable, but Sailhamer may be onto something.

And that right there is a summary of my beliefs on the Big Bang Theory and all topics discussed above there in. The last blog-post of this series will focus on death and its effect on the Creation Account. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

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1. http://cerebralfaith.blogspot.com/2016/08/5-reasons-im-open-to-theistic-evolution.html
2. John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One
3. Alexander Friedmann was noted for being very irreligious, although his marriage ceremony was very religious. Possibly due to family tradition and familial ties. He contributed to the Friedmann-Lemaître Standard Model of the Big Bang Theory with a series of mathematical equations that led to similar findings as Lemaître did in his own respective field.
4. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/nuclei
5. Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 101). John Lennox originated this idea of a non-material source inputting non-material information (i.e. language) to create a material resource in many of his respective books, debates, and lectures. The one I drew from was his previously mentioned work footnoted above.
6. John 2:1-11
7. Exodus 14:13-31
8. Matthew 4:23
9. Job 38:18, Psalm 19:1-6 (Do these passages of Scripture infer my theory or do they infer other truths about our Universe?).
10. Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 53)

So then, now that we have addressed the blistering debate of the Creation Account amid Judeo-Christian circles very briefly, what do I believe regarding all of these differing viewpoints? What view do I affirm? Well, now that is an interesting question. For the answer to that question, let me start off at the beginning, specifically “in the beginning God.”

When studying the Creation Account, I find the best way is to properly understand the context of and usage for the phraseology of the word “day(s)” in the first three chapters of Genesis. This is a great place to start and this is where I am going to start with what I perceive as the most consistent interpretation in light of Scripture. As I read through John C. Lennox’s book, Seven Days That Divide The World, I took the time to pinpoint every reference to the word “day(s)” and interpret them as best as I could with what I know and have read or researched their meaning to the best of my ability.

What I found in my investigation is that within the context of Genesis Ch. 1, the usage of the word “day(s)” is very basic and properly to be understood as either a) “daytime” = roughly a 12-hour earth day (1) or b) a literal 24-hour earth day (2). So from my personal investigation, this was not the passage that had problems, yet Ch. 2 was quite the struggle to interpret because of the context that the word “day(s)” is used. For instance, in Genesis 2:4b the word “when” is actually meant to be correctly translated as “in the day,” but translators thought it too confusing to have the phrase “in the day” appear twice in the same verse, so it was translated into the English word “when.”

There is also the wording surrounding the usage of the word “day(s)” in reference to the seventh day in the Creation Account that differs from the other six days. For example, a possible translation of the series of days based off the work of OT scholar David Gooding revealed the nature of the Hebrew indefinite article alan (3) translated into English would be either a) “day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, the sixth day, the seventh day” or b) “a first day, a second day, a third day, a fourth day, a fifth day, the sixth day, the seventh day.” In other words, there is a special significance to both day six and day seven of the Creation Account that separates them from the first five days.

For the sixth day, mankind was made in the image of the one true, triune God (4), cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the field were made according to their kinds (or types) (5), God gave mankind dominion over Earth (6), gave humanity food that they may eat (7), and “it was very good.” Put succinctly, the climax of Creation was the creation of humanity. The whole of Creation was amping up to the moment when the entire Universe was fine-tuned for me, you, and humanity too. For the seventh day, God completed Creation (8) and He rested (9) as He declared His “work” to be finished.

Not to say that creating everything was hard for God so it meant He had to “work” hard, rather God put time into his Creation because of His love for us as we were the heart of it all along. Plus, this does not infer some twisted form of deism where God started the engine, yet never drove the car. Indeed, God has been extremely active in Creation, but it is never blatantly stated as such that He had to “work” in this way like He did in the Creation Account. So why was Creation good? Because the Source of Creation is good. Therefore, the resources inhabiting Creation were good before the Fall.

While from previous investigation it would appear that the first six days are 24-hour earth days, the seventh day does not appear to be so. In fact, as some have already argued in times past that the seventh day could still be going and is not over quite yet. In other words, while the first six days are literal 24-hour earth days, the seventh day is an undefined period of “rest” for God as he creates nothing new after the sixth day of the Creation Account. Adding to this idea is the fact that in numerology, the study of numbers within the Bible, the number six represents man and the number seven represents perfection. God had perfected his masterpiece. Does this mean God is done creating things? No, for He has created things later on in history as recorded in the Bible and will create things in the future. It is just that nothing has been created on such a scale as this since Creation took place. Wait, what will God create in the future? Here is one example.

In Revelation Ch. 21-22, we see God re-creating everything that was created to begin with: the new heavens and the new earth for He will “make all things new (10).” What this entails is that God will be at “work” once more for one final time when the creation of the new heavens and a new earth are made as recorded prophetically in Revelation Ch. 21-22, as well as mentioned in 2 Peter 3:3-13. Plus, there is the fact that the number eight represents new beginnings or a restart in numerology, which further develops this viewpoint. To reiterate, from what I have investigated so far regarding the interpretation of the days, here is a bullet-point outline of the Creation Account timeline leading to the 8th day as I propose in simple terms:

• Days 1-5 (Creation’s Construction: 24-hour literal earth days)
• Day 6 (Creation’s Climax: special 24-hour literal earth day)
• Day 7 (Creation’s Calm: period of time between the 6th and 8th day)
• Day 8 (The New Creation: the new heavens and the new earth)

So what about the age of the Earth and the age of the Universe? Well, what about them? The Bible doesn’t say, “in the beginning, about 6,000 years ago, God created the heavens and the earth,” or even “in the beginning, about 14.6 billion years ago, God created the heavens and the earth,” but “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible doesn’t answer this question regarding age, rather we do based off of the latest discoveries of our era and the beliefs of our time.

Could I take a stab at it? Sure, and I have in my blog-post entitled “Dinosaurs!” that you can find here on the website. I believe in Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic mankind (but disagree with the “caveman” like state of mankind, along with going back and forth on the dating of said time periods). Yet, I am changing my view on the dating of both Earth and the Universe to what I refer to as the “Non-Specific Time-Frame View” because we simply cannot derive that answer for the aging of both Earth and Universe from the Biblical text. And if you are, then you have abused the text. For the Biblical text offers no date whatsoever of when it all took place in the past.

Well, there is my view on the days of the Creation Account. Next, I will tackle the Big Bang Theory and its implications in the modern era concerning preconceived notions of the Creation Account. With that Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

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1. Genesis 1:5a, 14a, 16a, 18a
2. Genesis 1:5b, 8b, 13b, 14b, 19b, 23b, 31b
3. Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 52)
4. Genesis 1:26-27
5. Genesis 1:24-25
6. Genesis 1:26b, 28b
7. Genesis 1:29-30
8. Genesis 2:1-2a
9. Genesis 2:2b-3
10. Revelation 21:5

Back in July, I took a road trip to the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Kentucky with a rag-tag group consisting of my father and three of our friends (Bob, Daniel, & Robert) from our local congregation that we attend. During our time in Kentucky, we spent two days at the Creation  Museum and one day at the life-sized Ark Encounter, which was a blast to say the least. Just to see the Ark in person and understand what this massive boat most likely looked like was very enlightening for me. I especially loved the exhibit on the second level of the Ark Encounter that depicted visually through gorgeous tapestry the fall of mankind and how that led to the Flood.

When talking about the Flood, the Fall, or really anything from the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis, the topic of the age of the Earth eventually comes into the discussion. When the age of the Earth is discussed, so too the age of the Universe must be discussed because of their direct correlation in the Creation Account in Scripture. But when speaking on such matters as this, there always will remain an aura of controversy and tension among theistic circles, especially within Judeo-Christianity.

For when it comes to this topic or for lack of a better word, this debate, there are some very strong sides etched out by Judeo-Christians from various churches and denominations. These various stances include, but are not limited to old-earth/universe creationists (i.e. C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig)(1), young-earth/universe creationists (i.e. Ken Ham, Henry Morris, R.C. Sproul?), theistic-evolutionists (i.e. Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, N.T. Wright), and so on. Now the issue goes even deeper when considering different interpretations of the days within the Creation Account like the 24-hour view (seven literal days of a single earth week), the day-age view (seven time periods of unspecified length), the framework view (a logical, rather than chronological, framework to perceive Creation), etc. In short, there are a lot of people with a lot of views regarding the Creation Account.

In recent years, the friction between differing stances has only grown stronger as the issue has been a hot-button topic for most Judeo-Christians and has resulted in a lot of harm. More so than the help that Judeo-Christianity claims to offer to the world through the message of the Gospel, yet lacks among its own adherents and followers. Talk about hypocrisy. This tension can be seen from Ken Ham’s mentality of the “us vs. them” philosophy plastered throughout AIG (Answers In Genesis)’s material to the not so subtle statements of analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga who, on the subject of widespread doubt in the existence of God (2), accounts as the following:

“In this connection [on cognitive consequences of sin and doubt concerning God’s existence], consider the despised [young-earth] creationists, who believe that the world is only ten thousand years old: they are ignorant, pitifully ignorant about when God created the world. From the point of view of the model [the Aquinas/Calvin Model, i.e. the A/C Model], this ignorance pales into utter insignificance compared with that of many of their cultured detractors, who foolishly believe that there is no God and thus (naturally enough) are ignorant of the vastly more important fact that the world was, indeed, created by God.”

There is also the esteemed apologist William Lane Craig who agrees with Plantinga as he refers to “young-earthers” as an “embarrassment” to theistic thought and Judeo-Christianity in particular within the academic community (3). Yet the question remains: why is there so much bitter antagonism within Judeo-Christianity concerning the timing of the Creation Account among its most prominent leaders? Since when did pastors, scholars, and theologians become so confrontational towards one another on this specific issue?

I would argue that this is because they have raised up the -logy (logic) of theology while diminishing the very theos (God) that inspired their theology to begin with and in my mind, this is spiritually immature to say the least. Dare I say even “foolish” to build up such matters as bearing more weight than other more important matters like the Essentials, the Gospel, and so forth (4). Not to say these figures within the faith do not know what they are talking about or are uninformed on the subject, rather the way they express their sentiments in a demeaning fashion to other Judeo-Christians and their viewpoints is blunt and bothersome. In fact, William Lane Craig for example happens to be my second favorite Judeo-Christian apologist and has helped me, through his debates and literary work, in some of the spiritually roughest times of my high school years. All the people mentioned above are not fools or lack logic concerning the truths of the Christian message, rather from my perspective they lack the love that is grounded within our belief system when it comes to this particular issue. In my mind, we must be open to differing viewpoints on this touchy, non-essential subject since, in all honesty, all hold at least a little water when all things are considered.

I find that John C. Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford University, agrees with me on this point when he states that (5):

“We also need to be prepared to distinguish between what Scripture actually says and what we think it means. It is Scripture that has the final authority, not our understanding of it. It is a sad spectacle, and one that brings discredit on the Christian message, when those who profess to believe that message belie their profession by fighting among themselves or caricaturing others, rather than engaging in respectful discussion through which all sides might just learn something.”

You see it is not an “us vs. them” issue or an issue of blind ignorance either, as every view and stance has set out to accomplish one central goal: to answer the question of how the Universe and everything within it came to be, set inside the boundaries of the Bible’s Creation Account and in light of new discoveries throughout the ages in support of God’s Word. The truth of the matter is that every viewpoint and stance does share a few commonalities under the Judeo-Christian banner. For instance, we believe God caused everything into existence from nothing into something by His very Word. This is commonly referred to within theological circles as ex nihilo creation where no pre-existing materials were present before the Creation Account to build the Universe and all within it. All there was was God speaking information, in the way only God could, through the Word to construct the Universe as written famously in the first few chapters of Genesis.

We then must believe, as it is an essential, that is, the inerrancy of the Bible (whatever the Bible affirms to be true is true), that what is written about the Creation Account in Genesis is true regardless of the interpretation of what is written. That any interpretation that tries to mishandle the text is in direct contradiction with that foremost Judeo-Christian essential. The problem lies not within what is written in the Creation Account, but rather the way it played out in reality because no one was there to witness the Creation Account, except God. Then presumably God told Adam and Eve who must have passed this information of our origins down through the generations by way of oral tradition until Moses was able to write about it in Genesis or God directly told Moses the Creation Account through whatever means God could reveal that information.

Lastly, there is the simple truth that Scripture interprets Scripture. So the parameters are set even higher and tighter as other books within the Bible narrow down what may or may not be a plausible or probable interpretation of the Creation Account. Such as Jesus affirming the model for marriage displayed between Adam and Eve (6), Jesus the Word that caused the Universe into existence (7) the structure of the days of the Creation Account ending with a Sabbath like day of rest for God (8), the origin of sin’s expansion into the hearts of every human (9), and taking Moses’ writings (the Torah: Genesis through Deuteronomy) as completely true (10) are just a few examples of when Scripture correctly interprets Scripture to guide us to the mysterious truths regarding the Creation Account.

Finally, we have addressed oh so briefly the current debate within Judeo-Christianity on the subject of the Creation Account. Next time, we will read my particular view of the Creation Account. Starting with interpreting the days of the Creation Account, next the Standard Model for the Big Bang Theory in relation to Creation, and then end with how the Fall’s effects since Creation results from death. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless!

Footnotes

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1. http://www.reasons.org/articles/notable-christians-open-to-an-old-universe-old-earth-perspective#smith_jr
2. Warranted Christian Belief (P. 217, fn. 25); bracketed sections are mine for context sake.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHye8EABbEc
4. 2 Timothy 2:23, Titus 3:9-11 *All Biblical references are used with the NASB translation, unless otherwise noted in the footnotes below.*
5. Seven Days That Divide The World (P. 32)
6. Matthew 19:3-6, Mark 10:3-6
7. John 1:1-5, Acts 17:24-31, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:10
8. Exodus 20:11, Hebrews 4:3-5, 9-11
9. Romans 5:12-14
10. John 5:45-47