Saturday, June 24, 2017

Genealogies and the Creation of Heaven and Earth

I'd like to continue with the topic of my previous post in which I used various passages in the Bible to show that the six days of creation in Genesis are not necessarily 24 hours each, but are periods of an undetermined amount of time. In that blog entry, I wrote that there are three propositions that are used by those who say the Bible teaches the universe is only a few thousand years old. Those propositions were (1) the genealogies in the Bible are basically complete, (2) the six days of creation in Genesis are consecutive 24 hour days, and (3) no time passes between the creation of the earth and the universe (as described in Genesis 1:1), and the subsequent six days of creation.

Since I already discussed proposition (2), I'd like to continue on with propositions (1) and (3) and show that the genealogies in the Bible definitely have gaps in them, and that the language clearly indicates that Genesis 1:1-2 occurs before the first day of creation allowing a significant amount of time to pass.

The genealogies in the Bible trace the lineage from Jesus all the way back to Adam. If there are no gaps in the genealogies, then we can use Jesus' approximate birth year along with other historic events to date the creation of Adam, the first human. As I did with the days of creation, I will only use the biblical text to show that there are, in fact, gaps in the genealogies. This can be done by comparing the genealogies of the same family line as recorded in different places in the Bible. First, it is important to realize that the Hebrew genealogies deal with ancestral lines, not every generation. The Hebrew word translated “begot” refers to generations. The Hebrew word translated “father” refers to ancestors. The Hebrew word translated “son” refers to descendants.  We can see this clearly if we compare Matthew 1:8 with 2 Chronicles 21-26. Matthew writes “Joram begot Uzziah," but this account skips three generations mentioned in Chronicles: Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah.  Matthew even makes a point that there are 14 generations between David and the Babylonian captivity, but to have 14 generations, Matthew had to drop at least three generations that were mentioned in Chronicles. Now in the 21st century we would never delete 3 generations and then make a point that there are 14 generations in the lineage. We would consider that dishonest because we think of genealogies as complete. However, the Jewish mind-set did not think that way and Matthew ignores the 3 generations because it fits nicely into the three sets of 14 generations he wants to highlight. Clearly, deleting genealogical generations for some purpose is consistent with the practice of recored Hebrew genealogies.

Some people who claim the chronology of the genealogies is complete try to differentiate between the genealogies and those with chronology. But we can see from the Bible itself that even chronologies are not complete. For instance, Luke's genealogy claims, “…the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem…” in Luke 3:35.  But in Genesis 11:10-12, we find that Cainan, who Luke includes, is actually missing from the chronology. In Genesis the order is reversed from Luke but we see, “…when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad…. When Arphaxad had lived 35 years he became the father of Shelah….”  So it is clear that even chronological lists have gaps in them.  The biblical scholar, C. I. Scofield writes, “Genesis 11:10 means that, when Shem was 100 years old, his wife bore a child who was either Arphachshad or an ancestor to Arpachshad.  Many links in the chain of ancestry may have been left unmentioned.”

If many links in the chain of ancestry are not mentioned, then we can't dogmatically claim that the genealogies are even "mostly" complete. We just don't know how many links have been dropped. We do know that genealogies have gaps of unknown length, so it is reasonable to conclude that, perhaps, many generations been dropped in many genealogies. If God created humans tens of thousands of years ago, and an oral record of genealogies was passed from generation to generation until they were finally written down about 3500 years ago or so, then I think it would be very reasonable to predict that there would be about 25-30 significant people remembered orally regardless of the amount of time that has passed, and that is the number listed from Adam to the time when the author of Genesis wrote the names down. Because the genealogies have gaps, they do not give us any information on when humans appeared on earth.

Let's now turn to the final proposition listed above. The question is whether Genesis 1:1 is a summary statement about the creation or whether it is a creation that occurred before the days of Genesis begin.  I believe that the events of Genesis 1:1-2, God's creation of the heavens and the earth, describes the creation of the universe and occurs before Day 1, and takes a long period of time. The six days of creation, then, explain what God is creating to prepare the earth as a suitable habitat for humans. Again, I'll explain my reasoning for this belief by looking exclusively at the biblical text. First, note that every day of creation, from day 2 to 6, begins with "And God said...." This pattern would indicate that day 1 begins in Genesis 1:3, where God says, "Let there be light." Next, the word "created" in Genesis 1:1 is in the perfect tense which usually indicates it occurred before the subsequent story. In addition, the conjunction "and" links verse 2 with verse 1. Finally, in Genesis 1:2 the earth, water on the earth, and darkness already exist. If Genesis 1:1-2 were a summary statement then there would not be darkness on the face of the earth because God created light on day 1. But if it is the conditions before day 1 started, then the surface of the earth would be dark before God's creation of light. The conclusion from the text, then, is that Genesis 1:1-2 describes the creation of the universe before the events of creation day 1 in Genesis 1:3ff and could take a long period of time. From observational science, we can determine that the amount of time from the Big Bang until the formation of the early earth took a little over 9 billion years.

In my last two posts, I have shown that the presuppositions needed to claim the Bible teaches a universe that is only thousands of years old can be easily refuted simply by examining the biblical text itself. The Bible gives no definitive information about the age of the universe. However, the Creator himself has given clear evidence of the age of the universe from within his creation, and we have the privilege and responsibility to observe the record that he has left for us.

10 comments:

  1. I am sorry I came late into this discussion. Your first post essentially defend for Old Earth and you stated : Do we have any reason then to require yom to mean 24 hours in regards to the six days of creation? To answer your question: We agree that yom in Hebrew can have different meaning. I would like to point out that majority of the time when yom was used = 24 hour the word has this meaning over 95%. Note also you were kind enough to reference Gen1. Notice " evening and morning." X6 It appears to me indicating 24 hour. In addition how would you reconcile Exodus 20:8-11? with your Old Earth interpretation?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All of these questions are answered in the my post, The Six Days of Creation. There is no other passage in the Bible with the numbering convention used in Genesis 1, even though other passages have yom with an ordinal. I have shown that yom with an ordinal may mean something other than a 24 hour day from Zechariah and Hosea. If the other 95% were consecutive numbering days with the same syntax as Genesis 1, you might have a point, but they are not.

      Delete
  2. Question, Jesus promised that "not one jot nor one tittle of the law will pass away, before heaven and earth pass away."

    More than a few jots and tittles passed away when the temple was destroyed by the Romans.

    This suggests, that whatever "heaven and earth" was, it has passed away.

    Which further suggests that "heaven and earth" was not the physical universe and Planet Earth, as we are so quick to assume.

    "Heaven and earth" appears to be a legal entity, not a physical entity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heaven and earth means the whole universe, which has not passed away. The jots and tittles means that all the promises of God will be fulfilled before the heavens and earth cease to exist. So we still have time for those promises to be fulfilled.

      Delete
  3. It is unfortunate for some Christians trying to impose their 21 Century understanding into biblical genealogy. However, those who can see the bigger picture understand that the type of genealogy that we read in Gen are from an ANE=ancient near east background. We all know tooooo well Bishop James Ussher infamous 4004 BC biblical genealogies. You will have no disagreement from this reader that yes they can skip generations so it is useless trying to determine how long mankind has been around. And yes I agree with you that in the end the genealogy noted in the Bible is theological.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your reply. I agree with your point. The only way to understand the genealogies is to determine how they were used in the ANE. I've tried to use the various ANE genealogies in the Bible to help us understand that.

      Delete
  4. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shall you labour, and do all your work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11


    Do you think when Moses wrote down the 4th commandment...he might of been incompetent in doing so? It seems highly paradoxical that such an intelligent person chosen by God like Moses could not know his "Yoms, from one to another". I don't think it is far-fetched to say that when Moses wrote the original creation account...and then years apart wrote the 10 commandments on a separate occasion; he knew what a day was...as God called the seventh day holy at creation. Because Moses understood how the seventh was made holy at creation he told the people to rest on the seventh day even before Mt Sinai. Now, at Mt. Sinai, God commanded them to remember to keep the seventh day holy, referring us back to creation when He made the day Holy. He even tells us how to do keep it holy by ceasing from normal everyday work. God didn't make the seventh day holy at Mt. Sinai, but rather, He reminded us to keep it holy, referring us back to creation when He made the seventh day holy and He rested. What you are saying is...is that Moses decided to write the 4th commandment down one part of the commandment allegorically for day/Yom to mean "long ages", and the other part where day/Yom is meant a 24 hr day literally all within the same commandment. Now that is a paradox...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please read my post about The Six Days of Creation where I discuss this passage in Exodus. There is an analogy between the six days of creation and the six days of work and the six years of sowing. Those who believe the days are unknown periods of time have done careful biblical exegesis of these and other related passages and shown how they support such a view, rather than support the 24-hour day view.

      Delete
  5. Should believers interpret your position as Yom being an arbitrary period for the various stages of creation from the beginning of time through the rest period, but ever after that a day is 24 hrs and a year the
    365 accumulation so that a 9 century old patriarch was just that and all biblical time references following the same.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like in all languages, the meaning of the word yom should always be determined by its context. So at times it means 24 hours, while at other times it means something different, like an epoch, or daylight. The long ages of the patriarchs is an interesting question. There have been proposals that something within the environment allowed humans to live longer in ancient times and that has changed, possibly radiation from a nearby supernova or something else. There have been proposals that the numbering system used when the patriarchs lived was misunderstood so that the base-10 numbers we read today were not what was intended by the original writer. I think these both are possibilities.

      Delete