There are many aspects of christianity that cause me to wonder if the god that I have been taught about my entire life exists. The matter of creation is not one of the things that causes my doubt. Many atheists cite the proof of evolution as their reason to disprove the bible because it clearly teaches young earth creationism. They along with the majority of christians are wrong. Evolution, the Big Bang and science do not completely conflict with the bible. In order to truly understand the bible you must realize that it is not an almanac or historical account of history. It is a collection of many forms of writing that were put together to convey a message. Christians should not cling to their arrogance and continue to make preposterous claims that turn agnostics, atheists, and other theists away from Christianity. Old earth creationism is the only way that the bible should be interpreted. In this paper rather than providing science I will simply show how young earth creationist claims about the age of the earth are unfounded.
Young earth creationists believe the universe has existed for about 7,000 years. They provide “proof” for this interpretation in two major ways. The young earth interpretation takes the use of the hebrew word Yôm to mean a literal 24 hour day. meaning that Adam (if Adam was even an actual person) was literally created 6 days after the universe itself came into existence. Young earth creationists then trace the genealogies found in the bible to find the
Christians today have a biblical principle and opinion of the universe existence. Christians believe that God created earth and that he accomplished that in only six days. Genesis 1 explains the creation and the interpretation is so utterly clear and one writer states “Thus, any interpretation that goes beyond a clear plain meaning of the text is considered to compromise Biblical authority and capitulate to evolutionary theories”. One look at the Young Earth View is said to be formed from the Modern English
Oswalt first learned about the issues in “The Bible Among the Myths” while taking a class taught by Dennis Kinlaw at Asbury Theological Seminary. His interest in the subject has grown since with graduate study and his own classes which he taught. William F. Albright, his students, and G. Ernest Wright led the rethinking of the evolutionary paradigm within the philosophy of Idealism. Although they believed the differences between the ways the Israelites thought and their neighbor’s thoughts of reality caused no evolutionary explanation to show, today it is found that Israelite faith can be explained by evolutionary change. Scholars today say that it is no longer about the differences between the two, but more about the
John Oswalt, in his book The Bible Among the Myths, presents his position to the reader that the bible is different and separate from other writings of the Ancient Near East. He asserts the Bible is both historically accurate and theologically sound. He makes the defense the Bible was divinely inspired and revealed to humanity and unique from other Ancient Near East literature. There was a time when the Bible, and the Israelite religion was different from its neighboring societies. But as times have changed, many people now lump the bible with other Ancient Near East myths.
The age of the earth has been debated for years. Secular scientist believes in old earth and Christian scientist believe in a young earth. But there seems to be more logical evidence for a young earth. Young earth explains soft tissue found in fossils, the sun paradox, evidence of sediment on the seafloor, and to the age of a comet. It fills in many gaps that secular scientist cannot fill. I hope that you take into account the evidence, but it is ultimately up to you to choose to believe
The theory that I’m going to defend in this paper is Young Earth Creationism. Young Earth Creationism or YEC is the religious belief that the universe, Earth and all life were all created by direct acts of God less than 10000 years ago. Young-earth creationist believe that the creation days were six 24 hours days. “They believe that about 2,300–3,300 years before Christ, the surface of the earth was rearranged by Noah’s Flood. All land animals and birds not in Noah’s Ark perished, many of which were subsequently buried in the Flood sediments. Therefore, creationists believe that the global, catastrophic Flood was responsible for most of the rock layers and fossils.” (Anwseringenesis.org) Young Earth Creationist believe in Microevolution and
In The Bible Among the Myths, John N. Oswalt, opens up his book by establishing his expertise in the subject of the Ancient Near East (ANE). Oswalt started his study into the ANE at Asbury Theological Seminary. After attending Asbury Theological Seminary, he went to Brandeis University. This is where his fascination with the subjects and Ideas of the ANE started to grow. Oswalt eventually went on to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Wesley Biblical Seminary.
However, the literal approach has a stronger argument than a non-literal interpretation. I believe that Old Earth Creationism has the strongest argument because it has the most evidence to back it up. Not only does it have scientific evidence to support the belief that the world took more than 6 days to create, but it also has contextual and biblical evidence as well. The arguments that supported the Old Earth Creationism ideas were the easiest to understand and could help bridge the gap between believers and unbelievers in the world.
Many Christians believe that the age of the earth is a side issue, of non doctrinal importance, that one can believe in an old or young universe. The Christian apologist William Lang Craig believes that it hurts Christianity when Christians hold to a young earth position (Craig holds to a local flood as many other Christian apologist and Christian). The reason they give is that it is not scientifically possible, others have posited that it hurts the gospel message. Others have said young earth believers unwittingly damage Christianity 's
Throughout the decades the traditional belief of the author of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible is believed to be Moses. The Pentateuch is the first division of the Hebrew Bible which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Contrary to traditional belief, it is thought that the Pentateuch is a conglomeration of early written documents. The Documentary Hypothesis explains the issues of how and why the Pentateuch was written. The Documentary Hypothesis presents four source documents the Yahwist document, the Elohist document, the Deuteronomist document, and the Priestly document as the basis of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible that would later form the Pentateuch as the world knows it today.
Scientists have found that the Earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. As gravity slowly gathered this gas and dust together into clumps, it became asteroids and small early planets called planetesimals. These objects collided repeatedly and gradually got bigger, building up the planets in the Solar System. Although scientists are very close to answering the question, they still continue to search for the exact answer to how the Earth was created. With all the evidence presented, it is hard to refute from scientific theories. This becomes cumbersome to many religions because in their eyes God has always been the creator of the Earth.
The Bible is composed of many different stories and narratives. Each one of these individual stories contributes to the greater story of the Bible; sometimes called the Grand Story of Scripture. Within each Story, they have elements that define the setting, characters, climax, and themes. The overall Grand Story of Scripture contains these elements in each of the five divisions: prologue, epilogue, and three acts in between.
The first position is that of young earth creationism. Additionally, this is what most people mean when referring to “creationism.” This is primarily due to the fact that the creationists visible in the public eye during the creation-evolution debate were most likely to hold young earth creationist views. Additionally, the terms “recent earth” or “recent creation” have been used to refer to this same position. These terms clearly define their position as one in which the creation of the world occurred somewhat recently, that is, the world is young. However, it obviously doesn 't provide us with much information beyond that. To begin with, how young is the world? In order to help answer this and other questions concerning young earth creationism, biologist and philosopher of science Paul Nelson and philosopher John Mark Reynolds, both fellows of the Center for Science and Culture under the Discovery Institute, present with their viewpoint
For decades the age of the Earth has been a major conflict between science and religion, but why is it such a big conflict? If, in the year AD 1600, an individual had asked an educated European how old the planet Earth was and to recount its history, the response would have been that it was about 6000 years old and that its ancient history was given by the biblical account in Genesis (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). If one asked the same question of an educated European in AD 1900, one would have received a totally different answer (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). The answer would have been the Earth was ancient, there had not been a Noachian flood, and that the species of life had not been fixed over the history of Earth (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). In short, Genesis was an allegory and not literal history (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). This brings up the different views between “young earth creationists” and “old earth creationists” and those that support an infinite universe. The problem today is each side contains major valid points of evidence of both biblical and scientific, on the age of the planet Earth.
Creationist believe the book of Genesis life started on earth approximately 10,000 years ago and humankind are all descendants of Adam and Eve. These beliefs are lost to science class and must be taught in Sunday School instead of the classroom. It must be noted that there are holes in creationist theory such as the inconsistencies in the Bible about the progeny of Adam and Eve and the inability to address the fossilized remains of dinosaurs and Paleolithic man. This evidence, many believe, move the creationist theories to the category of Greek mythology and its belief that the world was created by a golden egg laid by Nyx, a large black bird. Life did exist 500 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. These facts are not addressed in the Bible and many people believe that the fossils are “plaster casts” designed to fabricate history and even an entire scientific area of study.
à New earth creationists believe that god created the earth its life forms and the universe less than a thousand years ago. They also