The Myth Of The Bible

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 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

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.

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.

Old earth, or progressive creationism shares similarities with theistic evolution in that it places the age of the earth at 4-5 billion years ago and the universe at 10-20 billion years ago. However, they are not satisfied with the claim that God-guided evolution brought the world into existence, eventually arriving at the world we live in today. Robert C. Newman, an astrophysicist and New Testament professor acknowledges that it would be possible for God to use evolution as a creation tool, just as it is possible that God created solely through supernatural means. However, he thinks that there are too many unanswered questions left for both positions.

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.

The young-Earth view on the original creation of the Earth and all that inhabits it is a six literal day creation by God. This view does not try to hypothesize on the unobserved past, rather this view is based off of the Genesis account recorded in the scriptures. “The language of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are technically precise and linguistically clear. Any reader would understand that the author of those pages intended to convey a normal six-day creation” (Creation was 24/6. N.d). “Genesis is history, not poetry, parable, prophetic vision, or mythology” (Mortenson, 2011). The foundation of the young-Earth viewpoint starts with God as the omnipotent spiritual being from eternity past who spoke all things into existence. In the first day God created light and separated it from darkness (Gen 1:3-5). On the second day God created an expanse and separated waters above and below

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.

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.

To believe in the young Earth theory, is to believe in the Bible. Those that believe in the Bible believe in a literal six day creation for the Earth and all that are upon it. When God spoke the world was brought into existence. On the sixth day God created Adam and Eve. He gave them dominion over all the animals and plants that he created. It wasn’t until the fall of man that any of the animals would start to die and decay. Another belief of a young Earth is the flood of Noah. Many of the young Earth creationists believe in the flood geology. “Instead of the millions of years requires to create fossil fuels such as coal, flood geologists claim that they were formed within a year under the tremendous pressure of the Noachin floodwaters.” (Koperski, 2006) In the book of Genesis we are given the creation account as well as the account of the flood. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same say were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the Earth forty days and forty nights.” (KJV, Genesis 6:11-12)

The reason that the Bible was created because the stories and books in it was chosen because it taught some sort of lesson that related Christianity and showed examples of what to do and what not to do to please the God. The Bible is a collection of books that were written thru out the ages, it wasn't until (referring back to the first discussion question and my opinion on it) J,P,E,D turned the first five books of the Bible that was could have been verbally and physically written by Moses, into the Pentateuch. This started the creation of the Bible by gathering stories that relate to God, that would teach lessons to help them understand God and Jesus. So the Christian followers could read these philosophical lessons at any point

This class has been very informative in obtaining a better understanding of the young-earth/old-earth debate. I enjoyed the lectures, readings and videos and gathered enough information to share with the next individual. There are a few questions I have and would like to get further information on. One question is why is there a comparison of the Big Bang theory and evolution to God’s creation of the earth. Why does the world have two different views of how the world was created? From my understanding the Bible defines exactly how the world was created in the book of Genesis yet some individuals still challenge and find the words of the bible to be untrue. Young-earth vs. old-earth is described as young-earth being created by God in six twenty-four

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.

I was never really a Young Earth Creationist. However, I still thought that Young Earth Creationists could be right because in my opinion, God is omnipotent, and the flood could have happened further back in history than estimated. The flood then could answer why the continents look the way they do today compared to pangea, and it could also answer some other geological problems with Young Earth Creationism. Although I thought it was still possible, I thought it extremely unlikely. Instead, I thought that the Earth was created much longer ago, but that God still created creatures in their own “kinds”, and that these “kinds” diverged into even more species by natural selection. I knew evolution could change a species a little bit at a time to the point where there would be two different species, but I wasn’t sold on the whole idea that Evolution could cause a fish to become a human. However, there were two major things that started to change my mind. The first was the Harvard study with the petri dish that contained different levels of antibacterial properties. This study showed that mutations can cause a significant change in a species, and led to me thinking it