STUDIES IN GENESIS

Following are remaining objections and replies to previously submitted arguments favoring a young earth:

(5) Hugh Ross, who is not a “former” astrophysicist, but a current astrophysicist, wants Christians to be open to science informing them in regards to Scripture. One can look at many moments in history where we have fought science only to be proven wrong: For instance, the former belief that the world was flat because Scripture stated that the earth had four corners.

Reply: Hugh Ross is a former astrophysicist in the sense that he has a PhD in astronomy and formerly researched galaxies and quasars at the California Institute of Technology. Though still regarded within the scientific community as an expert in that field, he is currently in a full-time apologetics ministry dealing with Bible and science issues. Ross is president of Reasons to Believe, a Progressive Creationist ministry he founded in 1986 which claims to be dedicated to showing how the latest scientific discoveries point to the God of the Bible. To his credit, Ross says he affirms without reservation the absolute authority and inerrancy of Scripture. However, he has embraced selected theories of big bang cosmology which he regards as undisputed fact—including the notion that the universe and earth are billions of years old—and he employs those theories as lenses through which to interpret Scripture. In effect, he makes scripture subservient to science without separating scientific fact from scientific theory. The Progressive Creationism view he espouses opposes both atheistic evolutionism and a literal six-day creation and young earth. At best, then, Ross is a theistic evolutionist. In summary, within the framework of progressive creationism, Hugh Ross adheres to the following unbiblical notions:

• The ‘Big Bang’ origin of the universe occurred 16-billion-years ago; death, bloodshed, and disease existed before Adam & Eve.
• The days of Creation were long periods.
• Noah’s Flood was a local event.
• Sin has only a regionally limited effect on the world.
• Man-like creatures that behaved much like us—and painted on cave walls—existed before Adam and Eve, but didn’t have a spirit and thus had no salvation.
• The record of nature is just as perfect as the Word of God.
• Over millions of years, God created new species as others kept going extinct.

In regard to the above reply (with example) where we have fought science only to be proven wrong, no where does Scripture signify that the earth is square. That allegation likely stems from the apostle John’s statement in Revelation 7:1, “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.” The term “the four corners of the earth” is but a Bible expression depicting north, south, east, and west—the four points of the compass. The four angels, standing at these four positions administering judgment, are commanded to relent so there might be a time of great revival during the Tribulation as the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. The Bible has always taught a spherical earth. Job 26:10 says, “He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.” Proverbs 8:27 says, “When He established the heavens, I was there, when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep.” And Isaiah 40:22 says, “He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.” Today, we chuckle at the people of the fifteenth century who feared sailing because they thought they would fall over the edge of the flat earth. Yet the Bible revealed the truth of the earth’s circular shape in 1000 B.C. 2500 years before man discovered it for himself!

Following are objections and replies to the flood of Noah’s day being global:

(6) In Matthew 24:39 (“The flood came and took them all away”) Jesus does not say that the waters covered the entire planet, but simply that the flood took every human life outside the ark.

Reply: Many Christians today think the Flood of Noah’s day was only a local flood, confined to somewhere around Mesopotamia. This idea comes not from Scripture, but from the notion of ‘billions of years’ of Earth history. But consider the problems this concept entails:

· If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it.

· If the Flood was local, why did God send the animals to the Ark so they would escape death? There would have been other animals to reproduce that kind if these particular ones had died.

· If the Flood was local, why was the Ark big enough to hold all kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed? If only Mesopotamian animals were aboard, the Ark could have been much smaller.

· If the Flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board? These could simply have winged across to a nearby mountain range.

· If the Flood was local, how could the waters rise to 15 cubits (8 meters or 22 feet) above the mountains (Genesis 7:20)? Water seeks its own level. It couldn’t rise to cover the local mountains while leaving the rest of the world untouched. Furthermore, those who believe in a local flood claim it took place only in the Mesopotamian Valley—but a major problem emerges when we see the ark ended up in the mountains of Ararat!

· The text says that “all the springs of the great deep burst forth” (Genesis 7:11), and that this continued for a minimum of five months (7:24-8:3). Such geological upheavals in the oceanic depths cannot be reconciled with a local flood. The water of this planet is sufficient to cause a global flood; torrential rainfall alone is not. The Bible doesn’t say the Flood was caused by rainfall alone; it was caused be geologic upheaval of the ocean depths.

· If the Flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not be affected by it. They would have escaped God’s judgment on sin. If this happened, what did Christ mean when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the judgment of ‘all’ men (Matthew 24:37-39) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah’s day means a partial judgment to come.

· If the Flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise never to send such a flood again.

(7) Usage of 2^nd Peter 3:5-6 to substantiate belief in a worldwide flood is unwarranted since Peter uses the term “world” (kosmos) to describe humanity in general rather than the heavens and the earth.

Reply: Just as Peter, in chapter 3 of his 2^nd Epistle, referred to the flood of Noah’s day, so did Jesus Himself (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27), accepting it not only as a fact of history, worldwide in its extent and effects, but even making it a specific type of His promised coming, which also would be worldwide in its extent and effects. Here in the last chapter written by the Apostle Peter, just before his execution as a Christian martyr, he gives a remarkable prophetic foreview of Christ’s second coming, by comparing it with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day.

“First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this coming He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2^nd Peter 3:3-7).

According to this prophecy, the Flood (literally “the cataclysm”) was primarily hydraulic in nature and caused the primeval cosmos (literally “the heavens existed long ago and the earth”) to “perish.” That is, the pre-Flood atmosphere and geosphere (“heavens and earth”) were destroyed as a “cosmos” (or ordered system), so that “the present heavens and earth” (verse 7) are drastically different, with their primeval perfection and order now disfigured and chaotic in comparison. Furthermore, the “heavens and earth” which perished include also, by obvious implication, the inhabitants of the heavens and earth, or sky and land. As Genesis 7:21 states, “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.” They were all overflowed with water and thereby perished.

Three Greek words are translated “world” in the New Testament: (1) oikoumene, denoting the populated world; (2) aion, which is usually rendered age, or a period of time marked by spiritual or moral characteristics; and (3) kosmos, which is used in 2^nd Peter 3:6, and means primarily order, system, arrangement, ornament, or adornment. It may denote the material world (Rom. 1:20) or even the totality of heaven and earth (Acts 17:24); the sphere of intelligent life (1 Cor. 4:9); the place of human habitation (1 Cor. 5:10); mankind as a whole (Jn. 3:16); society as alienated from God and under the sway of Satan (1 Jn. 5:19); and the complex of ideas and ideals which govern men who belong to the world in this ethical sense (1 Jn. 2:15-17; Jas. 4:4). Among the Greeks, kosmos became used for the universe, since it expressed the order noted there.

Considering the above evidence from the context (as a prophetic foreview of Christ’s second coming) and usage of kosmos for “world” in 2^nd Peter 3:6, limiting the effect of the flood of Noah’s day to humanity in general by forcing “world” to mean as such, and using it as an argument for merely a local flood seems rather unwarranted.

(8) It is unreasonable to believe that two of every land animal and bird on the planet, as well as enough food for a year for all of them could fit inside the ark. It’s more credible that two of every animal in the region could fit inside the ark.

Reply:

• God told Noah to bring two of each kind (seven of some), not of each species or variety. Noah had only two of the dog kind, which would include the wolves, coyotes, foxes, mutts, etc. The “kind” grouping is probably closer to our modern family division in taxonomy, and would greatly reduce the number of animals on the ark. Animals have diversified into many varieties in the last 4400 years since the flood. This diversification is not anything similar to great claims that the evolutionists teach.
• Noah did not have to get all the animals; God brought them to him (Genesis 6:20).
• Only land-dwelling, air-breathing animals had to be included on the ark (Genesis 7:15, “that have the breath of life”). Aquatic wildlife was excluded. Noah also did not need to bring all the thousands of insect varieties.
• Many animals sleep, hibernate, or become very inactive during bad weather.
• All animals (and people) were vegetarians before and during the Flood according to Genesis 1:20-30 and compared with Genesis 9:3.

(9) Genesis portrays mankind as failing to spread throughout the world. A global flood would be unnecessary, then, to wipe out all of humanity.

Reply: The population of the world in Noah’s day was not just in the Mesopotamian Valley, as those who teach a local flood want to claim. The Bible claims they were spread over the face of the entire globe. Not until we come to Genesis 11:1-4 do we read of man’s deliberate attempt to collectively migrate eastward to the plain of Shinar (Sumer), motivated by the attempt to reach the heavens by building the tower of Babel, which resulted in God causing the human race to disperse or "divide." By the time Adam died there were seven generations of his own offspring on the earth. A very conservative population growth calculation places the world population at 120,000 persons, minimum, by the time Adam died! One can only imagine how grand family unions must have been in antediluvian times! A tight reading of the genealogy using the Masoretic Text of Genesis adds up to 1,656 years from Adam to Noah. (That is, there do no appear to be any gaps in the genealogy from Adam to Noah). 1656 years is more than sufficient time to completely fill up the earth with people. A conservative population growth calculation would place the population at the time of the flood at 7 billion people at least, perhaps it was even higher. In fact, modern global population is probably less than the peak pre-Flood population, and is certainly less than the cumulative total of all people who have preceded us. In fact, there were probably population explosions in the Pre-Flood world and also immediately after the Flood. In contrast, there is no modern population explosion. Global population is rising, but at an ever decreasing rate. It will soon peak and then begin to drop. Our modern view of population has shaped our view of the world’s past population. We see rising population as a threat to the environment, but the truth is that the earth’s environment is actually improving, not degrading. Fears of over-population have colored our view of God’s command in Genesis 1:28 – and repeated after the Flood in Genesis 9:1-3 -- to "multiply and replenish [fill] the earth." We insist that God could not have meant for this command to apply today, but people before the Flood evidently took this command literally and seriously. Before the Flood, the earth had a large population. Genesis 6:11 says, "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." This implies that the earth was also filled with people. Calculations show that in 1656 years between creation and the flood, global population could have been expected to rise into at least the tens or hundreds of millions.

I would urge us to read carefully Genesis 6-9—chapters dealing with the Flood. If God was really trying to describe a local flood, He surely could have written a little more clearly, for over and over again the wording demands a global flood. In fact, I have counted more than 100 times when the wording implies a global flood. It is true that some of the individual words could be understood in a local sense, but in the context, no other position than that of a global flood is defensible. Consider these few quotes of the many: ‘the face of the earth (i.e. planet)’ (6:1); ‘end of all flesh… the earth is filled with violence … I will destroy them with the earth’ (6:13); ‘destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and everything that is in the earth shall die’ (6:17). If God had intended to describe a global world-destroying flood, He couldn’t have said it any more clearly. In the final analysis, the local flood concept is both theologically and scientifically unsound. As near as I can tell, the primary reason to hold to this concept is to gain the acceptance of secular scientists who deny God’s Word. Consider this quote from one of the world’s foremost astronomers and self-proclaimed agnostic Robert Jastrow as he writes in his book “God and the Astronomers” -- “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”