Seven reasons why we should accept millions of years - part 1

An article by Dr. Terry Mortenson  on July 17, 2006; last featured March 28, 2016, entitled “Seven Reasons Why We Should Not Accept Millions of Years”, demands seven good responses. I can only do one response at a time.

Assertion 1: The Bible clearly teaches that God created in six literal, 24-hour days a few thousand years ago.

Actually it doesn’t. Earth time was only defined on Day 4.

Thus, it was impossible to mark a day of 24 hours for the first three days. Nor, indeed, was it required. Nothing in the scriptures demands that interpretation.

Further, if days 1 to 3 are a different measure of time, given the absence of a fixed frame of reference, we must assume that the consistency of biblical language implies a similar time marker for all the other days. That is “literal” and logical.

A day is as a thousand years, implies relativism. It all depends on your frame of reference. For all we know, “a day” could have been a solar day, a single orbit of the sun or a galactic reference to our solar system’s transition through the Milky Way. 

More likely, it referenced the light of creation and was thus measured as a divine event-horizon. That idea fits better with Jesus being described as the "bright and morning star" and in Revelations, as the one who loosens the seals of the book. 

What I mean is that He is the time marker and the cross was the divine sundial of history.

Thus, until there was an earth-based timepiece, time had to reference another marker, but as it was God speaking we must assume that he used his own marker.

Besides anything else, Dr Mortenson confirms that “yôm” (the Hebrew for day in Genesis 1) has more than one literal reference, which allows for multiple meanings. A good list of qualified references defines the word first used in Genesis 1 as meaning severally:

• Period of twenty-four hours.
• General term for time as in "when" or "when that happened".
• A discrete point of time.
• Sunrise to sunset.
• Sunset to next sunset.
• A year (in the plural; I Sam 27:7; Ex 13:10, etc.).
• Time period of unspecified length.
• A long, but finite span of time - age - epoch - season.

Mortenson further insists that Genesis 1:14 confirms yôm as being expressed in reference to the heavenly bodies. Now, which body would that be Doctor? The Sun? But it says “lights”, so what lights of reference were confirmed here?

The signs and seasons alluded to were well used in Jewish folklore to track important prophetic events, as the Magi did in search of Christ’s birth. Thus God also referenced the skies, as in “like the stars of the sky for multitude”.

A  great prophetic example in Rev 12:1, pointed to the birth of Christ in the night sky. It alludes to the moon, the stars, and various astronomical signs, such as the conjunction of Regulus, Jupiter and Venus, which caused the bright star over Bethlehem.

Here are a few popular biblical references that New Earth thinkers use.

•  Mark 10:6 “In the beginning … was male and female”. The argument goes that the universe cannot be older than humankind, because we were there in the beginning. God doesn't agree, for he asked Job, “where were you, when ..?” Besides, if we are being literal, then be literal and read that man was created on the 6^th day. The principle of male and female, as in equal opposites, was defined at the outset as a building block. It defined all organic life.
• Luke 11:50-51, then speaks of the sufferings of humanity from the foundation of the world. In any dictionary, 'world' and 'earth' are deemed to be more definitive of the hardware and software of creation. Thus, God will judge “the world”, as in the nations, not “the earth” as in the innocent biosphere in which we live.
• Exodus 20:11 records that Moses said, “in 6 days God created the heavens and the earth”. Well that is a non sequitur, for Moses also wrote Genesis 1 and thus knew that there was no measure of time until day 4.
• Luke 13:14 speaks of 6 days of work and a 7^th day of rest. That is then used to confirm that days meant logical days. Not so quick. The Sabbath principle was far broader than that. Every 7^th year was a Sabbath year, every 49^th year was a Sabbath cycle.

Rabbinical exegetic principle sees 4 layers of meaning, namely Peshat, which is superficial and literal; Remez, which adds more meaning; Derash, which implies a deeper symbolic and prophetic meaning; and Sod which conveys mystical meaning.  

Thus, when Jesus said, “You will say to this mountain, be cast into the sea”, he did not imply a literal interpretation that would have seen us casting mountains around the place, but he expected us to read more deeply into his words for meaning.

Similarly, when he said, “Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood”, he did not mean that we should literally do so, an interpretation that led to error.

Hebrews 4 says “there remains a rest”, which has Sabbath connotations but does not allude to a 24 hour period. Why would we settle for a weekend of rest after all our trials in this life?

I close with a reference to Rabbinical thought. I concede that many orthodox Rabbis hold to a literal interpretation, but remember that in Jewish thought there was always a literal (Sadducean) and lateral (Pharisaic) worldview.

That tension was also evident in Jewish interpretations of scripture. Thus the Sadduceans may have been literal, but could not get the resurrection. That negated every purpose of their religion to “let’s eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. So much for literalism.

Medieval Rabbi Rashi reconciled the two views by saying that the Torah is not chronological, and that the two stories were really one. Another classical rabbi, Maimonides, asserted that the Torah wasn’t meant to be taken literally, but interpreted in accordance with science.

My view: if God could do it in 24 hours, why not in a moment – who would have been any the wiser? However, that would have reduced the cross to a sham, for if God could instantly create he could also instantly un-create – and who would be any the wiser. 

(c) Peter Missing @ Bethelstone.com