Mortenzon's argument that Jesus was a New Earth Thinker is about as thin as watered down soup made from the dung of a pigeon that had been starved to death.
There are precisely two verses in the whole bible that in any way
support the argument, aside from which Jesus was silent on the subject.
New Earthers of today are outspokenly defensive … not the
kind of attributes I would ever associate with Jesus. So, New Earther’s don’t
flatter yourselves.
In Mark 10:6 and Matthew 19:1, not two occasions just two records of
the same occasion, Jesus said once, “From the beginning, God made them male and
female”.
So now, having built a monolith on the
pretext of a literal interpretation, they ignore their
first cause or that Adam and Eve appeared on the 6th day,
to argue that they were from the beginning.
The sequitur is simple …. if they were from the very beginning (oh,
sorry Job, its just you who wasn’t there), and if they were in that
beginning, the earth must be young.
How does a learned argument even attempt to hold water in such a sieve?
Jesus did not say, “from the beginning, he made Adam and Eve”, but “from
the beginning, he made them male and female”.
That is a rule of biology. It is supportable too. Even the humble atom
has a duality, a kind of male (proton) and female (electron), although they are
not quite equal opposites.
Every plant, creature and person required a union between the two
genders to spark life, ostensibly to ensure that there was a two-part decision
to create that life. It reflects the two-part Jewish Mizpah, used by Jacob, to hold two agreed parties true to their commitment.
It ensured that procreation would an act of biological volition, by which animals and humans can and do suppress breeding when
conditions are unfavorable.
That hardly proves that Adam and Eve were in it from the outset. Indeed
it doesn’t even support the idea that plants and animals made it to the first
show.
So what else can we go on?
John 1 confirms that Jesus was in the beginning. That I concede. He was
there, but if he was there, why did he choose not to comment on what he saw?
Because he already did, adequately. The bible gave us many insights into the
creation event and, as he said to the rich man: “they have the law and
prophets, let them hear that”.
He also provided enough evidence in creation itself, as Paul confirmed
in Romans 1, namely: “the invisible things of God are clearly seen and
understood by what is made”.
John 1: 3 and Colossians 1:6, confirm that the worlds were made by him
and nothing was made without him. He is
the author of all things and by him the worlds consist.
There never was a greater creation authority in all biblical history,
than Jesus. He did it all and the father reviewed his works objectively by
saying, “it is good”.
But now Jesus, the creator, the supreme authority on such things,
leaves us one seemingly small yet significant clue about how that all went
down.
In John 3:8, contextual to the recreation account at the foundation of the New Testament, Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wants to”.
It is a single, obscure verse, sure, but its implications are
significant. Contrary to the view of literal thinkers, God does not
micro-manage the universe.
He gave it laws that govern how it changes or evolves, then wound up the
clock and let it run.
If that is true of the wind, it is true of the weather,
which depends on the wind. If so, then it is true of the tides, our orbit
around the sun, our rotation and so on.
Trace that back logically, as C S Lewis did, and eventually you will run
out of cascading causes and reach the first cause: the creator himself.
Don’t think God is not into randomness. The lot system used in Israel
was like dice. It introduced randomness into their affairs and distanced him
from any direct implication. Thus, a random lot decided that Asher or Naphtali got
the lands they got.
That randomness was bracketed. He first settled the three eastern
tribes, Reuben, Gad and Manasseh. Then He set Judah in the south. Everything
else was randomly decided.
He was silent on the choices, but prophetically Joseph foresaw at least
some of what would happen, a process no one could manage without today’s
cartographic systems.
It was also used for the replacement of Judas and to weed out Achan. The
Urim and Thummim, the two “Yes/No” stones, were carried in the high priest's breastplate.
Thus, it was totally consistent for God to lay the foundations of the
world and to simultaneously define a foundation principle: that whatever
happened would be underwritten by Jesus, who was slain (or set aside for death)
from the foundations of the earth.
Accordingly, the idea of a universe rapidly expanding from a singularity
and using various moments of that to create heavier elements and, eventually,
galaxies and their sub-systems, is not in conflict with the character of God.
Accordingly, if anything, Jesus quietly supported an Old Earth
viewpoint. That said, he still remained silent on the issue.
However, he was not silent about the literal Sadducees who were like today's New Earthers, yet he was as censuring of the Lateral
Pharisees who stretched truth too far.
All his life, he walked the middle road of balance, which is where we will find him now. Otherwise, well Bob Dylan got it right, for the answers are "blowin in the wind".
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