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https://trustjesus.substack.com/p/why-is-a-literal-interpretation-of

Why is a literal interpretation of Genesis Important? Part 1Science, Archaeology, and the Inerrancy of Genesis

There are so many people that say Genesis, especially the first 11 chapters, is myth or analogy or poetry and we shouldn’t take it literally. Sadly it isn’t just atheists saying this. Many Christian leaders say this, but they are mistaken. God means what He says and says what He means. The creator of the universe is fully knowledgeable of everything that happened in the past and is fully capable of communicating that to us. In fact a proper view of Genesis is critical for fully understanding the rest of the Bible, especially the Gospel.

Is a proper view of Genesis required for salvation? No. Does the Gospel message have a lot of holes in it and is it hard to defend if you are missing Genesis as the foundation? Very much, yes.

When I was a new Christian (almost 40 years ago), I thought it odd that with each day of creation, the Bible says “and there was evening and there was morning the xth day.” I thought this because it was so clear God was describing a normal 24 hour day that included day and night. Today there are people that believe Chapter 1, describing creation, is a myth borrowed from other cultures, like the Sumerians (they never seem to consider that the Sumerians and other ancient civilizations got their myths from real history and from God). Others think each day corresponds to vast ages (which doesn’t work at all.) Many people think that “science” has disproven the early chapters of Genesis. All of this is completely wrong. The atheists understand that destroying belief in Genesis destroys the foundation of the Bible, but most Christians don’t seem to understand how destructive this is.God did not allow for interpreting the days of creation as vast ages. The day/age proponents will say that the word yom can mean a 24 hour day or a longer length such as “the days of Moses”. Although this is generally true, the word yom always means a normal 24 hour day when used with a number (like first day, second day, etc.) and also when used with one or both of the words evening and morning. Another problem is that God created the plants and trees on day 3, but created the sun on day 4. How could plants and trees survive for vast ages without the sun? If it wasn’t for people trying to force million and billions of years into Genesis to allow for man’s anti-god theory of evolution, nobody would interpret the clear meaning of Genesis chapter 1 in this way. Will you put man’s theories above the truth of God?We need to consider the motivations of the so-called experts that claim to have proven millions or billions of years. Why do we supposedly need to add great ages to the true age of the Earth (around 6,000 years) that was clearly and intentionally declared in the Bible? People, who did not want to believe in a god, have worked very hard to try to disprove the Bible and creation. They have started with the axioms, “there is no god” and “the only allowable explanation is natural processes.” From these unproven axioms, they use a bunch of logic and science to supposedly prove there is no god, but it is just circular reasoning. It is a form of the “begging the question” logical fallacy where “the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises. It is an attempt to prove something is true while simultaneously taking that same thing for granted. This line of reasoning is fallacious because the assumption is not justified by any evidence.” 1 The fact is, what happened in the past can NOT be proven or disproven by science. Science requires repeatable experiments. We cannot do experiments in the past. The best we can do is experiments today to see if it is possible that the remaining evidence suggests that a particular thing happened in the past. It cannot be proven. A theory that accurate predicts we will find certain evidence, and then, after the prediction has been made correctly predicts evidence is a good theory. A theory that makes predictions that do not come to pass or that contradicts new evidence is a bad theory.There are two kinds of science: experimental science and historical/forensic science. When people say “science proves” they are talking about experimental science which looks at a situation, hypothesizes how it works or what it will do next, designs an experiment to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and then adjusts the hypothesis based on the results of the experiment. It normally takes many people doing many experiments over an extended period of time for something to even be considered a scientific theory. There are only a few scientific laws that are so well proven true that they are considered laws, ie. the laws of thermodynamics or the law of gravity. Historical or forensic science looks at evidence and tries to predict what happened in the past. It is a much less sure form of science. Without a trustworthy witness, what happened in the past can never be proven. All that can be shown is likelihood and even that can be strongly influenced by assumptions or world views.Atheists assume that all processes in effect today were always the same and therefore the large layers of sediment are due to billions of years of dust. This was predicted in 1 Peter 3:3-7:“Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”It is amazing, but not surprising, how God predicted the exact arguments being made by atheist scientists today.People who trust the Bible assume those same layers of sediment are due to the global flood described in Genesis 7-8. Which matches better? Many of these layers are 100s of feet thick and stretch across continents or even over multiple continents. Millions of years of dust wouldn’t do this, but a global flood would. Within these sediments are both land and sea creatures mixed together. This makes sense if everything was effected by a catastrophic global flood which washed sea creatures up onto land and buried the sea creatures with the land animals. It makes no sense in the slow processes we see today. In fact, fossils in general only form in catastrophes. An animal that dies on the dry land, is eaten by scavengers and broken down by bacteria and fungi and disappears completely in weeks or months or maybe a few years in a very dry or very cold climate. They don’t fossilize unless they are quickly buried, like in a flood or maybe a landslide, but even the landslide burial would require mineralized water to fossilize the bones.There are also lots of other evidences that the Earth is young. In the past it was assumed fossils were millions to hundreds of millions of years old, so they were not checked for soft tissues. Experiments have proven it is impossible for there to be any soft tissue after approximately a million years and unlikely after ~100,000 years even under perfect conditions. The length of time is dependent on the temperature of the tissue and exposure or lack of exposure to chemicals and water. Starting with Dr. Mary Schweitzer’s T-rex leg bone, over 100 fossils have been found recently that are supposed to be many millions of years old, but contain soft tissue including obvious collagen, blood cells and blood vessels that are stretchy and look like living tissue. Although there are numerous theories on how this could be possible. if the bones were really millions of years old, none of these theories are believable. On the other hand, if the majority of these fossils were created by the global flood ~4,500 years ago, it is definitely possible and believable to find soft tissue in some of the buried bones.In addition to Biological evidence supporting the Bible and a young Earth, there are lots of astronomical evidences of a young universe. One of the best is the existence of comets. Comets normally orbit the Sun in a very elliptical (stretched circle) manner. The comets change little while they are far out in space beyond the planets where it is very cold and there is little influence from the sun, but when the comets enter the inner solar system, the heat and solar wind melt and blow off some of the water and other material shrinking the comet. This is what causes the tail(s). Eventually the comets break apart and cease to exist, sometimes with a dramatic explosion. We know how much mass comets usually lose as they approach the sun and can show that comets should not exist in the solar system after about 100,000 years, but our solar system is supposed to be billions of years old. Why are there still comets?

Astronomers know of this problem, so they have come up with a rescuing device — the Oort Cloud. This is a supposed repository of comets so far out in space that we can’t detect it. Somehow new comets periodically get knocked into orbit nearer the sun. What physical evidence exists for the Oort Cloud? None! It is assumed. If life is supposed to have evolved instead of being spoken into existence by God, we must have millions or billions of years for this to even sound plausible. If life has been in existence for 100s of millions or even billions of years, then the solar system and the universe have to be even older — much older if the Big Bang Theory is to be believed. If the Solar System is supposed to be billions of years old then there has to be some way to get new comets orbiting the sun and entering the inner solar system. Instead of using the existence of comets to correct their false assumptions, they have made up a rescuing device based solely on the fact there has to be some source if the solar system is billions of years old. No evidence is asked for or found, but they talk about the Oort Cloud as if it was a proven fact in the same manner as the Sun, Moon, and planets. It must be understood that belief in an old universe, the Big Bang, and Darwinian Evolution is based solely on faith. It is a religion and heretics will be silenced and punished.Another evidence for a young solar system is the existence of magnetic fields in most of the planets in our solar system. If the planets are truly billions of years old, they should no longer have a magnetic field. I will talk about Earth in particular, but similar processes effect the other planets. Earth’s magnetic field has been measured and is decaying at a rate causing the magnetic field to reduce by half every ~1400 years. Using math and understanding of electricity and magnetism, this can be run backwards and shown that the magnetic field and heat generated would be too large for life to exist about 10,000 years ago. This allows for the Bible’s ~6,000 year age, but isn’t even close to allowing for Evolution or the Big Bang.Another interesting point regarding magnetic fields or planets is Dr. Russel Humphrey’s prediction of the magnetic field of Uranus and Neptune (based on the Bibles statement from 2 Peter 3:5 “the earth was formed out of water and by water”) before they were known. His predictions were proven when Voyager 2 measured the actual magnetic fields. Big Bang proponent’s predictions were off by many orders of magnitude.“In 1983, on the basis of Scriptures implying the original created material of the earth was water, I proposed that God created the water with the spins of its hydrogen nuclei initially aligned in one direction (Humphreys, 1983). That would produce a strong magnetic field. After 6,000 years of decay, including energy losses from magnetic reversals during the Genesis Flood, (Humphreys, 1986a, 1990c) the strength of the earth's magnetic field would be what we observe today. In 1984 I extended the theory to the other planets of the solar system, the Sun, and the Moon (Humphreys, 1984). The theory explained the observed magnetic field strengths of those bodies very well. It also correctly predicted the field strengths of Uranus and Neptune measured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft several years later, (Humphreys, 1986b, 1990a, b) as well as magnetizations of surface rocks on Mars (Humphreys, 1999).2A theory of the universe that correctly predicts what science will find today is a much more trustworthy theory than one that fails to predict correctly what is not known when the theory is proposed. Science, based on the Bible, is a much better predictor of what we discover as we learn more about the universe.In addition to science, archaeology also supports the truth of the Bible. There are many ancient civilizations that the Bible describes that were believed by the “experts” to be man-made myths and to have never existed, such as the Hittites and King David, but archaeology keeps proving the Bible true. As time has gone one and archaeology has matured, most of the people and people groups that the Bible describes, but experts said didn’t exist, have been proven to have existed. I am sure more evidence will continue being discovered.When we have a proper view of the Bible, and especially the first 11 chapters of Genesis, not only is our theology better, but so is our science.I do not have time to go into anywhere near all of the evidence supporting the inerrancy of the Bible, but I will end with a list of some books from which I learned a lot. Some are more general and good for a broader audience. Some are deep dives into the science and may not be for everyone. Most can be found at icr.org or aig.org along with many free articles and videos on these subjects. I hope you will consider checking some of them out.The two best general creation support books I have found are:“Creation Basics & Beyond: An In-Depth Look at Science, Origins, and Evolution” by icr.org”The Global Flood: Unlocking the Earth’s Geologic History” by John D. MorrisThese are two good geology books:“Carved in Stone” by Timothy Clarey (has wonderful pictures and diagrams and is based on global borehole research of sedimentary layers and describes the sedimentary layers and fossils as being created as the flood progressively covered more and more of the globe.)“Earth’s Catastrophic Past” by Andrew A. Snelling (A two volume set that goes deep into geology and may be too technical for those without some background or unwilling to struggle through it, but it is well worth the effort. It will also be easier to understand after reading “Carved in Stone”)These are some good Astronomy books:“Earth’s Mysterious Magnetism: and that of other celestial orbs” by D. R. Humphreys, PhD and M.J. De Spain“The Created Cosmos” by Danny Faulkner“The Expanse of Heaven” by Danny FaulknerStarlight, Time and the New Physics: Dr. John Hartnett (This book is very good explanation of how we can see stars that are thousands and millions of lightyears away even though the universe is only 6,000 years old as measured on Earth. The first 2/3rds is technical but readable. The last 1/3rd is the technical math that proves his theory and is only understandable to those who have a strong math background and some understanding of relativistic physics)This is a great book on archaeological finds supporting the Bible:“Archaeology and the Bible: 50 Fascinating Finds That Bring the Bible to Life” by Tom MeyerThese books look at the spread of people after the flood and the Tower of Babel and describe where the races come from:“Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors” by Bodie Hodge (Mostly follows people groups based on the Bible and historical writings)“Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise” by Nathaniel T. Jeanson (Uses variation/mutation in the Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son, to trace people groups from Noah’s son’s to their current locations)I hope these books and the previous evidence will strengthen your faith in the Bible and its inerrancy and encourage you to read Genesis and see how it applies to the rest of the Bible. Make sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.Trust Jesus.

your sister in Christ,

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