Why is young earth so important?

[PaulSacramento]

It boils down to what we believe "inspired" means.
Do we think it means the HS took over the original writers and God wrote "though their hands"?
DO we think that extends to subsequent copyists and scribes and editors?
Do we think that means that certain people were inspired by God to write down/pass down what God told them? ( Gods Word in human words).
Then we have the issue of what is suppose to be viewed as scripture, just the OT? just the NT? Both? if both, which books? Catholic canon? Protestant?
Etc, etc...
Are ALL writings to be viewed as the same in terms of inspiration?
Were the prophetic writings of Daniel, Isaiah, Elijah, the rest of the prophest the only ones? or are "statistical books" like Chronicles just as inspired?
Luke makes it clear that he is writings what he has been told and what has been passed down to him by the sources he had to make ACTS and GOL, are they as "inspired" as Revelation? more? less?
Etc...

[Jac3510]

While I have serious problems with neo's position, I don't think you all are appreciating what he is saying, and as such, I think you're offering the wrong objections.

Let's take the book of Job as a comparison. It is not uncommon to find conservative, evangelical scholars who hold a perfectly traditional view of inerrancy and inspiration but who also doubt the historicity of Job. They argue that Job could have been a play of sorts but that it didn't happen in real history. Now, whether you agree with them or not, it is widely accepted that such a view doesn't challenge inerrancy or inspiration. The key is this: the original audience and the original writers all knew that the story was just that -- a story -- that it wasn't intended to convey literal history. That is, it goes to the classical issue of authorial intent. I would strongly recommend you guys read The First Historians by Baruch Halpern. He's hardly a conservative and not even a Christian, but his points on authorial intent in the classification and exegesis of the biblical text are important and insightful.

So let's take that to Genesis 1. While neo hasn't put it this way, it is not uncommon for theistic evolutionists to argue that Genesis 1 was intended by Moses and understood by his first readers to be a mythical (that is to say, non-historical) account of the origin of the universe. On its face, there is nothing in that view that directly contradicts the traditional understanding of inspiration and inerrancy. So I don't think we need to castigate him on those grounds.

There are, however, several serious problems with applying this approach to Genesis 1, the most important being, going back to Halpern, it seems very much like Moses did, in fact, intend his account to be literal history (attempts to make it myth usually assume a non-Mosaic, late authorship heavily influenced by Sumerian and Babylonian mythology). To me, that ends the debate. If Moses thought he was describing what really happened, then the issue of inerrancy is at stake after all. Other problems include later inspired writers treating Adam and Eve as historical figures and how one determines at what point Genesis stops being mythical and starts being historical (at Abraham? What about his father, Terah? And what about his father? What about the Flood?, etc.).

The real problem that we're not talking about is that neo has already admitted that he thinks that some parts of the Bible as we have it now are not inspired. The problem, though, is, by what means do you determine which parts are inspired and which are not? He thinks Genesis 1 is not inspired because it is incorrect. So, what . . . if we think a portion is wrong, we just toss it out as not inspired? We may as well say, "I don't like that part, so I reject it as being from God." Liberals who don't believe in miracles could just as well say that all the miraculous parts, then, ought to be tossed out as not really being inspired. And gay activists could just argue that the parts that declare homosexuality a sin are just not inspired, and so on. In fact, then, we have no Bible at all. We just have the parts that we like illustrating what we already believe, in which case, we aren't getting our theology from the Bible so much as we are getting the Bible from our theology.

Beyond that, neo, you are just incorrect and misinformed about how we got our modern Bibles. It has not been re-translated and reedited a million times. The Bible as we have it is substantively the same as the one that Jesus read. The letters of Paul, the gospels, etc., we all have those as they were written (within 99.8% accuracy, if you want the actual number). You are also mistaken about the genealogies not having any purpose. I highly recommend you read a good critical commentary such as Word Biblical, the ICC, Baker Exegetical, or any other such collections to see what I mean. In any such work you will find that the genealogies perform essential functions in the book as a whole and how the author was conveying his message.

Other than that, I do, of course, think you are right about yom. Ross et al are simply wrong about the history of its interpretation. The word was NEVER interpreted to mean "age" until after the arrival of modern science. OEC is, to put it bluntly, a recent attempt to read current scientific theory back into the original text. There's never been a more obvious example of eisogesis.

[RickD]

Jac wrote:
Other than that, I do, of course, think you are right about yom. Ross et al are simply wrong about the history of its interpretation. The word was NEVER interpreted to mean "age" until after the arrival of modern science. OEC is, to put it bluntly, a recent attempt to read current scientific theory back into the original text. There's never been a more obvious example of eisogesis.

Jac, even though I may agree with you that yom, in the creation account, wasn't interpreted to mean "age" until recently, I don't agree that OEC reads current scientific theory, or our newest scientific knowledge, into scripture. Eisegesis? Nah.

For those interested, here's Coming to Grips with the Early Church Fathers’ Perspective on Genesis, Part 1 (of 5). The first of 5 parts. Interesting stuff. From Part 5:

Was the age of the earth considered vital to Christian orthodoxy in the early church?
While the days of creation, the age of the earth, and the extent of Noah’s flood were subjects of popular speculation in the early church, they were never treated as critical issues. First of all, not one of these topics was included in any of the early church creeds. In fact, no prominent church doctrinal statement or confessions of faith discussed any of these controversial issues prior to the twentieth century.1

Second, not one of these three issues was ever listed as part of the “rule of faith” (Latin regula fidei), which was a statement of key doctrine. Third, most of the discussion about the age of the earth and the flood occurred as secondary points or illustrations rather than primary topics. The age question was concerned mainly with apologetics, not a literal reading of Scripture. (To be fair, some important works regarding Genesis have been lost, so my statement only applies to the works that still exist.) Fourth, the church was clearly divided on the nature of the creation days, but those rejecting a calendar-day interpretation were never condemned as heretical.

And:

Were the church fathers young-earth creationists?
There is evidence that at least 12 fathers believed the earth to be less than 6,000 years old in their own time and so, in that limited sense, can be considered young-earth creationists.3 The real question, however, is whether or not this meaningfully supports the claims of Mook and other modern young-earth creationists. The answer to that is a strong “no” for two reasons. The first is that the patristics’ understanding of the age of the earth and the days of creation was driven by a variety of concerns other than Scripture, as I described under the previous question. The second is that modern young-earth creationism is a package that contains a lot more than the simple claims made by the early church fathers. In other words, simply finding a popular belief in a young world among early Christian writers is insufficient to support modern young-earth creationist claims.

To clarify this latter point, it is important to delineate modern young-earth creationism from its ancient counterpart. The most important difference is that the modern variety generally elevates the age of the earth and related issues to the level of Christian orthodoxy—not merely a private interpretation. That is a very marked contrast to the early church. The second distinction is that modern young-earth creationism generally teaches that creature mortality began at the Fall and so was not present in the original creation. In other words, there was no animal death prior to sin being introduced by Adam and Eve.4 Moreover, this issue is usually treated as essential doctrine. Scripture, however, is silent on this point. So it is not surprising that the early church fathers wrote almost nothing on pre-Fall animal death. They certainly didn’t see it as vital doctrine.

While the church fathers wrote little about animal mortality, they were notably divided on the closely related question of whether Adam and Eve were created mortal or immortal (prior to the Fall). Bradshaw, for example, notes that at least four fathers (namely Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Augustine) taught that the first humans were created mortal.5 So, while some components of modern young-earth creationism can indeed be traced back to the earliest days of the church, the most critical ones cannot. In fact, modern young-earth creationism really began in the twentieth century and so is, ironically, newer than old-earth creationism, which appeared near the end of the seventeenth century.

Most notably this:

In fact, modern young-earth creationism really began in the twentieth century and so is, ironically, newer than old-earth creationism, which appeared near the end of the seventeenth century.

So, at least from this author's study, YEC as we know it today, isn't the same as the ECFs understood it.

[Jac3510]

I've read all those arguments before Rick. I used them myself at one time. Suffice it to say, I disagree completely, and we'll have to leave it at that, because I just don't have the time or energy to go through it again. All I'll say is that the "most notable" part you yourself pulled out demonstrates the absurdity of the claim. I realize he's arguing about systems at that point rather than interpretations of yom, but that just proves the disingenuousness of the article all the more.

Again, I'm not putting forward an argument. Just registering that I've heard it and am unimpressed in every way. What I'm impressed with is the linguistic evidence I've already alluded to regarding how Moses used the word yom and the history of interpretation of the word, both of which are more than sufficient in my mind to demonstrate the absurdity of the day-age interpretation. You, of course, are free to disagree and make whatever argument you wish! I don't feel any need to press the matter further.

[RickD]

Jac, I know you don't come to conclusions without putting a lot of time into studying something. Have you written anything in detail about how you came to your decision to believe the YEC interpretation of scripture? I'd love to read it. You've certainly helped me see some things I've overlooked before.

[Philip]

There is a recent and very important book that is beginning to change how I look at Genesis 1, and what it's intent was and what it was not. It's "In the Beginning... We Misunderstood: Interpreting Genesis 1 in Its Original Context" by Johnny Miller and John Soden. It is receiving good reviews amongst Hebrew and OT scholars. Miller is a professor a Columbia International University. Miller recently spoke at study I attended. And what he has to say in the book and what his research has uncovered are astounding. Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-We-Misu ... +beginning

Getting ready to go on a trip to New England (No, sweetheart, I'm not packed yet ) and I will try to post some key points when I get back. I find the book extremely compelling.

Philip

[neo-x]

Jac:

The real problem that we're not talking about is that neo has already admitted that he thinks that some parts of the Bible as we have it now are not inspired. The problem, though, is, by what means do you determine which parts are inspired and which are not? He thinks Genesis 1 is not inspired because it is incorrect. So, what . . . if we think a portion is wrong, we just toss it out as not inspired? We may as well say, "I don't like that part, so I reject it as being from God." Liberals who don't believe in miracles could just as well say that all the miraculous parts, then, ought to be tossed out as not really being inspired. And gay activists could just argue that the parts that declare homosexuality a sin are just not inspired, and so on. In fact, then, we have no Bible at all. We just have the parts that we like illustrating what we already believe, in which case, we aren't getting our theology from the Bible so much as we are getting the Bible from our theology.

Drawing up a Reductio ad absurdum does not help here. That is rather presumptuous of you, since I don't think I have implied such.

I don't think my point has been cleared to you. I do think Genesis 1 is inspired, I just don't think its inspired from factual reality. The fact that the author was unaware of the error he was committing, is a minor point. And I am more than certain that moses actually thought of a literal 6 day creation, while also realizing that he was jotting down oral history, sung and learnt by heart from the very ancestors, perhaps one of whom was called Adam.

And my rejection of 6 day creation is not based on "oh I don't like this part so lets reject it". So far I have not rejected any biblical part on my liking, I only have questioned its divine inspiration in the literal sense. And I have never said its incorrect, only that it is incorrect if you take it factually. I understand the need for a simple story, and some lessons, and perhaps basic tenets of faith being laid down in those words that make up genesis 1.

Beyond that, neo, you are just incorrect and misinformed about how we got our modern Bibles. It has not been re-translated and reedited a million times. The Bible as we have it is substantively the same as the one that Jesus read. The letters of Paul, the gospels, etc., we all have those as they were written (within 99.8% accuracy, if you want the actual number).

Perhaps Jac, I'm looking into it. But I don't remember using the word "million times". It is highly unlike of you but you are misreading me mostly, using terms I haven't used. Perhaps you posted in haste?...anyway.

We both know that the original manuscripts have been lost, what we have are copies and translations, you are aware that out of the thousands of manuscripts that we have, no two are identical and while this bit is a bit important its not a big problem. I understand that textual criticism helps the process of how we sample out the best reading to put down, but my point earlier was to show exactly that - human intervention is logical, necessary, factually happened and could not possibly be, always divinely inspired. There was no need for it all the time and there is no need today to pull it asa cover over the entire bible. What we have in tact is doctrine, which of course was inspired.

My point is not to say the bible is corrupt, my point was that "inspired by God" bit is being used in the wrong way. There is no need to apply such a term to places where later scribes possibly did patchwork, edited, perhaps simplified, added emphasis, omitted a certain reading to comply to what made best sense to them, there is no need for that to happen by divine inspiration alone. The problem is if we are going to argue "divine inspiration", as being " dictated-perfection, literal to the dot" as some here are arguing, then its an impossible thing to do. Its an illusion to relish, nothing else. And from that position as some argued here (not from mine) the problem is then either the bible is wholly inspired and dictated, or its not dictated at all. Anything else and you fall in my camp; don't agree with me, you have an impossible position to defend.

I am not picking choosing parts to my liking, i think the terms inspiration can not be used to mean factual always in the bible, at least not to places where we have evidence to the contrary, as in the case of Adam and eve, while the pair could have existed, its impossible to for them to be the first human couple.

You are also mistaken about the genealogies not having any purpose. I highly recommend you read a good critical commentary such as Word Biblical, the ICC, Baker Exegetical, or any other such collections to see what I mean. In any such work you will find that the genealogies perform essential functions in the book as a whole and how the author was conveying his message.

If you read my post carefully, you will find that I never said that genealogies have no function. I said, I don't see why the writing of a genealogy should be divinely inspired in the first place, it does not serve any DIVINE purpose, nor a spiritual task. Other than that of course genealogies have purposes, in writing, history etc. Their importance has not gone vain on me.

On a side note, I am reading "The first historians" but thank you for recommending that.

[PaulSacramento]

I have to be honest, that "Yom" ONLY means a 24 hour period is not something I have ever heard or read about before.
That it can mean more is basically agreed upon by virtually every OT scholar.
It can mean a period of time, even a generation.
Now, in the context of Genesis, IF we read the whole text as literal, it seems to imply that it means a 24 hour period since it makes mention of a "there was evening and there was morning".
Of course the issue with that is that, at least in for the first "three days" there was no sun or moon to "gauge" the "evening and the morning".

On a side note, Jac, to you believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and if so, some or all of it?

[Mallz]

ELDER POSTERS SMACK DOWN!!!!

get yer popcorn folks, this could get messy

[PaulSacramento]

Here is an example:
In Genesis 1 we have:
“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Genesis 1:3-5
Here the word YOM is used to describe the light and the first day.
So, in just these verse we have the word being used in TWO different ways.
I don't know if we can accept that YOM means a 24 hour period ONLY in Genesis when, as we see above, it clear is used to describe two different things.
Lets not forget that a 24 hour period has both "day and night", so...

[PaulSacramento]

Genesis 4:3 is another example.
” 2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

Some translations read time as day(s):
http://biblehub.com/genesis/4-3.htm

The word is YOM and it is clear that it doesn't mean a 24 hour period.

[Mallz]

P.S.

Jac, I know you don't come to conclusions without putting a lot of time into studying something. Have you written anything in detail about how you came to your decision to believe the YEC interpretation of scripture? I'd love to read it. You've certainly helped me see some things I've overlooked before.

I would like to read this too!

[Jac3510]

Jac, I know you don't come to conclusions without putting a lot of time into studying something. Have you written anything in detail about how you came to your decision to believe the YEC interpretation of scripture? I'd love to read it. You've certainly helped me see some things I've overlooked before.

Not on this particular subject. I have written quite a bit on these boards about my view of Rom 5:12 and Gen 1:29-31. I also recently wrote a full length grammatical study of Rom 5:12 that I'm talking to some journals about publishing.

Beyond that, though, I actually haven't written anything. As I mentioned before, I spent a lot of hours doing an exhaustive analysis of the use of yom. Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to redo it from scratch as I don't know that I can get the file back.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I don't consider the YEC/OEC debate all that important so I don't spent a lot of time defending my views here. All I can really point you to are the conclusions I've drawn, such as:

1. Gen 1:29-31 teaches that mankind was originally a vegetarian;
2. Rom 5:12 teaches that death came into the entire creation (not just mankind) when Adam sinned;
3. Both the OT and the NT present the millennial reign of Christ as a restoration of the conditions of Eden and the removal of the curse of death and decay from the world;
4. The use of the word yom in Genesis 1, by any analysis of the linguistice evidence, shows that Moses believed the world was created in six normal days;
5. The word yom was never interpreted as a literal age (in the sense of appealing to the semantic range of the word) prior to the widespread scientific acceptance of a very old historical timeline for this earth and the universe as a whole.

Obviously, OECs disagree with me on every count. I appreciate that. I just think that the evidence is firmly against them. I think that if we are going to start with the belief that the universe really is billions of years old, then we need to accept that the biblical picture is one of a few thousand years created over a 144 hour period and ask what that means about our hermeneutics and what that does to inspiration. What we don't need to do is take a preexisting cosmology to Scripture and reading the Bible in light of that. It just doesn't work, no matter how hard we try. And from an apologetic perspective, I find it just as useless, because no atheist or skeptic is suddenly impressed if you give up YEC anymore than they are if you give up OEC in favor of theistic evolution or miracles in favor of a naturalistic reading of the text. The real issue is strictly and totally what you (and they) do with Jesus. Nothing else matters.

-------------------------------------------

I have to be honest, that "Yom" ONLY means a 24 hour period is not something I have ever heard or read about before.
That it can mean more is basically agreed upon by virtually every OT scholar.
It can mean a period of time, even a generation.
Now, in the context of Genesis, IF we read the whole text as literal, it seems to imply that it means a 24 hour period since it makes mention of a "there was evening and there was morning".
Of course the issue with that is that, at least in for the first "three days" there was no sun or moon to "gauge" the "evening and the morning".

On a side note, Jac, to you believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and if so, some or all of it?

You misread me. I didn't say yom ONLY means a 24 hour period. I said that when it is used without linguistic qualifications (e.g., absolutely, in the singular, not in a prepositional phrase, no demonstrative pronouns, etc.) it always refers to a 24 hour period. Moreover, I argued that, strictly speaking, even in those other phrases, it does not mean a "long period of time." We're going to get too technical here, but there is a difference in semantic meaning and pragmatic effect . Even if I concede for the sake of argument that "age" is part of yom's semantic range my points above on this regard were related to its pragmatic effect on discourse. Let me give you an easy English example. Take the phrase, "your children." There is little doubt about the semantic range of either of these words, and taken together, it's meaning is very obvious. Now, suppose you said to me,

"You children were a little on the wild side today, Jac." That sentence is rather clear and we all know what it means. Now, suppose I say to my wife (who is the mother of my children),

"Your children were a little on the wild side today, dear." Suddenly, that sentence takes on a new meaning. The "your" in "your children" has a distancing effect. It is surprising to the hearer (my wife) and says a lot more than the words themselves.

Now, all languages have features like that--features that have certain pragmatic impacts. One of the things we do with language is set contexts, and one of the contexts we have to set is the temporal context of any given event. I could simply tell you when something happen, "In 1492, Columbus set sail for America." Or, I could do it another way, perhaps, "In the days of Queen Isabel, Columbus set sail for America." If my hearer knows something about Spanish history, the pragmatic effect of this phrasing is to draw my attention to the personage and rule of Isabel. I'm no longer thinking about an abstract time (1492), but rather about a specific personality. The effect is to tie Isabel's reign to Columbus' discovery.

Now, it so happens that "in the day of" is a rather common way across languages to set temporal contexts. I haven't done a serious study of any languages to see if any don't use that particular mechanism--perhaps it is so widely used because the Hebrews used it and passed it on to us through the Scriptures! What I do know, after all of this, is that yom ("day") does not mean an age. It is used in some cases to set the temporal context of this or that event, and it is the event itself that is the focus of the discussion. That event may be immediate, happening in an instant. That event may be long unfolding, happening over generations. But the duration of the event is determined by the nature of the event itself, not by yom.

Before I leave off this, let me look your own two examples to show what I mean, as these well illustrate my point.

• And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

So here we have a difference in usage of the word based on its semantic range. Yom can refer to the actual period of sunlight; it can also refer the day/night cycle that we traditionally call "day." There is no particular pragmatic effect in either of these. These sentences are much like my first example of "your children." The context makes it very clear which usage of yom Moses has in mind. He defines the first use as the light (so there is no doubt of his meaning; and if that were not enough, he contrasts it to night); the second is used in a perfectly typical sense of a normal day. There is no implication of pragmatic effect here.

• ” 2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

The phrase using yom here is "course of time." Important here is that yom is plural: yomim[/], and a more literal translation might be, "at the end of days." This usage of yom in the plural is not at all unique. Yomim is often used to indicate a passing of time. In fact, if OEC were correct, I would expect to see Moses have said yomim ("the first days") and not yom. In any case, it's worth noting that this usage presupposes and is built on the normal use of yom--the passing of time is a passage of days. That is, yom does NOT have a different semantic identity that "day" as in your previous example. This is just another use of the primary usage.

So much for semantic ranges and pragmatic effect. The point, after all the jargon, is that yom may be used to refer to ages, but it never means an age, and if it refers to an unspecific period of time, it does so pragmatically rather than semantically. In short, the word does not mean an "age," and "age" is only an appropriate translation when the nature of the unfolding event is such that the English word "age" is the only way to catch the pragmatic effect of the underlying Hebrew.

Bottom line: the question for us is, "Is yom being used to set the temporal context in Gensis 1, or is it being used to refer to a day?" I think it's rather evident that yom is being used in a normal way. There are absolutely no linguistic markers to indicate otherwise, and later biblical writers took it exactly that way as well. So do did ALL interpreters throughout history until the 17th century. Even those interpreters that OEC advocates point to as not believing the days were literal days read yom to mean a normal, 24 hour day. They simply took those "days" to be symbolic of something else (since they followed a non-literal hermeneutic).

As I said, there's just no evidence for OEC in the text. It's just forced on the text. It's not the biblical view.

---------------------

neo, I'll respond to your post later on. Maybe tonight. I'm at work, so if things stay calm--no emergency calls--I might have some time to get to it. But if not, in the next day or so.

[domokunrox]

Just wanted to put my input here. I don't feel that the creation details are a critical aspect of our faith.

God has made man intelligent, and thus we can learn about reality by the evidence.
That said, what evidence? Well, we can agree that the age of the earth does not appear to be " new" (less then a few thousand years old). By observing the heavens, we can see that there is more to creation then just the earth and we intelligent enough to learn that creation has a lot of "time" (more then a few thousand years) behind it.

Now, I am fully aware that this is all speculation regardless of belief in Young or Old. I can certainly accept that God could have and has done the creation as it is stated. (24 hour days). Believing as such is not a problem at all. What is the problem?

The way I view it, God could have created a young earth, but it appears old, and unfortunately this would make God a deceiver. So, I have to reject it because its completely contrary to his nature (impossible). Let me be clear here again. It is possible for God to have a young creation, but impossible for God to have a young creation that appears old. Now, we can start arguing about what is young or old, but I would argue that we aren't that stupid and we can certainly tell the difference. Especially today.

Problem 2, day, days, hours, 24, etc, do not exist in physical reality. If we are going to be intellectually honest, we going to have to talk about creation in the sense of strictly matter in motion. As far as I can tell you, matter in motion for the past "few thousand years" is quantitatively miniscule compared to "the entire duration" of matter in motion "up to this point" which is still "ongoing".

I don't mean to be confusing to anyone here by my quotes, so sorry in advance.

Let me clarify my position.

God certainly could create a young earth, but it appears old. So, I reject that idea.
Measurements of time are entirely useful fictions to make sense of reality. Its sole purpose is ONLY AND ONLY to help make people make sense of something they cannot sense. With that in mind, we have the ability to make better sense of the "placeholder" fictions used. Hence, feel free to stop panicking and bickering about if it represents reality. It represents absolutely no threat to our theology.

[PaulSacramento]

Jac, I know you don't come to conclusions without putting a lot of time into studying something. Have you written anything in detail about how you came to your decision to believe the YEC interpretation of scripture? I'd love to read it. You've certainly helped me see some things I've overlooked before.

Not on this particular subject. I have written quite a bit on these boards about my view of Rom 5:12 and Gen 1:29-31. I also recently wrote a full length grammatical study of Rom 5:12 that I'm talking to some journals about publishing.

Beyond that, though, I actually haven't written anything. As I mentioned before, I spent a lot of hours doing an exhaustive analysis of the use of yom. Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to redo it from scratch as I don't know that I can get the file back.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I don't consider the YEC/OEC debate all that important so I don't spent a lot of time defending my views here. All I can really point you to are the conclusions I've drawn, such as:

1. Gen 1:29-31 teaches that mankind was originally a vegetarian;
2. Rom 5:12 teaches that death came into the entire creation (not just mankind) when Adam sinned;
3. Both the OT and the NT present the millennial reign of Christ as a restoration of the conditions of Eden and the removal of the curse of death and decay from the world;
4. The use of the word yom in Genesis 1, by any analysis of the linguistice evidence, shows that Moses believed the world was created in six normal days;
5. The word yom was never interpreted as a literal age (in the sense of appealing to the semantic range of the word) prior to the widespread scientific acceptance of a very old historical timeline for this earth and the universe as a whole.

Obviously, OECs disagree with me on every count. I appreciate that. I just think that the evidence is firmly against them. I think that if we are going to start with the belief that the universe really is billions of years old, then we need to accept that the biblical picture is one of a few thousand years created over a 144 hour period and ask what that means about our hermeneutics and what that does to inspiration. What we don't need to do is take a preexisting cosmology to Scripture and reading the Bible in light of that. It just doesn't work, no matter how hard we try. And from an apologetic perspective, I find it just as useless, because no atheist or skeptic is suddenly impressed if you give up YEC anymore than they are if you give up OEC in favor of theistic evolution or miracles in favor of a naturalistic reading of the text. The real issue is strictly and totally what you (and they) do with Jesus. Nothing else matters.

-------------------------------------------

I have to be honest, that "Yom" ONLY means a 24 hour period is not something I have ever heard or read about before.
That it can mean more is basically agreed upon by virtually every OT scholar.
It can mean a period of time, even a generation.
Now, in the context of Genesis, IF we read the whole text as literal, it seems to imply that it means a 24 hour period since it makes mention of a "there was evening and there was morning".
Of course the issue with that is that, at least in for the first "three days" there was no sun or moon to "gauge" the "evening and the morning".

On a side note, Jac, to you believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and if so, some or all of it?

You misread me. I didn't say yom ONLY means a 24 hour period. I said that when it is used without linguistic qualifications (e.g., absolutely, in the singular, not in a prepositional phrase, no demonstrative pronouns, etc.) it always refers to a 24 hour period. Moreover, I argued that, strictly speaking, even in those other phrases, it does not mean a "long period of time." We're going to get too technical here, but there is a difference in semantic meaning and pragmatic effect . Even if I concede for the sake of argument that "age" is part of yom's semantic range my points above on this regard were related to its pragmatic effect on discourse. Let me give you an easy English example. Take the phrase, "your children." There is little doubt about the semantic range of either of these words, and taken together, it's meaning is very obvious. Now, suppose you said to me,

"You children were a little on the wild side today, Jac." That sentence is rather clear and we all know what it means. Now, suppose I say to my wife (who is the mother of my children),

"Your children were a little on the wild side today, dear." Suddenly, that sentence takes on a new meaning. The "your" in "your children" has a distancing effect. It is surprising to the hearer (my wife) and says a lot more than the words themselves.

Now, all languages have features like that--features that have certain pragmatic impacts. One of the things we do with language is set contexts, and one of the contexts we have to set is the temporal context of any given event. I could simply tell you when something happen, "In 1492, Columbus set sail for America." Or, I could do it another way, perhaps, "In the days of Queen Isabel, Columbus set sail for America." If my hearer knows something about Spanish history, the pragmatic effect of this phrasing is to draw my attention to the personage and rule of Isabel. I'm no longer thinking about an abstract time (1492), but rather about a specific personality. The effect is to tie Isabel's reign to Columbus' discovery.

Now, it so happens that "in the day of" is a rather common way across languages to set temporal contexts. I haven't done a serious study of any languages to see if any don't use that particular mechanism--perhaps it is so widely used because the Hebrews used it and passed it on to us through the Scriptures! What I do know, after all of this, is that yom ("day") does not mean an age. It is used in some cases to set the temporal context of this or that event, and it is the event itself that is the focus of the discussion. That event may be immediate, happening in an instant. That event may be long unfolding, happening over generations. But the duration of the event is determined by the nature of the event itself, not by yom.

Before I leave off this, let me look your own two examples to show what I mean, as these well illustrate my point.

• And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

So here we have a difference in usage of the word based on its semantic range. Yom can refer to the actual period of sunlight; it can also refer the day/night cycle that we traditionally call "day." There is no particular pragmatic effect in either of these. These sentences are much like my first example of "your children." The context makes it very clear which usage of yom Moses has in mind. He defines the first use as the light (so there is no doubt of his meaning; and if that were not enough, he contrasts it to night); the second is used in a perfectly typical sense of a normal day. There is no implication of pragmatic effect here.

• ” 2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

The phrase using yom here is "course of time." Important here is that yom is plural: yomim[/], and a more literal translation might be, "at the end of days." This usage of yom in the plural is not at all unique. Yomim is often used to indicate a passing of time. In fact, if OEC were correct, I would expect to see Moses have said yomim ("the first days") and not yom. In any case, it's worth noting that this usage presupposes and is built on the normal use of yom--the passing of time is a passage of days. That is, yom does NOT have a different semantic identity that "day" as in your previous example. This is just another use of the primary usage.

So much for semantic ranges and pragmatic effect. The point, after all the jargon, is that yom may be used to refer to ages, but it never means an age, and if it refers to an unspecific period of time, it does so pragmatically rather than semantically. In short, the word does not mean an "age," and "age" is only an appropriate translation when the nature of the unfolding event is such that the English word "age" is the only way to catch the pragmatic effect of the underlying Hebrew.

Bottom line: the question for us is, "Is yom being used to set the temporal context in Gensis 1, or is it being used to refer to a day?" I think it's rather evident that yom is being used in a normal way. There are absolutely no linguistic markers to indicate otherwise, and later biblical writers took it exactly that way as well. So do did ALL interpreters throughout history until the 17th century. Even those interpreters that OEC advocates point to as not believing the days were literal days read yom to mean a normal, 24 hour day. They simply took those "days" to be symbolic of something else (since they followed a non-literal hermeneutic).

As I said, there's just no evidence for OEC in the text. It's just forced on the text. It's not the biblical view.

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neo, I'll respond to your post later on. Maybe tonight. I'm at work, so if things stay calm--no emergency calls--I might have some time to get to it. But if not, in the next day or so.

I see your points Jac but I wonder If you are taking into account the literary genre of Genesis and if you, WHAT genre do you think it is?