Genesis & Creation   

"This question arises from the common misunderstanding of what the Bible means when it states that there is "one God" (Deuteronomy 6:4). The word "God" is a family name or description telling us that there is one deity. In fact, the Hebrew for God is ELOHIM (Genesis 1:1)which is a collective noun indicating a plural word with a singular meaning. It is like the words, flock, herd, family, or church. All of these words indicate singular entities, but there are more than one individual in each that makes up the whole. In fact, none of these collective nouns could exist if there were not more than one individual that were are part of them. You cannot have a herd if you own only one cow. Neither can God refer to Himself as Elohim and there be only one individual that is God.

The evidence for this plurality is also obvious in our English translations:
*Genesis 1:26 "Let US make man..."
*Genesis 11:7 "Let US go down..."
*Genesis 19:24 "Then the Lord [Jehovah] rained brimstone and fire... from the Lord [Jehovah] out of the heavens." Notice that one Jehovah is raining down fire and brimstone from another Jehovah.

It is further evident that there are three individuals that make up the God family (Elohim) and were involved in creating the heavens and earth:
*John 17:5; Psalm 8:3 The Father
*John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-16 The Son
*Genesis 1:2; Job 26:13; 33:4 The Holy Spirit

Evidence for this plurality is also indicated a number of times in the New Testament:
*Matthew 3:16-17 Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all present at the baptism of Jesus.
*John 16:13-15 All three are again mentioned in one text as being part of the work of revealing the word."

In the first place, this question as asked assumes that which has NOT been proven, namely, that the earth is billions of years old. On the other hand, it not surprising that evolutionists today believe in an old earth. If one starts with the presupposition that there is no God, an old earth is the only alternative. After all, the earth does appear to be very old. Consider the following:

(1. Genesis 1 indicates that God made the earth with the appearance of age. Everything was made full grown. You can imagine Adam on the sixth day looking at the stars (millions of light years away), and wondering aloud how many millions of years everything had been in existence before he was made. Of course, God would have replied that those stars were only made a few days before with the light supernaturally brought to the earth and thus bypassing the millions of years it would have ordinarily taken for the light to arrive. Consider: how old did Adam look to Eve after Eve was made? But how old was he?

(2. There is no way scientifically to prove the age of the earth. There are too many variables. All of the scientific dating methods used today depend upon the belief that what we see happening in the world today, is what has always happened. There is no room for the possibility of "creation" or even a world-wide catastrophe. Consider: if you walked into a room with a lit candle, could you discover by observation how long the candle had been burning? You might measure the rate of burn along with the amount of wax at the bottom of the candle and think you had an accurate measurement. But you would be assuming that the rate of burn was always the same; that there was never a breeze in the room that might have increased the rate of burn; or that the candle was not put out and re-lit at some time. There is only one way of knowing how long the candle has been burning: ask the person who lit it!

Sometimes this question may be asked by a theistic evolutionist and thus there is a discussion as to whether the days of Genesis 1 & 2 are literal 24-hour days. Consider the following:

(1. Everything we read in the Bible (or anywhere else for that matter) must be taken literally unless something in the context demands otherwise. Nothing in the context of Genesis 1 & 2 indicates figurative language. In fact, the Lord did everything He could to indicate literal days by saying after each creative day, "there was an evening and a morning." Evening and morning are caused by the 24 hour rotation of the earth. The terms "evening and morning" each occur over 100 times in the Old Testament and always have the literal meaning.

(2. Further, in Exodus 20:8-11, the same writer, Moses, records that the Israelites were to work six days and rest the seventh day just as God worked six days and rested the seventh. This is the same Hebrew word for "days" and there is no indication of any figurative period of time. How ever long the day was in Moses time is how long it was at the time of the creation.

(3. The word "day" (YOM) when modified by the numeral (e.g. "third day") is a construction occurring more than 100 times in the Pentateuch alone and always with the literal meaning.

"The fossil record has been a source of great misinformation over the years. Practically every evolutionist would like you to believe that there are hundreds of "transitional forms" found among the fossils that indicate a gradual evolution of life. Actually, just the opposite is true. The fossil record displays that same distinct life categories as what we see in the animal world around us. "Fifty million" year-old bats are still bats! Even Darwin himself understood that the fossil record was the most serious objection to his theory. In his chapter entitled, "On The Imperfection Of The Geologic Record", he writes, "...intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory."

Now more than 120 years later, nothing has changed. David Raup, a leading evolutionist and curator of the famous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which houses 20% of all fossil species known, writes in his 1979 article entitled "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology", "Most people assume that fossils provide a very important history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true...Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded...Ironically we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information." If this man in his position can see less transitional evidence than Darwin, the fossil record does not provide evidence for evolution. {Quotes taken from THE FACTS OF LIFE by Gary Parker, page 94-95)

In the first place, there is no logical reason for scientists to date dinosaurs before man. They do so simply because of their evolutionary model and a presupposition that dinosaurs and man could not have cohabited. In fact, tracks of dinosaur and human footprints have been found in the Puluxy River bed in south Texas fossilized in stone. These tracks actually cross providing strong evidence for the co-existence of dinosaur and human.

Further, the Bible certainly includes dinosaurs when it speaks of the creation of all animals in Genesis 1:25 and again when the animals were taken into the ark (Genesis 7:2).

Job gave descriptions of two animals that are unlike anything we have ever seen today. The descriptions of Behemoth (Job 40:15-24) and Leviathan (Job 41) are as dinosaur-like as one could get.

Remember, that about 18,000 species of animals have become extinct since the flood (that is, there are over 18,000 species of animals in the fossil record that are not alive today). It is therefore not surprising that a few dinosaurs became extinct along with so many others.

By the way, travel to the zoo and go to the reptile section and see if you don't see some animals that would be considered dinosaurs if they were found as fossils instead of alive!

Again, the years were certainly literal because there is nothing in the context of Genesis to indicate that the writer was speaking figuratively. And, since Moses was writing (Luke 24:44), he wrote with the same years in mind that were taking place in his day (he lived to 120 years).

The question of why people lived so long before the flood can only be answered by gathering the facts we know from the Bible and then theorizing the most logical explanation. Consider the following:

(1. II Peter 3:3-7 tells us that there was a different "world" (KOSMOS -- order or arrangement of the world) before the flood and that this old world perished. Therefore, we must go to Genesis and find out how the old world was different.

(2. Genesis 1:6-7 tells us that there was a large body of water (evidently in vapor form) that God placed above the atmosphere. There is no such thing in our atmosphere today. This being so, Henry Morris of the Institute For Creation Research explains that such a body of water would have blocked out most incoming solar radiation along with increasing atmospheric pressure which would have dramatically contributed to human and animal health and longevity.

(3. This would explain why there was no rain in those days and no rainbow (Genesis 2:5). This amount of water in the atmosphere would have created uniform temperatures over the whole world with no polar ice caps and therefore no winds and no storms.

(4. This would also explain some of the unusual geologic discoveries. Even evolutionary scientist admit that at one time the earth was much warmer than it is now. Elephant ivory has been mined out of the ice of Siberia for over 200 years and the supply seems inexhaustible. An estimated 5 million African mammoths are buried in the ice along the coasts of Alaska and Siberia. Elephants have been found quick-frozen, with food half-chewed and half-digested. Evidence of tropical jungles have been uncovered where year-round ice packs exist.

(5. This large body of water in the atmosphere would also later be used by God to flood the world. Remember, it rained for forty days and nights covering the earth over twenty-two feet above the highest mountains. Such would be impossible today since all the water in the atmosphere would only cover the earth to about one inch."

In Henry Morris' book THE GENESIS RECORD, page 185, he notes that there were about 36,000 species of animals on the earth at the time of the Flood. This would mean no more than 75,000 species of animals on the ark when the extra "clean" animals are included. The capacity of the ark would equal 522 train stock cars, whereas 75,000 animals would only fill about 300 stock cars and thus be filled to about 60% of its capacity.

The ark had more than enough room to carry all the animals required to replenish the earth. Remember also, Noah would not have brought full-size animals on to the ark nor would ALL of these species needed to go on the ark. A few more basic "kinds" would have sufficed to produce the variation we have in existence today.

The amount of evidences for the Flood are overwhelming and I would again refer the reader to THE GENESIS FLOOD by Henry Morris as well as THE WORLD THAT PERISHED by John C. Whitcomb. Some of the evidences to consider are as follows:

(1. Fossils found of sea life in the tops of all the mountains of the world which not only indicates water from the oceans reaching that level, but also the catastrophic death of billions of animals at one time.

(2. The discovery of jungles and millions of African mammoths in Siberia and Alaska. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1956, XII, page 834, states, "The Siberian deposits have been worked now for nearly two centuries. The store appears to be as inexhaustible as a coal field. Some think that a day may come when the spread of civilization may cause the utter disappearance of the elephant in Africa, and that it will be to these deposits that we may have to turn as the only source of animal ivory." An estimated 5,000,000 mammoths whose remains are buried all along the coastline of northern Siberia and Alaska, were frozen and buried not many thousands of years ago.

The answer to this question is simply a matter of understanding a little about genetics. There is a tremendous potential for variation within the children of just one human couple. Evolutionist Francisco Ayala calculates that a single human couple could produce 102,017 children before they would have to produce an identical twin. The number of atoms in the known universe is a mere 1080, nothing at all compared with the variety that is present in just two human beings. In fact, it would take only one generation to get all the variations of skin color that we see among people today. If two parents with medium skin color (possessing recessive genes of both black and white), had sixteen children, on the average one child would be completely black with no capability of passing on any "white" genes. One child would be completely white with no capability of passing on any "black" genes. Four children would be medium black, four medium white, and six children (less than half) would be the same color as their parents. God placed in Adam and Eve and ultimately in Noah's sons and their wives, all the genetic capabilities to produce the variation in human beings that we see in our world today (CREATION: THE FACTS OF LIFE, by Gary Parker, page 77-79) After the Flood and the incident at the tower of Babel, people scattered over the face of the earth according to their languages. Continual marrying and producing children within their group eventually produced dominant characteristics that became the various races of people in the world (See Genesis 10).

This question is often asked in order to argue that there may have already been a race of people on the earth before God created Adam and Eve. In the days of slavery and prejudice some used this as an argument for the origin of the black races. Others have used it to imply evolution having already taken place on the earth or even that Satan had created a race of people. The matter is settled with three simple facts:

(1. Genesis 4:16-17 Cain did not meet his wife when he went to the land of Nod, he had relations with her. He already had her when he went to Nod.

(2. Genesis 3:20 Eve is the mother of all living.

(3. Genesis 5:4 Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters. Cain, therefore, married a sister. This, however, was not a problem for two reasons:

(1. Mankind was genetically brand new and did not need to worry about the 1500 genetic defects that we have today in our gene pool.

(2. God did not forbid intermarriage until Leviticus 18 where the nearest of kin one was allowed to marry was first cousin.

Evolution denies known accepted laws of science that are accepted by all. R.B. Lindsay, in AMERICAN SCIENTIST, states, "there is a general natural tendency of all observed systems to go from order to disorder, reflecting dissipation of energy available for future transformation--the law of increasing entropy." Further, Isaac Asimov, in SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE JOURNAL, states, "Another way of stating the second law then is: 'The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!' Viewed that way, we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out--all by itself--and that is what the second law is all about.

True, and Hebrews 1:10-11 confirms that the earth has been growing old since God created it. But evolution theorizes the very opposite, claiming that things are going from a state of disorder to a state of order, and that such is irreversible. Julian Huxley, in his article, EVOLUTION & GENETICS, states, "Evolution in the extended sense can be defined as a directional and essentially irreversible process occurring in time, which in its course gives rise to an increase of variety and an increasingly high level of organization in its products. Our present knowledge indeed forces us to the view that the whole of reality is evolution--a single process of self-transformation.

Further, of necessity, evolution must believe in millions upon millions of favorable mutations that began from nothing more than hydrogen or some other gases, which given enough time, produced people. And we are told that it is ignorant to believe in miracles! Harlow Shapley states, Some people piously proclaim, 'In the beginning God.' I say, 'In the beginning, Hydrogen.' Now how possible is that!

Consider the MARVELOUS FIT OF ORGANISMS TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

For example, consider the many large fish with sharp teeth that feed on shrimp and smaller fish. Their mouths begin to accumulate food debris and parasites. How is such a fish going to clean its teeth? The answer is a visit to the local cleaning station where there are certain shrimp and small brightly colored fish. After eating, a predatory fish will literally swim over and take his place in line to have his teeth cleaned. It opens it mouth, baring vicious teeth and allows the little cleaner fish to swim in its mouth and through the gills picking off parasites in the soft tissues of the mouth. And when the cleaning is done the big fish does not eat the cleaner fish but allows it to escape. Then the big fish swims off hunting for other little fish and shrimp to eat. But how could this cleaning symbiosis have evolved? Evolutionist and Nobel Prize Winner Albert Szent-Gyorgi writes the following about mutualism among living things: "All this may sound very simple, but it involves a whole series of most complicated chain reactions with a horrible complex underlying nervous mechanism..." "All this had to be developed simultaneously." In commenting on Szent-Gyorgi's observations, Dr. Gary Parker writes, "It's the same thing for cleaning symbiosis; it's no good if the little fish gets the idea to go into the big fish's mouth before the big fish inherits the final random mutational change to let it back out again." Szent-Gyorgi continues that he odds of getting all these random favorable mutations to happen at the same time is...ZERO. He says it just can't come about by time and chance and the natural process of mutation. Instead, he postulates "syntropy" or basically an impersonal creative force. He recognizes creation can be logically deduced but denies the Creator. (CREATION: THE FACTS OF LIFE, page 35).

There are many other similar examples such as the Nile crocodile that will open its mouth for the Egyptian Plover to walk in and pick off the parasites. The Yucca moth that lays it eggs in the seed chamber of a yucca plant providing not only food for its young, but the only means of the yucca plant pollinating itself.

Consider also the Bombardier Beetle. The following story is told by Dr. Duane Gish (FROM FISH TO GISH, page 145-146):

THAT MEAN OL' BEETLE-EATER

"Although he looks like an ordinary beetle, he is really a very unusual beetle. When some mean ol' beetle-eater comes and threatens to eat him, BOOM! --an explosion goes off right in the face of this mean ol' beetle-eater.
"It turns out that this beetle mixes hydrogen peroxide and hydrogen quinone and puts it in a storage chamber. The remarkable thing about this is that it is a very explosive mixture. It would blow up if I did it in the laboratory. But the beetle adds an inhibitor. When the mean ol' beetle-eater comes up, he squirts this solution into twin combustion tubes. At just the right moment, he adds an anti-inhibitor which neutralizes the inhibitor. BOOM! An explosion takes place. Noxious gases are expelled at 212 degrees Fahrenheit right in the face of the mean ol' beetle-eater. That's enough to discourage any mean ol' beetle-eater!

"Let us imagine how this might have happened by evolution. Millions of years ago, there was a little beetle. Let's call him 'Beetle Bailey.' How he got a storage chamber, I do not know. One day he decided to throw in some hydrogen peroxide and hydrogen quinone. BOOM! He blew himself up. You see, he didn't have the inhibitor. But why would he evolve the inhibitor until he had the two chemicals? He would have no use for it. It would have no evolutionary adaptive value. But if he had the two chemicals first, it's too late! He's already blown himself up.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! For thousands of generations little beetles are blowing themselves up. They can't pass the information down to their offspring because they didn't have any offspring. There is no way that evolution could work that out.

Let's suppose that by some miracle some little beetle gets the inhibitor. You say, 'That's tremendous!' No, absolutely not. What good would it do? It would just soak and sour and corrode his innards. It would do no good. He still doesn't have the anti-inhibitor. Why would he invent the anti-inhibitor until he had the inhibitor to begin with? But why would he invent the two chemicals and the inhibitor first? It does no good. There is no evolutionary rationale for it.

"Let us suppose that finally, by some miracle, some little beetle invents the anti-inhibitor. You say, 'We have arrived.' No, he doesn't have the twin combustion tubes yet. He adds the anti-inhibitor and BOOM! He blows himself up again. There would be no evolutionary advantage to invent the anti-inhibitor without the other chemicals. but if he invents it with the other chemicals, he blows up.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Again, for thousands of generations little beetles are blowing themselves up. They don't have those twin combustion tubes which are incredibly complex. An amazing genetic apparatus is needed to evolve those twin combustion tubes. Why would they need the twin combustion tubes until they had the two chemicals, the inhibitor, and the anti-inhibitor? But they would have no use for the other until they had the twin combustion tubes. You have to have it all together.

"Let's assume that by a tremendous miracle of evolutionary mutations or mistakes that some little beetle evolved the twin combustion tubes. 'Now,' you say, 'we finally are there!'

"No, not quite. He doesn't have the communication network. He doesn't have the signal worked out. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if his friend, Joe Beetle, comes up, pats him on the back and says, 'Hi, Friend!' BOOM! He will lose a lot of friends that way.

"But, why would he need the communication network and the signal until he had everything else? But everything else without the network does him no good either. You see, you have to have everything complete. You must have the storage chamber, the two chemicals, the inhibitor, the anti-inhibitor, the twin combustion tubes, and the communication network. Then and only then will you have a bombardier beetle. Up until that time you have nothing but disaster. You have no way of getting from one to the other. You must remain little old 'Beetle Bailey.'

Mean ol' beetle-eaters should be enthusiastic for evolution. It is because of creation that those mean ol' beetle-eaters are not able to eat more bombardier beetles." (FROM FISH TO GISH, page 145-147)

THE FLICKER WOODPECKER

"Here's a bird that makes its living banging its head into trees. Whatever gave it the idea to do that in the first place? Was it frustration from losing the worm to the early bird? How did banging its head into trees increase its likelihood for survival--until after it had accumulated (by chance?) a thick skull with shock absorbing tissues, muscles, etc.! And what would be the survival value of all these features (and how could they build up in the population) until after the bird started banging it head into trees?

And what about the beetle under the bark? The beetle is surely aware of all the woodpecker's pounding. So, while the woodpecker is pounding, the beetle is crawling further down its hole or digging another hole. So, before any of the drilling adaptations can have any fitness, the woodpecker must have a long, sticky tongue to reach what it somehow knows is good food under that tough tree bark.

But if you have a long, sticky tongue and you're a bird, where do you put the long tongue? For the woodpecker, the answer is to wrap its tongue under the skin and bring it clear around the head and insert it in the right nostril! Now, if you start as an ordinary bird with a short tongue and no tongue sheath, what would you do in the intermediate states--perhaps, for example, with a tongue too long for the bill but too short to catch the beetles you've just been beating your head into trees to catch?" (CREATION: THE FACTS OF LIFE, page 51). Further, think of this bird in the intermediate stages of developing each of these traits. Before he develops a thick skull with shock-absorbing tissues, he will immediately give himself severe brain damage the first time he bangs his beak into a tree, not to mention what would happen to his beak!

- What about Genesis 9:20-27? Why did Noah curse Canaan for something that Ham did? What exactly did Ham do and what was the curse? First it is important to consider all the facts involved in this story:

1. There was something that Ham did to his father that Noah was aware of when he awoke from his wine (vs.24).

2. Whatever Ham did and told his brothers about caused the brothers to abhor the sin so much that they covered their father by walking backwards into the tent so as not to see the nakedness of their father. (Obviously just the seeing of his nakedness was not the sin.)

3. There must be a connection between what Ham did and Canaan since there were four sons of Ham and neither Ham nor the other sons were cursed.

4. The curse, as well as the blessings on the other brothers, are prophecies dealing with the nations that would come from these people, and not statements about what would happen to the people themselves.

Fitting all this together, my conclusion is that Ham looked upon his father in lust and in some way committed a sin that would be both incestuous and homosexual and was later denounced in the Canaanites (See Leviticus 18:1-25).