BIBLICAL AGE OF THE UNIVERSE

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Exodus 20:11—An Insurmountable Stone Wall Against Adding Millions of Years to the Bible

God’s commentary on the Sabbath refutes all long-age theories.

by Dr. Terry Mortenson Sept. 22, 2023, featured in Answers in Depth (www.answersingenesis.org)

In Exodus 20:8–10, God gave the children of Israel the fourth commandment: work for six days and then on the seventh day, take a Sabbath rest. He could have given the command without providing a reason for the command, as he did in the first and the fifth through the tenth commandments and other times when he commanded a Sabbath rest. Or he could have given a different reason for the Sabbath command (e.g., so their animals could rest, to avoid death for disobedience, to humble their souls, to remember their exodus from slavery in Egypt, or simply because he is the Lord. But as in the second and third commands in Exodus 20, God gave a reason for the Sabbath command. The Israelites should work six days and rest on the seventh, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” And he repeated that reason in Exodus 31:15–17.

In Exodus 20:11, God used the same Hebrew word for “days”11 (yamim, the plural form of yom [day]) that he used in verse nine, showing that God’s days of creation in Genesis 1 were the same kind of days (the same length) as the days of the week for the Israelites. It is doubtful if any faithful Jew ever interpreted it any other way until the idea of millions of years started to take control of people’s minds about two centuries ago.

We should note that if God really created over the course of millions of years (as most Christians around the world today believe), he could have clearly indicated that in the Hebrew. He could have used the Hebrew word dor (דּוֹר), which is translated in English Bibles as time, period, or generation.12 Or he could have borrowed an Aramaic word, as he did in the books of Nehemiah and Daniel, such as zeman (זְמָ֑ן) or iddan (עִדָּן), which are translated as season, time, or period.13 Or he could have used some phrase such as “after many days,”14 “after some years,”15 “after thousands of ten thousand years,”16 or “after years of many generations.”17 But instead, God used the only Hebrew word, yom (יוֹם), which means a literal, 24-hour day, and it means that (or the light portion of a literal, 24-hour day, in contrast to night) in the majority of the 2,320 times it is used in the Old Testament.

One more point for this discussion: Exodus 20:8–11 clearly implies that the days of Genesis 1 (and therefore the events on those six days) are in sequential order, just as the days of a human week are. Sunday always comes before Monday, which always comes before Tuesday, etc. So, in Genesis 1, God created the earth completely covered with water and then he created light (day 1), then the expanse (firmament) to separate the water into two parts (day 2), and then the dry land and all kinds of land plants (day 3). After that, he created the heavenly bodies to serve as timekeepers for man (day 4), then the sea creatures and birds and other flying creatures (day 5), then all the kinds of land animals and, finally, the first man and woman to be the progenitors of mankind (day 6). Given that truth, we can readily see the many contradictions between the order of creation and the order of events in the evolution story.18 We cannot remove those contradictions no matter where we might try to fit millions of years.

It is clear: God created everything in the beginning in six literal, sequential, 24-hour days. The events on those days were not normal but were unique and supernatural as God spoke things into existence (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26; Psalm 33:6–9). He didn’t speak and then wait millions of years for things to happen. But the days were normal days (approximately 24 hours), just like our days, “all the days” of Adam’s 930 years of life (Genesis 5:5), and “all the days” of Noah’s 950 years of life (Genesis 9:29).

No Place to Put the Millions of Years

So, we can’t spread the millions of years over “figurative” or “symbolic” creation “days” (ages), as in the day-age view. And because God equated the human workweek with his creation week, there is no basis for saying that, in Genesis 1, long stretches of time (millions of years) transpired between the literal days, as in the “day-gap-day” view of John Lennox.

But we also can’t fit millions of years before the six literal days, as in the old gap theory, the more recent “promised land” view of John Sailhamer, the view of John Lennox, or the “analogical day” view of C. John Collins. Nor can we fit the millions of years before Genesis 1:1, as in the “cosmic temple view” of John Walton and others. There was no time before the six days, because notice what God said he created in those six days: the heaven,20 the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. He didn’t make anything before the six days. He made everything during those six days. But when did God make the earth according to Genesis 1? He made it in verse 1, not in verse 3, which is where many Christians try to say that the six days begin. So, combining Exodus 20:11 with Genesis 1:1 unmistakably informs us that the six days begin in Genesis 1:1, not in 1:3.

There simply is no place to put millions of years of geological and cosmological time into or before Genesis 1—not in the days, between the days, or before the days of creation. Exodus 20:11 completely rules out those interpretations. There are many biblical, historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons to reject the millions of years, but Exodus 20:11 is a very important biblical reason. Another very important reason that nearly all old-earth proponents ignore is the problem of accepting millions of years of animal predation, death, disease, extinction, and other natural evils. This is seriously incompatible with the Bible’s teaching regarding the original “very good” creation, regarding God’s curse on the whole creation when Adam sinned, and regarding the future removal of the curse on creation when Jesus comes again to create a new heaven and earth.

Evasions of Exodus 20:11

As I said at the beginning, I have found in my reading and experience that most Christians who accept millions of years have not thought very carefully, if at all, about what Exodus 20:11 says in relation to the question of the age of the creation.

To see the truth and importance of Exodus 20:11 more assuredly, let’s now consider how some influential Christian scholars who accept the millions of years have handled this verse.

Through his 1955 book, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, Baptist theologian Bernard Ramm moved many to accept millions of years as he advocated the day-age view of Genesis 1. This is all he said about verse 11 in the fourth commandment: “The argument against the [day-age, progressive-creation] theory on the grounds of Exodus 20:11 is not at all significant. The verse simply means that the human week of seven days takes its rise from the divine week of seven creative epochs.”24 Following the scientific consensus by faith, he had already interpreted the days of Genesis 1 as “epochs.” Then he used this to silence Exodus 20:11. This is not a sound interpretation of Scripture, for he ignored God’s own commentary.

Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology is widely used in seminaries in English and other languages. In his first edition in 1983, he showed no awareness of recent young-earth creationist literature, gave a shallow treatment of the view, and undogmatically leaned toward the day-age view of Genesis 1. But his only mention of Exodus 20:8–11 was not in his chapter on creation but in the chapter on Christology regarding Jesus’ view on keeping the Sabbath. In spite of saying in his 1983 first edition that the subject of creation warranted further study, his third edition in 2013 showed no improvement on his awareness of young-earth literature or our biblical and scientific arguments, and he still ignored Exodus 20:8–11.25

In his book, Genesis in Space and Time, the great apologist Francis Schaeffer devoted merely a single paragraph to the question of the length of the creation days and said he did not know how long they were (p. 57). His book makes no reference to Exodus 20:8–11.

Gleason Archer was a leading evangelical Old Testament scholar in the twentieth century. In an article defending the day-age view, he stated about Exodus 20:11 in regard to the six days of Genesis 1, “By no means does this [verse] demonstrate that 24-hour intervals were involved in the first six ‘days,’ any more than the eight-day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles proves that the wilderness wanderings under Moses occupied only eight days.” This argument fails because Leviticus 23:33–43 does not connect the number of days of the feast to the number of years Israel wandered in the wilderness. Rather those verses link the command for the Israelites to dwell in booths during the feast with the fact that they dwelt in tents in the wilderness after they left Egypt.

Another influential, twentieth-century Old Testament scholar was E. J. Young. In his Studies in Genesis One, he says that the first chapter of the Bible is a “straightforward trustworthy history.” He asserts that Exodus 20:8–11 tells us the days of creation were “consecutive” and “chronological.” But he says the Bible does not tell us how long the days were and how old the earth is, thereby leaving the door open to the acceptance of millions of years as secular geologists claim.27 It is no surprise then that his son, Davis Young, went on to get his PhD in geology and teach for decades at Calvin College, convincing many students and evangelical theologians to believe in millions of years.

The late John Sailhamer is another prominent evangelical Old Testament professor who has had an impact on many, including John Piper, to accept millions of years. In Genesis Unbound, he argues that Genesis 1:1 refers to the creation of nearly everything over the course of millions of years. But verses 2–31 describe the creation of the promised land (which he equated with the garden of Eden) and the creatures in, above, and around the promised land. He said that Exodus 20:8–11 refers to six literal days of “preparing the [earth’s] sky, the land, and the sea,” but not the earth and universe. His novel interpretation of Genesis is seriously flawed.

The highly respected British apologist John Lennox and well-known Old Testament professor C. John Collins try to evade the implications of Exodus 20:11 by saying that God’s work is different from man’s work. True, unlike man’s work, God’s work in Genesis 1 is supernatural, out-of-nothing, and not repeated, and God doesn’t get tired. But Exodus 20:8–11 is not comparing and contrasting man’s work and God’s work. Rather, the commandment is equating man’s week with God’s week of creation. Lennox and Collins have missed the point completely.

Wayne Grudem is arguably the most influential evangelical theologian in the world as a result of his many helpful writings, especially his Systematic Theology, which is translated into more than 12 major languages. He tries to get around Exodus 20:11 by saying that in the very next verse “‘day’ means ‘a period of time’”—so, since yom is used non-literally in the context, it therefore is not necessarily literal in verse 11. But two points expose the fallacy of this argument. First, yamim (plural of yom and used in 20:8–12) always means literal days everywhere else in the Old Testament. Second, in 20:12 it is not the word “days” (yamim) that is non-literal (figurative). Rather, it is the verb “may be long” (ESV, or “may be prolonged” as in NASB) that is used figuratively. In other words, verse 12 does not mean that if Israelites would keep the Sabbath, they would have longer days (say, 36-hour days) but that they would have many more (literal, 24-hour) days in the promised land to which they were going. Their disobedience would shorten their time of prosperity and residence in the promised land. Their obedience to God would enable them to stay and thrive as a nation in the land for a long time. Verse 12 simply does not say or imply that the six days referred to in Exodus 20:11 are figurative of long periods of time rather than being literal days.

In A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, David Snoke says, “It may sound trite to say that ‘with the Lord one day is as a thousand years’ (2 Peter 3:8; see also Ps. 90:4), but we do well to remember that God’s timing is not always our time.” It is indeed trite and irrelevant. Peter is referring to the second coming of Christ, not defining the length of the days in Genesis 1 or Exodus 20:8–11. Moses’ words in Psalm 90:4 are (in the context of 90:1–3) referring to the eternal nature of God, not defining the days of creation. The rest of Snoke’s argument quotes Leviticus 25:2–11 to say that “the Sabbath law was clearly not restricted to periods of seven twenty-four-hour days. Leviticus 25 gives the Sabbath year law, as well as the Jubilee law, which was a Sabbath of Sabbath years, a period of seven times seven years.”34 Of course Scripture speaks of more than one kind of Sabbath. But those Sabbath years are literal years, just like the Sabbath day of Exodus 20:11 is literal. Furthermore, in Exodus 20:11, the question is not how to interpret “Sabbath” but “day.” And the Israelites did not have or take the liberty of deciding whether they would work six literal days before a Sabbath rest or work six long, indefinite periods of time and then rest a seventh long, indefinite period of time. Leviticus 25 is as irrelevant to the correct meaning of Exodus 20:11 as is 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4.

John Walton is a famous Old Testament scholar at Wheaton College. His influence in the church is growing in America as well as in other countries. In his book, The Lost World of Genesis One, he argues that God didn’t create anything in Genesis 1—it is not an account of material origins. Rather, he says, it is a description of God giving or assigning function to a preexisting creation. Everything was created before Genesis 1:1, and the Bible is silent about when and how God created. So, he contends, we can accept whatever the scientific majority says is true about the origin and history of the creation. His brief comments about Exodus 20:11 focus completely on persuading his readers that “made” (asah, עָשָׂה) means “gave function to” or “assigned function to” something that was made earlier. Walton’s view fails on so many points. He assumes cosmological, geological, and biological evolution over millions of years are proven scientific facts, which they are not. He assumes that all Ancient Near-Eastern cultures had the same worldview and that ancient Israelites shared that view, which they did not. And then he uses the ancient pagan thinking as the grid through which he interprets Genesis 1–11. Furthermore, Genesis 1 does not say that God transformed the preexisting creation to become a cosmic temple in which to reside. In fact, Isaiah 66:1–2 says,

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

Walton and others using the same hermeneutical approach are “trembling at” (believing) the words of scientists, rather than humbly trembling at (believing) the Word of God.

Furthermore, Genesis 1:14 says that the sun, moon, and stars were to serve a function—for man to measure time (literal days, years, and seasons). God assigns a function for Adam and Eve—to rule over the creation (1:28). But God doesn’t assign a function for the firmament (made on day 2), or for sea creatures, birds, or land animals (made on days 5 and 6). And Genesis 1 says nothing about the creation functioning as a cosmic temple at the end of day 6. But also, if God really created the sun, moon, and stars to exist for billions of years before man (as Walton believes), then for most of their existence, they did not fulfill the purpose for which he created them. Or are we to think that, for billions of years, the heavenly bodies also did not function to separate the day and night until God gave them that function just before he created Adam and Eve? Isaiah 45:12 and 18 says that God created the earth to be inhabited by man. So, if God really created the earth 4.5 billion years before man, it did not fulfill the purpose to which God created it. What kind of God declares purposes like this and then waits billions of years to fulfill it? Not the God revealed in Scripture. Neither Genesis 1 nor Exodus 20:11 says or even suggests, “For in six days, God gave function to the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them which he had made before the six days.”

Finally, I want to comment on Hugh Ross’ handling of Exodus 20:11, because so many Christian leaders and scholars have endorsed his work that promotes the acceptance of the big bang, billions of years, death before the fall, and a local flood of Noah. Ross tries to neutralize this verse with two points. First, he says that of the five passages addressing the Sabbath command, three make no connection to God’s creation week and man’s week. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the meaning of Exodus 20:11 (and 31:17) which does make that connection. The fact that God gives more than one reason (or no reason) for keeping the Sabbath, does not negate the reason he gives in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17.

He then says, “For the remaining two passages, the ‘proof’ would hold only if neither the word for ‘day’ nor the word for ‘Sabbath’ were ever used with reference to any time period other than 24 hours.” Relying on Archer’s fallacious argument about the Feast of Tabernacles (noted above), Ross says there is more than one kind of Sabbath (e.g., a Sabbath day, a Sabbath year), just as in his many writings he contends that yom (“day”) doesn’t always mean a literal day, which young-earth creationists have always acknowledged. And so he says, “day” and “sabbath” in Exodus 20:11 can be understood to allow Christians to insert billions of years into Genesis 1.

But sound Bible interpretation is not done by looking up all the possible meanings of a word and then picking the one we want to insert into the verse(s) we are studying. That is eisegesis (reading into Scripture our opinion or belief), not exegesis (reading out of Scripture what God wants us to understand, do, or believe). No, we correctly interpret the Bible by looking at the context around the word in the verse(s) we are studying and by considering other verses that relate directly to that verse. When we do that, it is obvious biblically that the days of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20:8–11 are literal, normal, 24-hour days.

Conclusion

More attempts to ignore or evade the clear truth of Exodus 20:11 could be discussed. But the failed attempts discussed here reinforce the obviously correct interpretation. God made everything in the beginning in six literal, normal days just like ours.

It should also be noted that nobody has any trouble understanding the other nine commandments (although everyone has trouble obeying all of them). So, why all the convoluted arguments in order to explain away the obvious meaning of Exodus 20:11? Because these Christians have allowed the scientific consensus (i.e., the majority view of geologists and astrophysicists) about the age of creation to control their interpretation of God’s Word. The fallible opinions of sinful human beings (who don’t know everything, who make mistakes requiring revisions of their textbooks, and who weren’t there to observe the origin and history of the creation) have trumped the inerrant Word of our eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, infallible Creator in their mind.

If God really created over millions of years, then Exodus 20:8–11 could not be more misleading. Conversely, if God did create in six literal days, he could not be more clear in this commandment and in Genesis 1.

Exodus 20:11 stands as an insurmountable stone wall against any attempt to fit millions of years anywhere into Genesis 1, either in the days, between the days, or before the days of creation. And Scripture is clear that those literal days of creation were just a little more than 6,000 years ago

CHURCH AS JESUS INTENDED

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Returning to a no-frills practice of following Jesus will be good for all of us. We will remember what our faith is all about. This is why in the last days before Jesus returns He needs to purify His church. Apostasy in denominational churches is rife as demonstrated by the acceptance of gay marriage and homosexual pastors. They no longer believe in the inerrancy of God’s Word. Like the world, they have been caught up in the evolutionary myth of billions of years of Earth’s history. They no longer believe that God judged mankind with the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and yet it is the only explanation for the existence of billions of dead things buried quickly all over the world, including the fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas (the result of buried forests). They have discounted both Noah’s flood and the short timescale of Scripture determined by Genesis 1-11. When you study geology from a biblical standpoint and use the geological model of the Flood to connect the real-world observations of geology you discover it is superior to the prevailing old-earth frameworks in explaining the data. (Biblical Geology 101 by Michael Oard and Robert Carter 2021).

An exciting training development, one which could help us prepare for church without buildings, has gained great popularity in the body of Christ over the past several years by readying people for possible service on the mission field, particularly among Muslims. TOAG, or “Training Ordinary Apprentices to Go,” (Global Mobilisation Network). It seeks to teach people to “do church” in small group settings, away from large worship gatherings that will not be available abroad. Participants spend ten months learning how to reach unreached people groups and develop an authentic community in a small group setting. Families with children are welcomed in, and future workers for Christ are much better prepared than earlier generations of believers. I’ve heard from a few that have participated in TOAG that it is difficult, yet rewarding. The method’s founders state the goal of the training: During TOAG, interns learn to be a Kingdom Community without including Western structures that often hinder movements. They experience life in community with other interns, something more akin to the Book of Acts. By taking them out of present ecclesiastical structures, which include powerful (& professional) music, well-crafted homilies (by highly trained professionals) in safe, comfortable surroundings (expensive buildings), interns experience first-hand what is and is not required for believers to be a ‘Kingdom-Community,’ experimenting with simple, organic structures capable of sharing the life-changing power of God’s Kingdom and reproducing into movements. … These are just some of the reasons why many Americans benefit from the hands-on learning experience of TOAG.

We need to prepare for the prophesied persecution that is coming and expect God to grow us through it as never before. Literally, millions of Christians around the world can testify to this truth, as Paul testified clearly in this Scripture.

“We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5:

Whether you use TOAG or some other training method you need to get with like-minded believers who understand the times and get into step with what God is calling us to do in these last days to make sure we complete the Great Commission in the community where God has placed us.

Check out http://www.lastdaysovercomer.org for the free ebook Prepare for the Last Days – Fulfilling God’s Purposes at the End of the Age.

A SURPRISING ECOSYSTEM IN NORTHEASTERN GREENLAND SUPPORTS THE BIBLICAL ICE AGE

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Scientists have developed a new method for discovering which animals inhabited an area. This method analyzes the environmental DNA (eDNA) in the soil from plants and animals that once lived in the region. The method was applied to the Kap København Formation in northeast Greenland, where research has been conducted for nearly 40 years. The area today is a polar desert, home to just a few plants, hares, and musk oxen. Scientists had previously found macrofossils from coniferous boreal forest trees and rich insect fauna, but they were greatly surprised by what they discovered recently.

Scientists found what they believe to be 2-Ma-old DNA, which pushed back the occurrence of ancient DNA almost 1 Ma. They obviously do not accept discoveries of DNA in dinosaurs. Comparing the eDNA to a data bank of DNA from modern plants and animals, the researchers were amazed to find DNA from mastodons, reindeer, rodents, geese, and rabbits that inhabited a forest ecosystem of poplar, spruce, cedar, and yew trees combined with present-day polar vegetation. They identified 102 genera of plants, whereas earlier paleontologists had only identified eight. Some have disputed whether the mastodon DNA is truly from a mastodon or some other elephant.

Such an ecosystem requires much warmer temperatures than today. The present-day average temperature is –17°C. The researchers estimated it would have been 10°C warmer 2 Ma ago, but there are indications that it may have been even warmer since many of the plant fossils found do not grow on permafrost. No one predicted such an ecosystem, and there are no modern analogues. One researcher was quoted as saying: “Not in a million years would you expect a mastodon up there.”

Mastodon remains are found in forests in the United States but are never found in Greenland. And reindeer supposedly had not evolved by that time, as admitted by paleogeneticist Eske Willerslev: “Reindeers, according to paleontologists, should not have survived; they shouldn’t even exist at that time.”

Biblical interpretation

Creation scientists do not accept the date of 2 Ma but have no trouble accepting that this DNA would still exist since all of this eDNA is only thousands of years old. Two Ma lies at the outer edge of DNA’s theoretical shelf life. We have two choices in determining where the organisms fit into biblical Earth history. First, the organisms could be from the worldwide Flood of Noah’s day. A great number of warm-climate Cenozoic fossils exist in the polar areas of the Northern Hemisphere. For instance, trees typical of the southeast United States are found with alligators, crocodiles, large tortoises, and lemurs on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands, and are dated as early Cenozoic. However, these fossils indicate a climate that would be too warm for the early Ice Age. For instance, sea surface temperatures would have cooled too rapidly after the Flood to sustain the observed tropical and subtropical paleo flora. Moreover, winters would have been too cold to sustain them. Furthermore, the preserved leaf-litter sequences on Axel Heiberg Island are preserved as well at the bottom of each layer as they are at the top. This indicates rapid deposition during the Flood rather than prolonged exposure afterward. Therefore, these Cenozoic fossils are from the Flood.

The other option for the Greenland eDNA is that the organisms could be left over from the Ice Age. The oceans would have been warm early in the Ice Age due to the heat produced during the Flood. The Arctic Ocean could have been over 20°C, keeping coastal areas mild by onshore airflow early in the Ice Age. Plants and animals that preferred temperate climates could have lived comfortably for hundreds of years in the far north, especially along the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean. Considering the eDNA evidence, the organisms from northeast Greenland are typical Ice Age animals, such as reindeer and mastodons. Thus, the evidence from eDNA for northeast Greenland, in contrast with that for Axel Heiberg Island, indicates a post-Flood environment. In other words, the fossils in the Kap København Formation were buried early during the temperate climatic conditions during the post-Flood rapid Ice Age, while the Arctic Ocean was relatively warm.

How did the mammals make it to northern Greenland?

There is the question of how the animals would have been able to migrate to northern Greenland across multiple straits, the last being the Nares Strait between Ellesmere Island and Greenland (figure 1). The large mammals could have swum, especially since the water would have been relatively warm. Mammoths made it to the Channel Islands off the southern California coast by swimming since there was no land bridge. Elephants are excellent swimmers: “My research shows that modern elephants are excellent distance swimmers, among the best of all land mammals, and skilled at crossing water gaps.” Or, the animals of northeast Greenland may have been aided by log and vegetation mats left over from the Flood that would have floated for many years on the post-Flood oceans. This transportation would be especially likely for small mammals.

To be aided by log mats, the animals had to first cross the Bering Land Bridge. This land bridge was more likely exposed early in the Flood when animals could more easily journey through Siberia into Alaska, when winters were mild, not at the end of the Ice Age, when winters were colder than today. Further evidence of this early Ice Age land bridge is the finding of Columbian mammoth fossils at the bottom of Ice Age debris in central British Columbia. These mammoths could only arrive at this location from the ice-free corridor and through the Peace River water gap before the mountain ice caps inundated the lowlands of British Columbia. eDNA evidence of animals in northeast Greenland also adds to the indirect evidence that the Bering Land Bridge existed early, but not late in the Ice Age. Moreover, some log mats would still have existed for transportation. Northern Canada also needed to be warm enough for forests to grow, which need not have been large for them to shed pollen and eDNA and for animals to survive in northern Greenland.

Conclusion

Researchers were amazed to find DNA evidence of a temperate ecosystem in the Kap København Formation in northeast Greenland. The most likely explanation is that these fossils were buried during the early part of the post-Flood rapid Ice Age but the world rejects God and His Word just as the Apostle Peter warns us they would in God’s Word.

“You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” 2 Peter 3:2-7

Article adapted from the Creation Journal Volume 37, Issue 2, 2023 by Michael J Oard. It is the Technical Journal produced by Creation Ministries International (CMI). The must-have journal from CMI is Creation Magazine. Check it out at http://www.creation.com

IMPORTANCE OF CREATION MINISTRIES INT’L AND ANSWERS IN GENESIS

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Creation Ministries International (CMI) commonly receive testimonies from folk who have come to faith in Christ but then had a wilderness experience before finding their way to a confident faith. A major reason for this wandering is the doubts generated by the pervasive evolution/ long-ages mindset that crowds in upon the new Christian’s confidence in the Bible as the Word of God. Malcolm T. shared:

I became a believer in 1989 but in all of this time [20 years], I have been plagued by doubts caused because I couldn’t prove creation or doubt evolution. This had caused me so much trouble in my daily Christian walk and a lack of assurance. Recently, I came upon creation.com and began reading the articles every day and, praise be to God! I saw that creation is the truth and evolution is a lie and all my doubts and fears have disappeared …

Simply sharing a Creation magazine has led many to a restored Christian walk. Indeed, not just restored, but, like Malcolm, a much more confident and active faith.

I shared a post recently about Martyn Isles, an Australian evangelist that was being used mightily to share the Gospel in all States of Australia under the banner of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL). Martyn has now moved to Answers in Genesis. This move was orchestrated by God and proved to me the importance of both Answers in Genesis and CMI. God is using both of these organisations to restore faith in the Bible (God’s Word) from Genesis to Revelation. You need to get behind and support both these organisations.

http://www.creation.com and http://www.answersingenesis.org.

GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR NOAH’S FLOOD

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In Genesis 6:13, we read that before the Flood, regarding “all flesh”, God said to Noah, “I will destroy them with the earth” (’eretz). Then, in Genesis 9:11, after the Flood, God confirmed to Noah that by the Flood He had indeed destroyed the created Earth, when He said, “never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (’eretz). Whatever constituted the ’eretz that was created on Day 1, God destroyed it by the Flood cataclysm.

Corroborating God’s revelation to Noah that the created Earth (’eretz) had been destroyed in the Flood (Genesis 9:11) is the record of widespread destructive volcanic and sedimentary processes evident in the Precambrian rock record. In the Precambrian we see evidence of huge volcanoes, depositing lava accumulations up to 22 km thick, including abundant products of explosive volcanic activity.

Rocks of the Precambrian cratons, including the exposed Precambrian shields, comprise some 71% of the Earth’s total land area. Extensive study of exposed Precambrian strata, motivated by its content of valuable minerals, has resulted in the accumulation of copious geological information on the Precambrian.

This information can be used by creationists to incorporate all of the Precambrian into a Genesis Flood geologic model.

There are abundant products of volcanism, including explosive volcanism, and volcanic lava sequences up to 22 km thick, throughout the Precambrian geologic record. Superpositional relationships of distinct lithological associations enable global correlation of early Precambrian strata. A Genesis Flood geologic model is proposed wherein the Flood cataclysm was initiated by a sudden reduction of gravitational force which decompressed the earth’s hot, water-saturated mantle. The Precambrian rock record was extruded from the mantle and deposited during Day 1 to Day 40 of the Flood cataclysm.

Widespread evidence of destructive volcanic geologic activity throughout the Precambrian corroborates the Scriptural record of the destruction of the created earth (’eretz) by the Flood cataclysm (Gen. 9:11).

This should lead us to preclude a Creation Week or Antediluvian origin for the Precambrian geologic record, and instead consider all of the Precambrian as Flood deposited. Walker noted that the Precambrian Strelley Pool Chert formation in the Pilbara region of Western Australia (figure 6) is underlain and overlain by rocks deposited from volcanic eruptions, and suggested:

“From a biblical perspective, it is inconceivable that volcanoes would be active during Creation Week, depositing volcaniclastics and tuff such as comprise parts of the stratigraphic sections [emphasis added].”

Widespread evidence throughout the globally correlated Precambrian rock record of huge explosive volcanic eruptions comprises tuffs, ignimbrites, pyroclastic flows, volcaniclastics, accretionary lapilli/lapillistone, and agglomerates. The processes necessary for the accumulation of accretionary lapilli/lapillistone include an atmospheric ash column, moisture, accretion, deposition, and lithification. We might reasonably question whether atmospheric ash columns would have been occurring during Creation Week.

Deposition of even the thinnest of these volcanic accumulations, the 10.5-km-thick Swaziland Supergroup (figure 3), over six days during Creation Week, would require lava to accumulate at 1.75 km stratigraphic thickness per day. The 22.0 km-thick-lower Pilbara Supergroup of Western Australia (figure 6) would need to accumulate at 3.67 km of lava per day if deposited during Creation Week.

On the basis of the volcanic content, and especially the explosive volcanic content, and the widespread destruction of organisms throughout the Precambrian, we should, I suggest, question a Creation Week or Antediluvian origin for the Precambrian rock record, reconsider the way we interpret the Precambrian fossil record, and conclude that the Precambrian is all Flood deposited.

Consistent with Genesis 7:11 and Proverbs 3:20a, Noah’s Flood may have been initiated by God causing the mantle to heat in a cataclysmic global thermal-tectonic episode, cracking open the earth’s crust and driving out water to the earth’s surface. Secular scientists have found evidence of episodic rifting events at the margins of North America between 0.8 and about 0.6 Ga. These are thought to record the fragmentation of a Neoproterozoic supercontinent.13,14 This is consistent with the breaking open of the crust by the fountains of the great deep, followed by further continental extension and then ocean formation.

Biblical Geology 101 is avalable from CMI http://www.creation.com


MORE EVIDENCE FOR A YOUNG EARTH

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Bending rock sounds like the feat of a superhero. But this incredible achievement really occurred in the earth’s past. There are many places around the world where thick layers of rock are folded, sometimes at angles of 90°! One prominent example is the Carbon Canyon Fold.

The Carbon Canyon Fold is located in a side canyon adjacent to Grand Canyon itself. The layers making up the fold are a sequence of sandstone, siltstone/claystone, and limestone. Together, they make up the Tonto Group. In most places, the Tonto Group layers are just as horizontal as when they were deposited. But this is not the case with the Carbon Canyon Fold. How were these layers warped at such an unusual angle?

Conventional wisdom tells us that the oldest layers of the Tonto Group layers are approximately 525 million years old. Geologists think the uplift that folded the Tonto Group layers started between 70 and 50 million years ago. It was not complete until a mere five million years ago.

This model is problematic, however. There is no known mechanism by which the Tonto Group could have remained wet and pliable for 465 million years! The folded nature of this rock unit is incredible evidence of their relative youth. Those who believe these layers were formed over vast eons of time proposed other ideas to explain how the layers were folded long after hardening into rock.

Metamorphism is a process capable of making solid rock pliable again for folding. This can occur when the rock experiences extreme heat and pressure far beneath the earth’s surface. However, this cannot explain the folded layers seen in the Tonto Group. Metamorphism completely alters a rock’s mineral makeup. For example, such heat and pressure turn sandstone into quartzite. Claystone turns into a schist. Meanwhile, limestone turns into marble. If metamorphism were responsible for folding the Carbon Canyon Fold, evidence for this process should be obvious.

The best explanation for the warped nature of the Carbon Canyon Fold does appear to be that the process of folding occurred in the not-too-distant past. Most young-earth geologists think the uplift that caused the folding occurred over a period of time lasting just hundreds, and not millions, of years. If hundreds of millions of years passed between the formation of the Tonto Group layers and their uplift, the Carbon Canyon Fold should be a jumble of shattered rock fragments. The fact that they are not stands as testimony to their relative youth.

This article comes from a new blog post put together by a group of young scientists that are working under well-established Ph.D. Creation scientists https://newcreation.blog

FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR NOAH’S FLOOD

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The recent observation of ‘floating islands’ large enough to support trees and monkeys provide interesting support for the biblical framework of animal dispersal after Noah’s Flood. Current long-age theories of biogeographical dispersal struggle to explain how rafting across oceans could be viable. However, the Flood would have provided much fodder for the formation of large floating vegetation mats akin to modern ‘floating islands’, but much larger, potentially enabling them to survive trips even across oceans.

There are numerous small floating islands on isolated water bodies adjacent to the Magdalena River of northwest Columbia. The rafts are composed of aquatic plants, bound together and floating. As the floating islands grow, they can support large woody vegetation such as vertical trees. These floating islands typically are 30 m long, but some are greater than 100 m long. One floating island was observed to have trees up to 10 m tall and monkeys on the limbs. Theoretically, as the river floods, it could pick up one of these floating islands and send it downriver to the ocean, where it could even float for a distance on the ocean. Apparently, ocean travel has not been observed. Still, the authors believe this observation provides the potential for explaining cross-ocean transport.

Photograph of one of the floating islands on the Magdalena River during the December 2016 field trip (credit UF). As a scale guide, the raft is about 80 m across. Also note that O’Dea et al. (2016) includes video footage from 2010 of similar scale rafts travelling down the Chagres River in Panama.

Despite the new observation, the evidence still suggests that the uniformitarian ideas of vegetation rafts and short-lived land bridges are very unlikely. For one, the rafts would be too small, assuming the vegetation was ripped up by a storm, deposited in a river, and carried to the ocean. Then there are the numerous other challenges presented by Mazza et al. listed in tables 1–3.

Creation scientists have a much better option for explaining biogeography. First, the rafts of logs and vegetation are a result of a violent global Flood, so they do not have to drift down a river to the sea, but would already be floating on the oceans. Based on the estimated amount of coal, it is likely that the pre-Flood biosphere had about 10 times the amount of carbon, which could translate into 10 times the number of plants and trees compared to the present earth. Although masses of this vegetation were deposited within the sedimentary rocks, much of it would have continued to float on the oceans after the Flood. These logs and vegetation mats could be extensive and thick and last many years. They should be able to transport small animals, and possibly relatively large animals, across water bodies. The ocean currents and winds during the Ice Age would have been different than they are today. Although we do not know these variables, we are not constrained to explain biogeography by the present-day water currents and wind patterns. Moreover, there was much more rain during the early- to mid–Ice Age, so the need for fresh water on the log mats would not necessarily have been a problem. It is likely that plants and even trees grew on these post-Flood floating islands, providing food for animals. I have observed plants growing on wood pilings (figure 1), so the same thing could occur on the floating islands.

Article: A floating island with growing trees and monkeys observed IN SECTION: PERSPECTIVES by Michael J. Oard in Journal of Creation 2022 Vol 36, Issue 3

WHY RADIOMETRIC DATING GIVES AGES OF MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF YEARS

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A young age for ‘ancient’ granites

When physicist Dr Russell Humphreys was still at Sandia National Laboratories (he now works full-time for the Institute for Creation Research), he and Dr John Baumgardner (still with Los Alamos National Laboratory) were both convinced that they knew the direction in which to look for a definitive answer to the puzzle of why radiometric dating consistently gives ages of millions and billions of years.

picture – Linear accelerator used in radiometric dating.

Others had tried to find an answer in geological processes—e.g. the pattern was caused by the way the magma was emplaced or how it crystallized. This is indeed the answer in some cases.2,3 But Drs Humphreys and Baumgardner realized that in other cases there were many independent lines of evidence that suggested that huge amounts of radioactive decay had indeed taken place. (These include the variety of elements used in ‘standard’ radioisotope dating, mature uranium radiohalos and fission track dating.) It would be hard to imagine that geologic processes alone could explain all these. Rather, there was likely to be an answer that concerned the nuclear decay processes themselves.

From the eyewitness testimony of God’s Word, the billions of years that such vast amounts of radioactive processes would normally suggest had not taken place. So it was clear that the assumption of a constant, slow decay process was wrong. There must have been speeded-up decay, perhaps in a huge burst associated with Creation Week and/or a separate burst at the time of the Flood.

There is now powerful confirmatory evidence that at least one episode of drastically accelerated decay has indeed been the case, building on the work of Dr Robert Gentry on helium retention in zircons. The landmark RATE paper,4 though technical, can be summarized as follows:

  • When uranium decays to lead, a by-product of this process is the formation of helium, a very light, inert gas, which readily escapes from rock.
  • Certain crystals called zircons, obtained from drilling into very deep granites, contain uranium which has partly decayed into lead.
  • By measuring the amount of uranium and ‘radiogenic lead’ in these crystals, one can calculate that, if the decay rate has been constant, about 1.5 billion years must have passed. (This is consistent with the geologic ‘age’ assigned to the granites in which these zircons are found.)
  • However, there is a significant proportion of helium from that ‘1.5 billion years of decay’ still inside the zircons. This is, at first glance, surprising for long-agers, because of the ease with which one would expect helium (with its tiny, light, unreactive atoms) to escape from the spaces within the crystal structure. There should surely be hardly any left, because with such a slow buildup, it should be seeping out continually and not accumulating.
  • Drawing any conclusions from the above depends, of course, on actually measuring the rate at which helium leaks out of zircons. This is what one of the RATE papers reports on. The samples were sent (without any hint that it was a creationist project) to a world-class expert on helium diffusion from minerals to measure these rates. The consistent answer: the helium does indeed seep out quickly over a wide range of temperatures. In fact, the results show that because of all the helium still in the zircons, these crystals (and since this is Precambrian basement granite, by implication the whole earth) could not be older than 14,000 years. In other words, in only a few thousand years, 1.5 billion years’ worth (at today’s rates) of radioactive decay has taken place. Interestingly, the data have since been refined and updated to give a date of 5,680 (± 2,000) years.
  • The paper looks at the various avenues a long-ager might take by which to wriggle out of these powerful implications, but there seems to be little hope for them unless they can show that the techniques used to obtain the results were seriously flawed.

The Bible clearly tells us that God created a mature universe: Adam was a man, not a baby, the trees and plants mature and on day six Adam could see all of the stars in heaven. God tells us that He stretched out the heavens at creation on day four. The Cosmos could only have been created by a being outside of His creation with miraculous powers.

Big Bang from nothing does not explain the complex ordered universe that is so evident, it is certainly not good science.

Taken from an article by Dr. Carl Weiland “Radiometric dating breakthroughs” http://www.creation.com

4. Humphreys, D. et al., Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay, icr.org, 16 October 2003. Return to text.

A SHORT TRUE HISTORY OF MANKIND

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Although made in God’s image, mankind performs disgracefully throughout Genesis. In an ill-intentioned plot to be like God, man rebels against God’s authority. Universal decay and death are God’s judgement. Still, mankind becomes so wicked that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), provoking God to flood the whole earth in judgment. You can find just about every evil under the sun in Genesis. The narrative describes with brutal honesty the grotesque horrors of sin.

Despite mankind’s sin, God is gracious in his judgment. He does not instantly strike Adam and Eve dead in the garden but preserves them to populate the earth. He does not completely obliterate humanity in the flood but preserves Noah and his family. Just 200 years after the flood we get mankind building the Tower of Babel. In another judgement, God creates many new languages and therefore nations in order to get people to populate the entire world. God then creates His own nation Israel to be His witness to the world. Its history reveals continual disobedience and judgement.

GOD THEN STEPS INTO HISTORY

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.” John 14:6

God sends His own Son, Jesus, first to die for us, to provide a way for mankind to come back into a right relationship with Him. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to indwell the spirits of those that repent of their sin and give their lives to Jesus as Lord thereby enabling them to live a life in Christ.

JESUS SECOND COMING

We have Jesus’ promise that He will return to right all injustice on this planet which will also fulfill God’s covenant promises He made to Abraham and His nation Israel. God’s plan from the beginning was for mankind to rule and reign on this earth for six thousand years. God has ordained that there will then be a final one thousand years when Jesus will rule and reign (with a rod of iron) with the resurrected Saints. Only then will God destroy this earth with fire then the second resurrection followed by the White Throne judgement and finally a new heaven and new earth where only the righteous will dwell.

To keep the history short I have deliberately left out mention of the spiritual realm where we also have good and evil, angels and demons. Nevertheless, Satan and his demon’s role in our history has of course been diabolical. Jesus acknowledged Satan as God of this fallen world. During Jesus Millennial reign on this earth, Satan is bound in the abyss for most of the thousand years but at the end of the thousand years, he is released and he is still able to raise an army like the sand of the sea.

“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Revelation 20:7-10

Despite Jesus and the Saints ruling the nations (with a rod of iron), many will choose to rebel and join Satan’s final battle against God. Many of us like Satan want to be God and not be subject to His commandments/rules.

FLOOD GEOLOGY MODEL

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I recently posted on July 15th Noah’s Flood Fact or Fiction? If you have not viewed it, can I suggest you do, as it complements and reinforces this post. It is wonderful to see the amount of evidence being produced by Ph.D. scientists to support the young earth’s history presented in the Bible. In this video, we follow geologist Dr. Steve Austin and Del Tackett to Arizona where we can see the Grand Staircase, a thick stack of rock layers that are visible as sets of parallel cliffs above the Grand Canyon.

Steve then explains how the history of the world is best viewed through a Flood geology model as a five-step process: Sedimentation, Tectonics, Erosion, Volcanoes, and Exponential decline.

He then talks briefly about his experience as a creationist geologist. Dr. Austin is a field research geologist who has done research on six of the seven continents of the world. His research has taken him by helicopter into the crater on Mount St. Helens, by bush plane onto glaciers in Alaska, by raft through the Grand Canyon, on horseback into the high Sierra, by elevator into the world’s deepest coal mines, by SCUBA onto the Great Barrier Reef, by rail into Korean backcountry, by foot onto barren plateaus of southern Argentina, and by a four-wheel drive into remote desert areas of Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Dr. Austin received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in sedimentary geology.