creation
Population and the Age of the Earth
How long have people been living on the Earth? The evolutionist says millions and millions of years. The Bible-believing Christian says about six thousand.
Who is right?
Statistically, a couple must have 2.1 children to keep a population at the same level. In practice, this means a minimum of three children per family. Let us suppose for a moment that the biblical account of the Genesis Flood in which just eight people survived is true. Let us further suppose that each family from this point in history had 2.4 children on average. This very modest number will take into account all the deaths through infant mortality, plagues, and war. How long would it take to reach today’s world population? Surprisingly, the answer is just less than five thousand years. This figure fits nicely into known historical records.
Now suppose we take the evolutionary view that mankind has been on this planet for millions and millions of years and we begin with two people – or eight, it will make little difference – and they also had the statistical 2.4 children per family. We will finish up with a number so impossibly large that the universe itself would not hold them! Aware of this problem, the textbooks explain it away by speaking of “population stability throughout this time.” This is nothing short of an appeal to a miracle! Frankly, the biblical account is far more believable.
Genesis 1:27-28
“And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
To learn more visit www.evolutionvsgod.com
6 literal days
In the context, the word day in Genesis 1 refers to six 24-hour days. Every time it appears with “evening and morning” or with a number like “sixth day,” it refers to a 24-hour day.
Did God create the whole universe, including the original plants, animals, and first two people (Adam and Eve) in six literal 24-hour days? Or did creation take place over millions of years?
To answer that, we should remember that the original readers of Genesis were not scientists or Hebrew scholars. Rather, they were former slaves—mostly uneducated— on their way to the Promised Land. The fathers were commanded to teach their children (Deuteronomy 6:1–7), so the Hebrew language in Genesis 1 must have been very clear to the common people, even to children.
When we look carefully at Genesis 1, in Hebrew or even in English, it is clear that God created everything in six literal (24-hour) days. First, we are told that He created the earth in darkness and then created light. Then He called the light “day” and He called the darkness “night.” And then He said (in the original Hebrew) “and [there] was evening and [there] was morning, one day.” He repeated the same statement at the end of the second day through the sixth day.
Everywhere else in the Old Testament, when the Hebrew word for “day” (יוםֹ, yom) appears with “evening” or “morning” or is modified by a number (e.g., “sixth day” or “five days”), it always means a 24-hour day.
On Day Four God further showed that these were literal days by telling us the purpose for which He created the sun, moon, and stars—so we could tell time: literal years, literal seasons, and literal days.
Then in Exodus 20:8–11 God commanded the Israelites to work six literal “days” and rest on the seventh because He created in six “days” (using the same Hebrew word).
Furthermore, Jesus and the New Testament apostles read Genesis 1–11 as straightforward historical narrative. There are additional good scholarly reasons for coming to that conclusion.1
There is no biblical or scientific reason to be ashamed of believing in a recent six-day creation. God has spoken clearly and truthfully. Will you trust His Word over the arrogant claims of sinful men?
a young earth
DO CHRISTIANS NEED TO BELIEVE IN A YOUNG EARTH?
In his book The Bible, Rocks and Time, Davis Young writes on page 24: "... Christians who believe that the earth is extremely old have interpreted the creation account of Genesis One in a variety of alternative ways, and they also maintain that Genesis does not necessarily require belief that the flood of Noah cover the entire globe. We present evidence that the biblical text does not demand adherence to the traditional interpretation that God created the world in six successive, 24-hour days only a few thousand years ago. On that basis we claim that the Bible does not demand assent to any specific age for the planet."
Conversely, on this issue, Ken Ham, of Answers In Genesis, has commented, "I explained that to compromise Genesis is not a salvation issue per se (salvation is conditioned upon faith in Christ - not what one believes about the age of the earth or days of creation).
However, compromising on Genesis is an authority issue and a gospel issue. It is an authority issue because reinterpreting Genesis is undermining the authority of God's Word and exalting man's fallible words. It is also a gospel issue because to believe in millions of years, evolution, or both is to blame God for death and evil in the world instead of blaming our sin in Adam."
still soft
STILL SOFT AFTER HALF-A-BILLION YEARS?
Original soft tissue fossils are revolutionizing our understanding of how and when fossils formed. Secular researchers have described dozens of them over the years, from mummified skin and hemoglobin to dried up retinas-all in rock layers designated at least tens of millions of years old. The science of tissue decay does not permit these long ages, calling into question the "age" of the most recent discovery: original, pliable, marine worm tube tissue found in Pre-Cambrian fossils.
Publishing in The Journal of Paleontology, a trio of European researchers described, in detail, delicate fossil casings, manufactured by beard worms long ago. The worms were quickly buried and locked in rock like a natural time capsule. The chitin-containing worm tube fossils look the same as those made by modern worms of the same type, complete with high-tech structural cross-layering.
The idea that chitin or any unaltered biological material - soft tissue that has not yet decayed - can last longer than a million years does not have any experimental support. The still-flexible tube tissue of this lowly ancient marine worm matches well with the relatively recent Flood explanation-a worldwide event that buried these sea floor worms beneath hundreds of feet of sediments.
The physical evidence, which can be tested and verified in a laboratory, significantly supports an earth much younger than science will acknowledge.