From the King Eternal to Adam
By Arthur Bud Chrysler © 2024 Arthur Chrysler
Preface
In my previous book, From Adam to Messiah the Prince - A Biblical Paper Trail, I constructed a timeline which ran from the first man Adam to the first appearance of Jesus as the Messiah (see part 7). After the creation of Adam, it is possible to measure the passage of time by adding the ages of the Patriarchs at the birth of their sons; Genesis chapters 5 and 11 contain the bulk of this type of information. In addition to family records, the Bible contains a comprehensive record of the kings of Israel and Judah, which can be found in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Finally, Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Daniel 9:24-27) supplied enough information for me to bridge the gap between the time of the return from Babylonian captivity (445 B.C.) to the triumphal entry of Jesus as Messiah the Prince into Jerusalem in A.D. 32. It was by the addition of tangible archaeological evidence to the Bible's own paper trail, that I was able to demonstrate the accuracy and truthfulness of the Bible’s historical claims. That approach allowed people to understand the Bible in a practical way.
The current study will examine the period preceding the creation of Adam. But there is no biblical paper trail to follow back to the beginning of time or beyond the beginning of time, no family records of the time before Adam. Therefore, apart from the use of archaeological evidence, I cannot repeat the same methodology in this endeavor. There will be more of a reliance on the study of material Nature which, as will be seen, harmonizes with God’s written Word. The Book of Nature and the Word of God harmonize because they were written by the same Divine Author.
A long and extensive excavation was conducted in the City of David between 1978 and 1985; it was led by Dr. Yigal Shiloh from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was the first to conduct a large-scale archaeological excavation in the City of David under Israeli rule. My experience there as a volunteer in 1984 has enabled me to view Scripture from a unique perspective.
One morning at the site headquarters, I was asked to wash some flint tools that had been found in a pit in the bedrock near the Gihon Spring. The flint points and flakes were still so sharp that it felt like I was handling broken glass beneath the murky water in the pail. In Dr. Shiloh’s opinion, the flint tools appeared to be from the Chalcolithic period (4500-3150 B.C.).
It was exciting to think that I had just handled artifacts, found in Jerusalem, that could have been from the time of Adam and Eve! But the thought became more complex when I was later informed that some of those flint tools may have originated in even earlier periods; the Neolithic (8500-4500 B.C.), the Natufian (10,300-8500 B.C.) or even the Epipaleolithic (18,500-10,300 B.C.). This information was later mentioned in the Hebrew University’s final report IV:
What’s going on here? Who were these Homo sapiens that lived so long ago, and how do they fit in with the biblical account of creation? As will be shown, this early material culture is evidence of beings that existed before the creation of man in the image of God. These early beings consisted of two things – a body and a soul, and should be counted among the beast of the earth:
Genesis 1:24-25 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Notice that here, in the Genesis 1 account of creative activity, the beast of the earth appears before the creation of Adam.
Consider the possibility that there was a pause in the Lord God’s creative activity between His creative acts described in verse 25 and His creative acts described in verse 26 – a pause in creative activity between the first “and God said” on day six, and the second “and God said” on day six. Within this pause of creative activity, a megafaunal extinction may have occurred. This would have included woolly mammoths, mastodons, Neanderthals, saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, etc. At this point the Lord God had not yet formed man of the dust of the ground, and He had not yet planted the garden where He would put the man. There was to be no physical death in the Garden (Genesis 3:22), but physical life and death cycles would have been the norm outside of it. Physical death was inevitable apart from the Tree of Life, thus the long, but gradually decreasing human lifespans after Adam and Eve were sent forth from the Garden of Eden.
Hypothetically, after the megafaunal extinction, the Lord God resumed His creative activity and created man “in His own image” (Genesis 1:26-27) – “of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), a new creation.
Genesis 2:8 - And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:15 - And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Genesis 2:18 goes on to say, “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” At this point one would assume that the following verse contains a description of how woman was made.
But the next thing we read is "…out of the ground God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam…" (Genesis 2:19-20). Notice that here, in the Genesis 2 account of creative activity, the beast of the field, and every fowl of the air were formed after the creation of Adam, but before the appearance of Eve (more on this later in part five). The important thing to understand is that man, being created in God’s image, consists of three things – body, soul, and spirit.
It is here my intention to present to the reader a biblically-sound alternative to the Young Earth Creationist position. It is also my sincere hope and prayer that, through this book, everyone will acquire a sense of the true depth of God's written Word and thereby come to truly know Him.
Table of Contents
Preface
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One – God's Eternal Nature
Part Two – What About the "Six Days" in Exodus 20:11?
Part Three – The Tablets
Part Four – The Work of the Six Days
Part Five – The Earth Inhabited
Part Six – In Our Image, After Our Likeness
Part Seven – Dating the Creation of Adam
Bibliography
About the Author
Introduction
Our study stems from a biblical worldview, which dictates that the Bible is inspired of God, inerrant, and infallible. The Bible is the only book which claims that God, the Creator of all things, inspired its writers:
II Timothy 3:16-17 – All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
If we accept the Bible’s divine authority, then we may look to the Bible to expand our knowledge of both the Creator and His creation.
A creationist is a person who believes that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account. Among creationists there are two major views regarding the time involved in creation: the young earth view and the old earth view. Those who hold to the old earth view believe Scripture is silent regarding the age of the earth and the time occupied in creative events may well have taken as long as the ‘geological’ interpretation asserts. Those who hold to the young earth view believe the Bible says heaven and earth were created in six days and the age of the earth is between 6,000 and 12,000 years old.
Young Earth Creationists adhere to catastrophism (the doctrine that major changes in the earth's crust result from sudden catastrophes, such as the impact of a large meteor, rather than from gradual evolutionary processes) and attribute geological features on the earth, like the Grand Canyon and all the fossil remains in thick rock layers to a relatively recent flood. This is called “Flood Geology.”
DR. Norman Geisler wrote,
Most Old Earth Creationists hold that decay of matter and energy, and death of living things had been characteristic of the universe since the creation. This is called uniformitarianism (a geological doctrine that processes acting in the same manner as at present and over long spans of time are sufficient to account for all current geological features and all past geological changes). They do not believe in evolution, but believe God suddenly intervened supernaturally to create complex life and later created entirely new species (after their own kind) suddenly and at widely spaced time intervals (see Genesis 1:21, 24, 25, 27).
Young earth creationists reject the idea of evolution, not only because, in their view, there would not have been enough time for it, but because it is not biblical. But if a creationist decides that the earth may be more than 12,000 years old, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she believes in evolution. Many old earth creationists believe what the Bible says on this issue:
Genesis 1:11-12 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:21 – And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:24-25 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:26-27 - And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 5:1-2 - This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
According to the Bible, evolution was in no way part of the creative process!
What does the Bible say about the age of the earth?
First, it is important to note that the chief purpose of the Bible is the revelation of the way of salvation (Luke 3:20-26; 24:25-27, 44-46; Genesis 3:15). God has a purpose and a plan for all His creation. The Bible manifests the Lord Jesus Christ and makes clear the plan of salvation through His shed blood; that He died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures (I Corinthians 15:3-4). Because the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ is not affected by the age of the earth, Scripture does not directly address it.
If a person believes that all truth is God’s truth, it means that there is no real conflict between what sound science discovers and what the Bible teaches, there is only apparent conflict. If such conflict appears, we are getting something wrong, either in our understanding of Scripture, or in our science. Many resolve that conflict by denying the authority of Scripture, if not the existence of God. Some do so by denying the claims of mainstream science. We all have access to the same evidence. The differences lie in how we interpret the evidence.
Old-earth creationists are divided on how to interpret the portions of the Bible that relate to the creation of the heaven and the earth. There are mainly three different interpretations of Scripture which accommodate the old-earth position: the Long Day Theory, the Gap Theory, and the Revelatory Day Theory. Each of these will be discussed later in this book.
Both Old Earth Creationists and Young Earth Creationists will agree that, in the passage of time, at least five days had passed between “the beginning” and the creation of Adam. The question is, what happened during those days; were they days of creative activity, or days of revelation? Because of their belief in the former, the Young Earth Creationists posit that the Bible indirectly states when creation of the heaven and the earth began. The late Dr. Henry M. Morris, Young Earth Creationist and former president of the Institute for Creation Research and professor of hydrology in the institute's division of graduate study and research, wrote:
PART ONE
God’s Eternal Nature
When entering any discussion concerning God and His creation, it is important to first consider God’s eternal nature:
Psalm 90:2 – Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Micah 5:2 – But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. The “child” was born in Bethlehem, but the “Son” was “from everlasting.”
It is not difficult for most of us to envision “everlasting” in a future sense (always will be), but to grasp the idea of “everlasting” in a past sense (always was) may require more effort. “To everlasting” implies no end, while “from everlasting” implies no beginning.
God has no beginning, therefore, when the biblical writer states, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), he may be referring to the beginning of time itself, being necessary for the initial existence of man and the physical universe in which he lives.
But to exist as we do, solely within the constraints of time, is to experience constant change and a progression through the present, into the future, leaving the past behind. It is possible that, as time began, the first change in an otherwise unchanging environment was God’s creation of the angels (sons of God). They are recorded in Scripture as shouting for joy as the foundations of the earth were set in place: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7). The greatest of them all was the anointed cherub that covereth, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty: …Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. (Ezekiel 28:12b-15). The phrase “till iniquity was found in thee” indicates that from the beginning, freedom of choice plays an important role within the realm of time. When time is no more, change will no longer occur. Freedom of choice will no longer be a factor because the choice that brought us near to God, or separated us from Him, will already have been made and where we will spend all of eternity will have been based on our own personal choice. Choose wisely!
The Lord has no “beginning” or “ending,” so when He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13), He is speaking strictly in human terms. Existence in our physical world requires a beginning and an ending. It follows then that the Bible is God’s word, written for mankind in terms that mankind can understand, not from God’s perspective, but from ours: Revelation 1:8 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Rev. Herbert Morris wrote:
PART TWO
What about the "six days" in Exodus 20:11?
During the Time of Moses (ca. 1450 B.C.), the Lord spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai and wrote them with His own finger on tablets of stone (Exodus 20:1; 31:18). But it was Moses who recited Lord’s words to the Children of Israel:
Leviticus 25:1-2 – And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.
Deuteronomy 5:1 – And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.
Moses, in fulfilling his responsibility to teach the children of Israel, uttered explanatory statements to them, after reciting the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:11; 31:17; Deuteronomy 5:15). In two of those statements (Exodus 20:11 and 31:17b), Moses spoke of “days,” which, as I will show, could be interpreted as “God’s days” or “divine days” (grand in scale), within which the Lord God created heaven and earth.
In 1914, Swiss archaeologist, Egyptologist and Biblical scholar Edouard Naville shared his thoughts regarding Moses’ use of the word day:
Deuteronomy 5:4–25 consists of the re-telling of the Ten Commandments to the younger generation who were to enter the Promised Land. Moses’ reciting of the Fourth Commandment in Deuteronomy chapter five is virtually identical with his reciting of the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter twenty. However, it is important to note that the comments found immediately after the Fourth Commandment in each book differ from one another.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 – Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
Interestingly, the phrase “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is…” is absent in the Deuteronomy account of the fourth Commandment – which goes on to say that nothing more was added:
Deuteronomy 5:22 – These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.
So, according to Deuteronomy 5:22, there is good reason to posit that the phrase, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is…” was not spoken by the Lord or written in the two tables of stone.
In Deuteronomy, Moses’ comments, after reciting the fourth commandment (“and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt…”), are historical remembrance; as the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, they should allow their own slaves one day of rest per week. This is in keeping with Deuteronomy’s humanistic emphasis and concern for the social good.
In Exodus, Moses’ comments, after reciting the fourth commandment (“for in six days…”), are mainly theological; harking back to the creation story in Gen 1:1-2:4a, where God rests on the seventh day after the work of creation (Gen 2:2).
The idea that comments made in Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 may be parenthetical and attributed to Moses, does not mean that those verses are of any lesser importance, or to be disregarded, but it allows us to put them in their proper context. Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 do not reflect claims, made by the Lord God, that He created all things in six days.
As he makes his case for a young earth, Ken Ham, founder and chief executive officer of Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, and the Ark Encounter, mistakenly holds to man’s traditional teaching that the Lord Himself spoke the words, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is:
The examples of a pattern of six days of man’s activity and one day of rest corresponding to the length of time it took the Lord God to make heaven and earth and then rest, are instructive. But there are similar patterns found elsewhere in Scripture where the parallel reference is to years, not to days; the emphasis, then, being on the pattern itself:
Exodus 21:2 – If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
The emphasis being on the pattern (not the duration) is clearly seen in Exodus 23:10-12, where the pattern begins with reference to “years” and ends with reference to “days”:
Exodus 23:10-12 – And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.
Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Daniel 9:2 both speak of the seventy-year Babylonian captivity but when this same seventy-year period is mentioned in connection with the Sabbath, the familiar pattern of six (in this case sixty) and one (in this case ten) appears once again:
II Chronicles 36:21 – To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years (not stated as seventy years, but incorporating the pattern of six and one).
Zechariah 1:12 – Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
The pattern of six-and-one, in Scripture, corresponds to the time that elapsed while the Lord God made heaven and earth and rested. Decades, years, or days are used interchangeably within the pattern. The duration of time that was incorporated within it is irrelevant; the pattern alone is the focus.
Consequently, the pattern used by Moses in his personal statements recorded in Exodus 20:11 mirrored man’s ordinary working days with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth. The pattern used by Moses recorded in Leviticus 25:3-5 echoed man’s ordinary working years with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth, and the author of II Chronicles 36:21 paralleled man’s ordinary decades with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth. Relative to these patterns, then, how long did it take God to make heaven and earth? Did it take Him years, decades, days, or perhaps eons?
The well-known theologian, Norman Geisler, had this to say on the subject:
PART THREE
The Tablets
When Moses presented the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel, he was reciting what the Lord had spoken and written to him (Exodus 31:18; 32:15-19; 34:28). Consider the possibility that Moses compiled the first chapter of Genesis in a similar way, but in this case, echoing information that had been originally spoken and written to Adam.
When Adam was created, he had the ability to understand God and to speak with God. According to Genesis 5:1, he apparently had the ability to read and write. In this sense, you could say that Adam hit the ground running! What is the first thing that Adam would have read? Adam would have read the same thing we read in Genesis 1:1-2:4, which ends with (in the Septuagint version), “This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made….”
Before God rested (ceased) from all His work He had made, He had one last thing to accomplish – He would communicate with man:
Genesis 2:15-24 – And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The events described in Genesis 2:15-24 must have taken place before God rested (ceased) from all His work He had made, the description of which is mentioned earlier in Genesis 2:1-3:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Why is there a description of God still working found after the description of God resting (ceasing) from all His work? The answer is that there are two eyewitness descriptions here, from two different perspectives – one description from the Lord God (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and one description from Adam (Gen. 2:4b-5:1a).
This would help to explain why the beast of the earth are mentioned before the creation of Adam in Genesis chapter one but are mentioned after the creation of Adam in Genesis chapter two.
If Wiseman is right about the colophons coming at the end of each of the eyewitnesses' accounts, it would indicate that the book of Genesis is made up of tablets which were written or owned by an eyewitness to the events described therein. These “family records” would have been eventually compiled by Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in the Late Bronze Age (1550 – 1200 B.C.) and should be considered historically reliable. Dale Dewitt, author and former professor of theology at Grace Christian University for over 40 years, adds this:
PART FOUR
The Work of the Six Days
Most church fathers accepted the days in Genesis chapter one as ordinary days – days in which creative activity occurred. This approach has affected the way people interpret Scripture, even up until the current time. But as the man who started the Reformation said:
II Timothy 2:9 – Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Traditions of men may have hindered proper interpretation of Scripture for centuries, but the Word of God will eventually accomplish the purpose for which He sent it.
Isaiah 55:11 – So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
The Revelatory Day Theory
Wiseman’s “tablet theory” was cautiously received by some Bible scholars but when, because of his new perspective, he broke from tradition and introduced an entirely new way to interpret the account of creation, those scholars were not so quick to follow. The most common type of data used in support of the six days of Genesis chapter one being days of creative activity is based upon traditional interpretations of the Bible, so it serves as our point of departure in investigating the possibility that those six days were days of revelation.
Job 38:4 – Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Job 38:21 – Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great?
As we learn from the Book of Job, the eyewitnesses to the acts of creation did not include man. But there was an Eyewitness who gave us a written account!
In 1958, Wiseman suggested that the “days” of Genesis chapter one may be days of revelation, not days of creative activity (Revelatory-day view). According to this view, God took six days to reveal (verbally and written) details about Himself and His creation.
Isaiah 40:28 – Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
There exists a gap of silence during the Lord God’s creative activity between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3, with verse 3 being the start of the Lord’s revelation to Adam.
Scofield's Gap Theory
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 – And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The Reverend C. I. Scofield made popular the view (Gap Theory) that there could be a great gap of time between the first two verses of the Bible into which all the geological ages fit – Destruction of the original earth (v. 2) and then a recreation of earth within a six-day period (starting at v. 3).
E. W. Bullinger, likewise, placed a great gap of time between Gen.1:1 and Gen. 1:2, going so far as to improperly present II Peter 3:5-6 to support his position:
Bullinger failed to see that the "world that then was" is a reference to the time when the wickedness of man was great in the earth (Genesis 6:5), having no relationship with an "original" earth before it became without form, and void (Genesis 1:2).
Expositor's Greek New Testament clarifies it well:
Wiseman's revelatory-day-view allows for God's creative activity to continue (with no gap) after verse 1. Verse 2 would then be a description of how the earth looked immediately following its creation. Envision it as a plain ball of water containing no other defining characteristics and void of life. Once God's creative activity commenced, there was never any pause or "gap." We read about the cessation of God's creative activity later in the Book of Genesis:
Genesis 1:31 – And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Genesis 2:2 – And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
As has been shown, the Lord God's revelation about His creative activity occurred before His rest and should be considered part of His work which He had made. God spoke things into existence, and Genesis 1:3 marks the beginning of His revelation to Adam about it:
Genesis 1:3-5 – And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The Long day theory
There are some who interpret the "days" of Genesis chapter one as long periods of time, even millions of years (Long Day Theory). Long-day theorists claim that the word “day” in Genesis chapter one must be interpreted by its context - not how it is normally used. Ironically, they take II Peter 3:8 out of context to strengthen their theory:
II Peter 3:8-9 – But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
A careful interpretation of these verses would show that they have more to do with the Lord’s patience with us than with His perception of time:
The creative activity being described each day may have taken eons to materialize but the revelation itself occurred in six twenty-four-hour periods.
When one sees the first light of day, what is the source of that light? The answer is, the sun; the same sun which provided light for Adam to read by on the first day of the Lord God's revelation to him!
Psalm 19:1 – The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Isaiah 45:18 – For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
When Isaiah states “…he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited…,” he is referring to a phase of earth’s creation which is described in Genesis 1:9-13. Envision the Earth as it exists today, composed of seas and dry land with grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit.
Genesis 1:9-13 – And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The earth was no longer “without form.” There were now mountains and valleys and other defining characteristics. Notice the phrase "and God said" was used a second time as the creative activity transitioned from inorganic material to life.
Genesis 1:14-19 – And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Within the revelatory day view, the problem associated with the fourth day disappears because these are not held as days of creative activity, but of divine revelation. This view posits that the Lord God chose the fourth day of revelation to tell Adam about the sun, moon and stars which allows for the sun to have been the source of the light and point of reference (sunrise/sunset) in days one through three.
According to John Peter Lange, the Jewish mind always conceived of creation as vast, indefinite, and most ancient:
PART FIVE
The Earth Inhabited
God here begins to reveal how He filled the void. In filling the void, the creation of man would be God’s greatest achievement, being crowned with honor and glory, and God saved that part of His revelation for the last day.
Genesis 1:20 – And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
In my previous book, From Adam to Messiah the Prince - A Biblical Paper Trail, I constructed a timeline which ran from the first man Adam to the first appearance of Jesus as the Messiah (see part 7). After the creation of Adam, it is possible to measure the passage of time by adding the ages of the Patriarchs at the birth of their sons; Genesis chapters 5 and 11 contain the bulk of this type of information. In addition to family records, the Bible contains a comprehensive record of the kings of Israel and Judah, which can be found in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Finally, Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Daniel 9:24-27) supplied enough information for me to bridge the gap between the time of the return from Babylonian captivity (445 B.C.) to the triumphal entry of Jesus as Messiah the Prince into Jerusalem in A.D. 32. It was by the addition of tangible archaeological evidence to the Bible's own paper trail, that I was able to demonstrate the accuracy and truthfulness of the Bible’s historical claims. That approach allowed people to understand the Bible in a practical way.
The current study will examine the period preceding the creation of Adam. But there is no biblical paper trail to follow back to the beginning of time or beyond the beginning of time, no family records of the time before Adam. Therefore, apart from the use of archaeological evidence, I cannot repeat the same methodology in this endeavor. There will be more of a reliance on the study of material Nature which, as will be seen, harmonizes with God’s written Word. The Book of Nature and the Word of God harmonize because they were written by the same Divine Author.
A long and extensive excavation was conducted in the City of David between 1978 and 1985; it was led by Dr. Yigal Shiloh from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was the first to conduct a large-scale archaeological excavation in the City of David under Israeli rule. My experience there as a volunteer in 1984 has enabled me to view Scripture from a unique perspective.
One morning at the site headquarters, I was asked to wash some flint tools that had been found in a pit in the bedrock near the Gihon Spring. The flint points and flakes were still so sharp that it felt like I was handling broken glass beneath the murky water in the pail. In Dr. Shiloh’s opinion, the flint tools appeared to be from the Chalcolithic period (4500-3150 B.C.).
It was exciting to think that I had just handled artifacts, found in Jerusalem, that could have been from the time of Adam and Eve! But the thought became more complex when I was later informed that some of those flint tools may have originated in even earlier periods; the Neolithic (8500-4500 B.C.), the Natufian (10,300-8500 B.C.) or even the Epipaleolithic (18,500-10,300 B.C.). This information was later mentioned in the Hebrew University’s final report IV:
- “The presence of 11 bladelets may be of some interest, since bladelet industries are known in the Chalcolithic at Ghassul (Neuville 1934) and in the Early Bronze I at Arad (Schick 1978). However, it is impossible to determine whether these pieces are in fact intrusive from even earlier periods. Cores consisted of 37 irregular, nodular flake cores, five small mixed blade/flake cores, two single platform non-Canaanean blade cores and ten bladelet cores. The latter could easily be Epipaleolithic intrusions. All come from fill loci. The three blade and two bladelet cores recovered are undoubtedly intrusive, dating from the Neolithic/Chalcolithic and Epipaleolithic, respectively” (Qedem 35, City of David Excavations – Final Report IV, 1996, Steven A. Rosen, pp. 259-260, 262).
What’s going on here? Who were these Homo sapiens that lived so long ago, and how do they fit in with the biblical account of creation? As will be shown, this early material culture is evidence of beings that existed before the creation of man in the image of God. These early beings consisted of two things – a body and a soul, and should be counted among the beast of the earth:
Genesis 1:24-25 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Notice that here, in the Genesis 1 account of creative activity, the beast of the earth appears before the creation of Adam.
Consider the possibility that there was a pause in the Lord God’s creative activity between His creative acts described in verse 25 and His creative acts described in verse 26 – a pause in creative activity between the first “and God said” on day six, and the second “and God said” on day six. Within this pause of creative activity, a megafaunal extinction may have occurred. This would have included woolly mammoths, mastodons, Neanderthals, saber-toothed cats, giant sloths, etc. At this point the Lord God had not yet formed man of the dust of the ground, and He had not yet planted the garden where He would put the man. There was to be no physical death in the Garden (Genesis 3:22), but physical life and death cycles would have been the norm outside of it. Physical death was inevitable apart from the Tree of Life, thus the long, but gradually decreasing human lifespans after Adam and Eve were sent forth from the Garden of Eden.
Hypothetically, after the megafaunal extinction, the Lord God resumed His creative activity and created man “in His own image” (Genesis 1:26-27) – “of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), a new creation.
Genesis 2:8 - And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:15 - And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Genesis 2:18 goes on to say, “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” At this point one would assume that the following verse contains a description of how woman was made.
But the next thing we read is "…out of the ground God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam…" (Genesis 2:19-20). Notice that here, in the Genesis 2 account of creative activity, the beast of the field, and every fowl of the air were formed after the creation of Adam, but before the appearance of Eve (more on this later in part five). The important thing to understand is that man, being created in God’s image, consists of three things – body, soul, and spirit.
It is here my intention to present to the reader a biblically-sound alternative to the Young Earth Creationist position. It is also my sincere hope and prayer that, through this book, everyone will acquire a sense of the true depth of God's written Word and thereby come to truly know Him.
Table of Contents
Preface
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One – God's Eternal Nature
Part Two – What About the "Six Days" in Exodus 20:11?
Part Three – The Tablets
Part Four – The Work of the Six Days
Part Five – The Earth Inhabited
Part Six – In Our Image, After Our Likeness
Part Seven – Dating the Creation of Adam
Bibliography
About the Author
Introduction
Our study stems from a biblical worldview, which dictates that the Bible is inspired of God, inerrant, and infallible. The Bible is the only book which claims that God, the Creator of all things, inspired its writers:
II Timothy 3:16-17 – All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
If we accept the Bible’s divine authority, then we may look to the Bible to expand our knowledge of both the Creator and His creation.
A creationist is a person who believes that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account. Among creationists there are two major views regarding the time involved in creation: the young earth view and the old earth view. Those who hold to the old earth view believe Scripture is silent regarding the age of the earth and the time occupied in creative events may well have taken as long as the ‘geological’ interpretation asserts. Those who hold to the young earth view believe the Bible says heaven and earth were created in six days and the age of the earth is between 6,000 and 12,000 years old.
Young Earth Creationists adhere to catastrophism (the doctrine that major changes in the earth's crust result from sudden catastrophes, such as the impact of a large meteor, rather than from gradual evolutionary processes) and attribute geological features on the earth, like the Grand Canyon and all the fossil remains in thick rock layers to a relatively recent flood. This is called “Flood Geology.”
DR. Norman Geisler wrote,
- "Most young-earth creationists are also flood geologists; that is, they believe that the apparent age of the earth represented in the sedimentary geological formations do not represent millions of years, but only one year of activity by a worldwide flood" (Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two, God/Creation, 2003, p. 472).
Most Old Earth Creationists hold that decay of matter and energy, and death of living things had been characteristic of the universe since the creation. This is called uniformitarianism (a geological doctrine that processes acting in the same manner as at present and over long spans of time are sufficient to account for all current geological features and all past geological changes). They do not believe in evolution, but believe God suddenly intervened supernaturally to create complex life and later created entirely new species (after their own kind) suddenly and at widely spaced time intervals (see Genesis 1:21, 24, 25, 27).
Young earth creationists reject the idea of evolution, not only because, in their view, there would not have been enough time for it, but because it is not biblical. But if a creationist decides that the earth may be more than 12,000 years old, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she believes in evolution. Many old earth creationists believe what the Bible says on this issue:
Genesis 1:11-12 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:21 – And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:24-25 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:26-27 - And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 5:1-2 - This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
According to the Bible, evolution was in no way part of the creative process!
What does the Bible say about the age of the earth?
First, it is important to note that the chief purpose of the Bible is the revelation of the way of salvation (Luke 3:20-26; 24:25-27, 44-46; Genesis 3:15). God has a purpose and a plan for all His creation. The Bible manifests the Lord Jesus Christ and makes clear the plan of salvation through His shed blood; that He died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures (I Corinthians 15:3-4). Because the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ is not affected by the age of the earth, Scripture does not directly address it.
If a person believes that all truth is God’s truth, it means that there is no real conflict between what sound science discovers and what the Bible teaches, there is only apparent conflict. If such conflict appears, we are getting something wrong, either in our understanding of Scripture, or in our science. Many resolve that conflict by denying the authority of Scripture, if not the existence of God. Some do so by denying the claims of mainstream science. We all have access to the same evidence. The differences lie in how we interpret the evidence.
Old-earth creationists are divided on how to interpret the portions of the Bible that relate to the creation of the heaven and the earth. There are mainly three different interpretations of Scripture which accommodate the old-earth position: the Long Day Theory, the Gap Theory, and the Revelatory Day Theory. Each of these will be discussed later in this book.
Both Old Earth Creationists and Young Earth Creationists will agree that, in the passage of time, at least five days had passed between “the beginning” and the creation of Adam. The question is, what happened during those days; were they days of creative activity, or days of revelation? Because of their belief in the former, the Young Earth Creationists posit that the Bible indirectly states when creation of the heaven and the earth began. The late Dr. Henry M. Morris, Young Earth Creationist and former president of the Institute for Creation Research and professor of hydrology in the institute's division of graduate study and research, wrote:
- "Therefore, if we really want to know anything about this creation period... then such knowledge can be acquired only by divine revelation. And that is exactly what we have here in this marvelous first chapter of Genesis, the divinely revealed record of the creation and formation of all things: how long it took, what the various events and divisions were, what the order of development was, the relations of the various components, and all the other data which man could never be able to determine for himself through his own scientific observations" (Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record, 1976, p. 81).
- "Consequently, the account of earth history as recorded in Genesis fixes the creation of the universe at several thousand, rather than several billion, years ago. The exact date may be as long ago as 10,000 B.C., or as recently as 4,000 B.C., with the probabilities (from Biblical considerations, at least) favoring the lower end of this spectrum" (Henry M. Morris, The Genesis record, 1976, pp. 45-46).
- "The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 make it clear that the creation days happened only about 6,000 years ago" (Ken Ham, The New Answers Book 1, 2006, p. 26).
- "However we look at God's creation, we cannot comprehend its magnitude. The size of the universe has something to say about its age. If there are objects visible which are one billion light years distant, then it has taken light one billion years to reach the earth. It must be admitted that astronomers can only roughly estimate such great distances but allowing for a large margin of error it would appear that the universe must be many, many times the six-thousand-year age which many of the flood geologists hold" (Charles F. Baker, A Dispensational Theology, 1971, p. 199).
PART ONE
God’s Eternal Nature
When entering any discussion concerning God and His creation, it is important to first consider God’s eternal nature:
Psalm 90:2 – Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Micah 5:2 – But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. The “child” was born in Bethlehem, but the “Son” was “from everlasting.”
It is not difficult for most of us to envision “everlasting” in a future sense (always will be), but to grasp the idea of “everlasting” in a past sense (always was) may require more effort. “To everlasting” implies no end, while “from everlasting” implies no beginning.
God has no beginning, therefore, when the biblical writer states, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), he may be referring to the beginning of time itself, being necessary for the initial existence of man and the physical universe in which he lives.
- “In general, there is a considerable likelihood that the early Christians understood the Genesis story to imply that the beginning of time was simultaneous with the beginning of the creation of the world, especially since the chronological scheme takes its departure from this date. …The opinion, maintained by a dogmatician like Barth and an Old Testament scholar like Eichrodt, that time began with the first acts of creation, is surely a very natural way of interpreting the Genesis text and of stating how it would be read in the early Church” (James Barr, Biblical Words for Time, 1962, pp. 101-103).
But to exist as we do, solely within the constraints of time, is to experience constant change and a progression through the present, into the future, leaving the past behind. It is possible that, as time began, the first change in an otherwise unchanging environment was God’s creation of the angels (sons of God). They are recorded in Scripture as shouting for joy as the foundations of the earth were set in place: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7). The greatest of them all was the anointed cherub that covereth, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty: …Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. (Ezekiel 28:12b-15). The phrase “till iniquity was found in thee” indicates that from the beginning, freedom of choice plays an important role within the realm of time. When time is no more, change will no longer occur. Freedom of choice will no longer be a factor because the choice that brought us near to God, or separated us from Him, will already have been made and where we will spend all of eternity will have been based on our own personal choice. Choose wisely!
The Lord has no “beginning” or “ending,” so when He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22:13), He is speaking strictly in human terms. Existence in our physical world requires a beginning and an ending. It follows then that the Bible is God’s word, written for mankind in terms that mankind can understand, not from God’s perspective, but from ours: Revelation 1:8 - I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Rev. Herbert Morris wrote:
- “Two great volumes have been laid before man for his instruction, and from which his ideas and science all have been derived – the material Works, and the inspired Word of God. These being the productions of the same wise and unchangeable Author, the harmony subsisting between them is universal and complete. Both have for their end the manifestation of the Invisible Deity. While in the Bible we have a verbal revelation of the wisdom and power and goodness of God, in material Nature we have a pictorial revelation of the same, ‘the invisible things of Him being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.’” (Rev. Herbert W. Morris, Science and the Bible, 1871, p. 3).
- “There is, therefore, nothing to alarm the friend of the Bible in the geological announcement that the earth may have existed through unmeasured periods before the creation of man. Geology militates not against the Scripture, but against the mistaken, though common, interpretation put upon it. The Scripture nowhere undertakes to inform us when this globe was brought into existence; it simply states the grand and important fact, that “in the beginning,” whenever that was, “God created the heaven and the earth.” Between that beginning and the creation of man, millions of years, or even millions of ages may have elapsed, during which all the physical changes and operations described by geology were going on. But these, like the rings of Saturn, or the satellites of Jupiter, the sacred historian, without saying a word, or dropping a hint, passes by, as not being embraced in the plan or connected with the object of the inspired word” (Rev. Herbert W. Morris, Science and the Bible, 1871, pp. 31-32).
PART TWO
What about the "six days" in Exodus 20:11?
During the Time of Moses (ca. 1450 B.C.), the Lord spoke the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai and wrote them with His own finger on tablets of stone (Exodus 20:1; 31:18). But it was Moses who recited Lord’s words to the Children of Israel:
Leviticus 25:1-2 – And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.
Deuteronomy 5:1 – And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.
Moses, in fulfilling his responsibility to teach the children of Israel, uttered explanatory statements to them, after reciting the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:11; 31:17; Deuteronomy 5:15). In two of those statements (Exodus 20:11 and 31:17b), Moses spoke of “days,” which, as I will show, could be interpreted as “God’s days” or “divine days” (grand in scale), within which the Lord God created heaven and earth.
In 1914, Swiss archaeologist, Egyptologist and Biblical scholar Edouard Naville shared his thoughts regarding Moses’ use of the word day:
- “I cannot help thinking that in the first chapter of Genesis there is decidedly an Egyptian influence; not at all in the sequence of creation – there is nothing similar in the Egyptian mythology – but in the word day, in the division of the period of creation into six ‘days.’ Here we must remember the difficulty which the ancients had to express an abstract idea. They generally had recourse to a metaphor or to something perceived by the senses. Even now, though we have philosophical languages expressing the most abstruse ideas, we constantly make use of metaphors because we have not yet found the adequate expression to define with sufficient correctness that which is in our mind. When we say, for instance, ‘the sun rises,’ we use a metaphor to which we no longer pay any attention, because it is too usual. In fact, we speak of the sun as of a man who was lying down, and who gets up and stands, or as in German, is going up.
- Supposing it is necessary to express the idea which is conveyed to us by the word ‘period,’ a certain length of time having a beginning and an end, how will primitive man, or even a man like the old Egyptian whose thought and language have not yet reached what I should call the philosophical stage, how will such a man render that idea which is so familiar to us? For him the abstract conception of a period does not exist. He knows only the measurements of time connected with his life or with natural phenomena which take place before his eyes. The notion of a period, of a space of time independent of something which touches his body or his life, is quite strange to him. He will understand the day, beginning with sunrise and ending with sunset, the month, the interval between two births of the moon, the year consisting of so many moons; the Egyptian will know the interval between two risings of the Nile. Therefore, if he wishes to speak of a certain duration of time having a definite beginning and end, the most obvious metaphor at his disposal will be to call it a day. This word here does not apply to the astronomical duration of twelve hours opposed to twelve hours of night; it is only a metaphor.
- This seems to me the meaning of the word day in Egyptian. …Several passages in the Book of the Dead teach us that a man’s life, the period between his birth and his death, is called ‘his day.’ For instance, the deceased says: ‘I am delivered from the quarrels of those who are in their day.’ …Elsewhere we find mention of a king being in his day, and the variants say: ‘in his time.’
- After death the life of an Egyptian is no more a day, no more a period with a beginning and end; his existence will last with various phases and various episodes; he will take a great number of forms, but his existence in the other world will be no more limited in time, he will have gone out of the day.
- A similar sense, a period with beginning and end, seems to me to have been given to the word ‘day’ in the first chapter of Genesis, the chapter of creation.”
- We have first to notice that the Hebrew word translated ‘created’ does not apply to all that is done during the six days: it applies to what might be called the preliminary work: in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The Earth is described in Hebrew by two words translated waste and void. …Void in the sense that nothing that gives the earth its present appearance could be seen at its first creation.
- …Afterwards begin the six days, the work of which is summed up in the fourth commandment by the word ‘made.’ If we follow the Egyptian metaphor, each day is a definite period having a well-marked beginning called the morning, and an end called evening. We have no idea of the duration of these periods; many things may have happened in each of them, requiring a certain length of time. But the important point to notice is that each period had a beginning and an end; it was not of an indefinite duration.
- This conception of the six days of creation, six periods the length of which is unknown, beginning and ending at a definite moment, and separated by intervals, this Egyptian metaphor I humbly submit to astronomers and geologists and to the masters in natural science. It was the picture before the eyes of Moses, a picture which perhaps had already been before the eyes of his forefathers in Mesopotamia, of the way in which God had created the earth and mankind. This creation is not an insensible growth from an original atom or cell. The whole process of bringing the world to its present appearance was divided into six successive periods of a duration unknown to the author of the tablet. …For Moses, evolution is not a principle on which creation is based; there are six breaks in each of which something quite new appears. This sense given to the word ‘day’ seems to me to give us the true description of the way of the creation of the world as Moses imagined that it had taken place” (Edouard Naville, Archaeology of The Old Testament Was The Old Testament Written In Hebrew? 1913, pp. 66-70).
Deuteronomy 5:4–25 consists of the re-telling of the Ten Commandments to the younger generation who were to enter the Promised Land. Moses’ reciting of the Fourth Commandment in Deuteronomy chapter five is virtually identical with his reciting of the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter twenty. However, it is important to note that the comments found immediately after the Fourth Commandment in each book differ from one another.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 – Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
Interestingly, the phrase “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is…” is absent in the Deuteronomy account of the fourth Commandment – which goes on to say that nothing more was added:
Deuteronomy 5:22 – These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.
So, according to Deuteronomy 5:22, there is good reason to posit that the phrase, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is…” was not spoken by the Lord or written in the two tables of stone.
- According to E. W. Bullinger, Deuteronomy 5:15 is a "parenthetical break in Moses’ recital of the fourth commandment, in view of their shortly having servants of their own" (E. W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible, 1974, p. 246).
In Deuteronomy, Moses’ comments, after reciting the fourth commandment (“and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt…”), are historical remembrance; as the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt, they should allow their own slaves one day of rest per week. This is in keeping with Deuteronomy’s humanistic emphasis and concern for the social good.
In Exodus, Moses’ comments, after reciting the fourth commandment (“for in six days…”), are mainly theological; harking back to the creation story in Gen 1:1-2:4a, where God rests on the seventh day after the work of creation (Gen 2:2).
The idea that comments made in Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 may be parenthetical and attributed to Moses, does not mean that those verses are of any lesser importance, or to be disregarded, but it allows us to put them in their proper context. Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15 do not reflect claims, made by the Lord God, that He created all things in six days.
As he makes his case for a young earth, Ken Ham, founder and chief executive officer of Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum, and the Ark Encounter, mistakenly holds to man’s traditional teaching that the Lord Himself spoke the words, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is:
- “Now, when the Creator God spoke as recorded in Exodus 20:1, what did He (Jesus) say? As we read on, we find this statement: ‘for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day’ (Exodus 20:11).”
- “Yes, Jesus did explicitly say He created in six days. Not only this, but the one who spoke the words ‘six days’ also wrote them down for Moses: ‘Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly’ (Deuteronomy 9:10).”
- “Jesus said clearly that He created in six days. And He even did something He didn’t do with most of Scripture – He wrote it down Himself. How clearer and more authoritative can you get than that?” (Ken Ham, The New Answers Book 1, 2006, p. 258).
The examples of a pattern of six days of man’s activity and one day of rest corresponding to the length of time it took the Lord God to make heaven and earth and then rest, are instructive. But there are similar patterns found elsewhere in Scripture where the parallel reference is to years, not to days; the emphasis, then, being on the pattern itself:
Exodus 21:2 – If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
The emphasis being on the pattern (not the duration) is clearly seen in Exodus 23:10-12, where the pattern begins with reference to “years” and ends with reference to “days”:
Exodus 23:10-12 – And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.
Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Daniel 9:2 both speak of the seventy-year Babylonian captivity but when this same seventy-year period is mentioned in connection with the Sabbath, the familiar pattern of six (in this case sixty) and one (in this case ten) appears once again:
II Chronicles 36:21 – To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years (not stated as seventy years, but incorporating the pattern of six and one).
Zechariah 1:12 – Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
The pattern of six-and-one, in Scripture, corresponds to the time that elapsed while the Lord God made heaven and earth and rested. Decades, years, or days are used interchangeably within the pattern. The duration of time that was incorporated within it is irrelevant; the pattern alone is the focus.
Consequently, the pattern used by Moses in his personal statements recorded in Exodus 20:11 mirrored man’s ordinary working days with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth. The pattern used by Moses recorded in Leviticus 25:3-5 echoed man’s ordinary working years with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth, and the author of II Chronicles 36:21 paralleled man’s ordinary decades with the time it took for God to make heaven and earth. Relative to these patterns, then, how long did it take God to make heaven and earth? Did it take Him years, decades, days, or perhaps eons?
The well-known theologian, Norman Geisler, had this to say on the subject:
- “It is true that the creation/revelation week is compared with a workweek (Ex. 20:11); however, it is not uncommon in the Old Testament to make unit-to-unit comparisons rather than minute-for-minute ones. For example, God appointed forty years of wandering for forty days of disobedience (Num. 14:34). And, in Daniel 9, 490 days equals 490 years (cf. 9:24-27). What is more, we know the seventh day is more than twenty-four hours, since according to Hebrews 4 the seventh day is still going on. Genesis says that “on the seventh day [God] rested” (Gen 2:2), but Hebrews informs us that God is still in that Sabbath rest into which He entered after He created/revealed: “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his” (Heb. 4:10)” (Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Two, God/Creation, 2003, p. 472).
- “What a difference there must have been between God’s work and man’s work, - above all, between God’s ineffable repose and the rest demanded for human weariness. Must we not carry the same difference into the times, and make a similar ineffable distinction between the divine working-days and the human working-days of our lower chronology? …The lower, or earthly, day is made a memorial of the higher. We are called to remember by it. In six (human) days do all thy work; for in six (divine) days the Lord made heaven and earth. …It is the manner of the Scriptures thus to make times and things on earth representatives, or under-types, of things in the heavens, - Heb. 9:23. Viewed from such a standpoint these parallelisms in the language of the Fourth Commandment suggest of themselves a vast difference between the divine and the human days, even if it were the only argument the Bible furnished for that purpose. As the work to the work, as the rest to the rest, so are the times to the times” (J. P. Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Genesis or The First Book of Moses,1868, pp. 135-136).
PART THREE
The Tablets
When Moses presented the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel, he was reciting what the Lord had spoken and written to him (Exodus 31:18; 32:15-19; 34:28). Consider the possibility that Moses compiled the first chapter of Genesis in a similar way, but in this case, echoing information that had been originally spoken and written to Adam.
When Adam was created, he had the ability to understand God and to speak with God. According to Genesis 5:1, he apparently had the ability to read and write. In this sense, you could say that Adam hit the ground running! What is the first thing that Adam would have read? Adam would have read the same thing we read in Genesis 1:1-2:4, which ends with (in the Septuagint version), “This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made….”
- “The second tablet or series of tablets extends from the latter part of the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis to chapter 5:2 and contains an account of the beginning of man upon the earth, the Garden of Eden, the Fall, and the murder of Abel. …The one person who knew all the facts, about the Fall, is stated to be the source from which the account came. This second tablet takes the story up to the birth of the sons of Lamech. Soon after this Adam died; the concluding words of the tablet are, ‘This is the book of the origins of Adam.’” (P. J. Wiseman, New Discoveries in Babylonia About Genesis, 1946, pp. 73-74).
- book; Strong’s 5612 – cepher; writing; from #5608 – caphar; to score with a mark, to inscribe.
- generations; Strong’s 8435 – toledah; decent, i.e. family; history: - birth, generations.
- “toledot F. pl. (1) generations, families, races, Nu. 1:20, seqq. - according to their races, Gen. 10:32; 25:13; Exod. 6:16. Hence genealogy, pedigree, Gen. 5:1. As a very large portion of the most ancient Oriental history consists of genealogies, it means – (2) history, properly of families. Gen. 6:9, “this is the history of Noah.” and thus also applied to the origin of other things. Gen. 2:4, “this is the origin of the heaven and earth.” (Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, Translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, 1901, p. 859a).
Before God rested (ceased) from all His work He had made, He had one last thing to accomplish – He would communicate with man:
Genesis 2:15-24 – And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
The events described in Genesis 2:15-24 must have taken place before God rested (ceased) from all His work He had made, the description of which is mentioned earlier in Genesis 2:1-3:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Why is there a description of God still working found after the description of God resting (ceasing) from all His work? The answer is that there are two eyewitness descriptions here, from two different perspectives – one description from the Lord God (Gen. 1:1-2:4a), and one description from Adam (Gen. 2:4b-5:1a).
This would help to explain why the beast of the earth are mentioned before the creation of Adam in Genesis chapter one but are mentioned after the creation of Adam in Genesis chapter two.
If Wiseman is right about the colophons coming at the end of each of the eyewitnesses' accounts, it would indicate that the book of Genesis is made up of tablets which were written or owned by an eyewitness to the events described therein. These “family records” would have been eventually compiled by Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in the Late Bronze Age (1550 – 1200 B.C.) and should be considered historically reliable. Dale Dewitt, author and former professor of theology at Grace Christian University for over 40 years, adds this:
- “… there is good reason to think in terms of the writing rather than oral transmission of the traditions of Genesis in the Bronze Age. The evidence is clear for the writing of “books” in that period. …The cultural background of the patriarchs includes the development of writing and its application to bookmaking and record-making. Since the format of such a Bronze Age “book” can be traced in Genesis, there is reason to place the original writing of the history as well as the history itself in the Bronze Age” (Dale S. Dewitt, Bible and Spade, The Generations of Genesis, 2011).
- “Being Jewish, Moses would have had access to the family records of his ancestors (cf. Gen. 5:1; 10:1; 25:19; etc.) which were no doubt brought down to Egypt by Jacob (Gen. 46). …We can conclude that Moses, using the family records which had been passed on to him, compiled the Book of Genesis. …Moses could have copied his material from such records just as Hezekiah’s men copied from Solomon’s writings to complete the Book of Proverbs (cf. Prov. 25:1)” (Norman L. Geisler, A Popular Survey of the Old Testament, 1978, pp. 37-38).
- "The review of the facts has led us to conclude that the Pentateuch and the earlier writings of the Old Testament were originally written in Babylonian cuneiform. Therefore, they were written not in books, but on tablets. …We can easily separate the first four: the creation of heaven and earth, the creation of mankind, the generations of men as far as Noah, and the deluge.”
- “The first begins with an indication of time: in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth; then the writer relates the work of the six days, after which God rested. …The tablet ended with these words: (ii.4) ‘These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created.’ It is evidently an error to consider these words as the title of the next narrative – we should say, of the next tablet- which does not speak either of the creation of the heaven or that of the earth. Some critics, e.g. Kautz and Socin, and others, have very correctly considered these words as the end of the first narrative. This seems also to be the interpretation of the LXX., who translate: **** “This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth when they were created.” A book ended there, or as we should say, a tablet” (Edouard Naville. Archaeology of the Old Testament Was the Old Testament Written in Hebrew? 1913, pp, 30, 32).
PART FOUR
The Work of the Six Days
Most church fathers accepted the days in Genesis chapter one as ordinary days – days in which creative activity occurred. This approach has affected the way people interpret Scripture, even up until the current time. But as the man who started the Reformation said:
- “Whenever we observe the opinions of the Fathers disagree with Scripture, we reverently bear with them and acknowledge them to be our elders. Nevertheless, we do not depart from the authority of Scripture for their sake” (Martin Luther as cited in E. Pass, What Martin Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, 1991, 1523).
II Timothy 2:9 – Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. Traditions of men may have hindered proper interpretation of Scripture for centuries, but the Word of God will eventually accomplish the purpose for which He sent it.
Isaiah 55:11 – So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
The Revelatory Day Theory
Wiseman’s “tablet theory” was cautiously received by some Bible scholars but when, because of his new perspective, he broke from tradition and introduced an entirely new way to interpret the account of creation, those scholars were not so quick to follow. The most common type of data used in support of the six days of Genesis chapter one being days of creative activity is based upon traditional interpretations of the Bible, so it serves as our point of departure in investigating the possibility that those six days were days of revelation.
Job 38:4 – Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Job 38:21 – Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great?
As we learn from the Book of Job, the eyewitnesses to the acts of creation did not include man. But there was an Eyewitness who gave us a written account!
In 1958, Wiseman suggested that the “days” of Genesis chapter one may be days of revelation, not days of creative activity (Revelatory-day view). According to this view, God took six days to reveal (verbally and written) details about Himself and His creation.
- “The days of Genesis chapter one are intended to be literal days, but not of creation, and the time occupied in the events described may well be as long as the ‘geological’ interpretation asserts” (P. J. Wiseman, Creation Revealed in Six Days, 1958, p. 128).
- “We are expressly told that each of the six days was divided by ‘an evening and a morning’. Why these six ‘evenings and mornings’? Why were they introduced? For God’s sake or for man? Endless difficulties have been created in thinking that Almighty God, the Creator, ceased His work of creating the world as the evening drew on and recommenced it as morning light appeared. Was it necessary for God to cease from His work of creation when darkness came on, and to wait till morning light dawned before He could resume? This idea needs only to be stated in this blunt fashion in order to enable us to see that the cessation for the six mornings and evenings was to meet man’s necessity for rest. God had no need of a nightly rest, “He fainteth not, neither is weary.” (P. J. Wiseman, Creation Revealed in six days, 1958, pp. 37, 38).
Isaiah 40:28 – Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
There exists a gap of silence during the Lord God’s creative activity between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3, with verse 3 being the start of the Lord’s revelation to Adam.
Scofield's Gap Theory
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 – And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
The Reverend C. I. Scofield made popular the view (Gap Theory) that there could be a great gap of time between the first two verses of the Bible into which all the geological ages fit – Destruction of the original earth (v. 2) and then a recreation of earth within a six-day period (starting at v. 3).
E. W. Bullinger, likewise, placed a great gap of time between Gen.1:1 and Gen. 1:2, going so far as to improperly present II Peter 3:5-6 to support his position:
- "THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS" (2 pet. 3:5, 6), Creation in eternity past, to which all Fossils and 'Remains' belong" (E. W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible, 1974, note on p. 3).
Bullinger failed to see that the "world that then was" is a reference to the time when the wickedness of man was great in the earth (Genesis 6:5), having no relationship with an "original" earth before it became without form, and void (Genesis 1:2).
Expositor's Greek New Testament clarifies it well:
- "The first part of the argument against the scoffers - It is not true that the course of the world is unchanging. They have wilfully forgotten that the heavens existed originally, and the earth was formed out of water, and by means of water, by the Word of God. By this very water and Word the world, as it then was, was overwhelmed and perished. The present heavens and earth, by the same Word, are treasured up for fire, being reserved for the day when impious men shall meet their doom and destruction.”
Wiseman's revelatory-day-view allows for God's creative activity to continue (with no gap) after verse 1. Verse 2 would then be a description of how the earth looked immediately following its creation. Envision it as a plain ball of water containing no other defining characteristics and void of life. Once God's creative activity commenced, there was never any pause or "gap." We read about the cessation of God's creative activity later in the Book of Genesis:
Genesis 1:31 – And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Genesis 2:2 – And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
As has been shown, the Lord God's revelation about His creative activity occurred before His rest and should be considered part of His work which He had made. God spoke things into existence, and Genesis 1:3 marks the beginning of His revelation to Adam about it:
Genesis 1:3-5 – And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
The Long day theory
There are some who interpret the "days" of Genesis chapter one as long periods of time, even millions of years (Long Day Theory). Long-day theorists claim that the word “day” in Genesis chapter one must be interpreted by its context - not how it is normally used. Ironically, they take II Peter 3:8 out of context to strengthen their theory:
II Peter 3:8-9 – But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
A careful interpretation of these verses would show that they have more to do with the Lord’s patience with us than with His perception of time:
- “Time is of no consequence to God, and in His love for men He is keeping open for as long as possible the door of repentance. …The main thrust of it is that after the second coming, ushering in Christ’s judgment, there will be no further opportunity for repentance, and so God in His mercy is giving men as long as possible to repent” (The New Bible Commentary Revised, 1978, p. 1257).
- "Another problem with the Long Day Theory is the use of the words “evening and morning” in Genesis chapter one. When reading Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31, an interpretation which would make these days other than ordinary twenty-four-hour-days seems impossible. To an ordinary reader of modern days, as to those of ancient times, these days, each with their evenings and mornings, imply six days of ordinary length. The great Hebraic scholar C.D. Ginsburg commented on the use of the term “day” in chapters one and two of Genesis: “There is nothing in the first chapter of Genesis to justify the spiritualization of the expression day. On the contrary the definition in verse 5 of the word in question demands that yom should be understood in the same sense as we understand the word day in common parlance, i.e. a natural day” (C.D. Ginsburg, cited by P. J. Wiseman, Clues To Creation In Genesis, 1977, p. 123).
- “The arguments generally produced by those who ascribe to the word day here an unlimited duration of time are untenable. They say that the word day is not to be taken here in its literal meaning is evident from chapter 2:4, for the portion of time spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis as six days is spoken of in the second chapter as one day. But the word used in the first six days is the simple noun, whereas in chapter 2:4 it is a compound of the day of with the preposition in, which, according to the genius of the Hebrew language, makes it an adverb, and must be translated, when, at the time of, after” (C.D. Ginsburg, cited by P. J. Wiseman, Clues To Creation In Genesis, 1977, p. 123).
The creative activity being described each day may have taken eons to materialize but the revelation itself occurred in six twenty-four-hour periods.
- light; Strong’s 216, ore; from 215; illumination or luminary: bright, clear, + daylight, morning, sun.
- ore; Strong’s 215, to be luminous: break of day.
When one sees the first light of day, what is the source of that light? The answer is, the sun; the same sun which provided light for Adam to read by on the first day of the Lord God's revelation to him!
- day; Strong’s 3117, yowm; to be hot (as the warm hours), from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next.
- firmament; Strong’s 7549, raqiya; from 7554; an expanse, i.e. the firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky: - firmament.
Psalm 19:1 – The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Isaiah 45:18 – For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
When Isaiah states “…he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited…,” he is referring to a phase of earth’s creation which is described in Genesis 1:9-13. Envision the Earth as it exists today, composed of seas and dry land with grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit.
Genesis 1:9-13 – And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The earth was no longer “without form.” There were now mountains and valleys and other defining characteristics. Notice the phrase "and God said" was used a second time as the creative activity transitioned from inorganic material to life.
Genesis 1:14-19 – And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Within the revelatory day view, the problem associated with the fourth day disappears because these are not held as days of creative activity, but of divine revelation. This view posits that the Lord God chose the fourth day of revelation to tell Adam about the sun, moon and stars which allows for the sun to have been the source of the light and point of reference (sunrise/sunset) in days one through three.
According to John Peter Lange, the Jewish mind always conceived of creation as vast, indefinite, and most ancient:
- “Every other striking feature of the account is dwelt upon but this wondrous brevity, the greatest marvel of them all, as it would impress itself upon the mere human imagination picturing it all on its sense-scale. All creation begun and finished in six solar days! The earth, the air and seas, with all their swarming spheres of life, the hosts of heaven, sun, moon, and stars, angels and men, all called from non-existence, from nothingness we may say, and their evolution completed in one week, such weeks as those that are now so rapidly passing away! – a week measured, as to extent, by our present time-scale, through the index of that scale – and this adds still to the wonder – for there is nothing repugnant to reason either in its shortness or its instantaneousness, if God had so willed it – but the utter silence respecting such a wonder in every other part of the Bible. There must have been something in the most ancient conceptions of time, especially of aeonic or world-times, that led to this. It is shown by their use of the great Olamic plurals before referred to [Psalm 90:2, 145:13, and I Timothy 1:17], and the transfer of the same usage to the aeons of the New Testament. …The Jewish mind, prophetical, contemplative, and poetical, seems to always have conceived of creation as vast, indefinite, and most ancient” (Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Genesis or The First Book of Moses, 1868, pp. 136-137).
- “The manner in which the creative days appear in Psalm 104 has drawn the attention of commentators ancient and modern. …Here are the creative days in all the greatness of their evolutions, but no mention of the brevity, no hint of any such impression on the mind of the writer, nothing to suggest anything of the kind to the mind of the reader. There is the feeling of vastness, power, immensity. …From the Psalm itself, certainly, if we carried nothing else into the interpretation, no such impression of brevity would be obtained. All is the other way. …There is no mistaking here the outline of the creative picture, and of the creative times, yet the impression is not one of brevity. There is order here, succession and evolution on a vast scale; but no intimation of a crowding into times out of harmony with the conception of the works, or the scale of duration which the conceptual truthfulness of the picture demands. If we had nothing but this passage, no one would think of solar days in connection with its great transitions” (Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Genesis or The First Book of Moses, 1868, pp. 138-139).
- "On Wiseman's 'Creation Revealed in six days' I have little to say. Genesis one's "And God said" portions could be read as a compacted series of divine revelations as they are elsewhere in the Old Testament, though normally separated in series by larger quantities of prophetic speeches in that part of the Old Testament. I am glad to hear that you are trying to think critically about Ham's and others' theories."
PART FIVE
The Earth Inhabited
God here begins to reveal how He filled the void. In filling the void, the creation of man would be God’s greatest achievement, being crowned with honor and glory, and God saved that part of His revelation for the last day.
Genesis 1:20 – And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
- creature; Strong’s 8318, sherets; from #8317; a swarm, i.e. active mass of minute animals.
IN MY OWN BACK YARD – While playing with my children in the field behind our home in Michigan, I found a large (3” diameter) trilobite fossil. After a little research, we learned that our find could be from what geologists call the Cambrian strata of the Paleozoic Era, and evidence of one of the earliest creatures of God’s creation. Photo: Arthur Chrysler.
Charles Baker wrote:
Charles Baker wrote:
- “…We believe that the Bible teaches that the various kinds of life were created directly by God, and we do not believe that the facts of science disprove this fact. Some evolutionists would have us believe that a cross-section of the rocks shows a gradual development from simple one-celled animals in the lowest to the most complex, highly developed animals in the highest stratum, but this is not the record of geology. The first undisputed traces of fossil animal life occur in the Cambrian strata and of these Edwin K. Gedney states: ‘About two thousand species of life have been found in the Cambrian strata in which all the phyla of animal life except the chordates or vertebrates, and most of the great classes, are represented. This constitutes a third great geological fact, that all the invertebrate phyla appear contemporaneously with marked suddenness in the Cambrian differentiated into phyla, classes, and orders and with no clear indication as to how they developed into this condition if they did develop at all.’ Gedney also quotes A.H. Clark (Smithsonian Institute): ‘So, we see that the fossil record, the actual history of the animal life on the earth, bears out the assumption that at its very first appearance animal life in its broader features was in essentially the same form as that in which we now know it… Thus, so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any of the major groups arose from any other.’
- If all these hundreds of species of invertebrate life appear suddenly in the same strata of rocks, it is evident that they did not gradually develop through a process of evolution over millions of years, and it is therefore evident that Theistic Evolution is just as contrary to fact as is Atheistic or any other kind of evolution” (Charles F. Baker, A Dispensational Theology, 1971, p. 195).
“Petoskey stone” composed of a fossilized coral, found by the author in Gaylord, Michigan. Photo: Arthur Chrysler. This fossil contains glacial striations; therefore, two different eras are represented here - the Devonian strata of the Paleozoic Era, and the Ice Age striations of the Cenozoic Era! This fossil was naturally polished by an Ice Age glacier. When stones have been glacially transported, as this example from the Devonian strata in Michigan, they may retain striations, indicating abrasion as they were transported on the underside of a sliding glacier.
Genesis 1:21 – And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:23 – And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Genesis 1:24 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
There is a marked difference between the “creature” (sherets), mentioned in Genesis 1:20, and the “creature” (nephesh) mentioned in Genesis 1:21-24. The former had a simple, wiggling body, while the latter had a breathing body and self-awareness. There is also a marked difference between the “creature” mentioned in Genesis 1:24, and “man in our image, after our likeness” mentioned in Genesis 1:26. The former consists of body (flesh) and soul (self-awareness), while the latter consists of body (flesh), soul (self-awareness), and spirit (God awareness).
Genesis 1:25 – And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
The phrase “beast of the earth” gives reference to a wide variety of pre-Adamic creatures. The end of the last glacial period (Younger Dryas) witnessed the extinction of what remained of these creatures, including woolly mammoths, mastodons, Neanderthals, giant sloths, saber-toothed tigers, etc. There is evidence for an extraterrestrial impact that may have contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling (Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis). As will be seen, Adam never encountered beasts of this kind, and certainly none of these pre-Adamic beasts were among the animals on Noah's Ark!
Neanderthal fossils were first found in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1857. Other similar remains have been found elsewhere in Europe and Israel. In Israel, the first Neanderthal was found in Upper Galilee - Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh (Arabic: “Cave of the Robbers”). It is also known as Galilee Man.
Genesis 1:21 – And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
- creature; Strong’s 5315, nephesh; a breathing creature, i.e. animal or (abstr.) vitality; used very widely in a lit., accommodated or fig. sense (bodily or mental).
Genesis 1:23 – And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Genesis 1:24 – And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
There is a marked difference between the “creature” (sherets), mentioned in Genesis 1:20, and the “creature” (nephesh) mentioned in Genesis 1:21-24. The former had a simple, wiggling body, while the latter had a breathing body and self-awareness. There is also a marked difference between the “creature” mentioned in Genesis 1:24, and “man in our image, after our likeness” mentioned in Genesis 1:26. The former consists of body (flesh) and soul (self-awareness), while the latter consists of body (flesh), soul (self-awareness), and spirit (God awareness).
Genesis 1:25 – And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
The phrase “beast of the earth” gives reference to a wide variety of pre-Adamic creatures. The end of the last glacial period (Younger Dryas) witnessed the extinction of what remained of these creatures, including woolly mammoths, mastodons, Neanderthals, giant sloths, saber-toothed tigers, etc. There is evidence for an extraterrestrial impact that may have contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling (Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis). As will be seen, Adam never encountered beasts of this kind, and certainly none of these pre-Adamic beasts were among the animals on Noah's Ark!
Neanderthal fossils were first found in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1857. Other similar remains have been found elsewhere in Europe and Israel. In Israel, the first Neanderthal was found in Upper Galilee - Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh (Arabic: “Cave of the Robbers”). It is also known as Galilee Man.
- "In 1925, on behalf of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and under the general supervision of Professor John Garstang, director of the School and of the Department of Antiquities, an Oxford student, Mr. F. Turville-Petre, excavated two caves just at the edge of the plain at its northern side, Mugharet el-Emireh and Mugharet ez-Zuttiyeh… Here (Mugharet ez-Zuttiyeh), under a large boulder and deep in the layer of man-made deposits, amid flints of the Mousterian type, Mr. Turville-Petre came upon four pieces of a skull now famous as the "Galilee man… When the boulder was tilted over and the brown fragments of skull lay revealed, a new chapter was begun in the prehistory, not only of Palestine, but of the world, for they provided for the first time that similar races were making and using similar flint tools in Asia as well as Europe." (Chester McCown, The Ladder of Progress in Palestine, 1943, pp. 19-21).
Galilee Man – from the book Researches in Prehistoric Galilee 1925-1926 by F. Turville-Petre, and A Report on the Galilee Skull by Sir Arthur Keith, London, 1927.
David Bressan, a science journalist who writes for Forbes wrote:
According to Scripture, “all things were created by Him and for Him”, and He is “from everlasting.” Therefore, it is not necessary for us to discount "millions of years" solely to construct an argument against evolution. Just because there may have been time enough for evolution to occur, doesn't mean that we should abandon the Bible and embrace Darwin. The Bible is very clear about God's creative activity in this regard (Genesis 1:21, 27; 2:3), moreover, the earth has not ceased to reveal "the things that are made."
Scientists now claim that many people have about 1% to 2% of their DNA from Neanderthals. Ann Gibbons, writing for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stated:
If you doubt that DNA can be preserved in the dust of the earth, read what the experts have to say on the subject:
David Bressan, a science journalist who writes for Forbes wrote:
- “We live in a zoological impoverished world, from which all the hugest, and fiercest, and strangest forms have recently disappeared; and this is, no doubt, a much better world for us now they have gone. It is surely a marvelous fact, and one that has hardly been sufficiently dwelt upon, this sudden dying out of so many large Mammalia, not in one place only but over half the land surface of the globe. In 1876, Victorian naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace was already puzzled about the extinction of many large beasts at the end of the last Ice Age. Thirty-five genera of mammals, most of them of a large size like mammoths, disappeared during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene some 10,000 years ago. Many hypotheses have since been proposed to explain this mass extinction.” (David Bressan, Did a Comet Wipe Out Ice Age Megafauna? 2017, Forbes).
- “As for the Neandertal… these early anthropoids cannot be dismissed as mere apes in their mentality, for their remains are accompanied by stone implements, such as arrowheads and ax heads; and charred remains indicate strongly the use of fire for cooking purposes. Especially in the case of Neandertal deposits, there seems to be evidence of burial with adjacent implements as if there was some sort of belief in life after death (necessitating the use of such implements-or their spiritual counterpart-by the deceased). Some crude statuettes have likewise been discovered which may possibly have had cultic purposes, and some of the remarkable paintings discovered in some of the caves may have been of Neandertal origin…. It is most unlikely that these earlier anthropoids can be brought within the timespan indicated by the genealogical lists of Genesis 5 and 11. Either we must regard these lists as having no significance whatever as time indicators, or else we must reject these earlier humanlike species as being descended from Adam at all” (Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 1974, pp. 196-197).
- “…it seems best to regard these races as all prior to Adam’s time, and not involved in the Adamic covenant. We must leave the question open, in view of the cultural remains, whether these pre-Adamic creatures had souls (or, to use the trichotomic terminology, spirits). But the implication of Genesis 1:26 is that God was creating a qualitatively different being when He made Adam (for note that the word rendered ‘man’ in Gen 1:26-27 is the Hebrew ‘Adam’), a being who was uniquely fashioned in the image of God. Only Adam and his descendants were infused with the breath of God and a spiritual nature corresponding to God Himself. Romans 5:12-21 demands that all mankind subsequent to Adam’s time, at least, must have been literally descended from him, since he entered into covenant relationship with God as the representative of the entire race of man. This indicates that there could have been no true genetic relationship between Adam (the first man created in the image of God) and the pre-Adamic races. …They may have been exterminated by God for reasons unknown prior to the creation of the original parent of the present human race. Adam, then, was the first man created in the spiritual image of God, according to Genesis 1:26-27, and there is no evidence from science to disprove it” (Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 1974, pp. 198-199).
According to Scripture, “all things were created by Him and for Him”, and He is “from everlasting.” Therefore, it is not necessary for us to discount "millions of years" solely to construct an argument against evolution. Just because there may have been time enough for evolution to occur, doesn't mean that we should abandon the Bible and embrace Darwin. The Bible is very clear about God's creative activity in this regard (Genesis 1:21, 27; 2:3), moreover, the earth has not ceased to reveal "the things that are made."
Scientists now claim that many people have about 1% to 2% of their DNA from Neanderthals. Ann Gibbons, writing for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, stated:
- "Once seen as separate species, Neanderthals have enjoyed a complete makeover in the fourteen years since researchers first sequenced DNA in their fossils and found they interbred with modern humans" (Ann Gibbons, Science - Neanderthals and Modern Humans Mingled Early and Often, July 11, 2024).
If you doubt that DNA can be preserved in the dust of the earth, read what the experts have to say on the subject:
- “The analysis of ancient DNA preserved in sediments is an emerging technology allowing for the detection of the past presence of humans and other animals at archaeological sites. Yet, little is known about how DNA is preserved in sediment for long periods of time. Diyendo Massilani, the lead author of the study, was able to recover substantial amounts of Neanderthal DNA from only a few milligrams of sediment. He could identify the sex of the individuals who left their DNA behind and showed that they belonged to a population related to a Neanderthal whose genome was previously reconstructed from a bone fragment discovered in the cave” (Dr. Diyendo Massilani and Dr. Matthias Meyer, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, DNA in archaeological sediments, 2021).
- “The next discoveries in Palestine of skeletal remains of this race were made by joint expeditions of the British School of Archæology and the American School of Prehistoric Research in the Wady el-Mughara group of caves. This group is on the western slope of Mount Carmel, near the Crusaders' Castle at Athlit and some 3.2 km. from the Mediterranean shore. Of the three caves excavated two have yielded eleven more or less complete skeletons of the Neandertal race and isolated fragments from several additional skeletons. Ten of the skeletons are from the Mugharet es-Skhūl (Cave of the Kids). A fairly complete female skeleton, a massive lower jaw of a male, and fragments of additional skeletons are from the Mugharet et-Tabūn (Cave of the Oven)” (George Grant MacCurdy, Prehistoric Man in Palestine, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 76, No. 4, 1936, pp. 523-24).
Associated Press photo in the author’s possession, dated September 5, 1967. Most of the skeletons were embedded in hard breccia. They were removed in blocks of the enveloping breccia to London, where the task of cleaning was assigned to Mr. T. D. McCown of the American School under the supervision of Sir Arthur Keith of the Royal College of Surgeons.
God made all things after their kind:
I Corinthians 15:38-41 – But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
The Apostle Paul introduced us to God's other book – the book of Nature:
Romans 1:20 – For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
The Grand Canyon in Arizona is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet). Consider it part of a Bible in nature (yes, God wrote two books!); each layer of sediment represents a page of revelation which fits in perfectly with the creation story of the Bible.
We know that there was "dry land" before Noah's flood (Genesis 1:9-10). In Genesis 7:17-20 there is mention of "high hills" and "mountains" whose existence was not associated with Noah's flood. Perhaps the layers of sediment found in the Grand Canyon represent this type of land formation, having preexisted the Flood of Noah.
Scottish theologian, Thomas Chalmers observed:
John Garstang, a British archaeologist, mounted an expedition to gather evidence regarding the date of the fortifications at Jericho. He dug from 1930 to 1936 and promptly published his findings in a series of preliminary reports. Garstang concluded that the residential part of the city (City IV) came to an end about 1400 B.C., based on pottery found in the destruction debris and on scarabs recovered from nearby tombs. He ascribed the destruction to invading Israelites.
Later, when excavating the same city, Kathleen Kenyon ignored Garstang's records and came to her own conclusions regarding the Israelites. Of special importance, though, is Kenyon’s follow up excavation of the Neolithic strata. She distinguished two strata that had been occupied by Homo sapiens who did not make or use pottery (so-called pre-pottery Neolithic) and two other strata (pottery Neolithic) inhabited by Homo sapiens who did use pottery. Kenyon concluded that the settlement at the site goes back to 9000 B.C., thus giving Jericho the distinction, in Kenyon’s day, of being one of the world’s oldest cities. Kenyon’s discoveries, later confirmed by excavations at other sites, are the foundation of what we now know regarding a formative period that preceded and led to the historical periods.
God made all things after their kind:
I Corinthians 15:38-41 – But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
The Apostle Paul introduced us to God's other book – the book of Nature:
Romans 1:20 – For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
The Grand Canyon in Arizona is 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet). Consider it part of a Bible in nature (yes, God wrote two books!); each layer of sediment represents a page of revelation which fits in perfectly with the creation story of the Bible.
We know that there was "dry land" before Noah's flood (Genesis 1:9-10). In Genesis 7:17-20 there is mention of "high hills" and "mountains" whose existence was not associated with Noah's flood. Perhaps the layers of sediment found in the Grand Canyon represent this type of land formation, having preexisted the Flood of Noah.
Scottish theologian, Thomas Chalmers observed:
- “Those rocks which stand forth in the order of their formation and are much imprinted with their own peculiar fossil remains, have been termed the archives of nature where she hath recorded the changes that have taken place in the history of the globe. They are made to serve the purpose of scrolls or inscriptions on which we might read of those great steps and successions by which the earth has been brought to its present state. And should these archives of nature be but truly deciphered, we are not afraid of their being openly confronted with the archives of revelation. It is unmanly to blink the approach of light from whatever quarter of observation it may fall upon us – and these are not the best friends of Christianity who feel either dislike or alarm, when the torch of science or the torch of history is held up to the Bible. For ourselves, we are not afraid when the eye of an intrepid, if it be only of a sound philosophy, scrutinizes however jealously all its pages. We have no dread of any apprehended conflict between the doctrines of Scripture and the discoveries of science – persuaded as we are, that whatever story the geologists of our day shall find to be engraven on the volume of nature, it will only the more accredit the story which is graven on the volume of revelation” (Thomas Chalmers, On Natural Theology, 1857, pp. 247-248).
John Garstang, a British archaeologist, mounted an expedition to gather evidence regarding the date of the fortifications at Jericho. He dug from 1930 to 1936 and promptly published his findings in a series of preliminary reports. Garstang concluded that the residential part of the city (City IV) came to an end about 1400 B.C., based on pottery found in the destruction debris and on scarabs recovered from nearby tombs. He ascribed the destruction to invading Israelites.
Later, when excavating the same city, Kathleen Kenyon ignored Garstang's records and came to her own conclusions regarding the Israelites. Of special importance, though, is Kenyon’s follow up excavation of the Neolithic strata. She distinguished two strata that had been occupied by Homo sapiens who did not make or use pottery (so-called pre-pottery Neolithic) and two other strata (pottery Neolithic) inhabited by Homo sapiens who did use pottery. Kenyon concluded that the settlement at the site goes back to 9000 B.C., thus giving Jericho the distinction, in Kenyon’s day, of being one of the world’s oldest cities. Kenyon’s discoveries, later confirmed by excavations at other sites, are the foundation of what we now know regarding a formative period that preceded and led to the historical periods.
Neolithic round tower, uncovered by Kathleen Kenyon, at Jericho.
As will be shown, the date of the creation of Adam is 3899 B.C. – roughly 5000 years after Jericho’s first city, with its round tower. How is it that a city existed before the time of Adam? The answer is that those inhabitants (Homo sapiens) of early Jericho (and other cities like Göbekli Tepe) still fall under the category of “the beast of the earth” described in Genesis 1:24-25. They would have consisted of a breathing body and would have experienced self-awareness, but not God awareness.
After their disappearance, Adam was created as an entirely new creation – man in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) – having a body of flesh, possessing self-awareness, and possessing God-awareness. It is at this precise moment in time that we witness the remarkable fusion between paleontology and archaeology!
Man was not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but of the dust of the ground. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:7 – And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The living creatures were not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but out of the ground. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:19-20 – And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Don’t miss this – According to these verses, these living creatures were formed out of the ground after the creation of Adam, but before the appearance of Eve. This would be a representation of the animals of today, the same animals that were on Noah’s ark – no Dinosaurs or Neanderthals among them!
And, of course, Eve, was not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but from one of Adam’s ribs. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:21-23 – And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
It was only after these events, ending with the appearance of Eve, that God pronounced that everything He had made was very good:
Genesis 1:31 – And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Ian Tattersall of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History in New York did a study on the sudden emergence and spread of Homo sapiens which resulted in this summary:
After their disappearance, Adam was created as an entirely new creation – man in God’s image (Gen. 1:26) – having a body of flesh, possessing self-awareness, and possessing God-awareness. It is at this precise moment in time that we witness the remarkable fusion between paleontology and archaeology!
- “Of all the subjects related to Creation the origin and age of man are probably the most important theologically. While the Christian believes that all lower forms of life were originally created by God, he is especially committed to the fact that man came into being as a special act of creation. This fact is being challenged more and more by the scientific world, so that the student of the Bible is confronted by a very real problem in defending his faith” (Charles F. Baker, A Dispensational Theology, 1971, p. 204).
Man was not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but of the dust of the ground. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:7 – And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
The living creatures were not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but out of the ground. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:19-20 – And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Don’t miss this – According to these verses, these living creatures were formed out of the ground after the creation of Adam, but before the appearance of Eve. This would be a representation of the animals of today, the same animals that were on Noah’s ark – no Dinosaurs or Neanderthals among them!
And, of course, Eve, was not created ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” but from one of Adam’s ribs. Adam himself wrote about it:
Genesis 2:21-23 – And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
It was only after these events, ending with the appearance of Eve, that God pronounced that everything He had made was very good:
Genesis 1:31 – And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Ian Tattersall of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History in New York did a study on the sudden emergence and spread of Homo sapiens which resulted in this summary:
- “There is little, if anything, in the hominin fossil record that can be said to closely anticipate the very derived anatomy of our species Homo sapiens. Compared to other members of the genus Homo, modern humans are exceptionally slenderly built, with narrow hips and barrel-shaped rib cages that taper both at the top and the bottom. Our skulls are high, short, and rounded; and instead of projecting, our very small faces are retracted beneath the front of our braincases. Our brow ridges vary from modestly protrusive to barely detectable, but they are invariably bipartite, with central and lateral surfaces separated by an oblique furrow. We are also alone among the hominins in having a true chin at the front of the lower jaw. This takes the form of an inverted “T,” with a vertical ridge in the midline of the jaw atop a horizontal bar running between a pronounced tubercle on each side” (Ian Tattersall, The Emergence and Spread of Homo sapiens. In: Understanding Human Evolution. Understanding Life, 2022, pp. 129 -147).
(Body and soul) (Body, soul, and spirit)
Self-awareness | God-awareness
The important thing to understand is that our oldest ancestor, Adam, represented the highest form of all created beings. Man is triune – formed in the image of the triune God!
Death Before Sin
Genesis 2:15-17 – And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Death is separation. Physical death is separation from the body. Spiritual death is separation from God. God told Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit he would “surely die.” Adam did sin, but his physical death was not instantaneous; God had a different type of death in mind – spiritual death. An example of this separation from God is seen in Genesis 3:8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. They had lost their intimate connection with God and would have been considered spiritually dead.
Death from the Young Earth Creationist perspective –
Genesis 2:7-9 – And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The phrase "and God said" was used for a second time on the same day six of the Lord’s revelation in Genesis 1:26. It was after this second "and God said" that man was created in God's own image out of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). At this time the Lord God decided to make “an help meet” for Adam:
Genesis 2:18 – And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
You would assume that the very next verse would have a description of the Lord God forming the woman, but what happens next relates to the animals of today:
Genesis 2:19 - And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
The fossil record, showing evidence of animals eating each other, diseases like cancer in their bones, violence, plants with thorns, and so on, may be read as the pages of God's other book, exposing what may have occurred between the first "and God said" on day six (Gen. 1:24) and the second "and God said" on day six (Gen. 1:26).
Genesis 1:24-25 was written to Adam by an eyewitness (the Lord God). Adam never saw the living creatures being described there. They had all gone extinct before Adam’s time. Genesis 2:19-20 was written by the first man, Adam. The Lord God brought the living creatures described in those verses unto him to see what he would call them.
The meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ becomes apparent as the gift of eternal life, which does not mean that we, as believers, will not die physically, but that we will no longer be separated from God the Father. Unbelievers do not cease to exist when their physical bodies die away, but they will be eternally separated from the presence of God.
To be without Christ is to be spiritually dead. Paul describes it as “being alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18). To be separated from the life of God is synonymous with being dead. The natural man, like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden, is isolated from God. When we come to a saving knowledge, the spiritual death assigned to us is reversed. Before salvation, we are dead (spiritually), but Jesus gives us life. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1).
Romans 5:12 – Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Notice how Ken Ham and Tim Lovett marry belief in an old earth to evolution:
When the distinction is made between physical death and spiritual death, and the mention of death put in its proper context, it is possible to comprehend the idea that many creatures lived and died a physical death long before the creation of man in God's image. The belief of physical death before the fall does not in any way undercut the gospel. It was spiritual death that entered upon the fall, and it is spiritual death from which we are delivered.
John 11:24-26 – Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die (spiritually). Believest thou this?
Acts 2:25-28 – For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Acceptance of the gift of eternal life does not mean that we, as believers, will not die physically, but that we will no longer be separated from God the Father.
Self-awareness | God-awareness
The important thing to understand is that our oldest ancestor, Adam, represented the highest form of all created beings. Man is triune – formed in the image of the triune God!
Death Before Sin
Genesis 2:15-17 – And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Death is separation. Physical death is separation from the body. Spiritual death is separation from God. God told Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit he would “surely die.” Adam did sin, but his physical death was not instantaneous; God had a different type of death in mind – spiritual death. An example of this separation from God is seen in Genesis 3:8: And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. They had lost their intimate connection with God and would have been considered spiritually dead.
Death from the Young Earth Creationist perspective –
- "The book of Genesis teaches that death is the result of Adam's sin (Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12, 8:18-22) and that all of God's creation was 'very good' upon its completion (Genesis 1:31). All animals and humans were originally vegetarian (Genesis 1:29-30). But if we compromise on the history of Genesis by adding millions of years, we must believe that death and disease were part of the world before Adam sinned. You see, the (alleged) millions of years of earth's history in the fossil record shows evidence of animals eating each other, diseases like cancer in their bones, violence, plants with thorns, and so on. All of this supposedly takes place before man appears on the scene, and thus before sin (and its curse of death, disease, thorns, carnivory, etc.) entered the world" (Ken Ham, The New Answers Book 1, 2006, p. 36).
Genesis 2:7-9 – And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The phrase "and God said" was used for a second time on the same day six of the Lord’s revelation in Genesis 1:26. It was after this second "and God said" that man was created in God's own image out of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). At this time the Lord God decided to make “an help meet” for Adam:
Genesis 2:18 – And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
You would assume that the very next verse would have a description of the Lord God forming the woman, but what happens next relates to the animals of today:
Genesis 2:19 - And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
The fossil record, showing evidence of animals eating each other, diseases like cancer in their bones, violence, plants with thorns, and so on, may be read as the pages of God's other book, exposing what may have occurred between the first "and God said" on day six (Gen. 1:24) and the second "and God said" on day six (Gen. 1:26).
Genesis 1:24-25 was written to Adam by an eyewitness (the Lord God). Adam never saw the living creatures being described there. They had all gone extinct before Adam’s time. Genesis 2:19-20 was written by the first man, Adam. The Lord God brought the living creatures described in those verses unto him to see what he would call them.
The meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ becomes apparent as the gift of eternal life, which does not mean that we, as believers, will not die physically, but that we will no longer be separated from God the Father. Unbelievers do not cease to exist when their physical bodies die away, but they will be eternally separated from the presence of God.
To be without Christ is to be spiritually dead. Paul describes it as “being alienated from the life of God” (Ephesians 4:18). To be separated from the life of God is synonymous with being dead. The natural man, like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden, is isolated from God. When we come to a saving knowledge, the spiritual death assigned to us is reversed. Before salvation, we are dead (spiritually), but Jesus gives us life. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1).
Romans 5:12 – Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Romans 3:23 – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Romans 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Notice how Ken Ham and Tim Lovett marry belief in an old earth to evolution:
- "Those who accept the evolutionary time frame, with its fossil accumulation, also rob the Fall of Adam of its serious consequences. They put the fossils, which testify of disease, suffering, and death, before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and suffering into the world. In doing this, they also undermine the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Such a scenario also robs all meaning from God's description of His finished creation as 'very good' (Ken Ham, Tim Lovett, The New Answers Book 1, 2006, p. 136).
When the distinction is made between physical death and spiritual death, and the mention of death put in its proper context, it is possible to comprehend the idea that many creatures lived and died a physical death long before the creation of man in God's image. The belief of physical death before the fall does not in any way undercut the gospel. It was spiritual death that entered upon the fall, and it is spiritual death from which we are delivered.
John 11:24-26 – Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die (spiritually). Believest thou this?
Acts 2:25-28 – For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Acceptance of the gift of eternal life does not mean that we, as believers, will not die physically, but that we will no longer be separated from God the Father.
PART SIX
"In Our Image, After Our Likeness"
Genesis 1:24-25 - And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:26 – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Notice the phrase "and God said" is used for the second time, on the same day of revelation as God transitions from talking about cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth (body and soul) to man in the image of God (body, soul, and spirit).
Who is God, that man might be made in His image? The first use in Scripture of a name for God occurs in Genesis 1:1. The Hebrew word for God, in this verse, is Elohim. A short word-study, using Strong’s Concordance, will add much to our understanding of this name: 430 – Elohim; plur. of 433; gods in the ordinary sense; but spec. used of the supreme God.
433 – Eloahh; from 410; a deity or the Deity. 410 – El; from 352; strength, mighty, Almighty. 352 – Ayil; from 193; strength, hence anything strong. 193 – ‘Uwl; to twist, i.e. be strong; the body (as being rolled together); powerful; mighty, strength. ‘Uwl is the root word, not stemming from any other word for God in Strong’s Concordance. When reading “rolled together” and “to twist,” one may wonder how these terms could possibly be describing God. But in association with “strength,” it is easy to envision rope as an example of what is being described.
"In Our Image, After Our Likeness"
Genesis 1:24-25 - And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:26 – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Notice the phrase "and God said" is used for the second time, on the same day of revelation as God transitions from talking about cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth (body and soul) to man in the image of God (body, soul, and spirit).
Who is God, that man might be made in His image? The first use in Scripture of a name for God occurs in Genesis 1:1. The Hebrew word for God, in this verse, is Elohim. A short word-study, using Strong’s Concordance, will add much to our understanding of this name: 430 – Elohim; plur. of 433; gods in the ordinary sense; but spec. used of the supreme God.
433 – Eloahh; from 410; a deity or the Deity. 410 – El; from 352; strength, mighty, Almighty. 352 – Ayil; from 193; strength, hence anything strong. 193 – ‘Uwl; to twist, i.e. be strong; the body (as being rolled together); powerful; mighty, strength. ‘Uwl is the root word, not stemming from any other word for God in Strong’s Concordance. When reading “rolled together” and “to twist,” one may wonder how these terms could possibly be describing God. But in association with “strength,” it is easy to envision rope as an example of what is being described.
Solomon shared this image of strength in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Notice the plurality in the following verses:
Genesis 1:26 – And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….
Genesis 3:22 – And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us….
Genesis 11:7 – Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
In the Trinity, all three persons (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) represent Deity, though each person in the Godhead is distinguishable from the other. Each person of God is distinct in the sense that each one has a different role that each one fulfills (Hebrews 12:9; John 1:14; John 16:13). There is one God (I Timothy 2:5), but the divine nature subsists in three distinctions – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Matthew 3:16-17: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
John 14:23:26 – Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
I John 5:7 – For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
The Trinity may also be seen in the creation story:
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 – …And the Spirit (Ruwach) of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 2:4 – These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God (Jehovah Elohim) made the earth and the heavens.
Man, having been created in God’s image, after His likeness, also consists of three things – body (flesh), soul (self-awareness), and spirit (God awareness).
I Thessalonians 5:23 – And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Genesis 1:27 – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Notice the plurality in the following verses:
Genesis 1:26 – And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….
Genesis 3:22 – And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us….
Genesis 11:7 – Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
In the Trinity, all three persons (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) represent Deity, though each person in the Godhead is distinguishable from the other. Each person of God is distinct in the sense that each one has a different role that each one fulfills (Hebrews 12:9; John 1:14; John 16:13). There is one God (I Timothy 2:5), but the divine nature subsists in three distinctions – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Matthew 3:16-17: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
John 14:23:26 – Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
I John 5:7 – For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
The Trinity may also be seen in the creation story:
Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:2 – …And the Spirit (Ruwach) of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 2:4 – These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God (Jehovah Elohim) made the earth and the heavens.
Man, having been created in God’s image, after His likeness, also consists of three things – body (flesh), soul (self-awareness), and spirit (God awareness).
I Thessalonians 5:23 – And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Genesis 1:27 – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
PART SEVEN
Dating the Creation of Adam -
The biblical narrative sets forth a precise chronology that is in harmony with all the years of contemporary history. This makes it possible to date the creation of Adam simply by following the Bible’s own continuous paper trail. The unfamiliar date of 3899 B.C., here stated as the date of Adam's creation, was obtained by following the Bible’s own paper trail, after calculating backwards from the absolute date of 925 B.C. assigned by archaeologists to the Bubastite Portal at the temple of Karnak in Egypt, which records Pharaoh Shehonq’s famous campaign to the southern Levant.
I Kings 14:25-26 - And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
THE PAPER TRAIL
Date Genesis 1:26-27 – Adam and Eve were created. 3899 B.C. Genesis 5:3 – Adam was 130 years old when Seth is born. 3769
Gen 5:6 – Seth lived 105 years and begat Enos. 3664
Gen. 5:9 – Enos lived 90 years and begat Cainan. 3574
Gen. 5:12 – Cainan lived 70 years and begat Mahalaleel. 3504 Gen. 5:15 – Mahalaleel lived 65 years and begat Jared. 3439
Gen. 5:18 – Jared lived 162 years and begat Enoch. 3277
Gen. 5:21 – Enoch lived 65 years and he begat Methuselah (who lived 969 yrs.) 3212
Gen. 5:25 – Methuselah lived 187 years and begat Lamech. 3025 Gen. 5:28-29 – Lamech lived 182 years and begat… Noah. 2843
Gen. 5:32 – Noah was 500 years-old and begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 2343 Gen. 11:10 – Shem was 100 years-old and begat Arphaxad 2 yrs. after the flood. 2241
Gen. 11:12 – Arphaxad lived 35 years and begat Salah. 2206
Gen. 11:14 – Salah lived 30 years and begat Eber. 2176 Gen. 11:16 – Eber lived 34 years and begat Peleg. 2142 Gen. 11:18 – Peleg lived 30 years and begat Reu. 2112
Gen. 11:20 – Reu lived 32 years and begat Serug. 2080 Gen. 11:22 – Serug lived 30 years and begat Nahor. 2050 Gen. 11:24 – Nahor lived 29 years and begat Terah. 2021 Gen. 11:26 – Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram. 1951 Gen. 12:1-4 – Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 1876 Gen. 12:10 – 1876 B.C. – And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. Gen. 21:5 – Abraham was 100 years-old when Isaac was born unto him. 1851 Gen. 25:26 – Isaac was 60 years-old when Jacob was born. 1791 Gen. 47:9 – Jacob was 130 years-old when arriving in Egypt. 1661
Genesis 12:10 – …Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.... (1876 B.C.)
David reigned for 40 years (I Kings 2:11). 1010 to 970
Solomon reigned for 40 years (I Kings 11:42). 970 to 930
Rehoboam reigned for 17 years (II Chronicles 12:13). 930 to 913
(925 B.C.) I Kings 14:25-26 – And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboham, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
Most scholars agree that Shoshenq I was Pharaoh in Egypt from 945-924 B.C. and that the Egyptian ruler referred to in the Bible as Shishak is, in fact, Pharaoh Shoshenq I.
Dating the Creation of Adam -
The biblical narrative sets forth a precise chronology that is in harmony with all the years of contemporary history. This makes it possible to date the creation of Adam simply by following the Bible’s own continuous paper trail. The unfamiliar date of 3899 B.C., here stated as the date of Adam's creation, was obtained by following the Bible’s own paper trail, after calculating backwards from the absolute date of 925 B.C. assigned by archaeologists to the Bubastite Portal at the temple of Karnak in Egypt, which records Pharaoh Shehonq’s famous campaign to the southern Levant.
I Kings 14:25-26 - And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
THE PAPER TRAIL
Date Genesis 1:26-27 – Adam and Eve were created. 3899 B.C. Genesis 5:3 – Adam was 130 years old when Seth is born. 3769
Gen 5:6 – Seth lived 105 years and begat Enos. 3664
Gen. 5:9 – Enos lived 90 years and begat Cainan. 3574
Gen. 5:12 – Cainan lived 70 years and begat Mahalaleel. 3504 Gen. 5:15 – Mahalaleel lived 65 years and begat Jared. 3439
Gen. 5:18 – Jared lived 162 years and begat Enoch. 3277
Gen. 5:21 – Enoch lived 65 years and he begat Methuselah (who lived 969 yrs.) 3212
Gen. 5:25 – Methuselah lived 187 years and begat Lamech. 3025 Gen. 5:28-29 – Lamech lived 182 years and begat… Noah. 2843
Gen. 5:32 – Noah was 500 years-old and begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 2343 Gen. 11:10 – Shem was 100 years-old and begat Arphaxad 2 yrs. after the flood. 2241
Gen. 11:12 – Arphaxad lived 35 years and begat Salah. 2206
Gen. 11:14 – Salah lived 30 years and begat Eber. 2176 Gen. 11:16 – Eber lived 34 years and begat Peleg. 2142 Gen. 11:18 – Peleg lived 30 years and begat Reu. 2112
Gen. 11:20 – Reu lived 32 years and begat Serug. 2080 Gen. 11:22 – Serug lived 30 years and begat Nahor. 2050 Gen. 11:24 – Nahor lived 29 years and begat Terah. 2021 Gen. 11:26 – Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram. 1951 Gen. 12:1-4 – Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 1876 Gen. 12:10 – 1876 B.C. – And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. Gen. 21:5 – Abraham was 100 years-old when Isaac was born unto him. 1851 Gen. 25:26 – Isaac was 60 years-old when Jacob was born. 1791 Gen. 47:9 – Jacob was 130 years-old when arriving in Egypt. 1661
- Exodus 12:40-41 – Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
Genesis 12:10 – …Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there.... (1876 B.C.)
- Galatians 3:17 – And this I say, that the covenant (Gen. 12:2-3), that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
David reigned for 40 years (I Kings 2:11). 1010 to 970
Solomon reigned for 40 years (I Kings 11:42). 970 to 930
Rehoboam reigned for 17 years (II Chronicles 12:13). 930 to 913
(925 B.C.) I Kings 14:25-26 – And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboham, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all: and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.
Most scholars agree that Shoshenq I was Pharaoh in Egypt from 945-924 B.C. and that the Egyptian ruler referred to in the Bible as Shishak is, in fact, Pharaoh Shoshenq I.
- “Today the vast majority of scholars believe that the Bubastite Portal records a real Egyptian campaign by Pharaoh Sheshonq (Shishak) in the mid-to-late tenth century B.C.E. As concluded by Israel’s leading Biblical geographer Anson Rainey: “This inscription can only be based on intelligence information gathered during a real campaign by Pharaoh Sheshonq.” Kenneth Kitchen has called the reality of Sheshonq's campaign during the reign of Rehoboam “beyond reasonable doubt.” If this campaign occurred in 925 B.C.E. and, as the Bible says, this was the fifth year of Rehoboam’s rule in Judah, Rehoboam would have become king, and Solomon’s reign would have ended in 930 B.C.E. (925 + 5)” (Yigal Levin, Did Pharaoh Sheshonq Attack Jerusalem?, Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2012, pp. 48-49).
The Bubastite portal in Karnak. The pharaoh lists more than 150 towns (including Megiddo and other cities of ancient Israel) he conquered in 925 B.C. during his military campaign into Israel and Judah. This is a Glass slide in the author’s possession.
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At the site of Megiddo, a portion of a commemorative stela of Shishak (Sheshonq I) was found by the University of Chicago Oriental Institute excavations in 1926. The stela is undoubtedly related to the 925 B.C. campaign. Photo: D. Ellis/P. Van der Veen.
The solid archaeological evidence of Shishak’s campaign in 925 B.C., paired with I Kings 14:25-26, produces a reliable starting point for the Biblical paper trail. As we follow the trail, going back in time, it ends at the year of God’s creation of man in His own image – 3899 B.C.
How long before 3899 B.C. did God start the movement of time and create the heaven and the earth? I don't know - the Bible doesn't say!
I Timothy 1:17 – Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Bibliography
Archer, Gleason. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Chicago: Moody Press, 1977.
Baker, Charles F. A Dispensational Theology, Grand Rapids: Grace Bible College Publications, 1971.
Barr, James, Biblical words for time, London: SCM Press LTD, 1962.
Bressan, David. Did A Comet Wipe Out Ice Age Megafauna?, Forbes Magazine, Apr 24, 2017.
Bullinger, E. W. The Companion Bible, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974.
Chalmers, Thomas. On Natural Theology, New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857.
Dewitt, Dale. The Generations of Genesis, Bible and Spade, 2011)
Geisler, Norman L. A Popular Survey of the Old Testament, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978.
Geisler, Norman L. Systematic Theology, Volume Two, God/Creation, Ada: Baker Publishing Group, 2003.
Gibbons, Ann. Neanderthals and Modern Humans Mingled Early and Often, Science, July 11, 2024.
Ham, Ken. The New Answers Book 1, Green Forest: Master Books, 2006
Lange, J. P. A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. In J. P. Lange, Genesis or The First Book of Moses, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1868.
MacCurdy, George Grant. Prehistoric Man in Palestine, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 76, No. 4, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1936.
Massilani, Diyendo and Meyer, Matthias. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, DNA in archaeological sediments, 2021).
McCown, Chester Charlton. The Ladder of Progress, New York: Harper Brothers, 1943.
Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1976.
Morris, Rev. Herbert. Science and the Bible, Philadelphia: Ziegler & Mc Curdy, 1871.
Naville, Edouard. Archaeology of The Old Testament Was The Old Testament Written In Hebrew? London: Robert Scott, 1913.
Pass, E. What Martin Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, 1991, 1523.
Tattersall Ian. The Emergence and Spread of Homo sapiens. In: Understanding Human Evolution. Understanding Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2022.
Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux. Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1901.
Wiseman, P. J. New Discoveries in Babylonia About Genesis, London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, LTD., 1946.
Wiseman, P. J. Creation Revealed in six days, London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, LTD., 1958.
Wiseman, P.J. Clues To Creation In Genesis, London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, LTD., 1977.
About the Author
Arthur B. Chrysler received his A.A. degree with high honors from Grace Bible College (Grace Christian University), Grand Rapids, Michigan. He participated as a volunteer in The City of David Archaeological Project of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Jerusalem in the summer of 1984. The project was directed by Dr. Yigal Shiloh, with area supervisors Eilat Mazar, Yair Shoham, and Donald Ariel. Arthur co-authored the article Jerusalem - Large or Small: The Debate Goes On, which was included in an online feature of the Biblical Archaeology Society (September 19, 2006). In 2023 he wrote a study guide, “From Adam to Messiah the Prince – A Biblical Paper Trail,” published by Dispensational Publishing House, Taos, NM. From Adam To Messiah The Prince: Arthur Chrysler: 9781961110052: Amazon.com: Books. Arthur owned and operated Eastown Frame & Gallery for more than thirty-five-years before retiring in 2023. He is currently married, with five children, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
The solid archaeological evidence of Shishak’s campaign in 925 B.C., paired with I Kings 14:25-26, produces a reliable starting point for the Biblical paper trail. As we follow the trail, going back in time, it ends at the year of God’s creation of man in His own image – 3899 B.C.
How long before 3899 B.C. did God start the movement of time and create the heaven and the earth? I don't know - the Bible doesn't say!
I Timothy 1:17 – Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Bibliography
Archer, Gleason. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Chicago: Moody Press, 1977.
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About the Author
Arthur B. Chrysler received his A.A. degree with high honors from Grace Bible College (Grace Christian University), Grand Rapids, Michigan. He participated as a volunteer in The City of David Archaeological Project of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Jerusalem in the summer of 1984. The project was directed by Dr. Yigal Shiloh, with area supervisors Eilat Mazar, Yair Shoham, and Donald Ariel. Arthur co-authored the article Jerusalem - Large or Small: The Debate Goes On, which was included in an online feature of the Biblical Archaeology Society (September 19, 2006). In 2023 he wrote a study guide, “From Adam to Messiah the Prince – A Biblical Paper Trail,” published by Dispensational Publishing House, Taos, NM. From Adam To Messiah The Prince: Arthur Chrysler: 9781961110052: Amazon.com: Books. Arthur owned and operated Eastown Frame & Gallery for more than thirty-five-years before retiring in 2023. He is currently married, with five children, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
