I have been publishing a series of articles on how best to interpret the early chapters of Genesis and how science can illuminate biblical texts and guide our hermeneutics.
In this article, I will explore the text of the first chapter of Scripture, Genesis 1, with a view to determining whether this text commits to a young-Earth interpretation of origins or, at least, the extent to which the text tends to support such a view, if at all.
It is common for young-earth creationists to assume that if a young-earth interpretation of the text can be shown to be the most valuable or simplest hermeneutical approach, then this is the view one should prefer, and therefore the scientific evidence should be shoehorned into a young-earth mold. However, as I have argued in previous articles, this does not necessarily follow, since we have to deal not only with special revelation, but also with general revelation. In view of the independent considerations that justify the belief that Genesis is inspired Scripture and those that compel us to affirm an ancient earth and cosmos, interpretations that result in harmony between science and Scripture should be preferred over those that put them in conflict. Charles Hodge (1797-1878), a conservative 19th-century Presbyterian, put it this way [1] :
It is admitted, of course, that taking the [Genesis creation] account by itself, the most natural thing would be to understand the word [“day”] in its ordinary sense; but if that sense brings the Mosaic account into conflict with the facts, and another sense avoids that conflict, then it is obligatory to adopt that other sense….The Church has been forced more than once to modify her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science. But this has been done without doing violence to the Scriptures or in any way undermining their authority.
As I have argued before, ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses regarding either science or Scripture can reasonably be invoked only if the overall evidence for Christianity is sufficient to support it. In my view, the evidence for Christianity, strong as it is, is insufficient to support the weight of a young-Earth interpretation of cosmic and geological history. However, I believe it is sufficient to support the weight of an old-Earth interpretation of Scripture (though I realize that a certain level of subjectivity is necessary in making this assessment). Therefore, if the text of Scripture compels one to subscribe to a young-Earth view, then the hypothesis that Scripture is wrong should be preferred to concluding that the Earth and cosmos are, in fact, young (i.e., on the order of thousands of years). However, before reaching such a conclusion, alternative interpretive approaches that do not entail a manifestly false implication should be fairly evaluated.
An important consideration in evaluating harmonizations, and one that is often overlooked, is that the evidentiary weight of a proposed error or contradiction in Scripture relates not so much to the probability of any one proposed harmonization, but rather to the disjunction of the probabilities associated with each candidate harmonization. To take a simplistic example, if one has four harmonizations that each have a 10% chance of being correct, then the evidentiary weight of the issue is significantly lower than if one had only one of them, since the disjunction of the relevant probabilities would be 40%. Thus, the text would be only slightly more erroneous than null (and inductive arguments for substantial reliability may tip the balance in favor of giving the author the benefit of the doubt). In reality, of course, the mathematics is rather more complicated than this, since one must take into account whether any of the harmonisations overlap or imply each other in such a way that the probabilities cannot be added to one another. This principle can be applied to our analysis of the text of Genesis 1 – the disjunction of the various interpretations that can be offered reduces the probative value of those texts’ case against the reliability of the text. Of course, if some of the disjuncts have a very low probability of being correct, then they will not be of much help.
If the biblical text were found to be in error, then the ramifications of that discovery would need to be explored. Admittedly, a demonstration of the falsity of inerrancy would constitute evidence against inspiration and in turn against Christianity, since there is admittedly a certain impulse toward inerrancy if a book is held to be divinely inspired in any significant sense, although I am not convinced that inspiration necessarily implies inerrancy, depending on which model of inspiration is adopted (perhaps a topic for a future article). However, since inerrancy is an “all or nothing” proposition, once a single error (and thus falsified inerrancy) has been admitted, the evidentiary weight against Christianity of subsequent demonstrations of similar types of errors is substantially reduced. Some of the proposed errors would be more consequential than others. Some errors (such as the long-life reports discussed in my previous article) would affect only the doctrine of inerrancy (as well as being epistemically relevant to the substantial reliability of particular biblical books), while others (such as the nonexistence of a robust historical Adam), being inextricably linked to other central propositions of Christianity, would be far more serious. Another factor that influences the epistemic consequence of scriptural errors is the source of those errors. For example, deliberate distortions of the facts have a far greater negative effect on both the doctrine that the book is inspired and the substantial reliability of the document than errors introduced in good faith.
Did God create a mature universe?
A common mistake made by proponents of young-Earth creationism is to assume that if evidence can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with one interpretation of young-Earth cosmic and geologic history, then that evidence does not support an old-Earth view and therefore should not concern them. However, this is quite wrong. Evidence can tend to confirm a hypothesis even if it can be interpreted consistently with an alternative view. To count as confirmatory evidence, the hypothesis in question only needs to be more likely to be true than false. The more such evidence has to be reinterpreted to align with the young-Earth view, the more ad hoc and therefore implausible the young-Earth origins model becomes.
One attempt to salvage young-earth creationism that I often encounter from secular creationists (though less frequently from academics) is to posit that the earth and universe were created already mature, similar to Christ’s transformation of water into mature wine (John 2:1-11). To many, this positing has the appeal of allowing evidence of vast age to be dismissed as saying nothing about the actual age of the earth, much as Adam, having been created mature, would appear to be much older than he really was. However, this explanation will not work because the geological record seems to tell a story of historical events, including the existence of the death of animals long before man, something that young-earth interpretations of Scripture typically exclude (though I find no compelling biblical arguments for this).
Furthermore, there is a remarkable correlation between the dates given by radiometric dating methods and the types of organisms found in the strata. For example, if you were to give a paleontologist a date given by radiometric dating techniques (say, for example, a rock dated to the Cambrian Period), he could predict, with precision, what organisms you might expect to be preserved in rocks dated to that age, as well as what you might not expect to find—regardless of where in the world they were identified. This remarkable correlation is quite unexpected in an interpretation of the geologic history of the young Earth, but entirely unsurprising in an interpretation of the ancient Earth.
Our observation of distant galaxies, often millions of light years from Earth (meaning that the light leaving those stars takes millions of years to be observed by an observer on Earth), is also something quite expected in an old Earth interpretation, but quite surprising in a young Earth interpretation. The claim that light is created in transit will not help here, since we are able to observe events in deep space (such as supernovae) that, from that point of view, would be merely illusory (since the light would never have actually left those events in the first place). This would mean that much of our stellar observations are illusory, an implication that I find very problematic. While one can try to posit complex ad hoc rationalizations for light from distant stars, as some have done, it should still be recognized as much less surprising in an old Earth view than in a young Earth view, and therefore the evidence confirms the old Earth view.
Another major difficulty is the need to postulate that all meteorite impacts with the earth have taken place within the last six thousand years, including the one that caused the meteorite crater in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, as well as the meteorite that caused the Vredefort Dome, thought to be the largest impact crater in the world, located in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The latter is thought to have taken place over two billion years ago. If any of those impacts had occurred within the last six thousand years (as young Earth creationism demands), the effect on human civilization and animal life worldwide would have been devastating, and yet there is no evidence that such impacts have occurred in recorded history. Although some geologists have historically held that the Vredefort Dome is the result of a volcanic event, this is a minority view that is not widely accepted today. The consensus view is that this is a meteorite impact zone, and several lines of evidence support this, including evidence of shock on quartz grains and evidence of rapid melting of the granite into glass.
This is just the beginning of the scientific challenges to young-Earth creationism. Taken together, the numerous lines of evidence that point convergently in the direction of an old earth and cosmos are quite overwhelming. While I could talk for some time about the scientific challenges to young-Earth creationism (perhaps a topic for a future article), the main purpose of this article is to assess to what extent, if any, the Genesis text inclines us toward a young-Earth interpretation of cosmic and terrestrial history. To this I turn now.
Can the days of creation be interpreted as literal and consecutive while rejecting young earth creationism?
Before addressing the question of whether the “days” of the creation week are best understood as literal and consecutive, I will first assess whether it is possible to take the “days” as literal and consecutive while rejecting the implication of young-earth creationism. There are two major schools of thought that answer this question in the affirmative, so I will offer a brief analysis of these approaches here.
In 1996, John Sailhamer proposed the view (which he calls “historical creationism”) that while Genesis 1:1 describes the creation of the universe, Genesis 1:2–2:4 describes a one-week period (i.e., seven solar days) during which the promised land was prepared and human beings were created therein. [2] Sailhamer’s book has some notable endorsements, including John Piper [3] , Mark Driscoll [4] , and Matt Chandler [5] .
Sailhamer argues that the meaning of “earth” in verse 1 is different from the meaning in verse 2. He argues that in verse 1, its connection to the word “heavens” indicates that it is being used to refer to the cosmos. According to him, “When these two terms [heaven and earth] are used together as a figure of speech, they take on a distinct meaning on their own. Together, they mean much more than the sum of the meanings of the two individual words.” [6] When these words are used together, Sailhamer argues, “they form a figure of speech called a ‘merism.’ A merism combines two words to express a single idea. A merism expresses “wholeness” by combining two contrasts or two extremes.” [7] Sailhamer uses the example of David’s claim that God knows the way he sits and rises . [8] This claim expresses the fact that God has exhaustive knowledge of everything he does (Ps 139). Thus, Sailhamer concludes, “the concept of ‘all’ is expressed by combining the two opposites ‘my sitting down’ and ‘my rising up.'” [9] Sailhamer draws the parallel between this and the reference to heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1. He notes that “by uniting these two extremes in a single expression – ‘heaven and earth’ or ‘heavens and earth’ – the Hebrew language expresses the totality of all that exists. Unlike English, Hebrew does not have a single word to express the concept of ‘the universe’; it must do so by a merism. The expression ‘heaven and earth’ thus represents the ‘totality of the universe.'” [10] Sailhamer argues (correctly in my view) that Genesis 1:1 is not, as some have suggested, a title or summary of the chapter, but refers to a distinct divine act that took place before the six days described in the remainder of the chapter . [11]
If Genesis 1:1 alone describes the creation of the universe, what is the rest of the chapter about? Sailhamer suggests that it describes God preparing the promised land for human occupation. He points out, correctly, that the Hebrew word אֶ֫רֶץ (“eretz”) generally refers to a localized region of the planet, rather than the Earth as a whole, so it is quite legitimate to translate the word as “land” rather than “Earth.” For example, the very word “land” is contrasted in Genesis 1:10 with the seas. Sailhamer notes that “‘seas’ do not cover the ‘land,’ as would be the case if the term meant ‘Earth.’ Rather the ‘seas’ lie adjacent to and within the ‘land’ . ” [12]
Sailhamer argues that the expression תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ (“tohu wabohu”) is best translated not as “formless and void” (suggesting that the earth was a formless mass) but as “desert,” which he argues sets the stage for God to make the earth habitable for mankind.
One concern I have about Sailhamer’s thesis is that while it is true that the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a merism referring to the entire universe, this merism appears not only in Genesis 1:1, but also in 2:1, which says “So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host.” This verse seems to indicate that the entirety of Genesis 1 refers to the heavens and the earth, that is, to the universe as a whole, and not just to a localized region of the earth. The Sabbath command also refers to God making in six days “the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Exodus 20:11). This also seems to strongly suggest that the perspective of Genesis 1 is global rather than local. Another problem is that it seems quite unlikely that the word “Earth” refers in Genesis 1 to any specific “land,” since “Earth” is contrasted with the seas (Gen 1:10). Furthermore, the waters of the fifth day are populated by the great sea creatures (Gen 1:21), indicating that it refers to the oceans.
A more recent attempt to harmonize an interpretation of the days of creation that takes them to be literal and consecutive, known as the cosmic temple view, has been proposed by Old Testament scholar John Walton of Wheaton College. [13] Walton interprets the days of creation as a chronological sequence of twenty-four-hour days. However, he writes that these days “are not given as the period of time during which the material cosmos came into existence, but rather the period of time devoted to the inauguration of the functions of the cosmic temple, and perhaps also its annual re-creation . ” [14]
Walton argues that Genesis 1 is not concerned with material origins at all. Instead, he claims that the text is concerned with the assignment of functions. Walton argues that, during the days of the creation week, which he takes to be regular solar days, God was “establishing functions” [15] and “installing his functionaries” [16] for the created order. Walton admits that “theoretically it could be both. But to assume that we simply must have a material account if we are to say anything meaningful is cultural imperialism.” [17] Walton argues that the thesis he proposes “is not a view that has been rejected by other scholars; it is simply one that they have never considered because its material ontology was a blind presupposition to which no alternative was ever considered.” [18] However, as philosopher John Lennox rightly notes, “Surely, if ancient readers thought only in functional terms, the literature would be full of it, and scholars would be well aware of it?” [19 ]
Furthermore, it is not clear what exactly is involved in God assigning functions to the sun and moon, and to land and sea creatures, if, as Walton argues, this has nothing to do with material origins. Analytic philosopher Lydia McGrew also notes that [20] ,
…it is difficult to understand what Walton means by God establishing functions and installing officials in a sense that has nothing to do with material origins! Perhaps the most charitable thing to do would be to throw up one’s hands and conclude that the book is radically confusing. What could it mean that all the plants were already growing, providing food for animals, the sun was shining, etc., but that these entities were nonetheless functionless prior to a specific set of 24-hour days in a specific week?
What would the creation week have been like from the point of view of an earthly observer? According to Walton, “The observer in Genesis 1 would see day by day that everything was ready to do for people everything it had been designed to do. It would be like visiting a campus just before the students were ready to arrive, to see all the preparations that had been made and how everything had been designed, organized, and built to serve the students.” [21] Furthermore, Walton asserts, the “major elements missing from the ‘before’ picture are therefore humanity in the image of God and the presence of God in his cosmic temple . ” [22]
Walton claims that in the ancient worldview it was possible for something to exist materially but not to exist functionally. He claims that “people in the ancient world believed that something existed not in virtue of its material properties but in virtue of its function in an ordered system. Here I am not referring to an ordered system in scientific terms, but to an ordered system in human terms, that is, in relation to society and culture.” [23] Walton places much emphasis on the meaning of the Hebrew verb בָּרָ֣א (“bara”), meaning “to create.” He gives a list of words that form objects of the verb בָּרָ֣א and claims that the “grammatical objects of the verb are not easily identifiable in material terms.” [24] Walton lists the purpose or function assigned to each of the created entities. He then attempts to suggest that “a large percentage of contexts require a functional understanding.” [25] This, however, does not preclude a material understanding. Even stranger is Walton’s claim that “this list shows that the grammatical objects of the verb are not easily identified in material terms, and even when they are, it is questionable whether the context reifies them.” [26] However, the chart Walton presents lists objects of the verb that are material entities—including people, creatures, a cloud of smoke, rivers, the starry host, and so on. It is true that not all of these uses of the verb בָּרָ֣א refer to special creation de novo . For example, the creation of Israel (Isaiah 43:15) was not a special material creation de novo by divine decree. However, even our verbs “create” and “make” can have this flexibility of meaning, and their precise usage can be discerned from context. If I say I am going to create a new business, I do not mean that I am going to create employees and office space de novo . Similarly, when the psalmist calls upon God to “create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:10), although “create” is not used here in a material sense, the gender is clearly poetic, so one must be careful in extrapolating the meaning from a metaphorical use of the word to its ordinary usage. A further problem with Walton’s interpretation of the verb בָּרָ֣א as having only a functional interest in Genesis 1 is the fact that, as C. John Collins has pointed out, “1:26–31 are parallel to 2:4–25; this means that the ‘forming of man from dust’ (2:7), and the ‘building’ of woman from man’s rib (2:22), are parallel descriptions of the ‘creation’ of the first human of 1:27. Hence it makes sense to read 1:26–31 as if it were of only functional interest in Genesis 1.”27 as a description of a material operation” [27] .
Michael Jones, a popular Christian apologist on YouTube, has in recent years defended Walton’s thesis. To Walton’s arguments in support of his claim that Genesis 1 does not refer to material origins, Jones adds a very strange argument [28] : he quotes Jeremiah 4:23-26, which says of Israel
23. I looked at the earth, and behold, it was formless and void, and the heavens were without light . 24. I looked at the mountains, and behold, they trembled, and all the hills quaked. 25. I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. 26. I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a wilderness, and all its cities were laid waste before the LORD, before his fierce anger.
Jones comments [29] ,
If Genesis 1 is about the material creation of all things, we should expect the same language in reverse to be the disintegration of the materials being spoken of. However, when Assyria conquered Israel and deported all the elites, we are not suggesting that the fabric of space/time was torn open and the land of Israel disappeared. Rather, we understand that the kingdom went from a functioning, productive society to a chaotic land. The sunlight did not literally stop shining in that region. It was just part of the cultural expression to say that the kingdom went from an ordered society to disorder. And so the reverse in Genesis 1 would only suggest that God took a disordered chaos and ordered it to be a functioning temple for himself and the humans in it, not the beginning of all matter as we know it.
Although Michael Jones has a brilliant mind and has made very welcome contributions to the field of apologetics, this interpretation reflects a total disregard for Jeremiah’s rhetoric. The prophet is using a representation as if the sun had gone out, and “there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled.” He is not making an ontological claim.
Furthermore, the arguments Walton adduces in support of his claim that in the ancient worldview it was possible for something to exist materially but not exist functionally seem to me to be very weak, and even seem to undermine his position. Walton, for example, claims that in Hittite literature there is a creation myth which speaks of “cutting up heaven and earth with a copper cutting tool.” [30] He also cites the Egyptian Insinger Papyrus which states concerning the god: “He created food before those who are living, the wonder of the fields. He created the constellation of those in heaven, for those on earth to learn of. He created in it the sweet water which all lands desire.” [31] Walton also says that the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish , has Maduk “harnessing the waters of Tiamat in order to provide the basis for agriculture.” It includes the piling up of earth, the freeing of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the digging of wells to handle the water catchment.” [32] It is not clear to me, however, how these texts support Walton’s thesis. No argument is offered as to why the ancients did not believe that the gods physically separated the heavens from the earth. The fact that we as modern readers take at face value the reading of these texts as manifestly false does not mean that an ancient audience necessarily would have done so. Nor does Walton offer any argument to support the conclusion that the author or audience of the Tigris and Euphrates text did not interpret the text to say that Marduk physically freed the rivers and built the wells to handle the water catchment.
Another key issue here is that there is no reason to believe that functional assignment and concern for material origins are mutually exclusive. It is not logical to think that since the word בָּרָ֣א is often associated with a mention of functional assignment, it does not have any connotations about material origins. Functional assignment and material origins go hand in hand, as material design is what enables an entity to perform its function.
Having rejected interpretations that propose to harmonize an old earth view with an interpretation of the creation week as a series of six consecutive solar days, we must now address the question of which interpretive paradigm best makes sense of the text of Genesis 1, and it is to this question that I now turn.
In the Beginning
In Genesis 1:1-3, we read,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light .
It has often been pointed out that verse 3 marks the first occurrence of the phrase “And God said…”. This expression is used to denote the beginning of each of the six days of creation week (vv. 3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24). Therefore, it can be argued that the first day of creation week actually begins in verse 3, not verse 1. Therefore, by the time the first day of creation week is reached, the heavens and the earth are already in existence. Therefore, regardless of what one thinks about the age of the biosphere (a separate discussion), Scripture is completely silent on the age of the Universe and the Earth – even if the days of creation week are taken as literal and consecutive. Furthermore, when God says “let there be light” (Gen 1:3), marking the beginning of the first “day” of the creation week, this can be understood as God calling forth the dawning of the first day, since the expression “let there be…” does not necessarily indicate that something has come into existence – for example, the psalmist says ” let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us” (Ps 33:22), which does not imply that God’s mercy had not been with them before.
This argument is not without objection. For example, some authors view verse 1 as a summary of the entire narrative, rather than describing an event that took place some indeterminate time before the first day of the creation week . [33] However, Hebrew scholar C. John Collins points out that this interpretation is less likely, since “the verb created in Genesis 1:1 is in the past perfect, and the normal use of the past perfect at the beginning of a pericope is to denote an event that took place before the narrative gets going.” [34] John Sailhamer also adduces some reasons that make it more likely that Genesis 1:1 describes an event that occurred before the creation week, rather than being a summary title . [35] First, Genesis 1:1 is a complete sentence and makes a statement, which is not how titles are formed in Hebrew. For example, Genesis 5:1 serves as a heading for the verses that follow, and reads, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Second, verse 2 begins with the conjunction “and.” This, however, is surprising if Genesis 1:1 is intended to be a summary heading for the entire chapter. Sailhamer notes that if 1:1 were a summary heading, “the section that follows it would not begin with the conjunction ‘and.'” [36] Third, there is a summary statement of chapter 1 found at its conclusion, in 2:1, which would make a summary heading at the beginning of the chapter redundant. It seems highly unlikely that the account would have two summary headings.
Perhaps the strongest argument for understanding Genesis 1:1 as a summary title for the entire passage has been put forward by Bruce Waltke. [37] He argues that the combination “the heavens and the earth” is a merism referring to “the organized universe, the cosmos.” [38] He argues that “this compound never has the meaning of disordered chaos, but always of an ordered world.” [39] He further argues that “disorder, darkness, and depth” suggest “a situation not tolerated in the perfect cosmos and are never said to have been called into existence by the word of God.” [40] However, C. John Collins responds to this argument by pointing out that the expression “formless and void” (Gen. 1:2) is not a phrase referring to “disordered chaos,” but rather describes the earth as “an unproductive and uninhabited place.” [41] And he notes that “there is no indication that the ‘deep’ is any kind of opponent to God; in fact, throughout the rest of the Bible it does God’s bidding and praises Him (cf. Gen. 7:11; 8:1; 49:25; Ps. 33:7; 104:6; 135:6; 148:7; Prov. 3:20; 8:28). And since God names the darkness (Gen. 1:5), there is no reason to believe that it opposes His will either . ” [42]
In any case, although there is an ongoing scholarly debate between those opposing interpretations, the reading of Genesis 1:1 as describing events taking place before the creation week is at the very least plausible, if not the most favorable as the most likely meaning. Thus, there is certainly no room for dogmatism that Genesis 1 commits us to a young Universe or Earth, regardless of what one thinks about the age of the biosphere (which will relate to how one understands the “days” of the creation week).
Some scholars argue that Genesis 1:1 should be translated as follows: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void…” [43] This reading would be consistent with Genesis 1 not referring to the special creation of the Universe out of nothing, but to bringing order and organization to a chaotic, formless void. However, C. John Collins claims that “the simplest rendering of the Hebrew we have is the conventional one (which is how the ancient Greek and Latin versions took it).” [44] The main argument for this alternative translation is the lack of a definite article in the opening words. The text we have reads בְּרֵאשִׁית (“bere’shit”), while proponents of the translation in question would argue that the traditional rendering would make more sense if it read בָּרֵאשִׁית (“bare’shit”). However, as C. John Collins notes, “Since we have no evidence that any ancient author found this to be a problem, the conventional reading stands.” [45] This is also a matter of ongoing scholarly debate. Even if the alternative reading is correct, however, we would not lose anything, since many other biblical texts indicate that the Universe is temporally finite, and that God brought it into existence ex nihilo .
Are the “days” of Genesis 1 literal?
The debate over the interpretation of Genesis 1 has tended to focus on the correct translation of the Hebrew word יוֹם (“yom”). Perhaps the best-known representative of the old-earth position is Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, although I often find his interpretations somewhat forced and far-fetched. Hugh Ross notes that “the Hebrew word yom, translated ‘day,’ is used in biblical Hebrew (as in modern English) to indicate any of four periods of time: (a) some portion of daylight (hours); (b) from sunrise to sunset; (c) from sunset to sunset; or (d) a segment of time without any reference to solar days (from weeks to a year to several years to an age or epoch.” [46] This is correct, but, as in modern English, context allows the reader to discern which of these literal meanings is at play.
In Genesis 2:4, we read,
These are the origins of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens .
Here, the Hebrew word יוֹם refers to an indefinite but finite period of time, corresponding to definition (d) offered by Hugh Ross above. However, the context makes it apparent that this is the reading under consideration. In English, we also use expressions like “in those days” to refer to an indefinite but finite period of time, and there is no ambiguity about whether it refers to a literal day or a longer period of time. Likewise, we could say “the day was about to end,” and that would make it clear that the word “day” is to be understood as referring to daylight hours, corresponding to definition (a) of Ross’s literal set of meanings. Young-Earth creationists often respond to Ross’s proposed translation, rightly in my view, by observing that the use of the words “evening” and “morning,” combined with an ordinal number, in referring to the days of the creation week, makes it clear that a solar day is meant, whether 12 or 24 hours long. [47] What is often overlooked, however, is that settling the question of the translation of the word יוֹם does not in itself indicate whether it is intended to be understood literally or figuratively. Nor does it indicate whether the days are strictly consecutive, or whether there may be gaps between each of them. These are questions logically arising from the issue of translation and must be addressed separately.
Is there any instance in Scripture where the word יוֹם is clearly translated as “day” in the usual sense and yet is not meant to be understood literally? Indeed, it is. In Hosea 6:2, we read,
Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, and He will heal us; He has wounded us, and He will bind us up. 2. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we will live before Him.
The context here is that Israel has been subjected to God’s judgment. This text is a call for Israel to return to the Lord for healing and restoration. While the Hebrew word יוֹם is used here (the same word translated “day” in Genesis 1) in conjunction with an ordinal number, the word “day” is clearly used in a non-literal sense and almost certainly refers to a longer period of time. The use of the word “day,” when combined with an ordinal number, in a non-literal sense makes it possible that the word “day” in Genesis 1 is used in a non-literal sense as well. This does not make it probable by itself, but it at least opens up the possibility.
So what is the best way to understand the days of Genesis 1? There are a number of clues in the text that indicate the days are not to be understood literally. C. John Collins observes that while each of the six work days has the refrain “and there was evening and there was morning, the nth day,” this refrain is missing on the seventh day [48] . Collins suggests that this can be explained by positing that the seventh day on which God rested has not come to an end, like the other six days, but continues even to the present. In support of this, Collins appeals to two New Testament texts: John 5:17 and Hebrews 4:3-11. In the first reference, Jesus gets into trouble for having healed a man on the Sabbath. Jesus responds by saying that “But He said to them, ‘Hitherto my Father worketh, and I also work. ’” Collins suggests that Jesus should be interpreted here as saying, “My Father is working on the Sabbath, even as I am working on the Sabbath.” [49] Collins concludes that “we can explain this most easily if we take Jesus to be speaking to mean that the Sabbath of creation is still continuing.” [50] In Hebrews 4:3-11, the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95:11, which indicates that unbelievers will not enter God’s “rest” (v. 3). The author then notes that God “rested” on the seventh day (v. 4). The author claims that Joshua gave the Hebrews no “rest.” Since the context of Psalm 95:11 is that God forbade the Hebrews who had left Egypt to enter the promised land, the author of Hebrews’ claim that Joshua gave the people no true “rest” indicates that he does not understand Psalm 95:11 literally. Rather, there is a Sabbath rest that God’s people can enter. And how can God’s people enter God’s rest? Resting from your works as God did from His (v. 10). Collins concludes, “This makes sense if ‘God’s rest,’ which you entered on the Sabbath of creation, is the same ‘rest’ that believers enter, and therefore God’s rest is still available because it is still continuing.” [51] This interpretation is not modern. In fact, Augustine of Hippo wrote in his Confessions that the seventh day of creation “has no evening, nor does it have sunset, for you sanctified it to last forever.” [52] What are the implications of this idea? Collins notes, “If the seventh day is not ordinary, then we can begin to wonder if perhaps the other six days need to be ordinary . ” [53]
John Collins also points to Genesis 2:5-7, in which we read
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, nor had any plant of the field yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. 6 But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Collins points out that this text “does not agree with the sequence of days in the first account: there God made the plants on the third day, as we find in 1:11-12” [54] . Furthermore, “in 2:5-6 these plants are said not to be there because it had not yet rained (which is the ‘ordinary providence’ reason for the plants not being there), whereas in Genesis 1 He created them (which is a special situation) [55] . “The best way to harmonize these texts is to consider that Genesis 2:5-7 refers to a localized region of the earth, not the globe as a whole, i.e., that in a specific region of the planet “not a single plant of the field had yet sprung up,” because it had not yet rained. That the origin of plants described in Genesis 1:11-12 refers to a different event than that described in Genesis 2:5-7 is evident, since Genesis 2:5 states that the reason the bushes and plants of the field had not sprouted was because there had been no rain, implying that the growth of plants relates to God’s ordinary providence, not to their special creation by divine decree, as in 1:11-12. In other words, it was the dry season. Collins notes that “in Palestine there is no rain during the summer, and the fall rains cause an explosion of plant growth. So verses 5-7 would make sense if we assume that they describe a time of year when it has been a dry summer, so plants are not growing; but the rains and man are about to come, so plants will be able to grow in the ‘ground’ [56] . Collins concludes: “The only way I can make sense of this explanation of ordinary providence given by the Bible itself is if I imagine that the cycle of rain, plant growth, and dry season had been going on for some number of years before this point, because the text says nothing about God not having yet made plants” [57] . If this is the case, then this would suggest that the length of the six days of creation could not have been that of an ordinary week, since it would imply that the cycle of seasons had been going on for some time.
It can be seen that Genesis 1:11-12 does not necessarily imply that God created fully developed plants de novo , since the text indicates that “The earth brought forth vegetation…” This would allow one to consider that the growth of plants was brought about by God’s establishment of the cycle of ordinary providence. However, since vegetation and fruit trees take more than a day to grow and develop by ordinary providence, this would still imply a creation week quite different in terms of length than our typical week. In my view, positing that Genesis 1:11-12 and Genesis 2:5-6 refer to distinct events, the latter being more local in scope, is the simplest and most natural explanation of the relevant data. This, for the reasons stated above, tends to suggest a creation week that is not identical in length to our regular seven-day week.
There are still further indications that the length of the creation week is not like our typical weeks. For example, many have pointed to the large number of events said to have taken place on the sixth day, which presumably would have taken longer than a single solar day. Collins lists the various things said to have occurred on the sixth day: “God makes the animals of the earth, forms Adam, plants the Garden and brings the man there, gives him instructions, sets him on a search for ‘a helper suitable for him’ (and during this search Adam names all the animals), puts him into a deep sleep, and makes a woman from his rib” [58] . Furthermore, when Adam joins the woman, Eve, whom God had formed, Adam replies, “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” [59] suggesting that Adam has waited a long time for a helper suitable for him.
In addition to the discussion of whether the “days” of the creation week are to be understood literally or not, there is also the question of whether there is any reason to exclude the possibility of there being gaps between the days, even if those days are taken as regular days. Indeed, John Lennox suggests “that the writer did not intend for us to think of the first six days as days of a single earthly week, but rather as a sequence of six creation days; that is, days of normal length (with evenings and mornings, as the text says) in which God acted to create something new, but days that might well have been separated by long periods of time. We have already seen that Genesis separates the initial creation, “the beginning,” from the sequence of days. What we now further suggest is that the individual days might well have been separated from each other by unspecified periods of time” [60] . I am not aware of any linguistic reason to exclude this possibility.
To recap, although young-earth creationists are correct that the best translation of the Hebrew word יוֹם in the context of Genesis 1 is “day,” the text of Genesis 1 is consistent with the creation week being quite different from our ordinary weeks with respect to length. However, what is the best way to understand the nature of the creation days? It is to this question that I now turn.
An analog days approach
My view is closest to that advocated by C. John Collins, which he calls the analogical days view. [61] Collins notes that “the best explanation is one which sees these days as not being of the ordinary kind; they are, instead, ‘God’s work days.’ Our work days are not identical with them, but analogous. The purpose of analogy is to establish a pattern for the human rhythm of work and rest. The length of these days is not relevant for this purpose.” [62] One advantage of this approach is that one can understand the word “day” in its ordinary sense, but apply its meaning analogically, just as one does with other analogical expressions such as the “eyes of the Lord” (in that case, we need not propose an alternative translation of the Hebrew word for “eye,” but rather understand its ordinary meaning in an analogical sense).
The interpretation of analogical days also allows us to make sense of the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20:8-11, where we read,
8. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10. but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your livestock, nor the stranger who is with you. 11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Young Earth creationists argue that this text indicates that the creation week consisted of six ordinary days, since it is said to set a pattern for an ordinary work week. However, as Collins notes, “This misses two key points: the first is what we have already noted about creation’s rest being unique. The second is that our work and our rest cannot be identical to God’s; they are like God’s in some ways, but they are certainly not the same” [63] . Collins notes that there are obvious points of disanalogy between God’s work week and our own: “For example, when was the last time you spoke and made a plant grow? Rather, our planting, watering, and fertilizing are like God’s work, because they operate on what is there and make it produce something it would not have produced otherwise. Our rest is like God’s, because we stop working to look with pleasure at his works” [64] . On the other hand, God is said to have rested on the Sabbath. Collins notes that “That last word in Hebrew, ‘rested,’ has the sense of catching one’s breath after being exhausted (see Ex. 23:12; 2 Sam. 16:14); and I can assure you that you don’t mean that God needs that kind of respite (see Isa. 40:28-31 – God does not get tired). Rather, we need to view it as an analogy: there are points of similarity between the two things, but also points of difference” [65] . Of course, there is also an analogy between God’s work week and the six years of sowing the land followed by a seventh year of rest (Ex. 23:10-11).
One consideration I would add to Collins’ case is that the ancients often used numbers symbolically rather than literally. For example, the evangelist Matthew refers to three sets of “fourteen generations”—from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Christ (Mt 1:17)—even though he has to double up and skip generations to make the math work. He probably does this because fourteen is the numerical value of David’s name in Hebrew, and Matthew intends to convey that Jesus is the promised Davidic heir. So it seems to me that it is not too far-fetched to speculate that perhaps something similar is going on in Genesis 1, where the number seven is used in a symbolic rather than literal sense.
There may also be other reasons, besides the analogy with the human work week, why the author of Genesis chose to use the number seven. Earlier in this article, I have criticized the cosmic temple view of Genesis 1 advocated by John Walton. However, one useful insight from Walton’s analysis is the parallel he draws between the biblical account of creation and that concerning the building of the tabernacle and temple. For example, he observes that “Isaiah 66:1 clearly expresses the function of the temple/cosmos in biblical theology, as it identifies heaven as God’s throne and earth as His footstool, providing Him with a place of rest. God also rests on the seventh day of creation, just as He rests in His temple . ” [66] The assertion that God rests in His temple is derived from Psalm 132:13-14, where we read: “For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place. This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
Walton further observes that “heavenly bodies are referred to using the unusual term ‘lights,’ which throughout the rest of the Pentateuch refers to the lights of the tabernacle’s lampstand” [67] . Furthermore, “the idea of rivers flowing from the holy place is found both in Genesis 2 (which we will suggest portrays Eden as the Holy of Holies) and in Ezekiel’s temple (Ezek. 47:1)” [68] . In a similar vein, Michael Fishbane further argues that [69] ,
Indeed, as Martin Buber long ago pointed out, there are a number of key verbal parallels between the account of the creation of the world and the description of the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness (compare Genesis 1:31; 2:1; 2:2; 2:3 with Exodus 39:43; 39:32; 40:33; and 39:43, respectively). Thus, “Moses saw all the work” that the people “did” in building the tabernacle; “and Moses completed the work” and “blessed” the people for all their labors.
… Itis evident, then, that the construction of the tabernacle has been presented in the image of the creation of the world, and signified as an extension of a process begun at creation.
Walton also points to Exodus 40:34 and 1 Kings 8:11, which indicate that the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and the temple respectively . [70] Walton compares these texts with Isaiah 6:3, which describes Isaiah’s vision in the temple, where the seraphim are shouting to one another, saying “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Another connection between creation and the temple is Psalm 78:69, which says, “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has founded forever.”
Now this is where it gets interesting in relation to the seven “days” described in the creation account. G.K. Beale observes that [71] ,
More specifically, both the creation and tabernacle-building accounts are structured around a series of seven acts: cf. “And God said” (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, 26; cf. vv. 11, 28, 29) and “the LORD said” (Ex. 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12) (Sailhamer 1992: 298-299). In light of observing similar and additional parallels between the “creation of the world” and “the building of the sanctuary,” J. Blenkinsopp concludes that “the place of worship is a cosmos on a scale” (1992: 217-218).
Levenson also suggests that the same cosmic significance follows from the fact that Solomon took seven years to build the temple (1 Kgs. 6:38), that he dedicated it in the seventh month, during the Feast of Tabernacles (a seven-day festival [1 Kgs. 8]), and that his dedication speech was structured around seven petitions (1 Kgs. 8:31–55). The building of the temple thus appears to have been inspired by the seven-day creation of the world, which also coincides with the seven-day construction of temples elsewhere in the Ancient Near East (Levenson 1988:78–79). Just as God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation, when the creation of the tabernacle and especially the temple is finished, God takes a “resting place” in it.
Perhaps, therefore, the organization of the creation account around seven days is one aspect of the intended parallelism between creation and the temple or tabernacle, which would provide another reason why the number seven may be used in a symbolic sense in Genesis 1.
Are the days of creation ordered chronologically?
Another question we must address is whether the text of Genesis 1 requires us to take the days as being in chronological sequence, and if so, whether that poses any problems. The major problem with the chronological interpretation of the days of creation is that photosynthetic plants are created before the sun. In fact, the sun is not created until the fourth day. Hugh Ross points out that technically, the text does not indicate that the sun and moon arose on the fourth day. Rather, the text only reports that God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heaven to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light on the earth.” [72 ] Furthermore, “Genesis 1” employs a set of verbs for the creation of birds, mammals, human beings, and the universe. These verbs —bara, asa, and yasar— mean ‘to create,’ ‘to make,’ and ‘to design’ or ‘to form,’ respectively. Another verb, haya , means ‘to exist, be, occur, or happen’ and is used in conjunction with the appearance of ‘light’ on the first day and of ‘lights in the expanse of the sky’ on the fourth day . ” [73] Ross suggests that this is “consistent with the starting point of the creation week at the advent of light on the Earth’s surface – that divinely orchestrated moment when light first penetrated the opaque medium enveloping the primordial planet.” [74] Ross further argues that on the fourth day “God transformed the Earth’s atmosphere from translucent to transparent. At that point, the Sun, Moon, and stars became visible from the Earth’s surface as distinct sources of light.” [75] I am not convinced by this proposal, since it seems to run into the problem that photosynthetic plants were deprived of light for a significant portion of Earth’s history.
An alternative scenario, proposed by C. John Collins, seems more appealing to me. Collins points out that the Hebrew verb used in Genesis 1:16, יַּ֣עַשׂ (“asa”), meaning “to make,” “does not specifically mean ‘create’; it may refer to that, but it may also refer to ‘working on something that is already there’ (hence the ESV margin), or even ‘appointed’.” [76] He therefore argues that “verse 14 focuses on the function of the luminaries rather than their origin: the verb there is is completed by the purpose clause, ‘set apart. ’ The account of this day therefore focuses on these luminaries fulfilling a function that God appointed for man’s welfare, and that they fulfill that function at God’s command, implying that it is foolish to worship them . ” [77]
Apart from the issue that the sun, moon, and stars did not appear until the fourth day (which I think Collins has satisfactorily resolved), I see no further chronological incompatibilities between the Genesis 1 account and the scientific evidence.
However, if we are not convinced by either Ross’s or Collins’s proposal, would it be a valid alternative approach to posit that the “days” of creation are arranged without regard to chronology? I will now examine this question.
Many have pointed out that days one through three form a triad that corresponds to that formed by days four through six. On day one, God creates light and distinguishes it from darkness; while on day four, God creates the sun, moon, and stars. On day two, God separates the sky and the sea; while on day five, God creates birds and sea creatures. On day three, God brings dry land into view; while on day six, God creates land animals and human beings. Some have argued that this pattern indicates that the exact chronological sequence of events is not in mind. This observation forms the basis of the literary frame view, first proposed by Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) [78] . Mark Throntveit also argues that this structural organization of the text suggests that the sequence of days is not intended to express a chronological sequence [79] . However, as many have rightly pointed out in response to this argument, literary setting and chronological sequence are not necessarily mutually exclusive . [80]
Otro argumento para considerar que los días están ordenados anacrónicamente son las supuestas contradicciones entre la secuencia de acontecimientos descrita en Génesis 1 y 2. Ya he abordado una de ellas mostrando que Génesis 2 se centra en una región geográfica concreta. La otra contradicción que a veces se alega es que Génesis 2:19 indica que la creación de los animales tuvo lugar después de que la humanidad entrara en escena, como sugieren algunas traducciones. Sin embargo, Collins sostiene que el verbo hebreo debería traducirse por el pluscuamperfecto “había formado”, lo que resuelve este problema[81].
No obstante, hay que reconocer que los antiguos no siempre narraban cronológicamente. A veces narraban los acontecimientos anacrónicamente (aunque, hay que señalar, sin utilizar marcadores cronológicos como “al día siguiente”). Por ejemplo, en la tentación de Cristo, que se narra en Mateo 4 y Lucas 4, los dos relatos no cuentan las tres tentaciones en el mismo orden. Mateo relaciona los acontecimientos utilizando la palabra Τότε (que significa “entonces”), mientras que Lucas relaciona los acontecimientos utilizando la palabra Καὶ (que significa “y”). Por esta razón, me inclino a creer que Mateo representa los acontecimientos en orden cronológico, mientras que Lucas los representa anacrónicamente. Así pues, la clave para determinar si Génesis 1 compromete a sus lectores a interpretarlo como un relato cronológico de los acontecimientos es dilucidar si hay algún marcador cronológico concreto en el texto que lleve a su audiencia original a creer que se está describiendo una sucesión secuencial de acontecimientos.
En 1996, David A. Sterchi publicó un artículo en el Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. En este artículo argumentaba que, aunque la estructura y la sintaxis de Génesis 1 no excluyen la secuencia cronológica, tampoco la exigen[82]. Señala que los cinco primeros días de la creación carecen de artículo definido, aunque los días seis y siete sí lo tienen. Así, estas frases se traducen más adecuadamente “un día… un segundo día… un tercer día… un cuarto día… un quinto día”. Sterchi sugiere que “el texto no está implicando una secuencia cronológica de siete días. Por el contrario, simplemente presenta una lista de siete días”[83]. Además, argumenta que “por un lado, había un compromiso con la verdad al informar sobre el relato en el texto. Por otro, el deseo de utilizar una estructura literaria para reforzar su mensaje. Una forma de lograr la libertad literaria y seguir manteniendo la verdad en el proceso era eliminar los límites de la sintaxis cronológica. Así, el autor optó por dejar los días indefinidos y utilizó el artículo en los días seis y siete para enfatizar, no para determinar”[84].
Si los acontecimientos se narran cronológicamente, ¿hay alguna hipótesis plausible de por qué la creación del sol y la luna no se menciona hasta el cuarto día? Yo creo que sí. Johnny Miller y John Soden señalan que el orden de los acontecimientos entre el relato de la creación del Génesis y el de los egipcios es sorprendentemente similar, aunque hay diferencias clave, una de las cuales es que la aparición del sol es el acontecimiento inicial y principal en el mito egipcio de la creación, mientras que el sol se retrasa hasta el cuarto día en el relato bíblico[85]. Señalan que “la problemática no es tanto el cambio de orden (sigue siendo el mismo, salvo por la aparición de la vida vegetal). Más bien el uso de la ‘semana’ en la creación en lugar de un solo día retrasa el acontecimiento de la salida del sol de la primera mañana hasta el cuarto día. El sol ya no es la fuerza dominante o el rey sobre los dioses (aunque debía “gobernar el día”; Gn. 1:16). El sol es una más de las creaciones sumisas de Dios, que cumple sus órdenes y sirve a su voluntad. La imagen resultante resta importancia al sol, el actor principal de Egipto. En cambio, Dios brilla claramente como el soberano y trascendente gobernador de la creación. El clímax es la creación de la humanidad como representante de Dios”[86]. En relación con este motivo también está la omisión de los nombres del sol y la luna, que eran venerados como deidades por los egipcios; en su lugar, estos cuerpos celestes se denominan “la lumbrera mayor” y “la lumbrera menor”.
Resumen
Para concluir, no se puede, a mi juicio, sostener que los “días” de la creación son una serie de seis días solares consecutivos y rechazar al mismo tiempo una interpretación de la Tierra joven. Aunque Sailhamer y Walton, entre otros, han intentado hacerlo, mi evaluación de sus respectivos enfoques es que no logran armonizar esta interpretación con una Tierra antigua. Además, el relato del Génesis no dice nada sobre la edad del Universo o de la Tierra, ya que éstos son creados antes del comienzo del primer día de la semana de la creación. Por lo tanto, la única cuestión que debe evaluarse es la edad de la biosfera. Además, hay algunas pistas en el texto de Génesis 1 que son consistentes con que la semana de la creación fue más larga que nuestras semanas regulares. Se puede armonizar el texto de Génesis 1 con una interpretación de la Tierra antigua planteando la presencia de brechas entre cada uno de los “días” o planteando que los “días” no son literales. La interpretación analógica de los días sugerida por Collins y otros es la interpretación no literal más plausible de los días. Aunque la estructura y la sintaxis del pasaje son consistentes con que los días estén ordenados cronológicamente, no lo requieren.
Notas de páginas
[1] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 570–571.
[2] John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 1996), kindle.
[3] John Piper, “What Should We Teach About Creation?” Desiring God, June 1, 2010 (http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-should-we-teach-about-creation)
[4] Mark Driscoll, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2011), 96 (Doctrina: Lo que cada cristiano debe creer)
[5] Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2012), 96-97 (El evangelio explícito)
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).
[14] Ibid., 91
[15] Ibid., 64
[16] Ibid., 92
[17] Ibid., 170.
[18] Ibid., 42.
[19] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning according to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 132. (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[20] Lydia McGrew, “Review of John H. Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One,” What’s Wrong with the World, March 12, 2015. http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2015/03/review_of_john_h_waltons_the_l.html
[21] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 98.
[22] Ibid., 96.
[23] Ibid., 24.
[24] Ibid., 41.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] C. John Collins, “Review of John Walton, The Lost World Of Genesis One,” Reformed Academic, May 22, 2013.
[28] Michael Jones, “Genesis 1a: And God Said!” Inspiring Philosophy, June 7, 2019, YouTube video, 22:42, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24WZ4Hvytc
[29] Ibid.
[30] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 30.
[31] Ibid., 32.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Bruce Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3, Part III: The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July–September 1975), 216–228.
[34] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), kindle.
[35] John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 1996), kindle.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Bruce Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3, Part III: The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July–September 1975), 216–228.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011).
[42] Ibid.
[43] The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) se opta por esta traducción.
[44] C. John Collins, Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1–11 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 160–161.
[45] Ibid., 161.
[46] Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy (San Francisco, CA: RTB Press, 2015), 74.
[47] Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross (Creation Book Publishers; 2nd edition, 2011), kindle.
[48] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 62.
[49] Ibid., 84-85.
[50] Ibid., 85.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. E. B. Pusey (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996) (San Agustín de Hipona, Confesiones)
[53] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 85.
[54] Ibid., 87.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Ibid., 88.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Ibid., 89.
[59] Ibid.
[60] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 54. (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[61] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 90.
[62] Ibid., 89.
[63] Ibid., 86.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] John H. Walton, Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 148.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture (New York: Schocken, 1979).
[70] John H. Walton, Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 149.
[71] G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 17, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL; England: InterVarsity Press; Apollos, 2004), 61.
[72] Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy (San Francisco, CA: RTB Press, 2015), 80-82.
[73] Ibid., 82.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.
[76] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), kindle.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Johann Gottfried von Herder, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, trans. James Marsh (Burlington, Ontario: Edward Smith, 1833), 1:58. See also Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 6–7.
[79] Mark Throntveit, “Are the Events in the Genesis Account Set Forth in Chronological Order? No,” The Genesis Debate (ed. R. Youngblood; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986) 36–55.
[80] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning according to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[81] C. John Collins, “The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why?” Tyndale Bulletin 46, no. 1 (1995): 117–40.
[82] David A. Sterchi, “Does Genesis 1 Provide a Chronological Sequence?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (December 1996), 529-536.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the Beginning … We Misunderstood: Interpreting Genesis 1 in Its Original Context (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2012), 106.
[86] Ibid.
Recursos recomendados en Español:
Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek
Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Biology, an MSc (Research Masters) in Evolutionary Biology, a second MSc in Medical and Molecular Biosciences, and a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie contributes to several apologetics websites and is the founder of Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular webinars, as well as to assist Christians struggling with doubt. Dr. McLatchie has participated in over thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has lectured internationally in Europe, North America and South Africa promoting an intelligent, thoughtful and evidence-based Christian faith.
Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/ERkWVCH
Translated by Elias Castro
Edited by Elenita Romero
Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality
PodcastThe top apologetics book over the past two years on Amazon has been Hillary Morgan Ferrer’s Mama Bear Apologetics (yes, I think it’s sold even more than Mere Christianity). Well, Hillary is back with an equally great new book called Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality. And she writes about hard issues in a fun and memorable way. For example, here’s a short excerpt:
The idea that sexuality should be guarded is not very popular. Our society sees it as just a prudish phase we went through back in the Victorian era. Thanks to Freud, we are now supposedly enlightened, understanding that sexual repression is basically the gateway to all mental illnesses. Be free, little birdies! It’s for your own good! Don’t listen to those religious nutjobs. They craaazy!
Well, are we craaazy? Listen in as Frank asks Hillary to explain why biblical sexual ethics are correct and how you can teach them to your kids. You can’t refute something that you don’t understand. This podcast and Hillary’s book will help you understand the top issues of our day.
If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.
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Una cuestión de días: interpretando el primer capítulo del Génesis
EspañolI have been publishing a series of articles on how best to interpret the early chapters of Genesis and how science can illuminate biblical texts and guide our hermeneutics.
In this article, I will explore the text of the first chapter of Scripture, Genesis 1, with a view to determining whether this text commits to a young-Earth interpretation of origins or, at least, the extent to which the text tends to support such a view, if at all.
It is common for young-earth creationists to assume that if a young-earth interpretation of the text can be shown to be the most valuable or simplest hermeneutical approach, then this is the view one should prefer, and therefore the scientific evidence should be shoehorned into a young-earth mold. However, as I have argued in previous articles, this does not necessarily follow, since we have to deal not only with special revelation, but also with general revelation. In view of the independent considerations that justify the belief that Genesis is inspired Scripture and those that compel us to affirm an ancient earth and cosmos, interpretations that result in harmony between science and Scripture should be preferred over those that put them in conflict. Charles Hodge (1797-1878), a conservative 19th-century Presbyterian, put it this way [1] :
As I have argued before, ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses regarding either science or Scripture can reasonably be invoked only if the overall evidence for Christianity is sufficient to support it. In my view, the evidence for Christianity, strong as it is, is insufficient to support the weight of a young-Earth interpretation of cosmic and geological history. However, I believe it is sufficient to support the weight of an old-Earth interpretation of Scripture (though I realize that a certain level of subjectivity is necessary in making this assessment). Therefore, if the text of Scripture compels one to subscribe to a young-Earth view, then the hypothesis that Scripture is wrong should be preferred to concluding that the Earth and cosmos are, in fact, young (i.e., on the order of thousands of years). However, before reaching such a conclusion, alternative interpretive approaches that do not entail a manifestly false implication should be fairly evaluated.
An important consideration in evaluating harmonizations, and one that is often overlooked, is that the evidentiary weight of a proposed error or contradiction in Scripture relates not so much to the probability of any one proposed harmonization, but rather to the disjunction of the probabilities associated with each candidate harmonization. To take a simplistic example, if one has four harmonizations that each have a 10% chance of being correct, then the evidentiary weight of the issue is significantly lower than if one had only one of them, since the disjunction of the relevant probabilities would be 40%. Thus, the text would be only slightly more erroneous than null (and inductive arguments for substantial reliability may tip the balance in favor of giving the author the benefit of the doubt). In reality, of course, the mathematics is rather more complicated than this, since one must take into account whether any of the harmonisations overlap or imply each other in such a way that the probabilities cannot be added to one another. This principle can be applied to our analysis of the text of Genesis 1 – the disjunction of the various interpretations that can be offered reduces the probative value of those texts’ case against the reliability of the text. Of course, if some of the disjuncts have a very low probability of being correct, then they will not be of much help.
If the biblical text were found to be in error, then the ramifications of that discovery would need to be explored. Admittedly, a demonstration of the falsity of inerrancy would constitute evidence against inspiration and in turn against Christianity, since there is admittedly a certain impulse toward inerrancy if a book is held to be divinely inspired in any significant sense, although I am not convinced that inspiration necessarily implies inerrancy, depending on which model of inspiration is adopted (perhaps a topic for a future article). However, since inerrancy is an “all or nothing” proposition, once a single error (and thus falsified inerrancy) has been admitted, the evidentiary weight against Christianity of subsequent demonstrations of similar types of errors is substantially reduced. Some of the proposed errors would be more consequential than others. Some errors (such as the long-life reports discussed in my previous article) would affect only the doctrine of inerrancy (as well as being epistemically relevant to the substantial reliability of particular biblical books), while others (such as the nonexistence of a robust historical Adam), being inextricably linked to other central propositions of Christianity, would be far more serious. Another factor that influences the epistemic consequence of scriptural errors is the source of those errors. For example, deliberate distortions of the facts have a far greater negative effect on both the doctrine that the book is inspired and the substantial reliability of the document than errors introduced in good faith.
Did God create a mature universe?
A common mistake made by proponents of young-Earth creationism is to assume that if evidence can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with one interpretation of young-Earth cosmic and geologic history, then that evidence does not support an old-Earth view and therefore should not concern them. However, this is quite wrong. Evidence can tend to confirm a hypothesis even if it can be interpreted consistently with an alternative view. To count as confirmatory evidence, the hypothesis in question only needs to be more likely to be true than false. The more such evidence has to be reinterpreted to align with the young-Earth view, the more ad hoc and therefore implausible the young-Earth origins model becomes.
One attempt to salvage young-earth creationism that I often encounter from secular creationists (though less frequently from academics) is to posit that the earth and universe were created already mature, similar to Christ’s transformation of water into mature wine (John 2:1-11). To many, this positing has the appeal of allowing evidence of vast age to be dismissed as saying nothing about the actual age of the earth, much as Adam, having been created mature, would appear to be much older than he really was. However, this explanation will not work because the geological record seems to tell a story of historical events, including the existence of the death of animals long before man, something that young-earth interpretations of Scripture typically exclude (though I find no compelling biblical arguments for this).
Furthermore, there is a remarkable correlation between the dates given by radiometric dating methods and the types of organisms found in the strata. For example, if you were to give a paleontologist a date given by radiometric dating techniques (say, for example, a rock dated to the Cambrian Period), he could predict, with precision, what organisms you might expect to be preserved in rocks dated to that age, as well as what you might not expect to find—regardless of where in the world they were identified. This remarkable correlation is quite unexpected in an interpretation of the geologic history of the young Earth, but entirely unsurprising in an interpretation of the ancient Earth.
Our observation of distant galaxies, often millions of light years from Earth (meaning that the light leaving those stars takes millions of years to be observed by an observer on Earth), is also something quite expected in an old Earth interpretation, but quite surprising in a young Earth interpretation. The claim that light is created in transit will not help here, since we are able to observe events in deep space (such as supernovae) that, from that point of view, would be merely illusory (since the light would never have actually left those events in the first place). This would mean that much of our stellar observations are illusory, an implication that I find very problematic. While one can try to posit complex ad hoc rationalizations for light from distant stars, as some have done, it should still be recognized as much less surprising in an old Earth view than in a young Earth view, and therefore the evidence confirms the old Earth view.
Another major difficulty is the need to postulate that all meteorite impacts with the earth have taken place within the last six thousand years, including the one that caused the meteorite crater in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, as well as the meteorite that caused the Vredefort Dome, thought to be the largest impact crater in the world, located in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The latter is thought to have taken place over two billion years ago. If any of those impacts had occurred within the last six thousand years (as young Earth creationism demands), the effect on human civilization and animal life worldwide would have been devastating, and yet there is no evidence that such impacts have occurred in recorded history. Although some geologists have historically held that the Vredefort Dome is the result of a volcanic event, this is a minority view that is not widely accepted today. The consensus view is that this is a meteorite impact zone, and several lines of evidence support this, including evidence of shock on quartz grains and evidence of rapid melting of the granite into glass.
This is just the beginning of the scientific challenges to young-Earth creationism. Taken together, the numerous lines of evidence that point convergently in the direction of an old earth and cosmos are quite overwhelming. While I could talk for some time about the scientific challenges to young-Earth creationism (perhaps a topic for a future article), the main purpose of this article is to assess to what extent, if any, the Genesis text inclines us toward a young-Earth interpretation of cosmic and terrestrial history. To this I turn now.
Can the days of creation be interpreted as literal and consecutive while rejecting young earth creationism?
Before addressing the question of whether the “days” of the creation week are best understood as literal and consecutive, I will first assess whether it is possible to take the “days” as literal and consecutive while rejecting the implication of young-earth creationism. There are two major schools of thought that answer this question in the affirmative, so I will offer a brief analysis of these approaches here.
In 1996, John Sailhamer proposed the view (which he calls “historical creationism”) that while Genesis 1:1 describes the creation of the universe, Genesis 1:2–2:4 describes a one-week period (i.e., seven solar days) during which the promised land was prepared and human beings were created therein. [2] Sailhamer’s book has some notable endorsements, including John Piper [3] , Mark Driscoll [4] , and Matt Chandler [5] .
Sailhamer argues that the meaning of “earth” in verse 1 is different from the meaning in verse 2. He argues that in verse 1, its connection to the word “heavens” indicates that it is being used to refer to the cosmos. According to him, “When these two terms [heaven and earth] are used together as a figure of speech, they take on a distinct meaning on their own. Together, they mean much more than the sum of the meanings of the two individual words.” [6] When these words are used together, Sailhamer argues, “they form a figure of speech called a ‘merism.’ A merism combines two words to express a single idea. A merism expresses “wholeness” by combining two contrasts or two extremes.” [7] Sailhamer uses the example of David’s claim that God knows the way he sits and rises . [8] This claim expresses the fact that God has exhaustive knowledge of everything he does (Ps 139). Thus, Sailhamer concludes, “the concept of ‘all’ is expressed by combining the two opposites ‘my sitting down’ and ‘my rising up.'” [9] Sailhamer draws the parallel between this and the reference to heaven and earth in Genesis 1:1. He notes that “by uniting these two extremes in a single expression – ‘heaven and earth’ or ‘heavens and earth’ – the Hebrew language expresses the totality of all that exists. Unlike English, Hebrew does not have a single word to express the concept of ‘the universe’; it must do so by a merism. The expression ‘heaven and earth’ thus represents the ‘totality of the universe.'” [10] Sailhamer argues (correctly in my view) that Genesis 1:1 is not, as some have suggested, a title or summary of the chapter, but refers to a distinct divine act that took place before the six days described in the remainder of the chapter . [11]
If Genesis 1:1 alone describes the creation of the universe, what is the rest of the chapter about? Sailhamer suggests that it describes God preparing the promised land for human occupation. He points out, correctly, that the Hebrew word אֶ֫רֶץ (“eretz”) generally refers to a localized region of the planet, rather than the Earth as a whole, so it is quite legitimate to translate the word as “land” rather than “Earth.” For example, the very word “land” is contrasted in Genesis 1:10 with the seas. Sailhamer notes that “‘seas’ do not cover the ‘land,’ as would be the case if the term meant ‘Earth.’ Rather the ‘seas’ lie adjacent to and within the ‘land’ . ” [12]
Sailhamer argues that the expression תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ (“tohu wabohu”) is best translated not as “formless and void” (suggesting that the earth was a formless mass) but as “desert,” which he argues sets the stage for God to make the earth habitable for mankind.
One concern I have about Sailhamer’s thesis is that while it is true that the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a merism referring to the entire universe, this merism appears not only in Genesis 1:1, but also in 2:1, which says “So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their host.” This verse seems to indicate that the entirety of Genesis 1 refers to the heavens and the earth, that is, to the universe as a whole, and not just to a localized region of the earth. The Sabbath command also refers to God making in six days “the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Exodus 20:11). This also seems to strongly suggest that the perspective of Genesis 1 is global rather than local. Another problem is that it seems quite unlikely that the word “Earth” refers in Genesis 1 to any specific “land,” since “Earth” is contrasted with the seas (Gen 1:10). Furthermore, the waters of the fifth day are populated by the great sea creatures (Gen 1:21), indicating that it refers to the oceans.
A more recent attempt to harmonize an interpretation of the days of creation that takes them to be literal and consecutive, known as the cosmic temple view, has been proposed by Old Testament scholar John Walton of Wheaton College. [13] Walton interprets the days of creation as a chronological sequence of twenty-four-hour days. However, he writes that these days “are not given as the period of time during which the material cosmos came into existence, but rather the period of time devoted to the inauguration of the functions of the cosmic temple, and perhaps also its annual re-creation . ” [14]
Walton argues that Genesis 1 is not concerned with material origins at all. Instead, he claims that the text is concerned with the assignment of functions. Walton argues that, during the days of the creation week, which he takes to be regular solar days, God was “establishing functions” [15] and “installing his functionaries” [16] for the created order. Walton admits that “theoretically it could be both. But to assume that we simply must have a material account if we are to say anything meaningful is cultural imperialism.” [17] Walton argues that the thesis he proposes “is not a view that has been rejected by other scholars; it is simply one that they have never considered because its material ontology was a blind presupposition to which no alternative was ever considered.” [18] However, as philosopher John Lennox rightly notes, “Surely, if ancient readers thought only in functional terms, the literature would be full of it, and scholars would be well aware of it?” [19 ]
Furthermore, it is not clear what exactly is involved in God assigning functions to the sun and moon, and to land and sea creatures, if, as Walton argues, this has nothing to do with material origins. Analytic philosopher Lydia McGrew also notes that [20] ,
What would the creation week have been like from the point of view of an earthly observer? According to Walton, “The observer in Genesis 1 would see day by day that everything was ready to do for people everything it had been designed to do. It would be like visiting a campus just before the students were ready to arrive, to see all the preparations that had been made and how everything had been designed, organized, and built to serve the students.” [21] Furthermore, Walton asserts, the “major elements missing from the ‘before’ picture are therefore humanity in the image of God and the presence of God in his cosmic temple . ” [22]
Walton claims that in the ancient worldview it was possible for something to exist materially but not to exist functionally. He claims that “people in the ancient world believed that something existed not in virtue of its material properties but in virtue of its function in an ordered system. Here I am not referring to an ordered system in scientific terms, but to an ordered system in human terms, that is, in relation to society and culture.” [23] Walton places much emphasis on the meaning of the Hebrew verb בָּרָ֣א (“bara”), meaning “to create.” He gives a list of words that form objects of the verb בָּרָ֣א and claims that the “grammatical objects of the verb are not easily identifiable in material terms.” [24] Walton lists the purpose or function assigned to each of the created entities. He then attempts to suggest that “a large percentage of contexts require a functional understanding.” [25] This, however, does not preclude a material understanding. Even stranger is Walton’s claim that “this list shows that the grammatical objects of the verb are not easily identified in material terms, and even when they are, it is questionable whether the context reifies them.” [26] However, the chart Walton presents lists objects of the verb that are material entities—including people, creatures, a cloud of smoke, rivers, the starry host, and so on. It is true that not all of these uses of the verb בָּרָ֣א refer to special creation de novo . For example, the creation of Israel (Isaiah 43:15) was not a special material creation de novo by divine decree. However, even our verbs “create” and “make” can have this flexibility of meaning, and their precise usage can be discerned from context. If I say I am going to create a new business, I do not mean that I am going to create employees and office space de novo . Similarly, when the psalmist calls upon God to “create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:10), although “create” is not used here in a material sense, the gender is clearly poetic, so one must be careful in extrapolating the meaning from a metaphorical use of the word to its ordinary usage. A further problem with Walton’s interpretation of the verb בָּרָ֣א as having only a functional interest in Genesis 1 is the fact that, as C. John Collins has pointed out, “1:26–31 are parallel to 2:4–25; this means that the ‘forming of man from dust’ (2:7), and the ‘building’ of woman from man’s rib (2:22), are parallel descriptions of the ‘creation’ of the first human of 1:27. Hence it makes sense to read 1:26–31 as if it were of only functional interest in Genesis 1.”27 as a description of a material operation” [27] .
Michael Jones, a popular Christian apologist on YouTube, has in recent years defended Walton’s thesis. To Walton’s arguments in support of his claim that Genesis 1 does not refer to material origins, Jones adds a very strange argument [28] : he quotes Jeremiah 4:23-26, which says of Israel
Jones comments [29] ,
Although Michael Jones has a brilliant mind and has made very welcome contributions to the field of apologetics, this interpretation reflects a total disregard for Jeremiah’s rhetoric. The prophet is using a representation as if the sun had gone out, and “there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled.” He is not making an ontological claim.
Furthermore, the arguments Walton adduces in support of his claim that in the ancient worldview it was possible for something to exist materially but not exist functionally seem to me to be very weak, and even seem to undermine his position. Walton, for example, claims that in Hittite literature there is a creation myth which speaks of “cutting up heaven and earth with a copper cutting tool.” [30] He also cites the Egyptian Insinger Papyrus which states concerning the god: “He created food before those who are living, the wonder of the fields. He created the constellation of those in heaven, for those on earth to learn of. He created in it the sweet water which all lands desire.” [31] Walton also says that the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish , has Maduk “harnessing the waters of Tiamat in order to provide the basis for agriculture.” It includes the piling up of earth, the freeing of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the digging of wells to handle the water catchment.” [32] It is not clear to me, however, how these texts support Walton’s thesis. No argument is offered as to why the ancients did not believe that the gods physically separated the heavens from the earth. The fact that we as modern readers take at face value the reading of these texts as manifestly false does not mean that an ancient audience necessarily would have done so. Nor does Walton offer any argument to support the conclusion that the author or audience of the Tigris and Euphrates text did not interpret the text to say that Marduk physically freed the rivers and built the wells to handle the water catchment.
Another key issue here is that there is no reason to believe that functional assignment and concern for material origins are mutually exclusive. It is not logical to think that since the word בָּרָ֣א is often associated with a mention of functional assignment, it does not have any connotations about material origins. Functional assignment and material origins go hand in hand, as material design is what enables an entity to perform its function.
Having rejected interpretations that propose to harmonize an old earth view with an interpretation of the creation week as a series of six consecutive solar days, we must now address the question of which interpretive paradigm best makes sense of the text of Genesis 1, and it is to this question that I now turn.
In the Beginning
In Genesis 1:1-3, we read,
It has often been pointed out that verse 3 marks the first occurrence of the phrase “And God said…”. This expression is used to denote the beginning of each of the six days of creation week (vv. 3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24). Therefore, it can be argued that the first day of creation week actually begins in verse 3, not verse 1. Therefore, by the time the first day of creation week is reached, the heavens and the earth are already in existence. Therefore, regardless of what one thinks about the age of the biosphere (a separate discussion), Scripture is completely silent on the age of the Universe and the Earth – even if the days of creation week are taken as literal and consecutive. Furthermore, when God says “let there be light” (Gen 1:3), marking the beginning of the first “day” of the creation week, this can be understood as God calling forth the dawning of the first day, since the expression “let there be…” does not necessarily indicate that something has come into existence – for example, the psalmist says ” let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us” (Ps 33:22), which does not imply that God’s mercy had not been with them before.
This argument is not without objection. For example, some authors view verse 1 as a summary of the entire narrative, rather than describing an event that took place some indeterminate time before the first day of the creation week . [33] However, Hebrew scholar C. John Collins points out that this interpretation is less likely, since “the verb created in Genesis 1:1 is in the past perfect, and the normal use of the past perfect at the beginning of a pericope is to denote an event that took place before the narrative gets going.” [34] John Sailhamer also adduces some reasons that make it more likely that Genesis 1:1 describes an event that occurred before the creation week, rather than being a summary title . [35] First, Genesis 1:1 is a complete sentence and makes a statement, which is not how titles are formed in Hebrew. For example, Genesis 5:1 serves as a heading for the verses that follow, and reads, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Second, verse 2 begins with the conjunction “and.” This, however, is surprising if Genesis 1:1 is intended to be a summary heading for the entire chapter. Sailhamer notes that if 1:1 were a summary heading, “the section that follows it would not begin with the conjunction ‘and.'” [36] Third, there is a summary statement of chapter 1 found at its conclusion, in 2:1, which would make a summary heading at the beginning of the chapter redundant. It seems highly unlikely that the account would have two summary headings.
Perhaps the strongest argument for understanding Genesis 1:1 as a summary title for the entire passage has been put forward by Bruce Waltke. [37] He argues that the combination “the heavens and the earth” is a merism referring to “the organized universe, the cosmos.” [38] He argues that “this compound never has the meaning of disordered chaos, but always of an ordered world.” [39] He further argues that “disorder, darkness, and depth” suggest “a situation not tolerated in the perfect cosmos and are never said to have been called into existence by the word of God.” [40] However, C. John Collins responds to this argument by pointing out that the expression “formless and void” (Gen. 1:2) is not a phrase referring to “disordered chaos,” but rather describes the earth as “an unproductive and uninhabited place.” [41] And he notes that “there is no indication that the ‘deep’ is any kind of opponent to God; in fact, throughout the rest of the Bible it does God’s bidding and praises Him (cf. Gen. 7:11; 8:1; 49:25; Ps. 33:7; 104:6; 135:6; 148:7; Prov. 3:20; 8:28). And since God names the darkness (Gen. 1:5), there is no reason to believe that it opposes His will either . ” [42]
In any case, although there is an ongoing scholarly debate between those opposing interpretations, the reading of Genesis 1:1 as describing events taking place before the creation week is at the very least plausible, if not the most favorable as the most likely meaning. Thus, there is certainly no room for dogmatism that Genesis 1 commits us to a young Universe or Earth, regardless of what one thinks about the age of the biosphere (which will relate to how one understands the “days” of the creation week).
Some scholars argue that Genesis 1:1 should be translated as follows: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void…” [43] This reading would be consistent with Genesis 1 not referring to the special creation of the Universe out of nothing, but to bringing order and organization to a chaotic, formless void. However, C. John Collins claims that “the simplest rendering of the Hebrew we have is the conventional one (which is how the ancient Greek and Latin versions took it).” [44] The main argument for this alternative translation is the lack of a definite article in the opening words. The text we have reads בְּרֵאשִׁית (“bere’shit”), while proponents of the translation in question would argue that the traditional rendering would make more sense if it read בָּרֵאשִׁית (“bare’shit”). However, as C. John Collins notes, “Since we have no evidence that any ancient author found this to be a problem, the conventional reading stands.” [45] This is also a matter of ongoing scholarly debate. Even if the alternative reading is correct, however, we would not lose anything, since many other biblical texts indicate that the Universe is temporally finite, and that God brought it into existence ex nihilo .
Are the “days” of Genesis 1 literal?
The debate over the interpretation of Genesis 1 has tended to focus on the correct translation of the Hebrew word יוֹם (“yom”). Perhaps the best-known representative of the old-earth position is Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, although I often find his interpretations somewhat forced and far-fetched. Hugh Ross notes that “the Hebrew word yom, translated ‘day,’ is used in biblical Hebrew (as in modern English) to indicate any of four periods of time: (a) some portion of daylight (hours); (b) from sunrise to sunset; (c) from sunset to sunset; or (d) a segment of time without any reference to solar days (from weeks to a year to several years to an age or epoch.” [46] This is correct, but, as in modern English, context allows the reader to discern which of these literal meanings is at play.
In Genesis 2:4, we read,
Here, the Hebrew word יוֹם refers to an indefinite but finite period of time, corresponding to definition (d) offered by Hugh Ross above. However, the context makes it apparent that this is the reading under consideration. In English, we also use expressions like “in those days” to refer to an indefinite but finite period of time, and there is no ambiguity about whether it refers to a literal day or a longer period of time. Likewise, we could say “the day was about to end,” and that would make it clear that the word “day” is to be understood as referring to daylight hours, corresponding to definition (a) of Ross’s literal set of meanings. Young-Earth creationists often respond to Ross’s proposed translation, rightly in my view, by observing that the use of the words “evening” and “morning,” combined with an ordinal number, in referring to the days of the creation week, makes it clear that a solar day is meant, whether 12 or 24 hours long. [47] What is often overlooked, however, is that settling the question of the translation of the word יוֹם does not in itself indicate whether it is intended to be understood literally or figuratively. Nor does it indicate whether the days are strictly consecutive, or whether there may be gaps between each of them. These are questions logically arising from the issue of translation and must be addressed separately.
Is there any instance in Scripture where the word יוֹם is clearly translated as “day” in the usual sense and yet is not meant to be understood literally? Indeed, it is. In Hosea 6:2, we read,
The context here is that Israel has been subjected to God’s judgment. This text is a call for Israel to return to the Lord for healing and restoration. While the Hebrew word יוֹם is used here (the same word translated “day” in Genesis 1) in conjunction with an ordinal number, the word “day” is clearly used in a non-literal sense and almost certainly refers to a longer period of time. The use of the word “day,” when combined with an ordinal number, in a non-literal sense makes it possible that the word “day” in Genesis 1 is used in a non-literal sense as well. This does not make it probable by itself, but it at least opens up the possibility.
So what is the best way to understand the days of Genesis 1? There are a number of clues in the text that indicate the days are not to be understood literally. C. John Collins observes that while each of the six work days has the refrain “and there was evening and there was morning, the nth day,” this refrain is missing on the seventh day [48] . Collins suggests that this can be explained by positing that the seventh day on which God rested has not come to an end, like the other six days, but continues even to the present. In support of this, Collins appeals to two New Testament texts: John 5:17 and Hebrews 4:3-11. In the first reference, Jesus gets into trouble for having healed a man on the Sabbath. Jesus responds by saying that “But He said to them, ‘Hitherto my Father worketh, and I also work. ’” Collins suggests that Jesus should be interpreted here as saying, “My Father is working on the Sabbath, even as I am working on the Sabbath.” [49] Collins concludes that “we can explain this most easily if we take Jesus to be speaking to mean that the Sabbath of creation is still continuing.” [50] In Hebrews 4:3-11, the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95:11, which indicates that unbelievers will not enter God’s “rest” (v. 3). The author then notes that God “rested” on the seventh day (v. 4). The author claims that Joshua gave the Hebrews no “rest.” Since the context of Psalm 95:11 is that God forbade the Hebrews who had left Egypt to enter the promised land, the author of Hebrews’ claim that Joshua gave the people no true “rest” indicates that he does not understand Psalm 95:11 literally. Rather, there is a Sabbath rest that God’s people can enter. And how can God’s people enter God’s rest? Resting from your works as God did from His (v. 10). Collins concludes, “This makes sense if ‘God’s rest,’ which you entered on the Sabbath of creation, is the same ‘rest’ that believers enter, and therefore God’s rest is still available because it is still continuing.” [51] This interpretation is not modern. In fact, Augustine of Hippo wrote in his Confessions that the seventh day of creation “has no evening, nor does it have sunset, for you sanctified it to last forever.” [52] What are the implications of this idea? Collins notes, “If the seventh day is not ordinary, then we can begin to wonder if perhaps the other six days need to be ordinary . ” [53]
John Collins also points to Genesis 2:5-7, in which we read
Collins points out that this text “does not agree with the sequence of days in the first account: there God made the plants on the third day, as we find in 1:11-12” [54] . Furthermore, “in 2:5-6 these plants are said not to be there because it had not yet rained (which is the ‘ordinary providence’ reason for the plants not being there), whereas in Genesis 1 He created them (which is a special situation) [55] . “The best way to harmonize these texts is to consider that Genesis 2:5-7 refers to a localized region of the earth, not the globe as a whole, i.e., that in a specific region of the planet “not a single plant of the field had yet sprung up,” because it had not yet rained. That the origin of plants described in Genesis 1:11-12 refers to a different event than that described in Genesis 2:5-7 is evident, since Genesis 2:5 states that the reason the bushes and plants of the field had not sprouted was because there had been no rain, implying that the growth of plants relates to God’s ordinary providence, not to their special creation by divine decree, as in 1:11-12. In other words, it was the dry season. Collins notes that “in Palestine there is no rain during the summer, and the fall rains cause an explosion of plant growth. So verses 5-7 would make sense if we assume that they describe a time of year when it has been a dry summer, so plants are not growing; but the rains and man are about to come, so plants will be able to grow in the ‘ground’ [56] . Collins concludes: “The only way I can make sense of this explanation of ordinary providence given by the Bible itself is if I imagine that the cycle of rain, plant growth, and dry season had been going on for some number of years before this point, because the text says nothing about God not having yet made plants” [57] . If this is the case, then this would suggest that the length of the six days of creation could not have been that of an ordinary week, since it would imply that the cycle of seasons had been going on for some time.
It can be seen that Genesis 1:11-12 does not necessarily imply that God created fully developed plants de novo , since the text indicates that “The earth brought forth vegetation…” This would allow one to consider that the growth of plants was brought about by God’s establishment of the cycle of ordinary providence. However, since vegetation and fruit trees take more than a day to grow and develop by ordinary providence, this would still imply a creation week quite different in terms of length than our typical week. In my view, positing that Genesis 1:11-12 and Genesis 2:5-6 refer to distinct events, the latter being more local in scope, is the simplest and most natural explanation of the relevant data. This, for the reasons stated above, tends to suggest a creation week that is not identical in length to our regular seven-day week.
There are still further indications that the length of the creation week is not like our typical weeks. For example, many have pointed to the large number of events said to have taken place on the sixth day, which presumably would have taken longer than a single solar day. Collins lists the various things said to have occurred on the sixth day: “God makes the animals of the earth, forms Adam, plants the Garden and brings the man there, gives him instructions, sets him on a search for ‘a helper suitable for him’ (and during this search Adam names all the animals), puts him into a deep sleep, and makes a woman from his rib” [58] . Furthermore, when Adam joins the woman, Eve, whom God had formed, Adam replies, “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” [59] suggesting that Adam has waited a long time for a helper suitable for him.
In addition to the discussion of whether the “days” of the creation week are to be understood literally or not, there is also the question of whether there is any reason to exclude the possibility of there being gaps between the days, even if those days are taken as regular days. Indeed, John Lennox suggests “that the writer did not intend for us to think of the first six days as days of a single earthly week, but rather as a sequence of six creation days; that is, days of normal length (with evenings and mornings, as the text says) in which God acted to create something new, but days that might well have been separated by long periods of time. We have already seen that Genesis separates the initial creation, “the beginning,” from the sequence of days. What we now further suggest is that the individual days might well have been separated from each other by unspecified periods of time” [60] . I am not aware of any linguistic reason to exclude this possibility.
To recap, although young-earth creationists are correct that the best translation of the Hebrew word יוֹם in the context of Genesis 1 is “day,” the text of Genesis 1 is consistent with the creation week being quite different from our ordinary weeks with respect to length. However, what is the best way to understand the nature of the creation days? It is to this question that I now turn.
An analog days approach
My view is closest to that advocated by C. John Collins, which he calls the analogical days view. [61] Collins notes that “the best explanation is one which sees these days as not being of the ordinary kind; they are, instead, ‘God’s work days.’ Our work days are not identical with them, but analogous. The purpose of analogy is to establish a pattern for the human rhythm of work and rest. The length of these days is not relevant for this purpose.” [62] One advantage of this approach is that one can understand the word “day” in its ordinary sense, but apply its meaning analogically, just as one does with other analogical expressions such as the “eyes of the Lord” (in that case, we need not propose an alternative translation of the Hebrew word for “eye,” but rather understand its ordinary meaning in an analogical sense).
The interpretation of analogical days also allows us to make sense of the Sabbath commandment in Exodus 20:8-11, where we read,
Young Earth creationists argue that this text indicates that the creation week consisted of six ordinary days, since it is said to set a pattern for an ordinary work week. However, as Collins notes, “This misses two key points: the first is what we have already noted about creation’s rest being unique. The second is that our work and our rest cannot be identical to God’s; they are like God’s in some ways, but they are certainly not the same” [63] . Collins notes that there are obvious points of disanalogy between God’s work week and our own: “For example, when was the last time you spoke and made a plant grow? Rather, our planting, watering, and fertilizing are like God’s work, because they operate on what is there and make it produce something it would not have produced otherwise. Our rest is like God’s, because we stop working to look with pleasure at his works” [64] . On the other hand, God is said to have rested on the Sabbath. Collins notes that “That last word in Hebrew, ‘rested,’ has the sense of catching one’s breath after being exhausted (see Ex. 23:12; 2 Sam. 16:14); and I can assure you that you don’t mean that God needs that kind of respite (see Isa. 40:28-31 – God does not get tired). Rather, we need to view it as an analogy: there are points of similarity between the two things, but also points of difference” [65] . Of course, there is also an analogy between God’s work week and the six years of sowing the land followed by a seventh year of rest (Ex. 23:10-11).
One consideration I would add to Collins’ case is that the ancients often used numbers symbolically rather than literally. For example, the evangelist Matthew refers to three sets of “fourteen generations”—from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Christ (Mt 1:17)—even though he has to double up and skip generations to make the math work. He probably does this because fourteen is the numerical value of David’s name in Hebrew, and Matthew intends to convey that Jesus is the promised Davidic heir. So it seems to me that it is not too far-fetched to speculate that perhaps something similar is going on in Genesis 1, where the number seven is used in a symbolic rather than literal sense.
There may also be other reasons, besides the analogy with the human work week, why the author of Genesis chose to use the number seven. Earlier in this article, I have criticized the cosmic temple view of Genesis 1 advocated by John Walton. However, one useful insight from Walton’s analysis is the parallel he draws between the biblical account of creation and that concerning the building of the tabernacle and temple. For example, he observes that “Isaiah 66:1 clearly expresses the function of the temple/cosmos in biblical theology, as it identifies heaven as God’s throne and earth as His footstool, providing Him with a place of rest. God also rests on the seventh day of creation, just as He rests in His temple . ” [66] The assertion that God rests in His temple is derived from Psalm 132:13-14, where we read: “For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place. This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
Walton further observes that “heavenly bodies are referred to using the unusual term ‘lights,’ which throughout the rest of the Pentateuch refers to the lights of the tabernacle’s lampstand” [67] . Furthermore, “the idea of rivers flowing from the holy place is found both in Genesis 2 (which we will suggest portrays Eden as the Holy of Holies) and in Ezekiel’s temple (Ezek. 47:1)” [68] . In a similar vein, Michael Fishbane further argues that [69] ,
Walton also points to Exodus 40:34 and 1 Kings 8:11, which indicate that the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and the temple respectively . [70] Walton compares these texts with Isaiah 6:3, which describes Isaiah’s vision in the temple, where the seraphim are shouting to one another, saying “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Another connection between creation and the temple is Psalm 78:69, which says, “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has founded forever.”
Now this is where it gets interesting in relation to the seven “days” described in the creation account. G.K. Beale observes that [71] ,
Perhaps, therefore, the organization of the creation account around seven days is one aspect of the intended parallelism between creation and the temple or tabernacle, which would provide another reason why the number seven may be used in a symbolic sense in Genesis 1.
Are the days of creation ordered chronologically?
Another question we must address is whether the text of Genesis 1 requires us to take the days as being in chronological sequence, and if so, whether that poses any problems. The major problem with the chronological interpretation of the days of creation is that photosynthetic plants are created before the sun. In fact, the sun is not created until the fourth day. Hugh Ross points out that technically, the text does not indicate that the sun and moon arose on the fourth day. Rather, the text only reports that God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heaven to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light on the earth.” [72 ] Furthermore, “Genesis 1” employs a set of verbs for the creation of birds, mammals, human beings, and the universe. These verbs —bara, asa, and yasar— mean ‘to create,’ ‘to make,’ and ‘to design’ or ‘to form,’ respectively. Another verb, haya , means ‘to exist, be, occur, or happen’ and is used in conjunction with the appearance of ‘light’ on the first day and of ‘lights in the expanse of the sky’ on the fourth day . ” [73] Ross suggests that this is “consistent with the starting point of the creation week at the advent of light on the Earth’s surface – that divinely orchestrated moment when light first penetrated the opaque medium enveloping the primordial planet.” [74] Ross further argues that on the fourth day “God transformed the Earth’s atmosphere from translucent to transparent. At that point, the Sun, Moon, and stars became visible from the Earth’s surface as distinct sources of light.” [75] I am not convinced by this proposal, since it seems to run into the problem that photosynthetic plants were deprived of light for a significant portion of Earth’s history.
An alternative scenario, proposed by C. John Collins, seems more appealing to me. Collins points out that the Hebrew verb used in Genesis 1:16, יַּ֣עַשׂ (“asa”), meaning “to make,” “does not specifically mean ‘create’; it may refer to that, but it may also refer to ‘working on something that is already there’ (hence the ESV margin), or even ‘appointed’.” [76] He therefore argues that “verse 14 focuses on the function of the luminaries rather than their origin: the verb there is is completed by the purpose clause, ‘set apart. ’ The account of this day therefore focuses on these luminaries fulfilling a function that God appointed for man’s welfare, and that they fulfill that function at God’s command, implying that it is foolish to worship them . ” [77]
Apart from the issue that the sun, moon, and stars did not appear until the fourth day (which I think Collins has satisfactorily resolved), I see no further chronological incompatibilities between the Genesis 1 account and the scientific evidence.
However, if we are not convinced by either Ross’s or Collins’s proposal, would it be a valid alternative approach to posit that the “days” of creation are arranged without regard to chronology? I will now examine this question.
Many have pointed out that days one through three form a triad that corresponds to that formed by days four through six. On day one, God creates light and distinguishes it from darkness; while on day four, God creates the sun, moon, and stars. On day two, God separates the sky and the sea; while on day five, God creates birds and sea creatures. On day three, God brings dry land into view; while on day six, God creates land animals and human beings. Some have argued that this pattern indicates that the exact chronological sequence of events is not in mind. This observation forms the basis of the literary frame view, first proposed by Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) [78] . Mark Throntveit also argues that this structural organization of the text suggests that the sequence of days is not intended to express a chronological sequence [79] . However, as many have rightly pointed out in response to this argument, literary setting and chronological sequence are not necessarily mutually exclusive . [80]
Otro argumento para considerar que los días están ordenados anacrónicamente son las supuestas contradicciones entre la secuencia de acontecimientos descrita en Génesis 1 y 2. Ya he abordado una de ellas mostrando que Génesis 2 se centra en una región geográfica concreta. La otra contradicción que a veces se alega es que Génesis 2:19 indica que la creación de los animales tuvo lugar después de que la humanidad entrara en escena, como sugieren algunas traducciones. Sin embargo, Collins sostiene que el verbo hebreo debería traducirse por el pluscuamperfecto “había formado”, lo que resuelve este problema[81].
No obstante, hay que reconocer que los antiguos no siempre narraban cronológicamente. A veces narraban los acontecimientos anacrónicamente (aunque, hay que señalar, sin utilizar marcadores cronológicos como “al día siguiente”). Por ejemplo, en la tentación de Cristo, que se narra en Mateo 4 y Lucas 4, los dos relatos no cuentan las tres tentaciones en el mismo orden. Mateo relaciona los acontecimientos utilizando la palabra Τότε (que significa “entonces”), mientras que Lucas relaciona los acontecimientos utilizando la palabra Καὶ (que significa “y”). Por esta razón, me inclino a creer que Mateo representa los acontecimientos en orden cronológico, mientras que Lucas los representa anacrónicamente. Así pues, la clave para determinar si Génesis 1 compromete a sus lectores a interpretarlo como un relato cronológico de los acontecimientos es dilucidar si hay algún marcador cronológico concreto en el texto que lleve a su audiencia original a creer que se está describiendo una sucesión secuencial de acontecimientos.
En 1996, David A. Sterchi publicó un artículo en el Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. En este artículo argumentaba que, aunque la estructura y la sintaxis de Génesis 1 no excluyen la secuencia cronológica, tampoco la exigen[82]. Señala que los cinco primeros días de la creación carecen de artículo definido, aunque los días seis y siete sí lo tienen. Así, estas frases se traducen más adecuadamente “un día… un segundo día… un tercer día… un cuarto día… un quinto día”. Sterchi sugiere que “el texto no está implicando una secuencia cronológica de siete días. Por el contrario, simplemente presenta una lista de siete días”[83]. Además, argumenta que “por un lado, había un compromiso con la verdad al informar sobre el relato en el texto. Por otro, el deseo de utilizar una estructura literaria para reforzar su mensaje. Una forma de lograr la libertad literaria y seguir manteniendo la verdad en el proceso era eliminar los límites de la sintaxis cronológica. Así, el autor optó por dejar los días indefinidos y utilizó el artículo en los días seis y siete para enfatizar, no para determinar”[84].
Si los acontecimientos se narran cronológicamente, ¿hay alguna hipótesis plausible de por qué la creación del sol y la luna no se menciona hasta el cuarto día? Yo creo que sí. Johnny Miller y John Soden señalan que el orden de los acontecimientos entre el relato de la creación del Génesis y el de los egipcios es sorprendentemente similar, aunque hay diferencias clave, una de las cuales es que la aparición del sol es el acontecimiento inicial y principal en el mito egipcio de la creación, mientras que el sol se retrasa hasta el cuarto día en el relato bíblico[85]. Señalan que “la problemática no es tanto el cambio de orden (sigue siendo el mismo, salvo por la aparición de la vida vegetal). Más bien el uso de la ‘semana’ en la creación en lugar de un solo día retrasa el acontecimiento de la salida del sol de la primera mañana hasta el cuarto día. El sol ya no es la fuerza dominante o el rey sobre los dioses (aunque debía “gobernar el día”; Gn. 1:16). El sol es una más de las creaciones sumisas de Dios, que cumple sus órdenes y sirve a su voluntad. La imagen resultante resta importancia al sol, el actor principal de Egipto. En cambio, Dios brilla claramente como el soberano y trascendente gobernador de la creación. El clímax es la creación de la humanidad como representante de Dios”[86]. En relación con este motivo también está la omisión de los nombres del sol y la luna, que eran venerados como deidades por los egipcios; en su lugar, estos cuerpos celestes se denominan “la lumbrera mayor” y “la lumbrera menor”.
Resumen
Para concluir, no se puede, a mi juicio, sostener que los “días” de la creación son una serie de seis días solares consecutivos y rechazar al mismo tiempo una interpretación de la Tierra joven. Aunque Sailhamer y Walton, entre otros, han intentado hacerlo, mi evaluación de sus respectivos enfoques es que no logran armonizar esta interpretación con una Tierra antigua. Además, el relato del Génesis no dice nada sobre la edad del Universo o de la Tierra, ya que éstos son creados antes del comienzo del primer día de la semana de la creación. Por lo tanto, la única cuestión que debe evaluarse es la edad de la biosfera. Además, hay algunas pistas en el texto de Génesis 1 que son consistentes con que la semana de la creación fue más larga que nuestras semanas regulares. Se puede armonizar el texto de Génesis 1 con una interpretación de la Tierra antigua planteando la presencia de brechas entre cada uno de los “días” o planteando que los “días” no son literales. La interpretación analógica de los días sugerida por Collins y otros es la interpretación no literal más plausible de los días. Aunque la estructura y la sintaxis del pasaje son consistentes con que los días estén ordenados cronológicamente, no lo requieren.
Notas de páginas
[1] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 570–571.
[2] John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 1996), kindle.
[3] John Piper, “What Should We Teach About Creation?” Desiring God, June 1, 2010 (http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-should-we-teach-about-creation)
[4] Mark Driscoll, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2011), 96 (Doctrina: Lo que cada cristiano debe creer)
[5] Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel (Wheaton, IL, Crossway, 2012), 96-97 (El evangelio explícito)
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009).
[14] Ibid., 91
[15] Ibid., 64
[16] Ibid., 92
[17] Ibid., 170.
[18] Ibid., 42.
[19] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning according to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 132. (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[20] Lydia McGrew, “Review of John H. Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One,” What’s Wrong with the World, March 12, 2015. http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2015/03/review_of_john_h_waltons_the_l.html
[21] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 98.
[22] Ibid., 96.
[23] Ibid., 24.
[24] Ibid., 41.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] C. John Collins, “Review of John Walton, The Lost World Of Genesis One,” Reformed Academic, May 22, 2013.
[28] Michael Jones, “Genesis 1a: And God Said!” Inspiring Philosophy, June 7, 2019, YouTube video, 22:42, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24WZ4Hvytc
[29] Ibid.
[30] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 30.
[31] Ibid., 32.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Bruce Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3, Part III: The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July–September 1975), 216–228.
[34] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), kindle.
[35] John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 1996), kindle.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Bruce Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–3, Part III: The Initial Chaos Theory and the Precreation Chaos Theory,” Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (July–September 1975), 216–228.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011).
[42] Ibid.
[43] The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) se opta por esta traducción.
[44] C. John Collins, Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1–11 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 160–161.
[45] Ibid., 161.
[46] Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy (San Francisco, CA: RTB Press, 2015), 74.
[47] Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise: A Biblical and Scientific Refutation of “Progressive Creationism” (Billions of Years) As Popularized by Astronomer Hugh Ross (Creation Book Publishers; 2nd edition, 2011), kindle.
[48] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 62.
[49] Ibid., 84-85.
[50] Ibid., 85.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. E. B. Pusey (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996) (San Agustín de Hipona, Confesiones)
[53] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 85.
[54] Ibid., 87.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Ibid., 88.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Ibid., 89.
[59] Ibid.
[60] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning According to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 54. (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[61] C. John Collins, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 90.
[62] Ibid., 89.
[63] Ibid., 86.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] John H. Walton, Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 148.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture (New York: Schocken, 1979).
[70] John H. Walton, Genesis, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 149.
[71] G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 17, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL; England: InterVarsity Press; Apollos, 2004), 61.
[72] Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving a Creation Controversy (San Francisco, CA: RTB Press, 2015), 80-82.
[73] Ibid., 82.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.
[76] C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), kindle.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Johann Gottfried von Herder, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, trans. James Marsh (Burlington, Ontario: Edward Smith, 1833), 1:58. See also Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 6–7.
[79] Mark Throntveit, “Are the Events in the Genesis Account Set Forth in Chronological Order? No,” The Genesis Debate (ed. R. Youngblood; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1986) 36–55.
[80] John C. Lennox, Seven Days That Divide the World: The Beginning according to Genesis and Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), (El principio según el Génesis y la Ciencia)
[81] C. John Collins, “The Wayyiqtol as ‘Pluperfect’: When and Why?” Tyndale Bulletin 46, no. 1 (1995): 117–40.
[82] David A. Sterchi, “Does Genesis 1 Provide a Chronological Sequence?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (December 1996), 529-536.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden, In the Beginning … We Misunderstood: Interpreting Genesis 1 in Its Original Context (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2012), 106.
[86] Ibid.
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Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek
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Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Forensic Biology, an MSc (Research Masters) in Evolutionary Biology, a second MSc in Medical and Molecular Biosciences, and a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie contributes to several apologetics websites and is the founder of Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular webinars, as well as to assist Christians struggling with doubt. Dr. McLatchie has participated in over thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has lectured internationally in Europe, North America and South Africa promoting an intelligent, thoughtful and evidence-based Christian faith.
Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/ERkWVCH
Translated by Elias Castro
Edited by Elenita Romero
We Need More Sound Biblical Doctrine Taught in the American Church
Apologetics for Parents, Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Jason Jimenez
We’ve all heard and seen the numbers that show how biblically illiterate Christians are in America. For example, the reputable Barna Group cites only 6% of identified Christians possess a biblical worldview. This is (more or less) verified by Pew Research Center and LifeWay Research.
No matter how many times I’ve studied statistics on biblical illiteracy in the American church—it always causes me to swell up with tears.
But why? Why are over 90% of Christians unfamiliar with the Bible and incapable of articulating the doctrines of the Christian faith?
As a pastor, I realize the bulk of discipleship is on the parents, not the church. In Ephesians 6:4, Paul commands fathers to raise their children in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.” But the critical training ground for families, especially for dads and moms, is the church. We see again in Ephesians the duty of spiritual leaders within the church is to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry” and to “build up the body of Christ (4:12). The Greek word for “equip” is katartismos, which carries the idea of “adequately qualifying or preparing someone to accomplish something with sufficiency.”
Unfortunately, this form of equipping Christians in the Word of God and theology is no longer a high priority for most American churches. Rather than being a place where Christians are trained thoroughly in sound biblical doctrine, the Western church has capitulated to a water-down gospel presentation that seeks to entertain rather than raise up an army of soldiers capable of advancing the kingdom of God amid a dark and perverted world.
However, not only has a lack of teaching sound biblical doctrine contributed to the decline of biblical literacy, but it also has created an absence of godliness in the church and a decline in the overall attendance in denominations across the country.
This (and many more reasons) is why pastors and church leaders need to get back to teaching sound biblical doctrine instead of feeding their congregations a bite-size version of Christianity.
The great Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe, had this to say, “Churches are not built up and strengthened through man-made programs, entertainment, recreation, or “drives.” The church is a body and must have spiritual food; this food is the Word of God.”
Wiersbe is right. The church’s primary service isn’t to offer programs once or twice a week for families. Instead, the church is meant to be a place where Christians can come and get grounded in the Word of God as they grow in their love for Jesus and love for one another (see Hebrews 10:24-25).
Notice how Paul described what the Word of God does for a believer: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
Did you catch that? When churches and Christians spend time learning God’s Word and unpacking the rich doctrinal truths that make up the Christian faith—they will be complete and able to fulfill the will of God. As physical exercise is beneficial for your body, so too is the Word of God profitable for Christians as they are trained on how to form proper habits of behavior so that they are qualified and able to live out their faith every day.
So, if you are a Christian leader in your church, ask yourself, how effective am I in teaching sound doctrine to the people God has called me to shepherd? If you are currently not serving in your church, ask yourself, what can I start doing to be a part of the solution to train up more Christians in the Word of God?
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have by Natasha Crain (Book)
Forensic Faith for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace (Book)
So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)
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Jason Jimenez (www.standstrongministries.org) is president of STAND STRONG Ministries, a faculty member at Summit Ministries, and best-selling author of Challenging Conversations: A Practical Guide to Discuss Controversial Topics in the Church and many other books. Connect with him on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3p7V67v
Resurrection Defense Series: How the Resurrection Impacts Theology
3. Are Miracles Possible?, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Brian Chilton
In September of 1993, my grandmother, Eva Chilton, passed away from a long battle with congestive heart failure. She was the first of my grandparents to pass. My grandmother was a kind, loving woman who used to play board games with us grandchildren. Her smile was illuminating, and her laughter was infectious. Having grown up in church, my young ears heard numerous stories about the afterlife and divine promises. However, being the ever so skeptically minded person as I am, I wanted to know if those promises were true. How could I know that my grandmother was okay?
Previously, I had read a story in Guideposts magazine about a person who prayed that God would send a sign after their loved one’s passing to confirm that the loved one was okay. The article noted that God sent a lightning bolt to verify that the loved one was okay. My mind began to ponder that if the prayer worked for that person, surely it would also work for me. Thus, a few days before my grandmother’s passing, I asked the Lord to do the same for me. I asked for God to send a lightning bolt to assure me that my grandmother was okay when she passed. It was in late September which was not as conducive for lightning storms in the foothills of northwestern North Carolina, as opposed to the balmy, humid months of July and August. That is not to say that lightning storms never happen in late September, just that they are not as likely.
The day came when my grandmother passed. The family met in my grandparent’s home. It was an old house built in the early 1900s. The shutters were filled with asbestos insulation, fine as long as you do not perturb it. An old closet had been transformed into a bathroom, replacing the former outhouse used years before the home’s indoor plumbing was installed. The front of the home led into a large living room which was closed during the colder months due to the wood stove being on the other side of the home. A door led to a bedroom to the left. Across the living room was a door that led into a family room/bedroom. To the left of the family room was the kitchen which led out the back door. The kitchen and family room normally received the most traffic.
On this evening, I found myself in the quiet confines of the living room and peering outdoors into the empty darkness of the sorrowful September night. Everything seemed much darker on that evening because my grandmother was gone. However, the darkness would soon be replaced with brilliant colors of white and blue as two lightning bolts struck on either side of the house. A bolt hit near to where I was sitting, while another bolt hit on the other side of the home where my grandfather and Reverend Gilmer Denny, a pastor friend of the family, were sitting. Outside of losing power for a few brief seconds, nothing in the home was damaged. After a few minutes of initial shock, the Spirit of God reminded me of the prayer that had been previously appealed. At least to my teenage mind, the sign confirmed that my grandmother was just fine. She was in her heavenly home.
Even though this story is told 28 years after it occurred, the memory still vividly resonates in my mind because of the impact it made on me. In like manner, the resurrection of Christ impacts our theological framework. The apostle Paul taught that if the resurrection were not true, then people would be most pitied, the Christian message would be untrue, and Christian teachers would be found to be liars (1 Cor. 15:12-19). But if the resurrection is true, then, everything changes. Paul notes, “But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:20-22).[1] The resurrection’s veracity impacts the totality of a person’s theological worldview. Much could be said of this issue, but to constrain the article’s scope, only three theological areas of impact will be described.
The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of the Afterlife and Eternity
If the resurrection is true, then one has firsthand evidence that life exists beyond the grave. 1 Corinthians 15:20 holds that Jesus’s resurrection serves as the firstfruits for those who have already passed. The aspect of firstfruits refers to the Jewish practice of taking the first and best portion of a harvest and giving it to God.[2] The people were to bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest for him to wave the sheaf before God (Lev. 23:10-14). Figuratively, Jews understood that this taught them to place God first in all that they said and did. In the NT, it was understood that Jesus represented the best of us all. In like manner, just as Jesus had risen from the dead, so shall others be raised from the dead. Life exists beyond the scope of this world. The proof of the afterlife is found in an empty tomb and by the transformed lives who have encountered the One who defeated death.
The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of Purpose and Value
If there is a resurrection and an afterlife, then that must indicate that people have an innate purpose and value. God’s creation is important. Even more, the human race bears the divine imprint—otherwise known as the imagio Dei. As such, no life is a mistake. No person is without value and purpose. This writer spoke at a church on one occasion where a mother and father were in attendance, along with their numerous foster children. The mother said that because she was unable to bear children, she wanted to share her love with children who did not have parents. The message was on Jeremiah chapter one. The point was made that God foreknows each person before the person is born, just as was the case with the prophet Jeremiah. The point continued to note that because of God’s foreknowledge and calling, no one is worthless and without value. Furthermore, every life has a purpose. One of the children began crying as she looked at her mother. The mother wrapped her arm around the child. After the service, the mother expressed her appreciation to me for the message. She said that the child’s biological mother had told her that she was a mistake and was worthless. However, the mother emphasized that God had given her a purpose in this life and that her life was highly valued.
The resurrection of Christ confirms the value and worth of each person. If the resurrection is true, then, retrospectively, the atoning sacrifice of the cross is confirmed, and the mission of Christ is validated. The resurrection is God’s stamp of approval for the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ is evidence of God’s benevolent love and compassion for all of humanity. For Christ was not sent to condemn the world, but rather that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17)—emphasis again on the world, not just the frozen chosen.
The Resurrection Impacts the Theological Views of Ethics and Virtue
If the resurrection confirms that there is an afterlife and that human beings hold purpose and value, then, practically, the resurrection impacts ethics and value. If the resurrection is true, then how people treat one another matters. Why? Because the resurrection confirms the message of Jesus. Ben Witherington notes that “Jesus expected his audience to respond to his works in faith and with repentance. This suggests that his duty was more than just performing acts of compassion. Rather, he was calling God’s people back to their source in view of the inbreaking dominion of God … the power of God must be used to help people.”[3] Jesus commanded his disciples to love others and to even pray for those with whom they differ (Matt. 5:44). Doing good for others is not only commanded and exhibited by Jesus, but it also illustrates the kingdom of God to those in need and compels others to enter this domain.
This article comes on the heels of seven months spent in clinical chaplaincy ministry. Quite honestly, God’s power has been exhibited more in these past seven months than was personally experienced in the past 20 years of pastoral ministry. Prayers have been answered in remarkable ways; people have expressed their deepest appreciation for the work being done; people have had encounters with God; and souls have come to know the Lord. Those things occur in pastoral ministry, but not to the level that has been witnessed in chaplaincy ministry. Why is that? Perhaps it is because chaplains find themselves on the front lines of ministry. Rather than sitting in an office, quarantined from the quagmire of human experience, the chaplain finds oneself in the trenches with those most in need. Chaplaincy has taught the value of Jesus’s teaching, firsthand, that when a cup of water, or a good deed, is given to one who thirsts, it is also given to Jesus (Mark 9:41). This is not to discredit pastoral ministry in the least. I have many fond memories of the pastorate. Who knows? God may use me there again in the future. Nonetheless, the point simply advocates that to demonstrate the love of God, believers must be willing to serve those most in need without judgment. In other words, believers must be willing to get their hands dirty. Christ died and defeated death to give life to humanity. That means that every person is worth saving. That also means that every person is of dignity, worth, and value. The book of Revelation portrays a scene where individuals from every tribe, nation, and tongue surround the throne of God while giving him praise (Rev. 7:9). If true, then the resurrection allows no room for racism or favoritism based on socioeconomic standards. The resurrection demands a superior ethical and moral code to be held by each believer.
Conclusion
The article began with a story of a lightning bolt that fixated my attention heavenward. Later in life, two other lightning bolt experiences transformed my life. The final experience will be shared another day. Insofar as this article goes, the second lightning bolt experience occurred when the resurrection of Jesus was understood to be a historical fact. My life has been transformed just as has the lives of countless others. The resurrection not only serves as the linchpin for the Christian worldview, but it also validates the entire theological framework upon which the biblical worldview is built. Christians may differ on modes of baptism, Bible translations, and styles of singing. However, a Christian cannot deny the historical resurrection of Christ. If the resurrection is denied, then the entire foundation for the Christian worldview collapses, and the walls come tumbling down. Paul verifies that very line of thought in 1 Corinthians 15. Yet if the resurrection did occur, then everything changes. A person may find it revolutionary to acknowledge that Jesus’s resurrection is not some comic book tale told on framed color-filled pages. Jesus’s resurrection is a historical fact that validates the afterlife, ethical values, and human purpose. The world’s woes will not be solved by political pundits and legislation. Rather, the solution is found in an empty tomb and on an occupied throne at the right hand of God the Father. But one day, the throne will be unoccupied as numerous other tombs are left emptied. That is all because the resurrection is true.
Notes:
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2017).
[2] A. Boyd Luter, “Firstfruits,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, John D. Barry, ed, et al (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[3] Ben Witherington, III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990), 176.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)
Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (mp4 Download)
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Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics, and a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain.
Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/2YM918l
The Case for Heaven with Lee Strobel
PodcastIs there really an afterlife? Is there any evidence outside the Bible that we live on after death? What will Heaven be like?
The great Lee Strobel is back on the show with another wonderful “case” book, this one is called The Case for Heaven. Frank asks Lee several intriguing questions that are answered in his new book such as:
If Heaven is real (and it is), you don’t want to miss it!
If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org.
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Subscribe on Stitcher: http://bit.ly/CE_Podcast_Stitcher
Enfrentarse a un futuro desconocido con un Dios conocido
EspañolPor Brian Chilton
El pasado domingo, mi familia y yo visitamos una tienda local de antigüedades al salir de la iglesia. Estábamos allí sin más motivo que el de echar un vistazo a su mercancía y buscar, como dice mi esposa, “si había algo que de no comprarlo, no podríamos vivir”. Mientras recorríamos los pasillos de la tienda, apareció ante mí una señal tipo tránsito con un mensaje que necesitaba escuchar. El señalamiento decía: “Nunca tengas miedo de confiar el futuro desconocido al Dios conocido”. He escuchado personas que piden a Dios una señal. Yo también la he pedido. Pero en esa ocasión, Dios me dio literalmente una señal para el momento que estaba atravesando.
A manera de contexto, mi familia y yo recién salíamos del último servicio en el que ejercería como pastor. Estoy a punto de entrar en una nueva fase del ministerio. Y por lo tanto, nuestras vidas se encuentran en un estado de transición. El cambio suele ser difícil para cualquiera. Sin embargo, esta señal nos sirve para recordar que Dios no sólo está en todos los lugares, también Dios está en todos los tiempos, lo que significa que podemos confiar al Dios conocido nuestro futuro desconocido. He aquí algunas razones que nos ayudarán a creer en la máxima de la señal.
Dios es Trascendente. La trascendencia de Dios indica que Él no está restringido por la creación. Esto es algo que realmente me desconcierta. Soy un observador de los astros, anoche estaba recostado sobre el suelo mirando las estrellas. Y me perdí en la belleza de la Gran Nube de Magallanes que está cerca de la Vía Láctea. Me asombraba la intensidad del brillo de Júpiter, Saturno y Marte. Y entonces me di cuenta. Por muy inmenso que sea el universo con sus numerosas estrellas, planetas y galaxias; el universo y todo lo que en él sucede no se puede comparar con la majestuosidad trascendente de Dios. Dios no está limitado por la creación, sino que la creación está sujeta a la autoridad del Creador trascendente. Teniendo esto en cuenta, los creyentes pueden enfrentarse a un futuro desconocido con la confianza de que Dios tiene la capacidad de anticiparse y hacer cosas por ellos de maneras que ningún otro ser es capaz de hacer. La esfera de trascendencia de Dios lo sitúa en un nivel que ningún otro ser podría alcanzar. Dios sobresale en cualidades y supera todas las características de cualquier ser vivo.
Dios es Omnipresente. La omnipresencia es el atributo de Dios que describe su capacidad de estar en todos los lugares y en todo momento. Dios no está limitado por el espacio. Por lo tanto, Dios en todo momento puede superar las limitantes de los lugares, lo que le permite estar cerca de todas las personas. Pablo tenía esta idea en mente cuando dijo a los atenienses que Dios “aunque no está lejos de ninguno de nosotros” (Hechos 17:27 LBLA). Dios se revela, a través de lo dicho a su profeta Jeremías, como aquél que llena tanto el cielo como la tierra: “¿No lleno yo los cielos y la tierra? -declara el Señor” (Jer. 23:24 LBLA). Aunque no sepamos lo que nos depara el mañana, podemos afrontar el futuro confiadamente sabiendo que la presencia de Dios está siempre con nosotros.
Dios es Omnitemporal. La omni temporalidad de Dios indica que Él es el Señor del tiempo. Isaías escribe: “¿Acaso no lo sabes?, ¿Es que no lo has oído? El Dios eterno, el Señor, el creador de los confines de la tierra no se fatiga ni se cansa. Su entendimiento es inescrutable.” (Isaías 40:28LBLA). Alan Padgett sostiene que Dios es el Señor del tiempo. El tiempo fluye del ser de Dios. Padgett escribe,
Puesto que Dios es el Dios que siempre ha vivido y siempre estará, entonces los hijos de Dios no tienen nada que temer del futuro desconocido porque al Dios que conocemos ya está en el futuro. Ni siquiera la muerte puede intimidar al creyente, ya que el Dios eterno ha concedido la vida eterna a los que confían en Él.
Dios es omnisapiente. Por último, Dios es omnisapiente. La omnisapiencia se refiere al todo sabio Dios. La omnisapiencia (todo sabiduría) se diferencia de la omnisciencia (todo conocimiento) en lo siguiente, mientras que el conocimiento comprende ciertos datos, la sabiduría sabe cómo tomar las mejores decisiones con los datos disponibles. La sabiduría hace referencia a tomar buenas decisiones. Dios, al ser el todo sabio Dios, toma las mejores decisiones para nuestras vidas incluso cuando esas decisiones no tienen sentido para nosotros. Dado que Dios es el único ser autoexistente, autosuficiente, omnipresente y trascendente; Él tiene acceso a información que ninguno de nosotros podría poseer. Dios es amor (1 Juan 4:8). Como tal, Dios desea lo mejor para nosotros, especialmente para los hijos de Dios. Por lo tanto, las personas pueden confiar su vida y su futuro al todo sabio Dios.
Estoy seguro de que no soy la única persona que se enfrenta a la incertidumbre en la vida. Con la sociedad agitada y el mundo en medio de una pandemia, casi todas las personas se han visto afectadas por las tensiones de la incertidumbre. Sin embargo, no tenemos que preocuparnos si confiamos en Dios. Oswald Chambers sostiene con razón que nuestros temores surgen cuando depositamos nuestra confianza en la humanidad o en nuestras propias capacidades. Chambers señala,
En lugar de confiar en tus capacidades o en las capacidades de otras personas, confía tu futuro a Dios. Mientras que nuestro futuro puede ser desconocido para nosotros, el futuro es plena y completamente conocido por el Dios que conocemos.
Fuentes
Chambers, Oswald. Mi deseo de lo mejor. La edición clásica. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour, 1935.
Padgett, Alan G. God, Eternity, and the Nature of Time. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1992.
Recursos recomendados en Español:
Robándole a Dios (tapa blanda), (Guía de estudio para el profesor) y (Guía de estudio del estudiante) por el Dr. Frank Turek
Por qué no tengo suficiente fe para ser un ateo (serie de DVD completa), (Manual de trabajo del profesor) y (Manual del estudiante) del Dr. Frank Turek
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Brian G. Chilton es el fundador de BellatorChristi.com y es el presentador de The Bellator Christi Podcast. Recibió su Maestría en Divinidad en Liberty University (con alta distinción); su Licenciatura en Ciencias en Estudios Religiosos y Filosofía de la Universidad Gardner-Webb (con honores); y recibió la certificación en Christian Apologetics (Apologética cristiana) de la Universidad de Biola. Brian actualmente está inscrito en el programa Ph.D. en Teología y apologética en Liberty University. Brian ha estado en el ministerio por más de 15 años y sirve como pastor en el noroeste de Carolina del Norte.
Blog Original: https://cutt.ly/IRrCrC8
Traducido por Yatniel Vega García
Editado por Gustavo Camarillo
The Mind-Blowing Meaning Behind the Sign of Jonah
3. Are Miracles Possible?, Atheism, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Erik Manning
Recently I stumbled across what I thought was a rather silly meme:
Oof. Here’s the thing: No matter if you believe Jonah is historical or ahistorical (and some Christians, like C.S. Lewis, believed it was the latter), this meme misses the point. Science tells us what nature does when left to itself; miracles happen because nature is not left to itself. Whoever wrote the book of Jonah probably understood that human beings don’t normally get swallowed by whales, let alone survive if they did.
But did Jonah survive? No, and yes. Let’s read Jonah’s parts of the prayer from the whale’s belly:
Jonah 2:3-1
Did Jonah Survive?
Let’s consider these three key points from this text:
So actually, the atheist has a good point; Jonah probably did die in the belly of a great fish, or whale. God had mercy on him and raised him from the dead, and he was able to carry out his mission.
The Sign of Jonah
OK, so where am I going with this? Remember when Jesus refused to give the Pharisees a sign? What was his reply? He said:
(Matthew 12:38-41)
To be honest, I’ve thought before that this was a pretty weak parallel, no offense to Jesus. But this story makes much more sense if Jonah really did give up the ghost only to be miraculously revived to preach to the Ninevites. And there is even more. Like, why are the Ninevites so significant?
Throughout Old Testament history, Nineveh was not a friend of Israel. In the late seventh century BC, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire. The city’s king, Sennacherib, laid siege to Jerusalem in 701 BC (2 Kings 18:13-19:37) and I’m sure the Jews never forgot. When the Babylonians destroyed Nineveh in 612, Nahum the prophet practically rejoiced. He calls Nineveh the “city of bloodshed”. (Nah 3:1) Jonah probably fled because of these reasons. Like many Jews of his time, Jonah hated Nineveh.
The Sign of Jonah: More Than the Resurrection
By mentioning Jonah, Jesus was being purposely provocative. His death would lead not only to his resurrection but the repentance of the pagan nations that his audience would’ve despised. The sign of Jonah wasn’t just his resurrection but would lead to the repentance of those hated Gentiles.
Now think about this for a second: From Augustine to Aquinas, Christian apologists would point to the success of the church as evidence of the truth of the Gospel. When they argued for the messiahship, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus, they (generally) failed to mention the evidence for an empty tomb or the reliability of the eyewitnesses. They didn’t argue about historical probability and evidence, as important as I think that is.
Rather, they simply pointed out the crumbling pagan world around them; Gentile nations that had worshipped idols for millennia miraculously repented, turned, and began to worship the God of the Jews. Isaiah the Prophet also saw this when he said that the servant of the Lord will be “a light for the nations” (Isaiah 42:6-7) Many of the other Psalmists and Old Testament prophets predicted the same thing; that one day Israel would lead to the conversion of the nations.
The Sign of Jonah Has Been Fulfilled
Now look around: Since Jesus’ death and resurrection, a tiny band of Jewish vagabond fishermen turned the world upside down, and their effect has been felt for generations until now. In the first century, Christianity spread throughout Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and more recently has spread throughout Africa, South America, and even in communist China. Christianity still has a stronghold in North America as well as parts of Europe. Over the past two millennia, billions and billions of non-Jews have repented and worshiped the God of Israel.
So this atheist meme makes a good point. Of course, Jonah wouldn’t have survived. Jonah died, rose again 3 days later and his preaching converted the Ninevites. Jesus died, rose again 3 days later and his message through his apostles converted billions of Gentiles over the past 2000 years. The sign of Jonah has been fulfilled. We don’t believe that simply because a book says it’s true, we can just open our eyes and see the world around us.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Miracles: The Evidence by Frank Turek DVD and Mp4
Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)
How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide
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Erik Manning is a Reasonable Faith Chapter Director located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’s a former freelance baseball writer and the co-owner of a vintage and handmade decor business with his wife, Dawn. He is passionate about the intersection of apologetics and evangelism.
Original Blog Source https://bit.ly/3mC3F7H
The Decline of Christianity—and Rationality—in the West
Culture CrossExamined, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy J. Brian Huffling
The Issue
On August 22, 2021, the Christian Post published an article that claimed greater “than 60% of born again Christians in America between the ages of 18 and 39 believe that Buddha, Muhammad and Jesus are all valid paths to salvation and over 30% say they either believe that Jesus sinned like other people” or that they “aren’t sure.” Further, the survey of “3,100 Americans ages 18 to 55 in 2020” saw a significant decline in what they call a “basic biblical worldview,” which includes issues such as the nature of God, the reliability of the Bible, salvation, as well as the sinlessness of Jesus. The number of people in that category dropped “from 47% in 2010 to 25% in 2020 among born again Christians.” What is referred to as “expanded biblical worldview” (beliefs regarding Satan and objective morality) fell “from 32% in 2010 to 16% in 2020.” There was a noticeable drop among “the general population” as well regarding basic biblical worldview beliefs (13% to 6%) and for expanded biblical worldview (9% to about 3%).
Assessment
Why is there a decline in such beliefs? According to Kirby Anderson, ethicist and president of Probe Ministries, such is “due to pastors not consistently teaching biblical theory” and to “young Christians who are not paying attention” due to being distracted by other issues, such as social media and whatever is more important to them.
Can people hold to these unbiblical positions and really be genuine “born again” Christians? The latter question is one for another time. I will focus on the former. I agree with Anderson on the point that to a degree pastors and church leaders share a blame in this situation. Churches are typically more interested in other issues than discipleship and genuine learning. Many if not most Christians cannot even articulate the basic beliefs of their faith. For example, such doctrines as the Trinity and the divinity of Christ are usually, or at least often, distorted by everyday Christians. Often, even pastors cannot accurately describe the basics of such doctrines. In some circles, a lack of theological education is actually celebrated as it allegedly takes the focus off of the Holy Spirit’s leading and teaching. If God tells us what to believe and what to talk about in church, then why go to school? I discuss these issues in another post I wrote about having an intellectual faith. However, simply knowing what the Bible says is not enough anymore. It is imperative that we not only know what Christianity is, but know whether we believe it, why we believe it, and how to defend it. The latter point is hardly discussed in churches.
However, pastors are not the sole cause of this problem. There are a host of such causes. While church is meant to foster and nourish our spiritual life, it is not meant to be the primary means to attain it. Our spiritual life should start at home.
Another issue is education in general. Students are often not allowed to fail in school. General knowledge of the world and the history of ideas has decreased. Critical thinking and logic have been taken out of the general curriculum. The list goes on and on. Feelings now trump logic, and the cardinal rule is not to offend others. Today, offending others is the unpardonable sin. A lack of logic and an abundance of feeling-driven inclusiveness has been a surefire formula for irrationality. Need an example? Who would have thought just a decade ago, let alone a generation ago, that one’s gender would not be an objective, scientific fact, but instead merely based on wants and feelings? Why do allegedly rational people go along with such insanity? Because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and we want to be inclusive.
The same applies to religion. If one says that Jesus is the only way to salvation, then he necessarily is exclusive, unloving, bigoted, etc. Thus, the cardinal rule has been violated. Feelings are indeed elevated above reason and reality. So what is a person to do? I’m glad you asked.
Study Logic
Many of the ridiculous claims made today, such as every religion is true, can be disproven simply by understanding the basic rules of thought and reality. For example, the law of non-contradiction states that something can’t be X and not-X simultaneously. In other words, if one religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, teach that a Creator brought about the existence of the universe, and pantheistic religions, such as Hinduism, teach that there is no Creator and the universe has always existed, then those two teachings cannot both be true. Since the existence of God is kind of a big deal in most religions, the denial of a deity would falsify many if not most religions. In other words, not all religions can be the same. Jesus cannot be the only way to salvation and not be the only way to salvation. It’s either one way or the other.
It is also important to note that every claim is exclusive as it says the opposite of it is false. While asserting that Jesus is the only way is exclusive and narrow, the opposite is just as exclusive and narrow. The number of people in consideration has nothing to do with the nature of the exclusiveness or narrowness of the actual claim. This brings us to another point:
Knowledge of Religious Teaching
Many Christians might assert that the Bible does not say Jesus is the only way. However, the Bible makes such claims in abundance. For example, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6. Further, Acts 4:12 states, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Thus, the Bible can logically be wrong, but it can’t be right and wrong on the same point at the same time, per the law of non-contradiction. It clearly asserts Jesus is the only way to salvation. If he isn’t, then the biblical claim is simply false. Thus, one can deny the Bible, but he can’t rewrite it. We are stuck with what it says, regardless of whether it breaks our cardinal rule of not offending others. The point: if this is a necessary belief for being a Christian, then one can deny it, but one can’t deny it and remain a true Christian. Rather than placing our emotions and desires as the standard of truth, the Bible inconveniences us with reason and reality—two inconvenient aspects to our current cultural milieu.
Pastors and Churches Can Prepare Their Congregants
There have been many polls like the one cited here that talk about 75% or so of youth ditching Christianity after their first semester of college. While I take exception to such numbers since many were probably not really believers to begin with, as a matter of principle it is absolutely true that parents and pastors should prepare youth for college. Motivational talks in church, church camps, and Christian concerts are great, but they don’t begin to teach young people how to articulate and defend their faith. Nonbelievers are ruthless in their hatred for Christianity and everything rational; so, it is important to train our youth to not only know the basics of Christianity but also be able to explain why they believe it.
Parents Should Train Their Children
While churches share in the culpability of these issues, parents also have a vital role to play in the education of their children. Schools and churches help with that, but ultimately, if we have children brought up in our homes and church, and their Intro to Philosophy professor wrecks their faith in just a few weeks, then they probably weren’t very well-educated about their faith to begin with. (All of this says something about the notion that one should simply take Christianity’s claims on faith alone, where faith means unreasonable or blind faith. Not only is this irrational and unbiblical, but it is also dangerous since it leaves one open for serious doubt when faced with it.)
Where to Go for Answers
When I was fifteen, I started asking myself questions about my faith. I didn’t doubt it, but I wasn’t sure why I believed it. It dawned on me one day that when it comes to religion, everyone thinks he is right. Well, we can’t all be right, per that persistent law of non-contradiction. So, how did I know I was right? I started studying apologetics (being able to defend one’s position, in this case on Christianity) at a very lay level. In college, I decided I wanted a more in-depth knowledge of such issues. I discovered Southern Evangelical Seminary. SES is one of the top schools in the world for studying apologetics. (Disclaimer: I currently am a professor at SES.) SES offers certificates, a bachelor’s degree, several master’s degrees, a doctor of ministry, and a Ph.D. All programs of study have an apologetic component integrated into the fabric of the courses. If you are interested in learning how to better understand and defend your faith, or help your family do so, let SES help you!
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek
Is Morality Absolute or Relative? (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD) by Frank Turek
How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)
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Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.
Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/REXYwwu
Are You a Moody Christian?
PodcastAre you a Moody Christian?
Do you rely on your feelings about Christianity or the evidence for Christianity?
Should you have certain feelings that confirm you are saved?
Frank answers those questions and offers some practical insights from C.S. Lewis on not only how to develop your relationship with Christ but how to develop your relationships with your loved ones. He also shows why most of what you know is based on the testimony of others. That’s even true for scientists! Finally, Frank shows why you can trust the testimonies of the New Testament writers.
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Extrabiblical Evidence for the Veracity of the Gospel History
4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian ApologeticsIn a previous article, I reviewed several arguments that are typically raised in support of the historicity of Jesus but, upon closer inspection, turn out to be of extremely limited evidential value. In this article, I will discuss an approach to arguing from extrabiblical sources that I consider to be much more robust. Whereas in the previous article, I critiqued appeals to direct testimony to the historicity of Jesus (which, at best, only attest to the broad outlines of the gospel story), in this article I will consider incidental allusions in the gospels that are indirectly and undesignedly confirmed by extrabiblical secular sources.
The data surveyed in the ensuing discussion are of varying evidential weights, though all are (in my assessment) significantly more probable on the hypothesis of historical reportage than on its falsehood. The case for the reliability of the gospels must also be recognized as a cumulative one, and one should not expect to be able to rest the entire case on any one of these examples. When the numerous lines of external and internal evidences bearing on the gospel accounts are considered together, one has, in my view, an extremely powerful argument for the substantial trustworthiness of the gospels – that is to say, that the gospel authors are shown to be close up to the facts, well informed, and habitually reliable. This is epistemically relevant to developing a case for the resurrection and in turn, Christianity, since, if the gospels can indeed be shown to be grounded in credible eyewitness testimony, then one has to take seriously the purported nature and variety of the post-resurrection encounters with the risen Jesus as coming from the original apostolic eyewitnesses. Having established the original apostolic claims concerning Jesus’ resurrection, we can then attempt to adjudicate whether these claims are best explained by the apostles attempting to deceive their audiences; by them being honestly mistaken, or by Jesus having risen from the dead.
One may object to the style of argument advanced here on the grounds that an individual living in first-century Palestine would presumably be expected to know these facts, or at the very least could have looked them up. However, of particular interest to our purposes here are difficult facts that the authors get right – that is to say, the evangelists betray knowledge (often very casually and incidentally) of specialized information that would have been hard to have access to unless they were close up both temporally and geographically to the events of which they wrote. I am not talking here of facts that would have been widely known and easily accessible, such as who was the Roman emperor of the time. In a world without the internet and easy access to information, writing about historical events that transpired decades before one’s time was a minefield, especially after the events of 70 A.D., when the city of Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans. The numerous points of connection between the gospel history and that written of in secular sources, therefore, provide an important source of evidence for the credibility of the evangelists.
This article will discuss only incidental corroborations of the gospel accounts and will not touch upon the book of Acts, though of course evidence bearing on the reliability of Acts also bears indirectly on the credibility of the gospels since it reflects favorably upon the historical meticulousness of Luke, who authored Acts as well as the third gospel. The historical reliability of Acts will be the subject of a subsequent article (and I have also covered some examples in previous articles, for example here and here). I will also not in this essay offer an extensive discussion of historical objections to the gospels (of which there are many, some of which have been addressed previously on this site) but will instead focus solely on the positive case for the gospel history. However, a few historical objections will be considered that, upon closer inspection, turn out to provide positive evidence for the reliability of the gospels. This short essay is also not intended to provide an exhaustive list of extra-biblical evidences but will catalogue several key examples of external confirmation of the gospel accounts, with a view towards whetting the reader’s appetite for further study of this fascinating topic. For further reading, I recommend starting with part two, chapter six of William Paley’s A View of the Evidence of Christianity, to whom I owe many of the examples discussed in this essay.[1]
Joseph and Archelaus
The gospel of Matthew gives an account of the flight of Jesus and his family to Egypt to escape from Herod the Great’s attempt to kill Jesus by having all infants less than two years of age in the region of Bethlehem put to death (Matt 2:13-18). Matthew 2:19-22 picks up the story of Jesus’ family commencing their return from Egypt following the death of Herod the Great.
Since Joseph received news that Herod the Great had passed away, one might have expected him to surmise that Herod the Great’s eldest son, Archelaus, would succeed him to the throne. However, in verse 22, we read that Joseph “heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod,” and consequently “withdrew to the district of Galilee.” The reader, then, may wonder why news of Archelaus’ reign in Judea caused Joseph to revise his plans and travel towards Galilee instead. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus gives us a clue. He tells us that, “he [Herod the Great] appointed Antipas, to whom he had before left the kingdom, to be tetrarch of Galilee and Berea, and granted the kingdom to Archelaus,” (Antiquities 17.188).[2] Josephus also writes elsewhere that Caesar Augustus, respecting Herod’s will (Wars of the Jews 2.93–96)[3],
Thus, we learn from Josephus that, following the death of Herod the Great, Herod’s territory was divided among three of his sons, with Herod’s eldest son Archelaus reigning in Judea; Herod Antipas becoming tetrarch of in Galilee and Peraea; and Philip becoming tetrarch of territories north and east of the Jordan. This, then, provides some historical background to Joseph’s decision to avoid Archelaus by going to Galilee instead of Judea. We still, however, at this point lack an explanation for why Joseph learning that Archelaus reigning in Judea prompted his change of course.
Josephus elsewhere reports that “There was one Judas, the son of Saripheus, and Matthias, the son of Margalothus,” who, “when they found that the king’s distemper was incurable, excited the young men that they would pull down all those works which the king had erected contrary to the law of their fathers, and thereby obtain the rewards which the law will confer on them for such actions of piety…for the king had erected over the great gate of the temple a large golden eagle, of great value, and had dedicated it to the temple,” (Antiquities 17.6.2).[4] Perceiving that the erection of a golden eagle in the temple violated the second commandment which prohibits graven images, these men therefore “persuaded [their scholars] to pull down the golden eagle; alleging, that although they should incur any danger which might bring them to their deaths, the virtue of the action now proposed to them would appear much more advantageous to them than the pleasures of life; since they would die for the preservation and observation of the law of their fathers; since they would also acquire an everlasting fame and commendation; since they would be both commended by the present generation, and leave an example of life that would never be forgotten to posterity…” (Antiquities 17.6.2).[5] Herod’s response was to burn those who had caused this sedition alive (Antiquities 17.6.4). This was among the last acts of Herod the Great before his death in 4 B.C. (Antiquities 17.8).
Josephus tells us that, following Herod the Great’s death and the succession of Archelaus in Judea, “some of the Jews got together, out of a desire of innovation. They lamented Matthias, and those that were slain with him by Herod, who had not any respect paid them by a funeral mourning, out of the fear men were in of that man; they were those who had been condemned for pulling down the golden eagle. The people made a great clamor and lamentation hereupon, and cast out some reproaches against the king also, as if that tended to alleviate the miseries of the deceased,” (Antiquities 17.9.1).[6] These individuals, Josephus informs us, “assembled together” and petitioned Archelaus to enact revenge against “those who had been honored by Herod; and that, in the first and principal place, he would deprive that high priest whom Herod had made…” (Antiquities 17.9.1).[7] However, Archelaus was “mightily offended at their importunity,” (Antiquities 17.9.1).[8] Josephus tells us of Archelaus’ response (Antiquities 17.9.1)[9]:
Josephus goes on to tell us what happened as the next Passover festival rolled around, and there was an influx of Jewish pilgrims into Judea for the feast of Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3)[10]:
Thus, this Jewish mob, who protested the death of Mathias and Judas (who had previously been executed for their part in removing the image of the eagle from the Jewish temple) stoned the soldiers who had been sent by Archelaus to prevent an uprising. Josephus tells us what happened next (Antiquities 17.9.3)[11]:
Thus, Archelaus’ response was to send his entire army upon the Jewish temple. He surrounded the temple with the horsemen (to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the temple) and had his men massacre three thousand Jews inside the temple. Given that these events unfolded around the time of Passover, it would have been a particularly busy time inside the temple. Following the massacre, Archelaus made a proclamation that Passover was cancelled and that the Jewish pilgrims should return to their hometowns from whence they came. It is not difficult to imagine Mary, Joseph, and Jesus making their way back north from Egypt right around this time, encountering this mass of distraught and fleeing pilgrims coming out of Judea, hearing what had just happened, and deciding to change course and go to Galilee instead, where Archelaus’ younger brother, Herod Antipas, was reigning instead.
It may be observed that Matthew does not give the backstory to Joseph’s change in course. Indeed, Archelaus is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible. Josephus’ incidental and undesigned illumination of the text, therefore, is more probable given that the event Matthew describes is grounded in truth rather than falsehood. This is made all the more the case by the chronological markers (especially the reference to Herod’s death in both accounts) which place these events as happening around the same time as the return of Joseph and his family from Egypt.
Another interesting, though somewhat weaker, point is that Matthew states that Ἀρχέλαος βασιλεύει τῆς Ἰουδαίας (literally, “Archelaus was kinging in Judea”). In concurrence with Matthew, Josephus informs us that His claim to the throne had not been certified by Caesar, and in fact, one of the complaints against Archelaus was that he had already taken the kingship over to himself before it had been formally ratified by Caesar: “Now, Antipater, Salome’s son, a very subtle orator, and a bitter enemy to Archelaus, spake first to this purpose:—That it was ridiculous in Archelaus to plead now to have the kingdom given him, since he had, in reality, taken already the power over it to himself, before Caesar had granted it to him,” (Antiquities 17.9.5).[12] Herod the Great, by contrast, is referred to as “Herod the king” (Mt 2:1,3, c.f. Lk 1:5), which is attested by first-century coins that bear the inscription, ΗΡΩ∆ΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ, that is, “King Herod.” In fact, there was never subsequently a formally ratified king at Jerusalem, except during the last three years of the life of Herod Agrippa I (Antiquities 18.6.10 and 19.5.1). This comports with Acts 12:1, which refers to Herod [Agrippa I] the king.”
When Did Jesus Begin His Public Ministry?
John 2:18-20 recounts a dialogue between Jesus and some Jews following the first cleansing of the temple, which occurred towards the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry:
The veracity of the saying of Jesus in verse 19 is supported by an undesigned co-incidence, since Mark 14:57-58, describing the scene where Jesus is on trial before Caiaphas the high priest, notes,
Mark 15:29-30 also reports that onlookers of Jesus’ death on the cross shouted out, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” (c.f. Mt 27:40). It is noteworthy that Jesus never said anything about destroying a manmade temple and rebuilding it in three days but not by human hands (as per Mk 14:57-58, c.f. Mt 26:61). Moreover, though both Mark and Matthew make reference to this accusation, neither gives a pretext of the saying, or attempts to clarify Jesus’ original words. It does not, however, appear to be a saying that has been invented out of whole cloth, but is more likely a garbled version of something Jesus in fact said (especially in view of the allusion to three days, often associated with Jesus’ predictions concerning His resurrection). In John 2:19 (quoted above), however, John provides us with the original statement of Jesus, though he does not report the later misrepresentation of Jesus’ words, nor its use as an accusation. Matthew and Mark, on the other hand, report the misrepresentations of Jesus’ words and its use as an accusation, but do not give us the original saying. Thus, neither account appears to independent, neither being copied from the other. This undesigned co-incidence supports the historicity of these accounts.
There is, however, also a way of corroborating this account using extrabiblical sources. Take note of the date given by the Jews – “it has taken forty-six years to build this temple…” We can thus discern the approximate date at which this dialogue must have taken place, since Flavius Josephus helpfully tells us when Herod the Great began to rebuild the temple. It was in the 18th year of his reign, which landed in approximately 19 B.C. (Antiquities 15.11.1). Forty-six years on from 19 B.C. lands us in 28 A.D. Now, according to Luke 3:1, when did Jesus commence His public ministry? It was in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Augustus Caesar died in 14 A.D., but two years prior to that (the fall of 12 A.D.), according to the historian Suetonius, Augustus appointed Tiberius as co-emperor, in order to ensure a smooth transition of power. This is implied by the following quotation, which refers to Tiberius’ return to Rome following a stint in Germany for two years, between 10 and 12 A.D. (Suetonius, Tiberius 20-21)[13]:
This indicates that Tiberius was “appointed a colleague with Augustus in the administration of the provinces, and in taking the census” after Tiberius’ return from Germany, in 12 A.D. Thus, the fifteenth year of Tiberius lands us in 27 A.D., corresponding to Jesus’ baptism and ministry commencement. The cleansing of the temple would have taken place the following Passover (John 2:13), placing it in the spring of 28 A.D. Thus, by two independent methods, and using information drawn from John, Luke, Josephus, and Suetonius, we have been able to confirm the date on which Jesus cleansed the temple. This sort of co-incidence – in particular, the undesignedness with which the pieces dovetail, is best explained by the sources being rooted in truth.
Jesus’ Teachings on Divorce
In Mark 10:2-12, we read about Jesus’ teachings on the subject of divorce and remarriage:
This last statement in verses 11 and 12 has given rise to a popular objection to Mark’s account, namely, that although Jewish law made provision for a man to divorce his wife, it made no such provision for a woman to divorce her husband. Thus, it has been thought, this might betray the fact that the author of Mark was a gentile who here reveals his ignorance of Jewish law, or that our author has reworked Jesus’ teachings to make it more suitable for a Roman audience. John Donahue and Daniel Harrington, for instance, note that “This sentence is generally regarded as an addition to Jesus’ teaching that was made to address situations related to Roman legal practice whereby a woman could initiate divorce proceedings.”[14] Josephus, however, sheds some light on the significance of Jesus’ words in their original historical context. He writes that “Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorce herself from her husband [that is, Philip] while he was alive, and was married to Herod [Antipas], her husband’s brother by the father’s side; he was tetrarch of Galilee.”[15] This takes on a particular significance when we consider that Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee, which was the very place where Jesus had just been teaching (Mk 9:30, 33). Though Mark 10:1 states that “he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again,” the parallel account in Matthew 19:2 indicates that “large crowds followed him,” implying that he delivered this teaching to Galilean crowds. Furthermore, the verb ἔρχομαι in Mark 10:1 does not necessarily describe a completed action and verse 17 (“And as he was setting out on his journey…”) suggests that he had not yet arrived in Judea. In fact, Jesus did not even reach Jericho, which is on the outskirts of Judea, until verse 46. From these clues, it may be reasonably deduced that Jesus was still teaching the Galilean crowds, for whom a rebuke of Herod Antipas’ adulterous relationship with Herodias (and Herodias’ divorcing of her previous husband, Philip) was of particular relevance.
The surprising nature (given Jewish law) of Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10:11-12, coupled with the incidental way that Josephus illuminates the gospel account, supports the veracity of Mark’s narrative.
Why Was John the Baptist Imprisoned?
Mark 6:17-18 gives us the evangelist’s understanding of the motive behind Herod’s imprisonment of John the Baptist:
Mark’s statement of Herod’s motivation in imprisoning John the Baptist contradicts the statement of Josephus, who wrote[16],
According to the gospels, it was not just Herod’s suspicious temper or his fear of an uprising; it was because of John’s disapproval of Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias. Of course, these motivations are not incompatible and it may have been a combination of both. This does raise the interesting question, however, of how the evangelists should know what Herod Antipas’ motives were for having John imprisoned. A plausible answer to this is supplied by Luke 8:3, which indicates that one of Jesus’ female disciples, who had followed Him from Galilee, was “Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager.” Thus, evidently, Jesus’ followers had family in the highest ranks of Herod Antipas’ employment.
There is also another interesting feature of this text from Josephus that is of evidential value. Herod Antipas’ previous wife, Phasaelis, whom Antipas had divorced, returned to her father, Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans. This resulted in a military conflict between Antipas and Aretas IV. Josephus explains (Antiquities 18.108–115) [17],
Thus, Herod lost the war against Aretas IV. According to Josephus, many of the Jews blamed Herod’s defeat on the way in which Herod had treated John the Baptist (Antiquities 18.116–117)[18]:
The explanations that the Jews offered of Herod’s defeat at the hands of Aretas IV makes sense in view of the gospel account, which informs us that the reason why Herod had John the Baptist imprisoned was because “John had been saying to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death.” [19] John the Baptist was a strong critic of Herod Antipas’ adulterous relationship with Herodias, which had led to John’s imprisonment and ultimately to his execution. And it was Herod Antipas’ adulterous relationship with Herodias that led to the war between Herod Antipas and Aretas IV and ultimately to his defeat. Is it any wonder, then, that the Jews blamed the destruction of Herod’s armies on Herod’s treatment of John the Baptist? This undesigned co-incidence between Mark and Josephus again supports the veracity of Mark’s account.
The Execution of John the Baptist
Mark 6 recounts the story of the death of John the Baptist, when Herodias’ daughter, after dancing for Herod’s guests at a banquet, offered her whatever she wished. She requested the head of John the Baptist. According to Mark 6:27-28,
The Greek word used for “executioner” in verse 27 is σπεκουλάτορα, rather than the more usual term for a civil executioner, which is δήμιος. The word σπεκουλάτορα is a rank of military officer, literally meaning “scout” or “courier” (English cognates include “spectate” and “spectacles”). This rank of officer also served as body guards of the Roman emperor. These officers occasionally acted as executioners (Seneca, de Ira 1.16), though this was not their distinctive office. The fact that Herod used a σπεκουλατωρ (rather than a δήμιος) to carry out the execution dovetails perfectly with Josephus’ account of the same event, according to which John the Baptist “was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.” (Antiquities 18.119). [19] Thus, we learn that Herod Antipas was not during this time at his palace in Galilee, but rather was on a military campaign against his former father-in-law, Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans, and was therefore resident at his military fortress called Macherus. This illuminates why a military officer, rather than a civil executioner, was used for putting John the Baptist to death, and provides some supporting evidence in favor of historicity.
John the Baptist’s Baptizing on the Jordan River
In Luke 3:10-14, we read of various individuals who enquired of John the Baptist what they should do. According to verse 14,
The word translated “soldiers” in this verse is στρατευόμενοι, which is a present participle, literally translated “those soldiering” or “those being soldiers.” This is in fact the only instance of this form in the gospels and Acts out of 29 occurrences of the word στρατιώτης and its inflections. The use of the present participle in Luke 3:14 suggests that these soldiers are on active duty. How, though, does this comport with the fact that this period, near the beginning of Pilate’s decade-long term, is one of peace in Palestine? The only military conflict going on at this time was that between Herod Antipas and his former father-in-law, Aretas IV, king of the Nabateans. As already discussed, Josephus indicates that Herod Antipas had a fortress, called Macherus, located in Jordan twenty-five kilometers southeast of the mouth of the Jordan river, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, “on the borders of the dominions of Aretas and Herod,” (Antiquities 18.111).[20] Antipas hired a mercenary army to carry on the war against Aretas. These soldiers, then, are on their way down to bolster the garrison at the fortress. Thus, the soldiers would naturally pass by where John the Baptist was baptizing on their way to shore up the garrison at Macherus. Again, the subtlety of this co-incidence tends to confirm the credibility of Luke’s account.
The Office of the High Priest
One curious feature of the gospel accounts is that the high priests are consistently spoken of in the plural number (ἀρχιερεῖς) when normally (as per the prescriptions of the Torah) there was only ever a single high priest. In agreement with the gospels, Josephus also speaks of the priests in the plural number (e.g. Wars of the Jews 2.322).
Luke 3:1 indicates that Jesus’ public ministry began “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar…during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.” A parallel passage in Josephus, which likewise speaks of two individuals occupying the office of high priest, can be found in Wars of the Jews 2.243: “but he [Quadratus] sent two others of those that were of the greatest power among men, and both Jonathan and Ananias, the high priests…”[21]
William Paley also observes that, though John does not mention that both Ananas and Caiaphas held the office of high priest, “That Annas was a person in an eminent station, and possessed an authority co-ordinate with, or next to, that of the high priest properly so called, may be inferred from Saint John’s Gospel, which, in the history of Christ’s crucifixion, relates [in 18:13] that ‘the soldiers led him away to Annas first.’ And this might be noticed as an example of undesigned coincidence in the two evangelists.”[22] The reason for taking Jesus to Annas first, according to John 18:13, was that “he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year,” but no mention is made of him also serving in the capacity of high priest.
Interestingly, Acts 4:6 refers to “Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family,” thus referring only to Annas as high priest, even though he is listed alongside Caiaphas. In a similar vein, Josephus writes, “Joseph also, the son of Gorion, and Ananus the high priest, were chosen as governors of all affairs within the city,” (Wars of the Jews 2.563).[23] William Paley comments, “Yet Ananus, though here called the high priest Ananus, was not then in the office of the high priesthood. The truth is, there is an indeterminateness in the use of this title in the Gospel: sometimes it is applied exclusively to the person who held the office at the time; sometimes to one or two more, who probably shared with him some of the powers or functions of the office; and, sometimes, to such of the priests as were eminent by their station or character; and there is the very same indeterminateness in Josephus.”[24]
In Matthew 26:3, we read, “Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas.” Josephus attests to the fact that Caiaphas was high priest throughout the term of Pontius Pilate (and therefore at this time). Josephus writes (Antiquities 18.33)[25],
From clues in Josephus and the gospels, it may reasonably be deduced that, though Ananus had been deposed from his office by Pilate’s predecessor, Valerius Gratus, the Jews nonetheless continued to recognize him as the rightful high priest, even while also recognizing the line of Roman-instituted high priests, the fourth of whom was Joseph Caiaphas. It is also noteworthy that Eleazar, the son of Ananias, and Simon, the son of Camithus, are both said to have held this office no longer than a year before the appointment of Caiaphas. This illuminates the statements in John 11:49, 11:51, and 18:13 that Caiaphas was “high priest that year,” when normally the office of the high priest was a life-long occupation. Note too that this is said of Caiaphas, but not of Ananus, which is consistent with the hypothesis, which I suggested above, that Ananus was recognized as the God-instituted high priest, even while also recognizing the series of Roman-instituted high priests.
Josephus also writes of the removal of Caiaphas from this office after Pilate’s term in office was over, noting that Lucius Vitellius the Elder, Legate of Syria “deprived Joseph, who was called Caiaphas, of the high priesthood, and appointed Jonathan, the son of Ananus, the former high priest, to succeed him,” (Antiquities 18.95).[26]
Do the Jews Wash Their Hands Before Eating?
In Mark 7:1-4, we read,
In his book, Jesus, Interrupted, Bart Ehrman asserts that “Mark 7:3 indicates that the Pharisees ‘and all the Jews’ washed their hands before eating, so as to observe ‘the tradition of the elders.’ This is not true: most Jews did not engage in this ritual.”[27] Ehrman has in mind here Exodus 30:18-21; 40:30-32 and Leviticus 20:1-16, in which the priests are called to observe hand washing practices, but the general populace is not. But did the Jews of Jesus’ time, who were heavily influenced by the practices of the Pharisees, engage in this ritual, even though it was not required of them in the written Law? To find out, we can look at some Jewish evidence. According to a letter addressed from an Alexandrian Jew by the name of Aristeas of Marmora (who lived in the second or third century B.C.) to his brother Philocrates, “And as is the custom of all the Jews, they washed their hands in the sea and prayed to God…” Another source is the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20-50 A.D.), who writes that the law “does not look upon those who have even touched a dead body, which has met with a natural death, as pure and clean, until they have washed and purified themselves with sprinklings and ablutions” (The Special Laws 3.205).
Let’s consider some modern scholarly opinion. Susan Haber writes[28],
To Ehrman’s credit, Ehrman has since corrected himself on this particular issue. Nonetheless, that Mark in facts gets this right (despite the apparent discrepancy with the Torah) suggests, once again, that he is well informed and close up to the facts.
Tyre to the Sea of Galilee by Way of Sidon
A curious statement is found in Mark 7:31 that “[Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.” At first blush, this appears odd since Sidon is northeast of Tyre, while the Sea of Galilee is southeast of Tyre. Thus, it raises the question of why Jesus would travel north in order to go south. Some critical scholars argue that this reveals that “the evangelist was not directly acquainted with Palestine.”[29] It has even been suggested that “Mark wants to have Jesus move north, then east, and finally south to compass the whole of the southern Phoenician (Gentile) territory prior to his journey to Jerusalem in 8:22–10:52.”[30] However, such conclusions are unwarranted. Inspecting a topographical map reveals that there is in fact a mountain, Mount Meron, three-quarters of a mile high that lies directly between Tyre and the Sea of Galilee. There is a pass from Sidon that leads through the mountains to the Jordan river valley, which would supply fresh water for the journey to foot travelers to Galilee. Thus, far from revealing the evangelist’s ignorance of Palestinian geography, it in fact reveals his intimate acquaintance with it.
The Samaritans and Their Temple
John 4:1-45 recounts Jesus’ encounter with the woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well. The woman says to Jesus, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship,” (Jn 4:19-20). In agreement with this, Josephus states that the Samaritans “assembled themselves together upon the mountain called Gerizzim, which is with them a holy mountain,” (War of the Jews 3.307)[31]. In verse 22, Jesus makes a particularly odd statement: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” What is the subject of Jesus’ cryptic allusion in this verse? Once again, Josephus may shed some light. He writes of the Seleucid Tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes’ march against Jerusalem, and the actions undertaken by the Samaritans to secure their own safety (Antiquities 12.5.5)[32]:
Thus, in order to appease Antiochus and secure their safety, the people of Samaria offered to dedicate their temple to Jupiter, the Latin equivalent of the Greek God Zeus. This offer was accepted by Antiochus and he therefore passed through Samaria in peace. Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “You worship what you do not know”?
One may object to this example since these events transpired more than two centuries before the time of Jesus and it was likely that this was widely known at the time, presumably leading to ‘bad blood’ between the Jews and Samaritans as a result. Thus, one might argue, John’s readers would have been expected to immediately understand the reference. However, it seems that it would have been quite improbable that these events would have been widely known to John’s audience, which was comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. John’s gospel was probably composed later than the other gospels and likely after the fall of Jerusalem. The book was almost certainly written in Ephesus in Asia Minor, and it thus seems quite implausible that John would have faked this subtle reference on the assumption that his own audience would recognize it. For Jesus to assume that the woman at the well would understand the allusion would be more probable, from an historical perspective (rather like some sort of subtle cultural reference that someone might make to an audience now that would require people later to dig in order to understand).
Jesus Discloses His Identity
Another interesting feature of this episode is that the Samaritan woman is the one individual in the gospels (outside of his inner circle) to whom Jesus personally discloses His Messianic identity. In verses 25 and 26, we read, “The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’” Throughout the synoptic accounts, Jesus often sternly warns people not to publicly disclose His identity or speak publicly of His miracles (e.g. Mk 1:43-45; Mk 8:27-30). In scholarly circles, this is known as the “messianic secret.” We also see Jesus frequently seeking to avoid large crowds. Those features of Jesus’ behavior are illuminated by John 6:15, which immediately follows the account of the feeding of the five thousand, in which we read, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” Given the popular Messianic expectation of an individual who would overthrow the Roman occupiers and re-establish a Davidic reign, Jesus naturally feared that public disclosure of His Messianic identity would result in misunderstandings and attempts by the crowds to make Him King by force. Thus, John 6:15 explains the Messianic secret in the synoptics. But why does Jesus disclose His public identity to the Samaritan woman in John 4:26? And why does he not charge her to secrecy, as He does with so many others? Later Samaritan documents explain that their view of the Messiah (whom the Samaritans called the Taheb, or restorer) was different from that of the Jews, and was largely informed by Deuteronomy 18:15-18, which speaks of the Messiah as a prophet like Moses (the Samaritans only accepted the books of Moses as Scripture). Some evidence also indicates that the role of the Taheb included teaching. Jesus therefore had no reason to worry that the Samaritans would misunderstand His claim to be the Messiah, and expect Him to lead a military revolution against Rome.
No Friend of Caesar
In John 19:12, we read of the taunt of the Jewish crowd against Pontius Pilate, when Pilate had sought to release Jesus, against the will of the crowds:
The first century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, gives an account of a previous episode, which may illuminate why this was a sore point for Pilate, in which the Jews had complained to Tiberius Caesar about certain shields that Pilate had had erected in Jerusalem, resulting in Tiberius having written a sharply worded letter to Pilate demanding that the shields be removed (Embassy 299–305)[33]:
Philo’s account thus provides a backstory that illuminates why the taunt of the Jewish crowd, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend,” was such a sore point for Pilate and why it led to him acquiescing to the crowd’s demands that Jesus be crucified.
The Test of Personal Names
What can the naming patterns of the gospels tell us about their historical credibility? In his ground breaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, British New Testament Richard Bauckham lays out an array of evidences for the trustworthiness of the gospels.[34] Though I do not endorse all of the arguments of the book, it is a scholarly treatise of the evidence for the gospels as eyewitness testimony that is well worth reading. Among the arguments adduced in this volume is the test of personal names, which is covered in chapters three and four of the book. Bauckham’s analysis is based upon a lexicon compiled by Tal Ilan and containing three thousand Jewish names derived from ossuaries and documentary sources.[35] Bauckham explains that “The chronological period it covers begins at the Hellenistic conquest of Palestine and concludes at the end of the Mishnaic period. Thus its sources include the works of Josephus, the New Testament, the texts from the Judean desert and from Masada, ossuary inscriptions from Jerusalem, and the earliest (tannaitic) rabbinic sources.”[36] One may complain that the range of the lexicon’s coverage is from 330 B.C. to 200 A.D. is too broad. Bauckham responds to this concern by noting that “this possible disadvantage for the New Testament scholar in Ilan’s collection of data is offset by the facts that in many respects the practices of name-giving seem to have remained fairly constant over this period and also, importantly, that a large proportion of the data actually comes from the first century CE and early second century (to 135 CE), just because the sources for this shorter period are much more plentiful than for other parts of the whole period.”[37] Bauckham further remarks, “It may come as a surprise to many readers that we know the names of as many as three thousand Palestinian Jews who lived during the five centuries covered by Ilan’s Lexicon. In most cases we know at least a little more about these persons, even if it is only their relationship to another named person. This material obviously provides a very rich resource for the history of Jewish Palestine and, among other specific parts of that history, the history of the beginnings of Christianity. The availability of the information in the comprehensive and systematic form of the Lexicon now makes the use of this resource much more possible and accurate.”[38]
Bauckham argues that there is a remarkable correlation between the frequency of names found in the Gospels and Acts and the frequency of names found in writings outside of the New Testament. This argument is also developed by Peter J. Williams, of Tyndale House in Cambridge, in his popular book, Can We Trust the Gospels?[39] The top 2 men’s names (Simon and Joseph) in first century Palestine outside the New Testament have a frequency of 15.6%. The frequency of those two names in the gospels and Acts is 18.2%. Taking a slightly bigger data set, the frequency of the top nine men’s names outside the New Testament is 41.5%; whereas the frequency in the Gospels and Acts is 40.3%. The frequency of the top two women’s names (Mary and Salome) outside the New Testament is 28.6%; the frequency in the Gospels and Acts is 38.9%. The frequency of the top nine women’s names outside the New Testament is 49.7%; and 61.1% in the Gospels and Acts.
The top 6 male Jewish names in first century Palestine are:
1) Simon/Simeon
2) Joseph/Joses
3) Lazarus/Eleazar
4) Judas/Judah
5) John/Yohanan
6) Jesus/Joshua
The frequency of New Testament individuals with those names, according to Bauckham, is 8, 6, 1, 5, 5 and 2 respectively, which he claims represents a correlation between the naming frequencies in the New Testament and those external to it.[40] Bauckham also observes that the rankings of names in Palestine does not correspond with the rankings of those names in other regions. For example, the rankings of male Jewish names in Egypt during that same period are:
1) Eleazar (ranked 3rd in Palestine)
2) Sabbataius (ranked 68= in Palestine)
3) Joseph (ranked 2 in Palestine)
4=) Dositheus (ranked 16 in Palestine)
4=) Pappus (ranked 39= in Palestine)
6=) Ptolemaius (ranked 50= in Palestine)
6=) Samuel (ranked 23 in Palestine)
Bauckham concludes[41],
I am afraid that, in my assessment, Bauckham overstates this part of his argument. My main concern is that too few names are used in the gospels to make the results of a statistical analysis meaningful. Furthermore, there are important anomalies that Bauckham fails to acknowledge or account for. For example, according to the data cited by Bauckham, the name Jesus is the sixth most popular Palestinian male Jewish name. However, besides Jesus of Nazareth, no other Jesus is named in the gospels. In Acts 13:6, there is a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus (“son of Jesus”) but he is not in Palestine but on the island of Cyprus. Moreover, the name Lazarus is ranked #3 in Palestine but there is only a single individual by that name in the gospels and Acts (I am not counting the individual by that name who appears only in a parable). Similarly, Matthew is ranked #9 in Palestine but there are only two individuals by that name in the gospels and Acts. On the other hand, James is the eleventh most popular Jewish male name in Palestine but there are five individuals by that name in the gospels and Acts (more than for higher ranking names such as Matthew, Ananias, Jesus, or Lazarus).
Thus, in view of the foregoing considerations, the argument, as Bauckham offers it, I believe to be overstated. I would, however, argue that the very fact that we have such a small sample in the gospels and Acts entails that the exact relative proportions with which these names appear do not have to be precise. If one finds that the Gospels have none of those distinctively Egyptian names (such as Sabbateus) and that the large majority of their names come from the most frequent names in Palestine at the time, for such a small sample, that does carry evidential force. This is all the more the case when one finds that, when the gospels mention several people by the same name (Simon and Mary being two notable examples), which were very common names in Palestine at that time.
Furthermore, a more promising argument, I think, lies in a related feature of the text, also discussed by Bauckham [42] and by Williams[43]. Consider the following excerpt from Matthew 10 (verses 2-4) where we are given the names of the twelve disciples. Where these names feature in the top eighty names, their ranking is given in brackets:
Notice that there is correlation between those names that have a high ranking and those names that are assigned a qualifier, a pattern that is sustained throughout the gospels (consistently in quoted speech, though not always in the narration after characters have already been introduced). The lower-ranked names do not have a qualifier. Thus, this correlation between the frequency of a name and the use of a disambiguation to distinguish them from other people bearing the same name reflects what we would expect if they were written by eyewitnesses with a close connection to the time and place of the events that they narrate. This is not a pattern that would have been at all easy for a forger to create.
Conclusion
To conclude, there is ample evidence from extrabiblical sources that the gospels and Acts were composed by individuals who were close up to the facts, well informed and habitually reliable. This is epistemically relevant to the resurrection of Jesus since, if the gospels and Acts do indeed go back to the earliest apostolic eyewitnesses, then we have strong reason to believe that the nature and variety of the post-resurrection encounters with the risen Jesus reflects the testimony of Jesus’ original followers. We may then evaluate those claims to determine whether they are best explained as a result of the claimant being honestly mistaken, deliberately deceptive or truthful and informed. Readers who are interested in further investigation of the claim of the resurrection may wish to check out my writing on this subject, which you can find here.
Footnotes
[1] William Paley and Edmund Paley, The Works of William Paley, vol. 2 (London; Oxford; Cambridge; Liverpool: Longman and Co.; T. Cadell; J. Richardson; Baldwin and Cradock; Hatchard and Son; J. G. & F. Rivington; Whittaker and Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Smith, Elder and Co.; E. Hodgson; B. Fellowes; R. Mackie; J. Templeman; H. Washbourne; Booker and Dolman; J. Parker; J. and J. J. Deighton; G. and J. Robinson, 1838).
[2] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 463.
[3] Ibid., 603.
[4] Ibid., 461.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., 465.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 465-466.
[11] Ibid., 466.
[12] Ibid.
[13] C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars; An English Translation, Augmented with the Biographies of Contemporary Statesmen, Orators, Poets, and Other Associates, ed. Alexander Thomson (Medford, MA: Gebbie & Co., 1889).
[14] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, vol. 2, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 295.
[15] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 485.
[16] Ibid., 484.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid., 613.
[22] William Paley and Edmund Paley, The Works of William Paley, vol. 2 (London; Oxford; Cambridge; Liverpool: Longman and Co.; T. Cadell; J. Richardson; Baldwin and Cradock; Hatchard and Son; J. G. & F. Rivington; Whittaker and Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Smith, Elder and Co.; E. Hodgson; B. Fellowes; R. Mackie; J. Templeman; H. Washbourne; Booker and Dolman; J. Parker; J. and J. J. Deighton; G. and J. Robinson, 1838), 210.
[23] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 633.
[24] William Paley and Edmund Paley, The Works of William Paley, vol. 2 (London; Oxford; Cambridge; Liverpool: Longman and Co.; T. Cadell; J. Richardson; Baldwin and Cradock; Hatchard and Son; J. G. & F. Rivington; Whittaker and Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Smith, Elder and Co.; E. Hodgson; B. Fellowes; R. Mackie; J. Templeman; H. Washbourne; Booker and Dolman; J. Parker; J. and J. J. Deighton; G. and J. Robinson, 1838), 210.
[25] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 478.
[26] Ibid., 483.
[27] Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them). (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 287.
[28] Susan Haber, “They Shall Purify Themselves”: Essays on Purity in Early Judaism (Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 130-131.
[29] Dennis E. Nineham, The Gospel of St. Mark (Harmondsworth, Middlesex [England]; New York: Penguin Books, 1963), 40.
[30] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, vol. 2, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 239.
[31] Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 653.
[32] Ibid., 324.
[33] Philo, Philo, trans. F. H. Colson, G. H. Whitaker, and J. W. Earp, vol. 10, The Loeb Classical Library (London; England; Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann Ltd; Harvard University Press, 1929–1962), 151–155.
[34] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017).
[35] Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Palestine 330 Bce – 200 Ce (London: Coronet Books, 2002).
[36] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017), 68.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Illinois: Crossway, 2018), 64-77.
[40] Richard Bauckham, Jesus, and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017), 85–88.
[41] Ibid., 84.
[42] Ibid., 78–84.
[43] Peter J. Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? (Illinois: Crossway, 2018), 66-68.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
The New Testament: Too Embarrassing to Be False by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)
Why We Know the New Testament Writers Told the Truth by Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)
Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Is the Bible Historically Reliable? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, Mp3 Download.
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Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.
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