Evaluating some common evidences for long ages

In Bible class, we learned that scientific evidence does NOT speak for itself but must be interpreted. And scientists--the folks who do the interpreting--are just regular people with biases that can be wrong. So we need to be careful what we believe. Lately, we've been considering some well known evidences that "prove" that earth is billions of years old. The geologic column is one such evidence. The many layers with their fossils have been associated with the evolution of life over millions of years. We learned that the complete geologic column does not actually exist anywhere in the world. It's a theoretical compilation of layers located in different places. Also there are many problems with thinking the layers formed slowly (which supports the idea of vast ages). Unconformities (missing layers, lack of inter-layer erosion, polystrate fossils) and exteme folding are riddles that don't fit the long ages interpretation. The common interpretation is that geological layers and fossils show the sequence of life over millions of years. Here is another interpretation that, I think, fits the evidence way better: the layers and fossils show that sequence of death during the global flood as different environments were impacted. As water rose during the flood, Low lying marine environments were hit first; higher ground and animals that were mobile wereaffected later. Next we'll learn about radio metric dating, ape-men, and distant starlight.

I did a crazy little object lesson recently. I secretly wrote a mean message on the blackboard about me. Then when students arrived, we discussed that it was likely a disgruntled student that wrote it. I "fessed up" the next day. The point of the lesson was to help us understand the limitations of scientific evidence about origins:

1. Evidence does not speak for itself. It needs to be interpreted. And interpretations can be wrong!
2. Everyone has the same evidence. Creationists and evolutionists, believers in a young earth and believers in an old earth, examine the same fossils, rock layers, etc. Different groups don't have different evidence!
3. Everyone has a bias, including scientists. Their bias may fit or conflict with the Christian worldview.
4. Trustworthy eyewitness accounts trump any interpretation of the evidence. The Bible is God's account of what happened in the beginning--He was there, so He should know what happened!

For Friday, April 13th, please complete the following and hand in:
Summarize the seven main Christian views of origins. (I want to see if you understand the different positions)
Explain what you believe about origins and why.

Who wrote Genesis?

Did you know there's a debate about who wrote Genesis? Most Christians agree that Moses was involved. But there are some different ideas on how he did it. That's because many of the events in Genesis actually happened thousands of years before Moses' life. Just think about it: Moses writing about Adam is like you writing about Nehemiah--more than 2000 years later! Traditionally, it's thought that God simply told (inspired) Moses what to write down. Or stories of the distant past were passed down orally, and Moses wrote these accounts down with God's inspiration guiding him. While certainly possible because God was involved, every other book in the Bible was written by men who were eye witnesses or knew eye witnesses. For example, the book of Luke was written within 30 years of Christ's death and resurrection. The author knew people who witnessed Jesus' life and ministry. Because of this and other factors, we can have confidence that Luke got it right. (Note that there are people out there who are trying to discredit the Gospels by saying they were written hundreds of years later.) Here's another interesting idea about Genesis and Moses: Moses was the editor of early Genesis rather than the actual author. In other words, Moses included ancient written accounts for early Genesis, but he authored the later parts. According to this theory, people like Adam and Noah wrote down what they witnessed. These accounts were passed down though the generations to Moses. He used them because they were eye witness accounts, and he himself wrote about what he knew. The main evidence for this are unique sentences found throughout Genesis 1-11: "This is the account of ___." According to this theory, these markers come at the end of a passage and tell the reader who wrote the preceding account. If you ignore the chapter breaks and headings--which were added much later--this way of understanding early Genesis really works! So what does it matter? If early Genesis was written by people who actually witnessed the events--rather than hundreds to thousands of years after the fact--we have good reason to see this book as accurate history. Did you know that not everyone views Genesis 1-11 as history? Some see it as metaphor or even legend. That's one big reason why there are so many different ideas about origins, even among Christians.

Thanks for visiting!

Welcome to Mr H's Biblical Perspectives 9 Blog. Hopefully my posts will clarify the topics we discuss in class as well as encourage more conversation. You might discover that thinking like a Christian requires you to think deeply!