4 See What is Creation Science? by Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1987), p. 285–293, for a listing of over 60 such processes.
5 Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, March 1987, p. 14.
Chapter 6
Supposed Biblical Difficulties with Recent Creationism
Most of the objections that have been lodged against the biblical doctrines of the young earth and Flood geology are scientific in nature. These are beyond the scope of this book, but are discussed and refuted in Volume 2 of this Trilogy on creation.
In the meantime, when scientific objections to literal creationism are raised, it is always helpful to keep one important fact in mind, a fact that will keep this whole issue in clear perspective. That is, there are no written records of any historical events prior to about 2500 B.C. Everything beyond that is speculation. In fact, the historical chronology that extends back the farthest is in the Bible itself! Even allowing for possible uncertainties in the biblical manuscripts and possible gaps in the genealogical lists in the Bible, the Genesis records cannot feasibly be stretched back to more than, say, about 10,000 B.C. at most.
The traditional Ussher date of 4004 B.C. for creation week actually fits the biblical data better, although the evidence is sufficiently ambiguous to permit many other dates to be suggested by various scholars all working with the same biblical premises as Ussher (about 300 different dates have been published at one time or another, all of them, nevertheless, agreeing that the creation took place only several thousand years ago).
The Calculations of Bishop Ussher
It is important to remember that the widely ridiculed Archbishop James Ussher was not a Bible-thumping backwoods preacher, but rather a scholar of great ability. His calculations on chronology incorporated all the biblical and extra-biblical historical data known in the 17th century. His greatest work on this subject, proposing 4004 B.C. as the beginning of history, was published in 1654, not long before his death in 1656.
The noted archaeologist and historian Colin Renfrew, recognized as one of the world’s leading students of ancient history, has commented on this subject as follows:
Nor was this belief restricted to the credulous or the excessively devout. No less a thinker than Sir Isaac Newton accepted it implicitly, and in his detailed study of the whole question of dating, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, took the ancient Egyptians severely to task, since they had set the origins of the monarchy before 5000 BC . . . and “out of vanity have made this monarchy some thousands of years older than the world.” This criticism was meant literally; for an educated man in the seventeenth or even eighteenth century, any suggestion that the human past extended back further than 6,000 years was a vain and foolish speculation.1
Isaac Newton, of course, who lived in the generation following that of Ussher, was one of the greatest scientists of all time, and he was familiar with the ancient pagan speculations concerning the evolution and great antiquity of the world, but he rejected all that in favor of what was, in his day, the scientific view that the world was young. He was thus not only a convinced scientific creationist, but also a believer in recent creation.
It is interesting that one of the leading evolutionists of our own day, Stephen Jay Gould, has also recognized the scholarly stature of Bishop Ussher.
Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology.2
In thus defending Ussher, Gould particularly was referring to an important article3 by another modern writer, the well-known Old Testament scholar, James Barr. Barr, like Gould, is a liberal and an evolutionist, rejecting the concept of biblical inerrancy and divine authority. Nevertheless, he has pointed out that all Old Testament Hebrew authorities, liberal or otherwise, acknowledge that the intent of the biblical writers was to teach a literal six-day creation and a worldwide flood (even though he himself doesn’t believe in them!).
Then Gould makes the following important point, showing why Ussher’s work, regardless of its scholarship, was rejected:
Today we rightly reject a cardinal premise of that methodology — belief in biblical inerrancy — and we recognize that this false assumption allowed such a great error in estimating the age of the earth.4
This is the real reason that people today reject the biblical date for the age of the earth. The Bible clearly and unequivocally teaches a recent creation, but men no longer believe the Bible. They have rejected the infallible Word of the eternal Creator God in favor of the opinions of fallible scientists who insist that “we will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). Why, then, do so many Christians who say they do believe in biblical inerrancy and authority also reject the plain statements of Scripture in favor of the opinions of Christ-rejecting unbelievers? Is it because “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:43)?
In any case, they have labored hard to find some biblical justification for rejecting the biblical record of recent creation, and we do need to look at a few of these attempts.
Adam and the Animals
Several objections that have been raised deal with the relation between the “two accounts” of creation — that is, the supposed discrepancies between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 — and the relations there stipulated between man and the animals.
When God created the first man and woman, He told them to exercise “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). This divinely endowed stewardship of mankind over the animal kingdom, under its Creator, involves many responsibilities, and it has never been withdrawn.
Before discussing this stewardship, however, we must answer two other objections that have been lodged against the biblical account of the animal creation and its relation to mankind. The first is the charge of skeptics that the two accounts of creation (Gen. 1 and 2) contradict each other, the main “proof” of this charge being the implication in Genesis 2 that Adam was created before the animals, whereas the order of events in Genesis 1 clearly indicates that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, after all the animals had been created. The controversial passage reads as follows:
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof (Gen. 2:19).
If there were a real contradiction here as to when the animals were created, it is strange that their Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, seemed unaware of it! In answering a question about the permanence of marriage, He quoted from both Genesis 1 and 2 together, with no intimation that the accounts were not perfectly complementary.
He which made them at the beginning made them male and female [quoting Gen. 1:27], and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: And they twain shall be one flesh [quoting Gen. 2:24] (Matt. 19:4–5).
In the more detailed account of the forming of man and woman in Genesis 2, there was no need to mention the animals at all until they were brought before Adam to be “introduced” to him, as it were, and then named by him. The superficial and