GENESIS PART TWO RECAP. GENESIS First book of the Bible. Moses is the author. Genesis means...

GENESIS

• PART TWO

• RECAP

GENESIS

First book of the Bible. Moses is the author. Genesis means “beginnings”. Names of God: Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai.

GENESIS

• God’s Plans before Creation• God as Creator• The Nature of God• Age of the Earth - old (45 billion years)

- young (<10 000 years)• Satan’s Fall

THE SPIRIT OF GOD

First mention of the Spirit of God is to bring light to a dark place; to restore order to a barren, waste place.

He is the change agent.

THE SIX DAYS

Is Genesis Chapter 1 poetry or narrative?

Did the events really happen, or is this a piece of poetry describing the “unexplainable” to uneducated people?

THE SIX DAYS

Study done on 97 passages of scripture comparing the types of verb used in poetry and narration.

Comparison made with different passages describing the same event – one as narration, one as poetry, e.g. the Flood, crossing the Red sea, etc.

THE SIX DAYS

Figure 1. 3-D plot of paired-texts data, showing contrasting finite verb distribution for narrative versus poetry texts portraying the same event. Click on image to enlarge

THE SIX DAYS

Figure 2. Logistic regression curve showing the probability a passage is a narrative based on its ratio of preterites to finite verbs. Click on image to enlarge

THE SIX DAYS

Using this study it can be shown by analysis of verb usage that there is a 99,99% probability that Genesis Chapter 1 is narration and not poetry.

THE SIX DAYS

THE SIX DAYSFIGURATIVE OR LITERAL

• Evening (dusk or night) and morning (dawn or break of day) mark the start and end of each day.

• The word “day” is used over 2 000 times in Scripture to mean a literal 24 hour period, unless qualified, e.g. Day of Judgement, Day of the Lord, etc.

• Exodus 20:8-11: the reason man works for 6 days is because God did so.

EVOLUTION versus CREATIONCreation

• Creator needed.

• Development through plan and purpose.

• Starts with God (person).

• Purposeful universe (evidence of design).

• Morals based on God’s

absolutes.

Evolution• No Creator needed.

• Development by blind chance, random happenings.

• Starts with matter and energy (non person).

• Purposeless universe.

• No absolutes or morals.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Scientific knowledge has progressed so dramatically largely because science limits itself to questions that can be objectively answered by repeatable and verifiable observations.

Like many other human activities, building concepts and theories in science begin with hunches, dreams, wishful thinking, educated guesses (hypotheses), serendipity (lucky accidents), or some subjective flash of insight. But the concept or theory earns the right to be called “scientific” if (and only if) it makes testable predictions that are verified by direct or indirect observations in the field or laboratory. And other scientists must repeat the tests and get the same results. That’s the scientific method: an ever-widening cycle of subjective ideas tested objectively by repeated observations in the scientific community.

(Building Blocks in Science by Gary Parker, p. 18)

IS EVOLUTION SCIENCE?

Evolution never was, never will be, and never could be scientific. Evolution belongs to the domain of history and historical method, not of science and the empirical scientific method. Historical method involves gathering unique bits of data, weaving them into a timeline of events, and defending one’s story against others to see if any can be subjectively established “beyond a reasonable doubt”. For example, there are many historical theories on the fall of Rome and tons of evidence (writings, artefacts, etc.), yet we cannot rerun Roman history to see which theory is correct, as empirical science would require.


APPARENT AGE OR REAL AGE?

• How old was Adam the day after he was created as a mature adult?

• How old was a tree hours after it was created, with fruit on it (Genesis 1:12)?

• How old were the rocks a few days after they were created?

EVIDENCE OF CREATION

Note that you don’t have to see the creator, and you don’t have to see the creative act, in order to recognise evidence of creation. What does it take to recognise evidence of creation?

The ordinary tools of science: logic and observation. “Creation” is simply the logical inference from our observations of certain patterns of order – and that is true whether the creative intelligence is human, Martian, or the transcendent Creator God of the universe!



Romans 1:20

“From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”


Psalm 19:1, 2, 4

1. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of his hands.

2. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.

3. Their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited world.

EVOLUTION

NATURAL SELECTION

PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

INTELLIGENT DESIGN

GEOLOGICAL COLUMN

• Layers formed at a uniform rate.

• Historical record of earth’s changes.

• Fossil record shows development of life from beginnings (bottom layers) to present (top layers).

GEOLOGICAL COLUMN

Problems encountered:• Not occurring anywhere on earth’s surface at present.• Bones and shells today are eroding faster than

sedimentation process.

Detail and completeness of fossils indicates rapid burial rather than slow sedimentation.

Radioactive dating methods cannot be used on sedimentary rocks (the ones containing fossils), only on igneous rocks.

FOSSIL RECORD

• Incomplete sequence of fossils showing progressive change in successive strata.

• Large “gaps” in the fossil record. “It is not even possible to make a caricature of evolution out of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that the lack of transitional series cannot be explained by the scarcity of the material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.

(The Neck of the Giraffe by Francis Hitching, p. 22)

FOSSIL RECORD• Genetic “barriers” discovered recently, causing species to resist

change.

• Missing links:

Professor Anthony Hallam of the Department of Biological Sciences of Birmingham University, England, told a conference on evolution in Chicago in 1980 that his studies of Jurassic bi-valves showed emphatically that over periods of 10-12 million years they changed hardly at all, except in size. After this period of stasis they became, or were replaced by, a markedly different species.

The growing realisation that a pattern of stasis and extinction is the rule rather than the exception shows not just that the fossil gaps are real (which more or less everybody now accepts), but also that they are highly mysterious, significant, and very unhelpful to Darwinism.

(The Neck of the Giraffe by Francis Hitching, pp. 44-45)

GENETIC BARRIERSThe main function of the genetic system, quite clearly, is one of renewal, of maintenance of the status quo, of establishing limits to change. Living cells duplicate themselves with near-total fidelity. The degree of error is so tiny that no manmade machine can approach it. There are also built-in constraints. Plants reach a certain size and refuse to grow any larger. Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised. The genetic system, as its first priority, conserves, blocks and stabilises.


GENETIC BARRIERSThe natural limit on the amount of variation that can be induced in a species is merely the expression of the fact that nowhere in the animal or plant kingdoms is there a species that is capable of the infinite biological plasticity demanded by evolution theory, capable of unlimited adaptation to different environments and different modes of life.

Living organisms are systems with limited potential for change in which variation of one characteristic reacts on other characteristics, usually with unfavourable results.

(The Facts of Life by R. Milton, pp. 164-166)

MISSING LINKSRichard Leakey has quoted fellow palaeontologist David Pilbeam as saying:

“If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we’ve got he’d surely say, ‘Forget it; there isn’t enough to go on.’ Neither David nor others involved in the search for mankind can take this advice, of course, but we remain fully aware of the dangers of drawing conclusions from evidence that is so incomplete.”

(The Facts of Life by R. Milton, pp. 224-225)

HOW DID LIFE BEGIN?

OZONE LAYER PROBLEMRussian biochemist A.I. Oparin claimed:

“Although it was impossible to create life from non-life in our present oxygen-heavy environment, (oxygen literally eats up any primitive organic chemical such as an amino acid), this might not have been the case in conditions billions of years ago but without oxygen, there is no ozone canopy to protect Earth from the Sun’s ultraviolet rays. Nowadays this canopy effectively shields us from certain death.

So with oxygen in the air, the first amino acid would never have got started; without oxygen it would have been wiped out by cosmic rays …. In other words, the theoretical chances of getting through even this first and relatively easy stage in the evolution of life are forbidding.”


COMPLEXITY OF SIMPLEST CELL

The origin of even the simplest cells poses a problem hardly less difficult. The most elementary type of cell constitutes a “mechanism’ unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed by man.”


IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY

Even the simplest life form is incredibly complex. There is no scientific explanation for how the first living cell came into existence. All the structures and chemical reactions in a “simple cell” have to be in place simultaneously in order for it to function. The simple cell is, in fact, an example of “irreducible complexity”.

(The Heavens Declare the Glory of God by Dr Michael Jarvis)


Atheist scientist, Richard Dawkins, admits that, for the human eye to come into being by pure chance is about 1 in 1055.

Dawkins suggests a long sequence of “hypothetical steps” that might have led to the human eye. However, unfortunately for Dawkins, the fossil record does not show these hypothetical steps.


• Swallowtail butterfly metamorphosis

• Bombardier beetle

• Silvery skin of fish


The silvery skin of fish is designed to provide a reflective surface that enables them to remain camouflaged and unnoticed by predators, in the greenish gloom of the sea. To achieve this, the fish secrete millions of tiny nitrogenous crystals in layers on their skin and scales. To increase the efficiency of their reflective coating the fish secrete multiple layers of mirror crystals sandwiched between layers of cell tissue. But to be effective, the layers have to be arranged exactly one-quarter of the wavelength of the incident light apart. For the greenish light of the undersea world, this means a separation of seven millionths of a centimetre. Does anyone really believe that this precision was achieved by random mutation?

(The Facts of Life by R. Milton, p. 275)

CREATION OF MAN

Genesis 1:26PURPOSE

To be the image of God in the world, i.e. to show what God is like. Man’s attributes and behaviour would display God’s character.

To be God’s representative, or ruler, on earth:

v 26 … have dominion/rule over every living creature

v 28 … subdue the earth

IMAGE OF GOD

IMAGE: Hebrew – “shadow”

Adam was a limited, “two-dimensional”, colourless, textureless, tasteless, odourless shape/picture/representation of God.

LIKENESS: Hebrew – “similar to”; “in the same manner”; “having similar characteristics”

IMAGE OF GOD

God is Spirit (John 4:24) and has no body.

Anthropomorphism – speaking of God in human terms (eye of God, arm of God, heart of God) - refers to God’s character in a way that is easy for us to better understand God.

IMAGE OF GOD

MALE OR FEMALE?

• Adam was created with both male and female characteristics (Genesis 5:1-2) in order to better portray God’s character.

• God is neither male nor female, but rather both.

IMAGE OF GODLOVE AND MARRIAGE

Male and Female were separated into two bodies in order to overcome Adam’s loneliness. Adam’s body was made from the ground (2:7), and Adam was made alive by God’s Spirit.

The animals were made from the ground (2:19).

Eve was made from Adam’s flesh and bone (2:21-23).

Adam now lacked that which was in Eve – he could only be completely whole when joined to Eve.

IMAGE OF GODLOVE AND MARRIAGE

• Adam’s love for Eve, and his desire to be with her – this marriage of two beings into one – represents God’s love for us.

• Christ’s love for His Church is represented by a man’s love for his wife (Ephesians 5:25-33).

IMAGE OF GOD

FATHERHOOD/MOTHERHOOD

Good fathers copy/emulate God because they are made in God’s image.

Good mothers show the love of God because they are made in God’s image.

GENESIS PART TWO RECAP. GENESIS First book of the Bible. Moses is the author. Genesis means...

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