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Index
Introduction

Introduction

 

I read the third edition of this book by Peter Russell-Yarde, published in 2021, but the fourth edition is available here. I am treating this page as an open letter to Peter, because this is what I would like to say to him if I had the chance – although I doubt he will ever see it. But you never know…

 

My Dear Brother Peter,

I have read your book ‘The Origin of Life’, and while I was very impressed with the quality of much of the Bible teaching in it, I was alarmed by the self-contradictory statements in it when promoting theistic evolution – statements which also contradict clear Bible teaching. There is some sound Bible teaching when addressing areas other than origins; and, indeed, in much of the book where the topic of origins is not in view I would say, “Yes and amen!” It is good sound stuff. However, I had difficulty in aligning the book’s title ‘The Origin of Life’ with the largest section in this book of 238 pages that has nothing to do with the origin of life, pages 67-223 being a commentary on the lives of the patriarchs. I suppose they relate more to the subtitle shown above; but didn’t seem to me to fit in with the main thrust of the beginning and ending of the book. I have barely mentioned anything in those chapters here as mostly they are not relevant to the subject.

 

In the section I am addressing, however, you make some very contradictory statements. So it begins in page iv of the preface where you say the activities of people in the Bible cannot be treated as myth or legend, because that results in the danger of doing the same to God. This is precisely the reason for my website: one of the most damaging results of the evolutionary lie is that it has given people the excuse to pretend God is a myth and so they can safely ignore Him. Forcing the Bible to accommodate the theory therefore does nothing to counteract this, because, as with the likes of Richard Dawkins, the evolutionists are then, quite logically, given the excuse to say that Christians are ignoring reality and manipulating the text to try to avoid the obvious conclusion that God does not exist. Since there is so much scientific evidence supporting creation and falsifying evolution, the boot is actually on the other foot and it is evolutionists who are ignoring reality in order to continue the pretence that there is no Creator. You then say:

 

“So many people discard the Bible in general and the First Testament (more commonly known as the Old Testament) in particular because they try to treat it as any humanly written and humanly inspired book, rather than God written, God inspired book written for our benefit… it has become very clear to me that unless we can understand and accept the book of Genesis then it is unlikely that we will be able to understand the rest of scripture.”

 

On page v you go on to say that the humans who wrote the scriptures were presenting the “true message from God,” quoting:

 

knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:20-21

 

and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:15-17 

 

So you say:

 

“Thus God not only gave it to us in the first place, but for us to understand its message God must also interpret it to us through His Holy Spirit for us to be able to fully understand it.”

 

Therefore the views and opinions of people – especially people who have no relationship with the Holy Spirit – must never be raised over what God has clearly said to us. As an example, on page three of the Introduction, you mention the notion that God has no gender; and counter this by pointing out that Jesus always referred to Him as ‘Father’. Therefore the warning about making wrong assumptions about God’s word applies equally to those who are Christians. Quote:

 

“So to all leaders and believers I say, be ever prayerful and watchful regarding the truth of what you believe and for which you give witness. Because if it does not strictly accord with the truth of God, then there is a danger that on the day of judgement you will be found wanting.”

 

I could have written all of that myself! You categorically state that scripture is directly from God and therefore totally reliable. You make it clear that since it was given by God, we do not have the right to change it into saying something different from what it so clearly does say in order to make it fit in with modern thought. Then you write a book doing exactly that! This is the first, big contradiction.

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 INDEX

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Our Creative God

OUR CREATIVE GOD (Chapter One)

 

Page 6 “With the benefit of considerable research over centuries, it is generally agreed that what physically exists began with a mighty explosion with the debris from that explosion being widely scattered throughout the cosmos, commonly known as the Big Bang theory as put forward by evolutionists.”

 

So having told us that scripture is reliable (and later that it is to be trusted above man-made ideas), you immediately switch to fantasies dreamed up by atheists who want to have a universe that could create itself without a Creator and therefore twist scientific observation to suit. This is a complete contradiction of what you said about the source and reliability of the scriptures. However, even many secular evolutionists dispute Big Bang theory (see here and here) and others are now trying to pretend the law of gravity operated differently in the past and light moved at a different speed in the past  (both reported in the Scientific American magazine August 2018). The only possible reason for that is the scientific observation of light and gravity falsifying Big Bang. It is clear that it most certainly is not proven science.

 

Page 7/8 “We also learn through research that man did not exist until the earth had been in existence for millions of years.”

 

So once again, contrary to your statement that we must rely on the Holy Spirit, you turn to the man-made ideas of origins which trump the clear teaching of the Bible. Top Hebrew scholars of the past few decades are on record saying that the author of Genesis 1 & 2 intended his readers to understand six 24-hour days (see the quotes here). Of course, they also mostly believe we need to change those days into long periods of time to match what they think is scientific evidence; but nevertheless they have made it clear it can be seen from the grammar and Hebrew words used that this was not the original intention. So it is beyond dispute what the Hebrew text actually says and means. Jesus said:

 

And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God 'MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.'

Mark 10:5-6

 

According to the research to which you refer, humans appeared around 13.7 billion years (although you claim longer than this – see later) after the beginning of everything – the Big Bang – but Jesus said they were there from the beginning of the creation.* Was Jesus lying or didn’t He know when it was done?

 

* (Should anyone claim Jesus was just referring to Adam and Eve’s creation when their lives began, note the phrase Jesus used was ‘the creation’, not ‘their creation’! This phrase in the New Testament always refers to all things that were made, so does not apply solely to Adam and Eve.)

 

You then go on to say something else I could certainly have written, regarding the greatness of God:

 

Page 8 “In considering the person of God we have a problem because we are trying to envision a mode, type, manner of existence that is completely alien to us, being completely dissimilar to anything that we know within our world of birth, life and death, of matter, space and time. Indeed the whole concept of God is outside of our ability to appreciate because against every factor and standard of governing our existence, He is measureless.”

 

Exactly! God is so far beyond our understanding in extent of knowledge and power. The wisest person who ever lived – King Solomon – said:

 

…Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You…

2 Chronicles 6:18 

 

Therefore any ideas we might dream up about how He did things are bound to be wrong. In effectively claiming that God had no choice but to work according to the observable laws of science, you are diminishing God to something considerably less that He actually is. This is one of the foundations of theistic evolution: the notion that God was unable to work outside of the scientific processes we can observe today.

 

Page 10 “The use of the word creation does not overrule or nullify the use of the words evolve or evolution, rather it is essential that the fact that nothing happened instantly but developed over a period of time is firmly acknowledged.”

 

It is only essential if one wants to force the Bible into agreeing with evolutionary theories. Since this is diametrically opposite to the description that God has given to us, and you yourself pointed out in the introduction that all of the scriptures are God-given, it is contradictory to the basic principle you gave us that our understanding must “strictly accord with the truth of God.”

 

“…even time itself is part of the creation and that was not established until what is described in the first chapter of Genesis as happening on the fourth day…”

 

The notion that time did not begin until the fourth day is ludicrous! More on this later, since on page 231 you contradict this idea and claim time began on Day One!

 

Page 12 “Genesis starts with the phrase, ‘In the beginning God’, followed by the statement that He created the heavens and the earth. In the second verse we are told that the Spirit of God hovered, or brooded over the surface of this newly formed planet that was still in a chaotic, unfinished state.”

 

So you accept that the earth was in existence before the end of the first day and before the sun was created on the fourth day. This is contradicted by Big Bang theory, which has the sun appearing before the earth. Indeed, the Big Bang contradicts the order in which a significant number of events took place (see later); but that apparently doesn’t matter as long as we accept man-made theories about origins.

 

Page 13 “Man has been created from the dust of the ground...”

 

This is precisely what the Bible teaches! But you contradict this on pages 15 and 30!

 

Page 15 “…when God the Holy Spirit breathed spiritual life into the nostrils of a selected creature of the ‘Homo-Sapien’ species it was suddenly elevated out of the animal kingdom to become man.”

 

If Adam came from some sub-human species he did not come from the dust of the ground. Once again this is twisting the clear teaching of the Bible into agreeing with man-made theories that originated from atheists and agnostics. More about this later!

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INDEX

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Creation of the Universe

Creation of the Universe

 

You then go on to say on page 22 that it is a mistake to assume the time required for the creation can be “measured according to our current knowledge of time.” You then say:

 

“…it was not until the fourth day that the sun shone and the light was separated from the darkness creating the first day as we recognise it, after all the sun had to be set on fire, the earth had to spin on its axis that was tilted and the orbits of all the planets had to be established before the 24 hour day and the seasons could be experienced.”

 

Who says the earth only began to turn on its axis on day 4? Certainly not the Bible! But even if it was not rotating at first, time was still passing at the same rate because according to the theory of relativity time is determined by speed and gravity, not the rotation of the earth, which determines the length of days not the passage of time. Those two things did not change on the earth from the moment it was created on Day One.

 

Furthermore, the light was separated from the darkness on Day One, not Day Four, as can be seen from:

 

 “And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.”

Genesis 1:4-5

 

You clearly think the only possible source of light was the sun. What about:

 

“There shall be no night there: they need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light.”

Revelation 22:5

 

When God said on the first day, “Let there be light,” it was certainly not the light from the sun that appeared, since He didn’t create that until three days later. It was the light of God’s presence, mentioned in Revelation 22:5, which shone on the earth.

 

Page 23 “There is nothing in scripture that gives details of the early appearance of the universe. The cosmic explosions that happened, according to scientists, over the centuries that established the universe we know today, cannot be said to be against the Word of God because there are no specific details given as to how the world and its surrounding universe developed.”

 

This is not the case. There are 12 Old Testament scriptures telling us God stretched out the heavens like a curtain, which therefore explain the early appearance of the universe. For something to be repeated 12 times in the Bible it must be important. Here they are:

 

1. He alone spreads out the heavens…

Job 9:8

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​2. He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.

Job 26:7

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​3. ...Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.

Psalm 104:2

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​4. It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Isaiah 40:22

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​5. Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it,...

Isaiah 42:5

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​6. ...I am the LORD, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself.

Isaiah 44:24

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​7. I have made the earth, and created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, and all their host I have commanded.

Isaiah 45:12

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​8. Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together.

Isaiah 48:13

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9. And you forget the LORD your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth;

Isaiah 51:13

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10. He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.

Jeremiah 10:12

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11. He has made the earth by His power; He has established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by His understanding.

Jeremiah 51:15

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​​12. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him

Zechariah 12:1

 

Should anyone claim that the heavens are not a curtain and therefore it is poetry in these passages and did not literally take place, remember that the purpose of metaphor and simile is to make clear what happened by comparing one thing with something else. This technique is used regularly in scripture: e.g.

 

“He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge…”

Psalm 91:4

 

To claim that the heavens are not a curtain so God did not stretch them out is like saying that God does not have feathered wings so it is poetry and therefore He will not give you refuge. This is typical of the theistic evolutionary tactic of claiming any scriptures that speak against their theory are poetry and therefore not literally true. It is a deliberate misunderstanding of the purpose and use of poetry, metaphor and simile. When God stretched out the heavens on Day Four, the light from the newly created stars Adam was able to see on his first evening was also stretched out and became visible on the fifth evening.

 

Then comes another statement contradicting what God has told us in the scriptures:

 

“What we are told was that in the very beginning, when only God existed and the earth was still a shapeless chaotic mass of hot? material that could well have been the result of one of the many cosmic explosions, the Spirit of God was immediately present looking at the embryonic earth.”

 

Genesis specifically tells us the earth was a watery mass, not a mass of hot material.

 

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:2  

 

So this is the opposite of the Spirit of God looking at “hot? material” that was “the embryonic earth.” I fail to understand the question mark there: you are clearly accepting the secular theories of the Big Bang, which requires the earth to have begun as “hot material”, but presumably you are aware that this contradicts scripture and so are giving the option of it not being hot material. You can’t have it both ways though. If it was not “hot material” then this is a contradiction of Big Bang theory.

 

Furthermore, Exodus 20:9, 11 and 31:15, 17 both tell us that God created the entire universe in the same amount of time He wanted Israel to work every week. It is impossible to twist the days in those verses into the long periods of time required by the Big Bang that you accept.

 

For in six days you shall labor and do all your work… For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it… Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. … It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.' "

Exodus 20:9, 11; 31:15, 17

 

You make no mention of these key verses anywhere in the book! Why is that?

 

Page 24 “It seems strange to many that a book, the Bible, with its first contributions written down by Moses many thousands of years ago, and added to by many other men dedicated to the worship and service of God, should have obtained such information regarding the start of the world. Simply and concisely, the scriptures state the one thing that man has either tried to confirm or deny, that God created the seen and unseen, the physical and the spiritual (which most scientists and astronomical researchers do not know anything about), and because He was the only one in existence it is He who has passed a portion of His knowledge down to man through those men and women.”

 

Exactly! God gave Moses the words to write the Torah, and to the other writers of the books of the Old and New Testaments. God knew exactly how He did everything, He was the only one there when He did it, and has told us what He did. Therefore secular scientists can have no comprehension about what really happened; so they make it up to fit with their preconceived ideas. You accept that most of those promoting evolution and long ages for the universe have no understanding about God – but then accept their fantasies they have dreamed up in order to have a universe without God! If God has passed “a portion of His knowledge” on to us, we have no right to change it into something else.

 

Then on page 25 we have another contradiction:

 

“From the sun that has been burning for at least as long as the life of the earth and provides light to our planetary system…”

 

How could the sun have been burning as long as the earth, when it was created four days after the earth first appeared, as you stated on page 22? Later you tell us that the account of creation in Genesis is extremely close to secular Big Bang theory, and yet on page 22 we have the complete opposite! You go on to say:

 

“The creation account is …an account given to man about what God did when man was yet just an idea in His mind. It is God telling us how the earth was created because He wanted us to have an understanding of why He did it…”

 

So according to this God is telling us how He did it in Genesis chapters one and two. Why then do you want to twist God’s description into something radically different? Commonly, the theistic evolutionary claim is that the Bible tells us ‘why’ while science tells us ‘how’, which is nonsense, of course; but it’s the only way they can twist the Bible to suit the theory. You do not say this in the book, but the result is that you pull the rug from underneath your own feet because if the Bible tells us ‘how’, then the clear meaning of the text is as far away from the gradual development of the universe and all life forms over billions of years as the east is from the west. So you are contradicting the clear purpose of your book to manipulate the Bible into accommodating the evolutionary explanation of origins.

 

You then go on to say on page 28 that it is impossible to separate the creation story from evolution because of the amount of archaeological evidence and considerable research into the beginning of the solar system showing that the days in Genesis one cannot be 24-hour days; and the Big Bang cannot be discarded. Your conclusion:

 

“Thus the marriage of the creation and the way it evolved over time is the only way that sense can be made of what the Bible says alongside what man has been able to discover for himself.”

 

On page 32 you tell us “Facts do not lie; it is the interpretation of the facts that can lead people astray,” (see later). The research into the beginning of the solar system is not ‘facts’ – it is speculation based on the premise that a Creator does not exist. The result is fairy tales, unsupported by any kind of scientific observation, like there being an infinite number of universes with ours being the fortunate one that against impossible odds turned out right for life. Or even the unbelievable idea that an infinite number of primitive universes exist in another dimension, and when one bumped into another, it was knocked into our dimension and caused the Big Bang (see here). These fairy stories have nothing to do with scientific observation, and everything to do with the desperation to protect atheism from reality. And then theistic evolutionists swallow it all and try to make the Bible fit in with it! You do not believe these fairy tales about how the Big Bang happened, but why not? It is the same scientists who claim their research proves the Big Bang happened who come up with them. This is inconsistent. It appears to me you have been reading too much from secular and theistic evolutionary scientists and not enough from creationist-scientists, who are just as highly qualified as their evolutionary counterparts. There is overwhelming scientific observation that supports creation and falsifies theistic evolution.

 

Page 29 “In order to fully understand God’s creational work we must consider Him being in limitless space from which He has created an enormous envelope in which He caused the whole cosmos to appear out of nothing, with one tiny planet, which is just part of one of the many galaxies that exists, being made into a planet called earth on which He created man. God is able to shake the whole of creation, the heavens and the earth, because He only has to take hold of the giant bubble described above in order to shake it. He has complete control of the giant bubble and all it contains because it exists through His creational skill in limitless space without Him having to be part of it.”

 

Exactly! That is a good way of thinking about God, because it takes us away from the ‘superman’ and ‘old man on a throne’ kind of picture that many people seem to have. I might dispute the idea that He is in limitless space, because He is a Spirit Whose existence is in the realm of the spirit, not physical space. It’s a totally different dimension from our own, and the description in Genesis 1:1 includes the fact that He created space, energy, matter and time, none of which had existed previously. However, a God so big, knowledgeable and powerful would have no difficulty whatsoever in doing what He did the way He said He did it! In particular it was quite within His capabilities to stretch out the entire heavens and light from the stars in a single day.

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INDEX

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Creation of life

Creation of Life

 

Page 30 “For us to proceed with this study we need to accept that God created man out of the designed product of the Big Bang and the developing earth, its plant life and its creatures.”

 

No, we don’t; and no, He didn’t! Not if you believe what God told us in the scriptures. This is a clear statement of the intention of this book – to make it accommodate evolutionary theories. It is based on the fallacy that the only way God could have done it was by using the scientific processes we can see today. That is the opposite of the God you described on the previous page:  a God with the power to shake the entire universe should He wish and who has complete control of everything within it.

 

“The miracle of evolutionary creation, particularly with regard to the development of the earth, is that from that molten substance which became spherical and started to spin on an imaginary axis, gradually life as we know it came into being. How it all developed with the appearance of vegetation, animals, insects, fish and things that fly and everything that came to life on that barren surface of the earth is truly the miraculous evidence of a creator of considerable wisdom and ability that is beyond the wit of man to understand.”

 

So you do think the earth began as a hot substance: so why put the question mark against it on page 23? Since you said that God has explained in the scriptures how He did it, why is there not a single hint of any of that in what He included in those inspired writings? If it is “beyond the wit of man to understand,” why are you changing God’s word to fit the understanding of men who according to what you said are incapable of understanding and so came up with their theories because they did not believe God exists?

 

“At some point in the evolutionary process God, who was in complete charge of every aspect of the evolving earth and every living thing on it, through His Holy Spirit, selected a male of the species called “Homo sapiens” and caused him to become the first male product of the subspecies “Homo sapiens sapiens” by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, that is God, who is Spirit, breathed His Spirit breath into the selected creature’s nostrils transforming him from a creature of the animal kingdom into a God sensitive, morally upright being with a spirit which was then able to communicate directly with God (Gen. 2:7). Man might be similar to but is far greater than apes with whom man has been grouped by scientists.”

 

So millions of years of sickness, suffering, death, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, etc., (all seen in the geological record) had preceded the arrival of humans – and God “was in complete charge of every aspect” of it and called it all “Very good!”

 

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

Genesis 1:31

 

Really? The God who considers death an enemy…

 

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:26

 

…and wants the eradication of death, sorrow, pain and crying…

 

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Revelation 21:4

 

…deliberately included it in His creation and considered it all very good?

 

The above quote from your book contradicts what you said on page 13 that God created Adam from the dust of the earth. If He created him from a sub-human being He did not create him from the dust of the earth. The idea that God did it differently but had to lie about the way He did it in order for people to understand is ludicrous. If He had done it that way it would have not been difficult for the text to say something like:

 

God took one speck of dust and turned it into a tiny living thing. Then He changed its following generations into all the living things on earth by gradually making their offspring bigger and very different from their parents, with very many years and generations between each change. Then He took the best of those living things and turned it into Adam.

 

It doesn’t say anything like that because the way God did it was nothing like that. God does not lie! If God had taken Adam from pre-existing sub-humans, He would have told us so. You have already said that the scriptures are God telling us how He did it, but you clearly do not believe it. Another contradiction!

 

“We can see that what the Bible condenses into a relatively few verses in Genesis chapter 1, man has been able, through persistent and intelligent investigation and archaeological research, to discover about his own development and the development of the earth, thereby adding to rather than denying what the Bible tells us about the beginning of the earth and its human inhabitants.”

 

This is not the case! In the 18/19th centuries atheistic men made up their own ideas about how everything began in order to pretend a Creator does not exist, and at a time when scientific knowledge was such that it was more difficult than it is today to counter Satan’s lie some Christians tried to force the Bible into accommodating it – an error that persists to this day. Even though there are now plenty of scientific observations falsifying all aspects of evolutionary theory, the lie continues because the father of lies is behind it all. There are a significant number of Ph.D. scientists (here and here) from all the relevant disciplines who most certainly would not agree with your claims because they accept the truth of the Bible and can see it from their own research.

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INDEX

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Mankind in Creation

MANKIND IN CREATION (Chapter Two)

 

Page 32 “According to scripture, man was created as a definite act because he was created in the image of God with sense and feelings and a personality. Does it matter that to achieve that end God started with some ‘thing’ that crawled out of the water and gradually developed into a creature that stood erect?”

 

Yes, because God has told us that is not the way He did it, and it makes God out to be a liar!

 

“Researchers have found that anatomically modern humans have evolved from archaic Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic period about 200,000 years ago… The oldest fossil remains of anatomically modern humans are the Omo remains, which date to 196,000 years and include two partial skulls as well as arm, leg, foot and pelvic bones.”

 

No they haven’t found that! They have twisted scientific observation with their uniformitarianism, ignoring such matters as a world-wide flood, for example, and come up with the results they wanted – in the process ignoring all observations that falsify their preconceived ideas. (There are plenty of examples on my website.) Theories about the past (historical science) are very different from experimental, observational science that can be tried and tested today, and are highly dependent on faith – either faith in the lie of evolution or faith in the truth of God’s word.

 

“As believers, we must respect this research and try to understand the mind of God behind it. Facts do not lie; it is the interpretation of the facts that can lead people astray.”

 

Believers in what – God’s word or man’s theories? As you say, facts do not lie; but the interpretation of the facts by evolutionists (such as in the previous quote about fossils) leads people astray because it contradicts the facts of God’s account of origins: and God never lies. So far from respecting that research, we must compare it to the provable, observable scientific facts, which falsify evolutionary theory, and above all accept and embrace the authority of God’s revelation to us.

 

Page 34 “Woman was created from the creature God had transformed into man rather than using the female version of the creature man had been, again a definite act of God… The reason for creating a woman from part of the man, was to ensure they were from the same mould, with His breath within them. Eve was created from a rib taken from Adam and he called her woman because she was made from him.”

 

So even though God was able to create Eve from a part of Adam and she therefore did not evolve from a complete being that was evolved pond slime, He was forced to use the process of evolution to create all other life forms! Really? If He could create Eve from a rib, then He could certainly have created Adam from the dust of the earth, as He said He did. According to this, God could only produce Adam via evolution from some kind of sub-human, but He was still able to create Eve without any kind of evolutionary processes whatsoever! Another contradiction!

 

Page 35 “After Adam had sinned, God (believed to be a manifestation of Jesus in the flesh) called to him as a friend, “Where are you?” because He could not find him.”

 

Again, this is not the case! It may have been Jesus walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, but He certainly wasn’t ‘in the flesh’ – that didn’t happen until He was born of Mary.

 

Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for me.

Hebrews 10:5 

 

Hebrews makes it clear that the body of Jesus was inhabited by Him when He was born as a baby, just over 2,000 years ago. Furthermore, are you being serious when you say God didn’t know where Adam and Eve were? The God who fills the universe and sees every single thing in existence…

 

If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

Psalm 139:8

 

…knows every single thought of every single human…

 

The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.

Psalm 94:11

 

…and see every single hair on everyone…

 

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Matthew 10:30

 

…didn’t know where Adam was and couldn’t find him? Ridiculous! God asked “Where are you,” not because He didn’t know where Adam and Eve were, but because He was making them face up to the fact that they had rejected His abiding Presence by their sin, forcing Him to end the close presence He had had with them previously.

 

Page 44 “Satan’s work is to challenge, contradict, and then offer an alternative explanation to God’s Word.”

 

And that’s what he’s done with theistic evolution! Just as he challenged Adam and Eve with “Has God said” in relation to them eating the forbidden fruit, today he says it in relation to God’s account of creation. You yourself say on page 76 (see later) that Satan is continuing today the same kind of lie he made to Adam and Eve. I'm sorry to say this statement is a perfect summary of your book.

 

Page 51 “Adam, on the other hand, would have to labour to provide food for himself and his family, “Because you have disobeyed me by listening to the woman and have eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree… cursed is the ground… in toil you shall eat bread.””

 

In the geological record, thorns, weeds, and everything that would make life difficult for a farmer can be seen as existing for millions/billions of years, according to Big Bang theory. Therefore, since those things existed long before Adam and Eve, in what way was the ground cursed? In what way would toil be required that was not required before? Any theory that places long ages on the six days of Genesis automatically means that the sin of Adam had no effect whatsoever on the world around him. This makes God’s statement that the ground was now cursed meaningless. It is yet one more contradiction of scripture.

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INDEX

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Understanding of Scripture

Understanding of Scripture

 

Page 54 “It is essential that the people of today realise just how important the book of Genesis is to our understanding of salvation and how we can not only communicate with but enter into a relationship with God that will allow us to receive heart-peace through the regeneration of the spirit within us, even in the most traumatic of experiences, and receive eternal life that we might be with God for eternity.”

 

Absolutely! In Genesis we see the foundation of everything that is to come; so twisting it to say something very different from what it clearly states most certainly does not help our understanding.

 

However, after saying that Satan was wrong and God right because Adam did die, you quote the words of Jesus:

 

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

John 6:63

 

You then conclude that since this is the same Spirit Who “brooded over the water and caused the creation of the world from the instructions that He received from God (the Father),” then we should “read the scriptures, because in them they display their own authority.” You then quote two more scriptures:

 

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Timothy 3:16, 17

 

knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,

2 Peter 1:21  for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1:21, 22

 

Page 55 “Even this volume is the result of inspiration I have received from God.”

 

So after quoting scriptures which state it was the inspiration of God that produced them, you say this book you have written is also the result of that inspiration. The word translated ‘inspiration’ in Timothy actually means ‘God breathed’ – God breathed His words into those who wrote it. I presume this level of inspiration is not what you are claiming here. I do not want to be over-critical, because much of what is written is fine and perfectly in keeping with the teaching of scriptures, and you are obviously sincere in your desire to present what you believe to be the truth. So perhaps those parts are the result of God’s inspiration – i.e. your motivation to write; but the man-made ideas and concepts contradicting God’s word could certainly not be called ‘God breathed’, because God does not contradict Himself. The reader needs the discernment and guidance of the Holy Spirit to distinguish between the two in this book.

 

“Just as the contrast between the righteousness of God and the darkness of evil is so great that they cannot cohabit, so the contrast between those without God and those in communion with God has the potential to become dangerous because the evil seeds of jealousy and hatred when sown in fertile ground grows up to produce violence…”

 

After making this distinction between those with and those without God, we then have a section about people with “no relationship or true knowledge of God,” and surely, the second paragraph quoted below should give you and your readers cause to stop and think.

 

Page 56 “Those completely out of touch with God who seek to impose their idea of the Christian gospel onto those with a Christian community interpret God’s rules bear no relationship with those He had written down and placed on record by His servants the prophets… In the 20th century many have poured scorn on the reliability of the scriptures, and with the acceptance of liberal theology anything goes…

 

“However the word of God belongs to God and He holds the original manuscript, and it is by that original wording we will all be judged in the final judgement as mentioned in the book of Revelation.

 

“Satan is clearly at work in the church today gradually drawing those members who are not spiritually reborn and therefore not able to read or study the scriptures with understanding, so far (Page 57) away from God and His word are they, yet that Word is the spiritual food and sustenance of all those who are spiritually reborn of the Holy Spirit.

 

“Have you ever considered the question, “Why should Satan be so keen to have Christians neglect and even deny the truth of the first Testament?” Because he does not want them to know or understand either his deceptive work on the first man or methods of working, which would enable them to be on their guard to prevent him deceiving them (1 Pet. 5:8, 9).

 

Page 61 “Today the world under Satan’s tyrannical rule believes him. The doubt about God and His word is as strong today as it was in the days of Adam and Eve. All around there is suspicion regarding the accuracy of God’s Word. Many leading clerics in the Christian church argue constantly about the accuracy of this or that section of scripture, clearly demonstrating that Satan’s control of the human race, even to those within the Church, has not slackened.”

 

I couldn’t have put it better myself! I have included these quotes to show how keen you are to remain true to God’s word, and therefore how inconsistent you are being in your acceptance of theistic evolution. You quite rightly say that Satan is at work in the Church today, drawing people away from God by his lies, keen to have them deny the truth in the Old Testament. In fact the whole world is under Satan’s tyrannical rule and believes him. After saying all that, you do not appear to notice that you yourself are cooperating with Satan’s lies, and therefore are oblivious to your need to get back to the truth of the Bible!

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INDEX

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World-wide Flood

World-wide Flood

 

We then come to Noah’s flood:

 

Page 63 “…the covering of the tops of the mountains of the earth was completely covered with water. No land was visible whatsoever. God fulfilled His promise to the letter.”

 

Page 64 “…the Lord God promised never to bring about a worldwide flood of that catastrophic nature again…”

 

So here you pull the rug from under your own feet, since the only scientists who accept the fact of a world-wide flood are ‘young earth’ creationists. The geological record is only either the result of millions/billions of years of change, or a world-wide flood: it cannot possibly be both. The main theistic-evolutionary websites (like ‘Reasons To Believe’ and ‘Biologos’ for example), insist that the flood had to be ‘local’ and totally deny it was world-wide because they know if it was it destroys their argument.

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INDEX

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Patriarchs

The Life of the Patriarchs

 

The greatest section of the book from here to the ninth chapter is commentary on the lives of Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It is all good stuff and I have no argument with it. Here and there are statements that, once again, contradict the position you hold regarding theistic evolution, though.

 

Page 74 “The greater the reliance on intellectual human thinking to understand scripture, the greater the potential for a distorted understanding of what God is trying to say through it.”

 

Exactly! So please stop twisting scripture to accommodate manmade theories and get back to what it really says! Intellectual human reasoning will never agree with God’s word, because that is revealed by the Holy Spirit. It is only when we let go of our own clever ideas and submit to God, that we can ever come into the truth.

 

Page 76 “Any argument that in any way detracts from the Word He has revealed to mankind is merely reiterating Satan’s challenge to Eve, “Did God say?” and “You shall not die…””

 

Precisely! As mentioned earlier, this is exactly what is happening with theistic evolution, and arguably the theory of evolution is one of the greatest reasons for the decline in Christianity in the UK over the past century: people are being told everything could have appeared without a God, so they can ignore Him. You don’t counter a lie by compromising with it – you expose it.

 

Page 87 “Once again God demonstrated to both Abraham and Sarah that He was not tied to natural processes or time scales.”

 

Quite! In fact, since you are a Christian, your faith is dependent on the resurrection, which is contrary to every relevant scientific observation that exists. So why would the God who raised Jesus from the dead be restricted to observable scientific process in creation? On the other hand, a creation dependent on His direct intervention can never be explained by scientific processes; but any kind of testing (radiometric dating, for example) is bound to give anomalous results because (for example) we have no way of knowing what effect the miraculous and instant creation of the earth would be.

 

Page 112 “…all 66 books so wonderfully dovetail together and support each other in even the smallest detail that allows the Holy Bible to stand tall above all other recorded scripture. Even more wonderful is the fact that only the Holy Spirit, inspiring the various contributors, could have provided such a book with a single theme and message… Page 117 This is Divinely inspired scripture, not a story book where coincidences might be considered as being useful rather than inspired.”

 

Once again, totally contradictory to your approach to Genesis.

 
INDEX
 

JEWISH UNDERSTANDING OF CREATION

A JEWISH UNDERSTANDING OF CREATION (Chapter Nine)
 

Page 224 “One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe… Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years old, like Biblical data? In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it’s interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. It is interesting to see how science has changed its understanding of the world over the years, but the record In the Torah remains fixed because the Torah doesn’t have the option of changing. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary is already too influenced by modern science.)”

 

Here you say Biblical data has the age of the universe as thousands of years old. So why don’t you believe it? It’s another contradiction! Scientific theories have changed radically over the years, and you say that “absolute proofs are not forthcoming.” So it’s not observable scientific data you believe then, but evolutionary fantasies dreamed up to explain the world without a Creator; and you use them with which to reinterpret the unchangeable Word of God! You say you won’t accept modern Biblical commentary because of the influence of modern science, and yet you yourself twist the Bible to accommodate modern science! This is another contradiction.

 

On page 226 you tell us that on the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – the shofar is blown three times, after which is said, “Hayom Harat Olam – today is the birthday of the world.” However, you say this is not the commemoration of the universe’s creation:

 

“The Shofar is blown three times to commemorate the last of the three creations that occurs in the Six Days of Genesis. First, there is the creation of the entire universe and the laws of nature. Then on (Page 227) Day Five, there is the creation that brings us the Nefesh, the soul of animal life. Finally, at the end of Day Six, there is a further creation that brings us the Neshama, the soul of human life… This means that the counting for the 5700-plus years of Jewish history starts from the creation of the soul of Adam. Thus the clock that begins with Adam is separate from the six days. This means the Bible has two clocks…”

 

The Bible does not have two clocks. God’s clear statement in Exodus 20 & 31 that the creation period plus His time of rest lasted one normal week makes this very clear.

 

“Why were the Six Days taken out of the calendar? At the time there was no need to make them separate. The reason they were taken out was because they came to realise that time is described differently in those Six Days of Genesis. To say, “There was evening and morning” is an exotic, bizarre and unusual way of describing time, even at that time.”

 

But it was also used in Daniel 8:14, as quoted later in my response to page 231 (The Creation of time), and the days in that passage could not possibly be anything other than normal 24-hour days. So this argument is invalid.

 

Page 228 “The Talmud (Chagiga, ch.2) tells us that from the opening sentence of the Bible, through the beginning of Chapter Two, the entire text is given in parable form, a poem with a text and subtext.”

 

The Talmud is not God-inspired scripture and therefore not authoritative. While Jewish thought can be helpful, where it conflicts with the Bible it must be ignored. Explanation regarding deeper meanings in the Hebrew language, for example, can amplify understanding – but it will never contradict the surface meaning of the text. If it does, it is misunderstanding, not amplification. Evidence that Genesis is not parable is the fact that Jesus treated the very first chapter as literal history, when He quoted Genesis 1:27:

 

And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'

Matthew 19:4

 

They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her." And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God 'MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.'

Mark 10:4-6

 

Indeed, Moses is mentioned by name 80 times in 79 verses in the New Testament, of which 45 attribute the Torah to him. There are 60 New Testament allusions to Genesis 1-11 specifically, and 103 for the whole of Genesis: the full list can be seen here. Every single reference to Genesis in the New Testament accepts it as literal truth and never as parable.

 

This claim is based on the evolutionary belief that primitive humans were less intelligent than we so could not understand the way it really happened. Well, if the Big Bang was the way God had done it, then He would have said something like:

 

In the beginning God created a big bang many times greater than thunder in a space smaller than a single speck of dust. The energy from that bang became bigger and bigger many times faster than the speed of lightening and changed into tiny bits of matter that eventually collected together and become the sun, moon, stars, and the earth, all positioned in the heavens. Although the earth was like the molten rock from a volcano at first, when it cooled down it was ready for living things.

 

Both that simplified résumé of the evolution of the universe, and the one I gave earlier regarding the evolution of life, would have been perfectly within the understanding of the people living at the time Genesis was written – even taking into account the evolutionary nonsense that early humans were less intelligent than we because we are more highly evolved. The fact that the medical profession many years ago announced that over 1,000 human ailments are the result of mutation gives the lie to the idea that we are improving: we are not; we are deteriorating. Our understanding of scientific principles may be greater, due to the accumulation of knowledge over the centuries; but my descriptions require no scientific knowledge whatsoever. If that’s the way God did it, He would have said it in a similar way.

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 INDEX

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Six Days 24 hours each or longer

Six Days: 24 hours each or longer?

 

Page 229 “In the closing speech that Moses makes to the people, he says that if you want to see the fingerprint of G-d in the universe, “consider the days of old, the years of the many generations” (Deut. 32:7) Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah, asks, “Why does Moses break the calendar into two parts – “The days of old, and the years of the many generations?” Because, ‘Consider the days of old’ is the Six Days of Genesis. ‘The years of the many generations’ is all the time from Adam forward.”

 

I’m amazed that a specialist in Hebrew - a highly respected learned Jew – would make such an elementary error! The entire quoted passage is poetic parallelism; which does not therefore mean that it is not literally true, but explains why the same thing is mentioned twice in different ways. Therefore it is not valid to claim it means the creation days were a different length to any other days. Indeed, the fact that it is parallelism proves that the two descriptions of time are of the same order. I have labelled the pairs of thought in the passage (with one possible exception in the middle) where you can see that in each pair it is the same thought repeated differently.

 

Deuteronomy 32:1-9:

(a) "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;

(b) and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

(a) Let my teaching drop as the rain,

(b) my speech distill as the dew,

(a) as raindrops on the tender herb,

(b) and as showers on the grass.

(a) For I proclaim the name of the LORD:

(b) Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock,

(a) His work is perfect;

(b) for all His ways are justice,

(a) A God of truth and without injustice;

(b) righteous and upright is He.

(a) "They have corrupted themselves;

(b) they are not His children,

(a) because of their blemish:

(b) a perverse and crooked generation.

Do you thus deal with the LORD, O foolish and unwise people?

(a) Is He not your Father, who bought you?

(b) Has He not made you and established you?

(a) "Remember the days of old,

(b) consider the years of many generations.

(a) Ask your father, and he will show you;

(b) your elders, and they will tell you:

(a) when the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,

(b) when He separated the sons of Adam,

(a) He set the boundaries of the peoples

(b) according to the number of the children of Israel.

(a) For the LORD's portion is His people;          

(b) Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

​

Indeed, it is obvious from the passage that they are to remember the days of old and the years of many generations when the inheritance was divided between the nations and the sons of Adam were separated. So the context makes it clear that the days of old are nothing to do with the six creation days. Furthermore this is confirmed in:

 

For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard.

Deuteronomy 4:32

 

In that verse, ‘the days that are past’ are those that came after the day man was created; and it would be highly inconsistent to claim that ‘the day God created man’ was a different length to those days as both are in the same sentence. It would strain the laws of grammar beyond breaking point.

 

Page 230 “A few years ago I acquired a dinosaur fossil that was dated (by radioactive decay chains) as 150 million years old.”

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Since there are no details about this, it is difficult to comment. The radioactive decay chains could not be carbon dating though, as that is only good for less than 100,000 years. However, there are other dinosaur remains with intact DNA, intact soft tissue, intact blood cells (none of which could survive longer than tens of 1,000s of years) and carbon dated less than 100,000 years old (but all four findings consistent with a 4,500 year burial when taking all the facts into consideration), so it is clear that your fossil is not what it seems. Both cannot be true.

 

Radiometric dating is dependent on assumptions of the starting position, the rate of change being constant and nothing happening to affect the parent and daughter isotopes, so it is all highly subjective. An example would be diamonds carbon dated as less than 100,000 years old found buried in rock layers dated by other means as millions/billions of years old: a total contradiction. Regarding carbon dating, the diminishing magnetic field around the earth plus the world-wide flood and its effects on the planet would have significant effects on all three assumptions. These kinds of changes would equally apply to other radiometric dating methods. Furthermore, the folding without cracking of layers of rock that are required by evolutionary theories to have been laid down by water over millions/billions of years, is totally impossible. See here for one example in Garden of gods. More details on these things can be seen on my webpage Big Bang or Big Con.

 

I also ask, where were those remains recovered from? Since you accept the world-wide flood, they could only have been fossilised in the layers laid down during that event (layers which evolutionists claim took millions or billions of years to form) in which case they can’t possibly be millions of years old. There’s loads of evidence on my website to support the worldwide flood.

 

“The Talmud (Chagiga, ch.2), in trying to understand the subtleties of Torah, analyses the word “choshech.” When the word “choshech” appears in Genesis1:2, the Talmud explains that it means black fire, black energy, a kind of energy that is so powerful you can’t even see (page231) it. Two verses later, in Genesis 1:4, the Talmud explains that the same word - “choshech”- means darkness, i.e. the absence of light… Other words as well are not to be understood by their common definitions. For example, “Mayim” typically means water. But Maimonides says that in the original statements of creation, the word “mayim” may also mean the building blocks of the universe.”

 

Exactly! The above statements have no effect on the debate and certainly do not undermine the literal understanding of the passage, but I quote it to confirm what I have pointed out elsewhere in my website. The watery mass that was the way the earth began was firstly separated from the rest of the watery mass that was to become the sun, moon and stars. Then as God changed that mass into those heavenly bodies on the fourth day He stretched out the heavens and positioned them across the universe. My personal thought is it is quite likely that all observation of the universe expanding today is simply the light from the time of stretching that is millions/billions of light years away only now reaching us and giving the appearance of moving away. Even though God ensured the light from the visible stars would reach us when He stretched out the heavens, the light now reaching us could be still from that time of stretching: in other words, any light that was about 6,000 light years away after the stretching was complete will only now be reaching us, and light further away will appear in the future. Certainly, according to relativity, that amount of mass travelling orders of magnitude faster than light would cause billions of years to pass around it in the space of 24 hours on earth.

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 INDEX

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Evening and Morning

Evening and Morning

 

“Another example is Genesis 1:5, which says, “There is evening and morning, Day One.” That is the first time a day is quantified: evening and morning. Nachmanides discusses the meaning of evening and morning. Does it mean sunset and sunrise? It would certainly seem to. But Nachmanides points out a problem with that. The text says “there was evening and morning Day One… evening and morning a second day… evening and morning a third day.” Then on the fourth day the sun is mentioned. Nachmanides says that any intelligent reader can see an obvious problem. How do we have a concept of evening and morning for the first three days if the sun is only mentioned on Day Four? We know that the author of the Bible – even if you think it was a bunch of Bedouins sitting around a campfire at night – was smart. He or she or it produced a best-seller. For thousands of years! So it is not possible to attribute the sun appearing only on Day Four to foolishness. There is a purpose for it on Day Four. And the purpose is that as time goes by and people understand more about the universe, you can dig deeper into the text.”

 

God did not give His word in a format that for 1000s of years people would misunderstand and only those with knowledge of 19th/20th/21st century science could work out what it meant. If so, it meant that He misled key Christian leaders throughout the history of the church: e.g. Theophilus, 7th Bishop of Antioch (c180AD), Origen (182-251), Basil ‘the Great’ (329-379), St Augustine (354-430), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Martin Luther (1483-1546), John Calvin (1509-1564), James Ussher Archbishop of Armagh (1581–1656), Matthew Henry (1662-1714) and John Wesley (1701-1791). Their written statements that the world is less than 10,000 years old can be seen here. As previously mentioned, it would have been very easy to give an accurate description that those with no knowledge of science could understand if He had done it the way you claim; but we know He didn’t do it that way because He’s told us what happened. There can be no other reason for Him describing the creation the way He did. If He did do it differently, then He was deliberately deceiving all the people who accepted the authority of His word up until recent centuries, because He is the all-knowing God who is:

 

Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure,'

Isaiah 46:10 

 

So would the God who never lies or deceives, who knew what many future centuries of people would understand from Genesis One, deliberately give a description that would leave them with a radically different impression of the way He created everything? Of course not!

 

“Nachmanides says the text uses the words “Vayehi Erev” – but it doesn’t mean “there was evening.” He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet – the root of “erev” – is chaos, mixture, disorder.” That’s why evening is called “erev”, because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is, “there was disorder.” The Torah’s word for “morning” – “boker” – is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes “bikoret”, orderly, able to be discerned. That’s why the sun needn’t be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos.“

 

So according to this, since Day Six began with evening, then the world was still in disorder at the start of Day Six because ‘evening’ means disorder. But all that was left to do was the creation of animals and humans, so it couldn’t possibly have been in disorder. Another contradiction!

 

You then discuss the fact that order never spontaneously appears from disorder, which is absolutely true and one key reason for the impossibility of a universe without a Creator. You then go on to point out that in the Hebrew text, while the 2nd to the 6th days are referred to as ‘second’, ‘third’ ‘fourth’, etc, the word ‘first’ is not used for the first day, but ‘one’. Thus, “there was evening and morning, one day” (there is more on this specific point later). On page 232, your explanation of this, quoting the Jewish scholar, Nachmanides, is:

 

“The Creation of time… there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between “one” and “first.” One is absolute; first is comparative. Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That’s a phenomenal insight. Time was created. I can understand creating matter, even space. But time? How do you create time? You can’t grab time. You don’t even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy and you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah’s use of the phrase, “Day One.” And that’s exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: that there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.”

 

I would have thought the response to all these quotes from Nachmanides in this section is obvious! Time was in existence from the very beginning, because it is an attribute of the physical dimension – the way God created it – so the absence or presence of either the sun or the earth makes not a scrap of difference. Otherwise, if the sun was to explode, taking both itself and the earth out of existence, then time would cease! Obvious error!

 

Certainly according to relativity time passes differently dependent on things like speed and gravity; but since the earth was created as a formless watery mass in the very first verse, time would have passed at the same rate in the region of the earth right from the beginning. Therefore the six days can only be 24 hours each. The length of our days is not determined by the sun but by the rotation of the earth; and since that was in existence from the very first verse, the length of the days was clearly calculated in the same way that they are now.

 

The twisting and turning around the phrase ‘evening and morning’ in the earlier quoted passage is equally spurious. The same phrase is used in the book of Daniel:

 

And he said to me, "For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.”

Daniel 8:14

 

The word ‘days’ there is translated from two Hebrew words: eh'-reb, bo'-ker – literally “evenings, mornings.” These are the same two words that are found throughout Genesis One. Since it is impossible that the Daniel days mean anything other than 24 hours, it is clear the same applies to Genesis.

 

Note it says that time was created on Day One. Yet on page 10 you said it was created on Day Four! So there is another contradiction.

 

The argument about ‘First Day’ vs ‘One Day’ is also spurious. As I have made clear here, while the word ‘echad’ can be translated ‘first’ (e.g. Genesis 8:5), it is usually translated ‘one’. The word ‘first’ is ri'shon (e.g. Genesis 25:25). The obvious reason is that when the first day is mentioned, the length of the day is defined. Therefore, it is saying one evening plus one morning equals one day. This then sets the definition for the rest of the chapter: so the second, third, fourth, etc, days are days of one evening and one morning.

 

There is a further contradiction. If these are long periods of time, then what constitutes evenings and mornings in them? I have never heard any theistic evolutionist even mention this, let alone explain it. It is nonsense! The nearest is the earlier claim about the words meaning disorder and order; but that is ludicrous since it would mean there would be a cycle of disorder, changing to order, changing to disorder, changing to order, changing to disorder, changing to order, changing to disorder, changing to order, changing to disorder, changing to order, changing to disorder, changing to order! Did the order God created on each day switch back to disorder each time?

 

Page 238 “The calculations come out as follows:

The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the “beginning of time perspective.” But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.

The second day, from the Bible’s perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.

The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.

The fourth day – one billion years.

The fifth day – one-half billion years.

The sixth day – one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and ¾ billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?”

 

The Big Bang most certainly does not fit neatly into six long periods of time, even if they exponentially became shorter as you claim. Neither does it fit into six periods of evenings and mornings, as previously mentioned. Since today’s scientists claim the Big Bang took place 13.8 billion years ago (check it out in Google!) this is neither scientifically nor Biblically correct.

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 INDEX

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Check it Out

Check it Out

 

“The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, palaeontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I’ll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.”

 

Ok. Let’s do that:

 

The Bible says that light appeared before the sun

The Big Bang says light only appeared when the sun appeared

 

The Bible says the earth was made in the beginning

The Big Bang says the earth was formed 9-10 billion years after the beginning

​

The Bible says the earth began as a formless mass of water

The Big Bang says it began as a formless mass of molten rock, chemicals and gases

​

The Bible says the earth was formed before the sun

The Big Bang says the sun was formed before the earth

​

The Bible says vegetation was formed before the sun

The Big Bang says the sun was formed before vegetation

​

The Bible says God created birds before land creatures

The Big Bang says birds evolved from land creatures, so came afterwards

​

The Bible says God created land creatures from the dust of the earth

The Big Bang says land creatures evolved from sea creatures

​

The Bible says God created Adam from the dust of the earth

The Big Bang says man evolved from land creatures

​

The Bible says God created Eve from a part of Adam's body

The Big Bang says women evolved from land creatures (although you do not accept this)

​

The Bible says Adam and Eve were the only couple from whom the entire human race originates

The Big Bang says the human race came from a group that evolved from the 'common ancestor' (although you do not accept this)

​

The Bible says Abraham was born 2,008 years after Adam was created (see here)

The Big Bang says Abraham was born up to around 200,000 years after man evolved (although you do not accept this)

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Jesus said humans were around from the beginning of creation (Mark 10:6)

The Big Bang says humans appeared over 13.7 billion years after the beginning of creation

 

Note that there are some things today’s evolutionary scientists claim that you do not accept. So if you can discount those things because they conflict with the Bible, why not discount the rest that equally conflicts with the Bible?

 
 INDEX

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Conclusion

Conclusion

 

I have read many books on evolution and creation, and as with all other evolution-based books, this one has confirmed for me even more the validity of believing that the Bible means what it says and says what it means. As St Augustine said in his comment on rationalism, referred to in his Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Book XXXII:19:

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"Your design, clearly, is to deprive Scripture of all authority, and to make every man’s mind the judge of what passage of Scripture he is to approve of, and what to disapprove of. This is not to be subject to Scripture in matter of faith, but to make Scripture subject to you. Instead of making the high authority of Scripture the reason of approval, every man makes his approval the reason for thinking a passage correct."

 

Next year I will be 80 and you are a little older than this. So for both of us the time when we will be standing before the Lord to account for our lives is drawing rapidly nearer. At the start of your book you said, “Because if it does not strictly accord with the truth of God, then there is a danger that on the day of judgement you will be found wanting,” and on page 56: “However the word of God belongs to God and He holds the original manuscript, and it is by that original wording we will all be judged in the final judgement as mentioned in the book of Revelation.” I strongly urge you please, to go back to the truth of the Bible and retract this book that so obviously conflicts with its teaching.

 

Every blessing on you, dear brother, as you think on these things.

​

Les


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14

Quotations from 'The Origin of Life' are used on the principle of ‘fair use’ 

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.

Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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