"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." -Arthur Conan Doyle via the character "Sherlock Holmes"
Many Christians still believe that God created the universe less than 10,000 years ago. I devoted a good deal of space in Early Genesis the Revealed Cosmology to showing how they are mishandling the scripture and feel no need to do so again here. Their position is increasingly untenable on the basis of evidence from the natural universe, but no evidence from the natural universe is necessary to show the error of this position. The Christ-Centered Model for early Genesis outlined in the book does not promote an Old Earth Creationist position so much as it promotes a Christ-centered position. Incidental to that is that the Seventh Day is both history and prophecy and not just a space of 24-hours. Indeed none of the "days" could have been 24-hour day/night cycles, for the text of Genesis very specifically defines what a "day" is in chapter one.
But the latest advances in science are also showing most commonly-held Old Earth Creationist models to be untenable with either evidence from the natural universe and/or the text of scripture. As a result, some are turning to models like John Walton's "Cosmic Temple" idea. While I have no doubt there are strong parallels in Ancient Near Eastern religious practice and the text of early Genesis, I think he has it backwards. Those practices were attempts to co-opt the model laid out in early Genesis, not the reverse. I think the first two accounts in Genesis are earlier than these practices, and influenced them, not the other way around. I am an adherent of a modified version of the Tablet Theory. Even if Moses didn't write Genesis before these other ANE stories, for the early part he was working off of tablets that were older.
Further, Walton believes that the account is "functional" and has nothing to do with the real material universe. I argue nearly the opposite- where the fit seems awkward it is because the text is describing what is happening in two realms at once. That is, the fashioning of both the natural and the supernatural realms, with the natural world being only a "shadow" of the eternal one. I don't consider Walton's model to be a "creationist" model and I doubt that he would either.
What about Old Earth Creationist models like those advocated by organizations like "Reasons to Believe" and people like Ann Gauger of the Biologic Institute? Gauger's model features a very early Adam and Eve, one that would not even be classified as a Homo-Sapiens. The Reasons to Believe Model, which I once advocated until the dates became too difficult to reconcile to the text, suggests a more recent but still very distant Adam, perhaps 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. This model then suggests that the flood of Noah was universal in respect to humanity (but not global) in that it reduced the human race to eight persons. It too happened in great antiquity according to this model. Reasons to Believe has in the past shown a willingness to adjust their models somewhat in the face of new data, as scientists should. If Reasons to Believe adopted the Christ-centered model and subjected it to the same kind of testing as its previous models, I believe it would be a huge win for them. As of now, they have a couple of more traditional OEC models.
Here are some "reasons to believe" that these models cannot be reconciled to the text of early Genesis, and the only plausible creationist models remaining are two-population models (Adam is not the founder of humanity, but rather the line of Messiah) as is the one in Early Genesis, the Revealed Cosmology.......
1) Genesis 10:22 says that Shem was the father of Asshur, while in verse eleven we learn that Asshur founded several cities including Ninevah. The location and period of habitation of Ninevah is known. There was surely no city there prior to 8,000 years ago and probably much more recently than that. Thus the flood was not much earlier than 8,000 years ago and probably more recent than that. So the model is untenable- unless one wishes to postulate tens of thousands of years worth of skipped generations between Shem and his son Asshur in order to push the flood back to a date when all of humanity was restricted to the Levant. Of course there is no scientific evidence that this was ever the case.
2) Cush was the son of Ham (10:4) and Cush "begat" Nimrod (10:8) who was apparently a contemporary of Asshur mentioned above, since verse 11 also states that Asshur went out from the land it previously said was controlled by Nimrod in order to found Ninevah. Therefore it is difficult to attribute a huge number of generations from Cush to Nimrod. And Nimrod is also described as controlling several cities, at least one of whom (Erech) we can locate in historical time. Again, these cities don't go back tens of thousands of years in the past. We can tell roughly when they were founded.
3) The text indicates that Adam and Eve's descendants did not live as hunter-gatherers but were immediately guided into civilized practices like agriculture and animal husbandry. Gen. 4:2 says that Cain was a tiller of the soil, and Abel a keeper of sheep. It is extremely unlikely, to put it mildly, that sheep have been domesticated for 70,000 years. The very first ones were more like 10-15 thousand years ago (and the location and timing of the first domestication of most major livestock is a stunning confirmation of the Christ-centered model). The same is true with agriculture. The Reasons to Believe model must postulate that civilization was lost right after the fall and not recovered until recently. But the text does not indicate that. Gen. 4:20 describes Adah, seven generations from Adam, as the "father" of those who live in tents and travel with flocks. This would not be true if the practice died out immediately afterward and was rediscovered by unconnected individuals tens of thousands of years later.
In the same way, his brother Jubal is described as the "father" of those who play the harp and the organ. And Tubal-Cain (4:22) is described as an "instructor" in metallurgy. Thus the text contradicts the idea of lost arts.
4) In Gen. 5:29 Lamech the father of Noah references the curse on the soil and the associated toil therein. In other words they were still working the soil. In 8:22 God promises that seedtime and harvest will remain, indicating further that they were agricultural. Noah plants a vineyard (9:20) after landing.
5) Cain himself is described as founding a city (4:17). Is it realistic to think that men were building cities 70,000 years ago but there is no evidence for them until the last 12,000 years or so?
6) While a case can be made for a skipped generation here or there in the genealogies, the dates for humanity and its near-global dispersal have been pushed so far back that it makes the genealogies useless and even pointless. If the flood was 50,000 years ago how is it that the sons and grandsons of Shem, Ham, and Japheth were constructing/ruling cities whose place in history we know to be less than 8,000 years ago? If the flood was more recent and also really wiped out all of humanity other than those on the ark, then how does it square with the overwhelming genetic and archaeological evidence that most of the old world not covered by ice sheets has been more or less continuously occupied for more than 40,000 years?
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I want to emphasize that the text of the scripture and even creationism has not been refuted by all of these things. Instead long-held theology which is not actually in the bible has been refuted by them. And that's good. The church should reject unfounded ideas about Adam and the flood which were based on the Jewish take on the account. All of the difficulties I mentioned above and more can be resolved simply by doing what the church should have done centuries ago- view the text through the lens of Christ, and put Him at the center of the model. Perhaps science is going to force theologians to do what they should have done from the beginning, and as a bonus all of these paradoxes resolve cleanly.
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PS- there is an idea floating out there called "Genealogical Adam" advocated by Dr. Joshua Swamidass, among others, and I should mention it. I don't consider it a competing model but rather a variation on a portion of the Christ-centered model which proposes a different solution to a specific theological problem inherent in any "two-population" model. I think it is too narrow in focus to be considered a "model" for early Genesis. I don't think he advocates for any particular model, just this idea on how to handle the transmission of the sin nature if there were another population of humans outside the garden in addition to Adam and Eve. I also believe he strongly considers the population outside the garden to have evolved, whereas I think both populations were the result of special creation.
Please "like" and "share".This is a conversation that the church needs to have!
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