Were the Chief Sumerian Gods a Distorted Trinity?

Maybe. At least we can say that the belief that Genesis and the Trinity came later and the former drew on ANE myth is not the only way to look at the data. 

 

Evolution's Rate Problem: Hominids

 Macroevolution has a rate problem. Even the allegedly "small" gap between chimps and humans is too big to reasonably jump in the time since the supposed common ancestor if only natural forces are at work. This was demonstrated by extensive computer modeling where they gave very generous parameters. Even granting very generous assumptions, 84 million years was a better estimate than 6 to 8 million. That doesn't even consider that chimps and humans seem to have a fairly sharp break with other apes.

Gen 2:4-6: Evidence Most Scholars have Genesis Wrong

 

How the Sumerian Pantheon Sounds like a Twisted Version of the Trinity

 The Sumerian Pantheon reads to me like a twisted version of the Christian Trinity. An or Anu the Sky god would fill the role of God the Father. He is a more distant deity and while He was supreme, usually one of His two sons were in charge of interactions with humans. 

The sympathetic brother was Ea. Yes, it is pronounced just like the shortened version of the Divine Name, used many times in scripture: "Yah!".   He was the one who was the father of the sage Adapa, who fits with the biblical Adam if you look at Adam through the lens of the Christ-centered model for early Genesis. He was the one who warned humanity of the coming flood. So this would make Ea a distorted version of God the Son. 

The other less sympathetic brother is Enlil. He is the one who brings plagues on man, including the flood. Not because we were evil but because we "made too much noise". So there is blame-shifting there going from humans being evil to the god's being capricious. Basically all of the merciful actions of Yahweh are attributed to Ea, all of the judgemental actions to Enlil. Perhaps once they switched the motives for god's wrath to be weak rather than just, they needed another character to be the "heavy". So Anu had one son sympathetic to people and one hostile. In the text of Genesis, Yahweh, I believe acting through God the Son, fulfilled both roles. He helped deliver but He also brought judgement. I still think that but there is also this to consider concerning the origin of Enlil's name..

"The Sumerian word "líl", whose Akkadian equivalent is zaqīqu, means "ghost, phantom, haunted" (Michalowski 1989: 98; Tinney 1996: 129-30; Michalowski 1998) but a translation of Enlil's name as "Lord ghost" makes little sense in the context of his mythological attestations. The interpretation of líl as "wind" is apparently a secondary development of the first millennium BCE (Tinney 1996: 129), which has led to an interpretation of Enlil's name as "Lord Wind" or "Lord Air" (e.g., Jacobsen 1989). This interpretation has led some scholars to reconstruct a vertically ordered cosmology that consisted of the gods An (heavens), Enlil (atmosphere), and Enki (earth), but this remains very problematic. Other scholars make reference to Enlil as the "Lord of the Air", when he is seen acting in co-ordination with the storms and winds, e.g., Enlil "the roaring storm" (The Cursing of Agade, ETCSL 1.5.1: 151). There are issues, however, with both ideas, the vertical ordering of Mesopotamian pantheon is rather simplistic, and the references to Enlil as a storm are usually in the context of wider destruction, where the storm could be apposite imagery for Enlil as a powerful, devastating god rather than as a specific "storm deity", e.g., The Lament for Sumer and Urim, ETCSL 2.2.3."

The most straight-forward approach to Enlil's name sounds like it could be referencing the Holy Spirit. They did not give Enlil the personality of the Holy Spirit, but it isn't hard to see how this would be part of a Triune Godhead. They then blasphemed by attributing injustice to Him.

The quickly added spouses and sons and grew the pantheon, but there is little doubt these three were pre-eminent. Did the Sumerians get these names from the Semites? Very possibly. Some of the southern Sumerian cities seem to have had a semitic population, and were controlled by Nipper which was associated with Semetic kings. By the time we get to written records of northern Mesopotamia though, the names had been changed. Asshur, grandson of Noah, had been deified and fit into the role of Ea. They did not hesitate to alter their history when it suited some agenda that they had. The Hebrews considered it sacred and would have been loathe to do so. This should tell us that the Hebrew record is the more original account.

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Can Scientists Build a Machine that Can Regulate Itself with No Maintenance 4 Billion Years?

 Can scientists build a machine that can regulate itself without maintenance for four billion years? Well, the earth regulates itself with feedback mechanisms to keep temperatures between the boiling and freezing point of water. And it has been doing it for a very long time. It is strange how they insist this was all from chance when they can't do anywhere near that well even on purpose!

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The Son of THE Man. What they are not telling you about the main title Jesus gave Himself

 

Will Many Be Saved? What Early Genesis can say About the End of Revelation

 

The "Us" in Genesis 1:26 is the Trinity, Not a Divine Council

 

It All Happened So Fast: Evolution Beyond Nature Again

 I can't keep up with all the new reports coming out that would indicate to an open mind that whatever "evolution" occurred on this earth, a Divine Hand was doing all but the most mundane aspects of it. 

I've already written about how the Great Ordovician Diversification Event rivals the Cambrian Explosion as a problem for philosophical naturalists. There is too much directional change in too little time compared to what the known naturalistic mechanisms we see are able to produce. A few weeks ago I reported on the dizzying speed which occurred in the divergence of reptiles. Just two weeks ago I linked to a report on a study marveling at how quick the leap was between jawed and jawless fishes. 

But that study thought the change happened suddenly around 380 million years ago. Turns out they got it half right. The new study says it happened suddenly 40 million years before that- that would be in the Ordovician and make the first problem I mentioned above that much worse for naturalists. 

They showed a brave face in the article, labeling the new find "the oldest jawed human ancestor", but the evidence compelled them to say things hinting as the unnatural speed at which these changes occurred. 

These findings present tangible evidence of a diversification of major vertebrate groups tens of millions of years before the beginning of the so called "Age of Fishes" some 420 million years ago.......

"The new discovery puts into question existing models of vertebrate evolution by significantly condensing the timeframe for the emergence of jawed fish from their closest jawless ancestors. This will have profound impact on how we assess evolutionary rates in early vertebrates and the relationship between morphological and molecular change in these groups," said Dr. Ivan J. Sansom from the University of Birmingham.

Just don't question the naturalistic premises Dr. Sansom. You would not want to lose your funding. 

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The "Sudden Leap" Between Jawless and Jawed Fishes

 "Evolution is often thought of as a series of small steps, but these ancient fossils suggest there was a larger leap between jawless and jawed vertebrates. These fish literally have their hearts in their mouths and under their gills—just like sharks today."

I guess there was "a whole lot of evoluting going on" in very brief period of time. Since then we have variations on a theme. 

How many times must the pattern be found before scientists begin to consider the idea that nature wasn't the driver here, but the tool? 

Early Tetrapods Had Different Skulls than Fish they Evolved From?

 You would expect the earliest tetrapods (four-footed land animals) to have skulls configured like those of the early fish that they purportedly evolved from (actually I think it is more helpful in describing the record if we separate the question of "did they evolve" from "is nature alone a reasonable explanation"). And if somehow the changes that made them a tetrapod also happened to have affected their skulls, you would still probably think "this just came with the change program, once they get on land evolution will act to produce variations until it hits on winning formulas."

Those are reasonable assumptions, but as is so often the case, it isn't what the evidence shows. Indeed this article describes a study where the researchers claim that the first tetrapod skulls were indeed very different from their supposed immediate ancestors. Further, these changes somehow "limited evolution" because of the lack of diversification of these skulls for a long time. Frogs still have skulls much like those early tetrapods!

The actual record is that when major new forms emerge, they tend to do so suddenly and then go ten million years or more without substantial speciation- as if they somehow "nature" got it right the first time and no further changes were improvements for a long time. Somehow, they hit the "big middle". Only later is there a sudden burst of speciation. Sometimes in different phyla all at once. See here for more. 

The record of nature may support "evolution", but it doesn't support naturalism. 

Can defenders of naturalism generate "just-so stories" to explain away the record? Sure, they are limited only by the power of human imagination. But that's not science. It is a manifestation of a belief system. 

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My book isn't about this, but something much better. It is about how early Genesis points to Christ. Obviously, this could not be so unless He really was who inspired scripure says that He is. 

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Another Clear Instance of Toledot Referring to An Account

 Numbers 3:1 used the term to refer to the records that Moses and Aaron took from meeting God on Mt. Siani. Here is an interleaner translation so you can see what I mean. 

So it can mean geneological records, but only because it can mean records of any kind, including a narrative or an account. Thus when it says in chapter six "These are the generations of Noah" the same word means "account". 

This is important because it further supports the Tablet Theory and what it says about the phrase. 

Evolution Through Intelligent Design

 Scientists "know" that mammals undergo chromosome re-arrangements from time to time, because they assume that gorillas and humans, for example, evolved from a common ancestor and we have two such differences with gorillas. Humans have a big chromosome that is analogous to two chromosomes in gorillas. The assumption being that natural fused at some point in the line leading to humans. Gorillas have a place where they have two small chromosomes where humans have a larger one. 

Up until this point, they could not get such mutations in mammals Even lab mice have shown no indication of such an event in over 100 years of breeding. (Yet they think mice have these sorts of changes occur more often than humans and gorillas). 

What they did was intelligently design a way to force such changes. This involved inactivating THREE regions which tell the chromosomes how to line up. Then they substituted their own designer instruction set to tell the chromosomes how to line up. In doing so, they were able to merge two chromosomes. They tried it more than one way, but only one way produced viable fertile offspring (albeit with reduced fertility. 

The way researcher Li described it, ""Using an imprint fixed haploid embryonic stem cell platform and gene editing in a laboratory mouse model, we experimentally demonstrated that the chromosomal rearrangement event is the driving force behind species evolution and important for reproductive isolation, providing a potential route for large-scale engineering of DNA in mammals."

That was done AFTER deactivating the triple-redundant gene regions that would normally do the job. How on earth anyone can think this experiment says anything about how nature acting alone could precipitate such changes is beyond me. I don't deny such changes happened, but they happened the same way the ones in this experiment did- through intent from an intelligent designer. 

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Add the Rapid Divergence of Reptiles to the List: "Evolution" had "Help"

"Their rates of evolution and diversity started exploding, leading to a dizzying variety of abilities, body plans, and traits, and helping to firmly establish both their extinct lineages and those that still exist today as one of the most successful and diverse animal groups the world has ever seen."

From a report on a paper about the emergence of reptiles, link below. The original hypothesis was that reptiles diversified so quickly because of an extinction event which wiped out their rivals. Now it turns out, the explosion of diversification started BEFORE their competitors were wiped out. Scientists now say the driving force for this ultra-rapid evolution was "climate change". They are saying that a lot these days- because that's where the funding is. Funny how "climate change" caused the reptiles to evolve super-fast for a while (and after mammals rose they quit evolving) while it caused their competitors to go extinct instead. 

The truth of the earth's record is that this is the recurring pattern. There is a stable and low rate of change, often around a mean, and then one particular category of creatures will have an astouding "burst" of evolution over a short period of time (compared to the stasis). Then that's it. The next time, they will stay relatively unchanged while some other group undergoes massive change. 

The Cambrian Explosion is well known. What isn't known is that most of the big changes took place over a mere 410,000 years. By the time the trilobites appeared, a modern marine ecosystem was already in place. Chordates show complexity from the start. Even humble comb jellyfish show comlexity from the start. Far, far beyond what known natural evolutionary mechanisms can produce.

 What also isn't well-known is that the mysterious Ediacaran biota didn't evolve much. they stayed much as they were the whole time until they all died out. No known survivors. If evolution is such a powerful and ubiquitous force, why didn't it change them? They were wiped out despite their 90 million year head-start on the Cambrian life forms.

The Great Ordovician Diversification event is another puzzle. After the Cambrian explosion, evolution returned to its background level of small, slow changes around a mean. Then suddenly a vast array of ocean orders started diversifying radically at once.  Then they returned to stasis. How did they all know to do that in a synchronized fashion? 

Something similar even happened within the Ichthyosaurs. A vast burst of diversity comes on suddenly when the type shows up, then a long period of stasis. The next crisis that comes along, it doesn't change again to adapt to it, it goes away. 

The same thing happened with the emergence of land animals. They underwent radical and sudden change, while what is supposed to be their immediate ancestors stayed the same. As the report puts it...

"On the other hand, we discovered the evolutionary lineages leading to the first tetrapods broke away from that stable pattern, acquiring several of the major new adaptive traits at incredibly fast rates that were sustained for approximately 30 million years," said Simões.

I suggest reading the whole link for more details, but the essence is that the opening of a new niche does not itself have the power to change life forms to fit that niche. Under naturalism, you must have that rare event by chance happen at just the time it is useful. None of this fits with the pattern of all of those useful rare events happening in clusters, sometimes in very different kinds of organisms. 

Nor does this, while all this great change is taking place, the formation of new species is rare. New families or sub-orders show up as a single species for a long time, and only after a while begin to diversity. There is a disconnect between macro and micro "evolution". You would think the latter happens faster, if naturalism is the explanation. But this isn't what we see. When big changes happen, they happen faster than the small changes. As they put it. ...

"What we've been finding in the last couple of years is that you have lots of anatomical changes during the construction of new animal body plans at short periods of geological time, generating high rates of anatomical evolution, like we're seeing with the first tetrapods. But in terms of number of species, they remained constrained and at really low numbers for a really long time, and only after tens of millions of years do they actually diversify and become higher in number of species. There's definitely a decoupling there," said Simões.

When nature was done with the dinosaurs, the non-avian ones went away. They were on their way out before the asteroid. They quit adapting. The rest of the reptiles quit evolving in big ways, but mammals started doing so. How is it that one group can evolve when the others don't, if for example "climate change" is responsible? How is it that a group that had a lot of "punctuated equilibrium" at its beginning loses all of its mojo and that propensity for "rapid change" goes to another group? 

The pattern of change fits the ID hypothesis more than the "blind nature at work" hypothesis. 

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The Scholars are Wrong. Refuting Their Claims that Genesis was too Late to be from Moses

 

The Cosmos had a Beginning

 Attempts to evade a beginning fall flat says this researcher. 

The Birthplace of Abraham

 

I read a paper claiming that Genesis could not have been written until after the exile. A section of proof was "Six place names that help date the text". One of the claims had to do with the birthplace of Abraham: 

Genesis 11:28, 31. These verses refer to “Ur of the Chaldeans”. The Chaldeans did
not occupy Ur until around the tenth century (1000 BCE). The only pre-exilic use ofthe phrase
“Ur of the Chaldeans” in the Old Testament is in Genesis 15:7, which was clearly written at least as early as the eleventh century (possibly by Samuel), by which time the term “Ur of the Chaldeans” was already the common term for the area.
The only other use of “Ur of the Chaldeans” is in Nehemiah 9:7, a post-exilicbook

So here the writer Jonathan Burke is saying that this part of Genesis is old, but not old enough to be from Moses since the phrase "Ur of the Chaldeans" wasn't used until after the Chaldeans occupied it. 

The problem with that is that there was another "Ur" long before the larger and better-known Ur wound up in Chaldean hands. This site today is known as the city of Urfa. Search for "Urfa man" and you will see that it is the site of some fabulous ancient religious art and in the same area as Gobleki Tepe et al. This is also one of the places I think the garden of Eden may have been.

It is north of Haran, and that fits the journey described in Genesis much better. If Terahh had come from the southern Ur then he would have turned west long before he reached Haran. 

Please see this excellent paper on the subject for more details.

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"The references to Genesis 1-11 (Primeval History)  themes are rare and most mentions come after the exile (where they were exposed to Babylonian myth). "

Mentions may be rare if Gen. 1-11 describes a planet whose very nature was altered by Adam's sin resulting in previously unknown death and decay, followed by a global flood that extincted all animal life on earth outside the ark. But they are not unexpectedly rare compared to what the Christ-centered model teaches about chapters 1-11. 

That leaves only the point that themes from Gen. 1-11 come up more often in books from after the exile than before. The answer to this point is that it is simply factually incorrect. 

After the exile there are 11 books. Three of them mention Primeval History themes, 1 Chronicles, Ezekiel, Joel. There are 27 books (besides Genesis) that were written before the exhile period. 

It is generally acknowledged that Exodus 20:11 (and chapter 31) refer back to Genesis when they say "in six days the Lord made the earth". It is also considered that Isaiah 51:3 reference to Eden indicates a knowledge of Genesis. 

But what about Numbers 13:33 and its reference to the Nephilim? That is a reference which hearkens back to Genesis. That's not counting that Num 13 says that the sons of Anak came from the Nephilim and that the Anakites are mentioned in Joshua, Judges, and Deuteronomy. 

What about Job 28?

Will you keep to the old path that the wicked have trod?
They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood.
They said to God, “Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?”
Yet it was he who filled their houses with good things… (Job 22:15-18a, NIV)

This seems to be a reference to the flood of Noah, as understood by the Christ-centered approach to the text. In addition, the portions of the book speaking of creation take a view of the text which fits with Genesis chapter one. The overall theme is similar and many Christian scholars teach that Job retells Genesis 1-3. 

Jeremiah 4:23 is almost a quote from Genesis 1:2

The temple described in 1 Kings has themes consistent with the temple being a model of the garden of Eden. Including a lampstand that had the shape of a tree and figures of flowers, pomegranites, and date palm carved into it. I don't buy that Genesis 1 was talking about a temple, but rather that the Temple harkens back to the garden, a place where God met man. 

So there are six places outside of Genesis which reference things from the Primevial history of Genesis, or ten places if you count references to the Anakites. Including Genesis, that is seven mentions of these kinds of themes in the pre-exile writings as opposed to three mentions afterward. Or ten to three if you count the references to Anak as a Nephilim. That is extremely consistent in both sets of literature given that the post-exile books are fewer in number. The emphasis on these themes is consistent. 

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"Certain vocabulary in Genesis 1-3 is used elsewhere only in books written during the monarchy or later, such as
ʾēd
(source of water, Genesis 2:6), - SAME AS STRONG'S 108 "ED", WHICH WAS USED EARLIER AS SMOKE FROM FIRE OR EMBERS. PRIMATIVE ROOT WHOSE MEANING EXPANDED

neḥmād
(pleasant, Genesis2:9; 3:6), WRONG, IT IS USED IN MANY EARLY BOOKS
tāpar

(sew, Genesis 3:7), WRONG. USED ONLY 4 TIMES, ONE IN JOB. AND IT IS FROM A PRIMITIVE ROOT WHICH MEANS ABOUT THE SAME

ʾēbāh
(enmity, Genesis 3:15),- WRONG, A FORM OF IT IS USED IN NUMBERS, AND IT IS FROM AYAB (STRONG''S 340), A PRIM. ROOT WHICH MEANS "BE HOSTILE TO"

šûp
(bruise/wound,Genesis 3:15) - ANOTHER PRIM. ROOT USED ONLY 4 TIMES IN SCRIPTURE, TWICE IN THIS VERSE, ONCE IN JOB, AND ONCE IN PSALMS. 
ʿ
eṣeb
(labor, Genesis 3:16),- VALID EXAMPLE, BUT COULD BE NOT MENTIONED BY CHANCE.

tĕšûqāh
(longing, Genesis 3:16)." - USED ONLY ONCE OUTSIDE OF GEN, IN SONG OF SOLOMON. FROM AN UNUSED ROOT. HARD TP BELIEVE THIS WORD WASN'T AROUND BEFORE THE KINGS. 

The idea is that the version of the text that was standardized was the one found under the reign of Good King Josiah, prior to the exile. All copies were off shoots of that one. Did some words that had fallen out of use get updated either in that copy or from that copy of the text? Very probably. We do it all the time. For example imagine we had no remaining copies of the original King James version of the bible.  The New King James version contains many words not in use in the original King James version. That does not mean that there were no English versions of scripture prior to the New King James Version. They expressed the same thoughts, in large part from the same documents, with more updated words. 

The use of more modern terms in itself proves nothing. Did they represent older original words which had fallen out of use by the Temple Period?

I am not sure all the words claimed here are legit either- sup is also used in Job, which many think came well before the monarchy. But it wasn't written in the stream of Mosaic literature, but as "a man of the east". So we would have to check and see if these words were used ELSEWHERE before the monarchy in Israel. Were they used in Egypt or Mesopotamia for example? Or, as is the case with several of these, was it from a more primitive root word? IOW, maybe the original used the same root word, but since that time the same thought was now expressed with a derivative of that root. 
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"Some names appear as personal names before the exile, but as place names only during or after the exile. A few names appear only in Genesis 10"

This is somewhat disingenous because some of the examples given for such claims are well known as being connected to existing ancient places. Erech equals the ancient city of Uruk for example. 
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But the larger picture is that listings from "the table of nations" should not even be included as evidence to date early Genesis because this was a table that was meant to be updated as time when on, much like a genealogy. Obviously, all of those nations were not in existence as soon as Noah and his sons got off the boat. They took time to develop. You can't use a table that is meant to be updated over the generations to determine the original date of the document. 

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Cities date the text late. 

"Assyria came late. Asshur built in 2500 BC but not its own empire until later"

Gen 2:14 is obviously a scribal note added later for clarification. Gen. 10 actually says "Asshur" which was their word for Assyria. The comment in Genesis 10 doesn't mention Asshur (the people) building a city named Asshur. Those people in conjunction with Nimrod went and built other cities. So there is no conflict with history and a proper reading of the text. I would suggest these events happened between 3800 BC and 3100 BC. Long before the time they are even looking. 

"Genesis 10:11. This verse refers to Nineveh as part of Assyria, but it was not untilthe reign of Assuruballit I (1363-1328 BCE), that Nineveh became part of Assyrianterritory. Note that Nineveh is mentioned in Genesis 10:11-12, but not mentionedagain until 2 Kings, written during the exile; this supports the conclusion thatGenesis 11 was not written before the exile."

No it doesn't. It says that Asshur, either the clan or the man himself long before his descendents became Assyria, built Ninevah. The second part of his statement is also factually incorrect because Jonah mentions Ninevah. Even if it wasn't mentioned until the exile, it doesn't support his claim. The exile was just when they got back around this area. 

Genesis 10:11-

12. This refers to the city of Calah as “that great city”. Calah did notexist until 1750 BCE, and was a mere village until the ninth century BCE, when itbecame "that great city" during the reign of Assurnasirpal II, who made it the capitalof Assyria

. It could not have been called “that great city” until

after the reign ofSolomon

The text is actually unclear as to whether Calah or Resen is being described as a "great city". Indeed it is unclear whether Calah is even afforded the status as a "city", because it specifies Rehoboth as a city but not Calah. It doesn't say the status of Calah at that time. It could have been a fort, or a trading outpost (as part of the Uruk expansion). The village and the city would only come much later, perhaps built on the original site. Again the time-frame where they should be looking for a settlement of some kind is around 3800 to 3100 BC, not the Calnah we know from later in history. 

Genesis 10:19. The boundaries of Canaan described here did not exist until 1280BCE by a peace treaty between Ramses II and Hattusilis III in 1280 BCE; it istherefore unsurprising that the borders of Canaan described here do not match thedescription of Canaan in Genesis 15:18 or Numbers 34:2-12, or any text of Moses'time. This verse could not have been written earlier than 1280 BCE.

After 1280 BC would be consistent with the late date for Moses and the Exodus. So then Moses could have well written this verse based on where Canaan was at that time. But again this is the table of nations and is SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN UPDATED so that even with an early Exodus Joshua or someone from a couple of centuries later could have added this to the text. That's if the treaty really did bring a new thing into being rather than just reflect the facts on the ground as they had been for a very long time. 

Neanderthals Were Not "SO MUCH LIKE US" Post 832

 OK, so maybe I haven't done 832 posts on it, but I have done a lot of posts on how this big push to claim that "Neanderthals were so much like us" or "another kind of human" are just hype. The new research shows that human brains develop slower than Neanderthals and this results in fewer chromosome errors during the brain growth process. 

Mice and Neanderthals are identical in six sites where humans differ. They did some testing and a part of what those genes do is help reduce copy error. It doesn't matter if their brains were the same size as ours- the structure was different and how carefully the circuits were put together was different. 

Apkallu As Patriarchs from Early Genesis? Thinking Out Loud

 The Christ-Centered model of early Genesis as Adam and Eve created after the bulk of humanity is created. Adam is a figure of Christ, not the father of the human race. It turns out, this line of thought produces intersting connections to ANE literature. I'm not one to think that early Genesis was "adopted from previous ANE myths", but rather the other way around. 

I am thinking out loud here and mean to come back and smooth this out later if the idea has merit. I'd love for some scholars to examine the hypothesis that the Apkallu were the patriarchs from early Genesis per the Christ-centered model. 

The Apkallu were said to be created by Ea (pronounced the same as the short version of the name of the Hebrew God in the Bible) to teach humanity how to be civilized. They were considered somewhere between gods and regular men. The were considered to be somewhere between heaven and earth (like originally from Eden?) and often shown with the heads of birds (which fly between heaven and earth) or with fish-like characteristics (armor?). This fits with what I wrote in my book about the descendents of Adam bringing true agriculture and pastoral farming to the world. 

According to Sumerian myth, the first seven sages were advisors to the pre-flood kings. I don't think that was true, but rather when the clans of Noah came out of the hills and made an impact on the regions they brought the account of their ancestors with them, perhaps vaguely known already by these people, and those were modified and blended into ANE myth. 


Uanna, "who finished the plans for heaven and earth",
Uannedugga, "who was endowed with comprehensive intelligence",
Enmedugga, "who was allotted a good fate",
Enmegalamma, "who was born in a house",
Enmebulugga, "who grew up on pasture land",
An-Enlilda, "the conjurer of the city of Eridu",
Utuabzu, "who ascended to heaven".


Uanna is also known as Adapa and some accounts of Adapa sound like another take on the garden of Eden and why man is mortal. The true name may have been Adapa Uanna or "wise craftsman". Adapa is said to have "ascended into heaven", and the Garden of Eden, at least a version in the mountains, could be seen as doing so. The seventh sage also ascended into heaven, and this corresponds to Enoch, seventh from Adam in Genesis, who "walked with God" and did not die because God took him. 

The second sage also has a name most like the first and could correspond to Seth, who was said to be "in the image and likeness" of Adam. Enosh was the son of Seth, his name means "mortal man" and he could be the third on the list. We don't know his fate but he lived 905 years and it was written that in his day they begain to call themselves by the name of the Lord (Gen 4:26). 

Just scribbling for now, but these are strange coincidences. 

The "For Us Not To Us" Trope

 I hope to smooth this later, but I got a very typical comment on  a YOUTUBE thread and I wanted to save my response here for later improvement.

Their comment: "I don't view culturally bounded language as a limitation, but rather a necessity. Of course it's culturally bounded. It's written in Hebrew! It MUST be an ancient Israelite piece of writing. It most certainly isn't written to us. It would be written in English if it were.

Rather, God inspired this beautiful poem to teach us about Himself. We should not force science into it."

My answer:

Since science is by definition a search for NATURAL causes only, an account of God creating the universe, and then repeatedly intervening in our world to produce what we see, isn't "science", but it still has implications for science. It is still an account of material origins. The implications are that this world is not a result of blind natural forces, nor even a Deistic universe that can do God's will without God's help. Rather, it is a universe suitable for beings like ourselves, who cannot do His will without His help either. So you see this question of whether the text is speaking of material origins or not has implications for the theology. If you get it wrong, you are unlikely to get the theology right. Sadly, today's scholars do not have it right.

But as for whether scripture was written to us and for us or only for us, consider one of the most famous chapters in the bible, and the verse following. Hebrews chapter 11. This chapter summarizes the whole of the Old Testament figures who contended for the faith. And it concludes "37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." 

So Hebrews says that it was for US, those who came long after them and are in Jesus, that their receiving what was promised was delayed. They had to lay out a case FOR US. They had to live out a narrative in history FOR US, that only together with US might we be made perfect. Indeed, the next verse says "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.." Do you not see? They were meant to be WITNESSES. Who are they witnessing to? US, those who followed them in history and can look back on their narratives through the lens of Christ. That's how we should see Abraham and Isaac at the alter. That's how we should see the two women who it turns out really represent two covenants (Gal 4). 

Indeed the whole point of prophecy is for future generations. The generation in which the prophecy is made cannot benefit from it till it is fulfilled. If none of this is specific enough to convince you, consider 1 Cor chapter 9: 9For it is written in the Law of Moses: “ Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10Isn’t He actually speaking on our behalf? Indeed, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they should also expect to share in the harvest.… 

Something in the Law of Moses was written FOR US. The teaching of today's seminaries is in contradiction to the teaching of the Apostles. I advise you run from it as fast as you possibly can. Time fails or I could give even more examples, but if you have an ear to hear, this should be enough. Fare well.

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Octopi and Human Brain Share Same "Jumping Genes"

 Octopi are intelligent animals. They can rival mammals in intelligence. Shockingly, part of the reason seems to be that they had the same "jumping genes" settle down in a similar manner as humans in their genome. 

How is it that the same genes, not even retained genes which all the intermediates had, but "jumping genes", can settle down in the same place and do the same things in both humans and octopi? This while skipping all of the supposed intermediates like fish, amphibians, and reptiles? Of course the researchers said "convergent evolution", because when you must adhere to naturalism, every explanation, no matter how implausible, must be a natural one. Did they demonstrate that this was a plausible natural explanation? Nope. They just assumed it. 

To me, it is a red flag for intent. The same jumping genes stopped jumping in the same spot because that was what was needed to produce similar function. It was deliberate. If "evolution" is functional enough to give octopi and eagles a common ancestor then why would it need the same jumping genes to land in the same spot to perform the function? The chances are much higher, if chance it was, that some separate pathway to the same end would have evolved. Especially when you consider the distance in time between them and us, and the difference in environment. 

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How about this for evidence for God through events in the natural world, my book on early Genesis shows how when we look at the text through the lens of Chrsit, as He said to, the supposed conflicts between scripture and what science and history tell us about the natural universe resolve beautifully. How could this be unless He is who scripture says and that scripture is inspired by God? 

  You Tube Channel 

Convergent Evolution, then Stasis

 So says this paper, at least what I can see of it. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107584119?fbclid=IwAR2ilePn8NeEP8KRoAQdDooKweYa9p6NZLdSb2k-inbxnkiW3OPgGoXG4Wk

Science: Its Value, Limits, and Abuses

 In ancient times, when civilization was just getting started on the plains of Mesopotamia, rulers recorgnized and hired certain men who dressed up in priestly robes. Then they would provide them with a platform so that they could speak to the people and declare that what the rulers said and did was right according to "the gods".

Of course, those were primative times and we have come a long way since then. Nowadays rulers recognize and hire certain men who dress up in lab coat. They then provide them with a platform so that they can speak to the people and declare that what the rulers are saying and doing is right according to "science". 

"Science" has become in essense the new authority figure for a generation that has lost faith in God. The norm for most humans is to long for an authority figure that they can trust. That is decent, natural and good. There is nothing wrong with the desire. It is a part of the God-shaped hole in the human soul. The problem comes when exploitative entities use this feature of human nature to enshrine themselves. The state will always attempt to fill this longing with itself directly and indirectly.

In the same way, "science" is good. Science is a procedure by which one attempts to gain knowledge of the natural world, called the Scientific Method, or the body of knowledge produced by this method. So it isn't bad. it is good. It has helped mankind. I taught science in public schools for twelve years and I celebrate it for what it is- but not what it is now being sold as. 

"Science" is being funded by the state now more than ever, and there are those who are trying to corrupt it from a tool used to validate truth into a narrative that supports various agendas. 

There is a misconception that many hold today, because it answers their heart's natural and good longing for an authority figure that they can trust. This is the idea that "science is the only objective means we have for truth discovery". There is an old saying, I believe it was from the late great Yogi Bera. He said "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practive there is."

In theory, when done objectively, science can find truth that is objective. But the same thing could be said of other methods of truth-discovery such as mathematical proofs, or in some cases historical-legal evidence, or even Divine Revelation. All of these in theory can find truth objectively. Just like government can in theory protect people's rights instead of violate them. In practice, the state muddles through, sometimes protecting people's rights and other times mistreating them. Because states are not governed by angels, just men. In the same way, getting a degree and wearing a lab coat does not turn scientists into angels. They are still just men with their own interests, blind spots, and bias. 

Scienctific experiments are designed, executed, and given meaning by human beings who are anything but objective. In particular when their funding comes from sources inextricably connected to a political state. Again IN THEORY peer-review and replication of findings should minimize this. In practice more than half of published high-impact cancer studies could not be replicated and in some fields the percentage was higher. 

The fact is that science professionals are a sub-culture, and it is classically true that sub-cultures often become ultra-conformist in their thinking within the sub-culture. So that if you have only a handful of journals and research institutions run by people with a narrow set of views about the world, the blind-spots will be self-reinforcing. If your peer has the same narrow views that you do, having them review your work is still not going to help correct your work better if the root cause of the problem is a shared blind-spot regarding the bigger picture of things. You might as well ask a group of Calvinists what is wrong with papers whose flaw is that the findings assume that Calvinism is correct where it isn't (this is just an example, chill out Calvinists). 

In theory, science has a corrective process and those who put a lot of trust in "science" as a system often point this out and claim that science is self-correcting while religion is not. The reality is that a large segment of the population, including scientists themselves, are turning Karma into Dogma. They can correct the minor details but going back and taking a look at something that has been widely deemed true for twenty years is considered shocking and the reaction against it is visceral. I've tried to show this with my video debunking the idea that Neanderthals made art and that they were so much like us. The negative reaction from some of the same people who say that science is self-correcting and so we can trust it eye-opening. If it can be wrong and self-corrects, what's wrong with challenging an idea from only 20 years ago based on scientific procedures we are still trying to figure out how to use and understand? 

It really violates some people's comfort zone to point out that in practice there is no completely objective method of discovering the truth. We cannot count on a system to work, no matter how flawed the people in that system may be. The same thing with goverment. We will never invent a system of government that is so perfect that citizens no longer have to be virtuous in order to sustain the blessings of freedom. We just have to understand that trusting in systems is a loser tactic. So get more skeptical of systems and put a premium on people who most honestly try to look at things from mulitple perspectives. If God exists, He's the on;y source of objective truth. But even if He gives you the honest truth, it is still on you to look at it honestly. And there'n lies the rub. The issue goes right back to the condition of our heart, which is where I believe God wants us to consider anyway. 

Science also has limits in the truth it can discover. Science operates by Methodological Naturalism. That is, it assumes that only natural causes exist in an effort to find natural cause. It can't test for supernatural causes. It couldn't see God if God were standing right in front of it. So it is useless for detecting God's action and moreover it is irrational to expect it to do so. Demanding scientific proof of God's action is about as crazy as demanding supernatural proof that nature is all that there is. 

The best science can do is say "we have no natural explantion for that which makes sense, but we will keep looking." If we know enough about a subject to where we ought to have an idea what the natural explanation is, but are still perplexed, it becomes reasonble for men to rise above their tools and consider a supernatural explanation. Not that it can be proven by science, but it can be reasonable based on the weakness of any and all natural explanations. See my God of the Gaps video for more. 

The Historical-legal method is actually better than the scientific method when it comes to discovering truth about one-time histrorical events that left little physical trace (even if great human trace) in the natural world. For example, we widely believe it to be true that George Washington crossed the Delaware River and Fought the Hessians. We can't prove that scientifically, but we believe it based on historical-legal evidence. It isn't just a claim, or an anecdote. It is historical fact because the reverbarations of that event left its mark on history if not the natural world. Compare that to the claim that Washington chopped down the cherry tree. That's a mere anecdote and we don't know if it is true or not because we haven't the legal-historical evidence to support it. So there is truth from non-scientific methods. 

I say all this because I am claiming that the Christ-centered model for early Genesis reconciles science and scripture. And it does, but it can't reconcile them in places where I think modern science has it wrong. And that is mostly regarding man himself.  But I am being fair- I think Christianity has had early Genesis wrong too. I am not saying that people who look to science as their authority for objective truth need to change and Bible-believing Christians can continue to think that objective truth starts with their view of scripture. It is one thing to believe the text is true, but another to believe that how you see it is correct. I said a while ago that if there is a God then His view is objective truth but it is still up to us to view it objectively. Christ said that Moses wrote about Him. If that's not what you see when you read early Genesis, then you are not seeing it the way that the One who is objective truth said to look at it. Don't just look at His word, but look at His Word how He said to look at it....that is as pointing to Him. And that is as close to objective truth as men are every going to get this side of the veil. 

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How about this for evidence for God through events in the natural world, my book on early Genesis shows how when we look at the text through the lens of Chrsit, as He said to, the supposed conflicts between scripture and what science and history tell us about the natural universe resolve beautifully. How could this be unless He is who scripture says and that scripture is inspired by God? 

  You Tube Channel 

The Absurdity of the "God of the Gaps" Cliche

First let's start with a definition. There are a few floating around out there, but the one most applicable here would be: "God of the gaps" is an argument for God's existence which says that gaps in scientific knowledge can be evidence of supernatural action as an explanation for events in the natural world. 

Should an argument for God's existence be dismissed because it is a "God of the gaps" argument? No. There are reasonable and unreasonable arguments in this category and each case should be evaluated on its own merits, not lumped together into one pile that can be dismissed without reasonable consideration. 

Consider what would happen if Jesus appeared at a wedding feast today and repeated the miracle of making water into wine under similar conditions. I propose to you that Jesus turned the water into wine by using supernatural power and this is evidence for the existence of God. This would be a "God of the gaps" claim. That is, there is no reasonable natural explanation for how the water became wine, and I am using the abscence of such an explanation to support my argument that it is a supernatural act, indicating that God exists. 

There is no doubt that I am using the fact that there is no reasonable natural explanation available to claim a supernatural explanation, but I hope you would agree that in this instance my argument is sound whether it is a "God of the gaps" argument or not. 

The fact is, science operates using methodological naturalism. That is, it is a search for natural causes only. It can never prove an action had a supernatural cause. It isn't even designed to do so. In that sense, science couldn't detect God if God were standing right in front of it! It assumes all causes are natural in an effort to find natural causes. So even here, when Jesus performs a geniune miracle right in front of you and others, there is no scientific way to prove it was a result of supernatural action. The very best science can do is say "we currently have no natural explanation for this phenomenon, but we will keep looking." In other words, it becomes a "gap in scientitific knowledge". 

I hope the reader will see that if "god of the gaps" arguments are always invalid, then no evidence for miracles from the natural universe, even overwhelming and direct evidence, can ever be considered valid. It is a back-door way of imposing not just methodlogical naturalism (that is, for the purpose of our search for natural causes we will assume natural causes only) to philosophical naturalism (an a priori assumption that nature is all that there is). 

This argument in effect imposes philosophical naturalism on all evidence from nature, since any appeals to "gaps" in science's knowledge is a "god of the gaps" argument and is dismissed. This is begging the question in the extreme. If you will only accept scientific evidence for supernatural actions, and science can't by definition show that any act has a supernatural cause, that's checkmate. Your reasoning is circular. You've sealed yourself off by cliche from any honest consideration of evidence for supernatura action in the natural universe. 

The only honest way to consider the subject is to admit that, at least in theory, there is more than one possible reason for a "gap in scientific knowledge" to exist. One possibility is that there is a natural cause and we just haven't found it yet. This will ordinarily be the case. Another possible reason that we haven't found a natural cause for something is that there is no natural cause. It was the result of a supernatural act. 

If you assume all actions have natural causes period, then you are a philosophical naturalist. You can't consider the evidence of supernatural action fairly because your assumptions about reality don't permit you to. You can't prove the assumption but you are nevertheless imposing it on the evidence. If this is the case with you, I suggest a non-scientific solution- sincerely ask God if He is real to free your mind so that you can fairly consider if He is real. Then see what happens.

I've seen people engage in all sorts of mental evasions in order to try and keep their thinking wrapped in this tight little circle which prevents them from having to fairly consider the question. They may say "the miracle has to be verifiable".  Poke a bit about what they mean by "verifiable" and eventually (if they don't end the discussion because they don't want to go where it is leading) it will be found that they mean scientifically verifiable. So once again they are demanding that the supernatural cause of the act be determined by a method which is by definition unable to detect supernatural causes. "Sealing themselves off from truth" is the phrase that comes to my mind when I observe this mentally crippling process at work.

What about the fact that history shows natural causes displacing proposed supernatural ones with clock-like regularity as our knowledge grew? It is true that at the beginning of the age of science there was a series of phenomena that were often attributed to supernatural acts that were later shown by experiment to simply be nature operating according to regular laws. These laws too, if there is a Creator, were established by Him. Therefore people who use a "god of the gaps" argument are not saying that He is only the God of the gaps. He didn't stumble onto a universe complete with natural laws and decide to start intervening in it from time to time. He is God of both the gaps and all that is between them. He works through the laws of nature, and He is beyond them. That science discovered and described these laws doesn't disprove the existence of God or supernatural acts. God can act through nature, or He can act in her.  

Yes, the past track record of natural causes being found for events formerly attributed to more direct divine action is a strong argument against divine action as a cause- but only regarding questions where our scientific knowledge is scant. At the beginning of the age of science, that was almost everything. That's why the history is so one-sided. At the start of the age of science, very little was attributed to natural law and much to direct divine action. We are now reaching the point where the pendulum begins to swing the other direction. That is, there are some subjects were our knowledge is increasing, but the proposed natural explanations grow less likely with our increase in knoweldge, not more likely. This is true of the smallest scales with living cells and on the largest scales with the astonishing fine-tuning of the fundamental forces of the universe. And increasingly, it is true of certain aspects of evoultion as documented on this blog. 

The more we know about something, the more likely a natural explanation for it should become, if the thing in question did indeed have a natural cause. At some point, when every reasonable natural explanation becomes unlikely even though we have accumulated great knowledge of the thing in question, the "God of the Gaps" argument becomes a perfectly valid argument. That is, it is a poor argument in an area where we know little, but can be a sound one with reference to certain scientific anomalies. Especially if the findings which defy natural explanation line up with the character of God and scripture. 

The truth is out there, but only free minds can find it. Happy hunting. 

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How about this for evidence for God through events in the natural world, my book on early Genesis shows how when we look at the text through the lens of Chrsit, as He said to, the supposed conflicts between scripture and what science and history tell us about the natural universe resolve beautifully. How could this be unless He is who scripture says and that scripture is inspired by God? 

  You Tube Channel 

"Mere Theistic Evolution" and the Importance of Definitions

Getting definitions right is vitally important. People talk past one another for a lot for many reasons, but one of the big ones is a failure to define precisely the important terms they are using. Michael J. Murray and John Ross Churchill have presented a rather lengthy paper attempt to define "Theistic Evolution", which they call "Mere Theistic Evolution". I applaud serious attempts to get precise definitions as an aide to understanding, and this is one such attempt.

 That doesn't mean that I am a theistic evolutionist- by their very definition, as clarified by William Lane Craig, I am not. I also cringe a bit at the idea that they named their paper this as a nod to C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity". He chose that title out of modesty. That is, he wasn't trying to tell anyone what sort of Christian they should be, just making a defense of Christianity in general. Murray and Churchill on the other hand, are attempting to say who is in and who is out of "the club" - who can be considered "theistic evolutionists". And  this whether they want the label or not, because that is how defining things works. 

The work of proposing definitions which bind others is noble and necessary work, but it is not modest. I say that as someone who will take up where they left off. I will accept their definition of Theistic Evolution (with one small change suggested by William Lane Craig) and end this post by proposing some definitions to various forms of belief about creation. All in an attempt to clarify the definitions so that we don't talk past one another when arguing for our position, not (here) in an attempt to advance one position over another. 

Here is how Murray and Churchill define "Theistic Evolution" so that if one believes this, then they are a Theistic Evolutionist, if they don't, per Murray and Churchill, then they aren't .

First and foremost, they are all theistic positions: they assume the existence of a Creator who bears all and only those attributes that are fitting to ascribe to God (for example, omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence).

Second, all theistic-evolutionary accounts agree that the created universe as a whole, and the earth as a part of this creation, have existed for eons. (Reasonable estimates are approximately fourteen billion years for the age of the universe and four billion years for the earth.)

Finally, all versions of theistic evolution affirm that the complexity and diversity of life are best explained by appeal to evolutionary processes that have been operative over long periods of time, where the relevant processes include (note: this is the word that Craig says should be changed) those that constitute what is often called “the modern evolutionary synthesis.” (One key process in this synthesis is natural selection, acting on random mutations. But it need not be the only important biological process.) Included in this affirmation—and implicit in what follows—is an endorsement of evolution as a very good explanation of these phenomena, and not simply the best among a rather poor set of candidates.

Their paper was important enough for William Lane Craig to write his own response to it. I have panned Craig's musings on Adam, but here he is in his element. He zeroed in on exactly the loophole that blurs distinctions between what most people think of as "Theistic Evolution" and other categories. I will excerpt from his response the relevant portion:

Notice, the relevant explanatory processes include but are not limited to those of the modern synthesis. This is “mere” indeed! Even a Michael Behe, who thinks that the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection explain very little of the origin of biological complexity, counts as a theistic evolutionist on this characterization, since he would agree that the mechanisms of the modern synthesis are included in the evolutionary processes. So would a classical progressive creationist like Bernard Ramm, who posits sequential miraculous intervention on God’s part to drive evolutionary advance.

So Murray and Churchill’s statement of the third plank of theistic evolution needs to be tightened up a bit if we are to exclude from its fold Intelligent Design (ID) theorists and progressive creationists. Something like their gloss “a confidence in the explanatory power of the evolutionary approaches employed in current biology” might do the trick.7 That would seem to preclude a Michael Behe’s counting as a theistic evolutionist.

 I agree with Craig here. To say that the best explanation would only "include" modern evolutionary synthesis would be to make backdoor theistic evolutionists out of almost all theists. After all, even many Young Earth Creationists think that the living things which came off of the ark had a rapid evolution into life's current diversity after the flood. Any definition or description that broad is unhelpful (except at convincing people who have qualms about accepting that the label applies to them too even when it should not).  

I will take out the word "include" from the definition of Murray and Churchill.  I will substitute "are" so that it states "where the relevant processes are those that constitute what is often called “the modern evolutionary synthesis.” This change is justified because their definition itself calls for evolution as described by naturalistic science to be only "the best" explanation for life on earth even if God acted here and there. They describe a situation where God's interventions look like no more than noise or static, which do not change the message of the signal. Therefore, from the perspective of people who wanted to understand how life diversified, His intervention would not be "relevant" to the answer. Here is their quote so that you will see this is a fair description of their position. This is a long excerpt to put in a blog post but their article is almost book-length, and so these quotes (italics mine) are only a small but critical fraction of their thoughts on the matter..

...miracle claims of this sort will be fully compatible with theistic evolution so long as they are consistent with the affirmation that the complexity and diversity of life are best explained by appeal to evolutionary processes over long periods of time. This is only puzzling if we forget that the best explanation of some target phenomena is not always a comprehensive or exclusive explanation of those phenomena. In keeping with this, claims that God acted miraculously, and outside of evolutionary processes, in order to effect or alter some species or biological feature, may be entirely consistent with mere theistic evolution. Whether they are so consistent or not will depend entirely on whether they are the kinds of claims that are compatible with an endorsement of evolutionary processes as the best explanation—not exhaustive or exclusive, but best—for the complexity and diversity of life. Given this, theistic evolution could easily be consistent with the claim that, say, the development of a single biological feature, or a small set of such features, is due to God’s acting via extraordinary providence and through nonevolutionary processes. For these kinds of claims need not rise to the status of a challenge to evolution as the best account of the diversity and complexity of life. In contrast, and as noted above, theistic evolution would not be consistent with the claim that all species originated in this way. Nor would it be consistent with any other position on which miraculous activity is deemed crucial to explaining much of the world’s biological complexity and diversity in light of alleged explanatory deficiencies in evolutionary theory.

 So the fact that their definition or description of "theistic evolution" only says that evolution is the "best" explanation" and not the complete or exclusive explanation for the record of life on earth already let's them "off the hook" in describing the processes responsible for life on earth. The bounds they put on God's proposed interventions would render them irrelevant to questions of biological origins. They need not fashion a third escape hatch by saying the processes that produced life on earth merely "include" modern evolutionary synthesis. As Craig rightly points out, leaving that single word "includes" in their definition makes the position encompass more systems of belief than is necessary or even logical. 

Murray and Churchill were attempting to answer very specific criticisms of theistic evolution when they wrote all this. Critics, including myself, have wondered how they justified a God who didn't intervene at all in the vast majority of the earth's history but only started literally historically intervening in the world.....when? Abraham? Moses? Jesus? 

Their answer to this is to define "Theistic Evolutionist" broadly enough so that one is not saying that God didn't intervene at all, but rather that these interventions are unnecessary to explain the history of life on earth. God could have intervened here or there, but not enough to challenge evolution as the "best" account for what we see. Divine intervention may be present, but not relevant to the question. The "best" explanation would be modern evolutionary synthesis. 

Defining terms properly is critical to understanding, and in the ordinary course of things science and reason both tend to make finer and finer distinctions. On this subject the lines often get blurred and I'd like to offer my attempt at sort them out. Since we are having trouble with overly broad labels, it would be helpful if we introduced another term or category which keeps the aspects from each adjacent category that apply while clearly being its own thing. By adding a category in the disputed region, we at least insure that overlap is constrained into a smaller definitional space. 

Fortunately we have an established term which has been lying around under-utilized which fits the bill. This is "Evolutionary Creationism." Most people I speak to, even the ones who say the category applies to them, consider it to be synonymous with "Theistic Evolutionist". It need not be, Especially after we "tighten up" as WLC puts it, the definition of "Theistic Evolution" so that it no longer encompasses even most forms of Old Earth Creationism. I would argue that the latter category should be separate from, and if anything broader than, the former. "Evolutionary Creationism" includes both "evolution" and "creation" in the moniker, making it a more natural fit to describe a category which is says that the record of life is best described by a combination of a certain category of divine acts and natural evolution. 

With that said, here are my "Seven Category" definitions for the creation debate among non-atheistic views....

God Through Nature Positions

Deism- The belief that the universe is created by God but that afterward God did not intervene in the unfolding of the universe or of life. It might be compared to setting up a long string of dominoes to fall a certain way once the first is tipped over. The design and the creating went into organizing the pattern and initiating the event. Fully compatible with naturalistic evolution and "the modern evolutionary synthesis". 

Theistic Evolution- IOW the modified Murray and Churchill definition...The belief that the universe was created by God and that regarding the universe and the emergence and development of life, no further intervention by God was necessary to best explain what we see in the record of nature. This does not exclude the idea that God acted in nature, but only that such interventions were not relevant to describing how life on earth developed and diversified. Fully compatible with naturalistic evolution and "the modern evolutionary synthesis". 

The two above are can be considered "God Through Nature" positions in that they posit that God exists, but that He either exclusively works through nature or so overwhelmingly works through nature that any exceptions to this are not relevant to understanding creation.

The categories below can be considered "God in Nature" because, while they do not discount His providential working through nature alone, they also assert that He intervened in nature post-creation, and that those interventions were essential to producing the natural world as we see it. "God in Nature" positions can further be lumped under two broad categories based on what they believe about the age of the universe. "Old Earth Creationism", A Mixture, and "Young Earth Creationism". I will start with the Old Earth positions...

God in Nature Positions 

Evolutionary Creationism - a belief that God actively intervened primarily or even exclusively through evolution to change the expression of life on earth. Nature could have substantial creative (evolutionary) power in this view, but would not be sufficient to explain what we see. God's "creative acts" throughout most if not all of this process were not done by creating new kinds of organisms in a single stroke, but rather by a series of smaller creative changes within populations which produced new kinds of organisms that nature acting alone could not have made in the time available. Thus while accepting evolution broadly it rejects the naturalistic implications of "modern evolutionary synthesis", which is deemed to be inadequate as a total explanation. 

Progressive Creationism - a belief that God actively intervened to change the expression of life on earth by making and introducing into the biome a series of different living creatures over a long period of time. Thus, while traditional evolutionary forces played a role in shaping life, the major changes in life on earth did not occur through evolution, but by God's intervention and His special creation of new forms. The major difference between this position and the Evolutionary Creationist is subtle and mostly a matter of the nature of God's creative acts.

I will next consider two positions which believe that the earth and the universe are old, but that the origination of present living forms is recent. Obviously these positions are not compatible with the "modern evolutionary synthesis" except as it pertains to the degree of change which can occur in less than 10,000 years. These positions thus straddle Old Earth creationism and Young Earth Creationism...

Young Biosphere Creationism - the belief that the earth is old, but that all living things come from ancestors created in six literal 24-hour days less than 10,000 years ago. 

 Gap Theory - is like Young Biosphere Creation except that it posits that the fossil record shows forms that existed in an earlier realm of life which was destroyed in a war, and that currently living things come from ancestors created in six literal 24-hour days less than 10,000 years ago. 

                     And then of course we have....

Young Earth Creationism - the belief that the universe and the earth, and all life on it are recently (usually less than 10,000 years) created by God. Like the two above, it is incompatible with "the modern evolutionary synthesis" except as it pertains to the degree of change which can occur within a relatively brief period of time. 

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Which of these positions do I advocate for in my book? Though there is a predominant theme, there is no one position which completely describes what the text is saying in all places. The book isn't mostly about that though, but something far more extraordinary- how early Genesis points to the work and person of Christ. This cannot be so unless of course He is the Messiah and scripture is God-breathed. 

  You Tube Channel