New Evidence for Two Human Origins

ARE THE SONS OF GOD FALLEN ANGELS?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 14:19:00 +0000

New Post on Who are 'the Sons of God'?

(Revision Dates: August 26, 2014; April 2, 2020)

Biblical Canonical Sources:

Other Scripture Taken from:

The passage of Scripture that we are discussing is Genesis 6:1-4. Here are the first three verses:

Now it came about, when men [lit., the man] began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God [or the gods] saw that the daughters of men [lit., the man] were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man [lit., the man] forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.

People have interpreted the sons of God [or the sons of the gods] to be various groups—fallen angels, the descendants of Seth, and other less likely groups. I now think that I somewhat misinterpreted these verses in my 2015 edition of my book because in it I interpreted “the sons of God” to be fallen angels. I have made a further study of these verses and shall here explain why I have changed my view. I am sorry that it took this long for me to come to my present interpretation of this phrase and to my present interpretation of the entire passage of Genesis 6:1-8. My present interpretation must be the one correct interpretation because it makes the best sense of each statement of the passage and brings each part of the passage together in the most harmonious scenario. My present view is that “the sons of God” are the idolatrous pre-Adamites. This means that this phrase is best translated “the sons of the gods.” This change in regard to "the sons of God" fortunately has little effect on the rest of my book.

My Basic Thesis Concerning God's Two Creations of the Human Race

Kurt P. Wise, associate professor of science at Bryan College, has written a book, Faith, Form, and Time, in which he defends the young-earth view. Wise expressed that the most likely mechanism for the drastic decline in human life spans was the result of genetics. Dr. Wise concluded that even though Moses’ ancestors experienced changes in environmental conditions, “none of these changes that we think might have occurred seem capable of changing human longevity.”¹ He went on to say, “A third consideration is that the change in life span after the flood seems to be smoothest when the life spans are graphed against generation time rather than against actual time of birth or mid-life. It seems that the life span of humans was changed by a set percentage each generation. Such a change sounds like a genetic change over the generations.”²In my book at this time also, I defend the thesis that God created Adam and Eve (as recorded in Genesis 2) from the ground quite subsequent to His creation of the human race through a process of descent as recorded in Genesis 1 and that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into this existing human race.

Who Are the “Men” of Genesis 6:1-2?

Before we discuss my reasons for concluding the identity of the sons of God [or the sons of the gods], we shall look at the context of these verses to determine who the “men” [lit., the man] are (Gen. 6:1-2). These verses begin:

Now it came about, when men [lit., the man] began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them....”

To do this we shall consider this whole section of Genesis in which it is found.

God Names Adam and His Descendants Thus Creating a New Definition of the Word Man That Is Different from Its Meaning in Genesis 1.

Genesis 5:1 tells us that God named Adam and Eve Man [Heb., Adam] in the day they were created. Here are the first five verses of Genesis 5. I will make a few changes in the NASB as indicated so that it becomes a more accurate translation according to my opinion:

This is the book of the...[descendants] of Adam. In the day when God created...[Adam], He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

We should be aware that God's usual way of naming the small portion of the whole was to name the smaller portion the same name as the larger whole. For example, the heavens reaching up to the stars was called heavens; so when God named the expanse of the atmosphere, He called it heavens (Genesis 1:8). Likewise, God called the land earth because it was a part of the whole earth that included the seas (Gen. 1:10). I believe the term day that God gave to the twelve hours of daylight also reflects a longer creation day. So in Genesis 5:1, God calls Adam and Eve and their descendants man (Heb., adam) because the name of the pre-Adamites that He created as described in Genesis 1 was man, the larger portion of mankind. By context, we can conclude that the term man in chapter 6 of Genesis refers to the smaller group of mankind, that is, the descendants of Adam and Eve. This group was named “man” by God according to Genesis 5:1. God desires that the reader understands that Adam and Eve's descendants did not become man after the intermarriages, rather they were created men from the their beginning.

The author of Genesis usually tells us the name He gives to the smaller part of the larger part as soon as the smaller part is created. When God created Adam and Eve as recorded in Genesis 2, they were not yet presented as a group of people, so it was too early to make a statement about God's naming this group. But Genesis 5:1-2 was a perfect place to do this. It was the first place that Adam and Eve and their descendants were referred to as a group. You may not notice at first that they are seen here as a group, but they are for two reasons. (1) The author has spoken in Genesis 5:1 of a book about the descendants of Adam. (2) He begins with “He made man [lit., Adam]”; then he speaks of “male and female,” and then he writes that “He blessed them.” Compare this with Genesis 1:28 fwhere it says: “And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it....” God's statement of blessing in Genesis 1:28 included the multiplication of the race. So in Genesis 5:2, His blessing includes their multiplication. So we read in Genesis 5:2, “...He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.” These descendants of Adam and Eve basically were created to be like the pre-Adamites, so God assigned to them the same name—man (Gen. 1:26).

The Only Section of Genesis That Is Called a Book

Genesis 5 and Genesis 6:1-8 comprise one section of Genesis. Moses entitled it “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Since the author's intention for each genealogical division of Genesis was not only to give a list of descendants, but also to tell a story, we must see Genesis 5:1-6:8 as a story written for the purpose of giving us an account of some important events. It sets the stage for the next genealogical section of the narrative, which relates the story of Noah's flood. The flood of Noah ended the generations (better tr. descendants) of Adam, with the exception of Noah and his immediate family. Genesis 6:9 begins the generations (better translated, descendants) of Noah. We must conclude that Genesis 5:1-6:8 covers the complete story of the descendants of Adam from the following considerations: Genesis 5 through 6:8 is the only section in Genesis that the author of Genesis called a “book.” Should not this make us ask what is unique about this section among all the sections of Genesis? Leupold makes the helpful comment which answers this question: “‘Book’ (sepher) refers to any document, long or short, as long as it is complete in itself.”³ At the end of this section we are told that God decides to destroy all the descendants of Adam and Eve, except for Noah's family; therefore, when we read this section we should expect to discover at least some of the reasons God destroyed Adam’s line. Also we now know why the author called this section a “book.” It follows the history of Adam and Eve's descendants to their complete end, when God judges all these people that descended from Adam and Eve, with the exception of Noah and his family. We also know that one of the purposes of this section of Genesis was to explain why God judged the descendants of Adam and Eve, saving only Noah and his family. We will find that it was due to their marrying “the sons of the gods,” whom the author called “sons of the gods” to reveal that God was not pleased with these marriages. The offspring of these marriages were evil and therefore propagated violence and other sins throughout the land where the descendants of Adam and Eve lived.

Even though chapter 6 begins a new chapter, we must be careful not to disconnect what we read at the beginning of chapter 6 from what was being asserted in chapter 5, as would be the tendency for us all. Let us carefully make some observations of Genesis 4 and 5: (1) It describes the proliferation of the descendants of Adam and Eve. (2) It specifically mentions sons and daughters. (3) It tells us in Genesis 5:1 that God named Adam and Eve Man [Heb., Adam] in the day they were created, thus singling out a new group of people distinct from the pre-Adamites, carrying the same name. In my book, I show that Genesis 2:4 must refer back to Genesis 1 rather than ahead to what follows in chapter 2. The absence of the Hebrew conjunction waw here indicates this. Also, I prove that it should be translated as I have written the altered NASB translation in the following quote of Genesis 2:4:

[These are the descendants]...of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.

The Hebrew word for “descendants” means that they came through births. Also, the Bible indicates that they descended from the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1 records a separate creation of man from the creation of Adam and Eve who were not created by births; rather Adam was created later by God directly out of the ground and Eve was formed from Adam’s rib; we, therefore, conclude that the “men” [lit., the man] of Genesis 6:1 is a separate group from those created as recorded in Genesis 1. The pre-Adamites are not included in this group. The sixth chapter begins speaking of “the man.” This indicates that the subject of Genesis 6:1-8 is also the same group that God called “man” in Genesis 5:1-2. We would expect this since this “book” concerns the descendants of Adam and Eve. We also see that “the face of the land” was the area of the earth where Adam and Eve's descendants lived. This understanding of the land under discussion carries through until after Noah's flood. Now let us proceed to see exactly what transpired that led to their fatal judgment. (4) We learn in Genesis 4:26 that the descendants of Seth began to call on the name of Jehovah. A study of the names of the descendants of Cain and the descendants of Seth will reveal a great similarity, indicating that there was communication between them. When the descendants of Adam began to marry the sons of God, this was spiritually disastrous to them. Thus far we have determined that “the men” of Genesis 6:1 are the descendants of Adam and Eve and that the face of the land is the area of the earth where they dwelt.

The Sons of God Are Not the Descendants of Adam's Son, Seth

Now let us determine who the sons of God or the sons of the gods are. The interpretation that sons of God mean the descendants of Seth and the man designates the descendants of Cain is untenable for a number of reasons:

1. Being aware that the “men” of Genesis 6:1 are the “Man” of Genesis 5:1-2, who are the descendants of Adam and Eve and that, in particular as noted in the genealogy of Genesis 5, they include the sons of Seth, obviously the sons of God cannot be this group.

2. According to the context of Genesis 6:1-2, the group who occupied the “face of the land” was composed of the descendants of Adam and Eve including Seth's line as given in the genealogy of Genesis 5, but the sons of God (or the gods) were the outsiders. It was the daughters of the "men" who multiplied "on the face of the land" (Gen. 6:1).

3. If we read further, we will find that there were two results that followed these intermarriages: the life spans of the men decreased drastically and the offspring of the marriages became great men of political power. If these marriages were only the result of the combination of Seth’s descendants and Cain’s descendants, neither of these results would have occurred.

4. Cain's descendants were also descendants of Adam and Eve, but the text of Genesis 6:1-3 implies that these sons of the gods or sons of God that “took” the “daughters of men” were distinct from the descendants of Adam and Eve. In itself, this argument would not be conclusive because this verse does not absolutely require this deduction.

5. We shall see that these marriages resulted at times in their offspring growing up to be giants. The text tells us in Genesis 6:4 that there were Nephilim on the earth in those days. The word “giants” here is from the Hebrew word nephilim, which definitely means giants. According to Michael S. Heiser, nephilim is not the passive participle of the Hebrew word naphal as many believe, but comes from the Aramaic word naphil which means giant. The plural would be naphilin in Aramaic and naphilim in Hebrew. His discussion is at http://www.michaelsheiser.com/nephilim.pdf; the title of his article is “The Meaning of the Word Nephilim: Fact vs. Fancy.”

The New Testament book of Jude hints that some of the angels in heaven disobeyed God and married into the human race, but it does not actually require this interpretation as appendix F of my book (2015 edition) shows. I have shown in my book that the average life span of the pre-Adamites was 929 years, and that they must have married into a race with about a 60-year life span. If this intermarrying proceeded at a slow pace, it is most likely that the age of the race would level out at about 120 years. This is what the Scripture's prophecy stated would in time come about after the beginning of these mixed marriages. Presumably from the context, it would be these mixed marriages that brought about this decrease in lifespan of the group known as the man. One can imagine why people's life spans would level out at this figure of 120 years, because those who lived longer than 60 years would have more time to multiply and thus would tend to overrun and out populate those who only possessed an approximate lifespan of 60 years. People assert that “the sons of God” or “the sons of the gods” were the descendants of Seth or that they are the worshipers of heathen gods who were descended from Adam and Eve and then move on without ever accounting for the rapid decrease in life spans. One must explain how the intermarrying of these two groups of people brought about this rapid decrease in life spans. (Please see my book.)

Some interpretations conclude erroneously that the words “his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” mean that God intends to send the flood of Noah in 120 years to destroy them. But Genesis 6:5-8 is not a retelling of Genesis 6:1-4. Its beginning with a waw, sometimes translated and indicates that the narrative is moving forward in time to the events of Genesis 6:5-8. This is one of its syntactic functions. For example, no waw begins Genesis 2:4, and we know that it refers back to Genesis 1. Genesis 2:5 begins with a waw and moves the narrative forward. Also notice that Genesis 6:4 does not begin with a waw, and it refers back to Genesis 6:1-3. Consider Genesis 5:1 “This is the book of the generations of Adam....” No waw begins this section because Moses here begins his genealogy whom he introduced in chapter 4. (See also Genesis 24:45 where the waw is not used. This is significant even though it is a quote because the servant is relating a narrative in his quote.)

Now back to Genesis 6:5-8, the main reason to conclude that this describes a separate decision of God from Genesis 6:1-4 is because the two prophetic statements are mutually exclusive. For these people's average life spans to decrease from 929 years to 120 years cannot be the same as their being blotted from off the face of the earth! Therefore, we would better conclude that Genesis 6:1-4 is not speaking of God's flood judgment, as many think. This is in accord with every time “his day” is used elsewhere in the Old Testament. The words "his days shall be one hundred and twenty years" (Gen. 6:3) apparently means the average life span for Adam's descendants. The cause of this decrease in life spans is not stated, but it can be inferred and must be inferred to provide an understanding of this passage. The 120 years was a decrease rather than an increase in life spans because it must be referring to Genesis 5 where their lengthy life spans were given. The life spans of descendants of Adam and Eve began at about 929 years, but my calculations, explained in my book, show that Noah’s wife and Shem’s wife each had a potential life span of 277 years. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that this change in life spans was a supernatural act of God. A prophet of God apparently predicted it, quoting the words of God. My book gives mathematical evidence that indicates that the decrease in life spans was due to the intermarrying among the descendants of Adam and Eve and another race that had a lifespan of approximately 60 years. This means that “the sons of God” cannot mean the descendants of Seth. If they were the descendants of these men, there would have been no decrease in life spans from 929 years as a result of these marriages.

The “Sons of God” Are Not the Descendants of Adam's Son, Cain

An interpretation that sees the man to be the descendants of Seth and the sons of the gods to be the descendants of Cain is untenable for a number of reasons: (1) This interpretation would not explain the change in the life spans of the descendants of Seth from 929 years to present-day life spans. (2) As noted above, Cain's descendants were also descendants of Adam and Eve, but the text of Genesis 6:1-3 implies that these sons of the gods or sons of God that “took” the “daughters of men” were distinct from the descendants of Adam and Eve. In itself, this argument would not be conclusive because this verse does not absolutely require this deduction. (3) Also why did these life spans decrease just the amount that you would predict if they were the marriages of the descendants of Adam and Eve with pre-Adamites. For example, why did the life spans level off while the people dwelt at the tower of Babel, and why did they decrease just the amount you would have expected them to do when these people were scattered and began to marry into the pre-Adamic race. Also, what caused the life span of Terah to be longer than his father’s? “[T]he sons of God” in question must not have been the descendants of the Seth. These life spans are all calculated and explained in my book.

A Note Concerning the Non-Canonical Writings That Assert That the Sons of God Were Fallen Angels

It is not wise to put very much credence in ancient writings that assert that the sons of God were fallen angels. Many interpreters believe that the sons of God or the sons of the gods were the angels spoken of in Jude who sinned by leaving Heaven and cohabiting with the daughters of men. Next we shall see that this interpretation is definitely not acceptable.

Doesn't The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees and The Antiquities of the Jews inform us that the fallen angels beget children with the daughters of man and that “the sons of God” were these fallen angels? Yes it does. But these books cannot be relied upon for true biblical exegesis nor can they be relied upon as the source of true revelation from God. They are non-canonical. They were written approximately a thousand to thirteen hundred years after the canonical Book of Genesis. The most ancient of these books was probably The Book of Enoch, which was written around the third century B.C. This book tells us that the offspring from the union of angels and men produced angels 450 feet tall. But the Book of the Revelation, which is in the Bible, makes this statement: "And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements" (Rev. 21:17). The Greek places the measuring unit in cubits; these were based upon the length of a man's arm and hand lengths. Therefore, the basic size of an angel's arm and hand must be similar to a man's size. One would not expect the offspring of man's union with the angels to be 450 feet tall.

The Book of Enoch contradicts the Holy Scriptures in a number of places. In 1 Enoch 69:8-11, the author of The Book of Enoch accuses the angel Penemue of corrupting the human race by teaching them how to write with ink and paper. This way of thinking is foreign to the Bible. If we did not know how to write and read what we had written, how could we benefit from the Word of God? The Book of Enoch also says that the angels looked down and saw the sinfulness of man before Noah's flood (Enoch 1:9). But the Bible says that God saw the sinfulness of man (Gen. 6:5). Man's sinfulness is ascribed to the fallen angel Azazel (1 Enoch 10:8). But the Bible attributes our sinfulness to our fleshly nature (Gen. 6:3). Enoch prays for fallen angels (1 Enoch 10:8). Such instruction to man is never found in the Scriptures. Jude tells us that even the angels will not accuse Satan, but according to the Book of Enoch, God told him to reprimand the fallen angels. Why would we put much credence in such a book? Nevertheless, Jude appears to quote the Book of Enoch, but he may have quoted directly from another source concerning the preaching of the prophet Enoch.

The Book of Jubilees is also non-canonical and it is quite obvious why. A very serious doctrinal error can be found in its teaching—that God changed mankind's nature after the flood so that he would not need to sin. The Bible teaches that the new nature is given to those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Man was a sinner before the flood and after the flood.

Josephus finished his work The Antiquities of the Jews probably around 90 A. D. It is possible that the idea that the angels were the sons of God and that they had relations with human women found both in The Book of Jubilees and The Antiquities of the Jews was taken from The Book of Enoch. To conclude, we should not place a lot of confidence in the Book of Jubilees or the Book of Enoch.

Should we translate בְנֵי־ הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ as “the sons of God” or “the sons of the gods”?

The NASB translates Genesis 6:4 as follows:

The Nephilim [giants] were in the earth [bet., land]in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

That the Scripture calls those who worship idols sons or daughters of the gods is revealed in these verses:

Reasons Why the Sons of God Cannot be the Fallen Angels

There are some good reasons why we should eliminate the angels by the process of elimination.

(1) Let us see what meanings the phrase “the sons of...” can have in the Scriptures. Of course, if this phrase is taken literally, it means that this is a son of someone. This literal meaning can also be extended to mean the physical descendants of someone. In one case, Adam is called the son of God, since God created him. This is in the New Testament, Luke 3:38: “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” In the Greek, words for “the son of God” does not include the word for “son”; it is understood. But we often find son used figuratively:

Ø “sons of the prophets” 2 Kings 2:7; 4:1, etc.

Ø “sons of pride” Job 41:34

Ø “sons of the Most High” Psalms 82:6 Regarding this phrase, Barnes wrote,“That is, You [the magistrates who were judging God's people] occupy a rank which makes it proper that you should be regarded as His sons.” Barnes on the Old Testament: Psalms II, p. 330.

Ø “sons of the mighty” Psalms 89:6 Barnes says that this is speaking of the mighty character of the angels. Barnes' words are: “The angels—regarded as mighty.” Barnes on the Old Testament: Psalms II, p. 330.

Ø “sons of Zion” Psalms 149:2

“But come here, you sons of a sorceress,

“Offspring of an adulterer and a prostitute.

“Against whom do you jest?

“Against whom do you open wide your mouth

“And stick out your tongue?

“Are who not children of rebellion,

“Offspring of deceit....” (Isa. 57:3-4)

Ø “sons of iniquity” Hosea 10:9

Ø “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

Ø “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be “sons of your Father” who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt. 5:44-45)

Ø “sons of the kingdom” Matthew 13:38

Jesus explained the parable of the tares among wheat:

Ø The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.” (Matt. 13:37-39)

Please observe the word “sons” in this passage is used figuratively and means the people who are of the character of either the kingdom of God or of the devil. Kingdoms do not have physical sons. The devil did not create the unbelievers. So the sons of the devil are the people who are the unrighteous persons of the world. They were sown by the devil through his seeds of unrighteousness. The sons of the kingdom are Christian saints. Please note that if the sons of the gods or the sons of God of Genesis 6 were speaking of the fallen angels, the Bible would call them sons of Satan since this is whom they were following; certainly not the sons of God.

Ø “sons of this age” Luke 16:8; 20:34

Ø “sons of Light” Luke 16:34; John 12:36; 1 Thessalonians 5:5

Ø “sons of the day” 1 Thessalonians 5:5

Ø “sons of disobedience” Ephesians 2:2; 5:6; Colossians 3:6

Ø “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD,

Israel

is My son, My first-born.' So I said to you, 'Let My son go that he may serve Me'; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your first-born.” (Exod. 4:22-23)

Here is a list of occurrences of the phrase “the daughters of...”:

“Woe to you, O Moab!

“You are ruined, O people of Chemosh [an idol]!

“He [Chemosh] has given his sons as fugitives,

“And his daughters into captivity,

“To an Amorite king, Sihon. (Num. 21:29; bold type mine)

Ø Jeremiah 48:46 (almost the same as Num. 21:29.)

Ø “daughters of Shiloh” Judges 21:21

Ø “daughters of the uncircumcised” 2 Sam. 1:12

Ø See Deuteronomy 32:5, 6, 19

Ø “

Judah

has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in

Israel

and in Jerusalem; for

Judah

has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD which He loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.” (Mal. 2:11; bold type mine)

Ø “You are the sons of the LORD your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead.” (Deut. 14:1)

Here is a quote from John D. Davis,' A Dictionary of the Bible:

Many a Babylonian styled himself the son of the god whom he worshiped and upon whom he relied for protection and care.⁴

This source also says,

The earliest attested interpretation, that of the Samaritan version, regarded the sons of God as men; and later when the angelic theory arose, it was the opinion of a particular school among the Jews, while the more influential party in religious maters still taught that the sons of God were men.⁵

The above list of references shows that when this phrase is used figuratively it indicates a participation of the person in a likeness of his subject or an allegiance to his subject. The worshipers of these foreign gods were called either the sons of their god or the daughters of their god depending upon the person's gender. Good angels are called the sons of God in the Scriptures, but probably the bad angels are never given such a lofty title. Interpreters often turn to Job 1:6; 2:1; and 38:7 to show that the meaning of “the sons of God” in Genesis 6:1-2 are the fallen angels. But they do not look to see the context of these verses or to compare the contexts of these verses with the context of Genesis 6. Let us look at Job 1:6 and 2:10, which is the same. Satan is here called the adversary:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [meaning in Heb., the adversary] also came among them.

These angels are presenting themselves before God. It is a day when God's servants, the angels, who worship God, come for God to hear the about their recent activities. Please notice two things about this verse: (a) The word “also” in this verse indicates to us that Satan is not referred to as a “son of God.” Here the Hebrew word “also” could mean “also” or “even,” but it would probably best be translated “also” here because this is its first meaning and it does not say that Satan was among them but that he came among them. Satan most probably was not included in the term “the sons of God.” (b) Satan in Hebrew means adversary. The Hebrew article is used with it. It seems impossible that within the same setting the Bible would refer to Satan as a son of God and also as “the adversary.”

Now let us look at Genesis 38:7, which says,

“When the morning stars sang together,

“And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

These are all happy for God that His creation was accomplished. Certainly there are no fallen angels among them. These angels are in the very act of worshiping God and are called “the sons of God.” Compare these occurrences with Job 4:18 where we have the words of Eliphaz also in the same book of the Bible:

He [God] puts no trust even in His servants;

And against His angels He charges error.

Here Eliphaz does not use the expression “the sons of God,” but “angels.” As we can observe, the author of Job had the option of calling these sons of God angels.

So the first reason that the sons of God or the sons of the gods cannot be the fallen angels is that this phrase has its own meanings. It almost always is used figuratively in the Bible and it indicates one who shares a characteristic with someone, one who has an allegiance to someone, or a worshiper of God or of the gods. It would be very out of place to translate it “sons of God” and then apply it to sinful fallen angels.

(2) These sons of God or the sons of the gods were not fallen angels because the interpretation does not fit the general context of this passage. Angels have absolutely nothing to do with the context. The context is dealing with issues and groups of people which are all terrestrial. If these were angels, we would expect the text to mention that they “came down,” or we would expect it to give some other indication that the author is bringing new personalities from the realm of heaven into his narrative. To restate the reason, the narrative is self-contained—it builds upon itself. Unless we are informed of the entrance of new characters, we should look for a group of people who already has been discussed in the narrative itself to identify any group in question.

(3) We will see that some of these sons of the gods were giants. The term “giants” has a strong connotation of being at least part human.

The NASB translates Genesis 6:4 as follows: “The Nephilim [giants] were in the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the God [or the gods] came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”

The word “giants” here is from the Hebrew word nephilim, which definitely means giants. According to Michael S. Heiser, nephilim is not the passive participle of the Hebrew word naphal as many believe, but comes from the Aramaic word naphil, which means giant. The plural would be naphilin in Aramaic and naphilim in Hebrew. His discussion is at https://www.godawa.com/chronicles_of_the_nephilim/Articles_By_Others/Heiser-Nephilim.pdf; the title of his article is “The Meaning of the Word Nephilim: Fact vs. Fancy.”

If you see how these people were all mixed as part of the descendants of Adam and Eve on “the face of the land,” you can see what is meant when God said, “I will blot out [the] man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen. 6:7) This is exactly what He did. “[T]he man” was composed only of the descendants of Adam and Eve and those who had married into their descendants and their offspring. This was the geographical extent of the flood. This is why the pre-Adamites could still be living on the earth after the flood.

As has been explained, Genesis 6:1-3 tells us that the pre-Adamites (lit., the sons of the gods) married into the daughters of the descendants of Adam and Eve (lit., the man). I take it that the sons of the gods are idol worshipers and this is why God was displeased that the fathers gave their daughters freely to these sons of the gods. We can surmise that the descendants of Adam and Eve, with the exception of Noah and his family, had apostatized also and did not object to these marriages. From Genesis 5, we know that the race that the text calls the man is composed of the descendants of Adam and Eve. We know that the sons of the gods are pre-Adamites (1) because the article is used with “gods,” (2) because they are not the giants since giants do not enter the story until verse 4, (3) because they are not fallen angels since heavenly beings are outside the context, and (5) because they are not fallen angels since God compares the man with the sons of the gods when He says,

My Spirit shall not strive with [the] man forever, because he also is flesh….

Fallen angels are sinful beings, but they are basically spirits, not material, although they can appear as humans (Lk. 2:13; Heb. 1:7, 14; Ps. 104:4; and Dan. 9:21). It was the flesh of the sons of the gods that caused them to worship idols. God notes that the descendants of Adam and Eve (lit., the man) are also flesh. God’s logic was that the descendants of Adam and Eve will eventually be drawn to idol worship; therefore, He will not stop them from marrying into the pre-Adamic race. However, this intermarrying with the pre-Adamites will lower the life spans of the descendants of Adam and Eve to an average of 120 years. The lowering of the life spans of the descendants of Adam and Eve would only happen if the mixing of the races occurred rather slowly over a period of years. A few calculations of the decrease in life spans over a few generations will show that there was plenty of time for this decrease to an average of a 120-year life span to occur before Noah’s Flood. These calculations are based upon the principle that the child’s life span will be the average of his or hers parents two life spans. This principle proves to be true when it is employed to analyze the life spans listed in Genesis 5 and 11.(Please see my book.) After the Flood, God forced a fast intermarrying of the descendants of Noah, bringing the life span of the mixed races to the life span of the pre-Adamites (about 60 years).

Now to verse 4, when one reads this verse in Hebrew, he first notes that the subject precedes the verb, not a common order in Hebrew. Ronald J. Williams explains that this order of words may be employed for seven reasons (as previously noted on an email). The best reason is for the author’s placing the subject first was to indicate a new subject (and possibly also for emphasis). The words “and also afterwards” must mean the time after the giants had basically disappeared from the land. This is seen well if we narrow on the meaning of the Hebrew word ken, which BDB defines as the following:

so (i.e., usu., as has been described or commanded, with ref. to what has preceded), mostly of manner, but sts. [sometimes] also of quantity, quality, or degree. (485)

We can conclude that since the text says,

and also afterward [lit., after so or such], when the sons of God (better, the sons of the gods) came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

it means that at the beginning of the mixing of the races, at least some of the offspring were giants but as the mixing continued, the offspring failed to produce giants; these offspring, however, continued to be the leaders in the land. This can be concluded no matter whether Hebrew gam is translated “also” or “even.”

The point is that the mixing of the pre-Adamites and the Adamites produced such long-living, capable people that even if they were not giants, they were still able to arise to the top of society. The pre-Adamites provided the experience and the Adamites provided the intelligence and longevity. From this we must conclude that the giants came as a result of a mixing of the races. Also we know that the giants did not remain on the earth for a very long period of time. These giants that lived on the earth for a short time and then vanished from the earth must not be the ancestors of the postdiluvian giants mentioned elsewhere in the Bible because the descendants of the antediluvian giants would have been destroyed in Noah’s Flood (Gen. 6:11-13). Since an offspring’s potential life span is the average of the potential life spans of his or her parents, the ratio of the life spans between people of the two races was also the ratio of the rest of their genomes. Possibly a certain ratio of DNA between the children’s parents produced children that became giants. The Adamites in general married into the pre-Adamites right when the Adamites began to multiple, according to Genesis 6:1-2, but this was not the case with the patriarchs. The genealogy of Genesis 5 indicates that the patriarchs held their high life spans until Noah, who lived to be 950 years.

The lineage of the patriarchs from Adam through Lamech did not marry the idol worshiping pre-Adamites. This can be seen from the life spans that are given in the Genesis 5 genealogy. Except for Enoch, who was translated, and except for Lamech, who must have died before he reached his potential life span, their life spans were all about 929 years. Noah married a woman who was a mixture of the races but her family must have converted to Yahwism before this. As noted above, her potential life span can be calculated to 277 years. Noah’s son, Shem, also married a woman with the same life span, probably a woman from the same family that Noah’s wife came from. It would not have been sinful to marry a pre-Adamite if they had converted to Yahwism, but it was displeasing to God to marry an idol worshiper. Yahweh did not hold Noah guilty for marrying a woman of the mixed race (Gen. 6:9).

At least some of the postdiluvian giants (see Deut. 2:11; 3:11-13; Josh. 2:4; 13:12; 17:14; Num. 13:28, and 33; 1 Chron. 20:4, 8; and 2 Sam. 21:15-22) were descendants of Noah and his family. Mixing, however, occurred after the Flood between the descendants of Noah and the pre-Adamites. Possibly, in some cases, these unions resulted in their offspring being giants. Shem lived to be 600 years and the residents of the City of Babel lived approximately 440 years (Gen. 11:10-17). If the antediluvian giants were the result of the intermarrying between the pre-Adamites, with a potential life span of 60 years, and Adamites, with a potential life span of about 600 years or somewhat less, such a ratio of interbreeding may have produced giants again in postdiluvian times. These giants could conceivably pass on their giant hood to succeeding generations as seen in (1 Chron. 20:4, 8 and 2 Sam. 21:16, 18). This scenario is included here for the reader’s consideration.

If you see how these people were all mixed as part of the descendants of Adam and Eve on “the face of the land,” you can see what is meant when God said, “I will blot out [the] man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen. 6:7) This is exactly what He did. “The man” was composed only of the descendants of Adam and Eve and those who had married into their descendants and their offspring. This might have been the geographical extent of the flood. This is why the pre-Adamites could still be living on the earth after the flood. In my book I show that the life spans dropped after the scattering at the Tower of Babel due to Noah's descendants marrying into the pre-Adamic race.

A Recap of a Proper Understanding of Genesis 6:1-8

The descendants of Adam and Eve were living on the face of the land. They are termed “men.” The pre-Adamites, who were idolaters, married the daughters of “men.” These were called “the sons of the gods” by the author of Genesis. God was displeased with the descendants of Adam and Eve for giving their daughters to these idol worshipers. God warned the descendants of Adam and Eve that they were going to lose their longevity of 929 years until they only lived to be 120 years old. The text then indicates that a nearly complete deterioration of the descendants of Adam and Eve took place during the time when the life spans of the descendants of Adam and Eve dropped to 120 years. The offspring of the fallen angels and humans led the people into violence and gross sin, which grew worse; so God decided that His only recourse was to send Noah's flood to destroy the whole population of Adam's descendants, except Noah and his family.

The Race of Noah's Descendants Was Finished

We know that Noah did not carry on the race of the descendants of Noah because we have seen from the author's reference to "the book of the generations of Noah" (Gen. 5:1) that the pure Adamic race was over. And we believe this because Noah himself took a wife that was a mixture of the Adamic race and the pre-Adamic race, and he and his wife bore a son, Shem, who only lived 600 years. I show in my book how the life spans of Noah's descendants declined generation by generation. They leveled off at the time of their stay at Babel and then basically decreased to the general life spans of today.

I will type out Genesis 6:1-4 from the NASB with changes and comments. I believe this gives us a true understanding of what the Spirit is saying in this passage (the translation to be read is in bold letters):

Now it came about, when men [lit., the man] [which refers back to the descendants of Adam and Eve as named and defined in Genesis 5:1f] began to multiply on the face of the land, [the part of the earth upon which the descendants of Adam and Eve dwelt] and daughters were born to them, that the sons of…[the gods] saw that the daughters of men [lit., the man] were beautiful; and they took wives [they settled down to raise families] for themselves, whomever they chose. [the descendants of Adam and Eve were happy to give their daughters in marriage to these idol worshipers.] Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man [lit., the man]...[for a long time.] [I have closed out this sentence here because the next clause is not connected with a waw and because it makes more sense to connect the next clause with the one following it.] [(In their erring he is flesh.)] [Green translates this clause the way I have it here. Since man is flesh, God concluded that he was going to sin and do violent acts. I have put it in parenthesis since it interrupts the statement as a parenthetical thought.] [N]evertheless [even though God is permitting these marriages to occur, He will still let the final average life span come to 120 years, which is twice the life span of he pure pre-Adamites] his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

[Let me add something to what has just been said;] [this is implied in the Hebrew, otherwise this sentence would have begun with a waw.]…[giants] [Nephilim is a transliteration; the Hebrew means giants] were on the earth in those days, and also...[after such] [“afterward” in the Hebrew is two words: “after such,” "such" being translated from the Hebrew word ken] when the sons of...[the gods] [that is, the pre-Adamites.] came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them,...[these] [meaning, these offspring]...[became] the mighty men who were of old, men of renown [apparently this means that after giants were no longer the outcome of the cohabiting of the pre-Adamites with Adamite women, their offspring were, however, very capable people and very much for taking to themselves power.]

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

¹Kurt P. Wise, Faith, Form, and Time: What the Bible Teaches and Science Confirms About Creation and the Age of the Universe (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2002), 175.

²Ibid. 176.
³H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, 2 vol. (Columbus:Wartburg Press, 1942), 1:230.

⁴Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline, 2^nd ed. (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 96-97._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

¹Kurt P. Wise, Faith, Form, and Time: What the Bible Teaches and Science Confirms About Creation and the Age of the Universe (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2002), 175.

²Ibid. 176.
³H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, 2 vol. (Columbus:Wartburg Press, 1942), 1:230.

⁴Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline, 2^nd ed. (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 96-97.

INTRODUCTION TO MY BOOK: NEW EVIDENCE FOR TWO HUMAN ORIGINS

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 14:01:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION AND THESIS

*********

He who gives an answer before he hears,

It is folly and shame to him. (Prov. 18:13)

Espousing a Secular View of Life

For centuries the Western World had a universal belief that God was active in His creation and concerned about the affairs of men. Many believed His will for mankind was contained in the Scriptures. Then came the Renaissance. Bruce L. Shelley defines this movement: “The word [Renaissance] means ‘rebirth’ and refers to the recovery of the values of classical Greek and Roman civilization expressed in literature, politics and the arts.”[i] Since the beliefs of these early writers were based upon man’s philosophies rather than upon God’s revelation, people began to look to their own powers of thought rather than to God’s revelation. This movement received its momentum

through the founding of universities in Germany. Twelve were established in the ninety-seven years between 1409 and 1506. Renaissance thought began in the University of Paris and spread to the German universities.

A new concept of the universe, spurred on by the discoveries made by men engaged in mathematics and science, began to emerge alongside the philosophies of the Renaissance. We know these men today by their discoveries: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) that the sun rather than the earth, is the center of the solar system; Johann Kepler (1471-1630), that the sun holds the planets in their paths; and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), that the acceleration of falling bodies is the same for all types of objects at the surface of the earth. But it was Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who took all the discoveries and presented them in his unified law of gravitation, which he set forth in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687. From these scientific discoveries a new concept emerged; according to it, our environment is controlled by natural laws rather than by an involved Creator God. Many people began to feel that God was far away and uninvolved with life on earth. If our lives are to experience understanding and fulfillment, they thought, we must discover them through our own reason.

People ceased to view their environment as though it were under the immediate volitional control of the hand of God; they began, instead, to see the universe as though it were solely under the control of natural laws. They believed that if they could find and grasp these laws, they could control their own destiny. Shelley describes the spirit of the Age of Reason in the following words: “The spirit of the Age of Reason was nothing less than an intellectual revolution, a whole new way of looking at God, the world, and oneself. It was the birth of secularism.”[ii] The new perspectives of the Age of Reason were not left to themselves to multiply, but rather were propagated through the writings of those who are called the philosophes. This movement began in Paris. Rather than completely denying a “Supreme Being,” they ridiculed anyone who believed this Deity had revealed Himself through the Bible or through miracles. The most influential propagandist for deism was Voltaire (1694-1778), who personified the skepticism of the French Enlightenment.

Sir Charles Lyell’s influential work Principles of Geology published in 1830, was written to prove that the earth’s surface is the result of the effect of natural causes operating over a vast period of time. Into such a secular mindset, in 1859 Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species. Charles Darwin presented his thesis as standing totally upon natural laws without any regard for the Creator God. Darwin had a problem with reconciling the evil he saw in the world with the popular concept of the Christian God. Since Darwin attempted to explain life based totally upon natural law, many concluded that the world could be explained without reference to a Creator God.

The new science gave evidence that the earth was much older than 6,000 years. In this philosophical frame of mind, it became fashionable to deny the inspiration of the Bible. Those who came to this conclusion either held to forms of Christianity that deny the inspiration of the Book upon which their belief is based, or they rejected Christianity including its sacred Book. Even though the Bible was under attack, some held to a strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to the divine origin of the Bible.

This book presents a scenario that will harmonize the teachings of the Bible and the truth as discovered by science, thus freeing our minds from contradictions. The secular view of life began before the time of Darwin, before the time of Charles Lyell, and even before the aggressive foe of Christianity Voltaire; this new view of life began with the Renaissance when some intellectuals substituted human philosophies for Divine Revelation.

An example of those who began to espouse this new philosophy was Nicholas of Cues (1401-1464), a churchman, whose view has been summarized by Walker: “[He] saw God as the infinite unity of all contrasts of the universe and he conceived of the universe as an infinite process…His philosophical universalism led him to inquire for the unity of faith in the diversity of religions…”[iii] Please notice that Nicholas of Cues combined divinely revealed truth and opposing error into one; he departed from God’s revelation and took up human philosophies. Such was the basis for self-deception and error. As long as a person believes that he can find the ultimate truth apart from believing in the divine revelation, the Bible, and the divine Revealer, the Lord Jesus Christ, he will never know the Truth. Only Jesus could say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 14:6). Knowledge of God, of truth, and of forgiveness of sins through the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed by God to man in the Bible. It is the Bible that contains the truth concerning God’s person, His ways, and His will.

Many people today, young and old, feel that if they accept what they believe has been established by science, they cannot also accept the Bible as God’s Word without creating in their minds a logical contradiction. But if we cannot accept the revelation of God, how can we come to the knowledge of the Truth? This book is an attempt to show that God’s revelation through the Bible stands. No conflict exists between the Bible and true science. We can then embrace the Scripture and the One who gave it.

A Word about the View of Divine Accommodation

After I published my first edition, I received comments from some that it is not necessary to harmonize the Bible and science because God’s revelation of Himself and His will is given in the context of whatever worldview is accepted at that time; if their world of the cosmos is incorrect, they say, this erroneous cosmology will be taught in the Scriptures along with the truth of God’s revelation. Those of this view would say that Genesis 1 presents a concept of the cosmos that believes the earth is covered with a large metal dome, above which a large amount of water is stored. Windows in this dome release water to the clouds that pour it down upon the earth. They believe that the author of Genesis 1 weaved this popular cosmology with God’s revelation of Himself into the Genesis 1 creation story. The result was a false presentation of the structure of the earth and heavens, but a true revelation of God. I shall explain why I think a correct understanding of Genesis 1 reveals that the author of Genesis is not teaching this common view of the cosmos, but rather narrates our present view of the atmosphere and clouds. My defense of this view is presented in appendix N.

Alleged Conflicts between Science and the Bible

Jesus Christ believed in the impeccable truthfulness of God’s Word. It is easy to see that a discrepancy between what the Bible teaches and what science believes can be troubling to the serious Christian; it could become a stumbling block for someone searching for spiritual truth. This is why it is important to discover the truth concerning our origins.

Science teaches that the world was created 4.6 billion years ago. The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of creation. If the creation days were twenty-four-hour solar days, and if the first parents of the human race were Adam and Eve, God would have created mankind essentially at the time He created the world. The Bible gives us the account of the creation of Adam and Eve and then lists genealogies that bring us from about 6,000 years ago down to historic times. Even if we were to assume that there were enough gaps in the genealogies that the creation of Adam and Eve could be placed at 10,000 years ago, this would still be insignificant in comparison to the scientists’ 4.6 billion years.

Science tells us that modern man originated in Africa through a process of naturalistic evolution from an archaic species and that mankind has essentially remained unchanged for 100,000 to 200,000 years. The biblical scenario sounds much different. Since the biblical genealogies give us the patriarchs’ ages at the birth of their sons (assuming there are no gaps in the genealogies), we can calculate the birth dates of each patriarch back to Adam. When we do this, beginning with the birth of Jacob at approximately 2005 BC, we find that Adam and Eve were created about 4200 BC (according to a new chronology to be discussed 5200 BC). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that God created Adam out of the dust of the ground and Eve from Adam’s rib. According to Genesis, this couple began their lives in the Garden of Eden, which was located in what is now modern Iraq rather than in Africa, as science has concluded. Considering the new discoveries of science and making a careful study of the Holy Bible, we shall attempt to discover what actually happened. It appears to me that the Bible contains evidence that mankind actually has two origins; this approach will lead us to a satisfying harmony of science and the Bible.

My Approach

The questions concern (1) the age of the universe including the earth, (2) the age of man and his place of origin, and (3) the origin of man. Did God create man directly from the dust or did man descend from previous hominids or both?

First, my approach to solving the apparent contradiction in regard to the age of the earth is fairly common in Christian circles. According to the Scriptures, man was created near the end of the sixth day. Therefore, if the days of creation were quite long, the beginning of the creation of the universe could have been extremely long ago. We shall examine the Hebrew text which indicates that the days of creation should be understood as long days.

Second, we must address the discrepancy between the age of mankind upon the earth from science and the age of mankind upon the earth calculated from biblical genealogies of Adam’s descendants. My approach reveals evidence from the Bible that both these teachings may be correct. From a study of the life spans given in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 and from a thorough study of the Scriptures, I have found biblical evidence that people inhabited the earth before the creation of Adam and Eve. We shall analyze each patriarch’s life span to show that the decrease in longevity was the direct result of intermarriages between pre-Adamic people and Adam’s descendants. This analysis will show that the first chapter of Genesis narrates God’s creation of a pre-Adamic race, whose time of creation dates long before the creation of Adam and Eve.

Third, my interpretation of the Bible indicates that a race of humans existed before Adam and Eve. In 1655, Frenchman Isaac de La Peyrere (Peyrerius) (1594-1676), wrote a book, now translated into English, entitled A Theological Systeme Upon The Presupposition, That Men Were Before Adam, which conveyed the view that men lived before Adam and Eve. Approximately 350 years ago, 1656, he published another book with the English title Men Before Adam: Or, a Discourse upon the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, by Which Are Prov’d That the First Men Were Created before Adam. Others have also held this view, but it was never widely accepted. Robert Jamieson, whose negative critique of this view we discuss in appendix A, made a wise comment in A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments. He wrote, “Therefore, until some stronger evidence shall be adduced than what the world has yet seen, to prove that mankind is not all descended from one pair, the theory…must be rejected.”[iv] We shall present new evidence for a dual origin of man. We shall also show that the Bible supports an old-earth view that the teaching of the Bible better harmonizes with the view that mankind has existed for much longer than 6000 years. We shall take a fresh look at the Scriptures to see if they give us an indication of how God went about to create the pre-Adamic race.

The dual-origin thesis I am about to set forth at first may seem to many readers to be impossible and unthinkable, but I have compiled biblical and scientific data to support it. Here is my thesis:

Some time before the creation of Adam and Eve, God created the human race through a divinely created process of descent from “the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 2:4). Six thousand years ago God created Adam and Eve by forming Adam supernaturally from the dust of the ground and by forming Eve from Adam’s rib in a short period of time. In time Adam and Eve’s descendants began to marry into the pre-Adamic races. This mixing of the races began a process of diluting the Adamic gene pool until Adam’s descendants not only lost their longevity, but their gene pool was greatly diluted as a result of this mixing so that today the human race has become quite genetically homogeneous.

In chart 1, I have shown my view of the relative order of some of the major historical occurrences of the past. It shows that the universe began to form first by a creative act of God. After the earth was created, God prepared it for the animals and mankind. God created the pre-Adamic race during the six days of creation, but He created Adam and Eve supernaturally directly from the ground after the six days of creation had passed. Intermarriage between the descendants of Adam and the descendants of the pre-Adamites began before Noah’s flood. If any of Adam and Eve’s descendants, besides Noah and his family, were living at the time of the flood, they were destroyed in the flood. Noah and his family were saved through the flood and blessed with many descendants, who populated the broad stretches of land around the eastern Mediterranean. Eventually, the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, was born into a line of descendants who were a mixture of Noah’s descendants and descendants of the pre-Adamites. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ human ancestry goes back to Adam and Eve and also to the first pre-Adamites.

Geneticists tell us there has been much intermarrying between groups of people. This means that just about every person living today can trace his ancestry back to Adam and Eve as well as back to the pure pre-Adamic race. Steve Olson, a veteran science journalist, wrote, “One need go back only a couple of millennia to connect everyone alive today to a common pool of ancestors.”[v] He goes on to add, “Being descended from someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any DNA from that person…The amount of DNA each of us gets from any one of our 1,024 ancestors ten generations back is minuscule—and we might not get any DNA from that person, given the way the chromosomes rearrange themselves every generation.”[vi]

That the Bible teaches God created a pre-Adamic race will appear as a difficult concept to accept for many readers; that the Bible teaches this race

CHART 1: THE RELATIVE ORDER OF EVENTS RELEVANT TO THE THESIS

1. Creation of the universe

2. Creation of the earth

3. Creation of pre-Adamites

4. End of six days of creation

5. Creation of Adam and Eve

6. Adam’s descendants intermarry with the pre-Adamites.

7. Noah marries into a mixed race.

8. God sends Noah’s flood and destroys the mixed race.

9. Noah’s descendants try to hold their longevity at Babel.

10. God confounds their languages at Babel and they are scattered into the earth.

11. Mary conceives Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

12. The Lord Jesus is resurrected; after forty days He ascends into Heaven.

descended from a species of pre-humans will also seem incredible to many. I can understand that there are those who are surprised by this thesis. I am constrained, however, to present this new understanding of the Bible since I want to help people feel they can embrace God’s revealed truths and His salvation, which comes from accepting the Bible’s Divine Author, the Lord Jesus Christ.

At this point many readers will probably wonder how this thesis can be harmonized with certain verses in the New Testament that seem to declare Adam to be the first man. Subsequent pages explain why none of these passages teaches that Adam was the first man of the whole human race. It is my belief that this thesis does not contradict any biblical teaching.

The Purposes of This Book

The main purpose of this book is to harmonize science and the Bible so that (1) unbelievers can know that the Bible is truly God’s infallible revelation, which is “able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15); (2) those who have believed can feel secure in their faith in Christ; (3) Christians, who have not been convinced that the Bible was given by the inspiration of God, will realize the validity of this doctrine; and (4) Christians may be assisted in their efforts as they defend the Christian faith.

This thesis confirms the truthfulness of the Bible right where it is under its heaviest criticism. The Bible is criticized for contradicting science in regard to the age of the earth and the length of time mankind has inhabited it; it is criticized for contradicting science with regard to the alleged teaching that all of mankind has descended from a couple who were created directly from the hand of God; and it is criticized for specifying over 900-year life spans for the early patriarchs. The next few chapters present mathematical evidence for these long life spans and for a dual-origin thesis.

Alternate Dating of Old Testament Events

Since the first edition of this book, a new biblical chronology has come to my attention that bears upon the dates as given in this book. The new chronology adds on a thousand years to all the biblical dates that specify events before the period of the judges. This means, of course, that the new chronology sees all the events of the Bible before the judges as having occurred 1,000 years earlier than the traditionally accepted dates. Gerald E. Aardsma has been advancing this new chronology on his website http://www.biblicalchronologist.org, where a number of his articles and books are available for purchase. He defends the new chronology by showing that it fits the biblical record better and that archaeological data supports it. He acknowledges that in order for one to espouse this new chronology, he must admit to a scribal error in the date given in 1 Kings 6:1. I have added the new chronological dates some places along with the traditional dates in this new edition. These alternate dates will be preceded by NC. We shall discuss this new chronology further in chapter 12, noting how it impacts ones view of Noah’s flood.

Introduction and Thesis

[i] Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 2nd ed. (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995), 312.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), 291-292.

[iv] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1946, reprinted 1990), vol. 1, part 1:88.

[v] Steve Olson, Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, c. 2002, first Mariner Books ed. 2003), 47.

[vi] Ibid.

Could the Present Theory of Evolution Need to Include Hybridization?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 18:44:00 +0000

Revised April 15, 2015
I want to let you know about an article on the internet that will truly make you think. Dr. Eugene McCarthy has developed a theory of evolution that supplies a "missing link." He believes that hybridization has been a very import mechanism in the progress of evolution. In fact, what he says about this subject helps us understand better what God may have done as He responded to His own statement: "Let us make man in our image..." (Gen. 1:26, KJV) McCarthy says that man is a cross between two species; in other words, man is a hybrid. If this were the case, God could have providentially brought these two species together, through weather changes or something else, and thus begun to rapidly produce the human species. As you may know, I believe that a race existed prior to the creation of Adam and Eve. The first creation of man, as recorded in Genesis 1, was through evolution and hybridization; the second creation of man, as recorded in Genesis 2, was the creation of Adam and Eve's directly from the ground. One of McCarthy's main articles on mankind's origin is found at http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html#.UjyR6ZjD_wo. This is a multipage article in which he gives much evidence for his conclusion that mankind is a hybrid species. He has other articles that support his theory of hybridization and evolution.

GENESIS CLEARLY INDICATES TWO CREATIONS OF MANKIND

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Revision dates: 5/29/13; 6/21/13; 6/25/13; 7/3/13; 7/5/13; 7/8/13; 7/18/13; 6/13/14; 8/8/2014; 8/13/14; 4/24/15

Scriptural References:

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Other Scripture Taken from:

The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayette, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).

The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by P. Green, Sr. This work was contained in the side column of Green’s work referenced above.

King James Version (Authorized Version) noted as KJV.

Genesis 2:4 Closes Out the Story of God’s First Creation of Mankind

Hebrew syntax points to two creations of mankind. For many years the Jewish community and the Christian church have believed that the account of the creation of Adam and Eve given in Genesis 2 is a detailed description of a more general creation of mankind told in the first chapter of Genesis. This section will discuss some syntactical reasons why we should interpret the creation account of Adam and Eve to be a creation of another race of people, which was in addition to the creation of the pre-Adamites as recorded in Genesis 1. My comments will center on Genesis 2:5f.

A Tiny Prefix Makes a Large Difference in Meaning

The belief that Genesis only describes one creation of mankind has resulted in a number of serious misunderstandings of the Bible; most importantly, if one holds to this view, it becomes truly impossible to reconcile science and the Bible. One major reason for this misunderstanding of Genesis has been because the scholars have misunderstood the function of a Hebrew conjunction as it functions to indicate whether or not a pronoun such as these or this refers to what precedes it or to what follows it. This conjunction is normally prefixed to the first word of sentences that constitute a narrative. It is the Hebrew letter waw. Its orthographic representation is written like this: ו. Concerning small things making big differences, we can appreciate this old rhyme:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.

         For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
         For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
         For want of a rider, the battle was lost.
         For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
         And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Because the function of this little Hebrew letter was not recognized and because a correct understanding of Hebrew narrative genre has been missed, our understanding of the Bible and human origins has been greatly harmed. And as a result, many attempts to defend the truthfulness and inspiration of the Bible have been lost. Please follow through with me as we find how to interpret Genesis 2:4-5 through properly grasping and applying the use of the Hebrew conjunction. I intend to show two things concerning the first two chapters of Genesis: (1) Genesis 2:4 refers to the creation account in Genesis 1, and (2) the account of God's preparation of the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve, which begins at Genesis 2:5, should be understood from the text to be a second creation of mankind separate from the first creation as recorded in Genesis 1.

You are not going to rely totally on my word for it, because I shall direct you to passages in your own Bible that illustrate how the Hebrew conjunction works. My support is located mainly in the appendixes of my book. But be careful, very few translations are consistent in how they deal with this conjunction. They may translate it some places as now and other places with and. Some translations sometimes may leave it out. Green's translation and the NASB translation almost always show it translated, but they use different words in different contexts, which is OK, but it is a little more difficult to discern whether or not the conjunction was included in the original Hebrew text. I have noticed that the NASB translates it at least with and, now, so, then, and thus or not at all.

One application of the Hebrew conjunction waw is to join parallel elements, as we do with our conjunction in English. Another application of the conjunction is our focus of this discussion: it moves the narrative along from one sentence to the next as the story progresses. This conjunction functions to set apart the non-quoted material from the quoted material. This helps the reader recognize a quote (for Hebrew did not employ quotation marks) and it gives a pattern of writing to the narrative that is different from the quotations. This serves to break up the monotony of the text. In Hebrew, words meaning however, therefore, etc. were often omitted and instead a waw was employed.

Another function of the waw conjunction, as I indicated, is to indicate whether or not the formulas, such as these are... or this is..., make reference to the list of names (or section of prose) that comes before the formula or to the material that comes after it.

Genesis 2:4 Closes Out the First Chapter of Genesis

The author of Genesis closes out the account of the generations of the heavens and the earth at Genesis 2:4 and then moves on to give the account of the creation of Adam and Eve. He moves us on from the creation of mankind during the six days of creation to the creation of Adam and Eve which occurred at a later time.

I shall quote Genesis 2:4-5 from the NASB including the verse numbers; I shall do this to show that this translation begins a new paragraph at verse 4. The translators indicated a new paragraph here by printing the numeral “4” in bold type:

4 These are the generations [these beginning words are a literal translation taken from the NASB notes] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field [lit., and] had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

I began verse 4 using the more literal translation from the center column of the NASB because these are the words the translators of the NASB used generally throughout the book in the other occurrences of this formula, and because I believe it is translated more accurately. Placing this verse with the paragraph that follows it rather than with the previous paragraph is a common error made by most translators of this passage. When the translator placed verse 4 with the account of the creation of Adam and Eve, he was reflecting his opinion that verse 4 refers to the creation account which follows it. If this were true, then Adam and Eve would have been created during the six days of creation, the setting for the first account of creation. However, I have found conclusive syntactical evidence that this verse refers (or “looks”) backward to the six days of creation narrated in Genesis 1 rather than looking forward to the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. Before we take a look at the syntactical evidence, let us mention a reason that have been given for concluding that this verse looks forward and also note some reasons that have been given for concluding that this verse looks backward. These observations will demonstrate why Hebrew syntax included a way to eliminate ambiguity.

Those who believe that this verse looks ahead point out that the introduction of the name of God, Jehovah (more accurately, Yahweh, or as it is often translated, LORD) first occurs in the book of Genesis in this verse, and that, in Genesis 2, this is the normal way to refer to God. They believe, since God is narrowing in on the creation of Adam, His more personal name is used rather than His title God. They conclude that because God’s name Yahweh does not occur in the first creation account, its occurrence in Genesis 2:4 must mean that this verse is a part of the second creation account where the name Yahweh often occurs. They therefore place verse 4 with the second creation narrative and consequently conclude that Genesis 2:4 refers forward.

Those who hold to the JEPD theory see the introduction of the name Jehovah God as due to the insertion by the author of “J” (Jehovah) literature, whereas Genesis 1 was “E” (Elohim) literature. Some scholars believe you should cut the verse into two parts. They believe the first part of the verse looks backward, and the last part of the verse looks forward. I have observed that most Bible translators do not split up the verse. We shall come back to this verse to show that this verse should not be split after we determine the rules which indicate whether the formula refers backward or forward.

Personally, I think there is a very good reason why the author waited to use the phrase “LORD God” until he was finished describing the seven days of creation. The account of creation found in Genesis 1:1-2:3 uses the literary device of repetition and simplicity. The simplicity may be a little harder to see than the repetition, but please note the statement, “Let there be light; and there was light,” or consider the simplicity in his description of God’s creation of mankind; he simply blesses them and points out His benevolence in providing food for them and for the animals as he instructs them in how they would be sustained. Next He says, “And it was so.” This abruptly ends this creation account, except for God’s rest on day 7. I believe Moses, for simplicity and repetition, held off introducing the name of God until after he told of God’s resting on the seventh day; then at once he included the name of the true God, Jehovah (Yahweh). He wanted to assert that it was the one true God who had revealed Himself to the Hebrews—Jehovah God—who created the heaven and the earth. He wanted to supply this important theological information as near as possible to the first creation narrative so the reader would know immediately that it was Jehovah God who was this great Creator and none else.

Furthermore, most of the interpreters who see this verse as referring to what follows also say that the introductory formulas that are similar to “these are the generations of the heavens and the earth” always stand at the beginning of a section of Genesis. They say that, apart from the first introductory chapter, each section of the book of Genesis begins with this formula.

On the other hand, those who insist that the verse looks backward say that the creation of the heavens is never mentioned in the narrative after Genesis 2:4, while the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is identical in Genesis 1:1.

The Hebrew Conjunction Becomes the Key

Since the clause these are the generations of the heavens and the earth occurs in one form or another throughout the Pentateuch, I have called it a formula. Because this formula and others that are similar to it occur quite often in the Old Testament, it is possible to study it to discover how the author indicates whether he is making reference forward or backward.

The formulas we must analyze are in the general form of one of these: (1) These are the generations of so and so or (2) These are the sons of so and so. A study of these formulas has revealed that when the author uses these formulas, he takes special care to make sure that the portion of the text to which the particular formula refers is easily discerned by the reader; that is, he makes sure the reader will understand whether the formula refers forward or backward. The presence or absence of the conjunction (in Hebrew, the prefix waw) before and/or after the formula is used to indicate whether the formula looks backward or forward. Whether or not the conjunction acts as a waw consecutive makes no difference, only the presence or absence of the waw indicates whether the generations are making reference to the material which follows this formula or material which comes before this formula. Please see appendix D for a study of verses which confirms these conclusions.

If the formula refers to the section of narrative to follow, a conjunction is sometimes placed before the formula (at the discretion of the author) to set it off from that which has been written before it. In this case (which we shall call case 1), the formula refers to what was written after it. In this case, no conjunction follows the formula unless this formula is followed with a nested formula as in examples 11 and 27 in appendix D of my book. For a common instance of case 1, see Genesis 11:27, which is example 10 in appendix D.

In a second case, no conjunction is written before the formula. In this case, if the formula refers to what follows it, the writer is careful to leave out the conjunction which follows the formula so that the reader will know that the formula is meant to refer to what follows it. The understanding here in the mind of the reader is that since the formula is not separated from what follows it in its immediate context, it refers to what follows it rather than to what precedes it. We shall call this case 2. See Genesis 11:10, which is example 9 in appendix D of my book. (An exception to this rule is a paranthetical section in which it is obvious that the formula cannot look forward and in which the inclusion of a conjunction would cause a misreading of the passage; in this instance, the formula looks backward).

A third case is one in which no conjunction is written before the formula and the formula refers to what preceded it. In this case, the author is normally careful to put a conjunction after the formula to show that it refers to what was written before the formula. When the author shows his intention in this manner, we shall call it case 3. For a common instance of case 3, see Genesis 9:18, which is example 4 in appendix D. In this case, there is an exception where nesting occurs, in which case the conjunction can be held off and placed after the two nested formulas. See examples 7 and 8 of the appendix of my book. Here is a summary of each of the cases described above:

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward (whether or not a conjunction follows):

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula refers backward:

Genesis 2:4 Must Look Backward Because Hebrew Syntax Demands It.

If Genesis 2:4 is followed with a conjunction in the Hebrew text, this verse looks backward. The verse which follows the formula in question begins with the waw prefix which the NASB translates now. From this we know that the verse looks backward.

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground. (Gen. 2:5)

Verse 4 looks backward to the six days of creation which Genesis 1 narrates; it should be placed with the preceding paragraph or made a complete paragraph in itself. This conclusion will certainly surprise some people because most have thought that it refers forward. The arguments that we reviewed that were based only on the contents of the passages involved were inconclusive. The syntax of the language overrides this type of argument. The author communicated his intention for Genesis 2:4 by his syntactical use of the conjunction. It is of utmost importance to realize that the author had to make a choice and show the reader which way the verse was to look. Moses chose his wording so that the reader would know that this verse looks backward. If such a formula occurs in English, we usually put it within the paragraph to which it refers. In biblical Hebrew they did not indent paragraphs; the Hebrew speakers, however, had their own method of eliminating ambiguity on the matter as we have just seen.

The Error of Dividing Genesis 2:4 into Two Sentences

The reason some believe that Genesis 2 should be divided into two sentences is because they want to put the formula “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth” with the narrative which leads up to it, but they want to put the phrase “LORD [Jehovah] God” with the narrative which follows it. To do this they separate the sentence after the words “when they were created.” But no conjunction follows this phrase. If the verse is divided in this fashion, there is no conjunction before the formula “These are the generations of…” and there is none after it. This fits case 2 so that the formula as well as the whole sentence in which it is found refers forward. But the reason verse 4 was bisected in the first place was to make it possible to interpret this formula so that the first half of the verse looks backward and also to show that the translators interpreted the last part of verse 4 as being included with the paragraph which follows it.

An Example in Which No Conjunction Is Included before “These.”

Here is an example from Genesis 9:18-19 in which the conjunction is purposefully omitted to show that “these” refers to what precedes it:

"And the sons of Noah that went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham is the father of Canaan. [No conjunction hereà] These are the three sons of Noah, [Conjunction here] and the whole earth was overspread from them." [Green]

If the formula these are... or this is... is used in a narrative to refer to the element(s) of a section that precedes it, large or small, the conjunction is never used immediately before these formulas and the elements of this preceding section. (There are exceptions to this rule, but the exceptions are understandably explainable and do not violate this rule.) A conjunction before "These are..." (quoted above) was purposely omitted so that the reader would know that "these" makes reference to what precedes it. The placement of the conjunction before "[t]hese" would have told the reader that this word refers to what follows it. A number of examples of each of the three cases listed above are given in appendix D of my book.

Analyzing Genesis 2:3-5a

Now let us go to Genesis 2:3-5a since it is so important to our understanding of the Genesis narrative. The following is from Green's translation:

"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because He rested from all His work on it, which God had created to make [better tr., to prepare]. [No conjunction hereà] These are the births [better tr., descendants] of the heavens and of the earth when they (were) created, in the day (that) Jehovah (was) making earth and heavens; [Conjunction hereà] And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant…."

In Hebrew Almost Every Clause Begins with a Conjunction.

At this point in our discussion, it will be helpful to get a larger picture of just how the conjunction is used in Hebrew to give the material the narrative character. Please keep in mind that this profuse employment of the waw conjunction in the forward movement of narrative material does not apply to quotations within the narrative sections. To get a better feeling for how this rule works, let us observe that every verse in the Hebrew text from Genesis 1:2 through 2:3 inclusive begins with the waw conjunction; this is typical of the Hebrew narrative. Therefore, it should become very obvious to the Hebrew reader that the conjunction has been omitted at Genesis 2:4. This signals to the reader that "these" of this verse refers to what precedes it.

No Conjunction before the Formula; No Conjunction After It

Since this use of the conjunction has been so often ignored in translations and interpretations, we will look at some more examples of it. Let us next look at Genesis 5:1-3:

"[No conjunction hereà] This is the book of the generations [better tr., descendants] of Adam: [No conjunction hereà] In the day that God created man [better tr., Adam], He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and called his name Seth." (Green)

This quotation follows the creation of Adam and Eve, their fall into sin, God's judgment upon them, their bearing of Cain. It also speaks of Cain's murdering Abel. It proceeds to speak of some of the descendants of Cain, and describes their arrogance. Just before our example verse, it tells of the birth of Seth to Adam and Eve. There is no conjunction before this quotation since it does not move the narrative forward. Actually, it is backing up the narrative to the time of the creation of Adam and Eve.

Neither is there a conjunction after the statement: "This is the book of the generations of Adam." The next statement simply begins: "In the day that God created man..." The absence of a conjunction before and after this opening sentence indicates to us that it refers to what follows it, not to what precedes it. This is because a study of this use of the conjunction shows that if no conjunction is used before the clause containimg the these-formula and no conjunction is used after this sentence (unless another these follows it or there is another obvious reason), then the formula always refers to what follows it. Some examples are Genesis 5:1; 6:9; 11:10; 37:2; Exodus 6:14a.

Consider another example where there is no conjunction before or after the formula:

"[No conjunction hereà] These are the...[descendants] of Noah.[No conjunction hereà] Noah, a righteous man, had been perfected among his family—Noah walked with God. And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." (Gen. 6:9-11a, Green)

One may wonder, “Why doesn't this section begin with a conjunction?” Probably it does not open with the conjunction because this section does not begin where the narrative that immediately precedes it leaves off. It goes back nine verses to Genesis 5:31:

"And Noah was five hundred years old. And Noah fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth." (Green)

Both state that Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It also repeats much of Genesis 6: 5-7 which tells of God's looking on the earth (that is, the land of the descendants of Adam and Eve) and of His seeing the corruption of man; it also quotes God's statement of His decision to destroy all flesh, meaning man and animals, from the land. Genesis 6:8 says, "And Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah" (Green). Genesis 6:9-14a relates what the author meant in Genesis 6:8 when it spoke of Noah's finding grace from Jehovah. The author may also have omitted the conjunction before "these" because this sentence is an explanatory statement concerning what was to follow so that it did not move the narrative forward in time. Note also that if no conjunction precedes the these formula and no conjunction follows it, the pronoun in question refers to what follows it and not to what precedes it.

No Conjunction Before the Formula; But a Conjunction After It’s Clause

Here is an example in which no conjunction precedes the formula, but a conjunction follows the clause containing the formula:

"[No conjunction hereà] ...These all were the sons of Joktan. [Conjunction hereà] And their dwelling was from Mesha as you go to Sephar, an eastern mountain." (Genesis 10:29-30, Green)

"These" refers to what precedes the formula; therefore, no conjunction precedes it, but a conjunction follows it. This assures the reader that "These" refers to the material that precedes it.

A Conjunction before the Formula

Now let us look at an example where we find a conjunction at the beginning of a new section, Genesis 10:1-20:

"[Conjunction hereà] And these are the generations [better tr., descendants] of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood.

"[No conjunction hereà] The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And Gomer's sons were...

"And Ham's sons were Cush, Mizraim...

And Canaan fathered his firstborn Sidon... "(Green)

The chapter before this one, chapter 9, ends with a story concerning Noah and his sons; it then reports the death of Noah. The narrative next moves on with short genealogies of each of the three sons of Noah with short comments here and there. I have found that if a conjunction precedes the formula, i.e., these are... or this is... etc., then you may have a conjunction following it at the beginning of the next clause or you may not. In either case, the formula refers to what follows it. Also please notice that there is no conjunction between the descendants of the sons of Noah and "The sons of Japheth...." But a conjunction is included before Ham's sons (v. 6) and Canaan's sons (v.15). As I mentioned above, "One application of the Hebrew conjunction is to join parallel elements, as we do with our conjunction in English." This was the purpose of the conjunction before "Ham" and "Canaan." These conjunctions are simply joining the parallel portions of this section of prose.

Conclusion

From these and other examples we can conclude that Genesis 2:4 must refer to the creation account of Genesis 1, not to the creation of Adam and Eve.

Genesis 2:5 and What Follows Is Set at a Time After the Creation of Genesis 1.

Remembering the examples we have read that illustrate the use of the Hebrew conjunction waw and moving on to further understand the Hebrew narrative, we shall look at examples that will indicate why we should conclude that Genesis 2:5 begins a new creation. We shall discover that in the vast majority of the time, each sentence of a narrative begins with the conjunction waw. If it does not, there is always a discernible reason. We shall discover if a narrative clause begins with a conjunction, the reader is to assume that the narrative moves on in time, unless (1) the following event is specifically stated to have occurred at some other time, at a time earlier in the story, or at a time further into the future, (2) there is sufficient information found within a short span of the local text that indicates that something other than a smooth glide into the future is to be understood by the reader, or (3) the conjunction is only functioning as a connective for non-time related items.

The Narrative May Inform the Reader When the Next Event Takes Place (Gen. 10:32-11:2)

Now let us look at a passage in which the author explicitly informs the reader when the event in question took place. The NASB translates the waw conjunction with the word "Now." Here is the opening two verses of Genesis 6:1-8:

"Now [lit., And] it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose" (emphasis mine).

Genesis 5 follows the genealogy to Noah. The sons of the God (fallen angels) began to marry the daughters of men near the beginning of this time. The formula and it came about overrides the general rule that states that a narrative moves along into the near future when it is preceded with the conjunction waw.. It specifies to the reader when this section is again taking up the narrative. In this instance, the author began his narrative at a time that would place it approximately at the first half of chapter 5. To make this plain, he states at what time the angelic-human marriages began to occur. It was when the descendants of Adam and Eve began to multiply. The author is not moving on from the end of the genealogies of Genesis 5, but he also is not going back to repeat what he has already written. I must warn you that this Hebrew formula is not always translated with the words "and it came about" as the NASB translates it; other translations may vary. The Hebrew of the expression may be: -ויהי כי (and it came about when) or - ויהי ב (and it came about as).

Next we shall look at another passage in which we are explicitly told the time of the narrated event because it did not follow chronologically the last events. At first glance, one might think that this rule breaks down at Genesis 11, because it opens with a conjunction, but the episode described in Genesis 11 precedes the scattering of the people as recorded in Genesis 10.

"Now [lit., And] the whole earth used the same language and the same words. And it came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar...." (emphasis mine)

We need to observe that only a few generations of the sons of Noah are given in chapter 10. Even though here and there a note is made to indicate where these clans finally settled, these comments are not accompanied with a story narrative. Note particularly verse 25: "And two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan." Then the text begins to list the sons of Joktan, Peleg's brother. "In the days of Peleg" means that the settlements away from the area of Babel were made during the lifetime of Peleg. You may observe Genesis 10: 11-12. These two verses do not begin with a conjunction; they must be a parenthesis giving information concerning the activities of Nimrod after the scattering from the region of Babel. Notice also Genesis 10:13-14: "And Mizraim became the father of Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim and Pathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim. The NASB considers the comment on Casluhim to be a parenthetical statement. Please note Genesis 10:18: "...and the Arvadite and the Zemarite and the Hamathite; and afterward [after God confounded the languages] the families of the Canaanite were spread abroad. The actual descendants of the sons of Noah that are mentioned would basically have been alive and dwelling at Babel before the scattering of the people from Babel. Let us read Genesis 10:32-11:1 ignoring the chapter break:

"These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies [better tr.,descendants], by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood. [And]...the whole earth used the same language and the same words."

This last sentence quoted has a stative verb and does not move the narrative along. So it appears that Genesis 11 is simply basically listing the descendants of Noah when they dwelt at Babel. Genesis 11:1, "[And]...the whole earth used the same language and the same words," does not begin the next section, but rather closes out the genealogies of Genesis 10. The new section begins at Genesis 11:2 with the words:

And it came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain..."

The author is using this formula to specify the point in his narrative at which he now resumes his narrative. This formula takes us back to the founding of the settlement at Babel. It resumes the narrative back in time when they were leaving the ark to journey to the territory of Babel. Therefore, the author employs a formula writing, "And it came about as they journeyed east." The author of Genesis believes the reader will understand that his new section begins when they were just arriving at Babel. We may assume this because "they" includes all of them. They never traveled all together eastward in the land of Shinar after their scattering from Babel, so as one reads this sentence, he knows when this was happening. Basically, Genesis 11:1 is speaking of the period of time that the descendants of Noah were living at the territory of Babel. Genesis 11:2 employs a formula that specifies the point in time from which the narrative proceeds. Because the author expressly indicates the point in time that he now resumes the narrative, the presence of the conjunction does not indicate that the narrative is moving on from the time of their scattering from Babel. Any indication that the conjunction is moving on from this point is overridden by his explicitly pointing out the point in time that he is writing about. It is also significant that the author uses the formula and it came about when which alerts the reader that a time for this event is being specified. Note also that the conjunction waw is part of this formula.
The question now that may come to our minds is, “Why did the writer include a conjunction here since he is not moving on in time but rather moving back in time?” The answer may be seen by looking back to Genesis 9:18-19: "Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was populated." Next the author writes three sections that all deal with the population of the earth. The first section, Genesis 9:20-29, narrates the story of Noah's nakedness and his curse upon Canaan. This relates to the scattering of the descendants of Noah because Genesis 9:27 prophesies, "May God enlarge Japheth, And let him dwell in the tents of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant." The next section, Genesis 10:1-11:2, gives the genealogies of Shem, Ham, and Japheth and indicates which nations came form each of these men. The third section, Genesis 11:2-9 relates the account of God's displeasure with the descendants of Noah while they were at Babel, thus giving the reason for their departure form Babel into the then known world. These three sections end with a concluding statement: "Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth." Now we can see the purpose for the conjunction that begins Genesis 11:2: It connects the last section of the three sections to the first two sections that deal with the scattering of the descendants of Noah. The author wanted to connect together these three sections dealing with the scattering so included this conjunction for this purpose. But in so doing, it was necessary to indicate that he was backtracking to the time when the party was first arriving at Babel. For this he used a typical Hebrew formula and it came about....

Before we leave Genesis 10:32-11:2, it is important that we notice that this passage provides an alternative way that Moses could have written Genesis 2:5--the verse that introduces the creation of Adam and Eve. As has been shown, if no conjunction is included before the clause containing the these-formula and no conjunction is included after this clause, then the formula refers to the material that follows it. Therefore, it was necessary for Moses to begin his narrative of the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve with the conjunction; otherwise "these are the generations [better tr. descendants] of the heavens and the earth...." Genesis 2:5 would have been referring to what follows it rather than to Genesis 1. As Genesis 11:2 begins with the formula "And it came about as...," to indicate that he had now reverted back in his narrative to the time at which the sons of Noah were journeying to Babel, so Moses could have used this formula to indicate when Adam and Eve were created. He could have written, "And it came about on the sixth day of creation, that "no shrub of the field was yet in the earth...." Or he could have written, "And it came about after God had created the animals that "no shrub of the field was yet in the earth...." However, he did neither of these. He began his next paragraph with the Hebrew prefixed conjunction -ן with no indication that his narrative was not moving forward in time. It is the absence of any indication that the narrative is not progressing forward in time that indicates to us that Genesis 2 relates a subsequent, different creation from Genesis 1. This may be why interpreters of this text have failed to see that the narrative noves on to a different creation story in Genesis 2.

Genesis 11:10

Another example of interest is Genesis 11:10 because, even though there is no conjunction after the formula, indicating this formula refers to what follows it, still there is no conjunction before the formula indicating that this section does not proceed forward from the verse preceding it. This is in contrast to Genesis 2:5, which includes the conjunction before it, indicating that the narrative (unless otherwise noted) proceeds forward from the verse before it:

"[No conjunction hereà] These are the generations of Shem: [No conjunction hereà] Shem was a hundred years old and fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. And after he fathered Arpachshad..." (Gen. 11:10, Green)

Genesis 11:10 begins repeating the names of the descendants of Shem which were also included in the genealogy of Genesis 10:21. This may be why Genesis 11:10 does not begin with a conjunction. But “these” refers to what follows it just as our rule requires in a case where there is no conjunction before or after its clause.

God’s Eden Project

Our focus will now be on Genesis 2:3-17. It is crucial that we make an accurate discourse analysis of this passage. Without a good understanding of what the author was thinking when he wrote it, it will be hard to see the difference between the purpose of the opening conjunction of verse 9 and the opening conjunction of verses 5 and 6. Someone may say that Genesis 2:9 contradicts my conclusion that narratives never move backwards in time unless indicated otherwise because verse 8 says that God put the man into the Garden, and then verse 9 says that God caused "every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (Green) to spring up. Does this not mean that the narrative can move backwards without its revealing otherwise? This insite into Genesis 2:5-17 will help us see that the narrative moves forward to a new creation story in Genesis 2, which is different from the creation as recorded in Genesis 1. We will see that the Bible teaches two human origins, two different creations of man.

The “and” at the beginning of verse 9 is a connecting and. It connects God’s placing the man in the garden with the sprouting up of the trees. To see that this is the case, we shall take a further look at Genesis 2:5-17. First it is to be taken as a unit. We have already seen that Genesis 2:4 refers to what precedes it. Genesis 5 begins a new subject. The key to understanding this passage is to accurately define in our mind what its subject. The subject of this passage is not limited to a man or to a race. It is not limited to a garden. It is not limited to what one could have seen in Garden of Eden. Rather, the subject includes Adam, the garden, the plants and trees, and the rulership of Jehovah God over the man dwelling in the garden. It was a physical and moral paradise. Here is a large part of this section of Genesis: (I have left out most of the discussion of the rivers flowing out of Eden.)

Here is Green's translation of Genesis 2:5-17 (with verses numbered):

^5"[A]nd every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not sent rain on the earth; and there was no man to till the ground. ⁶And…[a flow] went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. ⁷And Jehovah God formed a man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul."

Green begins a new paragraph here, but this is unnecessary.

^8"And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, to the east; and He put the man whom He had formed there. ⁹And out of the ground Jehovah God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. ¹⁰And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads. The name of the first was Pishon….¹⁴And the fourth river was Euphrates."

Green begins a new paragraph here, but this is not necessary.

^15"And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden, to work it and to keep it. ¹⁶And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; ¹⁷but of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die."

A serious study of this passage reveals that the author is showing us that God took a land that was lifeless and useless and transformed it into a garden that was life-producing and profitable to God both physically and spiritually. God made it physically productive by a number of means, such as providing water (v.4); He made it spiritually productive by providing a choice for the man between two trees—one, which would produce life and one, which would produce death. He placed the man in the garden to cultivate it, and He provided the man a means of growing spiritually by giving him a way to show his obedience and love for his Creator. The man was to obey in regards to the two trees. He could eat from one and live, or he could disobey God and die. The author of Genesis regarded this to be a very complete garden; a piece of realestate that had been changed drastically from what it was before God began to move upon this land, and he desired to indicate in this passage God’s actions in bringing about this change. We can see that this was what the author of Genesis had in mind by observing certain statements in this narrative and by observing where and how this passage ends. Verse 15 terminates God’s physical restoration of the land—God puts a man into it to care for it. And verses 16 and 17 terminate God’s spiritual provision for the garden. In verse 9, God mentions the tree of life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but verses 16 and 17 inform us that God instructed Adam of his responsibility not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Earlier I noted that the subject of Genesis 2:5-17 is the Garden of Eden rather than, as some may believe, the creation of Adam. Please remember, according to my dual origin thesis, Genesis 1 is the story of God’s cration of mankind. By Moses day the amalgamation of the descendants of Adam and Eve into mankind had already occurred. Note the movement of the narrative through these verses combines the spiritual development of the garden (v.9) with its physical development. In regard to the subject of this passage being the Garden of Eden, notice verse 15. Why does the text say, “And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden, to work it and to keep it” (Green; emphesis mine)? This would be similar to saying, “The woman took a candle and placed it on the table to make her room more cheery.” What is the subject here, the candle or the room? It is the room. The author of Genesis seeks to emphasize that God took a dry unproductive piece of land and changed it into a garden where physical and spiritual life could flourish. Admittedly verse 8 does not include the extra words took the man. Verse 5 tells us the two basic reasons why this land was unproductive: it lacked water and it lacked a man to cultivate it. In summary fashion, verse 8 informs us that God solved these two problems: He solved the first problem by providing a flow (hot springs), and to meet the second problem, He created a man to cultivate the ground. He did not have to direct the reader’s attention to his purpose for placing the man into the garden because it followed the verse that specified the problem, namely, the lack of a man.

We can now put together all we know about the use of the conjunction and the results of our alalysis of Genesis 2:5-17. We can determine the main purpose of each of the waw conjunctions, Let us remember that we discovered from our study of conjunctions that, other than its use in its waw consecutive function, it either moves a narrative on in time or it connects together two or more aspects of the narrative. Of course, these functions all may overlap. And if it does not move the narrative along in time, it must indicate the time at which it is retrogressing to, or its immediate context must be clear that the narrative is not progressing at this point. Let us now look at these conjunctions. Please refer to these verses which I have already provided from Green’s translation.

We will leave our analysis of the first “and” of verse 5 until the end. The second “and” connects the second clause with the first one. Verse 6 tells us that a flow went up from the land and watered the whole ground. The key to understanding this verse is to realize that the Hebrew word here for “watered” means that water is being provided for the need of people, animals, and plants. Therefore, this verse must be speaking of what follows the drought conditions described in verse 5; otherwise these verses would create a contradiction. We would be first told that vegetation would not grow because there was no rain (that is, it was too dry); next we would be told that the "flow" watered the ground--a contradictory statement. I realize that the subject of verse 6 precedes the verb that in Hebrew can mean the pluperfect tense is indicated; however, the subject can precede the verb for other reasons. It can precede the verb to indicate a change in subject or to emphasize the subject. To water the land with hot springs is by no means, of course, the normal method. Rain must have been the normal method of watering the ground, as it is today. Apparently God provided water to His garden through hot springs rather than through rain in order to eliminate the need for cloudy rainy days in His garden. On the second day, the author describes God’s creation of the expanse: “Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The Hebrew actually says, as per Green’s interlinear: “…and let it (be) dividing between the waters….” (Gen. 1:6). Its “action” is ongoing as seen by the particle “dividing” and as experienced today in the water cycle. Therefore, the “and” which begins verse 6 moves us on in time. Someone may argue that Jehovah’s actions are not mentioned until verse 7. True, but for the reason already stated, we must conclude that verse 6 moves on in time from verse 5 and that the reader is to realize that the flow was a result of God’s providence accomplished as a geological phenomenon but that God’s creation of Adam from the ground was a direct miracle. The conjunction that begins verse 7 is basically a connecting conjunction, although it no doubt moves the narrative along in time, likewise the second conjunction of verse 7. No doubt God planted the Garden of Eden before He created the man. Therefore, the first “and” of verse 8 is a connective conjunction. Likewise, thee second conjunction of verse 8 is also a connective conjunction.

The purpose of this analysis was basically to explain the purpose of the conjunction of verse 9. The material in verse 9 obviouly goes backward in time from the setting of verse 8. Why was the conjunction included? Our discourse analysis makes the answer to this question easy. All the conjunctions that are imployed from and including the middle conjunction of verse 6 to the end of verse 17 are connective conjunctions. The author of Genesis adds each thing that God did to make this unproductive whasteland into an inhabited life-producing spiritual dwelling—the Garden of Eden, if you will. Verse 9 in one respect goes back in time to the first planting of the garden, but its emphasis was the time at which the man was placed into the garden. The trees no doubt continually were springing up each year. No formula was included to indicate that the narrative was not moving on simply because it was unnecessary due to the context. The reason for the “and” at the beginning of verse 9 is as stated: it connects the acts of God that transformed a wasteland into the Garden of Eden.

Actually, the reason I explained Genesis 2:9 was to show that we have here a much different situation than we find in Genesis 2:5, which stands between the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 accounts. Now we shall look at Genesis 2:5 to see that such an argument would be invalid because the context of verse 5 is much different from the context of verse 9. Verse 9 is in the context of a list of things that God did to reach his goal. Verse 5 opens up a whole new section of scriptures. Verse 4 closes out the creation account of Genesis 1. We have seen from many examples (some of which I have included in the appendix of my book) that, unless it is obvious or explicitly stated otherwise, the conjunction moves the narrative along in time. Genesis 2:5 has no such indication. It explains that it had not rained upon the earth and therefore nothing was growing. That the earth was watered by what I believe were hot springs. (Please see my article in this blog entitled "Where Was the Garden of Eden.") When verse 6 tells us that a flow went up from the earth, it was probably referring to multiple hot springs that were flowing up from the ground in northern

Iran

where the Garden of Eden was vary likely located. This shows immediately that God's solution to the lack of water was unique--not rain but hot springs and that God had provided for it. If we are being taken back to the creation as recorded in Genesis 1, we would need to go back to the time before the creation of the plant kingdom on day 3. This would be very unlikely because the setting of day 3 concerned the whole globe, but here we are dealing with a limited area of land watered by hot springs. Genesis 2:7 tells us that God formed the man (Adam) from the dust of the ground. Genesis 2:4 tells us that the race of people introduced in Genesis 1 descended from the heavens and the earth. Verse 8 limits the vegetation that God planted to the area of the garden, which was limited to only a part of Eden. We must have a reason for viewing chapter 2 as another account of the same creation act as chapter 1 since verse 5 opens with the conjunction. The conjunction that opens Genesis 2:5 does not connect a series of events that do not concern time; it does not employ a formula that refers to a previous portion of the narrative; and the context does not demand that we are telling the creation story of Genesis 1. Therefore, it is best to see Genesis 1 as referring to a completely different creation account.

Does the Pluperfect Matter?

I felt it necessary for me to look into Genesis 2:5 to determine if its pluperfect sentence structure would alter my above conclusion concerning this verse. The pluperfect tense places the action before another happening in the past. An example may be, "We had arrived at the hall before the bride and groom." One could also say in English, "We arrived at the hall before the bride and groom." These both mean the same thing essentially; however, the first example emphases that we arrived before the bride and groom. The Hebrew speaker makes a pluperfect by simply using the Hebrew perfect tense as normal, but instead of placing the subject of the sentence after the verb, he places the subject before the verb.

In Hebrew the first two clauses of Genesis 2:5 are written as pluperfect clauses. Since these clauses make reference to what precedes the time of the verse as it stands in the narrative, we may ask, Does this also take the place of omitting the conjunction as does the phrase and it came about? From my study of examples in the Old Testament Hebrew, I have concluded that this is not the case. My conclusion that this verse carries on the narrative to a second creation remains valid. The inclusion of the pluperfect does not interrupt the flow of the narrative; it only gives further information for the reader so that he can understand what he is reading. The pluperfect clauses are very few. Here is an example that includes the conjunction, showing that the narrative was not interrupted; the pluperfect clauses just added more information to help the reader to comprehend the situation better:

"And Laban overtook Jacob. And Jacob had pitched his tent at the Mount. And Laban with his brothers had pitched at Mount Gilead. And Laban said to Jacob..." (Gen. 31: 25, Green).

Next I have included an example in which there is no conjunction before the pluperfect part; the absence of the conjunction indicates that this is a parentheses:

"The Emim... [lit., had lived] there formerly, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim, they are also..." (Deut. 2:10-11).

This parenthesis continues through verse 12.

Conclusion: the conjunction controls the flow of the narrative; the pluperfect does not.

Additional Examples of the Presence or Absense of the Hebrew Conjunction to Help Us Understand How It Was Used

It has been clear thus far in our study of examples that the Hebrews were extremely carful to let the reader know where in the narrative the action or description being given fits into the movement of the narrative.

Setting the Narrative Back to a Previous Time

Genesis 19:29 is an example of how the author dealt with a case in which the paragraph concerns events of a previous time:

"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt." [KJV]

This story of God's rescuing Lot from the cities of the plain was told in the beginning portion of Genesis 19. The formula and it came to pass was used, and the time of the event was given.

Examples in Which No Conjunction Is Employed

Now we shall look at more examples to discover whether or not a conjunction moves a narrative backward or further forward in time if no indication is given to the contrary. And if it does change the flow of the narrative, we need to discover what types of indications are necessary to show that the narrative is not progressing forward in time a naturally expected amount. Let us note that the conjunction is always used before each sentence in a narrative except in certain situations. These are:

1. It is often not used in direct quotations, as previously noted.

2. It may or may not be used when the author begins to discuss a new event and he gives the time of the event (directly or indirectly). We will sight some examples.

3. It is sometimes omitted when a list or some other information (such as an introduction or a summary) is given that really does not move the narrative along.

The conjunction was not used to begin Genesis 15:1. This verse follows the episode in which Abraham rescued the goods they had taken from Sodom and Gomorrah from Chedor-laomer and his confederate kings. Abraham brought the goods and people who had been taken away by these kings back to their homes, but the king of Sodom said to Abraham, "Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself" (Genesis 14:21, Green). But Abraham turned these goods down. Genesis 15 begins without the conjunction: "After these things the word of Jehovah came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram; I am your shield, your reward will increase greatly" (emphasis mine, Green). Here the time is given as "after these things" to relate the offer of Jehovah to Abraham's turning down all this wealth. Since the time is explicitly given, no conjunction was included. Since the time is explicitly given, no conjunction was required. However, in most passages where after these things is found in narrative discourse, the text reads, [And]...it came about after these things....( See Gen. 22:1, 20; 40:1; 48:1; Josh. 24:29; 1 Kg. 17:17; 21:1.) In the exception before us, apparently the author omitted the usual And it came about... to emphasize that God was rewarding Abraham for turning down the spoils offered to him by the king of Sodom.

An example where the time is given and the conjunction is omitted is in Numbers 7:18-19a: "On the second day Nethaneel the son of Zuar, ruler of Issachar, offered; he brought for his offering one silver dish..." (Green). This similar form is used for all the rest of the days through day twelve.

Numbers 11:35 is rare because the time is not explicitly given yet no conjunction is included. The relative time was obvious from the context for after the people had encamped and lusted after meat they left and went to Hazeroth. Jehovah gave them quails, but became angry and struck them with a very great plague. Then we read: [No conjunction hereà] “From the Graves of Lust the people pulled up to go to Hazeroth, and they remained in Hazeroth.” Apparently since the time was so obvious due to his note that they pulled up stakes to go to Hazeroth, the author felt that the inclusion of the conjunction would be unnecessary. Such a case as this is rare.

In place of the conjunction, the time is sometimes used for emphasis. In my next example, the word "then" begins the sentence because the narrative does not move on in time. First I will quote Numbers 21:17, followed by verse 18:

"And from there they went to Beer; that is the well of which Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Gather the people and I will give water to them. [No conjunction here à] Then

Israel

sang this song: Spring up, O well, sing to it…." (emphasis mine, Green).

Here is an example in which the conjunction is included along with information specifying the time:

"[Hebrew includes And] at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains...." (Jos. 11:21, Green; emphasis mine)

Another example where the conjunction was omitted is found in Joshua 19:17:

"[No conjunction hereà] The fourth lot came out to Issachar..." (Josh. 19:17, Green).

But the outcome of the next lot was stated with the conjunction:

"And the fifth lot came out for the tribe of the sons of Asher..." (Josh. 19:24, Green; emphasis mine)

Some of the verses that state the outcome of the lots have a conjunction and some do not. By stating the next number of the lot, the narrative was moved along in time and the relative time of the event was given; therefore the conjunction was not always used. Here is an example that follows up on the dividing of the land by lots. A conjunction is included, and I make a note of this because it is an example of a passage where the time of the event is included:

"[Lit. And] when they had made an end of dividing the land for inheritance by their borders, the sons of

Israel

gave an inheritance to Joshua.... "(Josh. 19:49, Green; emphasis mine).

In our next example, the introduction begins by giving a time with no conjunction and specifies the time:

"[No conjunction hereà] In those days there was no king in

Israel

. And in those days the tribe of the Danites...." (Judges 18:1, Green).

Judges 19:22 is an instance in which an opening clause does not include the conjunction but one can see why it does not. Two reasons may be sighted: (1) It really is giving the setting for what was to follow rather than moving the narrative along; (2) it describes the scene that was set in the verse before it; and (3) it really is to be taken as an independent clause for the next clause. The preceding verse states,

"And he brought him to his house, and mixed fodder for the asses. And they washed their feet and ate and drank." (Judges 19:21, Green)

I will quote the subject verse from two versions: first from Green's literal version and then from the Authorized Version:

"They were making their hearts merry. And, behold, men of the city, sons of worthless men, went around the house, beating on the door" (Judges 19:22a).

Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house around about, and beat at the door;..." (Judges 19:22a).

The beginning clause is actually in the pluperfect; here is another way to translate it: "They had been making their hearts merry, and behold, the men...." The narrative does not move on with verse 22a; therefore no conjunction was employed. The narrative does not move on until it says, “and, behold, the men…”

Next I will site an example of a verse where the conjunction is omitted. The Israelites were not supposed to worship anywhere other than at the tabernacle or the temple. Solomon had not finished building the temple. Therefore, instead of using the conjunction the word meaning only was used. First Kings 3:2 mentions the building of the temple;

"Only, the people were sacrificing in high places, for a house for the name of Jehovah had not been built until those days." (Green)

Verse 3 is similar; in this case it indicates that although Solomon loved Jehovah, he was sacrificing in the high places:

"...Only, he was sacrificing in high places and burning incense." (Green)

Neither of these two verses that I have quoted moves the narrative along so that the inclusion of the waw consecutive was not included.

Here is another verse that does not include the conjunction because it does not move the narrative along but makes a summary type statement:

"And the king [Solomon] went to Gibeon to sacrifice there; for it was the great high place. [No conjunction hereà] Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. "(1 Ki. 3:4, Green).

The next verse also does not include a conjunction:

"[No conjunction hereà] Jehovah appeared to Solomon in Gibeon in a dream of the night. And God said, Ask, What shall I give to you?" (1 Ki. 3:5, Green)

This verse stresses Jehovah's grace in appearing to King Solomon even when he was in Gibeon. It does not move the narrative along, and it gives the general time of the visitation by giving the place.

1 Kings 9:24 begins, "But [lit. only] the daughter of Pharaoh went up out of the city of David to her house that he built for her; then he built Millo." (Green) The NASB translates the beginning word of this sentence with "As soon as." It must really refer to the time of her move. Since the time was given, the waw could be omitted.

Conclusion

Please notice that the writers of the Scriptures were very conscious of their use of the conjunction; they never misemploy it. If the conjunction is included, the narrative never backtracks unless it is made plain that this is the case. I don't even think that Genesis 2:9 is an exception to this due to the reasons I have already given. In conclusion, when an early Hebrew reader read Genesis 2:4-5a, "These are the births of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that Jehovah God was making earth and heavens--And...." (Green), he knew that this verse referred to the creation of mankind as recorded in Genesis 1. He knew this because no conjunction immediately precedes "these..." and because a conjunction begins the next clause. Then when he read Genesis 2:5,7, "[And]...no shrub of the field was yet in the…[land], and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the …[land]; and there was no man to cultivate the ground....Then [lit., And] the LORD God formed [better tr., a man] man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and [lit., the man] man became a living being," he could have known that the narrative was moving on to a second creation of man. He could have known that the author could have used the formula, and it came about...and then he could have specified the relative time that the narrative was proceeding from, but the author didn't. He employed the conjunction to indicate that the “these” of verse 4 is referring to Genesis 1 rather than to Genesis 2f, but he did not indicate in any way that the narrative was not moving on in time. Therefore, the reader could have known that the narrative was moving on to a different setting subsequent to the events of Genesis 1 because narratives always move on unless it is otherwise made obvious to the reader, especially if the conjunction is included. Therefore, we must conclude that Genesis 2 describes a different creation of man from that narrated in Genesis 1.

We can easily find five differences between the account found in Genesis 1 and the account found in Genesis 2: (1) God told the people of Genesis 1 that they could eat of every tree, but He told Adam that he could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (2) The trees of Genesis 1 were self-seeding, but the vegetation of Genesis 2 had to be cultivated. (3) Concerning God's instructions about the forbidden tree, in Genesis 1, He spoke to the male and the female, saying that He was giving every tree to them for food, but in Genesis 2, God only spoke to Adam; Eve had not yet been formed. (4) In Genesis 1, they are told to subdue the earth and fill it, but in Genesis 2, they were to till the garden into which they were placed. Nothing is mentioned concerning the rest of the earth. (5) As I showed in my book, a much more accurate way to translate Genesis 2:4 the Hebrew word for "generations" is "descendants": "These are the descendants of the heavens and the earth..." (my translation). The race that was created before the creation of Adam and Eve was created, not by God's forming them directly from the ground, but rather through a process of births. However, Genesis 2 records that God formed Adam from the soil and Eve from the side of Adam. What a glaring difference in God's method of creating these two groups of people.

Someone may think that because Genesis 2:5 says that the vegetation had not yet sprung up that this means that vegetation had never grown upon the earth since creation. But words such as these must be interpreted in context. The context is that of a relatively small portion of the earth where the Garden of Eden was located. We can conclude that the setting was much later than the creation of the earth because the reason for the lack of vegetation was due to the lack of rain. But Genesis 1:9 speaks of God's collecting the water into one place so that the land would appear. If one should ask a farmer if had gotten any rain yet, it would not mean that he had never received rain before, but that he had not received the rain that he needed at that time.

I believe that one reason for a misunderstanding of these two creation accounts has been because interpreters have thought that Genesis 2:4 is referring to the creation story of Adam and Eve, but it isn't. Another cause for this misfortunate misunderstanding has been bad translations of Genesis 2:7. Here is a typical translation:

"And LORD God formed man out of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (KJV)

I will now translate it the way I believe it should be translated:

"And Yahweh God formed a man out of dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul" (KJV)

I have included the English indefinite article before the first occurrence of "man" and the definite article before the second occurrence of "man." This makes all the difference in the world. Both changes are very permissible per Hebrew syntax. Please see my book for an explanation for why I made these changes.

Some Implications

Since we know God created mankind at two different times, it behooves us to ask, “Did He create man in the same manner in each case?” We know that Genesis 2 reports that He created Adam from the dust of the ground as you would form something out of clay, and that He created Eve from Adam and brought her to him. The first creation of mankind is recorded in Genesis 1. The method is not specified in Genesis 1, but it is hinted at in Genesis 2:4, where it states, "These are the births [better tr., descendants] of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that Jehovah was making earth and heavens--" (Green). Mankind as a whole was created before Adam and Eve, and they were created from the heavens and the earth by a process of descent (a method that includes the process of birth). Notice that the Bible actually does not contradict the scenario of an old earth or a scenario of evolution because the Bible teaches that mankind was already created before Adam and Eve and that mankind was created by a different process--one that involved births. If you are interested in how to interpret the whole Bible from this point of view, please see my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (latest edition date, 2015), published by AuthorHouse. This book also gives mathematical proof that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing human race. Please also see my recent article on this blog entitled "ARE THE SONS OF GOD FALLEN ANGELS?" because in it I explain my view concerning the meaning of the daughters of men and the sons of God. Due to my obtaining more understanding on the subject, I changed my view of the meanings of these two phrases; it is different from the view that I defended in the 2007 and the 2009 editions of my book.

WHY DOES GENESIS 5:1-2 QUOTE GENESIS 1

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:21:00 +0000

Last Revision: June 13, 2014
Genesis 5 begins the genealogy of Adam by quoting the creation narrative of Genesis 1:27-28. Does this mean that Adam and Eve were the subject of Genesis 1? No. Genesis 1 was quoted to make a point, but it was not quoted to equate Adam and Eve with those created as described in Genesis 1. Genesis 1:27-28 reads, "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."¹ Genesis 5:1-3 says, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth." Because God's intention was to create Adam and Eve to be the representative of the human race and to test Adam and Eve in a perfect environment, He created them directly from the ground and placed them in the Garden of Eden. This meant that Adam and Eve needed to be real human beings. Therefore, God created them as humans and named them man to show that they were human. He also blessed them just as He had blessed the first pre-Adamites. This is why Genesis 5:1-3 sounds much like Genesis 1:27-28. My book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science shows that God created mankind as recorded in Genesis 1 and then later created Adam and Eve from the dust of the ground. Yes, it is possible to harmoize science and the Bible.
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¹Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Is Finding Neanderthal Genes in the Human Genome a Problem for Christianity?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:50:00 +0000

An astonding discovery has been made by Max Planck Institute--Neanderthal genes have been found in human genomes. Is this a problem for Bible-believing Christians. Certainly not. Articles on the blog and expecially my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science present a modal for harmonizing the Bible and Science that has no problem with this discovery. The Word of God, the Bible, is always right on the truth.

THE RIVER THAT WENT OUT OF EDEN

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:37:00 +0000

Revised: July 15, 2014; August 10, 2014

The mysteries hovering around the garden of Eden are quite tantalizing to our minds. We wonder where it was and what it looked like. We are told a number of things about it in the Bible. We do know that their was a river that flowed through it, for Genesis 2:10 states, "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads" (Gen. 1:10).¹ Please read my article "Where is the Garden of Eden?" in which I give evidence that the Garden of Eden was located in Northern Iran. Genesis 2 tells us the names of the four rivers associated with these four heads, two of which we know were the Tigris and the Euphrates. There is a website out there that uses this passage from Genesis to try to show that the Bible is not inspired since there are no rivers that split and become four heads two of which are the Tigris and Euphrates. But the author of this website makes the same mistake that many others have made. When the Bible says that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden" it does not mean that this was the direction of the river's flow.
Translators who translate the words this way do so because the authors of the Hebrew Scriptures were not likely to write that a river flows. They would have said, it went. In Hebrew, the idea of flow seems to be reserved for the concept of "gushing forth." But I believe that the Hebrews also could write that a river went and mean that it was located there, without reference to the direction of its flow. In Hebrew it is possible to say that a strip of land or border of a strip of land went out from place to place. Examples of this are the following verses that contain the Hebrew word yatsa meaning "go or come out" ^{(BDB, 422)}:

Num.21:13 “From there they pulled and camped beyond Amon, which is in the wilderness that comes out [Heb., yatsa] of the boarder of the Amorite.”

Joshua 18:11 “…and the border of their lot went out [Heb., yatsa] between the sons of Judah and the sons of Joseph.”

Let us look again at Genesis 2:10: "And a river [Heb., yatsa] went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads." (Green) This sentence seems to indicate from the word "became" that there was a continuity of this river into the four heads. Here is where a little more study of the Hebrew terms for river or stream is helpful: Two words of interest are found in the following verse that I shall present in order to show that the word for river can mean more than just the water bed and flowing water; it can include the land that surrounds it. The first Hebrew word is ethan (BDB No. 5158), which means in this case "ever-flowing" and the second Hebrew word we are looking at is nachal, (BDB No. 5158), which means "torrent, torrent-valley, wady." The following verse shows that it included the land of the valley next to the torrent bed:

“And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to an ever-flowing [Deut. 21:4 BDB No. 386, p. 450-51, adj., basic meaning is perpetual] stream [Heb. ethan], which is not plowed or sown. And they shall break the heifer's neck there by the stream [Heb. nachal].” (Deut. 21:4, emphasis mine)

The significance of this verse may be seen through the statement "which is not plowed or sown." These words definitely refer to the ground of the valley surrounding the continuously flowing stream. This shows us that when the Hebrews thought of a river they sometimes also included the land on each side of it, which they also included in the term. See Jamieson A Commentary Vol. I, p.669, where he observes that the Septuagent calls it a "valley."

Please carefully consider Joshua 13:16-18 because it contains the same Hebrew word for river (nahar, BDB No. 5104) as the Hebrew word used for river in our text, Genesis 2:10:

“And Moses gave to the tribe of the sons of Reuben, for their families; and their border was from Aroer on the lip of the river [nahar] Amon and the city which is in the middle of the valley [lit. river, nahar], and all the plain by Medeba; Heshbon, and all its cities in the tableland; Dibon, and Barmoth-baal, and Bethbaalmeon....” (emphasis mine)

Please note that Green translates nahar here "valley." From this use of nahar we are able see that it can include the whole valley that is adjacent to a river because the city was said to be in the middle of the [nahar]. I demonstrated in my article "Where Is the Garden of Eden" that the Garden was located in Northern Iran at the heads of four rivers, the Pishon (now called the Uizhun or the Kezel Uzun), the Gihon (now called River Araxes), the Tigris River, and the Euphrates River. If we include the land surrounding the river that went out of Eden, that is, the Adji Chay, we can move right into the land surrounding the head streams of the Pishon. Now we can observe from a map that the Pishon seems to be the closest of the four rivers mentioned in out text to the head waters of the Adji Chay. The next river listed, called "the second river," the Gihon, is almost as close to the head waters of the Adji Chay as the Pison, and one of the streams that feeds the Pishon is close to one of the streams that feeds the Gihon. Other streams that feed the Gihon originate near some of the head streams of the river the text calls "the third river," that Tigris River. Now it appears that the author of Genesis is listing the rivers in order as you leave the head waters of the Adji Chay and work outward, because the northmost head waters of the Tigris are near the northmost head waters of the Euphrates River, the last river listed. Since the author goes to the bother of numbering these four rivers, it seems that the author means by the words "became four heads" that if you follow these four heads from river head to river head you will successively move in turn from the Adji Chay (the river that "went out of Eden," to the Pishon, to the Gihon, to the Tigris, and to the Euphrates.

Consider the fact that rivers flow from higher elevations into the valleys. This is common for all rivers. That the author of Genesis was asserting that a river flowed to its mouth and then split into four streams that became the heads of four other rivers is very unlikely because such a scenario borders on the impossible. If we place the Garden of Eden at a location near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, how can this river that waters the Eden become the heads of these river named? It will also not due to say that it means that the valley of the Tigris or Euphrates goes up to the place of the heads of these rivers in Iran because the river which flows through Eden is not one of the rivers named in this passage. The Bible is not in error; people misinterpret it.
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¹Unless otherwise noted scripture quotations are from The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by P. Green, Sr. which was contained in the side column of Green’s work The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayett, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).

WHERE WAS THE GARDEN OF EDEN?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:03:00 +0000

Revised June 14, 2014; July 14; 2014; August 10, 2014

In my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science¹ I followed the view of those who place the Garden of Eden in the lower part of Mesopotamia (present day Iraq). I took the view defended by some people that the Garden of Eden was located at Eridu which was situated near the mouth of the Euphrates River. Since I wrote my book, I have recently read David M. Rohl's book Legend: The Genesis Of Civilisation². Also I have observed more thoroughly the Bible's description of the river that went through Eden and became four heads.
The Bible says, "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads" (Gen. 1:10).³ This verse indicates that the Garden of Eden was located near the heads of these two known rivers, not at their mouths where they go into the Persian Gulf. Having discovered Rohl's arguments, I have changed my mind as to the location of the Garden of Eden. I do not agree with all of Rohl's statements and conclusions, of course, since he does not believe in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as I do. Rohl has convinced me that Eden was in northern Iran
between Lake Urmia and the Caspian Sea. The Garden of Eden was just east of Lake Urmia.

According to my thesis, God created the human race as recorded in Genesis 1; much later He created Adam and Eve directly from the ground as it was told in Genesis 2. The descendants of Adam and Eve married into this pre-Adamic human race. My evidence for this is that Genesis 2:5 moves the narrative along in time to a different creation of man from the Genesis 1 narrative. Also in my book, I show that the lifespans recorded in Genesis 11 decrease just as you would expect them to do if you accept this dual-origins scenario. This flourish of intermarriages did not occur until the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men. The Bible seems to indicate that the sons of God were fallen angels; also ancient writings also agree with this interpretation of Scripture. (See my article "Are the Sons of God Fallen Angels.") The subject of this section of Genesis is the race of the descendants of Adam and Eve so "the daughters of men" are descends of Adam and Eve. Ken Johnson gives the date for the descent of the evil angels to be 460-622 years after the creation of Adam and Eve. Coupling this with the statement that God made concerning the decrease in lifespans: "My Spirit shall not strive with man [lit., the man] forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless [or therefore] his days shall be one hundred and twenty years" (Gen.6:3, NASB). Therefore 460-622 years after the creation of Adam and Eve must have been the time when the descendants of Adam and Eve began also to intermarry with the pre-Adamites. I have connected these two events because it was the intermarrying between the descendants of Adam and Eve and the pre-Adamites that lowered the lifespans of the descendants of Adam and Eve. Since during these 460 years between the creation of Adam and Eve, their descendants were living up in the mountains away from the regions that probably were more populated, that is, regions such as, southern and central Iraq. Dwelling in Eden may have isolated them.

Here are some reasons why I believe that Rohl is correct in placing the Garden of Eden along the Meidan River (also called the Adji Chay). The Bible tells us that this river which went through the Garden of Eden became the heads of four rivers. Then it lists the rivers; two of these rivers are easily identified. They are the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. The other two rivers are more difficult to identify. But since we know that the river of Eden was located at the heads of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, we now know the general location where we should search for the Garden of Eden. Eden was the general area in which the Garden of Eden was located; it was "in Eden, to the east (Gen. 2:8). The text is saying that it was at the east part of Eden. According to Rohl, Eden was the territory around Lake Van and Lake Urmia. With respect to the four rivers that are mentioned that possess these four heads, the first river is the Pishon, which "flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold" (Gen.2:11, NASB). Unfortunately, this Pishon is not easily identified; Rohl identifies the other three rivers which are to the north, west, and south of Lake Urmia and the River Adji Chay and then observes that the Pishon completes the circle of the heads of rivers. Rohl explains that Reginald Arthur Walker⁴ has found that the Pishon River is the Uizhun River, also called the Kezel Uzun.⁵ The meaning Kezel Uzun is interesting since it means "long gold,"⁶ and the Bible says that gold was in Havilah where the Pishon was located (Gen:2:11). Rohl convincingly shows how the word Pishon is linguistically and phonetically related to Uizhun; it does appear that Pishon came to be pronounced Uizhum.

Next, the Bible speaks of the Gihon which goes through the land of Cush. Walker identified the Gihon with present-day Araxes which is more recently called the Araks or Aras. It can be shown that this river, which goes north and to the east of the Adji Chay was called the Gaihun as recently as the eighth century.⁷

The third river was the Hiddekel, and it is well extablished that it referred to the Tigris River.

The fourth, the Perath, is what we know as the Greek name Euphrates, the great river that lies east of the Tigris River, flowing from north-west to south-east into the Persian Gulf.

As was noted, the Bible says, "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads" (Gen. 2:10).

Rohl gives us another reason for placing the likely location of the Garden of Eden east of Lake Urmia: there is evidence that the Land of Nod was located to the north west of this spot. This supports our notion concerning location of the Garden of Eden since the Bible relates that, "Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah. And he lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden" (Gen. 4:16). Rohl found that a number of towns east of the proposed location of the Garden of Eden are in existence today. They are named Noqdi. The i at the end of the word denotes dwelling place.⁸ As Iraqi means one who dwells in Iraq, Noqdi means one who dwells in Noqd. Of course this is very close to the sound of the word Nod. The province of Ardabil lies east of the Garden of Eden. Rohl traveled to the town of Ardabil to visit the maping department. He related his discovery:

To the north of Ardabil were several villages called Noqdi which might plausibly be linked to the biblical Nod. Moreover, the whole region to the north of Ardabil turned out to be known as Upper and Lower Noqdi. This was an unexpected revelation, as the names of these two districts did not appear on any map I had seen. ⁹

The modern city of Tabriz lies on the Meidan Chai (Adji Chay); the Ahar (not Adji) Chay lies north of the Meidan Chai. Rohl wrote, "The modern Iranian name of the 4,000-metre mountain ridge which separates the valley of Tabriz from Ahar is Kusheh Dagh--the 'Mountain of Kush.'"¹⁰.

The Bible says that before God created Adam a flow came out of the ground to water the whole land. (Gen. 2:5-6) It had not rained on the land. Many translations call this flow a "mist," but this is probably an incorrect translation. See my book for why we can be sure that "mist" is an improper translation. The New American Standard Bible gives "flow" as an alternate rendering. Genesis 2:10 tells us that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden." So the river must have been fed by this "flow" that came out of the ground "to water the garden." The fact is that this mountainous area east and southeast of Lake Urmia contains hot springs that flow out water from the earth. An example is the Takht-e Suleiman, which is still flowing today. Two streams flow down from it and combine to form the Zarrineh Rud, which flows down to Lake Urmia. These are also called abzu's since they were thought by people in ancient times to be outcroppings from the underground water called the Abyss. Rohl relates that "...there are numerous thermal springs around Tabriz which join the Adji Chay.... This is what gives the water its brackish taste." ¹¹

Since there are so many reasons why we should conclude that the Garden of Eden was located just east of Lake Urmia, it was necessary for me to change my mind on this subject. I appreciate Reginald Walker's and David Rohl's contributions to our understanding of the whereabouts of the Garden of Eden.

This following may be of interest. This Genesis passage has been a problem for some people; one website even uses this text to argue that the Bible cannot be trusted. The author of this website has a problem with the text because it tells us that this river went out (some translations say "flowed out") of Eden, separated, and became four heads. They say that in this region of the world there has never been a case where a river flowed into four heads, two of which were the Tigris and the Euphrates. I would add that such a scenario probably never happened anywhere because heads of rivers are situated in high elevation and mouths of rivers in low elevations. I show in another article that what the Bible means in this text is that the river lay in a line which "went out" of Eden, but the direction of the flow of water was opposite to this. The river flowed into Lake Urmia, which was in Eden.
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¹Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009), 172-73.
²David M. Rohl, Legend: The Genesis Of Civilization, "Test of Time" series, vol. 2 (London: Century Random House, 1988).
³Unless otherwise noted scripture quotations are from The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by P. Green, Sr. which was contained in the side column of Green’s work The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayett, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).
⁴Rohl received considerable help from a 27-page paper "The Land of Eden by R. A. Walker," which had been advertised by Walker in Still Trowelling, the Newsletter of the Ancient and Medieval History Book Club (No. 11, 1986) in the UK.
⁵Rohl, Legend, 53.
⁶Ibid.
⁷Ibid., 52.
⁸Ibid., 63.
⁹Ibid., 110.
¹⁰Ibid., 56.
¹¹Rohl, Legend, 107

QUESTIONS FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN A YOUNG EARTH

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:59:00 +0000

Revised June 14, 2014

1. If the Bible is supposed to teach that the creation days are only 24-hours long, why does Genesis 2:5 say the land was not yielding vegetation because there was no rain? This was before the creation of Adam and Eve and four days after the water was taken from the land. How could you expect to have vegetation this soon and wouldn’t the land still be wet from the water that just ran off of it four days before?

2. If Adam and Eve were the people who were created in Genesis 1, why does the Bible teach that these people were to be scavengers (v. 29) while Adam and Eve were apparently farmers? (Gen. 4:2)

3. If the earth is young, why does Genesis 2:4 say that those whose creation was recorded in Genesis 1 are the generations (meaning descendants) of the heavens and the earth? Adam was created directly out of the ground by special creation. Adam and Eve must be the beginning of a new race created in a different manner.

4. If the creation days are twenty-four-hour days, why does the Bible have them ending in the morning? (Gen. 1:5) The Hebrew twenty-four-hour days ended in the evening.

5. If God created and called the day light “day,” why did He then define the period of time to the following morning “one day”? The author here was defining some period of time as a “day” or else he would not have used the expression “one day.” He would have used “day one” or “the first day” as he did throughout the rest of Genesis 1. Since he is not defining the day light period that he just named and he was not defining a twenty-four-hour day, which ends in the evening, he must have been defining a creation day.

6. If the creation of Adam and Eve directly out of the ground in Genesis 2 describes the same creation as does Genesis 1, why does the Hebrew conjunction of Genesis 2:5 indicate that we are moving on in time. In Hebrew narrative we need to conclude this unless the author gives a good reason to believe that this is not the case.

Please see chapter 10 of my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science.

WHAT DOES GENETICS TELL US ABOUT HUMAN ORIGINS?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:38:00 +0000

This post was taken from my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (2009 edition).¹

Evidence for Theistic Evolution from Retrotransposons

In the past few years, great strides have been made in our understanding of the genome; some of these discoveries are destined to change the way we view our oringins. In his excellent timely article, "Human Evolution: How Random Process Fulfils [sic] Divine Purpose," Graeme Finlay explains how the human genome came to possess markers shared with other mammals. The natural processes that accomplished it have now been discovered. One of his examples of these processes is the retrotransposon.
Retrotransposons “are parasitic residents of the genome that copy-and-paste themselves into new sites of genomic DNA via an RNA intermediate.”² One of these retrotransposons is the ERVWE1 insert. This insert came into the mammalian race via the gibbon. New world monkeys did not have this insert, but the later arriving gibbons did possess it. Also the orang, gorilla, chimpanzee, and humans have it. As the natural process that adds the insert proceeds, it reproduces a few of the chromosome bases that are situated beside it. This new set of inserts appears in the chromosome on the opposite side of the insert. Please see a section of the new world monkey chromosome and a section of the chromosome of the gibbon as it exists on through the rest of the species including the human species:

New world monkey species:

…CAATTATCTTGCAACCATG…

Gibbon through man:

…CAATTATCTTGCAAC [ERVWE1] CAACCATG…

The characteristic reproduction of the bases CAAC compels us to conclude that a natural process was employed to add this ERVWE1 insert into the gibbon genome and that, when the gibbon branched off to produce new species, the insert ERVWE1 was carried along to become part of the later species as well. Our example is not a rare occurrence. Finlay emphasizes this with the following satistic: “We have inherited at least 300,000 LTR retrotransposons and endogenous retroviruses in our DNA.”³

Finlay concludes: “Genes present in our DNA really arose when transposons acquired coding capacity in simian [ape or monkey] ancestors.”⁴ Finlay’s one article gives evidence for theistic evolution (of the pre-Adamic race per my thesis), the old age of the earth (since much time is required for these evolutionary processes), and the truthfulness of the Bible (because the Bible states that the pre-Adamites were the descendants of earth and heaven).
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¹Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009), 172-73.
²Graeme Finlay, “Human Evolution: How Random Process fulfils [sic] Divine Purpose,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 60, no. 2 (2008): 106. Journal article may be accessed at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2008/PSCF6-08Finlay.pdf.
³Ibid.
⁴Ibid., 108

DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:53:00 +0000

This post was taken from the final chapter of my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconiles the Bible and Science (2009 edition).¹

Once we see that our source of knowledge concerning morality and the problem of evil is not human reasoning but divine revelation, the problem of evil is suddenly reduced in size from a major giant to a problem with which God has already given us assistance. The Bible teaches that God is righteous and that He is the source of all wisdom. Our logical response should be like that of Abraham, who said, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” (Gen. 18:25).² Nevertheless, because the problem of evil can torment people’s minds and even keep them from coming to the Savior, I must make an attempt to address it here. But remember ultimately we are not relying upon human reason but upon God’s revelation to deal with the problem of evil. Therefore, my answers to the problem mainly come from the Scriptures.
It is true, on the one hand, some people simply refuse to admit that they are sinners; they will not come to the Savior for forgiveness and help to change their lifestyle (Matt.3:19). On the other hand, some people find it hard to believe in God, especially as He is revealed in the Bible, because they cannot reconcile in their minds the problems of natural disasters, disease (such as cancer), genetic problems (which cause premature births, prenatal deformities, and other diseases), starvation, disappointments, and more. No one can completely explain how to reconcile these problems, but I shall offer some comments as I obtain insights from the Bible.
My seminary apologetics professor, Dr. Stanley Obitts, helped me deal with the problem of evil. He explained that if you set up the problem of evil in the form of a logical classical dilemma, you can escape from a logical contradiction by “taking the horns of the dilemma.” You take the horns of the dilemma by including in the structure of the dilemma our limited knowledge. Having such a limited perspective and understanding of all things, we would be unjustified to conclude that the loving God of the Bible does not exist. The apostle Paul would answer this disbelief with his statement found in his epistle to the Romans:
Even so our minds still long for a little insight into a solution, a little ordering of the factors involved.

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “‘Why did you make me like this?’ will it?” (Rom. 9:20)

Let us take a glimpse through the crack into the dazzling light of God’s revelation; this may help us perceive a little better why God permits evil in this world. The problem of evil is addressed in Romans, chapter 8. Paul faces the issue directly in verses 19 and 22:
Here we learn who subjected this world to “futility”—it was God. We also learn that its subjection is only for a period of time, not forever, because the text says that it was subjected “in hope.” We learn what must occur for the creation to be freed from this pain—“the revealing of the sons of God.” In context we can discern that the “revealing of the sons of God” is speaking of the resurrection of the saved. Therefore, Paul is speaking of the end of this age. Verse 23 (quoted below) makes it plain that he is speaking of the future resurrection of the saints. God will liberate His creation just as soon as His goal of bringing His sons and daughters to glory occurs. Wouldn’t this indicate to us that the creation was subjected to futility to reach that very goal—the spiritual maturity and complete salvation of all believers [at least basically all believers of this present age]?

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Believers are not excluded from the miseries of life:
The creation is held in vanity until the sons of God receive their resurrected bodies. We can deduce from this passage of Scripture that the good and the evil that we see in this world is somehow required for God to properly reach His goal, which is to bring certain people (God’s elect) to a resurrected state of righteousness in a relationship of sonship with the Father.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (Rom. 8:23)

This conclusion is strengthened from the Scriptures themselves later in the chapter where Paul is still within the general context of the problem of evil:
So we find that at the present time that God “causes all things” (good and evil) to exist in this world so that God can reach his goal of saving and sanctifying a group of people, whom he calls “sons.” Now that we know the general purpose for the existence of evil, maybe we shall have a better opportunity to make some sense of it.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Rom. 8:28-29)

Because we are treading on the ground of divine election, we need to be reminded that God’s outstretched arms are extended toward all who will come to Him. Even though God elects individuals to salvation, no one can say I desired to come to God, but God rejected me because I was not one of the elect. The Bible plainly gives an invitation to all races, to all classes, to all individuals upon the globe to come for salvation: “The Spirit [of God] and the bride [the Christian Church] say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost” (Rev. 22:17).
Here are just some ideas that may help us understand why we see so much evil in this world along with the good:
We should remember that God daily gives many of us our food, our clothing, and our relationships for which, according to the Bible, we should be thankful. Our knowledge of both good and evil should cause us to be thankful for the good, which comes from God. Remember the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. After they ate of this tree, they were plunged into a world of good and evil.

1. Since God has set out to influence many people toward belief and to sanctify for Himself many sons and daughters, the earth needs to be large and full of people. Since “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28) for the salvation and sanctification of the “called,” God must have plenty of room to work.
2. If people are to learn to be sensitive to harmful physical, spiritual, and emotional situations, they need to experience pain so that they correctly respond when they hear God’s warning for them to repent and believe. They need to fear Hell.
3. Since spirituality comes to us, partially through experiencing suffering and loss, problems and pain must be a part of our everyday life (1 Pet. 4:1).
4. Since salvation is “by grace…through faith” (Eph. 2:8), God must keep hidden from us, otherwise faith would become sight. Unbelievers could not exert faith to be saved and believers could not grow in their faith as the Bible exhorts them to if God continuously acted supernaturally to reveal Himself to us. The Apostle Thomas said that he refused to believe in Christ’s resurrection until he had the opportunity to see and touch the Lord. After this Jesus gave Thomas this opportunity to see Him and to believe. After Thomas saw and believed, the Lord Jesus said, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:29).
5. To make His “sons” become responsible, He would need to present them with needs which would test their response toward the needy. If God met these human needs, His “sons” would tend to feel like they really were not obligated to act in compassion. God tests a person’s true heart by placing human need in his path.

So far we have discovered God’s goal in creation. We have seen that the presence of both good and evil makes possible His reaching this goal. Now we must answer the question, why would God go ahead with such a creation when He knew that it would bring suffering, death, and Hell to many people? We have been taking account of what has been revealed in Romans, chapter 8; in the very next chapter Paul deals with the issue we are now addressing. He writes,
According to Paul’s inspired words, God has the right to make one “vessel” (human being), who ends in destruction, and to use this person’s life so that another may find God’s grace and mercy. We can see from these verses that God must show His righteous indignation upon those who willfully sin. He must do this as Judge of the universe. But in doing so, He demonstrates to the inhabitants of the universe His righteous wrath and His great power. By God’s doing this, He reveals Himself in love to His “sons,” that is, people on whom he has set His special love. It is not that God has no love for the whole world, but that He cannot do the job He must in showing His love to the saved without bringing judgment upon sinners who never are saved. God is love, but this love caused God to initiate a plan that included pain and suffering for some animals and people. We must never forget that His plan also required the Lord Jesus Christ to suffer and die for our sins.

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentles. (Rom. 9:21-24)

Why would God proceed with this plan when some people would suffer who were involved in it? The answer I shall give is going to surprise some, but please let me explain. God went ahead with it because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). God’s kind of love must act: “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” (Jas. 2:16). If God were going to express his love beyond the angelic type of beings, He had to make a universe in which He could make people to whom He could express His love. However, flesh is seemingly by its very nature sinful. God had to find a way to save some of these creatures made of flesh. His method was to do it by grace through faith. He sent His own Son to die for sinners; then God could share His victorious Spirit with those who take up their cross and follow Him (Luke 14:27).
How can we justify God’s initiation of a plan that would include evil? My mother taught me that the end never justifies the means. Was she wrong? No. She was right in regards to the normal everyday life. But there appears to be situations where the end does justify the means. Society over the recent centuries has seen fit to experiment with animals in order to perfect helpful healing medicines and operating procedures. Many people feel this is justified. But whether you agree with it or not, you have no doubt benefited immensely from it. The justification behind such experimentation has been that the benefits from it to mankind are justified. Men are made in the image of God; God certainly wants what is best for mankind. Is God unjust because he causes someone who has been created a mortal physical sinful creature to enter a state of testing that will result in sin and judgment if this will make possible the transforming of another individual into a resurrected, glorified child of God? The comparison is quite obvious. God’s decision to proceed with His plan is comparable to man’s decision to proceed with experimentation with animals in order to benefit mankind. It becomes hard for us, under these circumstances, to be critical of God’s methods. Besides, can we, who are the created, find fault with our Creator? We must answer, “No.” Truly God is love. Truly God expresses His love. It becomes our place to humble ourselves and trust in Him.
Why does God permit this evil world to continue even at the present time? The Bible answers this question directly. Peter explains why the Lord Jesus Christ has not returned to terminate this present age:
God is holding off the termination of this age so that more will come to repentance. God has been keeping the world moving through history for thousands of years. If we are willing to justify His actions in the preservation of the world, it would seem that we must likewise justify His acts of creation at the beginning of time?

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)

[You probably have some helpful comments on the "problem of evil." If you do, please post a comment below.]

© 2010 Gary T. Mayer
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¹Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009).
²Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

WAS ADAM THE FIRST MAN TO SIN?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:02:00 +0000

This post shows that Romans 5:12 does not teach that sin first entered the human race when Adam sinned.

Revised June 15, 2014

This post is a copy of chapter 13 from my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (2009 edition).¹

…just as David also speaks of the blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,

“And whose sins have been covered.

“Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD will not take into account” (Rom. 4:6-9).²

Doesn’t the Bible Teach That Sin Entered the Human Race at the Time of Adam?

Romans 5:12a states, “Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin…” Some people think that Romans 5:12a teaches that sin and death entered the human race at the time of Adam. If this is the actual teaching of this verse, pre-Adamic people could not have existed because, if they did exist, they definitely experienced death. A study of Romans 5 will show that verse 12 does not teach that sin and death entered the human race at the time of Adam. In this chapter, we shall investigate the true meaning of this verse.

Please observe Romans 5:12a in its context continuing through verse 13:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.

Justification by Faith

The epigraph at the opening of this chapter speaks of the glorious Christian doctrine of justification by faith. For God to remain a righteous Judge of the world, He cannot forgive anyone’s sins unless they have been paid for by Christ. This is why the perfect Son of God chose to suffer and die on the cross for us. He paid for our sins, so that if we come to Him in faith with the right heart attitude, He will forgive us our sins. God reckons that we are righteous even though we actually sometimes commit sins. David can therefore say,

Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD will not take into account. (Rom. 4:8)

The concept of justification by faith is difficult to understand so Paul illustrates it by comparing the work that the Lord Jesus Christ did for us to bring us justification and life with the act of disobedience which Adam committed. Paul gave the illustration of how man dies as a result of Adam’s sin to illustrate and to elucidate God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness to those who believe. Because we are trying to understand the imputation of Adam’s sin to the human race, we shall reverse the approach from Paul’s illustration and use the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to explain the imputation of Adam’s sin to the human race. Let us look at the doctrine of justification to see what is being illustrated by Adam’s sin in the garden.

The Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross to take the punishment that was to be ours for our sins. In so doing, He suffered the wrath of God as a substitute for the one who places his faith in Jesus. The blood shed by the Lord Jesus Christ becomes our propitiation when we truly believe in Jesus. That Jesus became our propitiation means that He became our sacrifice, our substitute who experienced God’s wrath for us. There is more to it than this. If God had passed over the sins of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ without Christ’s payment for these sins on the cross, God would have violated His own righteous character because he would have failed to act as a righteous Judge. But this is unthinkable. Romans 3:25-26 speaks of how the death of Christ on the cross made it possible for God to “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (verse 26b). Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God remains just even though He justifies those who believe.

Understanding the Two Types of Sin

Next we must realize that there are two kinds of sin spoken of in Romans 5: (1) sin that is committed without the sinners having received from God a command with a punishment for disobeying and (2) sin that is the breaking of a command of God which has a penalty declared for those who break it. The first time that God ever laid down a law with the penalty of death was to Adam and Eve in the garden. Adam ate of the tree in deliberate disobedience to God in spite of his knowledge of the penalty. It was this sin that brought death to the human race; none of the sins that were committed by the pre-Adamites brought death to the human race. If this is true, why did the pre-Adamites die? Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to demonstrate to all people of all time and to the angels that the heart of man is rebellious and sinful. They demonstrated man’s sinfulness just as God knew they would. Therefore, God, knowing ahead of time that Adam would willfully sin in disobedience to the His command, created pre-Adamic people so that they would experience death. Because they were men of flesh, as Adam was, God imputed the sin of Adam to them. Adam was taking this test for men of all ages.

Paul wrote of both kinds of sin in his epistle to the Romans: (1) the sin men commit by disobeying a law or command of God and (2) the sin men commit who sin against their own knowledge of right and wrong and against their own consciences. Paul refers to these two types of sin in Romans 2:12:

12 For [1] all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and [2] all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;

The Bible teaches that all men are accountable for their actions whether or not they were Jewish and lived under the Law or not. This is because

…His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (Rom. 1:20)

Adam’s Sin Passed to All Men by Imputation

Paul wanted to illustrate the doctrine of justification, so he used the example of the sin of Adam to show how God imputes the action of one person to a whole multitude of people. God imputed Adam’s sin to the human race, and God imputes Christ’s righteous to all those who believe in Jesus. God had known that the Lord Jesus Christ would die for man’s sins from the foundations of the world; therefore, when Abraham, who lived many years before the death of Christ, believed God, God could declare him justified! (Please see Genesis 15:6.) Paul refers to this Old Testament passage:

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations shall be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. (Gal. 3:6-9)

The sin of Adam was likewise in the foreknowledge of God, and as justification was available for those who believed before Christ’s death, so the experience of death, which was a result of Adam’s disobedience, was a part of man’s experience from the creation of pre-Adamic man.

It is important to take note that Adam was not necessarily created with immortality in himself; he had not only to refrain from eating from the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, but apparently he may have had to eat from the Tree of Life; we say this because the Bible says that he could have lived forever after his transgression if he had eaten of the Tree of Life (Gen. 3:22). The frequency of his need for eating of its fruit is not stated, possibly only once would have been sufficient or maybe once every 1,000 years would have been enough.

That Paul had in his mind a concept which included two kinds of sin can be seen by observing the way he shows that God imputed Adam’s sin to the whole human race. Paul made a bold assertion in verse 12:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…. (Rom. 5:12; emphasis mine)

When He said, “so death spread to all men, because all sinned….” he meant that God saw Adam’s decision to rebel against the command of God as representing the heart of each person who has ever lived or who will live. In other words, God imputed this sin to all people of all time. We conclude this from his argument:

For until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. (Rom. 5:13-14, emphasis mine)

Paul uses these words to prove that Adam’s sin was imputed by God upon the whole human race. His logic is that since people died who lived between Adam and Eve’s time and the giving of the Mosaic Law, they also must have sinned when Adam sinned; otherwise they would not have died. Since everyone sinned (from God’s point of view) when Adam sinned, all die.

Let us make a logical analysis of these statements:

1. Adam’s sin was different from those who lived between him and the time God gave the Law of Moses because it was a sin against a command with a punishment for disobedience; that is, it was a “transgression” as Paul calls it in verse 15. From this, we can conclude that Paul distinguishes between the type of sin that occurs when a person transgresses a law and sin that is not a transgression of a law or command with penalty.

2. There was a time between Adam’s sin and Moses when men lived without a law from God; the Law of Moses had not yet been given. God’s command to Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit and His warning of the consequences had not been given to those people who lived between Adam and Moses.

3. Those people died as did Moses and the Israelites.

4. “…but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom. 5:13). Here Paul means that if you set up a particular action concerning which no law has been given and you take this action, sin will not be imputed. For instance, if you drive seventy miles per hour on a highway where there is no speed limit, you will not be cited for a violation based upon your speed.

5. Paul is saying that those people who lived between Adam and Moses did not trespass against a law which results in physical death, yet they died. Paul reasons that the transgression of Adam must have been imputed upon all people, including those people who lived between Adam and Moses, because “sin is not imputed when there is no law” (v. 13). Paul’s conclusion is that when Adam sinned “all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). In verse 15 he states: “For if by the trespass of the one [Adam] the many died...”

So indeed it was the trespass of Adam that caused all other men to die. Adam was our representative to be tested for the presence of sin and rebellion in human flesh; he dreadfully flunked the test. We know that everyone was involved in Adam’s sin because everyone suffers the result of Adam’s transgression. This result was death. Before Paul gives his argument, he states his conclusion: “and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12b). This statement need not be limited to mean that only those who lived after Adam were the recipients of death from his transgression. We can understand this if we realize that God set up a test for man in the garden which was to show everyone everywhere of all time that man is a sinner. From this we may understand that man’s guilt unto death from Adam’s sin was not due to the passage of time or to a relationship through descent but rather was due to man’s participation in manhood. Men have been sinners, composed of sinful flesh, whether they lived before Adam or after Adam or whether they descended from Adam or God created them before Adam. Just as Abraham was justified before Christ paid the penalty of Abraham’s sin, the pre-Adamites died because the sin of Adam was imputed to them as well as to Adam.

Our salvation as Christians depends upon the concept of imputation. Consider the passage which includes Romans 5:18-19:

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men; even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

An Incorrect Interpretation

Some people think that all men became guilty due to Adam’s sin because they believe that all men actually sinned with Adam when he sinned in the garden. They usually point to Hebrews 7:9-10 which states:

And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

They say that we actually sinned when Adam sinned, becaues they believe we were in the loins of Adam as Levi was in the loins of his father, Abraham. But this quote from Hebrews is from the context of allegory and in the context of relating the Melchizedek priesthood to the priesthood of Christ, the Son of God. It is true that the connection was based upon family relationship. But was it necessarily the result of a physical relationship to Abraham that Levi is seen as paying tithes to Melchizedek, or was the actual connecting link of this biblical argument the family social tie, which was a result of the physical filial tie between Levi and Abraham? It seems the latter is also possible. The concept that Levi was somehow actually there or involved in the act must be incorrect. This conclusion concerning Adam’s sin must be incorrect because, if this view were true, the Lord Jesus Christ would have sinned before he was even born for He was also a blood descendant of Adam. (Christ’s lineage goes back to Adam through His mother, Mary, and her ancestors.) According to the Bible, Jesus was sinless, and His sinlessness was a requirement for the efficacy of his atoning sacrifice.

At the cross, mankind’s sin was imputed to Christ as the Bible says:

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)

Jesus had our sins imputed upon him even at his flogging in the judgment hall. Isaiah 53:5 says,

But he was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

Our sin which was imputed upon Him did not destroy his sinless sacrifice for our sin. The sin which Adam committed was also imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That only one man sinned when Adam sinned is explicitly stated in Romans 5:19:

For as through the one man’s disobedience the many [all people of all time] were made [Gr., kathisteemi] sinners, even so through the obedience [Christ’s willingness to go to the cross] of the One [Christ] the many will be made righteous. (emphasis mine)

Please observe that this verse does not say that through the disobedience of the many, the many were made sinners, but rather it says, “through the one man’s disobedience the many [all people of all time] were made sinners” (emphasis mine).

Therefore, the sin of Adam was imputed to the whole human race, whether the recipients lived before Adam or after Adam. Neither does it depend on whether or not man is a blood relative of Adam. Therefore, men died who lived before Adam due to Adam’s sin, and men died after Adam due to Adam’s sin.

Let me note that the Lord Jesus Christ is a descendant from the pre-Adamic first pair as well as from Adam and Eve. Noah was an ancestor of Jesus Christ, and Noah married a wife with a lifespan of about 277 years, which indicates that she had ancestors that go back to the pre-Adamic race. Of course, the same can be said of Shem, who also was an ancestor of Jesus Christ. In fact, all Christ’s ancestors from Noah on down were a blood mixture of the Adamic and pre-Adamic races or they were pure pre-Adamic. Therefore, no one needs to worry; Christ can be his Redeemer, even if he were a pure descendant of pre-Adamic man.

A Contrast between the Results of Adam’s Sin and the Results of Christ’s Obedience

Paul in this chapter is doing more than just explaining the concept of justification, he is contrasting the new spiritual life which results from justification provided by Christ with the physical death which resulted from God’s judgment which came through Adam. Please see chart 31. Paul discussed Adam’s sin to contrast his sin and its repercussions with the death of Christ and the new type of life that He was going to make possible for the believer. This new life would make it possible for the believer to have his sins forgiven, to be able to have fellowship with God, and to rest in the sure hope of eternal life. This new life is to be experienced right here in this life.

Some readers may wonder, Why is Paul’s statement in Romans 5:19 concerning the believer’s having been made righteous placed in the future tense? G. G. Findlay probably stated the correct answer in The Expositors Greek Testament. He thinks the future tense was used because only believers are included in the “many” and because their entrance into this grace happens “one after another.”³

[I will reproduce most of chart 31 from by book:

___________________________________________

CHART31: THE COMPARISON PAUL MAKES IN ROMANS 5 BETWEEN ADAM'S SIN AND CHRIST'S ACT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Adam's Sin (Contrasted with) Jesus Christs Act of Obedience

Judgment (Contrasted with) Free Gift

Condemnation (Contrasted with) Justification

Death Reigns (Contrasted with) Believers' Reign in Life

| |

V V

Distributed Distributed

to to

Each Person Each Believer

_____________________________________________

Romans 5:19, quoted above, contains in two different places a word that is an important word for our discussion; therefore, we shall look at the meaning of this Greek word. David Brown comments on its meaning as it is used in this verse: “The significant word…[kathisteemi, my transliteration] twice here rendered ‘made,’ does not signify to ‘work a change upon’ a person or thing, but to ‘establish,’ ‘constitute,’ or ‘ordain.’”⁴ Possibly a better translation would be the following:

For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were… [established] sinners, even so through the obedience of the one the many will be …[established] righteous. (Rom. 5:19)

Paul’s Use of the Article Reveals the True Meaning of Romans 5:12

Using another approach to understanding Romans 5:12, we shall discover that the Greek article before each of the occurrences of the word “sin” in this verse is very significant. It specifies a certain type of sin; it means a sin committed against an actual command of God as distinguished from a sin which is not against a direct command of God. We call each of the books of the Bible that the apostle Paul wrote an “epistle,” which means “letter.” Actually, some of these epistles are much more than letters, they are theological treatises. Since the book of Romans is a theological treatise as well as a letter to the church at Rome, we should not be surprised to find words and phrases used in a precise rather technical manner.

Even though the Greek article had a normal usage, the writer had freedom to deviate from this normal usage. Dana and Mantey observe: “Deviation from this normal usage may occur at the will of the writer.”⁵ If you look at an exhaustive concordance and study the verses in Romans where the word sin, hamartia, is found, you will discover that Paul places the article before this word where he is employing it to mean a transgression of a law of God, but if he is referring to sin which is not in violation to a law of God, he does not include the article. I shall now include an example from Romans 7:5-14 in which this selective employment of the article before the word sin is illustrated; I...[colored the the occurrences of sin that are preceded with the [Greek] article with the same color that I colored the words which show that this reference to sin is a sin against law, and I emphasized the word sin or the words the sin by using bold type:

5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions [lit. Greek: the passions of the sins], which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.

7 What shall we say then? Is the Law [no article] sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know [the] sin except through the Law; for I would not have known
about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

8 But [the] sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of
every kind; for apart from the Law [no article] sin is dead.

9 And I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, [the] sin became alive, and I died;

10 and this commandment which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;

11 for [the] sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

12 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather, it was [the] sin, in order that it might be shown to be [no article] sin by effecting my death through that which is good [that is, the Law], that through the commandment [the] sin, might become utterly sinful.

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to [the] sin.

From this passage, we can discern that Paul distinguishes the sin that is in rebellion and disobedience to a law of God from sin in general by his use of the article before the word “sin.” When Paul writes in verse 8, “for apart from law, [no article] sin was dead,” he means that his rebellious, disobedient spirit was inactive when there was no commandment to disobey. “When the commandment came, [the] sin became alive, and I died” (v.9). Here he employs the article before “sin,” because now his sin is being directed against a law.

An example of the use of the word “sin” where no article precedes it is found in Romans 3:20b:

For through the Law comes the knowledge of [no article] sin.

Paul says that through the commands of the law comes the realization that our hearts contain sin. Here Paul omits the article because it refers to the sin that we possessed, sin that we were unaware of since God’s law was unknown to us.

Both the English translation of Romans 7:25 and the translation of Romans 8:2 contain the expression “the law of sin.” In chapter 7, Paul is explaining how difficult it is to continuously do right when the flesh, aggravated by the requirement of the law, wants to sin. He concludes in Romans 7:25:

…So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of [the] sin.

From the context, the sin spoken of is the sin that is in disobedience to God’s written law. Compare this verse in which the article is placed before the word “sin” with Romans 8:2 where the phrase “the law of sin” is also used but without the article before the word “sin”:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of [no article] sin and death.

This verse speaks of the continual power to do right, supplied by the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Paul asserts that this principle of life will give to the one who walks in the Spirit victory over the fleshly impulses that are deep within the heart and are not necessarily aggravated by a command of God. What victory the Spirit of Christ can give us! Here we can appreciate how exact the Holy Spirit inspired this dissertation on sin. “Death” in Romans 8:2 is not referring to physical death but to a way of living that is characterized by spiritual death.

Now let us examine the verse that we are concerned about, along with the verse that follows it:

Therefore, just as through one man [the] sin entered into the world, and death through [the] sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the Law [no article] sin was in the world; but [no article] sin is not imputed when there is no law. (Rom. 5:12-13)

You see, since Paul includes the article before “sin” in both appearances in verse 12, he is only speaking of sin which is in disobedience to a God-given command. On the other hand, Paul omits the article before “sin” in verse 13 because Paul was speaking about sin that was in the world before the Jewish law was given.

When Paul makes the statement “sin is not imputed when there is no law,” he is speaking of God’s dealing with us in this life. In the Day of Judgment, God will judge people whether or not they were living under God’s revealed law or not:

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law…on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. (Rom. 2:12-16)

The Gentiles create their own moral code which often coincides with God’s law:

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them. (Rom. 2: 14-15)

For your convenience in further study, I have listed in appendix K the verses in which sin occurs in Romans with an indication as to whether or not the article is employed.

What the Greek Verb Indicates

Romans 5 teaches that Adam was the first man (Eve excluded) to disobey a direct command of God. It does not teach that Adam was the first man to ever sin. The Greek word translated “spread” in verse 12 simply means in this context “to go.” This is stated in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature under the second definition: “2. simply come, go: …of death: to all men Rom. 5:12”⁷ The tense of this verb is aorist, which, as stated by Dana and Mantey, “presents the action or event as a ‘point,’ and hence is called ‘punctiliar.’” They also describe the aorist with this description: “The fundamental significance of the aorist is to denote action simply as occurring, without reference to its progress.”⁸ The text is not indicating that death was passed from generation to generation, from person to person but rather that it simply went to the whole race of men.

Summary

We saw that Paul is not bringing into his discussion the subject of Adam’s sin in order to give a history of the entrance of sin into the world, but rather he is using the results of Adam’s sin to illustrate the concept of imputation. He introduces it in order to contrast the results of Adam’s sin to the results of Christ’s obedience when He went to the cross to take the penalty for man’s sins.

We found that Romans 5:19 would best be translated, “many were… [constituted] sinners,” rather than, “many were made sinners.” They became sinners by imputation.

We saw that the Bible teaches that there are two kinds of sins: (1) sin which is against God’s will but is not a sin against a command (or written law of God) and (2) sin which is in direct violation of God’s command and law. We observed that Paul makes discretionary use of the article before sin. From this it may be seen that Romans 5:12 is telling us only that the sin of disobedience to a command of God first entered the world when Adam sinned. This passage simply does not deal with the question of when sinful people began to inhabit the world. The subject was sin that was against a specific command of God. God had prescribed the penalty of death for Adam and Eve because they refused to obey this command. This meant not only death for Adam and Eve but death for the whole human race. Adam was the representative of the human race who was tested for us all. He failed the test, thus demonstrating to all, both in Heaven and on Earth, that the human race is rebellious and sinful at heart.
____________________________
¹Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009), 172-73.
²Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 9172, 1973, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
³G. G. Findlay, “St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians,” in The Expositors Greek Testament, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll, vol. 2, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B Eerdmans), 630.
⁴Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary Critical, Experimental, and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1946, reprinted 1990), vol. 3, part 2:222.
⁵Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: The Macmilllan Company, 1955), 141.
⁶Arndt, William F. and Gingrich, F. Wilbur, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed., (A translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch au den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der ubrigen urchristlichen Literatur). (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 193.
⁷Dana and Mantey, A Manual Grammar, 194.
⁸Ibid., 193.

Why You Should Read the Book "New Evidence for Two Human Origins"

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:51:00 +0000

New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science shows you how a person can believe in Christianity and at the same time avoid espousing a logical contradiction.

Revised June 15, 2014

Currently most people’s perception of what the Bible teaches about human origins blatantly contradicts the results of scientific studies. This would not be a problem if many of the current teachings of science concerning the age of the earth and the evolution of mankind had not passed through the maturing stages in which they have become established as proven scientific knowledge. Also the problem would not be of great significance if these scientific conclusions were not being disseminated to all ages of our population through TV, internet, text books, school teachers, comic books, informal discussions, encyclopedias, and news reports. If the discrepancies between much of scientific teachings on the age of the earth and human origins does not make you feel uneasy, or challenge your faith in the inspiration of the Bible, let me encourage you to find the answers to these contradictions between the Bible and science so that you can help someone else who may be distancing himself from the Lord Jesus Christ and His church due to these apparent inconsistencies between the Bible and science. Actually, the basic problems concerning this subject which have surfaced have been faced and answered in this book.

You may ask, “Why should I go to this book for answers rather than to one of the many other published media on this subject?” It is simply because this is the only currently published thesis that presents a workable harmony of science and the Bible. Let us look at some of the creation models that are being circulated; we will also include the thesis presented in New Evidence for Two Human Origins:

1. The young-earth view does not harmonize the Bible and science because science has evidence that the earth is old. Science has evidence also that mankind evolved from lower species. This takes time and the young earth view does not allow for this required old age for the earth.

2. Progressive creationism teaches an old earth, but they teach that all mankind are the descendants of Adam and Eve. This cannot be true because the biblical genealogies and the agricultural setting of the time of Adam and Eve’s creation will not allow this.

3. Those who hold the accommodation view have no problem with what the Bible asserts about the time of creation or the structure of the cosmos, because they believe that God accommodated himself to the beliefs of the people when He inspired the Bible so that the writers taught erroneous things about the cosmos; we must ignore these errors that the Bible teaches about science and believe the teachings about God and his people. This cannot be true because Jesus said, “the scriptures cannot be broken.” And the Bible says that God cannot lie.

4. Others may hold the neo-orthodox view of inspiration. They say that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired but not so much as to make the Bible true in all cases; as one reads the Bible the Holy Spirit impresses the spiritual truth upon the reader’s mind and spirit so they he can see that Jesus Christ is the true Son of God and believe. This view of the Bible is erroneous, because the Bible itself teaches the orthodox view of inspiration.

5. Scientists and others often hold to a figurative interpretation of the stories found in the first part of Genesis. They believe we are not to take these stories laterally. They say these stories were God’s presentation of man’s origin designed to get across to the reader that God created heaven and earth and that He created the human race, with whom He desires to fellowship as they also follow His ways. Some of these interpreters see Adam and Eve as being the first evolved humans who have an eternal human soul others see Adam and Eve in yet a more figurative manner. This view is unacceptable because it deviates too much from a literal view of what the Bible teaches; it ignores the fact that the New Testament writers and Jesus also interpreted these Old Testament stories in a literal manner.

6. Another old-earth view believes that nonhumans evolved from the animals, but these hominids became extinct before Adam and Eve were created about six thousand years ago. This view has some merit, but is untenable also. It does not explain why the life spans of the descendants of Adam and Eve decrease as they do, and it does not explain why the human genome shows that modern humans are descended from earlier species. What is more, it ignores the Bible’s assertion that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing human race.

7. The dual-origins view, which is presented in New Evidence for Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science, is a better model because it agrees with science that mankind has descended from earlier species. It takes into account the Bible’s teaching that the pre-Adamites of Genesis 1 descended from the heavens and the earth and in so doing is compatible with science. It places the creation of Adam and Eve at about six thousand years ago which is in accord with the biblical genealogies. It can be shown to be valid mathematically because it shows correspondence between the ages of the patriarchs in the biblical genealogies and biblical history. In this regard, my book follows the decline of lifespans and explains why each lifespan resulted as it did. It explains why in one case the increased instead of decreasing, and it explains why the lifespans leveled off at one point and then started down again.

What Is So Special about My Book on Human Origins?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:36:00 +0000

You may want to check out these sixteen topics most of which are covered rather uniquely in my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science.¹
Revised June 15, 2014; April 30, 2015

Most of this material is not found anywhere else to my knowledge.

1. From the life spans given in Genesis 5 and 11, this book provides mathematical evidence that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing human race. It shows that the life spans of Adam's descendants dropped until the time of their stay at the Tower of Babel and then dropped again, and it dropped just the amount your would predict it to drop. Since we know the approximate
life spans of the pre-Adamites, this life span is calculable. Bar graphs are included that show that the life spans of each generation confirms my theory.

2. It shows from archaeology why the biblical genealogies cannot be stretched to any great amount.

3. It explains from an analysis of the Hebrew wording of the account of the first day of creation that the creation days were not meant to be taken as solar days. And it explains what is meant by the repeated clause concerning evening and morning written at the end of each creation day.

4. It proves syntactical evidence in the appendix that Genesis 2:4 must refer back to Genesis 1 rather than ahead to Genesis 2. And it explains why an accurate paraphrase of Genesis 2:4 would read like this: "These people who have been previously introduced are the descendants of the heavens and the earth when they, the heavens and the earth, were created, in the day when God was fashioning the world in which we live." The Bible explicitly states here that the pre-Adamites, whose creation is recorded in Genesis 1, were "the descendants of the heavens and the earth."

5. My book explains that a Hebrew reader could have understood that Genesis 2:5 moves the narrative on to a time later than the setting for Genesis 1. From this the reader would have known that the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 is not a retelling of the creation of the pre-Adamites of Genesis 1.

6. It explains in a unique way, from the text, why the book of Genesis should not be interpreted as stating that the flood was universal.

7. It shows why the author of Genesis ordered each of the aspects of creation as he did.

8. It deals with New Testament passages that appear to be contradictory to my model. This includes one whole chapter on Romans 5:12, explaining why this verse does not teach that Adam was the first man on the earth.

9. In regards to Acts 17:26 and 1 Corinthians 11:8, it shows that the use of the Greek preposition ek is limited to the immediate parent when it refers to an ancestor.

10. It gathers data together to support that the whale evolved from a four-legged land animal.

11. It provides a study of the Hebrew word that has been wrongly translated “mist” in Genesis 2. It should have been translated “flow.”

12. It gives an outline of Genesis that shows Genesis 2:5-4:26 is the only portion of the book that is not covered by the label that includes the words “the generations of.” This was because Adam and Eve were not birthed as were the pre-Adamites. They were created directly out of the ground.

13. It notes that the only place in Genesis that uses the phrase "the book of the generations [better tr. "the book of the descendants"] (NASB) is in Genesis 5:1. This is most likely because the reference to "book" indicates completeness; this section of Genesis concerns the pure descendants of Adam, but the great flood violently removed the descendants of Adam and Eve, with the exception of Noah and his family, from the earth. Hence, the author is indicating the completeness of this section of Genesis by calling the generations of Adam a "book."

14. It deals with the origin of flood myths in regard to a local flood scenario. I shows that the flood myths do not require a universal flood.

15. It includes a discussion of the problem of evil with an attempt to throw more light upon this subject through a study of Romans 8-9. The problem of evil has long been a stumbling block for some who would like to believe in the Christian God. I believe God addresses this subject in a helpful manner in the Book of Romans.

16. The 2015 edition of this book includes an appendix that shows why the somewhat popular idea of divine accommodation is not supported by Scripture. Some interpreters of the Bible say that God accommodated the Bible to the cosmology that people believed in that day. They believe that Genesis teaches an incorrect view of the sky and the universe to accommodate the mind of Moses' day. This article shows the error of this view.
____________________
¹Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2015).

Genesis 2:4 Must Refer to Genesis 1 Rather Than Genesis 2

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:24:00 +0000

Most translators have thought that the statement in Genesis 2:4 "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth" (KJV) refers to the story in Genesis 2, but this article proves that it refers to Genesis 1. This becomes very important when we realize that the word translated "generations" would have been better translated "descendants." The Bible says that the people created in Genesis 1 were created as descendants of the heavens and the earth. This post is a copy of appendix D from my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science.¹ It may be easiest for you to skim the opening paragraphs and look at some of the examples to see how the Hebrew language syntax can indicate whether a verse refers to what precedes it or whether it refers to what follows it. This is important as regards our interpretation of Genesis 2:4. Who are those who are the "generations" (a better translation would be "descendants") of the heavens and the earth. You may want to see my discussion on this subject "Have You Answered the Question of Human Origins?"

A STUDY OF THE HEBREW CONJUNCTION IN REGARDS TO THE FORMULA “THESE ARE THE GENERATIO NS OF…”

The formulas that are in the general form of one of these occur in the Pentateuch: (1) These are the generations of so and so…, (2) These are the sons of so and so…, and (3) These are the names of so and so.... When these formulas are used, special care is taken by the author to make sure that the reader will know whether this pronoun refers to what is written before it or to what is written after it. The presence or absence of the conjunction (the Hebrew prefix, waw) before the formula or after the formula is used to indicate whether the formula looks backward or forward. Whether or not the conjunction acts as a waw consecutive makes no difference, only the presence or absence of the waw serves to remove ambiguity. Exceptions to the general rule are few and easily identified.

The Bible Commentary² tells us that the Jews used the conjunction to indicate whether or not the formula referred to what preceded it or to what follows it. However, the rule must have been incorrectly stated. I take note of this only to show that, according to Jewish scholarship, the conjunction was employed to clarify to what the formula made reference.

When I studied these formulas, it became evident to me that the reader is to assume that the formula refers to what follows it, unless there is some “barrier,” specifically, a conjunction placed after the formula, which prevents the formula from applying to what follows it. Therefore, if the formula refers to the section of narrative that follows it, the conjunction is sometimes placed before the formula (at the discretion of the author); this sets it off from that which has been written before it. In this case the formula refers to what was written after it and commonly no conjunction follows the formula (unless this formula is followed by a nested formula as in examples 11 and 27). We shall call this case in which the formula is preceded by a conjunction case 1. In case 1 the formula always looks forward. Please see example 10.

In other places, no conjunction is written before the formula. In these cases, if the formula refers to what follows it, the writer is careful to leave out the conjunction which follows the formula so that the reader will know that the formula is meant to refer to what follows it. The understanding here in the mind of the reader is that since the formula is not separated from what follows it in its immediate context, it refers to what follows it rather than to what precedes it. We shall call this case 2. See example 9. (An exception to this rule occurs once in the Bible, here the formula occurs as a parenthetical section within a genealogy. It is obvious in this passage that the formula cannot look forward but must look backward even though no conjunction follows the formula.)

On the other hand, if no conjunction is written before the formula and the formula refers to what precedes it, the author is normally careful to put a conjunction after the formula to show that it refers to what is written before the formula. When the author shows his intention in this manner, we shall call it case 3. For a common instance of case 3, see example 4. Examples demonstrate that in this case the conjunction occurs at the end of the Hebrew sentence that contains the formula.

In case 3, an exception occurs if there is nesting, in which case the conjunction can be held off and placed after the two nested formulas. See examples 7 and 8.

Here is a summary of each of the cases described above:

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward (whether or not a conjunction follows).

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward.

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula refers backward.

Note: Because those cases which look backward are of special interest to us, I have put asterisks before these examples to indicate that these or this looks backward; otherwise, the example is one in which these or this looks forward.

We shall now list the examples in their scriptural order, and we shall begin, therefore, with the passage that we are attempting to analyze since it is first in order. Our objective is to discover whether it refers to the preceding verses (mainly, Genesis, chapter 1) or whether it refers to Genesis, chapters 2 through 4. Because Green’s version is quite literal, I have used his version in our study of these examples.³

*****Example 1: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula refers backward:

Genesis 2:3, 4

And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because He rested from all His work on it, which God had created to make. [No conjunction here:] These are the births [or generations] of the heavens and of the earth when they (were) created, in the day (that) Jehovah (was) making earth and heavens; [Conjunction here:] And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant…

Example 2: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Genesis 5:1

[No conjunction here:] This is the book of the generations of Adam: [No conjunction here:] In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God…

Example 3: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Genesis 6:9

[No conjunction here:]These are the generations of Noah. [No conjunction here:] Noah, a righteous man, had been perfected among his family—
Noah walked with God.
And Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And Noah, a righteous man, had been perfected among his family—
Noah walked with God.
And Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And the earth was corrupt before God…

*****Example 4: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Genesis 9:18

And the sons of Noah that went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham is the father of Canaan. [No conjunction here:] These are the three sons of Noah, [Conjunction here:] and the whole earth was overspread from them.

Example 5: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 10:1

[Conjunction here:] And these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. [Conjunction is here:] And sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai…

*****Example 6: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula, and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Genesis 10:26-29

And Joktan fathered Almodad…and Jodab. [No conjunction here:] These all were the sons of Joktan. [Conjunction here:] And their dwelling was from Mesha as you go to Sephar, an eastern mountain.

*****Examples 7 and 8: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Genesis 10:31-32

[No conjunction here:] These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their tongues, in their lands, according to their nations. These were the families of the sons of Noah, by their generations, in their nations. [Conjunction here:]And from these the nations were divided in the earth after the flood.

Shem’s genealogy is nested in Noah’s genealogy. Therefore, because “These are the families of the sons of Noah” must also begin without a conjunction or else it would refer forward, a conjunction was placed after both of them in Genesis 10:32b. Therefore, these formulas look backward.

Example 9: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Genesis 11:10

[No conjunction here:] These are the generations of Shem: [No conjunction here:] Shem was a hundred years old and fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. And after he fathered Arpachshad…

Example 10: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 11:27

[Conjunction here:] And these are the generations of Terah: [No conjunction here:] Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran fathered Lot.

Example 11: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 25:12-13a

[Conjunction here:]And these are the generations of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whom Hagar the Egyptian, the slave girl of Sarah, bore to Abraham. [Conjunction here:] And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael was Nebajoth…

Example 12: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 25:13

[Conjunction here:] And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: [No conjunction here:] The firstborn of Ishmael was Nebajoth…

*****Example 13: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Genesis 25:16-17

[No conjunction here:] These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names in their settlements and in their camps, twelve chiefs according to their nations. [Conjunction here:] And these are the years of the life of Ishmael…

Example 14: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 25:19

[Conjunction here:] And these (are) the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham: [No conjunction here:] Abraham fathered Isaac.

*****Example 15: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Genesis 35:26b-27a

[No conjunction here:] These were the sons of Jacob which were born to him in Padan-aram. [Conjunction here:] And Jacob came to his father Issac…

Example 16: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 36:1

[Conjunction here:] And these are the generations of Esau, that is, Edom: [No conjunction here] Esau took his wives from the daughters of Canaan, Adah the daughter of Elon…

Example 17: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Genesis 36:9

[Conjunction here:] And these were the generations of Esau, the father of Edom on Mount Seir: [No conjunction here:]The names of the sons of Adah, a wife of Esau, Reuel the son of Basemath, a wife Esau.

Example 18: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Genesis 37:2

[No conjunction here:]These are the generations of Jacob:
[No conjunction here:] Joseph a son of seventeen years, was tending the flock with his brothers, with Bilhah’s sons and with Zilpah’s sons, his father’s wives.
And he was a youth.
And Joseph came with…

Example 19: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

Exodus 6:14a

[No conjunction here:] These were the heads of the houses of their fathers: [No conjunction here:] The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel were Hanoch, and Pallu, and Hezron and Carmi…

*****Example 20: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Exodus 6:14b

[No conjunction here:] these were the families of Reuben. [Conjunction here:] And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel…

*****Example 21: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Exodus 6:15b-16

[No conjunction here:] These were the families of Simeon. [Conjunction here:] And these were the names of the sons of Levi by their generations: Gershon…

Example 22: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Exodus 6:16 (repeated)

[Conjunction here:]And these were the names of the sons of Levi by their generations: [No conjunction here:] Gershon and Kohath, Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were a hundred and thirty-seven years.

*****Example 23: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Exodus 6:19

And the sons of Merari: Mahli, and Mushi. [No conjunction here:] These are the families of Levi according to their generations. [Conjunction here:] And Amram took his aunt Jochebed to him…

*****Example 24: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Leviticus 7:37-8:1

[No conjunction here:]This is the law for burnt offering…in the wilderness of Sinai. [Conjunction here:] And Jehovah spoke to Moses…

Example 25 (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Leviticus 11:29

[Conjunction here:] And these shall be unclean to you among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: [No conjunction here:] the weasel, and the mouse…

*****Example 26: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Leviticus 11:46-12:1

[No conjunction here:] This is the law of the animals, and of the fowl, and of every living creature which moves in the waters, and every creature which swarms on the earth, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten, and the living thing that may not be eaten. [Conjunction here:] And Jehovah spoke to Moses…

Example 27: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Numbers 3:1-2

[Conjunction here:] And these are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day of the speaking of Jehovah with Moses in Mount Sinai. [Conjunction here:] And these are the names of Aaron’s sons: [No conjunction here:] Nadab the first born, and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

Example 28: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Numbers 3:2-3

[Conjunction here:] And these are the names of Aaron’s sons: Nadab, the first born; and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. [No conjunction here:] These are the names of Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests whose hands he consecrated to act as priests.

*****Example 29: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 3: If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula looks backward:

Numbers 3:3-4

[No Conjunction here:] These are the names of Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests whose hands he consecrated to act as priests. [Conjunction here:] And Nadab and Abiju died before Jehovah in the wilderness of Sinai…

Example 30: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 1: If there is a conjunction before the formula, then the formula always looks forward:

Ruth 4:18-19

[Conjunction here:] And these are the generations of Pharez: [No conjunction here:] Pharez fathered Hezron; and Hezron fathered Ram…

*****Example 31: (Refers BACKWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

1 Chronicles 1:23-26

… and Havilah, and Johab. [No conjunction here:] All these were the sons of Joktan. [There is no conjunction here because this follows a parenthetical section, and it resumes the list of Adam’s descendants. A conjunction here would breakup the genealogy and it is unnecessary because the formula cannot refer forward:] Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg…

Example 32: (Refers FORWARD)

Case 2: If there is no conjunction before the formula and no conjunction after the formula, then (except in 1 Chronicles 1:23-24 where its inclusion would cause misreading of the text) the formula looks forward:

1 Chronicles 1:29f

[No conjunction here:] These are their generations. [No conjunction here:] The first born of Ishmael was Nabaioth…and Kedemah.
____________________
¹ Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2009).
² Bishops and other clergy of the Anglican Church, ed. F. C. Cook, The Holy Bible according to the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611), with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary and a Revision [original, Rebision] of the Translation, cover title: The Bible Commentary, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 1:37-38.
³ The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayett, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).

The Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by P. Green, Sr. This work was contained in the side column of Green’s work referenced above.

HAVE YOU ANSWERED THE QUESTION OF HUMAN ORIGINS?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:52:00 +0000

Revised April 29, 2015

This tract is a summary of a recently published book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science by Gary T. Mayer. See the end of this tract for details.

Some people do not seriously consider the truth of Christianity because they believe the Bible is contradicted by science in the matter of human origins and the age of the earth. This serious error rests on misinterpretations of a number of Bible passages. Here are some reasons why a better understanding of the Bible confirms its truthfulness and diminishes the assumed contradictions between science and the Bible.

The First Modern Men to Inhabit the World

The Bible does not teach that Adam and Eve were the first modern men to inhabit the world. Therefore, the Bible’s placing the creation of Adam and Eve upon the earth only approximately 6,000 years ago is not in conflict with scientists’ opinion that modern humans have been here for at least 100,000 years. The creation of these first modern people is recorded in the Bible in Genesis 1, whereas the creation of Adam and Eve is recorded in Genesis 2. The Bible does not set any time at which God created this first race whose creation was recorded in Genesis 1. These people were pre-Adamites who spread from Africa over all the earth.

Fast Drop in Life Spans Proves a Pre-Adamic People

Genesis chapters 5 and 11 list the life spans of the patriarchs who were descendants of Adam and Eve. They cover the approximate time window from about 6000 years ago to about 4300 years ago. The early descendants of Adam and Eve lived to be an average of 929 years. We can show mathematically that there were modern humans upon the earth before Adam and Eve’s creation by observing how the life spans given
in the first book of the Bible decrease (or even increased) as time passed. Realizing that our life span depends upon over 7,000 genes, I concluded that if two races that differed greatly in their average life spans intermarried, the offspring from these first generation marriages would be the average of the two life spans of the two races. With this knowledge, I combined the average life span of the descendants of Adam (about 929 years obtained from the biblical genealogies) with an average life span of 60 years for the pre-Adamic race. The result was 494.50 years. To find the various life spans that might have been on the earth in the next generation, I combined this value with 60 and 929 years to obtain two more life spans. The possible life spans at this time would have been 929, 711.75, 494.50, 277.25, and 60 years. I made similar calculation for two more generations. From these possible life spans I obtained a number of possible life spans for Shem, Noah’s son. I discovered that Shem’s actual life span was quite near one of Shem’s most probable theoretical life spans.

I then calculated the most probable life spans for each of the patriarch’s life spans and compared each of these life spans with the life spans given in the Bible. In each case, the actual life span was close to one of the most probable life spans. I made bar graphs of these results. A graph (chart 16) summarizing these data exhibited by these bar graphs is shown at the my book. The chart shows a continuous line connecting the actual life spans of the patriarchs; the short lines show the most probable life spans of the patriarchs who lived from about 2700 BC to 2000 BC. Each of these patriarchs’ actual life spans lies very close to one of the most probable theoretical life spans. But since these most probable life spans were calculated based upon the thesis that Adam’s descendants married into an existing human race, the evidence for such a dual origin thesis is very convincing. What is more, since Adam and Eve appeared suddenly approximately 6,000 years ago, having potential genetic life spans of over 900 years, this data is very strong in support of God’s immediate creation of Adam and Eve; it also defends the trustworthiness of the Bible.

The Bible Teaches Pre-Adamites Descended from the Heavens and the Earth

If you look at the description of created man's surroundings in Genesis 1, you discover that it is at a time when people were scavengers, eating from the trees and bushes but not planting and harvesting their crops. In contrast, Genesis 2-4 describes Adam and his sons as farmers who plant and harvest crops or tend herds. We cannot place the time of Adam and Eve thousands of years in advance of this age.

Genesis 2:4 is a very misunderstood verse which becomes a key to properly interpreting the Bible. It says, “These are the generations [Lit. rendering from NASB notes] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heavens.” [1] To whom does this verse refer? Does it make reference to Genesis 1 or to Genesis 2, which describes the creation of Adam and Eve? In my book I defend a rule of Hebrew syntax which states, “If there is no conjunction before the formula and a conjunction after the formula, then the formula refers backward.” In all other places in Genesis where the Hebrew word generation is used it refers to people and means descendants. A paraphrase of Genesis 2:4 would then be: “These people, whose creation we have just described, are the descendants of the heavens and the earth….” Does this verse indicate that God did not create the people of Genesis 1 directly from the soil as He created Adam and Eve (Genesis 2), but rather He created them through some other method of descent? Let us now look at a passage that may cause us to answer this question in the affirmative.

Genesis 5:1 explains that God named Adam and Eve Man [Heb., Adam] in the day they were created. Here are the first five verses of Genesis 5. I will make a few changes in the NASB as indicated so that it becomes a more accurate translation according to my opinion:

We should be aware that God's usual way of naming the small portion of the whole was to name the smaller portion the same name as the larger whole. For example, the heavens reaching up to the stars was called heavens; so when God named the expanse of the atmosphere, He called it heavens(Genesis 1:8). Likewise, God called the land earth because it was a part of the whole earth that included the seas (Gen. 1:10). I believe the term day that God gave to the twelve hours of daylight also reflects a longer creation day. So in Genesis 5:1, God calls Adam and Eve and their descendants man (Heb., adam) because the name of the pre-Adamites that He created as described in Genesis 1 was man, the larger portion of mankind. God desires that the reader understands that Adam and Eve's descendants did not become human after the intermarriages, rather they were created as men from the their beginning.

The longevity of the mixture of races would at first drop. But, if the mixing occurred at a relatively slow rate, the average life span of the mixture would level off at about 120 years. This is because the rate of reproduction of the people with 240-year lifespan, compared to the people with a 240-year life span, would no doubt be greater. This brings us to the question: Why did God scatter the descendants of Noah after the flood? It must have been mainly so that the life spans of the whole world would not be raised to an average of 120 years. His forcing them to be scattered quickly caused a rapid dilution of their genome making this impossible.

It is commonly known that science teaches that all life descended from a single cell, which in turn formed through natural means from nonorganic matter. Theistic evolution believes that life evolved into its present state, but its evolution was dependent upon the attentive creative work of God. Genesis 2:4 (previously quoted partly form NASB notes), which calls the pre-Adamites “the generations” [better translated descendants] of the heavens and the earth, seems to teach us that God used a method of descent, that is, evolution) to create the pre-Adamites. Years after this, he created Adam and Eve directly out of the ground. If this interpretation of the Bible is accurate, this greatly serves to harmonize the Bible and science. The scientific evidence for theistic evolution is mounting every day. One example, the evidence for the evolution of the whale from a four-footed land animal is immense. The transitional variations from land animal to the modern whale can be observed quite well, so well that Stephen J. Gould wrote, “but if you had given me both a blank sheet of paper and a blank check, I could not have drawn you a theoretical intermediate any better or more convincing than Ambulocetus.” [2] In the whale’s development, changes occurred, not only in the mammal’s skeleton, but also in its communication system, lungs, eyes, ears, skin, fins, tongue, nostril location, specially fitted mouth, and nipples. The implication in support for the descent of animals from our study of the alleged descent of the whale is staggering. If the whale descended from a tetrapod, as the evidence points, the mechanisms which produced change through descent must have been designed by God to have the capacity to produce great transformation in all aspects of an organism—in short, macroevolution.

A genetic mutation is a variation in genetic material. The GLO (L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase) pseudogenes in primates and humans share many of the same mutations. That these similar mutations should form independently is very unlikely. Scientists sight this as another evidence for evolution. The very existence of hominid fossils, such as the Neanderthal, the Homo erectus, or the Homo habilis, makes one wonder if there may be a progression from lower forms to modern humans. If this were the case, then we know what the Bible means when it speaks in Genesis 2:4 about those who descended from the heavens and the earth.

In order for us to see the wonder of God’s creative genius, we do not need to see sudden appearances of new species from inanimate materials; a look further back in God’s creative process will reveal the wonder of creation because we see the forces of nature, the structure of atoms, and the particles which compose the nucleus of the atoms were all designed so that the universe could sustain life. This aspect of creation is called the anthropic principle.

But you may argue that the Bible teaches a young earth which was created about six to ten thousand years ago. Evolutionary development takes millions of years; so how could it be? The idea that the Bible teaches a young earth is based on a misinterpretation of the Bible that sees the days of creation as 24-hour solar days. Genesis 1:3-5 relates that God created the day-night cycle; it closes this first creation day saying, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Context demands that “evening” and “morning” must be taken here literally, but it often goes unnoticed that it does not say “day one” or “the first day” as one would have expected; rather, it employs a phrase used to define, i.e, “one day.” Even though light was defined as “day” and darkness as “night” earlier in this verse, the author proceeds to define another day, a creation day. He defines it by saying, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” It should be understood that the Hebrews ended their 24-hour day in the evening, rather than in the morning. Since the text does not say, "And there was morning and there was evening, one day," but rather moves on to include the night to the next morning, "one day" must be a creation day, rather than a solar day.

It has been brought out that there appears to be a discrepancy in the order of creation between the Bible and science. Science tells us that the creatures of the sea appeared before life on land came forth. The Bible places the creation of vegetation on day three and the creation of the sea creatures on day five—the reverse order. But a further study of the Bible will reveal that the author of Genesis 1 did not intend to give the creation account in exact chronological order. Further study will also reveal that the various aspects of creation, such as the visible stars and the plant and animal kingdoms were made over overlapping periods of time so that the author of Genesis had options in regard to their ordering. Actually, one of Moses’ purposes in writing this creation account was to cause the reader to be thankful to God for the everyday cycles of life originally prepared by God. Therefore, the creation account has a homiletic or sermonizing purpose to it. He structured his presentation of God’s acts of creation in such a way as to emphasize that God prepared the earth for its dwellers. To accomplish this, he sets the stage for the dwellers in the first three days of creation and then describes God’s creation of the earth dwellers in the last three days. Please notice the following things about the narrative: Moses personifies the sun and the moon, which permits them to fit the idea of earth dwellers and places them on day four in the second triad of days. To make his two triads of days symmetrical, he places one aspect of creation on each of days one and two and days four and five, but places two aspects of creation on days three and six. To accomplish this he combines the creation of sea animals and birds into one aspect of creation on day five. His result: a creation story that emphasizes God’s great provision for his created “beings” that move—in particular, the heavenly bodies, the birds, the sea creatures, the land animals, and mankind. We who read Genesis 1 must realize that Moses consolidated millions of years of earth's history into six periods of time.

The Bible Teaches That God Created Mankind at Two Different Times in Two Different Manners

A careful study of the Hebrew language as found in the Old Testament well reveal that Genesis 2, which describes the creation of Adam and Eve from the ground, narrates a creation story different and subsequent to the narrative of Genesis 1, which describes a creation of the pre-Adamic race. Evidence for this conclusion is now found in my 2015th edition of my book.

Was Adam the First Man?

One may ask, “But doesn’t Romans 5:12-13 inform us that Adam was the first man of the human race when it states, ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law’?” No, unfortunately this verse when translated into English becomes difficult to understand. Paul’s point here is that Adam was the first man to sin against a direct command (or law) of God. For this reason, all men die. According to the Bible, all men are sinners and need the Savior. This is true whether men lived before or after Adam. Adam was created to be a test of mankind to show to the entire universe that man is sinful and needs the salvation which is in Jesus Christ. God put Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden with animals which had been created anew especially for them, but they still fell into temptation and sinned against God’s command. Adam’s descendants were permitted to marry into the pre-Adamic race, but this mixed race filled the world with violence; God felt compelled to destroy it. But, He preserved Noah and his family through the flood to carry down to us the story of Adam and Eve’s test, which illustrates that people lack proper faith in their Creator and devotion to Him. Man’s sin remained, but the Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

In conclusion, we find that man experiences death and evil in this world due to his rebellious nature. God must punish sin, but if we will repent of our sins and come to the Lord Jesus Christ, God will receive us as His true children. [3]
____________________
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 9172, 1973, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
[2] Stephen Jay Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History (New York: Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, 1995), 364.
[3] For further discussion of these evidences for a dual origin thesis and for explanations explaining why this thesis does not contradict other passages in the Bible, please see Gary T. Mayer’s book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN, Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouseTM, 2015). Please be sure to buy the 2015 edition. To schedule a seminar or to purchase a book or more tracts, please e-mail him at garytmayer@gmail.com.

© 2009 Gary T. Mayer

Were The Creation Days Twenty-Four-Hour Days?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:54:00 +0000

(Revised June 19, 2014)

The Following article is a portion of the tenth chapter of my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science. [1] I have removed centain material here and there to shorten the article for the reader's convenience or to made changes. I also added a small amount that I placed in brackets.

...Science tells us that modern humans appeared about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago... science also believes that the earth was created about 4.6 billion years ago and that the universe was created about 13.7 billion years ago. If the creation days were only twenty-four hours in duration, modern humans could not have been created 100,000 years ago. Neither science nor the Bible teaches that man was created 13.7 billion years ago. Either the conclusion of those who interpret the biblical creation days to be twenty-four-hour days is wrong or the conclusion of science is wrong. Both cannot be correct. If we were to discover that the days of creation as presented in the Bible could be interpreted as very long days rather than twenty-four-hour solar days, mankind could have been created at the end of the long period of time during which God created the universe...[including] the earth. Many who [have] read the first chapter of Genesis say they must interpret these days as twenty-four-hour solar days, certainly not long ages. J. Ligin Duncan III and David W. Hall contributors to The Genesis Debate, argue, “we have yet to see internally compelling reasons for why yom [day] in Genesis 1 means an extended or undefined period.” [2] This explanation they require is exactly what I shall attempt to explain step by step. It will be so put forth, as they desire, based, not on a modern clever hypothesis but rather by approaching the text the way an early Hebrew reader would approach it....

The Seemingly Long Appearance of the Creation Days

The presentation of the creation days in the book of Genesis describes them in a way that causes them to appear to have been longer than twenty-four hours. The six days of creation include all of the creation of the universe, according to Genesis 2:1-3: “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts...Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” [3] If we couple this verse, which concludes the narration of the seven creation days, with the opening verse in Genesis 1:1, it seems conclusive that the entire universe was included in God’s creative activity which was performed in the six creation days. On day 3, God first raises the land above the ocean surface and the water runs off the earth. This gathering of the waters could have been done within a few hours by supernatural means, of course. Without such means, the flow of water from the land in a twelve-hour day would have been impossible. The erosion would be fantastic. Also on day 3 God decrees that the earth should bring forth vegetation that was reproducing itself after its kind. Since the Hebrew verb for “brought forth” is the natural word used to describe the process of normal growth, we find no cause to see this process as accelerated supernaturally, but rather the description is of natural growth at a normal rate. If this were the case, it would have required much longer than a part of a day to bring the normal vegetation to the point of seed bearing.

A Revealing Subtlety in Genesis

Now we shall observe a very interesting subtlety in the presentation of the creation account which shows us that, in order to make good sense of this Bible passage, the earth must have been created more than 6,000 or 7,000 years ago. Please observe carefully Genesis 2:5-6 which I shall quote below. From these two verses it can be shown that either the creation days were much longer than twenty-four hours or Adam and Eve were created considerably after the six creation days or both. In previous chapters, we saw that Adam and Eve were created considerably after the six days of creation; in this chapter, we shall show that Genesis 1 does not indicate the length of days of creation, because these six days of creation are not solar days. We have already shown in chapter 6 that in the following verses the Hebrew word translated “earth” in the NASB should have been rendered “land,” since it is referring to the local area of Mesopotamia. I shall quote Genesis 2:5 inserting “land,” since “land” makes a better translation. And I shall rewrite Genesis 2:6 as I translated it myself in chapter 6:

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth [land], and no plant of the field had yet sprouted; for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth [land]; and there was no man to cultivate the ground. (Gen. 2:5, NASB) But a flow went up from the land over and over again and kept watering the whole surface of the ground. (Gen. 2:6, my translation.)

Verses 5-6 are an explanation of why no wild plants and domestic herbs had grown up: it was watered by periodic flooding. This pictures a considerably long period of time when no shrubs and plants grew. This text speaks of a time when it did not rain upon the earth and no vegetation grew. This was a long enough time to make it worth mentioning. Does this mean that on the third day of creation, before the vegetation sprang up on day 3, the earth had dried up? Certainly the ground was not in need of rain the day it was elevated above the oceans on day 3! I shall give a little discussion of Genesis 2; it may throw some light upon the matter.

These verses are leading up to the creation of Adam and Eve. Let us suppose that the days of creation were twenty-four hours in length and that the passage is speaking of the entire earth; this verse would be telling us why the vegetation had not come up. That the author should include such an explanation would be inappropriate for a number of reasons. (1) The earth had been covered with water on day 3 and man was created on day 6. To give a reason that the vegetation had not come up in three twenty-four-hour days would have been out of place. (2) If the earth had been covered with water on day 3, how could it be completely dry from the lack of rain on day 6 only three twenty-four-hour days later?

The whole assumption in the first place that the passage is speaking universally is incompatible with the facts. The earth sprouted vegetation on day 3, so how could it say in Genesis 2:5, “Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth” if the vegetation came forth on day 3? [I believe that Genesis 2:5-6 is referring to a local area of the earth. In the and 2007 and 2009 editions of my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science,¹ I followed the view of those who place the Garden of Eden in the lower part of Mesopotamia (present day Iraq). I took the view defended by some people that the Garden of Eden was located at Eridu which was situated near the mouth of the Euphrades River. Since I wrote my book, I have recently read David M. Rohl's book Legend: The Genesis Of Civilisation². Also I have observed more thoroughly the Bible's description of the river that went through Eden and became four heads.

The Bible says, "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it was divided and became four heads" (Gen. 1:10).³ This verse indicates that the Garden of Eden was located near the heads of these two known rivers, not at their mouths where they go into the Persian Gulf. Having discovered Rohl's arguments, I have changed my mind as to the location of the Garden of Eden. I do not agree with all of Rohl's statements and conclusions, of course, since he does not believe in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as I do. Rohl has convinced me that Eden was in northern Iran between Lake Urmia and the Caspian Sea. The Garden of Eden was just east of Lake Urmia. The Bible says that before God created Adam a flow came out of the ground to water the whole land. (Gen. 2:6) It had not rained on the land. Many translations call this flow a "mist," but this is an incorrect translation. See my book for why we can be sure that "mist" is an improper translation. The New American Standard Bible gives "flow" as an alternate rendering. (Gen. 2:5) Genesis 2:10 tells us that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden." So the river must have been fed by this "flow" that came out of the ground "to water the garden." The fact is that this mountainous area east and southeast of Lake Urmia contains "hot" springs that flow out water from the earth. An example is the Takht-e Suleiman, which is still flowing today. Two streams flow down from it and combine to form the Zarrineh Rud, which flows down to Lake Urmia. These are also called abzu's since they were thought by people in ancient times to be outcroppings from the underground water called the Abyss. Please see my article called "Where was the Garden of Eden?"]

Now that we understand that Genesis 2:5-6 is referring to a relatively small area, does it invalidate our conclusion that we must see a lengthy time between day 3 of creation and the setting for the creation of Adam and Eve described in Genesis 2:5? No. Essentially the entire earth was covered with water at the beginning of day 3; therefore, the setting of Genesis 2:5 must have been much later. The author was giving an explanation as to why no plants had yet come up. A conclusion that only three twenty-four-hour days separated day 3 from day 6 would still certainly be a mistake. To suppose that the earth had dried up in three days would be unreasonable. Therefore, we can confidently conclude that these creation days were much longer than twenty-four-hours, according to the Genesis text itself, or that Adam and Eve were created much later than the seventh day of creation or both.

The Key to Understanding the Days of Creation

Let us put before us the majestic words of the opening of the Bible, Genesis 1:1-5:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
5 [a] And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. [b] And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

...Verse 4 means that God created the light so that it was separated from the darkness; verse 5 reveals that this separation was what we know to be the day-night cycle. The text says, “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.” Next we read what is similarly recorded after all six creation days: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” The key to understanding the days of creation is the formula: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”

Some Erroneous Interpretations

Our first task is to dispel some erroneous interpretations of this formula; they would greatly deflect us from arriving at a true understanding of this creation account. At this time, I would like to analyze the text to determine the meaning of the formula “and there was evening the there was morning, one day.” The King James Version translates verse 5b this way: “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” This is a poor translation of the Hebrew and has added to the confusion. This is not a synecdoche of the part; such an interpretation would put “evening” to mean “night” and “morning” to mean “day.” If “evening” meant the night after the first creation day and “morning” meant the day after this night, the text would need to say “day two” rather than “one day” as it does because this interpretation would take us through a second day of creation. Therefore, “evening” and “morning” cannot be figures of speech. This formula, as others similar to it, functions, as a terminus of a day of creation. A broad look at these formulas and their placement confirms this conclusion. Each is at the end of the creation day which is being described, and each ends with the number corresponding to that day.

Another mistake some interpreters make is to say that “evening” and “morning” are to be taken figuratively to mean the end or beginning of an age. This is impossible due to the first occurrence of this formula in Genesis 1:5, in which God gives the names “day” and “night” to the light and the darkness. Here the very next statement is, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” The close proximity of this formula to the words “day” and “night” and the flow of the narrative directly into “evening” and “morning” after the creation of day and night demands that “evening” and “morning” be taken literally in this verse. Since this is a formula used for all six days, it certainly must hold its same original interpretation where it is used throughout the next five days as it had for day 1. Therefore, we can be assured that “evening” and “morning” are always used in a literal sense in Genesis 1.

The Author’s Choice of Numerals

If the reader is to gain a true understanding of the text, he must take into account the author’s choice of numerals with which he numbered the days of creation. We shall next make a very important observation which concerns a detail in the use of numerals that the author purposely employed here to communicate his intention to the reader. It has often been pointed out that the first day of creation is terminated with a cardinal numeral (that is, “one”); whereas, the other five days of creation are closed with the ordinal numeral which has the form, that is, “second,” “third,” “fourth,” etc. Why didn’t the author end day 1 with a similar expression, such as, “a first day” or “the first day”? It is evident that after the author numbered the first day of creation, he made a definite departure in the type of numerals that he used to number the days of creation.

Another way he could have numbered the first day would have been to use a cardinal numeral with the word “day” to make the text read “day one,” but this was not what was written either. [The Hebrew reads literally "day one": to translate the Hebrew meaning into English the order must be changed so that he translation reads "one day."] Why didn’t the author use one of these two expressions rather than “one day”? “One day” carries more meaning in this context than the phrase “day one” would have carried or than “the first day” would have carried. The phrase “one day” does more than terminate the first day of creation at this point in the narrative—it names and defines the first creation day. It expresses the idea to the reader that we are defining as one creation day the period of time which began at the very beginning of the creative acts of God, when the earth was brought into existence and was laying in darkness, and it includes the time which passed until the time when the darkness was dispelled and the light appeared in the day-night cycle. If the author had used the words “day one” or the words “the first day,” he would have only been counting off this day as the first day. He would have been consistent with the way he numbered the other five days; however, he would not have used a phrase that acted to define or set apart as one creation day all that had transpired to this point in time.

To repeat myself a little, the meaning of one day is incongruous with the meaning of day one. The phrase “day one” would have told us that at this time in the past the first day of creation ended; whereas, the phrase that the author used, “one day,” communicates to us that the author is defining all that transpired before this time as one creation day.

Please refer to table 8, where you will find listed the expected and the actual numerals used to label the days of creation. The purpose of table 8 is to consolidate for our convenience the way the text numbers the days so that we can compare the phrases and so we can compare the wording that we would have expected to see if “days” meant twelve-hour or twenty-four-hour solar days with the actual wording of the text. The column entitled “Expected Numerals” shows how we would have expected to see the days numbered. We would have expected to see them all ordinals, that is, “first,” “second,” “third,” etc. The second column shows that the first day uses the cardinal form of numeral, that is, “one.” We would not have been surprised if the first day had employed the phrase, “day one,” which fits the idea communicated by the phrase, “the first day.” The best explanation for why the author used the expression that he did to number the first day is that he wanted to define the period of time from the beginning of creation to the end of the first day.

TABLE 7: EXPECTED AND ACTUAL SETS OF NUMERALS USED TO LABEL THE CREATION DAYS

These numeric phrases terminate the formulas which number the days of creation. The formula begins: “And there was evening and there was morning…”

Day         Expected Numerals                              Actual Terminology of Text

1            “the first day” or “day one”                    “one day”

2           “a second day”                                      “a second day”

3            “a third day”                                          “a third day”

4            “a fourth day”                                        “a fourth day”

5            “a fifth day”                                           “a fifth day”

6            “a sixth day”                                          “the sixth day”

7            “the seventh day”                                   (no formula)

An Unlikelihood

The day we know as daylight had already been defined before the evening-morning formula was written. In Genesis 1:3-5a, the author had already discussed the solar day. The word “day” had already been defined in these verses as the light portion of the day-night cycle. The text even proceeded to give the names God ascribed to day and night. Naming is always left until last, as it was in the case of God’s naming the expanse in the Genesis account of day 2. The separation of the waters to form the expanse (sky) is explained in verses 6 and 7, and then verse 8 says,

And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Since the twelve-hour solar day that is contrasted with night in the narration of the first day, had already been defined before the closing formula, the word “day” that is part of the closing formula must mean a different day from the solar day. Since the solar day [had]...already been defined, it would have been very unlikely that the author would have defined it once again in his formula. He would have simply written, “day one,” or, “the first day.” God must have been employing the formula to define a period of time which constituted the first creation day, not the first solar day. Now we need to determine what is included in it.

An Illogical Interpretation

At this point it is necessary for me to show that a narrow angle interpretation of verse 5 would be illogical to a Hebrew reader of Moses time. Rather, He would have to view this formula “and there was evening and there was morning, one day” in a broader manner, one in which we would understand this to be a break between two twelve-hour periods of daylight rather than a break at the end of the night. “And there was evening and there was morning” points to a division between adjacent twelve-hour periods of daylight. This broad angle view is illustrated in chart 27 (p. 241). We shall return to a discussion of the broad angle view shortly, but we shall next see that a narrow angle view would be illogical to the Hebrew reader.

A Contradiction

The narrow angle view would contradict the definition of “day” just given in the text. If we look at this text as though it is defining a twenty-four-hour day, we would be accumulating all that is described in verses 2-5; day one then terminates where the text says, “one day.” This narrow angle view would then include the darkness, the twelve-hour daytime hours and the night following. This narrow angle view would contradict the definition of a “day” as given in Genesis 1:4a, which only included daylight. Remember the text states, “And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night” (Gen. 1:5a). Therefore, this makes the narrow angle view doubtful.

But someone will say, “It is no problem to equate these two occurrences of the word ‘day’ because we include night in our meaning of the word day all the time.” This is precisely one reason why an English-speaking reader is apt to misunderstand what the text is saying. The Hebrew speaker did not usually use yom as an English speaker uses the word day to include night as well as the daylight hours. He generally used the word yom to mean only the daylight hours. You can prove this assertion to yourself by simply obtaining access to an analytical concordance, Young’s or Strong’s, for example, and reading down the column under the word day that translates from the Hebrew word yom. The entries in Young’s, 1970 edition, go from page 227 to 230, so it is possible to get a good feeling for the way the word is used. You would get better examples by looking up the word night which translates from the Hebrew words layelah or layil and look for references which speak of “day and night.” Here are some examples from Young’s: [4]

1. Genesis 7:4, 12: “upon the earth forty days and forty n. [nights]”
2. Exodus: 10:18: “the land all that day, and all (that) night”
3. I Kings 19:8: “forty days and forty nights unto Horeb”

An example from Esther is especially noteworthy because Esther gave instructions to her people to fast for three days; in so doing she used the word “day” to mean a twelve-hour day because this is when they ate their meals. Because she desired to make sure the people understood they were to fast during nighttime, she also found it necessary to add the words, “night or day.” By adding “night” and “day,” Esther was sure her people knew that she meant a continuous three-day fast:

Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast in like manner; and so shall I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. (Est. 4:16; emphasis mine)

The expression “forty days and forty nights,” so often used in the Scriptures, was probably stated solely to express a continuous duration of time. Hebrew speakers used day to mean the day light hours and night to mean the dark hours just like the words were defined in Genesis 1:5a: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” Next we read verse 4b: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” For a Hebrew writer of Moses’ day to move the narrative along to the next morning and to call the whole of light period and dark period by the word yom would have been unlikely. At this point in our discussion, it appears that this formula terminates this creation day between two periods of time. This view I am calling the wide angle view.

The Hebrew Twenty-Four-Hour Day Ended in the Evening

Another reason for our excluding the narrow angle view is because the Hebrews’ twenty-four-hour cycle of night and day did not end in the morning but rather ended in the evening. Therefore, for a Hebrew to mean by the formula “and there was evening and there was morning, one day” a twenty-four-hour period ending in the morning is unlikely. If a Hebrew reader were to have read that a twenty-four-hour day was terminated in the morning, he would have been confused.

The Indestructible Day

The day is the basic indestructible unit of time. The clause “and there was evening and there was morning” obviously served to terminate a creation day. If it does not terminate the creation day in the morning, how does it serve to terminate the creation day? It must be realized that at this time in our narrative only one unit of time had been created—the solar day. The moon cycles and the years are not mentioned until day 4. What is more, the unit of time which was mentioned was the basic unit of time in Moses’ day; for that matter, it is the basic unit of time today. Weeks are...made of whole solar days. Months are...made of whole solar days, seldem, if ever... a portion of a day. Years, likewise, are...made up of whole solar days. It follows that centuries or any time units composed of years are made up of whole solar days. Units of time which are smaller than a day are...an exact division of a twenty-four-hour day. Exactly 60 seconds make a minute; exactly 60 minutes make an hour and exactly twenty-four hours make a day. A true solar year is very near 365-1/4 twenty-four-hour days in length...; our calendars contain 365 days for each of three consecutive years and then they contain 366 days on leap year to help make up for the four quarters-of-a-day lost in the four-year cycle. (A further infrequent calendar adjustment keeps the calendar in line with the solar rotations.) The Old Testament law also always terminated the week, the month (no matter how many days were included), the year, Sabbath days, or feasts days at the end of a twelve-hour solar day, not during a twelve-hour solar day. My point is that a day is like a block of granite; it is hard to break apart.

The breaks between the twelve-hour periods of daylight provide points at which the longer creation days can be divided in an orderly fashion. Taking a broad angle view of the larger creation days, we see that the formula “and there was evening and there was morning, one day” serves to provide a breaking point at which the creation days are stated to have been neatly severed. The formula also moves the narrative along from one creation day to the next. It sets the progress of the narrative to a point between two indestructible blocks of time, two twelve-hour daylight periods. The author pictures the break between the twelve-hour days by starting, “And there was evening and there was morning.” As we picture in our minds the passage of time from an evening to the next morning, we provide for ourselves a logical point in time to divide one period of time from the next. This formula provides a logical time to separate day 1 from day 2, day 2 from day 3 and so on.

In the Evening-Morning Formula the Twelve-Hour Day Is Assumed

In speaking of evening and morning, the text assumes the prior understanding of the definitions already given in verse 5a. The definition of “day” in verse 5a prepares the reader’s mind to make sense of the statement “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Since this formula provides a break between two adjacent twelve-hour solar days, it becomes a requirement that the two adjacent twelve-hour days would have been previously defined as such. If the twelve-hour solar day had not been defined fully before the formula was given, the wide angle focus would revert back to the narrow angle focus and the evening-morning formulas would have been made senseless to Moses’ contemporaries. This is because you would be forced to conclude that the day of verse 5b is being defined as ending in the morning. But the Jewish twenty-four-hour day ended in the evening.

Too Imprecise

We observed that the formula ending with the words “one day” defines a period of time. Now suppose it was defining a twelve-hour solar day; it would be too inaccurate because it extends this twelve-hour day over until morning. Now suppose the author was defining a twenty-four-hour day. This is unlikely also because it extends a twenty-four-hour day over until morning, but a Hebrew twenty-four-hour day ends in the evening. He would have been making an incorrect statement. Therefore, we must go to a broad angle view of the meaning of this formula in which we see it as defining long periods of time. Viewing these days as long periods of time means that the marker which separates adjacent days is viewed as a complete night. This broad angle interpretation is the only interpretation that would make sense to the contemporary Hebrew reader.

A Different Basis of Definition

The formula sets forth a definition of the creation day based upon the termination of a period of time rather than upon the concepts of light and darkness. The definition of the twelve-hour “day” in verse 5a is the presence of light in contrast to darkness; whereas God’s delineation of the first creation day is specified by a certain period of time using the words “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” The break between the “evening” and “morning” terminated the time from the beginning of creation to the end of the first creation day. The solar day is based upon the solar alternations which produce light and darkness; the creation day is based upon the passing of a period of time.

It may be that the simplified creation account in Genesis 1 is saying that the first creation day only included a period of time followed by one solar day because it was the creation of the solar day that was God’s goal for His first creation day. Later creation days could have each included any number of solar days because the text’s definition of a creation day was completely independent of the solar day.

The Contemporary Hebrew

The Hebrew reader of Moses’ day would correctly interpret the evening-morning formula. Let us apply this knowledge to the first five verses of Genesis. The earth is in darkness so God decrees that there be light. God calls the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Evening and morning pass, bringing us to the point of the termination of this creation day. The narrator writes, “one day,” and in this manner, he defines the first day of creation as the time from the beginning of creation to this point in time. Of course, this would be a different “day” from the twelve-hour solar “day” defined as light. Since the narrative just took us through the night, from evening to morning, it would be easy for the reader who was an early Hebrew to discern that the author would not be defining the twelve-hour solar day as “one day,” but rather that he was defining God’s creation day by his use of the evening-morning formula.

If the author were concluding a twelve-hour period of light followed by darkness, he would have no doubt written, “and there was evening, one day.” And then, if he desired, he would have written, “And there was morning. And God said...” However, he carried the flow of time through the night to morning and called this time from the beginning of creation “one day.” Therefore, from this discussion of the word day and the true purpose of the formula “and there was evening and there was morning, one day,” we can conclude that the “day” of verse 5b is not the solar day of verse 5a and that a narrow angle focus would be unacceptable to the Hebrew for whom Genesis was written. Rather, it must be defined from the broader angle view portrayed in chart 27 (p. 241).

The Remaining Occurrences of the Evening and Morning Formula

The defining purpose of the formula would naturally carry throughout its other occurrences. It is true that the formulas employed after the second day and those following do not employ cardinal numbers as was done in the narrative of the first day. These formulas, however, also serve to terminate and thereby delineate the days they follow. Because precedence was set on the first day with the day-night formula, the reader is able to carry on this large angle interpretation and understand that each of the remaining formulas follows in step; it carries on the meaning of its first appearance.

Proper Assumptions

As we have observed, the day is...the building block for all larger units of time. Therefore, just because the text indicates that His creation day ends between two twelve-hour solar days, we are not at liberty to conclude that it must signify the termination of consecutive solar days. In the Hebrew narrative, it is assumed that a number of days or even years could have passed between one episode and the next narrated episode, unless the author states that the current action happened on the same day. Here are some examples:

For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights....

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the flood gates of the sky were opened. And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

Another example is when Jehovah God spoke to Abraham and told him that Sarah his wife would bear a son to him and that Abraham should call his name Isaac. God told him that God would bless Ishmael, Abraham’s present son. God told Abraham to circumcise his household. After God was finished talking with Abraham, the Bible says, “And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house...and circumcised the flesh of the foreskin in the very same day, as God had said unto him” (Gen. 17:23; emphasis mine).

On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark.” (Gen. 7:4-13; emphasis mine)

Again, Abimelech came to Isaac to request a covenant to be made between them because Abimelech saw that Jehovah was blessing them. The covenant was made and Isaac sent his visitors away. Then we read in Genesis 26:32: “Now it came about on the same day, that Isaac’s servants came in and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, ‘We have found water’” (emphasis mine). The author could have written, “And Isaac’s servants came in and told him...,” but so the reader would know that the water was found on the same day that Abimelech departed, it apparently was necessary to include “on the same day” explicitly in the text.

In the Old Testament narrative, for the author to make note that the event happened on the same day is fairly common because otherwise the reader would be uninformed as to whether or not the event happened on the same day as the preceding event. We conclude, therefore, that as we read the creation story, we would be wrong in assuming that one night-fall and the next sun-rise followed consecutively after the night-fall and sunrise previously mentioned in the narrative. Most of our mistakes in life are due to wrong assumptions.

On the third day of creation, God brought forth land from beneath the water. The text then describes God’s decree to make the plant kingdom to reproduce itself upon the earth. Were both these decrees made on the same solar day? The text does not say whether or not God made these decrees on the same solar day. This same observation can be made for all the six creation days. Between the evening and the morning that terminated the one creation day and the evening and morning that terminated the next creation day, there could be any number of solar days since the text does not say, “And on the same day there was evening and there was morning.”

More Observations Concerning the Creation Days

First, one important purpose of this formula was to bring the attention of the reader back to the flow of time so that this period of the episode can then be terminated. It does this very affectively too. A good narrator will keep his story moving. This formula was not included for the purpose of describing a beautiful scene at sunset but for the purpose of bringing the readers mind back to the flow of time and terminating the days of creation. At the end of the first day, the earth was still “formless and void” (Gen. 1:2). As yet there was no atmosphere as we know it and no life to enjoy a sunset.

Second, we should not be surprised to find in the first chapter of Genesis two meanings for the same word “day” rather than one because God called a number of His creations by names of what He had previously discussed. The larger whole and a smaller part of the whole were then given the same name. Why did God give to his created accomplishments the names He did? Let us take the expanse (or what we may call the sky or the atmosphere). Why did God call the expanse “heaven”? He did this because the expanse forms part of the total heaven that we see when we look at the sky, which includes, not only the sky, but the realm of the sun, moon and stars. This greater heaven was first mentioned in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And why did God name the dry land “earth”? The total earth which included the seas was called “earth.” In Genesis 5:2-3, we read, “And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” In this verse, the earth refers to the larger area of earth that included the land which was covered at that time with water. And why did God call Adam and Eve by the name “Adam” as recorded in Genesis 5? If we realize that the word for mankind in Hebrew is also ’adam, we can see that Adam and Eve were called ’adam because they were a part of the greater human race, which was also called ’adam in Genesis, chapter 1.

Let us now summarize:

     General                                                     Particular

     Heaven (sky and lights)                              Heaven (sky only)

     Earth (ocean and land)                               Earth (land only) (Gen. 1:10)

     Man (mankind)                                          Man (Adam and Eve only) (Gen. 5:2)

God also named the water “sea.” God could have called the water “the deep,” which was the term used for the condition of the earth before the continents were formed. It is difficult to know why He didn’t do this, but this word possibly had negative connotations, which He felt should not be associated with the seas that He formed and called “good.” Genesis 1 brings us through God’s creative acts, as He took the earth from a useless place to a habitat suited for mankind; with this in mind, we can see that to bring over terminology with previous negative connotations probably would have seemed counter productive to the Spirit of God. But God named two other created phenomena—day and night. Since God called the daylight day, is it not reasonable for us to look for a larger day which would be its greater counterpart? When we do, we find that its counterpart is God’s creation day, which is composed of shorter twelve-hour solar days. If we look for a counterpart for night, we find none. But this is expected because night is just the absence of light. Now we can finish listing our words which have general and particular meaning attached to them.

     General                                                     Particular

     Day (God’s creation Day)                          Day (a 12-hour solar day)

Notice that in all four types of these dual references—heaven, earth, man, and day—the general is partially composed of the particular, that is, the particular makes up a portion of its larger namesake.

God’s Work Day

Third, according to the Psalm 139:12, God has no problem with darkness:

Even the darkness is not dark to Thee,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to Thee.

As a result, when we are defining God’s work day, we would naturally expect it to include night as well as daylight.

Fourth, we would expect God’s creation day to be much longer than our twelve-hour solar work day. Moses knew that time is viewed differently from God’s perspective than it is from man’s perspective. Psalm 90 is entitled, “A prayer of Moses the man of God.” In this psalm we read,

For a thousand years in thy sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night. (Ps. 90:4)

We would therefore expect God’s creation day to be quite long.

Moses’ Contemporary Readers

Fifth, we should assume that Moses composed his narrative such that it could be understood by readers who were knowledgeable of Hebrew teachings concerning creation and historical events. It is always helpful in interpreting literature to consider who the author had in mind that would be reading his Scriptures. In Moses’ situation, he would have been writing this to Hebrew males, those who were young students and those who were older men. These boys would have been in the process of being taught by their fathers or tutors reading, religion, and traditions of their day. These boys would know about the work week of six days of labor and then one day of rest. They might have have known that this work week was a pattern of God’s six day creation work week. Therefore, when they began to read about the creation of the heavens and the earth, they might have expected that the author would specify God’s creation days using the term day. And they would expect to find that God created the world in six creation days. They would possibly have been looking for a reference to God’s creation days, when they read, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Since they would probably realize at this point in their reading that the “day,” as expressed in the evening-morning formula, was a different day from the twelve-hour solar day used previously in verse 5, they would have known immediately that the author is here specifying the end of the first creation day rather than a solar day.

A Flowing Narrative

Sixth, there is another error that the modern reader may fall into, an error which would cause him to fail to make a distinction between the twelve-hour solar day and God’s creation day. If the reader approaches Genesis as though it is simply a detailed account of what took place at the time of creation, he will be apt to miss important subtle distinctions between these two types of days. This genre is more than just an organized account of creation. The creation account is a narrative, a story of God’s creative acts; one should read it with a sense of the flow of time and with the same anticipation of coming events as if he were reading the account of Abraham’s sending his chief servant to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahor to obtain a wife for Isaac, recorded in Genesis 24. Genesis 1 is a narrative which crescendos in the creation of mankind. It was written as a narrative should be written. Narratives move along. This dynamic of the movement of time needs to be felt by the reader. In the creation story, verses 1 and 2 set the stage for the commencement of the narrative:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Then the narrative begins at verse 3:

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

As you read about the light, you are to picture the light and the darkness as separate periods in time for the text says, “God separated the light from the darkness.” God names the day and the night. We may think the narrative of day 1 has as its thrust the creation of light. This, however, is not the major focus of day 1. As we shall further investigate in the next chapter, the author is emphasizing in Genesis 1 that God established recurring cycles which have continued on to bless mankind ever since the earth was created. Day 1 is actually a narrative of God’s creation of the day-night cycles. The creation of light was mentioned to indicate the means of God’s creation of the day-night cycle. Understanding day 1 in this way, we picture the day-night cycle as having already commenced before the progression onto evening and morning. Then you hear the text abruptly interject, “and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” If you read this narrative in this fashion (as it was intended), and you realize that the Hebrew day ended in the evening, you picture the day-night cycle as already in motion by the time you read the formula “and there was evening and there was morning.”

When you read the interjection “one day” into the flow of the narrative, you realize that this day is being defined as a different day from the day that was defined earlier in the same verse. And especially if you had heard of God’s six creation days before you read it, you would know immediately that this was the close of the first of God’s six creation days. You would understand that God’s first creation day is described and defined, not based on light and darkness, but rather upon His completing all that He had intended to do on His first creation day; so goes the narrative throughout all six creation days....

Moses Did Not Have an Alternate Word to Use for Age

Seventh...if Moses had had at his disposal a choice of a second Hebrew word such as the English word age, he probably would have still used the word yom [because the author was presenting these days as elements of God's workweek so that the Hebrews would have His example to follow when they observed their own workweek].

A Moving, Flowing Expression

Eighth, now let us view this passage with a wide angle focus in which we view these days as covering a longer period of time than six solar days. Interpreting the text in this way, we see that the formula “and there was evening and there was morning, one day” provides for the reader a natural time to break off one creation day and to begin another, while, at the same time, this formula keeps the narrative flowing. Compare the author’s use of his formula with something like the following: “This finishes the second day. Then God said…” Such a statement stops the movement of the narrative abruptly so that the reader loses the continuous flow displayed by the text. Moses’ (really the Holy Spirit’s) formula, which carries the flow of the narrative along, is better writing style.

Passages Which State God Created Everything in Six Days

The Hebrew weekly Sabbath was to be a symbolic commemoration and a worshipful remembrance of God’s completion of His creation. This is seen by how the Bible describes God’s seventh day and what the Hebrews were to do on their Sabbath day. God blessed His seventh day and sanctified it (set it apart for God). It was a day of remembrance. The Hebrews were forbidden to work on this seventh day. God instituted it so that the Hebrews would cease from their work and, in so doing, they were commemorating that Jehovah created all things and then rested. The Jewish Sabbath commemoration was not instituted so that the Hebrews would exactly repeat God’s creation week, but so that they would be reminded each week that Jehovah was their creator.

The creation days are mentioned in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17. I quote Exodus 20:9-11 here:

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or you daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 31:17 is similar to this verse.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God rested on the Sabbath day; it says that he rested on the “seventh day.” Moses was the basic author of the entire first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. When he came to refer to the creation days in Exodus 20:11 and in Exodus 31:17, he would have meant these days to refer to creation days rather than to solar days. Their context, being that of creation, makes it clear to the reader that these are creation days. As we saw earlier in this chapter, Moses had already indicated in Genesis 1 that the creation days were longer than twenty-four-hour solar days. The Exodus references should be interpreted in the light of Genesis 1. This can be understood when we realize that the first five books of the Bible were written and preserved by the Hebrews as one book, not five books. I quote from Jamieson et al: “Originally these books formed one continuous work, as in the Hebrew manuscripts they are still connected in one unbroken roll. At what time they were divided into five portions, each having a separate title, is unknown; but it is certain that the distinction dates at or before the time of the Septuagint translation.” [5]

Since God’s creation days are defined in Genesis 1 differently from either twelve-hour or twenty-four-hour solar days and because the description in Genesis 1 of what occurred during these days would seem to take longer than what normally would be accomplished in a twenty-four-hour day, the careful Hebrew reader could have understood that these creation days were longer than a twenty-four-hour day. The reader’s concept of these creation days, formed from reading Genesis 1, would certainly determine his interpretation of God’s creation days when he encountered them in Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17.

Viewing God’s Creation Week from a Scientific Perspective

According to Exodus 20, the Hebrews were to labor six days and rest the seventh. Because labor and physical depletion is a personal matter, because the Bible teaches that God is omnipresent in His universe, and because the seventh day was for the purpose of resting up in preparation for a new work week, it would be interesting to know the time which would have transpired from the time of the big bang until about 6 or 7,000 years ago. Gerald L. Schroeder in The Science of God devotes two chapters to discussing the surprising conclusion of some scienctists. They calculated the average of this time that passed as viewed from each bit of space throughout the entire universe. They found the result to be six of our twenty-four-hour days! [6] This conclusion can be mathematically arrived at due to such factors as the concentrations of mass which affects the passage of time and the relative velocity of these masses according to Einstein’s theories of relativity. The Bible teaches us that God is omnipresent in His creation. God exists apart from His creation; He stands alone in His being. However, according to the scientists, if He were everywhere in His creation, the average time that He would have experienced from the big bang until about 6 or 7,000 years ago would have been six twenty-four-hour days.

[You probably have some helpful comments on the length of the creation days. If you do, please post your comments below.]

__________________________
1 Gary T. Mayer, New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Harmonize the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouseTM, 2009).
2 David G. Hagopian, ed., The Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation (Mission Viejo, Calf.: Cruxpress), 98.
3 Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
4 Robert Young, Analytical Concordance to the Bible, 22nd American ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1970), v.s. “Night.”
5 Jameison et al., A Commentary, vol. 1, Part 1, iii-iv.
6 Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (The Free Press, 1997; Broadway books, New York, 1998), 41-71. Citations are to the Broadway edition.

My Blog on the Book of the Revelation

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:56:00 +0000

You may want to visit some of my other articles on other pages.

You may want to take advantage of my offer concerning the Book of Revelation at the following website:

http://evolutioncreationandthebible.blogspot.com/2010/05/structure-of-book-of-revelation.html

Extended Table of Contents from New Evidence for Two Human Origins

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Mon, 24 May 2010 22:27:00 +0000

Revised: April 28, 2015
Thank you for visiting my blog on my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science. Here is an extended table of contents that may be helpful to communicate to you the topics that are discussed in this book: CAUTION: THIS EXTENDED TABLE OF CONTENTS IS BEING UPDATED FROM THE 2009 EDITION TO THE 2015 EDITION. IT IS NOT ALL CORRECT!

Contents…………………………………………………………………...vii

List of Charts………………………………………………………..……....x

Chart 1: Relative Order of Events Relevant to the Thesis..............................7

Chart 2: Actual Life Spans of Adam’s Descendants…..................................16

Chart 3: Potential Life Spans of Four Generations after a Mixed
Marriage between the Races…………………………….……......................25

Chart 4: How Close Shem’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………………………….……….……......................27

Chart 5: How Close Arpachshad’s Life Span Is to One of
His Probable Life Spans………………………………….…….....................28

Chart 6: How Close Shelah’s Life Span Is to His One most
Probable Life Span…….……………………………………….....................33

Chart 7: How Close Eber’s Life Span Is to His One Most
Probable Life Span………………………..……………………....................34

Chart 8: How Close Peleg’s Life Span Is to One of His Most
Probable Life Span………....………..……………………………................37

Chart 9: How Close Reu’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………………………..……………….......................39

Chart 10: How Close Serug’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………….……….…………………….......................40

Chart 11: How Close Nahor I’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………….……………………………........................43

Chart 12: How Close Terah’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………….……………………………........................47

Chart 13: How Close Abraham’s Life Span Is to One of His
Probable Life Spans…………….……………………………........................49

Chart 14: How Close Isaac’s Life Span Is to One of His Probable
Life Spans………………………………………………….….......................51

Chart 15: Family Tree Back to Noah with Potential and Actual
Life Spans…………………………………………………......................52-55

Chart 16: Known Life Spans Compared with Probable
Theoretical Life Spans…………………………………………....................59

Chart 17: The Meaning of the Hebrew Word ’ed in Job 36:27…………......98

Chart 18: The Narrative through the Merging of the Races…………….....107

Chart 19: Implications of the Phrase "the sons of God"...............................136

Chart 20: The Structure of the Book of Genesis……………….....……….146

Chart 21: An Erroneous Interpretation……………………….....………....147

Chart 22: Outline of Genesis…………………………………….....….......152

Chart 23: God’s Two Methods of Creation……………………….........….154

Chart 24: Increase in Human Traits with Time…………….….……....200-201

Chart 25: An Example of Descent in Which Eve’s mtDNA Would
Not Have Been Passed Down After the Flood……......................................214

Chart 26: A Simple Example of Historical Genetics………………….........215

Chart 27: Relating Solar Days to Creation Days……………………...251

Chart 28: The Aspects of Creation……………………..………...…..268

Chart 29: The Framework Hypothesis………………………………..282

Chart 30: Criteria Used by the Author to Order the Creation
Account………………………………………………………..........285

Chart 31: The Comparison Paul Makes in Romans 5 between
Adam’s Sin and Christ’s Act of Righteousness………………..............324

Chart 32: The View That the “First Man” Means That Adam
Was the First Man of the Human Race…………….............................341

Chart 33: The View That the “First Man” Means That Adam
Was the First Man of Adam’s Race…..………….…………..............343

Chart 34: The View That the "First Man" Means That Adam
Was the First Man of Christ's Genealogy............................................344

List of Tables……………………..……………………………..........x

Table1: Actual Biblical Life Spans………………………………........13

Table 2: Some Possible Potential Life Spans for Serug’s
Wife………………………………………………………................41

Table 3: Some Possible Life Spans for Nahor I’s Wife…..……….......46

Table 4: Some Possible Life Spans for Terah’s Wife……..………......48

Table 5: God’s Common Method of Naming…………………….......115

Table 6: Features Requiring Finely Tuned Design……………...........168

Table 7: Expected and Actual Sets of Numerals Used to
Label the Creation Days………………………………....................236

Table 8: God’s Normal Steps in His Acts of Establishing……….......266

Table 9: Similarity of Words in Genesis and Acts……………...........360

Preface to Third Edition………….…...……………………….........xiii

Preface to Second Edition………….…...………………………......xiv

Preface to First Edition………………….……………………….…xv

Introduction and Thesis………………………………………………1

Espousing a Secular View of Life

A Word about the View of Divine Accommodation

Alleged Conflicts between Science and the Bible

My Approach

The Purposes of This Book

Alternate Dating of Old Testament Events

PART I: EVIDENCE FOR A PRE-ADAMIC RACE FROM A COMPARISON OF BIBLICAL GENEALOGIES

1 The Sharp Decline in Life Span Requires a Genetic Cause…………..11

Living for 900 Years

The Key to the Past

A Sharp Decline in Life Spans

Genetics Not Environment

The Decreases in Life Spans Correlate with Historical Events

Evidence from the Decrease in Reproductive Maturity

Genetic Discoveries

Average of Parents’ Potential Life Spans

2 Life Spans of Noah’s Son and Grandson Reveal Intermarriage…….....…21

Unraveling the Hidden Mystery

The Potential Life Spans of Noah’s Wife and Shem’s Wife

3 Life Spans Hold While They Dwell at Babel—Then Drop…….……..31

Shelah’s Life Span Falls near His One Probable Life Span

Eber’s Life Span Falls near His One Probable Life Span

Peleg’s Life Span Falls near One of His Two Probable Life Spans

Reu’s Life Span Falls near One of His Two Probable Life Spans

Serug’s Life Span Falls near One of His Two Probable Life Spans

Nahor I’s Life Span Falls Quite Near One of His Five Probable Life
Spans

Chapter Summary

4 Thesis Confirmed by Terah’s, Abraham’s, and Isaac’s Life Spans.......45

Terah’s Life Span Is near a Probable Life Span

Abraham’s Life Span Is near a Probable Life Span

Isaac’s Life Span Is near a Probable Potential Life Span

Potential Life Spans of Our Bible Friends

5 More Evidence from Ishmael’s Life Span and Summary……………..57

Ishmael’s Actual Life Span Also Yields Evidence for a Dual-Origin
Thesis

Summary of the Evidence from Decreasing Life Spans

A Startling Hypothesis

PART II: EVIDENCE FOR A PRE-ADAMIC RACE FROM BIBLICAL NARRATIVES

6 A Dual-Origin Thesis Fits the Genesis Narrative..........................................……………….65

The Preciseness of the Bible

Why is This Understanding of the Bible Just Now Coming to Light

The First Creation Account Fits a Pre-Agriculural Era, but the Second Creation Account Fits the Agriculural Era

In the First Account the Earth Is Full of Vegetation When God Creates Mankind, but the Earth Is Quite Different in the Second Chapter

Naming the Animals

God's Test of Adam and Eve

A Tiny Prefix Makes a Large Difference in Meaning

Genesis 2:4 Closes Out the First Chapter of Genesis

The Hebrew Conjunction Becomes the Key

Genesis 2:4 Must Look Backward Because Hebrew Syntax Demands It.

The Error of Dividing Genesis 2:4 into Two Sentences

An Example Where No Conjunction Is Included before "These"

In Hebrew Almost Every Clause Begins with a Conjunction

No Conjunction before the Formula: No Conjunction after It

No Conjunction Before the Formula, But a Conjunction after Its Clause

A Conjunction before the Formula

Conclusion

Genesis 2:5 and What Follows Are Set at a Time After the Creation of Genesis 1.

The Narrative May Inform the Reader When the Next Event Has Taken Place or Will Take Place (Gen. 10:32-11:2)

How Should Genesis 2:5 Be Understood?

Genesis 11:10: No Conjunction before "These are..." and No Conjunction after "These are..."

Should the Creation Account of the Garden of Eden Alter My Conclusion about Genesis 2:5?

Does the Pluperfect Matter?

A Discussion of Additional Examples of the Presence or Absence of the Hebrew Conjunction to Help Us Understand How It Was Used

Setting the Narrative Back to a Previous Time

Examples in Which a Conjunction Is Employed and in Which No conjunction I Employed

Conclusion

Some Implications

Dispelling the Myths from “Mist”

“Refine,” Not “Distill”

“Into,” Not “From”

The Possessive Pronoun Its (-o) Must Be Translated

The Condensation of the Water into Rain Is Compared to Refining
Metal

Where Did the Motive to Translate 'ed by “Mist” Come From?

An Explanation of the Above Translation

The Dual-Origin Thesis Best Explains the Expression “Book of the
Generations of Adam”

The Lord God Formed a Man

Is the Dual-Origin Thesis Contradicted in Genesis 5?

Does the Meaning of the Hebrew Word Adam in Genesis 1:26 and 27
Determine Its Meaning in Genesis 5:1 and 2?

Similar Words

Summary

7 The Genesis Narrative Relates Two Methods of Creation…………………........…..117

A Note on the Above Translation

Where Do the "Men," "The Sons of God," and the "Giants" Lead Us?

Who Are the "Men" of Genesis 6:1-2?

The Sons of God Are Not the Descendants of Adam's Son, Seth

Who Were the Nephilim?

A Proper Understanding of Genesis 6:1-8

The Race of Adam's Descendants Was Finished

Why the sons of God Must Have Been Fallen Angels

What Does "[H]is days shall be one hundred and twenty years" Mean?

After What?

The Way Genesis 6:1-7 Should Be Understood

The Bible Limits Its Dealing with Mankind to the Local Area of
Mesopotamia

A Third Race of Men

How Can We Harmonize a Local Flood Scenario with God's Noahic Covenant?

Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ Is God’s Power to Save

God Blots Out “the Man”

A Superhuman Race

Why the Whole Global Race Could Have Reached a Life Span of
120 Years

Contrasting the Sons of God with the Daughters of Men

To Be Descended from the Heavens and the Earth Indicates to Be Evolved from the Heavens and the Earth

The Descendants of the Heavens and the Earth Form a Basic
Skeleton

A Paraphrase

Narrowing in on “These are the generations…”

Narrowing in on the Meaning of “the Heavens and the Earth”

A Revealing Layout of the Book of Genesis

Root Meanings

Summary

Chapter Postscript

PART III: EVIDENCE FOR DESCENT WITH CREATIVE DESIGN

8 Scientific Evidence for Descent of the Animals....................................................159

God Teaches Jacob a Lesson on the Science of Genetics

God Must Have Created New Species through Descent

The Bible and Science Both Teach Origins by Descant

Why Might God Have Created the Animals through Descent?

Methods That God Could Have Used to Create the Biosphere

Evidenced for the Existence of God from the Preciseness of God's Creative Acts

The Anthropic Principle

Some Problems with the Theory of Evolution

Harmonizing Descent and Creationism

Transitional Fossils

Evidence for the Descent of the Horse from the Eohippus?

Evidence for the Descent of Mammals

The Five-Digit Homology

Evidence of Descending Species from Vestigial Organs

Hind Legs on Snakes

Evidence of Descending Species from Pseudogenes

Evidence for Theistic Evolution from Retrotransposons

Evidence of Descending Species from Geological Distribution of Species

Evidence of Descending Species from Transitional Forms

The Story of the Whale

Summary of the Story of the Whale

Understanding the Genome

The Creation of New Species

The Baldwin Effect

Exploratory Behavior

Compartments

Neural Crest Cells

Ecological Influence on the Development of Species

Conclusion

9 Does a Theory of Human Descent Oppose Science?.....................................................199

Pre-Human Fossils

The Fossils Show a Transition in Traits from Ape-Like to Human-Like

Australopithicus Africanus

Could Homo Habilis Talk?

Could H. Erectus Speak?

Multiplication of Tools Has Been Extremely Slow

Increasing Helplessness of the Babies at Birth and the Propensity for Social Interaction

The Coming of Migration between Islands

Homo Erectus' Skeletal Features

The Larger Brain Size of H. Erectus

Could Early H. Sapiens Talk?

Neanderthals

What Are "Mosaic" Fossils?

The Multiregional Hypothesis vs. the Out-of-Africa Hypothesis

Applying the Field of Genetics to Questions of Origins

Founder Mutations

Which Races Share Genome with Neanderthal and Denisovan?

Marker M168

How Did God Create the First Pre-Adamic Race?

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Hobbits

Coming of Accountability

Conclusion

PART IV: RECONCILING LONG CREATION DAYS WITH THE BIBLE

10 Were the Creation Days Twenty-Four-Hour Days?..................................................229

Interpretation Depends Upon at Least Four Factors

The Seemingly Long Appearance of the Creation Days

A Revealing Subtlety in Genesis

The Key to Understanding the Days of Creation

Some Erroneous Interpretations

The Author's Choice of Numerals

An Unlikelihood

An Illogical Interpretation

A Contradiction

The Hebrew Twenty-Four-Hour Day Ended in the Evening

The Indestructible Day

In the Evening-Morning Formula the Twelve-Hour Day Is Assumed

Too Imprecise

A Different Basis of Definition

The Contemporary Hebrew

The Remaining Occurrences of the Evening and Morning Formula

Proper Assumptions

More Observations Concerning the Creation Days

God's Work Day

Moses' Contemporary Readers

A Flowing Narrative

Moses Did Not Have an Alternative Word to Use for Age

A Moving Flowing Expression

Passages Which State God Created Everything in Six Days

Viewing God's Creation Week from a Scientific Perspective

11. Why the author Arranged the Creation account as He Did............................................253

Chapter Introduction

I. The Historical Setting

II. The Division of Genesis 1 into two Creation Accounts

A. The Hebrew Verbs

B. The Two accounts of the Creation of the Luminaries

C. The Two Approaches of the two Accounts

1. The Emphasis upon the Daily Cycles in the Second Account

2. The difference between the Subjects of the Two Creation Accounts

3. The Words Create and Make

III. The Building Blocks of Genesis1:2-2:3

A. The Aspects Are Eight in Number

B. God's Normative Procedure in Establishing His Created Works in the Manner of Job 28:27

C. The reason for the author' Holding to These Steps

IV. the Author Leads the Reader to Visualize God's Creative Acts

A. The Formula And It Was So

B. Reasons for So Much Repetition

V. The Identity of the Light Bearers in Both Accounts

A. The Lack of Reference to the source of Light

B. The Identical Purposes for the Light

C. God's Pronouncement upon the Light

D. The System of Light Bearers was Required to Produce Day and Night

E. Naming the Light

F. A Violation of Purpose

VI. Interpreting Days 1 and 4

VII. The ordering of Creation Events as Influenced by a Logical Progression through Time

VIII. The Dual Triad Arrangement

IX. Putting It All Together

A. Order of the Narrative Not Entirely Chronological

B. The Author's "Building Blocks"

C. A Summary of the two Triads

D. Summarizing the Author's Criteria for Determining the Order

E. The Author's Use of Simplification

1. Simplification by Consolidation

2. Simplification through a Narrative Genre

X. Relating the Scientific Scenario to the Bible narrative

A. "Let There Be Light"

B. "Let There Be an Expanse..."

C. "Let the Dry Land Appear"

D. "Let the Earth Sprout Vegetation"

E. "Let There Be Lights in the Expanse"

F. "Let the Waters Teem with Swarms of Living Creatures"

G. "Let the Earth Bring forth Living Creatures"

H. "Let Us Make Man"

XI. Alternative Interpretations

A. Interpreting the Text as Saying That the Luminaries Became Visible on Day 4

B. Interpreting "Made" as "Brought Forth"

PART V: WHY THIS THESIS DOES NOT CONTRADICT OTHER BIBLE PASSAGES

12 What About Noah's Flood--Wasn't It Universal?.........................................................297

What about Peter's Words

Does the Genesis Account Require the Flood to Be Universal

Dating the Flood

Are the Remains of the Ark on Mt. Ararat?

Why the Ark?

What about the Numerous Flood Myths?

The Problem

How Flood Stories Might Form Naturally

The Flood Stories That Resemble the Biblical Account
\
Were There Tale-Bearing Visitors before 1492?

Possibly the Most Likely Solution

Nu-u and the Hawaiian Tradition

The Flood Story in Alaska

Conclusion

New Year Observances

Chapter Conclusion

13 Was Adam the First Man to Sin?......................................................................315

Doesn't the Bible Teach That Sin Entered the Human Race at the Time of Adam?

Justification by Faith

Understanding the Two Types of Sin

The Origin of Man's Sinfulness

Adam's Sin Passed to All Men by Imputation

Are We Guilty of Adam's Transgression Because We Were in Adam and a Part of Adam When He Sinned?

Another Incorrect View of How sin Is Passed from Adam

A Contrast between the Results of Adam's Sin and the Results of Christ's Obedience

Paul's Use of the Article Reveals the True Meaning of Romans 5:12

What the Greek Verb Indicates

Summary

14 Other Verses That Seem to Contradict the Dual-Origin Thesis.................................331

Was Eve the Mother of the Whole Human Race?

What About the Plain Statement in Exodus 20 and 31, Stating That God Created the Heavens and the Earth in Six Days?

Does the Biblical Phrase After Their Kind Mean That the Animals Were Not Created by Descent?

What Does It Mean to Be "in Adam"?

Doesn't Ecclesiastes Teach That God Made Adam with a Righteous Nature?

A Challenging Verse: 1 Corinthians 15:45

The Text Does Not Say "the Second Adam" but "the last Adam"

The Spiritual Body Replaces the Fleshly Body

Christ, the First in His Own Lineage

Three Interpretations

No Contradiction

Interpretations Found in Bible Commentaries

A Textual Variant

"The First Man" Contrasted with "the Second Man" (1 Cor. 15:47)

What does Bearing the Image of Adam Mean?

Was Man Created at the Beginning or the End of the Creation Account?

Did Paul Teach That all Peoples Descended from One Man?

Conclusion

A Possible Interpretation

William M. Ramsay's View

But What If the Word "Blood" Were Included?

Didn't Paul Teach That Womankind All Came From Adam through Eve?

Paul Has Nothing against Women

The Context

The Two Purposes for the Veil

"The Woman Belongs to the Man" Is the Best Translation

But What About the Words "Adam Who Was First Created" in 1 Timothy 2:13?

Conclusion

PART VI: PERSONALLY APPLYING THESE NEW DISCOVERIES

15 Correcting Where We Went Amiss.........................................................371

The Firm Historical Basis of the Christian Faith

Returning to Faith in God's Revelation of Truth

Dealing with the Problem of Evil

God's Plan Involved Suffering and Death

Why Does God Hide Himself from Us?

Why Must We Have Faith?

The Uncertainty Principle

Why Did God Wait Until the time of Adam and Eve to Test Mankind?

Explaining a Dual Origin Creation to Our Children and Grandchildren

Dealing with the Concept of Human Origins from Descent

Appendix……………………………………………………………….384

A. A Critic of Robert Jamieson’s Reasons for Rejecting a Similar Thesis

B. Calculations Showing Why Lamech Was Probably of Pure Adamic “Blood”

C. Calculations for the Potential Life Spans of Bethuel’s Wife and Others

D. A Study of the Hebrew Conjunction in Regards to the Formula “These Are the Generations of…”

E. Understanding the Purposes of the Hebrew Conjunctions in the Account of God's Eden Project

E. Evidence from the Hebrew Article That Genesis 5:1 Should Read, “In the day when God created Adam [not man]”

F. Reasons for Placing the Garden of Eden along the Median River

G. Support for the View that “One Hundred and Twenty Years” Means Individual Life Spans

H. An Interesting Way in Hebrew of Setting the Stage

I. The Error of Translating “Made” as “Brought Forth” with Regard to the Lights

J. Traditional Views on the Location of the Docking of Noah’s Ark

K. A List of Occurrences of Sin in Romans, Showing Whether or Not Paul Included the Article

L. Does Romans 9:3-6 Contradict the Rule Which Limits the Use of the Greek Preposition ek

M. Why the Common Translations of 1 Corinthians 11:8 and 12 Are in
Error

N. A Short Rebuttal against the View of Divine Accommodation

Notes…………………………………………………………………….453
Index………………………………………………………….…………469
Index of Selected Biblical References…...……………………………..474

A Personal Note on My Dual Human-Origins Thesis

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:41:00 +0000

Revised October 2, 2020

I am taking this opportunity to explain to you why I believe that my thesis of creation should be seriously considered. As you know, there is much debate today about what should be taught in the public schools on human origins. This debate gets people who have never thoroughly studied the issues giving their opinion on the subject. Some Christians are teaching that you cannot believe the Bible and also accept theistic evolution. This encourages young people, who are continuously being told that humans evolved, to believe that the Bible is untrustworthy. But we know that the Bible is trustworthy and that faith comes by hearing the Word of God and that this leads a seeker to salvation. On the other hand, other Christians say that God accommodated His inspiration of the Bible to the erroneous current views of that day. They can accept evolution, but now they may have an inferior view of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Models that assert that the story of Adam and Eve is not to be taken literally do not do justice to the creation account in Genesis 2,

where it relates the creation and the temptation and sin of Adam and Eve. The young earth view, which teaches that Adam and Eve were the first humans and that they were created about six thousand years ago, contradicts the mass of evidence that science has accumulated that revealing that modern humans have lived upon the earth much longer than this. Others believe that you can interpret science to produce evidence for a model that places the time of the appearance of man at about forty thousand years ago. Then they believe that you can stretch the genealogies to place the creation of Adam and Eve this far into the past. But such a scenario is quite impossible because it is unreasonable to interpret the genealogies in this manner and it places the creation of Adam and Eve before the inception of agriculture. About fifteen years ago, I realized that no theory that adequately harmonizes the Bible and science has been popularized in book form or on the internet. Since I felt a different approach was needed, I searched diligently and prayed for it. One night as I was studying the genealogies of the Bible, I was rewarded with mathematical evidence for a model that would truly harmonize the Bible and science.

My personal study of the human genome had brought me to realize the importance of a fact I read in Matt Ridley's Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), p. 448--life spans of humans are determined by over seven thousand genes. It was this realization that was very helpful in my discovering our origins. Since so many genes determine our life spans, we can view each gene as having a potential for a certain life span. We also can conclude that the genes from the male will influence the life span of the couple's child toward his life span and that the genes from the female will influence the life span of the couple's child toward her life span. Since the laws of probability will cause the total influence of all of these contributing genes to be the average life span of the child's parents' life two spans, we can conclude that the child will have the average of the life spans of his parents. An analogy to this would be the tossing of a coin. It has been shown that if you toss it a lot of times, you will come up with heads about fifty percent of the time and tails about fifty percent of the time.

From this, I concluded that when the descendants of Adam and Eve married pre-Adamites, the children of these marriages would have lifespans that would be the average of their parents lifespans. I proceeded to apply this assumption to an analysis of the lifespans of the patriarchs given in the genealogies of the Bible. My results were extremely rewarding. The life spans that I was calculating were in line with just what you would have expected from the history of the early Hebrews. I now had mathematical evidence that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing human race. This being the case, it became evident that the human race is much older than six thousand years and that, yes, Adam and Eve could have been created about six thousand years ago just as the Bible indicates. My results also gave me evidence that a child's life span will be the average of his parents, since if this were not true, my application of this formula would not have yielded consistent results when this theory was applied to the actual life spans of the patriarchs.

It then became necessary to study the Old and New Testaments in the Hebrew and Greek to discover how we had missed this teaching. It took a few years to properly understand a number of passages, but I discovered that this is just what the Bible teaches. Unfortunately, this interpretation of the Bible has evaded us, and the result has weakened our Christian apologetic.

In regard to the biblical teaching, Genesis 1 is speaking of the creation of the pre-Adamites through God's process of evolution; Genesis 2 is the account of the creation of Adam and Eve and the Garden animals directly from the hand of God. The subject of Genesis 6:1-3 are the descendants of Adam and Eve. This passage makes reference to the decrease in the lifespans of the descendants of Adam and Eve married. These descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing human race.

To be more specific, I discovered that Genesis 2:4 refers back to the creation story of Genesis 1 rather than to the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. We must conclude this from the syntax of the Hebrew as explained in the appendix of my book. Furthermore, I discovered that the word "generations" in this verse should be translated here "descendants." It should read, "These are the generations [descendants] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (KJV). These pre-Adamites must have descended from the heavens and the earth because they are called "descendants of the heavens and the earth." Recently, I have found further strong evidence that the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 cannot be referring to the same creation account. My study of the Hebrew syntax, specifically the way the Hebrews used their major conjunction, revealed that the Hebrew of Moses' day would have realized as he read through the book of Genesis that the narrative moves on to a new creation of man in chapter 2, a creation separate from God's creation as recorded in Genesis 1.

Genesis 5:1-2 defines "the man" as the descendants of Adam and Eve. Genesis 6:1-2 explains that "sons of God (better translated "the sons of the gods") married the daughters of the people who were created as told in Genesis 2: "And it came to pass when men [Heb., the man] began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God [better tr., the sons of the gods] saw the daughters of [the] men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" (Gen. 1-2, KJV). God was displeased with these marriages with the pre-Adamites because they were "sons of the gods," that is, idol worshipers. The result of these intermarriages were the the men of name, the great leaders who lived before Noah's flood.

It is important to understand how the book of Genesis is divided and to grasp the place that Genesis 5:1-6:8 holds in the Genesis narrative. This section is the only section of Genesis that is called a book Calling it a book indicated that it is complete. Genesis 6:3 tells us that the intermarriages between these two races would eventually result in an average life span of 120 years: "And their days shall be an hundred and twenty years.'" (KJV) It was a series of these intermarriages that brought the average life span of the descendants of Adam and Eve before the flood down from over 900 years to 120 years and the average life span of the pre-Adamites up form 60 years to 120 years. The patriarchs did not intermarry as much with the pre-Adamites as did many of the descendants of Adam; therefore, Shem lived to be 600 years. Due to their sin, particularly, their violence, God destroyed these people who had a life span of 120 years in Noah's flood. Noah and his family was saved through the flood. Due to Noah's marriage to a woman who had a lifespan that was much less than his (277 years); this is why Noah's son Shem lived to be only 600 years. As the descendants of Noah continued to intermarry into the pre-Adanuc race, the lifespans of their descendants continued to drop.

A study of the verses in the Bible that seem to contradict this dual origin thesis shows that they actually do not contradict it. This view of the Bible's teaching on the subject of origins will now yield a very good harmony between the Bible and science. My 2020 edition of New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Reconcile the Bible and Science, dealing extensively with the subject, should be ready for purchase in a few weeks form AuthorHouse; Amazon may still be selling the 2007 edition. But the Amazon electronic version is always the latest version available.

A Short Rebuttal against Divine Accommodation

noreply@blogger.com (Gary T, Mayer) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:02:00 +0000

Gary T. Mayer
(Edited December 9, 2014)

The reason for this paper is to question the accommodation view of divine inspiration. According to this view, the Scriptural passages that teach us about early cosmology accommodate the errors of that day. First, I shall show that although many of the verses which are presented to defend this view admittedly employ the old worldview terms, those who hold the view of accommodation rely too heavily on these words in supporting their case. The reader may visualize a reality behind a word based upon his own cosmology or he may not. God would hardly be wise if He were to use terms that were confusing or unintelligible to the worshippers whose hearts were on fire for God. Second, Genesis 1 tells us that God created something in the sky that the text calls in Hebrew a raqia‘. I shall show that it is not better to interpret the word raqia‘ as it is used here to mean a firmament, denoting a pounded-out solid metal plate supported above the earth by the mountains than to interpret it to mean an expanse, a sheet-like three dimensional volume with reference to a thin open space, such as the atmosphere. The practicality of this discussion is appreciated when we realize that, if we interpret the rest of the Bible using the accommodation approach, we may be led to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul accommodated themselves to the culture of their day, thus robbing the Word of God of its authority.

Please consider Job 26:11:

   The pillars of heaven tremble,
And are amazed at His rebuke. [1]

Did most of the early readers believe that this verse was referring to literal pillars that hold up heaven, possibly the mountains? Maybe so, but this is not a necessary reading of this verse. Was the Holy Spirit teaching us that God supports the heavens with His mountains or that mountains sense the awesomeness of God and “are amazed.” For Job to praise God speaking in poetic verse where he uses words such as “pillars of heaven” is one thing, but for God to teach false views of the earth and the heavens in Genesis 1 is another.

Another example is the author’s reference to the windows of heaven in Genesis 7:11-12: “…all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates [lit. windows] of the sky [lit. heavens] were opened. And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.” We find this expression also in Genesis 8:2: “Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates [lit. windows] of the sky [lit. heavens] were closed, and the rain from the sky [lit, heavens] was restrained.” In order for the clouds to continuously rain for forty days, the cloud cover above where the land was being inundated had to be fed with water continuously. The windows of the heavens represented this movement of the waters over the land. God used terms that would make sense to the people of His day. Since, according to the old view, the clouds get their rain water from the high heavens, He says that the windows of the heavens were opened, meaning that the heavens supplied water for the clouds to rain. This is pretty much what actually must have happened. In any case, the windows of heaven may have been interpreted as a dead metaphor by the early Hebrew reader.

What about Job 37:18 which speaks of the raqia‘ as a metal plate mirror:

   Can you, with Him, spread out the skies [raqia‘],
   Strong as a molten mirror?

These were the words of Elihu who was reprimanded by God for not speaking what was right as did Job. It only tells us again that, yes, many people believed that the raqia‘ was a hard dome-shaped plate.

It is true that Job 38:22 speaks of the “storehouses of snow”:

   Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow,
   Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
   Which I have reserved for the time of distress,
   For the day of battle and war?

But God is saying to Job, Do you really understand all this? You really don’t. You really don’t know what you mean when you speak of these things. You have never even seen them. So these verses also are not a problem. We must see this verse in context with other verses which are not to be taken literally. For example, Job 38:19-21 speaks of “darkness”: “that you should take it to its territory, and that you should discern the paths to its home?”

I could see Isaiah 28:12 as a poetic statement that is describing appearance more than cosmological reality: “Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to live in.” (Green) As for Deut. 28:12: “The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” This tells us that God’s store house of water is the heavens. It is not His store house “in the heavens.”

Now let us see how God inspires the author of Genesis to describe His creation. Those of the accommodation view tell us that we must interpret Genesis 1 through the eyes of one who believes the old cosmology. A careful look at the Hebrew text will reveal a better interpretation of the text. Please let me give my argument. It would seem that according to the Bible, there are three heavens: the lowest heaven where the birds fly, the heaven which contains the stars, and the heaven where Paradise is. The reference to the three heavens is in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Deuteronomy 10:14 says, “Behold, the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth and all that is in it, belong to Jehovah your God.” (Green) 1 Kings 8:27 says, “…Behold, the heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain You.” (Green) Consider Psalm 148:4: “Praise Him, O heavens of heavens; and O waters that are above [lit. from above] the heavens.” (Green) The “heavens of heavens” are the heavens where the luminaries are (or possibly all the heavens of the universe), but “the heavens” in these two verses means only the atmosphere where the birds fly, above which are the clouds.

Nehemiah 9:6 below speaks of the “heavens,” which must refer to the heavens where the birds fly. Then it mentions the “heavens of heavens” that must mean the heavens where the stars are located because it is in the context of the creation of the universe. The hosts of heaven would therefore be the luminaries.

   Thou alone art the LORD.
   Thou hast made the heavens,
   The heavens of heavens with all their host,
   The earth and all that is on it,
   The seas and all that is in them,
   Thou dost give life to all of them
   And the heavenly host bows down before Thee.

Notice also that this is a list of what God created. We must recognize that “Thou dost give life to them all” means He keeps these aspects of His creation in existence. This is the explanation given by BDB. [2] Otherwise, we would think that hosts must mean the angels.

Interpreting Genesis 1 from this perspective, the Hebrew raqia‘ would be thought of simply as an expanse. This is really a possibility because its verb form is used in the Scriptures with reference to other materials besides pounded metal plate. Isaiah was writing about the expanse of the earth with its vegetation in Isaiah 42:5:

   Thus says God the LORD,
   Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
   Who spread [raqa‘] out the earth and its offspring [trans. note, “or vegetation”]
   Who gives breath to the people on it,
   And spirit to those who walk in it.

Note also in these verses it is said the heavens were stretched out which fits the meaning of raqia‘, although a different word is used here. The Hebrew raqia‘ does not have to mean a pounded-out solid plate.

Next, we need to realize that the early Hebrews realized that clouds contain water. Daniel C. Harlow, in his defense of the accommodation view, interprets the water discussed in Genesis 1:6-7 to be restricted to liquid water; to him they are neither mist nor vapor. He writes, “Only something solid can separate water from water.” [3] Here are some examples in which the Bible expresses otherwise. Psalms 18:11 says,

   He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him,
   Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies [lit., heavens].

Here the Scripture speaks of the clouds as water. Job 26:8 says,

   He wraps up the waters in His clouds;
   And the cloud does not burst under them.

Psalm 77:17 speaks of clouds and water: “…the clouds poured out water.” Every minute of the day somewhere on this earth the atmosphere separates rain water from other water.

It is also necessary to realize that God usually names a small portion of His creation with the same term that the larger complete aspect of His creation has been called. Since in Bible times names were to reflect a characteristic of what was named, God must have named the part of the whole the same term as the whole was called because, in each case, the part was very similar to the whole. Here is a reproduction of table 6 from my book New Evidence for Two Human Origins:

GOD’S COMMON METHOD OF NAMING [4]

Name of the Whole       Name God Calls the Part         Bible Reference

Heaven (sky and sun,      Heaven (sky only)                  Genesis 1:8
moon and stars)

Earth (both land             Earth (land only)                    Genesis 1:10
and sea)

Day (creation days)       Day (12-hour day)                   Genesis 1:5

Man (mankind               Man (Adam and Eve                 Genesis 5:1, 2
in general)                    and their descendants)

Since God named the raqia‘ “heavens,” it must be a part of a greater, similar something called “heavens.” This greater “heavens” would most likely be a part of God’s created universe, rather than paradise. This means that the raqia‘ of Genesis 1:6 is only a small part of the complete created heaven: “Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’” This causes us, therefore, to interpret the expanse of verse 14 to be different from the expanse that was created in verse 6. This is why the expanse in verse 14-15 is called the “expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens”: “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so.” God set the luminaries “in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens” (Gen. 1:17), which is exactly where we would expect them to be placed if this story reflects the thee-heaven model.

God calls the raqia‘ “the heavens” which tells us that this heaven is a part of a much larger heaven and that it is similar to the much larger heaven. If the raqia‘ were the thin metal firmament of the old cosmology, what is the larger metal firmament that is similar to the raqia‘? The ancient cosmology has no larger raqia‘. If we interpret raqia‘ to be an expanse, then the larger expanse of heaven answers to this required likeness.

The raqia‘ of Genesis 1:6 would be the raqia‘ below the clouds: “Let there be an expanse [raqia‘] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The waters above the expanse would be the clouds. The expanse below the clouds would be the raqia‘ of verse 8: “And God called the expanse [raqia‘] heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.” Verse 9 is also speaking of this same expanse: Then God said, “Let the waters below [lit. from below] the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.”

Please consider a second argument for the interpretation that raqia‘ as used in the first chapter of Genesis means an expanse, the lower heavens. The Hebrew of Genesis 1:7 actually says that God separated the waters which were “from above” the raqia‘ from the waters which were “from below” the raqia‘. English translations leave out the word “from” but, I believe, this is an error. Brown-Driver-Briggs gives a number of references that are to illustrate that in late Hebrew mie‘al le meant simply ‘al (upon). [6] However, I studied these references and could not agree with this conclusion. For example, possibly Nehemiah 8:5 is the most difficult of their examples to see why the compound preposition “from above” was employed by the Hebrew writer. But a look at it will show that the Hebrew author used this compound preposition for a good reason; this verse does not support the BDB assertion. Here is this verse as quoted from the NASB: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people….” (italics mine). The word “standing” is not in the Hebrew. This clause could have been translated better retaining the compound preposition as I translate it here: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was being seen from above all the people….”[italics to indicate supplied words]

These two compound prepositions, “from above” and “from below,” support our understanding of raqia‘ for two reasons: (a) If the waters from above the raqia‘ rested on the a metal plate, how could they have come from above the raqia‘? It is much easier to solve this mystery if we interpret the raqia‘ to be the expanse which extends from just a little above the earth to the portion of the atmosphere that is just above the clouds. The water from above the raqia‘ would then be the primordial clouds high in the air. The waters from below the raqia‘ would of course be the waters which fell as rain to the earth. The waters which were “from above” the expanse were not the waters which were at that time falling to the earth. Such a perspective would be contradictory because the purpose of the expanse was to separate the waters from above the expanse from the waters which were from below the expanse, not to separate them and then immediately rejoin them. Second, (b) The waters that ended up above the raqia‘ are said to be “from above” the raqia‘, but the waters that ended up below the raqia‘ are said to be “from below” the raqia‘. How could a metal plate be the source of water for both the water that was “from above” the raqia‘ and the source of the water that was “from below” the raqia‘? A large primordial expanse could have held much water vapor and clouds; this water could have been separated by some of it rising above the raqia‘ and some of it condensing as rain and falling below the raqia‘. If we read on in Genesis 1:8-9 we are told what happened to the waters that fell below the raqia‘: “‘And God called the expanse [raqia‘] heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. Then God said, ‘Let the waters [from] below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” The waters which were from under the raqia‘, which God called “heaven,” fell as rain and was gathered off the rising continent as the sea floor fell.

Note that when the author of Genesis writes of the waters upon the earth, he does not write “from upon,” but rather “upon,” unless the water is leaving the land as in the following example: “and the water receded steadily from upon [me-‘al] the earth”(Gen. 8:3. On the other hand, we read in Genesis 7:19, “And the water prevailed more and more upon [Heb. ‘al] the earth so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.” We must go elsewhere in the Scriptures to comprehend more thoroughly what became of the water which came from above the raqia‘. Psalm 148:4 says,

Praise Him, O heavens of heavens;
   And O waters that are [from] above [me-‘al] the heavens. (Green)

BDB gives this verse as an example that is supposed to show that me-‘al does not mean “from above,” but simply “above.” Actually, it probably has its source in the verse we are analyzing, Genesis 1:7. It should be translated, “O waters that are from above the heavens” (translation mine). Add to this thought Proverbs 8:28, which speaks of the waters “from above”:

   When He made firm [margin, lit. strong] the skies [lit. thin clouds] [from] above,
   When the springs of the deep became fixed.

BDB translates the Hebrew verb as used in Proverbs 8:28 for “made firm” in this way: “of giving clouds their place.” [7] This verse is undoubtedly a direct reference to the first chapter of Genesis. According to this verse, at the time the clouds were given their place, their water came from above something, which was to be understood to be from the lower heavens by inference. So according to the Bible, the raqia‘ separated the waters, some of which became clouds above the raqia‘ and some of which fell to the ground and flowed into the sea. According to the ancient cosmology, the clouds were under the metal-like dome. But according to Proverbs 8:28 the clouds were above the raqia‘.

Now let us look at what Genesis 1 is teaching concerning the raqia‘. Genesis appears to give a perfect description of true cosmology; it does not picture the cosmology of its day. This is another reason we believe the Bible was inspired by God as it claims to be. It was written to direct us to the Triune God and to offer salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Genesis 1:2 speaks of the “deep” and of the “surface of the waters”: “And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Since we saw above that these waters must have come from an expanse, these waters of the deep must have been in the form of water vapor and mist. This corresponds with science which teaches us that the waters which were in the form of vapor and mist, due to the elevated temperatures of the primordial earth, fell to the earth after the earth cooled sufficiently for this to occur.

Moving on to the second creation day, we read, “Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” The Hebrew actually says, as per Green’s interlinear: “…and let it (be) dividing between the waters….” (Gen. 1:6). Its “action” is ongoing as seen by the particle “dividing.” The Hebrew for “midst” can mean “among” just as the English word midst can. Then the text goes on to say, “And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were [from] below the expanse from the waters which were [from] above the expanse…” (v. 7). The prepositions here, as we have noted, should be translated “from below” and “from above…And God called the expanse heaven [lit. heavens] .” Going on to verse 14: “Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens to….” As we have seen above, “the heavens,” the phrase used for the atmosphere below the clouds, was only a part of something that was larger which included the lights. So this verse is referring to the heavens in general. Verse 17 likewise refers to the complete heavenly expanse. Then the next verse that some have thought was a problem for those who interpret the raqia‘ to mean expanse is verse 20: “And God said, Let the waters swarm with the swarmers having a soul of life; and let the birds fly over the earth, on [better trans. in front of] the face of the expanse [raqia‘] of the heavens.” (Green) Here the text refers again to the whole created heavens, but the text only speaks of the “face of the expanse of the heavens.” In other words, when you look up into the heavens, you see the birds flying in front of whatever is at that time visible in the heavens above them.

To summarize, it seems that the Bible uses the terms employed by the old world view, especially in poetic verse, but when the Holy Spirit of God describes His acts in non-poetic genre, He describes them according to our view today. God must certainly have inspired the author of Genesis to give an account of creation that set forth a true cosmology.
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1. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 9172, 1973, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other Scripture taken from:

The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew-Greek-English, © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 2nd ed. 1986 by Jay P. Green, Sr. (Lafayett, IN: Sovereign Grace Publishers).

Or the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 by Jay P. Green, Sr. This work was contained in the side column of Green’s work referenced above.

2. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., reprinted from the 1906 edition originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston,), 311

3. Daniel C. Harlow, “Creation According to Genesis: Literary Genre, Cultural Context, Theological Truth,” Christian Scholar’s Review 37, no. 2 (winter, 2008): 174.

4. Gary T. Mayer, New Evidence for Two Human Origins: Discoveries That Harmonize the Bible and Science (Bloomington, IN and Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouse, 2007), 113. This book gives mathematical evidence that the descendants of Adam and Eve married into an existing race, which had a much lower average life span. Such evidence shows that it is best to take the creation account of Adam and Eve very literally.

5. Mankind here includes the pre-Adamites and also Adam and Eve and their descendants.

6. See The Brown-Driver-Briggs, 759. BDB gives a number of references that are to illustrate that in late Hebrew mie‘al le meant simply ‘al (upon). However, I studied these references and could not agree with this conclusion. For example, possibly the most difficult of their examples to see why the compound preposition “from above” was used is Nehemiah 8:5. But a look at it will show that it does not prove their assertion. “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people….” (NASB, italics mind). The word “standing” is not in the Hebrew. This clause could have been translated better retaining the compound preposition as follows: “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was being seen from above all the people….”[italics to indicate supplied words]

7. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., reprinted from the 1906 edition originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston). 55.
© 2008