My Authority part II

On the authority of the Word of God I accept more than one authority in my quest to know the truth about God’s creation.  To accept the Bible as absolutely truthful firstly leads me to accept the witness of nature as truthful testimony to the creative power of God.  Nowhere in Scripture are we commanded to suppress the witness of nature for the purpose of protecting a pet belief about God.  Romans 1:18-21 commands us to the contrary to receive nature’s message as trustworthy.  This means in my witness to others that I will always draw on the accepted facts of mainstream science as opposed to urging others to believe in so-called "Christian science."

 Second, to accept the Bible as true implies that the testimony of both nature and Scripture must in actual fact harmonize.  If they are in conflict one of them logically must be false.  While it is possible for a scientist to misread nature, it is also possible for humans to interpret the Bible wrongly.  That means we need to be as careful about biblical interpretation as we are about our study of the natural order.  

So it follows thirdly that our acceptance of the Bible as God’s revealed word is motivation for us to study its text for all its worth.  This calls for hard work and care.  It should not trouble us to recognize that the Old Testament is written largely in the Hebrew language, which is far different than English not only in its vocabulary and grammar, but also in its manners of expression.  This does not mean English translations are useless!  But it does put us on notice that there will be subtleties in the original language that are difficult to translate into English.  In my personal study of the creation passages(in the Hebrew) I have come to the conclusion that the creation days of Genesis one are not intended as literal 24-hour days, but rather long indefinite periods of time that are consistent with the history of the universe in terms of Big Bang cosmology. 

I have carefully and thoroughly laid out my position in my paper titled, “The Biblical Demand to Take Another Look: Ten Exegetical Reasons the Days of Creation are Non-24-Hour.” I do not intend to further explore the fine points of interpreting Genesis in my blog.  Instead of rehashing my position here, I invite you to request a free copy of my essay by e-mail.  You have my promise that I won’t hound you.  But you can hound me in the comments section if you would like.