Exodus 20:11 Does Not Prove 24-Hour Creation Days

Virtually every English translation of Exodus 20:11 reads similar to my Revised Standard Version Bible, which says, “for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth.”  The context of this passage is God’s command for the people of Israel to rest on the Sabbath (the seventh day of their calendar week) because He himself rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2) following His six creation work days.  In the minds of young-earth creationists, Exodus 20:11 amounts to a knock down argument for their position, insisting as they do that it proves the creation days of Genesis are 24-hours each.  Yet in fact the basis for their certitude does NOT exist anywhere within that passage.  Starkly put, there is NO “in” in Exodus 20:11.  Neither is there later in 31:17.  Furthermore, since the promise of God’s 7^th day Sabbath rest continues into the present era (Hebrews 4:4-13), it is not 24-hours either.

The word in question, “in” (be in Hebrew), is a preposition that denotes within-ness, whether in terms of space or a span of time.  Were be actually present within the text as English translations so imply, it would suggest that the point of highlighting the six days was their actual duration as six solar, 24-hour days.  But in the original language (Hebrew) the passage excludes the “in” by stating simply, “for six days God made…”  Apparently then duration is not the point, but instead the pattern of six to one.  Now I am not saying the absence of be actually proves my position.  But what that absence does do is remove all grounds for insisting that the passage either proves or is interested in 24-hour days.  And indeed Scripture actually resorts to non-equivalent (years for days) unit-for-unit comparisons.  Consider for example the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for 40 days of disobedience referenced in Numbers 14:34.  And notice as well Leviticus 25:3,4.

Proper biblical interpretation, called “exegesis,” faces a given text as it actually is and draws the appropriate theological conclusions from that reality.  “Eisegesis,” on the other hand, reads into a given text whatever one wishes to find there.  The question of the existence of the word “in” in Exodus 20:11 is not a matter of opinion, but of public record.  Every interested reader can consult a Hebrew-English Interlinear Old Testament on the internet.  I happen to prefer: www.scripture 4all.org/Online Interlinear/ Hebrew_Index.htm.  There you will notice (or perhaps discover for the first time) the truth of the non-existence of “in” in the Hebrew text of Exodus 20:11.  There are, however, two missteps often taken by these kinds of sites (which vary in level of integrity).  In order for my words below to make sense to you it will be helpful for you to have the Hebrew/English interlinear on your screen.  The lesser concern (appearing in my recommended site) is the tendency to insert the word “in” inside brackets within the English translation along the side bar.  In this instance “in” does not appear next to the Hebrew text in the body, but only over at the margin.  Of far greater concern are those occasions on other sites where “in” appears next to the Hebrew text as though it actually reflects what is in the Hebrew.  By far the worst transgression of all, however, is where, in the Hebrew text, an entirely different Hebrew word, kee, which means “for the purpose of,” is incorrectly translated as “in.”  For an example see biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/20-11.htm.  Readers in this case are wrongly given the impression that “in” is in the original text when it is not.  That error is not trivial.  Readers should expect such a website that purports to clarify the text for lay people, to convey the full truth of the fundamentals of original Hebrew language.  Therefore every mistranslation which insists Exodus 20:11 says “For in six days” involves itself in either incompetence or, worse, outright dishonesty. 

History More Vivid Than a Book Part II

The first matter to consider is that Big Bang cosmology is NOT based on mere conjecture or abstract philosophizing.  It is true, and very importantly so, that Einstein’s mathematical equations surrounding his “general theory of relativity” told him that the universe must be in the process of expanding, years before Edwin Hubble later noticed in his telescope at Mount Wilson that every nebula (now known to be separate galaxies from our own) were all flying away from us.  That initial discovery by Hubble began the shift from mere speculation about an expanding universe into the realm of full-blown empirical research and analysis.  So scientists today are instead discussing what we can actually observe and measure with scientific instruments.  While no human being was present at creation, we are, through the use of an array of telescopes, able to peer billions of light years back into the past, all the way across an inescapable pattern revealed in the heavenly objects of creation, virtually all the way to its absolute beginning.  In sum, we can see the whole show, the entire story, from its beginning all the way up to the present.  This pattern can be summarized in the following six major observable and measurable facts.

All galaxies (except our closest neighbors, which hang around together because of gravitational (not sexual) attraction) are flying away from each other.  This tells us there was an initial powerful explosion that has caused them to fly apart.

Galaxies that are farther away and therefore closer to the beginning (remember, we are looking back in time), are moving away from us faster than nearer galaxies are.  This tells us that initial explosion is slowing down.

Galaxies farther away are closer together than nearer galaxies (which are closer in time to the present).  This is another measure that tells us the universe is expanding.

Measurements taken at varying distances prove to us that the initial intensely hot beginning is in the process of cooling off, just as we would expect from the aftermath of a powerful explosion.

Scientists know that the initial beginning consisted of only one element, Hydrogen, which shortly began to produce Helium.  Scientific measurements taken of galaxies (and stars within our own galaxy) across the distances of outer space, reveals the pattern of new elements being created over the course of time within the nuclear furnaces in stars and supernova.  This is another way of demonstrating that when scientists look across the universe they are looking back in history.

Scientists came to discover the afterglow of the initial blast at the creation moment of the Big Bang.  This is a major story in its own right, which calls for more time (and space, or for that matter, energy) than I am able to provide today.  But briefly, an unusual form of radiation (entirely uniform in every direction) which was detected in the atmosphere led scientists on a mission to identify its source.  By the rigorous process of elimination they concluded that it must have indicated the very first event in history, the afterglow from the intensely hot absolute beginning of the universe. 

What I ask you to notice from these six discoveries is a pattern which demonstrates an initial blast, out of which the heavens and the earth arrived at their present state by coming into existence out of nothing.  Please do not get hung up by the size or the age of the universe as though God is left out of the picture.  To the contrary, every other suggestion as to the cause of the cosmos is now left out of the picture.  Carl Sagan once said, “In the beginning was hydrogen.”  He was technically correct.  But hydrogen is not creator.  Hydrogen was present then and there, and everything else that has since followed, only because, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).   

 

An Account of History More Vivid Than a Book

God "stretches out the heavens like a curtain…Lift up your eyes and see who created these.”
(Isaiah 40:22,26)

Two objections are commonly laid against Big Bang cosmology by “young-earth creationists” who claim that the heavens and the earth were created in six 24-hour days about 6 thousand years ago.  They object first of all to the certitude of the “old-earth creationists'” claim that the cosmos is over 13 billion years old, on the grounds that we cannot know what happened back then because we weren’t even there.  And secondly, building on their (correct) assertion that “Almighty God has the power to do anything at all He wants (including making everything in just six days”), they object to our apparent determination to limit God’s power to doing it all the slow way. 

Yet the problem for “young-earth creationists” is likewise two-fold.  Firstly, while it is true that human beings weren’t present at creation, that fact is entirely irrelevant (as we shall see) to the question of what we can know about creation (we are not piecing together an imperfect and incomplete fossil record here).  Second, “old-earth creationists'” aren’t attempting to argue about what God can or cannot do.  Indeed, I for one, declare that God has the power to create the entire universe, fully formed, in an instant if He so wishes.  No, we instead frame a very different question:  What does the testimony of nature itself declare about the how’s and the how long’s (by human counting) of creation?  It is to this question that the strictures of biblical interpretation are most explicit.  Romans 1:18-20 warns readers to not suppress the testimony of nature (which amounts to sinful evasion -v.18), but to the contrary, to study nature for the message it yields with respect to the existence of God.  If nature should not be capable of telling the truth there, then what does this imply about the character of God Himself who breathed His words through the pen of the Apostle Paul (2 Timothy 3:16)?  But we say nature does tell the truth about the past just as the Bible declares.   

Of course I am also aware that “young-earth creationists” believe Big Bang cosmology contradicts the first chapters of Genesis.  Yet in previous blog postings I have repeatedly laid out the case that their interpretation of Genesis 1 is NOT correct.  The Hebrew text (higher in authority than the English) of Genesis 1 yields a host of strong indicators that the days of Genesis 1 are long and indefinite in duration.  Therefore the 24-hour day interpretation has no authority to bind hearts and minds.

So what does the testimony of nature actually tell us about origins?  It tells us first of all that the entire cosmos had an absolute beginning out of nothing in a manner entirely consistent with Genesis 1:1.  It also tells us that the cosmos (remember, that very word means “orderly arrangement”) was exquisitely designed by a super-intelligent Being in a manner consistent with Psalm 19:1f and Hebrews 11:3).  Exactly how, what, and why we can know these realities in a spirit of confidence, will be laid out in part II of this posting.

Witnessing the Ongoing Collapse, Part II

Furthermore the entire burden of proof for their agenda properly rests on the shoulders of transgender activists to demonstrate how it is fair that the lives of the vast majority (including multitudes of innocent children in their formative years, who deserve to have their natural sense of modesty both protected and encouraged, and who are also in need of moral guidance) should be utterly compromised in favor of a tiny minority who cannot prove their sexual disinterest when it comes to their desire to enter the private world of another person of the opposite sex or sexual orientation.  After all, the very definition of the word at hand includes bisexuality and pan-sexuality.  The very suggestion that transgenders are above lustful sexual self-interest, as political correctness implies, does not advance their argument that we are all humans together, but to the contrary, singles out sexual lust as exclusively the problem of heterosexuals.

Han’s Christian Anderson’s famous story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” offers a vitally important critique for our time and culture, which is treading around without clear direction in the stormy sea of moral confusion.  In an interview I witnessed the other night on Fox News, a lady (I can’t remember her name) said that the personal experiences of a young transgender person, in particular, effectively trumps both the battery of obvious, empirical and objective physical and anatomical differences between males and females, and the corresponding universal track record, which crosses cultures and extends back throughout history, of the natural sexual attraction between male and females.  Our secular culture is repeatedly demanding, in the name of tolerance, that fundamental objective facts about sexual differences be denied, or at least ignored, in order that subjective sexual feelings be granted binding authority on the consciences and actions of all.  Nothing in this program is rational.  Now is the time to dethrone its propagators and speak the obvious truth.  The present “emperor” has no clothes at all!   

Witnessing the On-going Collapse of Rationality and Morality Part I

“The suicide of civilization is in progress.  (C.P. Snow)

California Governor Jerry Brown just yesterday signed State Assembly Bill 1266, mandating that next year in public K-12 schools, transgenders be permitted the right "to participate in sex-segregated [athletic] programs and activities and facilities [including restrooms and showers] based on their self-perception (italics mine), regardless of their birth gender [or reproductive ‘equipment’]” (http://www. huffingtonpost.com/ 2013/08/12/california-transgender-students-bill-_n_3745337.html).  Such idiocy illustrates the downward trend toward the wholesale disintegration of both morality and rationality, into the pit of utter absurdity as the Apostle Paul warned in Romans 1: 22, “Claiming to be wise they became foolish (‘moronic’ in Greek).”  Paul’s words can no longer be considered empty warning, but observable reality.  In light of such darkness it is high time readers pay attention to the road ahead.  Do you approve of both the direction and the downward pitch of our present journey as a nation?  Do you not sense the logic that we are actually witnessing, which follows after the disregard for God, playing itself out before our eyes in unrelenting moral disillusion?  The current intellectual crisis alone is further heightened because it involves not merely political betrayal, but journalistic incompetence as well in the failure to challenge leaders on even the simplest of questions.

Doubtless dissenters will argue that there are bigger of issues facing our world, for example, “climate change,” a stalling economy, the increasing tension from the war on terrorism, or indeed the ecological  fallout from an asteroid (a hot news item in recent months).  And of course such events are very large and obvious in comparison, for example, to a tiny atom.  Yet in reality the ramifications following from altering the nature and state of a tiny atom is almost infinitely greater than the impact from any of the “large” entities just listed.  To the point, messing with fundamental core issues (specifically the nuclear family) is of far greater consequence than natural disasters that come and go.

The entire burden of the present sexuality agenda properly rests, not on traditionalists, but wholly on the shoulders of transgender activists to produce a single rational argument as to why priority should be granted to the expression of lust by exclusively one party at the expense all of others (“lust” is indeed the operative word since, regarding sexuality in general, every single person is called to the self-control of our sexual drives as opposed to following them irrespective of the cost to a non-consenting party).

To be continued August 17...   

 

 

 

  

The Complete Impossibility for Science to Account for the Cosmos Part II

“By faith we understand that the world [aeons in Greek] was fashioned by the command of God...”  (Hebrews 11:3-RSV)

In light of the second paragraph from the top, above (prev. blog), scientific processes require 1) space as an arena in which work is performed, 2) time through which material processes are carried on, and both 3) matter and 4) energy—all four of the entities which Einstein’s General Theory states had an absolute beginning at the Big Bang.  From time to time scientific literature will include claims that either this natural processes or that one, can account for the existence of the cosmos.  The most famous example is the thesis of the book, The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam, 2010).  Yet in the end none of these claims can ever conceivably (pun intended) be true.  Consider John Lennox’ (mathematician and philosopher of science at Oxford University) devastating critique of The Grand Design, which I reference in endnote 1 of “The Prints are Everywhere,” cited above.  Every “scientific” claim to being able to account for the beginning of the cosmos is utterly wanting in all four categories described just above.  In sum, there is neither space nor time nor matter nor energy with which to bring into existence anything at all.

In search for the agent who indeed does account for the beginning and existence of all things there is (and must be) but one rational option.  That is, the eternal, self-existent, transcendent, all-powerful, and intelligent God of the Holy Bible who brought the entire universe into existence by His purposeful command (Hebrews 11:3).

It is Completely Impossible for Science to Account for the Cosmos Part I

“By faith we understand that the world [aeons in Greek] was fashioned by the command of God...”  (Hebrews 11:3-RSV)

At both recent public debates on the existence of God my atheist challenger Jim Corbett stated that Christians are silly to posit their (our) so-called “god” as the creator of all things.  He further said it is more intellectually legitimate to accept that we simply don’t know how the cosmos came into existence yet...  In my reply I challenged him with the question, how it could be that naturalistic processes should be able to bring even one single little thing into existence out of nothing.

Science is the study of orderly natural processes within the physical realm specifically.  In strictly scientific investigation non-physical entities are not even hypothesized (considered) as either potential causes or effects.  This restriction of investigation to physical entities is both a laudable and a necessary requirement for healthy scientific inquiry.  In a recent posting I actually argued briefly that the scientific enterprise deserves and indeed requires protection from the encroachment of religion into its investigational programs concerning natural processes  [correction-- I have yet to post it...almost finished].

However, when it comes to the actual cause of the absolute beginning of the cosmos in the Big Bang, scientific considerations do not apply.  They cannot.  Indeed they cannot even conceivably apply (pun intended).  Let it first be stated that, that the universe had such a beginning out of nothing cannot be argued away.  This early 20^th Century discovery has now become the strong scientific consensus, conceded to be true even by atheistic thinkers.  For a summary list of the roster of evidence supporting the Big Bang, see my paper, “The Prints Are Everywhere” at www.christianityontheoffense.com.  Now, in addition to that pattern of observational evidence, Albert Einstein’s mathematically conceived General Theory of Relativity concluded that all of matter, energy, space, and time itself came into existence out of nothing.  Indeed this is the fundamental point of today’s posting.  There was a moment in time in the past before which nothing existed at all.  And this is not mere speculation.  Of the status of Einstein’s position, renowned astrophysicist Roger Penrose has stated that “general relativity [is] one of the best confirmed principles in all of physics” (boldface mine).  See http://www.reasons.org/articles/another-success-for-general-relativity

to be continued