Jon from Malta wrote a letter to William Lane Craig and
it was given the title "Should OT
Difficulties Be an Obstacle to Christian Belief?" Jon says that his trouble with the early
chapters of Genesis is, "... the principal reason why I cannot bring
myself to accept Christianity, to which I have yet to receive a satisfying
response."
Jon confesses that, "when I read the Book of Genesis
through (as I have done many times), based on the various exegetical analyses I
have reviewed of the Genesis accounts I find it very difficult to avoid the
necessity of a literal interpretation." Very good. I would recommend Jon read chapter 6 in Coming to Grips with Genesis where
Steven Boyd demonstrates that Gen. 1:1 to 2:3 is historical narrative and that
the Scripture teaches a young earth.
Jon specifies a number of his puzzles:
...the whole wild account of Noah's ark and the Deluge, the inordinate life expectancy of the first men which for some reason decreased with each generation, not to mention references to the existence of giants and accounts of women copulating with evil spirits (Genesis 6:4), among many other things which I've no doubt you are aware. These accounts incorporate very specific language and do not seem to lend themselves to figurative interpretation.
For an excellent account of how Noah and his family could
have taken care of the animals and survive and thrive themselves, be sure to
check out Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study
by John Woodmorappe. Also, read more on
this challenge here. There is, in fact,
a great deal of evidence for the Deluge.
Approximately one fourth of the factors affecting life
span are genetic. Adam and Eve were made
perfect and could have lived indefinitely (Gen. 3:22). Mutations accumulated over time increasing the
difficulties of aging. A genetic
bottleneck occurred at the time of the Flood limiting the healthy advantage of
a large gene pool. The Sumerian King List documents long ages before the Global Flood and a drastic reduction in
life spans afterward. It shows eight
kings before the flood and if we don’t include Adam and Noah, this matches the
historical chronology from Genesis. If
we convert the life spans of the line of Seth from decimal to base 60 (using my
method) we can see that the Sumerian King List is somewhat close to the actual
values from Genesis. Chuck Missler has
some intriguing thoughts on the nephilim.
I would argue that the whole Bible supports a young
earth. YES - Young Earth Science defends a youthful world from history,
philosophy and science. If the world is
young, then evolution is wrong.
