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Are You Interpreting Genesis Wrong? Science, Theology, and the Creation Debate.
51 Plays2 months ago
n this episode, Dan Sanchez, Pastor Ridley Barron, Jon Ballard, and Matt Schmitt dive into the topic of creation, focusing on various Christian interpretations of Genesis 1. The conversation explores the Young Earth theory, which views the earth as being between 8,000 and 12,000 years old, and the Literary Framework, which sees the creation story as a literary device for ancient Israelites. Matt also discusses the evidence for evolution within this framework and how science and theology can coexist. The hosts encourage listeners to open Genesis, wrestle with its meaning, and explore the relationship between science and scripture.
Timestamps:
00:11 – Introduction to creation and Genesis 1
02:34 – Ridley explains the Young Earth theory
05:05 – Matt Schmitt introduces the Literary Framework
07:42 – Discussion on evolution and creation timelines
09:47 – The role of death before the fall in creation
15:26 – Israelites borrowing elements from Egyptian culture
16:20 – Matt critiques the Gap Theory
22:30 – Science affirms the Bible, not the other way around
24:57 – Reconciling theology and science
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Transcript
Introduction to Creation Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez and I'm joined by Ridley John and Matt Schmidt today. I'd have a conversation to dive into the deep end around creation. Yes, Genesis 1. Talking about the facts of how that actually played out. Now, if you haven't thought a lot about this topic, that's okay. Most of us kind of read it literally and just kind of take it.
00:00:24
Speaker
as how how the bible i don't know speaks it like six literal days when it comes to creating the earth people like ken ham who's behind the arc encounter and the creation museum will like whereby if we if we can't defend genesis one like the rest of the bible isn't valid uh kyle who's not with us today actually had a a youth group session on creation and how the earth was made kind of combating the
00:00:53
Speaker
Some of the things that evolution is brought up and brought into the world which i think is a great conversation but as soon as i heard it from him i might well let's dive a little deeper for the adults because why even have homeschool curriculum i teach my kids.
Young Earth Theory Explained
00:01:06
Speaker
what's called the young earth theory of creation because it's the simplest, it's the one I hold to and it's the easiest for them to understand. There are other accounts, there are other Christians that have some valid viewpoints on how Genesis 1 could have happened differently and that the Bible and gospel account doesn't fall apart if you believe, have a different take on how Genesis 1 happened. So I kind of want to open up a conversation around it
00:01:34
Speaker
That's why I invited Matt Schmidt, because of all the smartest people I know, Matt Schmidt is like one of the smartest people I know, and he's actually a scientist and is actually can look at it through that lens in a different in a different way. So I know, Matt, you hold to the literary framework, but there's other theories out there like
00:01:54
Speaker
the young earth one that I mentioned before, the progressive creation gap theory, theistic evolution, naturalistic evolution. We won't talk about them all today, but there's a bunch of different takes from within Christianity that I think are valid or some more valid than others that can, you know, are worth the conversation. So to open it up Ridley, can you explain what the young earth theory is, which I know is your position on how creation happened? Yeah, the young earth obviously sounds pretty much what it's saying.
00:02:24
Speaker
The name insinuates it is a younger version of Earth's history that typically extends back, depending on who you ask, 10 to 12,000 years, encapsulating everything from creation up to current day. It's based on the idea that in Genesis 1.1, the account of creation, that the days that are mentioned there as creation are the literal 24-hour days that you and I are used to, or at least something fairly close to that. It is based on the idea that the word
00:02:53
Speaker
Yom, I think is how you pronounce it in Hebrew, is the word day, which, you know, if you read it, literally read it the way it's translated. In most translations, it says there was evening, there's morning, and one day. And so people like you and I, Dan, who choose that theory, base it on the fact that we think, okay, evening, morning, that's what we're used to. That's a 24-hour day, and it makes good sense. And if you
00:03:17
Speaker
If you use that and all the other dating that comes out of that, then you wind up somewhere around a 10 to 12,000 year old earth. Do you say 24,000 year old earth? No, 10 to 12,000. Oh, 10 to 12,000 year old earth. Okay, that's funny. I actually hear it a lot. It's like a five to 8,000 year old earth. Well, and again, that depends on interpretations. I think probably if I had to pick today, I'd probably go somewhere between eight and 10,000. Okay.
00:03:44
Speaker
Because I like it how everybody, every once in a while you'll hear like, see someone break down. If you ever read into the genealogies in the Bible, somebody actually long ago has done all the math on all the birth years, going all the way back to Adam. Yes. And it's counted up to, and I think it's, I think that's even the basis of the younger theory is someone just did the math on all the genealogies and just counted backwards. You're like, oh, Adam was created about 7,000 years ago. If you're putting all the theories on a table so you can examine them, that's another piece of
00:04:15
Speaker
I hate to say word evidence because it's not a court case, but it's another piece of evidence for the theory of young earth is that when people do sit down and do the aging based on the lineages in the Bible, those kinds of things, and the historical world events that we know about, it's, it's real easy to get at a figure that's eight to 10,000 years. But, um, as we will talk about, Matt will share some stuff too, that helps to kind of
00:04:40
Speaker
bring some of those things into question and whether or not some of that dating is accurate, those kinds of things. Cool.
Literary Framework Theory and Genesis
00:04:47
Speaker
So on, on the other side, Matt, I'd love to hear more about the literary framework that you hold to and some of the evidence that you seem to that's helped you subscribe to that. I don't know that framework. Yeah. So.
00:05:02
Speaker
literary framework, it's very much like the basis of it is it's saying that like the fair the creation story of, you know, days one through seven, were a literary device. And so you take Moses writing to the Israelites some 6000 years ago, and would they ever understand something like a big bang?
00:05:31
Speaker
or that the earth even goes around the sun, or some of these complex physics stuff that we understand today, that they wouldn't even have the beginning of how to grasp that. And so when you take that audience into account, the literary framework stance says, Genesis 1 was written in a way so that the Israelites could understand it. And it's written in a way that's very similar to how the Egyptian creation story is actually set up, where they had
00:06:01
Speaker
things were created on each day. And so it was kind of laid out in a way that they would have been familiar with coming out of Egypt versus it being a literal day one, day two, day three, day four. It was meant to replicate and kind of mirror what they were used to hearing. But as opposed to it being this, on this day, this Egyptian God created this thing. It was, hey, the one God created this thing, then he created this thing, then he created this thing. And so it's still,
00:06:29
Speaker
pointing the Israelites to a single creator God, but it's using kind of the lyrical repetitive pattern that they were used to hearing from Egypt for the last 300 years before they came out. And so for a timeline, the literary framework is very flexible. Some people take it to be like, hey, the earth is only 20,000 years old, maybe. And other people say, no, the earth is, you know,
00:06:58
Speaker
millions and billions of years old. And so it's the literary framework model doesn't necessarily pin like a here's how old the earth is. It's a lot more flexible with that.
00:07:10
Speaker
Does it believe that there is evolution in that time period or that maybe it just wasn't necessarily a 24 hour day because the 24 hour day didn't exist, right? It's kind of a fallback of like the younger theory. When you talk about day one, you're like, well, technically the earth and the sun weren't even there yet to like do a full rotation, you know? So it's like, how do we even know what a day is when you're creating things like this and God could blink and all of a sudden it's there or, or it could happen real slowly.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I think, and one of the reasons I kind of like the framework is it's flexible a little bit, but I personally believe that there was very well like the opportunity for evolution to happen in this framework. We have some evidence for evolution. I don't think anyone would ever deny that evolution happens today. The question is kind of when did it start? Did it start with God creating, you know,
00:08:07
Speaker
one or two small living organisms and those evolving into everything we have now, or did it start with God creating, you know, the birds and the fish and the livestock and all these individual things. And then they evolve from that. You know, that's kind of the big question mark. I personally would argue that there would have been some evolution pre Adam, but I don't have like a hard, like here's why or why not. I think the more interesting
00:08:37
Speaker
piece that comes out of that is were animals able to die before the fall? And I think that's a bigger question. And I get into some situations where I'm like, well, if there was a lion before the fall, well, what did the lion eat? Digestive wise and stuff, a lion isn't set up to just eat grass and straw and hay. And so did lions still eat sheep and gazelle and whatever else it is the lion eats?
00:09:07
Speaker
And so I think that brings in kind of a whole nother realm of questions. I think that's to me, that's the part that I struggle with is is death, right? Because death didn't exist before sin. But in order to have evolution, you have to have death, right? In order to I would challenge that. I would challenge that a little bit because it doesn't say that death does not exist. It's specifically Adam and Eve will now die. It doesn't say anything about any of the animals dying or not dying in Genesis.
00:09:37
Speaker
All we hear is that Adam and Eve will now die because of the fruit. Well, and before we get too deep into this conversation, you two guys are having, because I know some people, like you said, Dan, or they don't, they haven't thought much about this whole story. Maybe it intimidates them to dig into these things. I want to clarify your statement about evolution because there's two kinds of evolution.
Micro vs. Macro Evolution Debate
00:09:59
Speaker
One of them we call microevolution, which means evolution within a species, which all of us admit happens. You see evidence all around you, then there's
00:10:07
Speaker
macroevolution, which means you jump from one species to another. You know, a fish becomes a monkey or a monkey becomes a dog or those kinds of things. And I don't know where anybody else stands, but for me, microevolution, you can't argue against, but macroevolution, there's no evidence to me that supports that. So I think that you have to be real careful about just throwing that word around, along with other words that we'll be discussing today without making sure that our people understand what those words actually mean.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree with Ridley. Microevolution is the one that I don't think anyone can argue with. Macroevolution is very much up for debate. What do you think, John? I really think, too, kind of like you guys said about the macro versus the micro and the micro. This is some really cool stuff. I'm the layman term kind of guy. God's done some cool stuff whenever you look at creation, how there's
00:11:06
Speaker
just the interaction of our atmosphere and for it to not totally go crazy, even to the very things that we see, the grass, the trees, flowers, how the processes work and how they end up kind of maybe even changing over time, depending on what other outside influences are brought in.
00:11:28
Speaker
how things look. I think God's done a beautiful thing by creating what he's created. But yeah, I'm leaning definitely towards the young earth side. I told you all the emphasis that I see in who God is, even more so played out. And I believe that's what, you know, if we call ourselves believers for those who are listening, if you're a believer and you believe in the enormity of who God is,
00:11:54
Speaker
Man, the young earth, I feel like it really plays into that and says, this is our God. This is how big he is. He can speak it into existence and it can happen. So yeah, that's probably my take on it just to start off. So I have a few questions of mine. I'll come back to Matt on if sin had had entered the world until Adam sinned, then you would say, would you say that like thorns didn't exist pre-Adam?
00:12:24
Speaker
Or is that like a result of the fall that the. I'm processing that one. And that's a great question. I could see the steam coming out of your ears. You know, because yeah, we hear that, you know, there will be thorns, you know, when, when working in harvesting and stuff like that. And so.
00:12:42
Speaker
Were thorns a result of the fall? Very possibly. I don't think you can 100% say, well, maybe they were thorns, but they always stayed out of the garden. You know, you can make some, I don't think that would ever hold up, you know, in an actual debate or something. So, but thorns could be a result of microevolution too, or you had plants that bear fruit and stuff and eventually they turned into weeds that just kind of choked out other plants and were more opportunistic.
00:13:09
Speaker
Haven't you read the part in Genesis where it says on the eighth day God created Roundup? No, I missed that one. Is that in the message? It's interesting, kind of coming back to what you said about the Egyptians, and I've actually seen a number of instances where the Israelites copied the Egyptians in a number of different things. And this is a new one for me, like talking about the creation story.
00:13:36
Speaker
Another big one I saw from Ray Vanderlaan was the setup of the Ark of the Covenant. The Egyptians had a very similar setup to what we set up with the Ark of the Covenant, the way it's shaped, the types of fabrics, the positioning of the Holy of Holies within it. Very similar to an Egyptian setup. Sometimes I hear things like that and it'll throw people off. It'll throw people for a curve in their faith, but I often have to come back to it and be like, well, especially the creation story, some of the Egyptians
00:14:04
Speaker
Like they all came from Adam. They would have known the same story and some have deviated more than others. So the Egyptians either had it possibly, actually somewhat accurate, at least on the rhythm of it. Maybe not with their specific god, they lost track of that.
00:14:21
Speaker
or God could have divinely inspired them to keep some elements of it knowing the Hebrews were going to come and hang out with them for a while. Those are the things that I come back to. It's like, well, God has a mysterious way of working there sometimes, but I know that can throw people for a loop sometimes when you have seen that the Israelites have copied some things from the Egyptians. I think something to
Revelation and Interpretation Across Civilizations
00:14:42
Speaker
that point, I think some things that kind of helped me grow and mature a little bit in some of my understanding too is a reminder that
00:14:49
Speaker
God did not become God of the whole world just because Jesus came on the scene. He's always been God of the whole world. And so, as you said, Dan, while he was giving an inspired, we believe, an inspired message to the writers, including Moses, all the way through the Bible to write down for us the truth, there's nothing that says that God wasn't revealing himself to other men and other civilizations along the way at different times. Maybe they just misinterpreted what he said. Maybe they did a rougher,
00:15:17
Speaker
rougher carrying out of the diagram or something, you know, but to your point, yeah, Adam gave descendants that, that covered the whole earth. And so they, they carried those stories and those oral traditions with them, wherever they went. Matt, I have to ask you the question. Are there any theories that you've heard from around related to creation science that you're like, yeah, that's a dangerous theory right there. What are the things that you're like, you know, are ones that you stay away from because theologically they just, they don't work.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, I have like, personally, it's called the gap theory was one of the ones that you had mentioned, where it kind of says like, God created stuff. And then there's just kind of this time of silence that we don't know about that it lasted for millions to billions of years. And then people show up, or something like that. And there's this kind of very loose it, I feel like it doesn't stand on anything. I don't see any like evidence for it. It's more of a like,
00:16:17
Speaker
most people I've seen that ascribe to gap theory, it's more that they don't like the other options and so they kind of fall to this one. I don't see any like biblical arguments for it or historical arguments for it or even scientific arguments for it, other than they like, well I think the earth's been around for a long time and I don't like these other ones so I'm going to go with this one. So if there's one that doesn't, I feel like doesn't stand while it's that one.
00:16:41
Speaker
I have a definition here. It says the idea that there was a long time between what happened in Genesis 1-1 and what happened in Genesis 1-2. During that time, the quote-unquote fossil record was supposed to have formed millions of years of earth supposedly passed before the rest of creation happened. And there, I'm like, yeah, that one's trying to justify
00:17:01
Speaker
what we're hearing from the evolution side and the Bible and trying to smash them together in a really good way. It's effectively saying like there was an earth before God created the earth again or something like that. And it's just, I don't see any evidence for that. Do you believe that there was an atom?
00:17:19
Speaker
like God breathed life into it. I fully believe that. I think the Bible clearly calls out that God created man special uniquely and I don't doubt that at all.
00:17:34
Speaker
If you look at, you know, no matter where you stand on the evolution side of things, the quote unquote missing link has never been found. We've never had the halfway between a monkey and a person to be found anywhere. You know, we've seen some weird stuff with like fish with half developed legs and stuff like that, but there's never been anything close to a human.
00:17:54
Speaker
in terms of like remains or anything like that and so i think you know from just purely a scientific standpoint even there's this missing piece and the bible clearly gives us an answer and so i i don't think there's any reason to doubt that yeah.
00:18:10
Speaker
I remember seeing some symposiums from some prominent creation science when I was going through a gap year program a long time ago. They talked about the fact that every time they find the missing link and give it a name, it's always like a big deal and it's on the front page of all the scientific journals, but let alone give it enough time and they find out why it was wrong, but they never talk about that.
00:18:29
Speaker
It's like on page 89 on the half page. It's a little note, a little footer that actually that missing link was it was in fact, it was actually a skeleton mixed with a monkey skeleton. And then they found the other parts of the skeletons and realized they were two of them there the whole time. So here's a question that I always ask myself when because I'm obviously older than you guys.
Skepticism Towards Paleontological Assumptions
00:18:52
Speaker
I was not on the I was not in a
00:18:55
Speaker
public school at a time when this was pushed really hard. We were kind of just getting the beginnings of public school, really pushing the idea of evolution and the older earth. But as they began to talk about that, I remember as a kid going, okay, how do they know that that bone goes that bone on an animal that we've never seen a picture of? How did they put these things together? But because I was told to, I believed what science told us. I believe what my teacher told me. I believe what the book told me.
00:19:22
Speaker
Well, as I've dug into this later on, I've discovered that many paleontologists are having to admit the bone we put into the rib cage of the Tyrannosaurus rex, we actually found it 180 feet away from the other bones. So it really didn't, wasn't like they were laying there in perfect formulation. So we just assumed it went there. Well, now they're beginning to discover in some places that the bones don't even relate to each other. They're not even from the same time period. They're three feet deeper in the earth when they find them.
00:19:52
Speaker
It, for me, as we were discussing before we came online, is one of the reasons why I feel even more comfortable going with the new earth, because I don't find as many complications now with the idea that the new earth couldn't, couldn't handle evolution the way they pushed it on us as kids.
Creation and Evolution in Education
00:20:08
Speaker
Do you go to a Christian high school, Matt? Yeah, I did. So you probably had both. Did they explain both sides in your science course? Yeah, I had a biology class where we talked about evolution, but it was very much from a Christian worldview. You did too, John, right?
00:20:22
Speaker
Didn't you get did you get a lot of questions? So yeah, I got I got a little bit of that. And then, of course, got the other side on the public. So yeah, I think I got lucky with mine because I went to a public high school in California. And this is 2003. And my my science teacher for biology was a young Biola grad. He'd just come out of school from Biola. So he was like, he wasn't allowed to talk about creation science, but he knew I
00:20:51
Speaker
knew more than most that did about creation science. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. And so he'd be like, Hey, there's lots of different ways to interpret this. We're only going to cover this one that's in this textbook. It's called evolution, but there's many ways to interpret how the world came to be. Religions have all kinds of answers. And every once in a while people will be like, doesn't the Bible believe animals can talk and he'd just be like, Dan,
00:21:16
Speaker
I'm like, I think you're thinking about the book of Narnia. Anyway. I was preparing you for reading a podcast. So I think I had some luck there, but most of the time they're just preaching this like it's gospel. This is the only way everybody else is crazy. This is how the world came to be. It's all on Disney stuff and it's all in culture and it's just accepted the truth. I remember the first time I had to reconcile my head, I'm like, wait, dinosaur bones. Those are millions of years old, but
00:21:46
Speaker
Isn't the earth not that old? That was the big, what the heck am I, how do I reconcile that as a believer when it came to evolution and creation science? Well, I am not, and I'm comfortable saying this probably on behalf of our church, even though our church hasn't really talked about this.
Science and Theology: Aligning Truths
00:22:05
Speaker
I am not a Christian who knocks science. I think science is very, very valuable, but I think the proper appropriate response to science is that
00:22:14
Speaker
the Bible does not affirm science, science affirms the Bible. And so as we dig into these things, I mean, like I said earlier, I keep making this point, I'm older than you guys. I have seen this progress throughout our culture.
00:22:27
Speaker
How many times science has come out and said, this is a fact, and 10 years later go, but it really isn't because now we've discovered that this is the fact. I think it's the pride and ego of man that messes up science sometimes. Everybody wants to be the next discoverer of the fact that changes things. And I mean, we can talk about going all the way back to the idea that Galileo and Copernicus had this debate going on about how things happened and well,
00:22:56
Speaker
Now we discovered that the sun really is the center of our solar system, you know, all the way up to recent discoveries like, okay, sucralose is not good for you anymore as an alternative to sugar. I mean, there's always these things that are happening in science that change, but the one consistent throughout all the ages is the Bible has always said the same thing.
00:23:17
Speaker
And so, I think that's, to me, is an appropriate place to start your search into science, is looking from the perspective of what the Bible teaches us. Yeah, I 100% agree with you, Ridley. I always would argue that theology and science
00:23:36
Speaker
good science, I'll call it. We're never really contradict because all sciences is it's interpreting the world around us and trying to draw conclusions from it. And so we, I think, I would hope we all believe the Bible to be a hundred percent true. If not, guys have a top with Ridley or
00:23:58
Speaker
And so we may have bad theology at times, and that may cause what we see in the world to not line up with what we see in the Bible, and that's because our theology is wrong, and then other times our science is wrong. And I think if we are accurately interpreting things from both accurately interpreting the world around us and we're accurately interpreting the Bible, they're going to say the exact same things.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so they may say it in a different language and they're kind of coming at it from different directions, but they should never really contradict each other. And if they are, either our theology is wrong or our understanding of the world around us is wrong. Somewhere along the line, science started being used by marketers and propagandists to make all our claims as a marketer. I'm like, I see it all the time. Actually, like when someone says, science backed, I'm like, whatever, you have one report.
00:24:51
Speaker
just one. That didn't matter. I mean, nothing. Right. Exactly. I'm always I'm always skeptical when I see science prove research proven. I'm like, oh, yeah, I mean, that's one report. And it's probably a flimsy one at that. Yeah, they have signs that said that smoking was good for your throat. Like you guys recommended smoking because it would soothe your throat. So like, just because you have one science paper that says something doesn't mean
00:25:13
Speaker
And how long has vaping been around? And it was offered as an alternative that was healthier than smoking. And now we've discovered it's worse than smoking for you. So I want to throw something in there really important here because this is, I think, where
00:25:29
Speaker
many people who call themselves Christ followers begin to struggle with the Bible is because they don't have the ability to fill in all the gaps and have clarity on every issue that the Bible addresses and where it brushes up against culture. But the thing I would encourage you is I don't understand all the all the facts behind why the earth rotates around the sun the way that it does and does it perfectly, but I'm not asking to get off.
00:25:57
Speaker
I like it where I am. So when it comes to the Bible, I stand that way. Everything I've ever been able to test about the Bible has been proven true, whether through archaeology or history or personal experience. The things I don't know do not cause me to doubt the Bible. They cause me to dig deeper into the Bible. Absolutely.
Encouragement for Personal Exploration
00:26:19
Speaker
Hopefully, this conversation, if you're listening to this, has encouraged you to open up Genesis 1.1 and see what it says. Does it seem like more of a literary thing? Does it seem like more of a straightforward thing? It's good to wrestle with. Listen back to this episode and see what you think. Have conversations about it.
00:26:39
Speaker
The goal is to push you back into the word, have you wrestle with what it says and what the truth is. And if you do that, then this podcast episode would have been a success. Yeah. I think we need to invite Matt back for another conversation sometime. Definitely. He's got to be the coolest looking scientist I've ever seen in my life. I mean, not many of you can head over to the Mohawk, right?
00:27:07
Speaker
Well, cool. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me today. And I look forward to our next conversation. All right. Thanks for having me, guys. Yep. Thanks, guys.