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We have all
heard of the “Big bang” theory which has us believing that a great
explosion caused particles to form which then came together and formed
the galaxies and Planets. On earth the sea was a cocktail of chemicals
and together with the energies from the sun these developed into organic
molecules. Then from these all living creatures evolved –the fish, the
birds, land animals and eventually the species which Darwin and many
others after him have identified as modern man’s ancestors – Homo
erectus, Homo habilis, Neanderthal, Homo sapiens, etc with modern man at
the top of the chain.
Evolution
comes into direct conflict with the Bible because man was created
differently than all the animals and is a special creation. This is seen
by the fact that when God created the animals he said
“Let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
his kind”. When he came to create man “God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:” then
forming man from the dust of the ground, he breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
What is meant
by the image and likeness of God? This has nothing to do with the
external appearance of man because God is Spirit and does not have a
body so the image must refer to the soul. We understand that the image
is man’s spirit, the soul, which is endowed with intelligence, with
thought, wisdom and prudence, so as to be able to discern good from
evil. It is man’s sovereign state and free will to choose his own
destination: to choose between knowing and having communion with God, or
to separate himself from God. These are specials gifts that God bestowed
only upon man, his very special creation. The likeness of God is man’s
ability to put the special gifts he has been granted to their proper use
to acquire knowledge of God which is obtained only through his
relationship with God. This was and is man’s destination - to be united
with God, to be deified by the Holy Spirit and become a god. In other
words, to be united to God by using his own free will and accepting
God’s will as his own.
Man was not
created as just another animal to fill up the earth, but the whole of
creation was created for man. He was created to be king and lord over
all the earth. This is seen by God’s words to him
“have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” If man
is a separate and special creation then he could not have evolved. The
theory of evolution is supported by the theory of the “selfish gene” in
other words the genes that are most likely to be passed on from
generation to generation are the strongest genes fighting for survival.
According to this theory evolution means progressing from a lower
existence to a higher existence, therefore man evolved from the caveman
or ape-man to the sophisticated man he is today. Let’s look at man
according to the Bible and history and see if he can evolve, and if he
has, then has he actually evolved for the better.
Man is a
psychosomatic being, in other words he is both body and soul. For
something to evolve there has to be something already there to evolve
from. In the case of the body it was created from dust or according to
the theory of evolution it came about over millions of years from
organic molecules. The body therefore in both cases had a beginning in
something else, but what about the soul. The soul according to the Bible
was created from nothing; “God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The
soul is immortal and therefore cannot evolve except in its relationship
to God. From its creation it was created in the image and likeness of
God and thus from an evolutionary viewpoint it was already perfect. Man
as already mentioned is both body and soul or half body and half soul.
Can therefore the one half evolve without the other half? If man is both
body and soul then when did the soul come into existence? If as we
believe they were created at the same time and if man evolved from the
ape then did the “ape-man” have a brain with a below the average
intelligence while at the same time having a eternal soul with the
intellect and wisdom which God bestowed upon it as part of the “image”?
I think this argument clearly shows that man did not evolve from the ape
or any of the “Homo family” evolutionists would have us believe.
Adam as a
special creation of God was created immortal, that is to say, as long as
he lived in God’s will and likeness, he would live forever. The Bible
story tells us that from this blissful state he fell and lost
immortality and became mortal. From perfect health he now suffered from
illnesses and disease and finally death. The purpose of our talk today
is not to see why he fell or the consequences of the fall as we have
covered this many times in previous talks. Our purpose is to show that
man has not evolved as claimed by the theory of evolution. After the
fall we are told that Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, his son
Seth lived nine hundred and twelve years, Enos lived nine hundred and
five years. In fact everyone lived almost to a thousand years. This was
man’s lifespan up to Noah’s time. We then see a sudden drop in man’s
lifespan to just 120 years which we will discuss further down. I just
mention it here to show the great difference in man’s life expectancy.
King David then tells us in Psalm 89 (KJV) that
“The days of our years are threescore and ten and if by reason of
strength they be fourscore years.” Threescore and ten is 70
seventy and fourscore is eighty. This has been the average lifespan for
man until the present day.
During the dark and
Middle Ages, because of wars, famine and plagues, man was lucky if he
survived to the age of fifty. In our times with the advance in medical
science man can survive for a few more years but these are nothing
compared to the 120 years after Noah and especially the thousand years
of Adam. If evolution means evolving into something better then man
should have evolved to live for at least two thousand years after Adam,
but we see the complete opposite and man, instead of evolving, has been
devolving or regressing and his regression is not only seen in his life
expectancy, but also in the state of his health. As he devolves more and
more illnesses are cropping up and even in our age where medical science
has over the past hundred years done wonders by finding cures for many
illnesses and plagues that scourged mankind, there are new ones
developing to take their place.
Adam then has
not evolved but devolved – he has been going downhill ever since the
fall. But what about man’s intellect – has this been evolving in spite
of the body’s regression? The great thinkers of all time are not of our
generation but of generations long passed. The great philosophers who
lived three thousand years ago have never been surpassed and even today
their works are read and referred to constantly. The great wonders of
the world are not new monuments but landmarks like the great pyramids
that were built without modern technology and have kept man guessing
even today on how they were constructed. Even our democratic societies
that have us believing that we are living in a better and just world
with laws to protect us against all injustice are only poor copies of
Greek and Roman civilizations of three thousand years ago. If man’s
intellect evolved then this would clearly be seen from one century to
the next, but man’s history over the past thousand years hasn’t much to
offer us as way of proof. Certainly the centuries that make up the
Middle Ages have nothing to offer. Modern man is much more knowledgeable
of his world than any other generation before him, but this does not
mean he is more intelligent. We must not confuse intellect with
knowledge. Man has always had the intellect because he was made in the
image of God and part of this image in godlike intellect.
What makes our
generation different is the invention of telecommunications and computer
gadgets which have brought us unthinkable knowledge at the touch of a
button. As our knowledge increases we are able to invent more and more
computerized and household gadgets and it seems that there is no limit
to what modern man can do. But these are all inventions of recent years;
did man then suddenly go from an average mind which was in a docile
state for thousands of years to evolve into a brilliant genius
overnight? This is unbelievable even for evolutionists so the answer
must therefore lie elsewhere. Our modern world of never-ending
inventions owes it all to the invention of electricity. If we didn’t
have electricity we would not have had the means to develop the
technology to do all the wonderful things that make us appear more
advanced and sophisticated than our ancestors. I certainly wouldn’t be
writing this on my laptop and it would be pointless if no one could read
it on my website. If by chance electricity had been invented three
thousand years ago, man, even then, had the intellect and would have
found ways to use it to improve his life. Adam had the intellect but not
the means to accumulate knowledge at his fingertips.
While still on
the subject of evolution I want to move onto something else. There are
those who try to interpret the Bible in ways that would give support to
the theory of evolution. One such interpretation is that Adam’s
genealogy represents the various stages in the evolutionary development
of mankind. Adam in Hebrew for example means mankind, Seth means the one
who rose up, Enoch means the man and Cainan means the settler. Jacob and
Esau have often been interpreted to represent Israel and Edom. In other
words it has been suggested that Adam’s genealogy through his son Seth
right down to Noah and his sons mentioned in chapter five of Genesis
might not be a family genealogy but various stages in the evolutionary
development of mankind.
By even
suggesting that the names represent various stages of evolutionary
development it opens the possibility that they were not real
personalities. The teaching in the Bible is that Adam was a real person:
of course his name means mankind and why shouldn’t it? How more
appropriate a name for the first man who became the father of mankind.
If he just represents mankind or represents the first stage of
evolutionary development then we should throw the Bible away because the
whole purpose of the Old Testament was to prepare the Israelites and the
rest of the world for the expected Messiah who would come and put right
the error of Adam and the New Testament is the fulfilment of that
expectancy with God himself becoming the Messiah by taking upon himself
the nature of man. Scripture was never intended to be a history book and
far less an allegorical account of man’s evolutionary development, but
an insight into the relationship between God and his people. Such
theories or even the hint that the Bible could possibly be referring to
the evolutionary development of mankind destroys the whole meaning of
the Bible and from the God-inspired book that it is it becomes a book of
little value other than to give support to Darwinists and their No-God
theories. If Adam’s genealogy represents the evolutionary development of
mankind can we then assume that Adam represents the first stage of man’s
development or more precisely the Ape-man, Seth – Homo erectus, Enos -
Homo habilis, Cainan – Neanderthal and Noah - Homo sapiens?
Let’s now move
on to another subject.
Many modern scholars support a theory that there are two distinct
writers of the creation story found in Genesis, the first writing before
the exile of the Israelites around 850 BC and the other after their
return from exile and after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. In support
of this argument is the fact that one writer is identified because he
uses the name Yahweh for God and the other by his style of writing and
interest shown in the priestly code. This is an unproven theory which
has its root in philosophical ideas that reject the Bible as
God-inspired and do not recognize Holy Tradition. Jewish and Christian
tradition has always recognized Moses as the author of the Pentateuch –
the first five books of the Old Testament which comprise the “Law”, the
Hebrew Torah in fact means “the Law”, except for a few passages which
refer to Moses’ death which he could not have written and which
tradition ascribes to Moses’ successor Joshua of Nun.
A few of the
church fathers accepted the thought that because the original books had
been lost, they were rewritten word for word through divine
enlightenment by Esdras after the return from exile. In the ninth and
tenth centuries AD certain Jewish scholars thought that some other parts
of Genesis and Exodus were from a later period but without denying that
they also were God-inspired. In general though, the relentless attack on
Moses as the author began in the 16th century immediately after the
western protestant reformation. Around the same time there was a revival
in the studying of the Ancient Greek Philosophers. As a result two new
philosophical ideas sprouted called Rationalism and Deism. Rationalism
believes that only the human intellect is possible of bringing man to
the truth and perfection. Deism denies miracles and prophecy and
therefore God’s providence. According to Deism after God created man he
left him to his own devices without interfering any more in his welfare
or salvation. Among the greatest who denied Moses as the author were
England’s Thomas Hobbes and the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza both
of the 17th century. The war against Moses continued throughout the 18th
century and came to a peak in the 19th century with the German biblical
scholar Julius Wellhausen. The Roman Catholic Church and Conservative
Protestants rose up in defence and as a result a huge bibliography was
produced which is still going strong today. Let’s then see some of the
arguments for and against Moses as the author of the Pentateuch.
1) According to Deism there can be no
revelation or miraculous intervention by God so the Jewish faith must
have evolved from other religions. From a primitive cultic fetishism it
evolved into a polytheistic religion until it finally reached its
highest peak as a monotheistic religion around 800BC in the time of the
Prophets. Thus if it reached its monotheistic state around 800 BC the
Pentateuch which is exclusively monotheistic could not have been written
before 800 BC and certainly not in the time of Moses 1400 BC.
Answer:
The philosophical supposition that God does not interfere in the world
or in human affairs cannot for one moment be taken seriously. First is
has to be proven that God truly does not interfere and only when the
proof is produced to then proceed to a defence. An unfounded and
unproven idea cannot be placed as the basis for us to prove otherwise.
Also the theory that all religions evolved from a poly-demonic cultic
religion to polytheistic and then the Jewish monotheistic religion is
unproven and therefore unacceptable. In fact archaeological digs have
proven the complete opposite. Not only during Moses’ time but even more
ancient there existed one God religions and monotheistic tendencies.
Therefore the Jewish religion had no need to evolve to reach monotheism.
Of course the archaeological finds were still unknown in the time of
Wellhausen and his predecessors.
2) The rationalist of old believed that
writing had not yet been invented during Moses’ time therefore Moses
could not have written the Pentateuch or anything else.
Answer: Today we know that writing was
known long before Moses. The Hamourabi code is dated to 2000BC and the
Sumerian codex even older. Of the same period is the Egyptian Book of
the dead. The Assyrian codex is of the 16th century BC and the Hettite
codex of the 13th century BC. Unfortunately for the rationalists these
were still unknown when they denied that writing existed in the time of
Moses.
3) In the latter books of the Old
Testament, Joshua, Judges and Kings, there is observed a worship and
orderings which are in conflict with the Pentateuch therefore even
during these times there was no Law.
Answer: If in the latter books of Joshua,
Judges and Kings there is observed acts of worship which are in conflict
with the Law, this does not make the Law non existent but rather that
the Law was transgressed just like any other law of every age. The non
observance and application of the Law does not mean that the Law did not
exist. Moreover it is clear many times that the holy writers of the said
books show disgust when referring to these transgressions.
4) The Pentateuch is written in the third
person in its relationship to Moses – Moses did this… Moses said… If
Moses was the author then it would be in the first person - I did this…
I said…
Answer: In Holy Scripture it is quite
common for the holy authors to write in the third person. The prophets
Hosea, Amos and Isaiah wrote in the third person, The Evangelists
Matthew and John wrote in the third person. Also many ancient writers
like Thoukydides and Xenophon wrote in the third person.
5) Within the Pentateuch there are parts
that appear to belong to later periods after the death of Moses so Moses
cannot be the author.
Answer: The observation by the rationalists
does hold some merit. We have to accept that there are some foreign
insertions which are not only copying mistakes but conscious additions
and modifications from a later period. We have already mentioned that
the parts referring to Moses’ death could not have been written by Moses
himself but were added by Joshua his successor. The other parts which
refer of events that happened after Moses’ and Joshua’s deaths were also
written by God –inspired hands and in no way eliminate Moses as the
author and source of the whole volume of the work.
6) In the Pentateuch God is sometimes
referred to as Yahweh, at other times as Elohim and at other times by
both names Yahweh and Elohim. This they say proves that there were two
writers, the Yahweh writer and the Elohim writer. The two writers wrote
separately during different periods; the one around 850-750 BC in the
south kingdom and the other around 750-650 BC in the north. These two
separate writings were then merged together towards the end of the 6th
century and to it was added Deuteronomy as a third source. Then between
550-450 the priestly codex was decreed as part of the religious
ordinances thus making a total of four sources.
Answer: The use of the two names as proof
that there were two writers whose works were then merged with
Deuteronomy and then the priestly codex is purely vain and wishful
thinking. The scholars then created a labyrinth of theories by
subdividing the four original sources into smaller sections until none
of the scholars could agree among themselves who the authors were or
when the many sections were written. The only thing they all agreed on
was that the Pentateuch was written by many writers during different
periods which were then brought together during the time of Esdras after
the return of the Israelites from exile. The use of two names for God
does not proof that there were two writers. In the New Testament Christ
is called: 1) Jesus, 2) Christ, 3) Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus and 4)
Lord. Does this mean that the Evangelists had at their disposal four
different sources with each one using a different name which they then
merged together? What we can observe in the Pentateuch and the rest of
the Old Testament is that there is a difference in how the names of
Yahweh and Elohim are used. Yahweh and Elohim are both used when God’s
name is mentioned in connection with his relationship to his chosen
people, but only Elohim is used when it is in connection with the
Gentiles.
From what has
been said the evidence in support of two Genesis writers is very weak,
but Rationalist say that there is enough evidence to support the theory
that in the first two chapters there are two different creation stories.
They say that the first creation story is in chronological order and the
second in aetiological order, in other words it follows the order of
causation. The Rationalist also observe that there are two different
creation stories because in the first chapter man is created last and in
the second he is created first before the plants, paradise, animals and
woman. On this account they say that the accounts are from different
authors and were merged together at a later date as we have already
seen.
I’m not sure
which Bible the Rationalist read because mine has Adam being created
after the (uncultivated) plants in the second chapter:
“and all herb of the field before it was upon the
earth, and all grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not
sent rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground:
but there went up a fountain from the earth, and watered the whole face
of the earth. And God formed man of dust of the earth, and breathed into
his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul.”
(Gen. 2: 5-7) What does come after man in the second chapter is the
Garden of Eden in which after placing man in the garden God made to
spring up out of the ground “also every tree that
is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in
the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowing that which is to be
known of good and evil.” (Gen 2:9)
At first
glance there does seem to be two different creation stories, but they do
not come into conflict with each other. The first is indeed in
chronological order; it gives the general lines of creation showing that
the visible world was created as the habitat for man whom God created to
have dominion over the fish, fowl, animals and any other living thing.
The second chapter is not a different version of the general line of
creation, it doesn’t follow a chronological order because it has already
done so in chapter one so it must be trying to say something else. The
second chapter gives more emphasis on the supernatural gifts with which
man has been endowed with so that he may be capable of partaking in the
eternal and perfect divine blessing. The first chapter also mentions the
supernatural gifts but in general, the second chapter goes into more
details. Also in the second chapter there is mention of paradise as the
perfect habitat for the man that God has endowed with such special gifts
that make him stand above all other creatures. There is also mention of
the first commandment, the way in which woman was created and a hint on
their still innocent condition.
If we accept
the fact that the two chapters are not a contradiction in terms then we
are open to see that they are harmonious to each other. The first
chapter as already said follows the chronological order but the second
follows the honorary order. It wants to stress that the whole world was
created for man and by mentioning him before the animals and plants it
doesn’t want to show that man was created before them but to show man’s
value, dominion and honour above everything else.
When in
chapter two its says that “the Lord God said, It
is not good that the man should be alone; let Us make for him an help
meet for him.” and then it immediately follows with
“out of the earth God formed yet further all the
wild beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the heaven; and brought
them unto Adam to see what he would call them” this is not a
second creation story neither was it so that Adam could pick a mate from
among the animals. The Bible clearly mentions that the reason why the
animals were brought to Adam was so that he would give them their names
and not to pick a mate from among them. The reason why it is mentioned
immediately after God said “let Us make for him an
help meet for him” is because the bringing of the animals to Adam
had a double purpose. The one to name them and the other so that Adam
could see that all the animals were in male and female pairs and by
seeing them as such it would stimulate and arouse in him the desire to
also have a mate. Once this desire had been aroused God then proceeds to
create woman from Adam’s rib. The account of Eve’s creation clearly
shows that the two chapters are not different versions of the creation
story but complimentary. In the first chapter we are given the general
account of creation and it simply says that “male and female made He
them.” The second chapter give us the reason and the details of how Eve
was created.
Let’s now move
on to something else. It has been suggested that the stories found in
Genesis are borrowed from ancient myths and that Darwinism does not
disprove the existence of God, it only shows that the story of Adam and
Eve is myth or allegory. The Jewish and Christian traditions both
believe that Adam was a real person. St. Luke in his Gospel shows
Christ’s genealogy with real historical people reaching right back to
Adam. It is not allegorical because there is a series of historical
events e.g. the creation of the world, the creation of Adam, the fall,
the murder of Abel, the Great Flood, etc. If the fall of Adam was
allegorical then it would be unconnected without any relevance to the
other events preceding or those that came after. As Christians we
believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and so what he tells us must
be the truth. Christ himself accepted the literal historicity of the
Genesis account. He affirmed that the Genesis account is true by quoting
word for word from Genesis “Have ye not read, that
he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said,
For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? (Matt. 19: 4-6)
The claim by
many modern scholars that the Genesis writer borrowed from the
Babylonian creation myths is without any substantial proof. Of course
when comparing two different accounts of creation there are going to be
some similarities because they both have to account for the creation of
the world and its inhabitants, but that does not mean that one borrowed
from the other. Such similarities between Genesis and the Babylonian
myth are man being created from the earth, the rivers of paradise and
the cherubim as guardians to paradise’s entrance, but these are where
the similarities end. When they come to why man was created, his
relationship with God and the cause of the fall they have nothing in
common. Genesis could not have borrowed from the Babylonian or any other
myth because no other myth has the form of man’s fall. In Genesis man is
created immortal and in a state of innocence and his purpose is to
attain union with the God that created him in his image and likeness.
Because of free will, he falls from this purpose and becomes a mortal
being that is now in a state of death. The Babylonian account has man
created for the sole purpose of being a slave to the gods.
The Babylonian
myths have no account of a primal man and woman “falling from a state of
innocence”. There was no “fall from innocence” because man was made in
the image of the gods, some of whom, are portrayed as slaying each other
in various conflicts (shedding each other's blood), murdering their
fathers and mothers, engaging in incest with their own children, being
unfaithful to their spouses by having extramarital sex with others and
even propositioning humans for illicit sex too, as well as being
sponsors or patrons of cultic acts of prostitution with male and female
prostitutes in temples. In the Babylonian myths all the immoral and
despicable activities of humankind existed before man’s creation because
they were engaged in by the gods, so there could be no “fall from
innocence” for primal man and woman for man cannot be “better” than his
“immoral creators” in whose image he was made! In the Babylonian myth
man’s immorality is not because he fell from grace but because he was
made in the image of immoral gods and goddesses.
According to
archaeological finds the Babylonian myths are dated to the 12th century
BC whereas Genesis is dated to the 15th century BC, so the Biblical
account existed at least three centuries before the Babylonian account.
We would not claim that the Babylonians borrowed from Genesis to write
their myths just because they have some common similarities, but neither
do we accept that Genesis borrowed from the Babylonians. What is most
probable is that they both derived from a more ancient source going
right back to Adam who himself obtained the knowledge of how the world
was created by divine revelation and the rest by self experience. Moses
could also have received this knowledge through divine revelation or
even through handed down tradition. This is not so improbable if we
accept that Adam was created about 5 or 6 thousand years before Christ
and that men up to Noah lived for almost a thousand years. In the
thousand years of Adam there would of course be many generations, but
the stories could be verified by Adam until his death. Many ancient
religions for example have sacred trees that they worship; these could
all have the same root in the tree of life of Genesis, but this again is
just another theory and wishful thinking because nothing can actually be
proven. A Babylonian cylinder dated 2200 BC contains all the elements of
the Adam and Eve story, Male, Female, Serpent and Sacred Tree, yet it
may be Babylonian divinities that are represented on the Seal and not a
Babylonian version of Adam and Eve.
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