Cheryl

Hi Michael,

I am not a young earth type per se, because I just want the truth of God’s word and whatever that is, is good with me. I have looked at Hugh Ross’ material and I have seen his debates. Unfortunately I have a problem with his view of the bible. You see it is difficult to persuade me unless you use the bible and can show me from scripture the facts. I believe God’s word is fully inspired and if God’s word says it and confirms it, that settles it for me. I am not one who is easily persuaded by extra biblical evidence unless it also is able to be confirmed by the bible. Hugh Ross’ view of the flood is especially troubling to me. Also his dating of the first man and woman to about 43,000 and 40,000 years ago respectively just doesn’t match up to the bible. He has changed the age of the first man and woman several times and that also doesn’t sit right with me. Truth doesn’t change like that. My husband and I took the book of Genesis and mapped out a time line. Just taking the age of the parent when his son was born and the age that the parent died was fascinating. It really opened up the bible to us as we saw how many generations of Adam’s children were still alive that would have known the first human parents. I don’t know where we put the chart but going by memory even during Noah’s time before the flood there were still some of the original first generations of humans. It is impossible to map out Adam and Eve using births and deaths of children to go back 40,000 years. Some old earth advocates will even go so far as to try to take them back 100,000 years as Hugh Ross’ organization admits. They even say that originally the DNA of the first woman was dated to 100,000 years and then changed to 40,000 years after they figured out DNA mutates at a faster rate than assumed. That originally made her much older than the man. There is so much that doesn’t match with scripture. I never did figure out how the man lived 3,000 years before the first woman was created when we are told in scripture how old man Adam was when he died and he wasn’t even 1,000 years old. No, I don’t think that kind of back and forth dating and assuming rates of DNA decay will ever touch the inerrancy of the bible for me. Also making the biblical flood only a local flood when scripture says the waters were higher than the mountains is just plain….well, stretching facts to suit one’s theory. It would have taken a miracle for the waters to be that high above the mountains and not have the waters flow over the earth.

Now back to topic. You said that you think the emphasis is on the origin of the animals and not that God set Adam down and created the animals in front of him. If the second set of animals was created after Adam was created, it wouldn’t matter if the creative day was a long day or not. The fact is that they were created *after* him. Why would God create animals after Adam? I see no other reason than to educate Adam regarding the difference between God and creation. The Hebrew is specific in that the creation of the garden and the second creation of animals was *not* before Adam. That is the point that we have to deal with, not how long the creative day was. The Hebrew is written as a sequence of events in chapter two and that is proven by Robert Bergen’s book “Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics†and unless you have a more accurate understanding of the Hebrew that you can show me, I will just have to stick with that precise grammar. I know that complementarians do not want to see this because they would prefer to believe that Adam was not deceived not because he had more knowledge of the Creator as the forming of the animals after Adam implies, but because he was the one that God communicated with personally and was given unique authority in the earth.

You also said that it might have taken Adam eight hours to name the animals. That’s possible, I don’t know. I only know that Adam was created on the same day as Eve and the animals were named before she was created. It certainly is possible that just as only two dogs were needed to take into Noah’s ark that could later mate and create all the different types of dogs and dog related animals, that Adam named the kinds of animals and not all the individual variations that we have today. Whatever the case, I believe scripture when it says he did the job and still had time to get his special bride.

I know you said that it is more plausible to you that the animals were created prior to Adam. That seems plausible to me too, however the text doesn’t say that and I find myself constrained by what the text literally says. I know that atheists have picked this up as well and challenged Christians with the second creation that seems obvious even to them. I think we would do well just to accept the text as written and admit that God did a special work of creation after Adam and before Eve. I say *special* work of creation because only one person ever was privileged to see that creative act. Wow! No wonder God blamed him for eating the fruit when he wasn’t deceived. He had no excuse at all!

Michael, I am so glad that we can discuss these things in a spirit of Christian love and these things don’t separate us as a brother and sister in Christ. I have seen more than enough separation of Christians these last three years to last me a life time. I pray that Christ will draw his body together in love so that we can use our gifts for mutual growth. There is so much for me to learn and I know that none of us is an island. We need each other’s wisdom and gifts as we all learn where we have missed the boat regarding truth. No one yet has arrived and knows the truth about everything.

Blessings!
Cheryl