Young Earth Creationism

Jewish Lords' Witness

Young Earth Creationism

Introduction

Once again, my good Christian friend, Isaac, has given me good reason to write this paper on yet another matter in which we strongly disagree. This is the third such topic that Isaac has given me reason to test out my scriptural understandings. Check out the Third Temple and The Trinity papers for our previous disagreements, which still remain unresolved between us, by the way. Looks like everything comes in threes! This time Isaac surprised me recently by disclosing to me that he is a believer in Young Earth Creationism (YEC). He never ceases to throw me curved balls. I am sure God put us together for His amusement in watching us constantly debate His creation and our understanding of it and Him, from diametrically opposed positions! Amen.

Method of Approach

I have had a great deal of difficulty addressing the claims of YECs since those claims are disparate and poorly organised from my looking at their various websites. Consequently, I am finding that it might be best just to go to my own resources to get to the truth. I think the LW understandings are so far in advance of any other bible interpretations I have come across that I see no point in looking backwards from our current vantage point. A very arrogant view perhaps but one that I feel is supported by the Holy Spirit’s influence on our continual work to understand God’s Word.

The YEC scriptural arguments that a creation day is one literal 24-hour day are childish in the extreme. They treat God’s Word as a one-dimensional novel rather than the multi-dimensional textbook that the LWs know the Bible to be. I also believe the YECs are doing God a great disservice by promoting such an infantile view of creation so as to prevent non-believers from gaining an otherwise hard-won faith.

My Variable Speed of Light paper (if the theory were to be proven) could be used to argue the case either way since, with that theory, the universe looks even older than current cosmological thinking would allow. However, if the speed of light has been variable in the past what are the implications for the validity of our current radio-active dating methods? Also, the uncertainty in gauging the age of the Earth is also a factor here. When one examines the science, it is by no means as solid as one might have hoped.

So, having spent some time looking at the YEC arguments as well as the scientific responses to them, I find little comfort in the voracity of either. Consequently, I think my best approach will be to write a credible young earth rebuttal paper largely based on the scriptures contained in my Time paper. Concentrating on my scriptural interpretations rather than those of YEC or scientific arguments would seem to be the best approach to me. So read on…

Relevant Time Scriptures

I guess these are a couple of the verses that the YECs hang their hats on. Taking a surface view of the words, you can see their argument:

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1 KJV)
5 וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם, וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם אֶחָד. (Genesis 1 WLC)

11 For [in] six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all which [is] in them, and He rested on the seventh day; on account of this Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and sanctified it. (Exodus 20 GLT)
11 כִּי שֵׁשֶׁת-יָמִים עָשָׂה יְהוָה אֶת-הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת-הָאָרֶץ, אֶת-הַיָּם וְאֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר-בָּם, (Exodus 20 WLC)

From my Genesis-1 paper we see that God created darkness which represents three-dimensional space and matter. The light was the addition of EM radiation that augmented the matter universe with the fourth dimension of time. So, before we even start, we can see that there is a dichotomy in the nature of God’s first day. Time did not exist until God had created light so a (presumably) large part of His first day was not measurable in terms of time.

I am also interested in the fact that light was called Day (יוֹם) and darkness was called Night (לָיְלָה) since He then goes on to describe the first day as comprising evening (עֶרֶב) and morning (בֹקֶר) using two different Hebrew words with entirely different meanings. Now the time from evening to morning is our night-time, i.e., the time during which mankind rests on a daily basis. This is not a day but a marker between our working day and our resting night. So, I think we are being told here that God also took a break between creative days, not just on the whole of the seventh day. So, in my assessment of all this, I believe we are being told what the structure of our weekly and daily schedule will look like in a qualitative way. This does not necessarily include the precise quantitative 24-hour cycle of the earth’s spin in orbit around the sun which, by the way, did not exist in God’s first day.

In verse 25 below the Hebrew word 'לְ֭פָנִים' can have numerous meanings. Of particular interest, though, is the translation chosen by Jay Green in which the concept of the Earth and heavens being created before time began is emphasised:

25 Before [time] You founded the earth, and the heavens [are] the work of Your hands. (Psalms 102 GLT)
25לְ֭פָנִים הָאָ֣רֶץ יָסַ֑דְתָּ וּֽמַעֲשֵׂ֖ה יָדֶ֣יךָ שָׁמָֽיִם (Psalms 102 WLC)

This effectively provides further scriptural evidence that time did not exist during a sizeable portion of God’s Day 1. To me this proves that God’s Day is very different from man’s 24-hour day. God’s Day being an epoch to man is further emphasised by Moses and is later re-iterated by Peter:

1 [A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.] O Lord, You have been our dwelling-place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You [are] God.
3 You turn man to dust, and say, Return, O sons of men.
4 For a thousand years in Your eyes [are] as a day, yesterday, when it passes, and [as] a watch in the night. (Psalms 90 GLT)

8 But let not this one thing be hidden [from] you, beloved, that one day with [the] Lord [is] "as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." [Psa. 90:4] (2 Peter 3 GLT)

Given these scriptures, I consider that any valid argument must, as a minimum, acknowledge that God’s creation day equates to 1,000 years as measured by man thereby making the full creation week at least 7,000 years compared with the YEC view of 7 Earthly days. One might go on to argue that this comparison between God’s Day and mankind’s time is only illustrative to indicate a significantly proportionately greater time ratio. In addition, the 7th day of God’s rest would therefore represent the 7,000-year epoch that was made up to follow from the creation of Adam, made up of the 6,000-year Earthly rule of Satan and then by Jesus’ rule of the 1,000 years of God’s Kingdom. For the full detail on this check out the True Bible Code website at: Introduction 23 - Satan is the ruler of this system of things.

Next up we have Paul’s letter to the Hebrew congregation:

3 by faith we understand the ages to have been prepared by a saying of God, in regard to the things seen not having come out of things appearing; (Hebrews 11 YLT)
3 Πίστει νοοῦμεν κατηρτίσθαι τοὺς αἰῶνας ῥήματι θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὸ βλεπόμενον γεγονέναι. (Hebrews 11 WHO)

Some bibles translate the Greek word (αἰῶνας) as ‘worlds’ but the correct literal translation is ‘ages’. So here we are clearly being told that the creation took ages which does not sound like 7 Earthly days to me! We are told in the very first book of the Bible that God created the heavens and the Earth. These presumably would be the first 'things seen' from the previous scripture:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1 ASV)

Then we have Solomon’s wisdom thrown into the mix. In the Book of Proverbs, he wrote about our saviour, the Archangel Michael. Michael was set up from everlasting before the Earth was created:

23 I was set up from everlasting, from that which was before the earth. (Proverbs 8 GLT)
23מֵעוֹלָם, נִסַּכְתִּי מֵרֹאשׁ--    מִקַּדְמֵי-אָרֶץ. (Proverbs 8 WLC)

So, according to Proverbs 8, Michael was created before the earth and therefore presumably after the heavens were created as the home of the angels. If Michael is described as being set up from everlasting clearly the heavens, together with their heavenly host took rather more than less than an Earthly day for their creation and education as to how to help God build His universe. The use of the Hebrew word (מֵעוֹלָם) translated as ‘everlasting’ would indicate to me a time period considerably in excess of 1,000 years never mind less than 24 hours. The YEC position is beginning to look even more untenable to me just by looking at the scriptures without regard to any scientific evidence. Both Paul and Solomon tell us that Christ was involved in the creation process:

15 who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
16 for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; (Colossians 1 ASV)

30 Then I am near Him, a workman, And I am a delight -- day by day. Rejoicing before Him at all times, (Proverbs 8 YLT)

Firstly Christ, aka the archangel Michael (Introduction 16 - Jesus is the archangel Michael), was Himself created (just a little throw-away for all you trinitarians out there - including my friend Isaac!). God Himself created the heavens and the Earth but Michael was responsible for creating all things in them:

21 To declare in Zion the name of Jehovah, And His praise in Jerusalem,

25 Beforetime the earth Thou didst found, And the work of Thy hands {are} the heavens. (Psalms 102 YLT).

Lucifer, Michael and the angels were created by God once He had created a home for them. So, the angels of the Holy Spirit at least, including Lucifer, must have been created on God’s Day 1. So, according to our YEC friends, Satan was 5 days old when God created Adam. Yeah, that really sounds sensible right?

Adam was 33.5 years old when Satan deceived Eve whereby he sinned according to the fundamental pattern (Understanding 41 - The Fundamental Pattern of Adam's life and Jesus' life). So, Satan would also have been 33.5 years old according to the YECs. However, we need to consider why God created mankind. If He had been entirely happy with His spirit children, why would He have created Adam? Answer, He saw the problems with His angelic children and needed to produce a weaker phyicalisation of them to demonstrate to them their issues. Satan was clearly centre stage in God’s thinking here, so I think that he must have been somewhat over the age of 5 days old when God created Adam. Check out Introduction 2 - Why did God create the angels? Why did he create the universe? Why did he create us?. Satan was the first angelic son of God (see Introduction 19 - An introduction to Satan, Michael, Gabriel: Satan was the firstborn angel), born before Michael and Gabriel. Before humans were created Satan had already expressed his desire for a degree of autonomy. One can deduce this from the symbolic meaning of Genesis 1: Understanding 300 - Genesis 1: The Heavenly creations and the Earthly creations. There is also symbolic scriptural evidence for Michael's being a 40th generation angel compared with Satan who, from the previous link, was the first: Matthew Chapter 1: The angelic descent of the angel Michael: A 40th generation angel. Consequently the acts of creation of the earth occurred eons after the creation of the heavens as is the general consensus among most rationally thinking folk.

Without wishing to steal the thunder from the next section, it is clear that God did not make mankind all by Himself; the angels, including Satan, had a hand in it:

26 And God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. (Genesis 1 GLT)

So, once again, I cannot imagine that Satan and the rest of the 1st Holy Spirit angels were only five days old when they created man. Just to finish this section off, it is clear that the YECs take the Bible purely as a literal text. Whilst it certainly can be that, it also makes heavy use of symbolic greater meanings and also has some texts that are not literal at all but only symbolic. So, what would the YECs make of the following statement from Paul I wonder?

22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23 But he [who was] of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman [was] by promise.
24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. (Galatians 4 KJV)

Presumably they would consider that a woman is a literal covenant! Jesus' parables are clearly not literal accounts. If the YECs define the Bible as a one-dimensional book, then I think they are selling God's Word very short. It is multi-dimensional with both literal and symbolic meanings throughout. The reader, particularly if you happen to be a YEC, might want to skim through this to gain a grasp of the LW’s understanding of how the Bible is written: The 10th Generation Bible Code.

The Two Creations of Man

Very few, if any, churches other than the LWs recognise that scripture tells us that there were two creations of man. So let us have a close look at the relevant verses, paying particular attention to Jay Green’s translation which provides the most accurate English rendition of the original Hebrew text:

26 And God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creepers creeping on the earth. (GLT)
26וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ; וְיִרְדּוּ בִדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל-הָאָרֶץ, וּבְכָל-הָרֶמֶשׂ, הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל-הָאָרֶץ. (WLC)
27 And God created the man in His own image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female. (Genesis 1 GLT)
27וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם. (Genesis 1 WLC)

In verse 26 God is talking to some other being(s) to make ‘man’ in their image. God can only have been talking to the archangel Lucifer or Michael and/or the Holy Spirit who were angelic. So, this man was made in the image of the angels. In verse 27, God Himself made ‘the man’ in His own image. The indefinite article for ‘man’ (אָדָם) is used in the Hebrew in verse 26 and the definite article for ‘the man’ (הָאָדָם) is used in the Hebrew in verse 27.

So, what do we read into this? The LW understanding is that the angels made prehistoric man in their image and, later on, God made the man, aka Adam, God’s earthly son as the first homo sapiens. Adam was an individual man who was the father of all of mankind that followed. What on Earth the YECs make of the evidence for pre-historic man I cannot but imagine! For the full LW view of pre-historic man etc. please check out the following webpage: Introduction 5 - Pre-adamic man.

Well, I wonder what the YECs would make of such an interpretation? For the record, I was so taken by the precision and logic behind this scriptural understanding, unique to the LWs, that my baptism as an LW followed fairly rapidly afterwards.

Dinosaurs

Another popular idea amongst YECs is that dinosaurs were alive and well in biblical times. If that were the case, why have I not seen a tyrannosaurus rex galloping down my local high street recently? What would have killed off a whole plethora of these reptilian species that lived on land, sea and air less than six thousand years ago without a living trace of any of them around today? Are these guys for real?

Let us examine the scriptures that cause these idiotic ideas to be promulgated in YEC circles. Both scriptures, that I am aware of, are contained in the Book of Job, the first being in Chapter 40:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. (KJV)
15 הִנֵּה-נָא בְהֵמוֹת, אֲשֶׁר-עָשִׂיתִי עִמָּךְ;    חָצִיר, כַּבָּקָר יֹאכֵל. (WLC)
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly. (KJV)
16הִנֵּה-נָא כֹחוֹ בְמָתְנָיו;    וְאוֹנוֹ, בִּשְׁרִירֵי בִטְנוֹ. (WLC)
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. (Job 40 KJV)
17יַחְפֹּץ זְנָבוֹ כְמוֹ-אָרֶז;    גִּידֵי פַחֲדָו יְשֹׂרָגוּ. (Job 40 WLC)

Here we are being told about a mighty beast by the title of behemoth. But wait a minute what does the Hebrew word for behemoth (בְהֵמוֹת) actually mean? The generally understood translation is 'hippopotamus'. Certainly, a large and powerful animal that would seem to fit the description rather well and is neither a reptile nor pre-historic.

Let us move on to the second scripture to be found in Chapter 41 of the same Book. From the flow of the scriptures, it is not immediately clear that we are looking at a different creature here but he certainly is given a different name:

1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with a fishhook? Or press down his tongue with a cord? (Job 41 ASV)
1תִּמְשֹׁךְ לִוְיָתָן בְּחַכָּה;    וּבְחֶבֶל, תַּשְׁקִיעַ לְשֹׁנוֹ. (Job 41 WLC)

So, what does the Hebrew word for ‘leviathan’ (לִוְיָתָן) actually mean? The most popular translation would seem to be 'crocodile'. Certainly, reptilian and, no doubt, genetically related to the dinosaurs but certainly not one of their number. And then we have:

15 [His] strong scales are [his] pride, Shut up together [as with] a close seal. (Job 41 ASV)

So, I think this latter verse confirms that we are, indeed, looking at two different creatures in 'behemoth' and 'leviathan' respectively 'hippopotamus' and 'crocodile', neither of which can be construed as pre-historic. Why do these idiots come up with these crazy biblical interpretations?

Having been through this analysis, one of the tools that I use for Bible research identified that the name ‘leviathan’ appears elsewhere in the Old Testament. Interestingly the word ‘behemoth’ only appears once in the Bible. I am not too sure what to make of that latter point; seems rather odd that the Bible would mention a hippopotamus even once since I did not realise that creature lived in the Middle East! But then, what do I know: https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/09/08/are-these-hippo-bones-proof-the-arabian-desert-was-once-covered-in-water.

The other mystifying item is that, according to the scriptures, behemoth ‘moves his tail like a cedar’. Explanations that I have heard from YECs is that a cedar is a large tree (https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/cedar/) and therefore behemoth must be a large prehistoric animal with a large tail. Again, this is another example of YEC’s ignoring what the scriptures actually say to fit with their mad agenda. The scriptures actually compare the 'movement of the behemoth’s tail' to a cedar tree, not the tail itself! How the movement of any creature’s tail can compare to a large tree I cannot for the life of me imagine. Well, just for fun and without further comment from yours truly, let us have a look at the function of a hippopotamus’ tail: https://untamedanimals.com/do-hippos-have-tails/. If any reader has any suggestions to help me clear up this matter please let me know!

As indicated above, I was guided to look at the other occurrences of 'leviathan' together with similar names in the Bible. Consequently, I thought it worthwhile to examine some of these other scriptures to see if they could throw further light on the topic of dinosaurs. What better place to start than an earlier verse in the Book of Job? This verse is following a diatribe from Job cursing the day he was born:

8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan. (Job 3 JPS)

Frankly, I am not too sure what to make of the above verse at all, in any context. However, I decided to include it for completeness. Whether leviathan here means dinosaur or crocodile would seem to be irrelevant anyway. Waking either up would probably be a dangerous pursuit, or would it? The vast majority of dinosaurs were vegetarian so not likely to cause as much harm to a human as today’s crocodile. You choose. Of course, it might just have been a metaphor for Satan? Oh, I forgot, the YECs do not do metaphors!

Now here’s an interesting use of the name leviathan from the Book of Psalms:

13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. (KJV)
13 אַתָּה פוֹרַרְתָּ בְעָזְּךָ יָם;    שִׁבַּרְתָּ רָאשֵׁי תַנִּינִים, עַל-הַמָּיִם. (WLC)
14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. (Psalms 74 KJV)
14אַתָּה רִצַּצְתָּ, רָאשֵׁי לִוְיָתָן;    תִּתְּנֶנּוּ מַאֲכָל, לְעָם לְצִיִּים. (Psalms 74 WLC)
Verse 13 talks about God's breaking the heads of dragons (תַנִּינִים - plural) in the sea followed in Verse 14 by God's breaking the heads of leviathan (singular). What are we to make of these two verses? I could argue that verse 13 is telling us about the extinction of the dinosaurs that He brought about prior to man’s setting foot on the Earth. Why would I even think this? Check out a part of God’s 5th creative day:

21 And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind, and God seeth that {it is} good. (Genesis 1 YLT)
21 וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הַתַּנִּינִם הַגְּדֹלִים; וְאֵת כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם לְמִינֵהֶם, וְאֵת כָּל-עוֹף כָּנָף לְמִינֵהוּ, וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-טוֹב. (Genesis 1 WLC)

The same Hebrew word (תַנִּינִים) is used here as ‘monsters’ in Young’s Literal Translation as in the Psalms 74:13 King James Translation for 'dragons'. If anyone can tell me that these verses are not referring to the dinosaurs and their demise and have a better meaning to these verses then please let me know. If we then go back to verse 14 of Psalms 74, we then see that 'leviathan' is described as a multi-headed beast. I know of no creature past or present that would fit this description. The one example that immediately comes to mind, of course, is the beast of Revelation (goodness knows what the YECs make of that Book!):

1 and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. (Revelation 13 KJV)

Whilst I do not wish to get dragged into a discussion of the identity of the beast in this paper (you will find my speculation on the beast's identity in an earlier paper: Marks of the Beast) there is no doubt that it is a symbolic representation which the above example of leviathan must therefore also be. Whilst I have no wish to change my interpretation of the Job verses as a result of these latter verses, any reference to dinosaurs being around while Job was alive seem as remote as ever.

Then we have another couple of verses from Psalms containing another reference to leviathan:

25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, Wherein are things creeping innumerable, Both small and great beasts. (ASV)
26 There go the ships; There is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to play therein. (Psalms 104 ASV)

This iteration of the word has largely been taken to mean whale. 'Leviathan' is a clear example of the woolliness associated with Old Testament Hebrew, where a word can take on different meanings dependent on the context. Once again to associate this with pre-historic creatures is nothing short of bending biblical truth to meet the YEC agenda.

Then we have Isaiah’s evidently referring to the destruction of Satan who is described with several different titles as leviathan, a serpent and the dragon:

1 In that day lay a charge doth Jehovah, With his sword -- the sharp, and the great, and the strong, On leviathan -- a fleeing serpent, And on leviathan -- a crooked serpent, And He hath slain the dragon that {is} in the sea. (Isaiah 27 YLT)
1בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִפְקֹד יְהוָה בְּחַרְבּוֹ הַקָּשָׁה וְהַגְּדוֹלָה וְהַחֲזָקָה, עַל לִוְיָתָן נָחָשׁ בָּרִחַ, וְעַל לִוְיָתָן, נָחָשׁ עֲקַלָּתוֹן; וְהָרַג אֶת-הַתַּנִּין, אֲשֶׁר בַּיָּם. (Isaiah 27 WLC)

One might well consider that at least some of the meanings from Job could also well be referring to Satan in the greater meaning. Interesting it is that Satan is referred to frequently in scripture as the dragon. Certainly, a dragon is an otherwise mythical beast but, if it has some likeness to reality that would be as a pre-historic creature like tyrannosaurus rex. God was having problems with his angelic children long before humans were created. Dinosaurs were created solely to show Lucifer and the demons what they were like physically. Their Father, Jehovah, thereby referred to His first created son on that basis and also ensured the dinosaurs would not survive the creation of man as per Psalms 74:13. Whoops, looks like I just plain forgot that the YECs think Job had a pet dinosaur!

And just to confirm that confusion of terminology and use of names in different contexts, we then have Pharaoh described as 'the great dragon'. Presumably the YECs would believe that Egypt was ruled by a prehistoric reptile:

2 'Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy concerning him, and concerning Egypt -- all of it.
3 Speak, and thou hast said: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Lo, I {am} against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt! The great dragon that is crouching in the midst of his floods, Who hath said, My flood {is} my own, And I -- I have made it {for} myself.
4 And I have put hooks in thy jaws, And I have caused the fish of thy floods to cleave to thy scales, And I have caused thee to come up from the midst of thy floods, And every fish of thy floods to thy scales doth cleave.
5 And I have left thee in the wilderness, Thou and every fish of thy floods, On the face of the field thou dost fall, Thou art not gathered nor assembled, To the beast of the earth and to the fowl of the heavens I have given thee for food. (Ezekiel 29 YLT)

And finally, we have the naming of the real monster of the piece. Arguably he is the only real pre-historic monster to live at the same time as humans:

9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Revelation 12 KJV)

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, (Revelation 20 KJV)

Conclusion

I started out this quest with the expectation that I would be able to disprove, solely from scripture, the Young Earth Creationist’s apparently crazy idea that the whole of God’s creation was achieved in six 24-hour days. In my own opinion, I have been able to accomplish that objective with ease.

However, the whole concept of these people’s thinking has left a very bad taste in my mouth. The YECs are doing as much harm to God’s cause as the Roman Catholic Church in deliberately misinterpreting scripture for their own nefarious purposes. I would have to blame the false prophets that promulgate these ideas for their own presumable self-aggrandisement:

15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7 KJV)

As always, the faithful Christians that foolishly follow their teachings may well have a good heart condition, like my friend Isaac, but they are nonetheless being diverted from a proper understanding of Jehovah and His plan for mankind. Also, any non-believers that have been put off from considering the Bible to be the essential book of life by these crazy notions will also, no doubt, find salvation if they are of good heart. Amen.

Addendum 1 - Chiasms

Whilst not a part of the main topic at hand, I have added this section as a day 1 addendum. What is a chiasm and why have I picked up on it at this juncture and in this paper? The Bible research that I carried out to prepare this paper, caused me to ask a fundamental question about the True Bible Code (The 10th Generation Bible Code). It seemed to me that one of the highly relevant scriptures referred to in this paper was written in a form, a chiasm, that had not previously been identified as a principle of the code. As a result of reviewing this with my LW brothers we have uncovered a new principle of the code. This has been named as ‘[C39] The Interchangeability Principle’ and can be found at: (https://www.truebiblecode.com/code.html#c39).

Earlier on in this paper under its main heading I, rather unsurprisingly, referred to Peter’s 2nd epistle:

8 But let not this one thing be hidden [from] you, beloved, that one day with [the] Lord [is] "as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." [Psa. 90:4] (2 Peter 3 GLT)

In doing so I asked the question ‘Why did Peter need to reverse day = thousand years in repetition?’. This led me to further question if this was a construct to be found elsewhere in scripture. The simple answer to this question is ‘yes’ and it is called a ‘chiasm’: https://www.gotquestions.org/chiasm-chiastic.html. So let us look at a couple of other examples from the scriptures. Interestingly they all seem to be very well-known scriptures; is it their very structure that has led them to be famous or is it the intrinsic importance of their messages? Both I suspect:

6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. (Genesis 9 KJV)

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6 KJV)

30 But many [that are] first shall be last; and the last [shall be] first. (Matthew 19 KJV)

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20 KJV)

12 And whoever will exalt himself shall be humbled, and whoever will humble himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23 GLT)

27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (Mark 2 KJV)

From this I perceived two things. Firstly, this is a well-known biblical structure that I suspect no-one has thus far been able to analyse adequately. Secondly, this did not seem to be an acknowledged principle of the True Bible Code. Whoops, looks like the Holy Spirit has caused me to trip up over something that is probably very important here that we have missed to date.

The implications of the Interchangeability Principle seem significant and wide sweeping. Consequently, we must look to interpret all the genuine examples of the chiasm structure according to the new principle probably as several large future projects.

This demonstrates the wonderful way in which the Holy Spirit (HS) works. Ultimately, I have to thank the YECs for putting the HS in touch with me to write this paper, thereby uncovering a previously unknown element of the True Bible Code. The HS does most certainly work in mysterious ways. So, arguably, even biblical misinterpretations have their value in causing folk to at least consider God’s Word albeit erroneously! Amen.

Date of Publication: 4th October 2023