Does the Bible teach a young earth?

Round 1

1 of 3

TheOGInjil

Con #1

Shouldn’t he have to make the first post since he has an affirmative case? Site mods, if you see this my suggestion is that pro always has to make the first comment and con gets closing unless someone uses a setting to specific otherwise. Anyways…

My case is basically that my opponent must fulfill a very specific burden of proof, and he is unable to. There are two things that must be considered when asking if the Bible requires a certain age of the earth.

Genealogies.
The meaning of the word day/yom in genesis.

Genealogies: My opponent must argue that the genealogies in the bible have no gaps, they have literal and precise ages, and are never used to convey theological points rather than explicit ages. If he does not then the earth can be infinitely old, because the earth being made in a short period of time says nothing about how long it has existed for. So if he cannot support this point, then he has lost the debate and has shown he is unjustified in his conclusion. I have several reasons for saying why this is wrong. Mathew, Luke, Chronicles, and Genesis all use different genealogies and include different numbers of people. This point immediately means that he has lost the debate unless he can show why every other genealogy is allowed to omit people, but genesis is not allowed to. If he cannot, then there is no reason to think that Genesis was attempting to record an exhaustive genealogy. The biblical standard is to construct genealogies in order to show the significance of particular persons or highlight certain people, and this is the consistent standard. There is no reason to cast a burden upon genesis that it must act according to rules that are foreign to the rest of scriptures when it never says anything of these rules. Additionally, it was common in near eastern culture to construct genealogies with ages that were intended to show the signignace of certain people, and to omit people who were not seen as relevant. Just as Mathew and Luke omitted to show certain parts of Jesus significance, God can omit people who did not have particular significance within the story he constructed. And again, my opponents case can fall due to this one point. If he cannot support the idea that the Genesis genealogy must be seen as exhaustive with literal ages when no other genealogy in the bible is held to that standard and no other ancient near eastern text is held to that standard, then his point has no bearing.

Meaning of Day/Yom: The Hebrew word Yom which is used to say the world was made in seven days does not have to mean a literal day. In the ancient near east they defined the length of a day by the passing of the sun, so when they saw that the creation account narrates days without reference to the sun (the sun did not exist until several of the “days” had passed) they would have expected the time period to be ambiguous, or defined by context. Young earthers often say that because of the phrase “and there was evening and morning, the X day” the days have to be in reference to a 24 hour day. This doesn’t work because like I said a 24 hour day was not seen as based in terms of hours, but in the visibility of the sun, and this phrase appears prior to the sun, so the meaning would be viewed as ambiguous. Secondly, the context tells us this is not what it means.

“God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1‬:‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

So, the context shows we do not base the day on a number of hours. The context shows it is based off of the light. Thus the evening and morning phrase is in relation to the light, so to determine the evening and morning’s length we would have to first determine the day’s length or the light’s. Furthermore, the seventh day is still ongoing, and yet it is deemed a day so we have further precedence to expect a unique length to these periods of time. People often allude to the fact that the sabbath is in a literal seven day week of literal 24 hours, but if this was really the model for determining the length of the days, we would have to say the seventh say was also 24 hours which opposes basic biblical theology.

I have tried to anticipate some arguments that my opponent will present in relation to these two points, but we will see what he has to present. Remember, if he cannot prove those two central points, if even one of them is unproved, then the foundation for the young earth view collapses from a purely biblical standpoint. I would say that nothing my opponent says will be able to challenge my first two responses to his hypothetical points, because my points are based off of undeniable facts about the ancient near east, and clear statements within the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to my opponent for accepting the challenge.

SomeDebatePerson

Pro #2

Introduction

First up, I’d like to thank my opponent for starting this debate. This is one of my favorite topics to debate.

At the beginning, my opponent seemed to suggest that the burden of proof should be on me, but I’ll get into that later. My opponent seemed to wish I could have gone first instead.

I’ve seen ways users have tried to “bypass” this. They will often say in the desciption a list of rules, one of which is that the instigator must “waive” on round one and then possibly or sometimes the contender must “waive” on the final round to make the amount of arguments equal. If anyone violates this, that person loses by breaking a rule of the debate. I agree with you that it would be nice and easier if we could just do this in debate settings. I think it is too late to add a rule like that to this debate, as such rules must be agreed on before the debate starts.

Burden of Proof

Con believes that the burden of proof should be on me, but I disagree. I must also state that I do NOT want to get into a side-debate of burden of proof. No one likes this.

So, I will now give reasons I believe con actually has the burden of proof. First of all, con wants an interpretion other than the literal sense. Unless con can provide significant reasons to deny the literal sense of Scripture, the literal sense remains the default interpretation. In my opinion, the literal interpretation of Genesis has been the standard interpretation for most of Jewish and Christian tradition.

Genealogies

Con claims that the genealogies are not literal, but there are many problems with using this to justify an old Earth. First of all, many of the inconsistencies in Matthew, Luke, Chronicles, and Genesis can have explanations to them, such as tracing through different lines or remarriage of a parent where a son becomes the son of a non-biological parent. Second, con also mentioned that this could be used for theological emphasis, and this is certainly possible too.

Con claims:

And again, my opponents case can fall due to this one point.

I don’t understand how this proves that the Earth is not young. How does saying the genealogies in Scripture may not be exact somehow prove the Earth is 4.6 billion years old? Is con trying to say there are millions of years that were omitted in these genealogies? Well, this would go against the archaeology, the same evidence used to “prove” the Earth is old. Also, don’t most theistic evolutionists claim the long ages in Genesis are actually much shorter? This argument is just not consistent.

Meaning of Yom

Con made some claims without any real evidence to back it up:

In the ancient near east they defined the length of a day by the passing of the sun, so when they saw that the creation account narrates days without reference to the sun (the sun did not exist until several of the “days” had passed) they would have expected the time period to be ambiguous, or defined by context.

As we will see, there are plenty of problems with this sort of logic. First, I’m not sure where con gets the idea that the ancient Near East defined the length of a day by passing of the sun from. If we look at the Hebrew words for evening and morning, we see that they make no reference to the sun and instead talk about light.

The word for evening and Hebrew is ereb and is used to talk about mixing in Exodus 12:30. In the case of dusk, it would be talking about light mixing with darkness.

The word for morning in Hebrew is boqer, and its meaning comes from “split, penetrate, as the dawn the darkness, light through cloud-rifts, etc.” In the case of dawn, it would talk about light and darkness seperating and light emerging out of darkness.

These words have nothing to do with the sun. I also don’t understand why con claims that “when they saw that the creation account narrates days without reference to the sun…they would have expected the time period to be ambiguous.” This sort of logic makes no sense. If evening and morning were defined by the sun, they wouldn’t think it was ambiguous, but nonsensicsl. In turn, con has ultimately proved the words for evening and morning don’t talk about the sun.

St. Augustine, who is often accused of being a theistic evolutionist, wrote:

Of course, what we mean by the ‘days’ we know in experience are those that have a morning because the sun rises and evening because the sun sets. But the first three ‘days’ of creation passed without the benefit of sun, since, according to Scripture, the sun was made on the fourth day. Of course, there is mention in the beginning that ‘light’ was made by the Word of God, and that God separated it from the darkness, calling the light day and the darkness night. But no experience of our senses can tell us just what kind of ‘light’ it was and by what alternating movement it caused ‘morning’ and ‘evening’. Not even our intellects can comprehend what is meant, yet we can have no hesitation in believing the fact. (City of God, XI, 7) (emphasis added).

Evening and morning are also not mentioned on the seventh day because everything is complete.

Con admits:

So, the context shows we do not base the day on a number of hours. The context shows it is based off of the light.

I would also like to look at Genesis 1:5:

“God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (NIV)

This is actually a bad translation. The word being translated as “first” is ’e·ḥāḏ in Hebrew. This word actually means “one.” When we see that the correct word is actually “one,” we can see that Genesis 1:5 is actually defining what a day is, leaving no room for alternate interpretations.

Saint Basil wrote:

Why does Scripture say “one day the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day”, it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day — we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. - Hexaemeron Homily 2 Section 8 Paragraph 2

I would like con to explain this passage of Exodus:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it. (Exodus 20:9 DRB)

Did the meaning of day somehow change in the middle of a sentence? Also, this passage says we are supposed to work for six days and rest on the seventh because this is what God did.

The Literal Sense of Scripture

I am still looking for what con’s good reason to depart from the literal sense of Scripture is.

St. Augustine’s rule of interpreting Scripture, approved by Pope Leo XIII, is that we are “not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires.”

Round 2

2 of 3

TheOGInjil

Con #3

I typed most of this earlier and the page refreshed, so it took me a little while to feel like redoing this. Thanks for the reply; it clarified where you stand, but I think it has several issues.

Burden of proof: My opponent claims I have the burden of proof here, but you can check the title of the debate to see if that is wrong. The title of the debate is “does the bible teach a young earth” and he is saying it does, so he has to support that affirmative claim. If the title was “can a Christian be an old earther” then I would have the burden. When he presents an argument, I have the burden of saying why it is flawed. This is just how the burden of proof functions.

Genealogies: My opponent admits that other genealogies in the bible are allowed to pick and choose which persons are included in order to make theological points, so he now must support the idea that genesis is not allowed to do this, even though it is in keeping with Jewish tradition and ancient near eastern genealogical records. If he can not do this, then his argument has failed on this single point, and his belief regarding the bible teaching a young earth has been rendered fully invalid. He said he did not understand why this is, but it is because if you do not have genealogies through which you can trace the exact age of the earth, and the genealogies do not include every person, then you are unable to say how old the earth is. If you can’t say both how old humans are and at what point humans started existing on the earth, then you can’t show the earth is young, and if you can not show why genesis is not allowed to omit persons from the genealogies like everything else is allowed to, then you cannot give a record of how old humans are, and thus you cannot provide an age of the earth. You must support both of the two points, and so far neither has been adequately supported. You also appealed to what old earthers tend to say and what archeology shows, but this debate is not about either of those. You say because of it I cannot prove the earth is old, but I am not trying to prove the earth is old. I am trying to refute the claim that the bible teaches the earth is young. The debate is about whether or not the bible teaches the earth is young, and those reasons do not give you an excuse to not support the two premises that you have to support to justify your view. My argument is simply that Pro cannot support the two premises that he must support, so there’s no way in which my argument is inconsistent.

Meaning of Yom: My opponent seems to disagree with the fact that ancient near eastern days were defined by the passing of the sun and moon rather than 24 hour periods, but this is a little confusing. The scholarship is consistent on this point, and it is intuitive as they ancient Hebrews did not have digital stop watches, and even genesis says that the sun is what records the passing of days and years. Even if we stop at this biblical perspective, we see that the context establishes that days are normatively established with the sun, which is why the Hebrew calendar took into account the passings of the heavenly bodies. I do not think this point is one for my opponent to get hung up on, because it is an easily accessible fact that anyone can verify.

Pro says that my take is nonsensical because morning and darkness have reference to the amount of light or a deprivation of light, but I explicitly mentioned this is my opening. This evening and morning preceded the existence of the sun, and so the light that defined the days is not to do with the movement of the sun that we base 24 hour days on. He seems to suggest that I think evening and morning have reference to the movement of the sun or days as we know them, but thats exactly the view I am opposing. We get our 24 hour days from the amount of time that we view the sun, and the same with evening and morning, so prior to the existence of the sun, evening and morning would not have reference to a typical sun based day or evening and morning. My whole point here is to say the argument that the repetition of “evening and morning” is not suggesting the days were 24 hours.

Pro brought up Augustine in something that looks like an appeal to authority (I am not saying he intended to make an appeal to authority because I do not know) so I am just going to mention that Augustine completely disagreed with him on genesis and did not think the days were literal at all. He believed creation was instantaneous: https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/saint-augustine-on-interpreting-genesis/#:~:text=Augustine%20believed%20that%20the%20creation%20was%20an%20instantaneous,statement%20of%20the%20order%20or%20timing%20of%20events.

I do not know what basis Pro has for saying Echad does not mean first in this context. Strong’s Hebrew dictionary explicitly says it can mean first.

Pro asked me to explain “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭20‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

But this is not a challenge. Pro’s hypothesis that the meaning cannot change mid sentence fails because the seventh day is not 24 hours, and yet in the Hebrew week it is treated as such. This is representative of God’s work like communion is representative of Christ’s sacrifice. Neither you or me can say the meaning of the word is always the same regardless of challenge, so this does not support your case. I would say Pro has supported neither premise adequately so far, and keep in mind, if he does not support both, then there is no young earth creationism in the bible.

Do I take the bible literally: This is a criticism I often get, but no one, including my opponent thinks we should always take the bible literally. We should always ask what the bible is trying to say, and take it as saying that. From the initial periods of time, to Jesus’ parables. The question is not am I taking the bible literally. The question is whether or not Pro is making a claim that the bible is not trying to make. Is the bible trying to say the genealogies have to be exhaustive in Genesis unlike other Hebrew and ancient near eastern genealogies? The evidence does not seem to support this idea. Is the bible trying to say that the first six periods of time before the sun (keep in mind, only the first six days are what my opponent says are literal. It is not my impression that any young earthers are denying the book of hebrews and saying the seventh day is a 24 hour day) are the same length of the periods of time that is says the sun was made to govern? The evidence does not seem to support this.

Again, thanks to my opponent for engaging, but I find that his arguments do not begin to support either of his premises, do not show my position to be incoherent, and do not begin to show why my criticism of his rebuttals are invalid.

SomeDebatePerson

Pro #4

Look, if Scripture says the Earth is young, then that is the default interpretation.

I don’t understand how my opponent thinks that the genealogies can be stretched out to fit an old Earth. Even if it were possible to strech out the genealogies to fit with how long humans have been around according to evolution, it would make the Earth young in the eyes of evolutionists.

The days in the Near East were defined by the sun setting and rising because the sun was the main source of light. When you look at the origins of the words for evening and morning in Hebrew, they don’t talk about the sun at all. Genesis 1:5 defines what one day is. There’s no way around it.

Con brought up that St. Augustine did not take the days of Genesis as literal, and I am aware of this. He was creation as an instant, but there are problems with that view. Either way, he clearly didn’t believe in an old Earth:

They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed. (City of God, Book 12, Chapter 10)

Con is still unable to explain Exodus 20:9-10. It’s less about the meaning of a word changing mid sentence and more about the fact that the reason given to rest on the seventh day is because God rested on that day. It is true that many Church Fathers saw the days as also foreshadowing the periods of history. The speciality of seven comes from this. It still doesn’t make sense for a word to change meaning mid sentence, but that isn’t even the point.

Con brought up Jesus’ parables, but where in Genesis does it say it is a parable? Genesis is described as history.

Let’s get another quote from St. Augustine:

The narrative indeed in these books is not cast in the figurative kind of language you find in the Song of Songs, but quite simply tells of things that happened, as in the books of the Kingdoms and other like them… [S]ome people think they should not be understood in their proper sense, but just figuratively, and they suggest that history, that is, the account of events that actually happened, begins from the moment when Adam and Eve, turned out of Paradise, came together to have children—as though forsooth we are quite familiar with people living as many years as they did, or with things like Enoch being taken, or a very old and barren woman giving birth, and other things of that sort! (Lit. Mean. Gen. VIII, 2(1)

Round 3

3 of 3

TheOGInjil

Con #5

FORFEITED

SomeDebatePerson

Pro #6

My opponent has been having trouble. End the debate.

GreatfulGoy

#21

Ill see it later

SomeDebatePerson

#20

--> @GreatfulGoy

Vote?

melcharaz

#19

--> @SomeDebatePerson, @TheOGInjil

I was gonna vote on this, then decided not to.

Not because i cannot, but because there are some things neither side brought up i feel would affect my vote.
1: the creation account was written in the perspective of a man called moses as he saw the backside of God.

No human was there when God made and shaped the heavens and earth.
2: the light that was present at that time was God. "Let there be light" in its understanding can be said "become illuminated" the wording is not suggesting a source, but a command. Jesus said "i am the light of the world" God is light.

3: the accounting of creation being old or young is most often depicted in the timeframe of genesis 1:1-2. Too many have tried and later understood the concept of morning and evening is the same as the jewish perspective as dictated to israel during the time of moses.
If the debate was about how old the earth was when before genesis 1:3 then that would have been a more worthy topic. My own aunt wrote a book on how satan ruled the earth and then was cast down pre genesis 1:3.

4: thousands of genealogies would have to be ommited to make the world millions or billions of years old. And the bible consistently shows there are less than 50 generations from adam to jesus. Even accounting for all books listing genealogies.

5:somedebateperson has got to stop referencing people AFTER the bible in biblical debates, all you are doing is introducing caveat's which have no influence and frankly are unbiblical.

In the future refer to https://www.debatecraft.com/forum/c/debatecraft/posts/gh/topic-rubricsuggestion

On how to order a debate and debate description.

Savant Administrator

#18

--> @SomeDebatePerson

I messaged TheOriginalInjil2 about changing his password, ball's in his court.

SomeDebatePerson

#17

--> @Kohai, @Savant

Can you fix the problem with the account?

TheOriginalInjil2

#16

Unfortunately I have been signed out of my account when my username was changed and I can not get back into the account.

Kohai Administrator

#15

--> @TheOGInjil

The instigator always goes first. That said you could always create a setup where you waive the first round and the contender waives the last round. That’s what I did in one of my debates

Kohai Administrator

#14

--> @SomeDebatePerson

They can login under their new username

SomeDebatePerson

#13

--> @Kohai

If the name is changed, will that affect the login, and if JustAPerson is unaware of this change and is logged out, will it be impossible to login in?

TheOGInjil

#12

Or make it “TheOGInjil” lol

TheOGInjil

#11

--> @Savant

Can I change my username, or can you change it?
Just make it something like RandomChristian if you have to manually do it.

Kohai Administrator

#10

--> @TheOGInjil, @Savant

you will need to ask Savant to change your username.

TheOGInjil

--> @Kohai

Can I change my name so people stop making this mistake?

Kohai Administrator

--> @TheOGInjil, @SomeDebatePerson

I looked in the multi accounting report and don't see yo uas multi accounting plus your writing styles are very different. If you are the same person you'll slip up eventually. That said, I'll restrict you from voting on each other's debates. @SomeDebatePerson I restored your voting permissions you should now have the ability to vote.

SomeDebatePerson

--> @Kohai, @Savant

Can one of you prove we are not the same account for the doubters?

SomeDebatePerson

Yep

TheOGInjil

On account of being me, I know that Im not you, but that comment sounded so suspicious that it made me doubt it for a second

SomeDebatePerson

--> @Mag1cman

We are totally not the same account.

Mag1cman

--> @TheOGInjil, @SomeDebatePerson

If both of you are the same person the site mods will catch onto it.

TheOGInjil

--> @SomeDebatePerson

Lol go for it. This is on if the Bible teaches a young earth by the way, not on if scientific data does.

SomeDebatePerson

--> @TheOGInjil

So you want me to argue for young earth? I can easily do that.

Round 1

Introduction

Burden of Proof

Genealogies

Meaning of Yom

The Literal Sense of Scripture

Round 2

Round 3

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