In In
This assumption is one of the main flaws in their argumentation. Even so the Bible is true We cannot take just any translation and interpret it word by word, When the Bible was written several thousand years ago it was not even written In the language it was first conceived. The Hebrew text of the Bible It’s already a translation of many languages that are lost today. When we read the Bible, most of us have to use a translation of that already translated Hebrew text. If you think it does not matter in which language we read the Bible you are mistaken! It is not possible to translate a text in a way that it preserves its full meaning, as well as it is not possible to translate a text without interpreting it. Every translation requires the understanding of the Language, the culture and the context. How difficult it is to translate the Bible is very easy to prove, just count the number of different English translations and how different they are in some perspectives! Most translators or translation teams surely tried to give their best to deliver a true translation of the Bible, however they are different! Sometimes we even use translations that are based on other translations and do not have that much in common with the original text any more. The very popular King James Bible for example was translated based on a modified Latin version: A Latin Bible which was created over 1500 years ago, on the order of the Catholic church, in a first attempts to create a unified Bible. Actually this original Latin translation was lost and scientist nowadays are working on recreating it by comparing the early copies that still exist to derive the original translation. The Problem was that the monks copying the Bible words were so used to their old and beloved phrases that the uniform translation did not stay that uniform for too long. Today most modern translations of the Bible try to use the original sources anyway.
Martin Luther
was one of the first to create a complete translation of the Bible into a common
language (German) based on the original texts. Even so we know much more about
the Bible than people 500 years ago, we are far away from understanding what
was natural for people two thousand years ago.
Another pretty common mistake is based on the idea that only what we can find and read about in the Bible can be true or godly. Even so we should realize that neither computers nor airplanes are mentioned in the Bible they exist, none the less, some people say that others things cannot be right when they are not mentioned in the Bible like for example evolution, or as creationists would call it “Darwinism”, sure “Darwinism” is not mentioned in the Bible, Darwin was born more than 2000 Years after the Bible record of creation was written, and all he did by the way was studying Gods creation! He was wondering about the details that are not found in the Bible, Darwin himself never questioned the existence of God. As millions of Europeans which seem to have no Problem to except creation and evolution not as opposites but just as different records for the same process. The basis of evolution however is found in the Bible, in the Old Testament Jacobs (black and sprinkled) sheep are multiplying while the white ones are getting less and less. So, the gift of God that made Jacobs flock grow was dominant and recessive inheritance of genes, beside mutation one of foundation blocks of evolution.
The only explanation I can see for this denial of creation thru evolution is the absence of faith. You can believe in a 6 Day creation, but not in a 6 Ages creation? Why? Because nobody can watch it? Or because nobody lives that long? Sorry but god was not worried about spectators, nor is he framed in our perception of time. For God, the Bible tells us, 1000 Years are as a Day and a Day is as 1000 Years. That alone should tell us enough about the pointlessness of an argumentation that tries to prove the world is 1) just 5600 Years old 2) Creation took place in just 6 Days of 24 hours.
Jesus tells
us that he can reveal us only as much as we can understand, as God always only
reveals us as much as we can understand. What point would he have had to reveal
how creation really worked at a time when his people did not even have words
to write it down?
When I asked my six year old son what he believed how the world was created, He told me it was pretty simple god created the world in the big bang. And for my perspective I couldn’t have said it better. And what better words could there be for the Big Bang as “and it was light”. While creationists argue that the six days of creation are literal 24 hour days, other people have problems with that assumption. Not only that the sun was not visible before the forth day, the human idea of day could not have existed before the six day when man was created. Another problem is the translation of the words Yom that is used as day. Yom can have the number of meanings starting with only the daylight hours passing 24 hour days, weeks, months, seasons or times of regency’s up to ages of time. Which of these was a really meant was not that important for people two thousand years ago but seems to be for some today. I find it much more astonishing that the creation story of the Bible is more or less in sync with the creation that we can experience thru science, Given the fact that the people writing it two thousand years ago had not the scientific knowledge we have today they gave a pretty good picture of what might have happened in the last few billion years. The creation of the world cannot really be explained by science. The more we know the more we see that what we know is nothing Even so we can explain some parts of creation to date we find more open spaces the more we seek More than enough space for god, a god that gave the rules In Greek “logos” of creation, A god that did not create trees leaf by leaf But the principle of tree, a god that did not create millions of species of insects but created the environment for insects to develop, a god that is still creating today! The living god!
When creationists try to tell us that only by accepting their translation of the Bible, word by word we could really see the living god, I have to tell them their god must have been dead for 2,000 years now, my god is still alive and still creating . Creationists seem still to fight a science culture that stopped roughly 50 years ago, a science culture that assumed it could explain everything a science culture where simple laws were used to explain the world. Today’s science has changed And so has our view of god that era of the crusades is over We live under the new covenant, the laws of Moses do not applied to us in the same way they did to people 2,000 years ago. Where does it say in the Bible that the universe was not created by evolution? Actually the Bible does not mention the word evolution once neither confirming nor denying it. But yes, it recognizes genetics, When Joseph’s sprinkled flock in Genesis 23 gets bigger and bigger It just follows the rules of genetics And Joseph calls it a gift of god.
Another good question is: Why should the earth lie to us? When we examine the age of the earth with scientific measures, why should it lie to us? If the earth was created by god and not by the devil as it says in genesis the earth should give us a true representation off its age. My god is not a false and deceiving god that plants false evidence to test its disciples. This would be the devil’s job, but when we can trust the Bible it was God, who created the earth not the devil.
When the creation story of the Bible was written the most important part was the creatorship off the lord, and to support that creatorship the writers chose to write what they meant to know about the creation, Even when God inspired the writers with the picture of the real creation of the world, The writers wouldn’t have had the means to transport that knowledge their vocabulary would not have had any better words for the big bang then to say “and god spoke it was light”. Even dinosaurs are mentioned in the creation, if we do not read the King James translation which makes them “whales”. We know so little about the real meaning of the text today that we can not to assume, we could read these paragraphs from the Bible as a history lesson.
I hope this little essay makes sense to someone and helps you to believe in the one true god, who created heavens and earth in about 4 billion years not 144 hours.
(c) 2002-2003 Frank Gorgas-Waller