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July 14, 2013 |
| Antediluvian | ||
The word Antediluvian means "before the flood". It covers the period from the creation of the universe to when Noah and his family closed the doors of the Ark, Genesis 1:1 to midway through Genesis 7. You would think that this period, possibly as long as 2000 years, would deserve more chapters.
We often think of life and things at that time being basically the same as now but maybe more green than it is now. This view is often encouraged by some of the drawings that we see depicting that time. Few people realize it but the earth during this period of time was very different from the earth we know today.
In this lesson we will look at that world, what it was like, and why it was the way it was.
I believe there is a God, he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he created all of the universe and he gave the people of that creation messages telling them who he was, what he expected of them, and what he would do for them. I believe this God is all powerful which includes being powerful enough to preserve the messages that he has sent so that all humanity may see them. Therefore I believe that the whole Bible is the word of God uncorrupted in any significant way. Therefore I believe the Genesis creation account is literally true.
But not all Christians believe that. Many Christians try to reconcile the message of scientists with what the Bible says and in doing so they reinterpret what the Bible says. One way they do this is to allow for longer days, for example days that are about 500,000,000 years long. It's true that the word used for day in Genesis has many meanings and can mean a long period of time. But these people should look more closely at what the Bible says. Here are the days of creation
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1 |
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. |
And there was evening and there was morning, one day. |
I've divided these verses up this way to make one thing very clear – every day ends with an evening and a morning. These words show that the text is talking about literal 24 hours days, not undefined periods of time. This day says "one day" while the others say "second day", "third day", etc. This is also a reason to believe that the text intends to convey a literal day. Also the earliest available writings on Genesis by the Jewish sages all consider the days as literal days. We also need to ask ourselves if God can create the universe in a thousand years, or a million years, or a billion years, why can't he create it in 6 days? Is he not powerful enough? Is it too difficult for him?
Attempts to reconcile the Bible with science come in many forms. Some people have tried to show that the creation account is really very similar to the Big-Bang Theory in that things happen in the same order. No they don't. The earth is created first and it is created before light exists.
Some people ask how the creation account of days could be correct when the sun didn't exist until the fourth day and there couldn't be evening and morning without it. As long as you have a rotating earth and light separated from dark you can have evening and morning. We are used to associating evening and morning with sunset and sunrise because that's all we've ever known. But it doesn't need to be that way.
We need to consider that the author is describing events where good words don't always exist to describe the events. This is because the events have never happened since and better words were never needed. The English language frequently creates new words as new things need to be described.
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6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse heaven. |
And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. |
Many people do not notice what is happening here. A layer of the water covering the earth is being lifted up to form an expanse between the layer and the remainder of the water. It doesn't give us any hint about the thickness of the layer of water. From our own experience we know that water in a swimming pool can be quite deep before the light through it is reduced much.
How high up was this layer? This translation says the expanse was called heaven. To understand this we need to understand that the Bible lists 3 heavens. The first and best known is the Heaven of God. It is a spiritual realm. The universe has two heavens. One is the atmosphere of the earth where birds fly and the other is everything outside of that, including the moon, planets and stars. Given this it is only reasonable to accept that the expanse referred to here as heaven is what we call the atmosphere. Therefore this water would have been above or at the edge of our atmosphere.
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9 Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. |
13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day. |
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14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. |
19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. |
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20 Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." 21 God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." |
23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. |
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24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 26 Then 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 sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. |
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. |
God gives man authority over everything. The word used here is "rule". Other translations use "reign", "have dominion", and "master."
Notice that every living thing eats vegetation. Therefore teeth and digestive systems for many of the animals had to be much different than they are now.
The earth has been created but we don't always appreciate what that means. God has created a complete functioning system. For example he didn't just create the moon he created the moon with the right speed and direction so that it would orbit the earth rather than crash into it or fly away from it.
If there was an astrophysicist on earth on the seventh day he would point his telescope at the moon and stars and say "Given my measurements I can tell you where the moon was 10 years ago, or 1000 years ago." And he would say "I can see the light from a star that is 10 billion light years away. Because light takes 10 billion years to get from that star to me I know that the universe and the earth are at least 10 billion years old".
The scientist would be making a mistake. He didn't see creation and he doesn't see God so he assumes there is nothing going on but natural processes. He assumes that he is able to see and understand all these natural processes and that makes it possible for him to describe the past as well as predict the future.
In the same way God would have created some dead rotted trees because that's what some bugs need to live. He would have created dung for dung beetles, because that's what they need. The ground already had to have the nutrients in it so that plants could live.
If a biologist was on the earth on the seventh day he would say "I see an adult deer that looks to be about 4 years old. I also see an adult elephant that looks to be about 25 years old. So I know the earth is at least that old"
We are never told Adam's age when he was created but we have no reason to believe that he was created as a baby wearing diapers. Instead the Bible gives us every reason to think he was created as a mature man. And more than that he was likely created with the ability to control his bodily functions and to speak a language and there is evidence that he knew how to read that language.
God created the universe with its stars, planets, and moons and the earth with its ecosystem fully in motion and stable. The result is that it looks like it has always been in motion. To an observer you could not tell that it was created over the past 6 days.
Birds would have been created already knowing how to fly. Without that they all would have died. It's speculation but it's even possible that a bird was created in-flight – not only knowing how to fly, but flying. Trees were created bearing fruit.
In Arizona there is a site called Biosphere II. It is now a tourist attraction but it was designed as an attempt to create a fully functioning ecosystem. An enormous glass building was built. Scientists brought in many kinds of bugs, animals, birds, plants, and so on. When they were ready a few scientists went inside and it was sealed. Not even air would could enter or leave.
Almost immediately things started going out of control. Some species died off, others grew out of control, it couldn't produce enough food, the people started fighting, and the air started to become dangerously low in oxygen. The rules of the experiment started to change. They started exchanging air so that fresh air could be brought in. They introduced pesticides, fungicides, etc. to control what was out of control. In the end the experiment was shutdown early and declared a success.
The earth was different in other ways from what we know now. Genesis 2 says
5 […] the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth [..] 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.
Some translations use the words "mist", "fountains", "springs" instead of streams. The impression given is of very fine trickles of water coming up from the ground.
But man became very sinful and God decided to destroy all of mankind except for Noah and his family and representatives of the animals. When Noah had finished building the Ark, the flood began. This is the most readable translation I could get from a Hebrew-English Interlinear for Genesis 7
11 […] all of the springs of the vast abyss were rent and cracks in the heavens were opened
The words "rent" and "rend" are not used much anymore. They mean "to tear or split apart or into pieces violently1" The holes where the trickles of water had been coming from were ripped open and water started to gush from them. The water that God had placed above the atmosphere broke loose and started pouring down. And it continued for forty days. Then Genesis 8 says
2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained
Noah and his family stepped off the Ark and into a very different earth. Mankind will begin eating meat as will lions and tigers. The food chain that we know begins now. The rain cycle and weather patterns that we know also begin and we see the first appearance of clouds and rainbows. The lifespan of mankind also drops very quickly from hundreds of years to 120 years.
God created the universe in 6 days. Then Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the universe. From then on the universe labored under sin and mankind increased in sin. After a time God had to destroy all of mankind, leaving only a remnant. As a result the earth was never the same.
Since the sin of Adam and Eve mankind has chased after short term pleasures and thrown away and trampled on the good things that God has given him. Let us be careful that we do not do the same and miss the blessings God has for us.