March 20, 2008:Traditions	Just a few more weary days and then... I'll fly away... And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
	December 29, 2007:New Year's 2008
	November 3, 2007:How To Be Successful in Christian Ministry
	October 23, 2007:Salmon

Creation 101: Satan and the Earth William H. Haller

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. That is a nice simple declarative sentence that should be easy for anyone to understand. Yet it has created about as much division between the church and science, to say nothing of humanity in general, as any other.

On the one hand, many of the more vocal in the church would add up the recorded ages listed in the genealogies of the Bible and say, "Well 6,000 or so years ago it all started. End of discussion. If you don't agree with us, we don't care. We won't listen to anything you say anyway." On the other hand, the more vocal scientists say, "You're a bunch of raving crackpots! Nobody should listen to anything you have to say on any subject because we know you are wrong on this one specific point."

This back and forth banter turns ugly at times. I suspect my feedback comment load will turn more viral just for opening this subject. But there are some things that must be considered on the church side. This article deals with the first of those issues.

Those who take the Bible literally (and I include myself among those) must accept the entire Bible literally unless figurative language is expressly used. We don't just accept the convenient bits that fit with our views of the moment. We look at the Bible as a whole and figure out what the entire work is trying to tell us about subjects it claims authority over. There are host of things the Bible is completely silent about. In some cases general precepts can be taken from its writings to guide in understanding or taking a stance on those items. For others, it simply provides no information.

In that light, there are some scriptures that simply don't fit in with an age of the Earth in the 6,000 year time frame. In particular, these involve Lucifer's reign, rebellion, and the putting down of that rebellion. None of these events can be placed in a post Adam time frame. So when did they occur? Let us examine these scriptures in detail.

First, let's look at a description of Lucifer in his glory as recorded in Ezekiel 28:11-17. The first 19 verses in this chapter deal with prophecy of the upcoming destruction of the prince/ king of Tyrus (Ithobalus II according to Josephus). There is much in this chapter that is a double reference. Some of it applies literally to the king of Tyrus, physically living in his appointed place in history. Other verses cannot be applied to any physical human, so refer to Lucifer when acting through the earthly king of Tyrus. Some verses describe what happened to each.

What, in verses 11 through 19, lead us to believe that they might apply to Lucifer? The following list is from my Dake's Annotated Reference Bible

In Isaiah 14:12-15 we are presented with a description of the time of his fall. In this passage we learn some key things.

The scriptures in this section are all past tense. "fallen from heaven", "which didst weaken the nations", "hast said in thy heart". This places the events in the past. Yet they didn't happen from Adam on, so it pushes them back further. The wording used for nations (Heb. goy, trans. Gentiles, nation, nations, people, and heathen hundreds of times, and never trans. angels. The nations he ruled over and weakened then, must have been made up of men.

He had a throne, which implies rule. He said that he would ascend above the clouds to be like the most High which implies his rule was in a place with clouds (Earth). He will ascend to heaven (What from Gen. 1:1 is not heaven - Earth). And he fell from that place - and was cut down to the ground. Sounds like something must have been around here on Earth before Adam is created in Gen. 2:7.

Other scriptures of note:

• Gen 1:2 says "and the earth was without form and void. The Hebrew verb in the original text for the word was is to become. It literally reads and the earth became without form and void.
• The phrase without form is from the Hebrew tohu, literally waste, desolation. But in Isa. 45:18 the Bible clearly states that God didn't create the earth in a state of waste. This state came after the original creation of 1:1.
• The term void is from the Hebrew bohu, literally empty, ruin, void.
• The description of the chaotic state of the Earth in Jeremiah 4:23-26 should also be read in parallel with Gen. 1:2. The expression without form and void "tohu va bohu" is only found in these two spots. The reference in Jeremiah could not refer to the time of Noah's flood, because the description of the heavens is that there was no light. There was certainly light in Noah's day, but there wasn't in Gen. 1:2. Jeremiah goes on to say in his vision: There was no man, the birds were fled, the fruitful place was a wilderness, all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. There were also survivors of Noah's flood so the "there was no man" comment of his vision would also make this a different flood. The reference to broken down cities would imply that before this flood he saw, there was a civilization which is consistent with the Isa. 14 and Ezek. 28 references.
• The command given to Adam is the same as that given to Noah in Gen. 9:1. Specifically, in Gen. 1:28, God commands the creation to "replenish" the earth. The command is to fill the earth again. It is reasonable to believe that God meant the same thing both times. After all, the earth was inhabited before Noah.
• Ps. 104 records the original creation of the earth again. In verse 6, it says that after there was land, God covered the land with water above the mountains. In verse 7, it says, "at thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away." They are now constrained from covering the whole earth. This can't be the flood of Noah's time, because in that flood, the waters abated naturally.
• Mt. 13:35 Christ speaks about uttering things kept secret from the "foundation" of the world. The Greek katabole is more literally translated in other places as overthrow or casting down and the word that we get "catastrophe" from.
• 2 Pet. 3:5-7 records "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

  There was a world (Gr. kosmos social order) that was destroyed by a flood. Noah's social system was maintained through Noah, so this could not be a reference to that flood.

  The earth and heavens weren't affected by the flood of Noah's day - the people and animals drowned. But the planet and heavens weren't affected. This also implies that the social system that was obliterated was something other than that of Noah because the heavens and earth didn't get remade after that flood.

• One scripture that gives people trouble is 1 Cor. 15:45 where it says the first man Adam was made a living soul. Well, Adam was the first of this line of humans. I find it consistent with the fact that the fossil record of the planet has a number of humanoid like lines extending way back with very fragmentary evidence in some cases almost 7,000,000 years. The species living for the greatest length of time appears to be homo erectus which branches off to homo neanderthalensis, and homo floresiensis and (if the anthropologists are to be believed, homo sapiens, all occurring quite recently in the geologic scale of things (2M to 160,000 years). All except homo sapiens disappeared, not to be seen again in very recent history (35-13,000 years). Homo sapiens continued on (or was recreated if you believe the Bible.) It sounds like the Bible and science are more in agreement than the scientists or many Christians would have you believe.

The Bible has room for and requires some sort of pre-Adamite population of the earth to be self-consistent. This population was civilized (lived in cities at least). The Bible never says much about the details of this population, because they aren't the focus of the Bible. But it definitely does allude to them. It doesn't say how long they were on the face of the planet. It only says that God wiped them out.

The Bible also doesn't really say how long man was in the garden of Eden. It doesn't really even say if Cain was their first child or if there were many before them. Cain and Abel were the individuals who mattered as far as Genesis 4 was concerned, so their birth's are mentioned specifically. Yet there were enough people around by the time of Genesis 4:17 for Cain to build a city (smaller than current standards to be sure, but a city none-the-less). God's only purpose in recording much of the genealogy that is present in the Bible is to provide a genealogy for Christ.

See the companion article: A Perspective on Time (or Space is Really, Really Big!)