The General Anti-Creationism FAQ
The Bible
by Jim MerittOriginally formatted for the web by
Tedd Hadley
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And in several places in the Bible, the sky is referred to as a vault, with the stars stuck on it. Genesis 1 refers to water above this vault (an idea no doubt borrowed from the Babylonian cosmology, which pictured the Earth as a flat disk inside a cosmic bubble in a cosmic sea). The Book of Revelation states that the stars will someday fall out of the sky like figs from a tree. The Bible says little about the shape of the Earth, referring in one place to the "circle" of the Earth (a disk shape), and in another place to the "four corners" of the Earth (a rectangular surface shape). In one of the Gospels, the Devil tempted Jesus by taking him up a mountain where he could see "all the kingdoms of the world" (no further info on this remarkable mountain). This would only be possible if the Earth was flat.
The Bible does indicate more clearly, however, that the Earth is motionless. Witness Joshua's telling the Sun (and not the Earth) to stop just so he could win one of his battles, and some of the Psalms that state that the Earth is motionless. The Joshua story can be used to find a Biblical estimate of the distances of the Sun and the Moon from the Earth. Since we are told that the Sun was stopped to illuminate the Valley of Gibeon, and the Moon to illuminate the Valley of Aijalon, we conclude that either one of them would have been insufficient for both -- and that requires that the Sun be low when viewed from the Moon's valley, as it were, and vice versa. This implies that the distances to the Sun and the Moon are comparable to the distance between the Valleys of Gibeon and Aijalon, which is about 10 mi.
In all fairness to the writers of the Bible, none of this cosmology is any worse than the cosmological pictures developed by surrounding peoples, with one exception. Ancient Greek proto-scientists (if that is the proper word) were, without any modern technology, able to establish that the Earth was approximately spherical, and were able to work out the approximate size of the Earth and the distance to the Moon. The distance to the Sun was more difficult, and almost all were agreed that the Sun moved around the Earth. But this knowledge was gained only after the Old Testament was written, though some of the writers of the New Testament may have learned of Aristotle's demonstration of the approximate sphericity of the Earth three centuries ago. The Greeks had data which anyone else living before modern times could collect, but they put the pieces together in the right fashion, and, for some reason, there is no hint of that in the Bible.
In the resolution from the 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church acted in September 1982 to "affirm its belief in the glorious ability of God to create in any manner," rejected "the rigid dogmatism of the 'Creationists' movement," and supported "scientists, educators, and theologians in the search for truth in this Creation that God has given and entrusted to us."
Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences before its meetings on Cosmology and Cosmogony in October 1981, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the statement of Pope Pius XII that the universe was created "millions of years ago" directly contrary to creationists views. The Pope declared that "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise..."
The Bible is accurate on other points, so it must be accurate on creation.
Leviticus 11:113,19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 list fowl, and both have bats in the list with heron, lapwing, and bat closing off the list. The bat is not a bird.
Leviticus 11:6 has a hare chewing its cud. Rabbits do no such thing.
reminder for Barry: "cud" is not "s---".
BTW: 'Gerah', the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does not mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated 'chew the cud' in the KJV is more exactly 'bring up the cud'. Rabbits do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that's that. Rabbits do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it. thanks to Robert Low
Leviticus 11:21-23 lists things with four legs. Among the list are locust, beetle (cricket in some translations), and grasshopper.
Psalms 58:8 says "as a snail melts..." Snails do not melt.
Gen 1:20-21 has the waters bringing forth Gen 2:19 has them coming from the ground. Maybe some one should tell them about eggs?
Genesis 30:39 cattle looking at pilled rods conceive and bring forth ringspeckled, speckeled and spotted calves. changing the characteristics of a descendant by showing them a rod just doesn't work...
Matthew 4:8 ..took upon a high mountain and shewed all the kingdoms of the world.
Genesis 3:14 "...and dust though shalt eat all the days of thy life." Snakes, while built low, do not eat dirt.
(Referring to a genesis "day") It ALWAYS (Morris's stress) refers to a twenty-four-hour day.
So much for the apologists...
Later Biblical characters (Moses & Paul) refer to the fact of creation, not the myth.
Are we to take people that we have no independent record of as authoritative references in the only document they ARE mentioned in? This is like Santa Claus in The Night Before Christmas testifying as to the veracity of the "visions of sugarplums".
Even Jesus Christ believed in the Genesis record of creation.
Ibid, though this is clearly an attempt at pleading from authority.
The Pope doesn't agree with this statement. Nor do many other leading religious figures. They will be glad that this civil engineer pointed it out for them...
Place of man's origin: Evidence confirms origin in one locality.
Observing population distributions takes divine inspiration? One successful group spread and killed off the less successful ones. Supports evolution, too.
OK Bible scholars, where does Moses say man came from? The claim here of proof of God's inspiration is wrong, even if Moses got it right. Man came from Africa, despite years of searching for human ancestors in Europe and Asia. Evidence says Man came from Africa, despite years of searching for human ancestors in Europe and Asia.
The actual order should be more like 1: beginning, 2: light, 3: sun, stars, 4: atmosphere, 5: earth, 6: dry land, 7: sea creatures, 8: moon, 9: beasts (amphibians and reptiles), 10: fruiting plants (which is what Genesis specifies), 11: air creatures, more beasts, 12: man. I'm not sure the order is exact (the moon may have come earlier, for example), but it is more accurate than the Genesis version.
Earth is unsupported (Job 26:7)
Job 38:4 says Earth has a foundation. Job 26:11 says heaven is supported by pillars.
Matthew 4:8 ..took upon a high mountain and shewed all the kingdoms of the earth. Not on a round surface he didn't...
Water cycle is described (Eccl. 1:7)
Job 38:22 says that snow and hail are kept in storehouses.
Not unsurprising. It was written while the history was current events.
The Bible is harmonious throughout.
Given the amount of editing it went through, you would expect it to be reasonably harmonious, but it still contains contradictions. For example, Matt. 27:5-8 vs. Acts 11:18-19 and Matt. 1:16 vs. Luke 3:23.
Numerous prophecies fulfilled.
Prophecies weren't meant to predict the future. The word originally meant "divinely inspired speech." Not until 1300 did it come to mean "predicting future events." [Oxford English Dictionary] Besides, there are lots of mundane ways to predict the future:
All of the predictions below can be fit into one or more of these categories.
There are further scientific difficulties in the Bible, In one of the Books of Kings, there is a reference to a "molten sea" with a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits. This would imply that pi = 3. Though this is certainly a convenient approximation (5% too small), it is not exact. Thus, one part of the Bible is not "absolute truth". In the part of Leviticus which lists proscribed animals, we find that rabbits (or hares, depending on the translation) chew the cud and that grasshoppers have four legs. Since rabbits twitch their noses, that might lead to the misunderstanding that they are ruminants; but the number of legs possessed by grasshoppers should have been easy to find, since several people in the Bible reportedly ate grasshoppers, and one can always count the number of legs a grasshopper has before eating one. But this may have been an extrapolation from knowledge of larger multi-legged animals. There is also the classification of bats as birds, even though a bat looks a lot like a mouse with front legs turned into wings, and most other "birds" don't.
Finally, I note that the New Testament contains the view that disease is caused by demonic possession and can be cured by exorcism. Jesus himself was something of an exorcist. He drove some demons into the Gadarene swine, and drove them into a lake, which suggests that he may have been unable to destroy these demons. He even states in his Sermon of the Mount that his followers ought not to brag about such accomplishments as how many demons they exorcised. Maybe the reason that crucifixes are supposedly so effective in driving out demons is because they duplicate the effect of Jesus the Exorcist. One wonders what effect the symbols of other religions would have -- has anyone ever tried exorcism with a Star of David or a star and crescent or a Hindu mandala or a Yin-Yang symbol or a statuette of the Buddha or a miniature Greek temple column or an Egyptian ankh or a Hammer and Sickle?
Fall of man: Records say civilization was man's original condition.
Which records are these? The Old testament? And of course. Without the civilization you don't have the records. So "as far back as they go" is civilization. When there isn't civilization, the records quit going.
This one is very interesting, it reveals the core prejudice of christian, and other, origins, that man is fallen from some primordial grace. The evolutionary evaluations of origins avoids the opposite prejudice as well, that evolution is always progressive. It says that the idea of progress in the condition of a lineage is misleading; change is reflected in adaptation and specialization which may be by turns successful or lethal.
First, mitochondrial DNA is NOT identical in all humans. However the differences can be used to construct a family tree of sorts, and the most reasonable interpretation of the data is that all modern humans inherited their mitochondria from one woman, dubbed Eve (possibly to bait creationists), who lived (I think) around 200 Kyears ago.
(The mutation rate observed for the mitochondrial DNA was used to establish the times involved.)
Second, the fact that the mitochondria of all of us can be traced to one woman does not mean we arose solely from her-- it just means that she's one of our common ancestors.
The maternal inheritance of mitochondria is analogous to the inheritance of last names in our paternalistic society.
The point is, there may have been many contemporaries of "Eve" who are also common ancestors of ours-- she just happens to be at the node of our common maternal line. If a consistent paternalistic society had existed throughout human history, (and nobody ever changed their names) we would probably all have the same last name; this would not mean that the first man to have this name was solely responsible for the human race, just that he would be at the node of our common paternal line.
(Creationist Institute of California). Refuted. Institute discredited and licence (to grant science degrees) recently revoked.
BTW: Those "footprints" in the Paluxy river bed are NOT human. A simple observation of the tracks reveal that while an arch is present forward of the heel, there are only three toes. If a track is observed which is uneroded, webbing is visible between the toes. A special on NOVA allowed these tracks to be visible to millions.
Dr. Walter Brown, now director of the Center for Scientific Creation in Phoenix, AZ.
Brown, may fall back on a rather novel technique that he has employed in the past -- denying having ever supported the idea. Brown first used this tactic not long after the Paluxy River tracks were shown conclusively to be either dinosaur tracks or erosion marks. When asked for his opinion, Brown claimed that he had NEVER supported the Paluxy River tracks. However, he was forced to 'fess up when shown the transcript of a local Ontario TV program, "Speaking Out," when he stated that Paluxy River was very good evidence for creationism.
A close reading of the first few chapters of the Bible reveals not one, but two different -- and contradictory -- stories of creation. These are from two of the (at least) four traditions that are interweaved in the first books of the Bible, the Priestly and Yahvist traditions, out of the set that includes the Elohist and Deuteronomist traditions. This conclusion is reached by consideration of stylistic elements (for example, the Priestly tradition is heavy on statistics, the Yahvist and Elohist traditions refer to the Deity as "Yahweh" and "Elohim", respectively, and the Deuteronomist tradition is found in the Book of Deuteronomy), and is generally accepted by non-literalist Biblical scholars (for a good introduction to the historical background behind the Bible, see Asimov's Guide to the Bible, both volumes).
Here is the order in the first (Genesis 1), the Priestly tradition:
Note that there are "days", "evenings", and "mornings" before the Sun was created. Here, the Deity is referred to as "Elohim", which is a plural, thus the literal translation, "the Gods". In this tale, the Gods seem satisfied with what they have done, saying after each step that "it was good".
The second one (Genesis 2), the Yahwist tradition, goes:
Then, there follows the story of the serpent leading Eve, and Adam, to eat that (unspecified) fruit, and get expelled from the Garden of Eden, whereupon that serpent was ordered to crawl on its belly (no mention of how it moved about before that). The Deity is referred to as "Yahweh" here, and creates plants, animals, and finally Eve for a lonely Adam. Yahweh seems to be trying to fix his creation as he goes, with not too satisfactory results -- his prime interest commits a big no-no (why not simply create a psychological inhibition to eating forbidden fruit? It would probably be more reliable).
Neither tale, it must be said, has much resemblance to the geological record, but in all fairness to the inventors of these tales, the geological record only became clear in the nineteenth century. I am not denying that one can come up with a Bible interpretation that somehow harmonizes these two tales, but such an interpretation would require rejection of the dogma of the literal truth of the Bible -- two contradictory statements cannot be true at the same time.
The first of the two stories is sometimes claimed to be a good match; "Let there be light" supposedly means the Big Bang. But the Big Bang happened well before the Earth even existed. There are other discrepancies. The Sun is almost certainly slightly older than the Earth, and the Moon is as old as the Earth, or a bit younger (from current theories of planetary formation; the time differences are ~100 million years out of 4.6 billion years). The stars have no single age, but have been forming ever since the galaxies came into existence (or even before!); some are older than the Earth, some younger. The order of appearance of various is terribly mixed up. Though blue-green algae are much older than any multicelled animal, the first land plants appear ~400 m.y. ago, as opposed to the first sea animals ~600 m.y. ago. Flowering plants (the most common land plants) appeared about ~120-150 m.y. ago, well after the first land animals appeared, approx 400 m.y. ago. Also, flying animals appear after closely related land animals appear; flying insects after early wingless ones, pterodactyls after proto-dinosaurs, birds after certain small carnivorous dinosaurs, and bats after early placental mammals. Some sea animals are descendants of land animals; consider (partially aquatic) otters, seals and sea lions and walruses, penguins, alligators and crocodiles, and sea turtles and (completely aquatic) whales and dolphins, sea snakes, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.
The second of the two stated that humanity originated in the Garden of Eden or a garden in Eden (depending on which translation you read). "Eden" turns out to be some marshland near where the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers flow into the Persian Gulf. And where did humanity actually originate? Charles Darwin proposed Africa because that's where our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and gorillas, live. This hypothesis turns out to be correct for nearly all of the hominid species, including Homo sapiens. All the earlier hominid species, the Australopithecines and earliest Homo, are found only in Africa; later species, like Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, seem to have originated in Africa and spread to other parts of the world.
And from the "Master Blaster": I have received the response to my article on the two creation stories in the Bible that one can somehow fit the Adam-and-Eve story into the Sixth Day of the first story. But I believe that this fit cannot be made. Why? Look again at the orders of creation:
The Six-Day Story:
The Adam-and-Eve Story:
The contradiction between the orders of creation between the two stories is rather glaring. There are other contradictions. As I mentioned earlier, in the first story, God creates according to a carefully laid-out plan, one set of entities at a time. He says after each episode of creation that "it was good," indicating that he is very satisfied with what he has done. On the seventh day, he rests from his labors (though we are not told why an omnipotent being might need to rest). In the second story, he seems to be fixing up as he goes, only to see the principal objects of his attention commit a grave no-no. Here goes: I create the first man, but he's all lonely. I create some plants for him. He's still lonely. I create lots of animals for him. He's still lonely. I create a woman for him, and he seems satisfied. I tell those two not to eat any fruit from that Tree of Knowledge, but that pesky snake talks them into eating some of its fruit anyway. I kick those two out of that garden, and I order that snake to crawl on its belly. Creating a Universe seems more trouble than it's worth!
Methods of creation differ; in the first story, God "says" "Let X be!" and X comes into existence; while in the second story, God uses a more physical approach, molding the first man out of dirt (yecch!) and then breathing on it. And likewise for the first woman. One doesn't have to know much chemistry to tell the difference between human flesh and typical dirt. The level of anthropomorphism differs; the second story features God "walking" in the Garden of Eden; while the first story says that the first people, at least one of each sex, were made "in his image" (nothing on which of the two sexes resembles God more). I have always suspected that it is really the other way around.
I am not sure what the "traditional" answer to this conundrum is (maybe it's simply "shut up and believe, you rotten infidel!"); but whatever it is, I'm sure that this analysis will hold up despite of it.
There are other curiosities. The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is an event not mentioned in any Egyptian chronicle; they barely mention Israel. There isn't even a "prettified" version like "Our great Pharaoh went on an expedition to chase down those rotten rebellious slaves and died a noble death in a big flood." It has been suggested that some of the Exodus events are garbled memories of the explosive volcanic eruption of Thera ~1400(?) BC (see Sagan on Velikovsky).
And the Joshua miracle (he told the Sun and the Moon to stand still just so he could win one of his battles) -- it is not mentioned in any other contemporary chronicle. If it happened, it would have took place in ~1200 BC. But Egyptians and Mesopotamians (in what is now Iraq) had had written language for over two thousand years, and their chroniclers would have written at length on this event, had it have happened. But they say NOTHING about this alleged event. There is the question of why the Earth's rotation and the Moon's motion were so carefully restored afterwards. That is evident from the study of such pre-Joshua monuments as the Great Pyramid of Egypt (check out Science and the Paranormal, Abell and Singer, eds.). It was constructed according to some precise astronomical alignments. The edges of this pyramid were aligned on north-south and east-west directions, as determined by post-Joshua surveying. And one tunnel is aligned to point at the star Thuban in Draco, while another points at the constellation Orion, as determined by extrapolating post-Joshua measurements of precession. The Milankovitch climate cycles over the last couple million years have a component due to precession; its rate seems unchanged from its post-Joshua value. So, if this miracle happened, the Earth must have started rotating again with exactly the same position of spin axis, relative to itself and to the stars, and at exactly the same period as before. The Moon must have started orbiting at exactly the same distance as before. A simpler hypothesis: this alleged event never happened.
Immanuel Velikovsky certainly understood these problems with these alleged Biblical events, which is why he proposed his bouncing-planets hypothesis. He claimed that these catastrophes were remembered not only in the Bible, but in a host of other ancient legends. Carl Sagan has written a truly devastating criticism of his theories (check out Scientists Confront Velikovsky or Broca's Brain or Science and the Paranormal). I wonder, where is the Velikovsky cult now? Have they been claiming that the recent flyby of Neptune (and the not-so-recent one of Uranus) provide yet more evidence for the correctness of Velikovsky's theories? That would be in line with what they have claimed for every other Solar System discovery since Velikovsky published Worlds in Collision.
In the resolution from the 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church acted in September 1982 to "affirm its belief in the glorious ability of God to create in any manner," rejected "the rigid dogmatism of the 'Creationists' movement," and supported "scientists, educators, and theologians in the search for truth in this Creation that God has given and entrusted to us."
Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences before its meetings on Cosmology and Cosmogony in October 1981, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the statement of Pope Pius XII that the universe was created "millions of years ago" (in european millions is american billions. directly contrary to creationists views. The Pope declared that "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise..."
From Theology Today, October 1982, 39(3):249-59
"Creationists have set themselves apart from other Christians by intimately interweaving their story of the "who" of creation with the "how" of creation. For them, it is the flat earth problem all over again. Creationists have taken a theory of creation which is testable and tied it to an inherently untestable story about God. In the process, they have declared a testable theory to be also inherently untestable." ... "Creationists follow a predictable pattern as they find it easier to deny physical evidence than to deny God. Physical evidence, no matter how overwhelming, can be dismissed as the work of the devil."
(writer is a Presbyterian layman who has organized conferences on Genesis and Geology held at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico)
"Christianity and Crisis" (April 26, 1982) 42:108-15
(referring to the absure (widely held opinion) Arkansaw law) The authors of the Arkansaw law sought to separate the Creator implied by Creation-Science from the notion of "religion". This is an approach to the "first and worst" Christian heresy - the denial of monotheism. ...
Clever - if it is a religion, it is not a science and should not be treated as one. If it is a science and not a religion would be a Christian heresy. If they use the Bible to support their "science", by the words of their Bible they shall burn.
By Father Bruce Vawter, a Roman Catholic read this paper at the Conference on Creationism inAmerican Culture and Theology held at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago on October 9, 1982.
(extracts summarized - you go read the whole thing if you want) His objections are:
He then proceeds to preach on these points. Some relevant points:
By Nahum M. Sarna. Was teacher at University of London, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and since 1967 has been Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University. Extracted from his "UNDERSTANDING GENESIS"
The first biblical account of creation may be found in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Within the literary framework are described the divine activities within a seven-day period
The second biblical account of creation (2:4b-24) opens with "When the Lord God made ..." and goes through how the entire surface of the earth was watered by a flow that would well up through subterranean springs. The main topic of this account is the formation of man and his placement in the garden of Eaden.
(my note: -2- accounts.)
"Biblical man, despite his undoubted intellectual and spiritual endowments, did not base his views of the universe and its laws on the critical use of empirical data (my aside - i.e not scientific method) Rather, his thinking was imaginative, and his expressions of thought were concrete, pictorial, emotional, and poetic (my aside - get thee behind me, literalists!) Hence, it is a naive and futile exercise to attempt to reconcile the biblical accounts of creation with the findings of modern science. Any correspondence which can be discovered or ingeniously established between the two must surely be nothing more than mere coincidence."
The Creationist young-earth agenda does great damage to Christianity itself, because it makes Christianity seem ridiculous to many intelligent and informed people.
"Another possible danger is that in presenting the gospel to the lost and in defending God's truth we ourselves will seem to be false. It is time for Christian people to recognize that the defense of this modern, young-Earth, Flood-geology creationism is simply not truthful. It is simply not in accord with the facts that God has given. Creationism must be abandoned by Christians before harm is done. The persistent attempt of the creationist movement to get their points of view established in educational institutions can only bring harm to the Christian cause. Can we seriously expect non-Christian educational leaders to develop a respect for Christianity if we insist on teaching the brand of science that creationism brings with it? Will not the forcing of modern creationism on the public simply lend credence to the idea already entertained by so many intellectual leaders that Christianity, at least in its modern form, is sheer anti-intellectual obscurantism? I fear that it will."
[Christianity and the Age of the Earth, by Davis Young, Zondervan 1982. p. 163.]
)) When I made my comment about "anybody" being able to interpret Scripture )) in his own way, I was stating a fact of life. In our society, thank God, )) we have a First Amendment that gives Joe, me, you, and everyone the )) right to interpret Scripture in any way that conscience dictates, no )) matter how foolish or inconsistent it might seem to others. ) )And the right to "engage in Science" no matter how foolish or inconsistent )it might seem to others? Absolutely .... but that don't make it science )does it, nor absolve Dr. Gish from being labeled a cretin here.
Dr. Gish also has the RIGHT to submit his scientific ideas for publication in refereed journals. He chooses not to do so. Joe Applegate (and Snake Handlers, and you, and I) also have the RIGHT to submit our ideas on Biblical interpretation for publication in scholarly journals.
These journals have the RIGHT to reject articles that do not measure up to the standards of the field. I certainly agree with you that scholars have standards that they apply in their fields. Not any interpretation of Scripture would be acceptable to a scholarly journal. But the point is, scholars do not and should not dictate people's personal beliefs about religion.
)The lesson may be to clearly indicate that the basis for your position when )unsupported by sufficient evidence is one which is arrived at through certain )metaphysical and philosophical assumptions (faith). You may then specify )why you believe that your assumptions (faith) are reasonable .... you may )not precede your statements with, "We know ..... ". When evolutionary )scientists (at least many of the ones I've read or encountered) master )this discipline perhaps then ....
Science has nothing to do with "faith." Science makes no claim that the conclusions that it arrives at are "true," NO MATTER HOW STRONG THE EVIDENCE MAY BE. On the contrary, it ASSUMES that they may not be true and has invented a procedure to test these conclusions, the only possible results of which will either be to show that they are NOT true or to determine that "further research is required." If someone says that science has "proved" that such- and-such is true, then that is indeed "faith," but it has nothing to do with science.
Religious aspects of the Creation/Evolution controversy are appropriately directed to this group, I believe. I've no interest in debating this issue, but only want to suggest some reading for those who are interested in pursuing the topic. Relatively few books discuss the religious (rather than the scientific) side of the controversy, and I believe that this short list includes the best of them.
Is God a Creationist?, edited by Roland Mushat Frye (New York: Scribners, 1983), is a collection of essays by people of various religious persuasions: Conservative (Davis Young, mentioned by Rob Day), Roman Catholic (Pope John Paul II), Middle-of-the-Road (Conrad Hyers) and others. Although none of the contributors takes the young-Earth Creationist side, it is a relatively well- balanced book on the whole. The editor is Schelling Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton.
The Meaning of Creation, by Conrad Hyers (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984). Hyers is a middle-of-the-road theologian who argues that Creationism is not only bad science, but also poor theology. I found it provocative reading. The author is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota.
Science and Earth History, by Arthur Strahler (Buffalo: Prometheus 1987) is probably the most authoritative and complete discussion of all aspects of the C/E controversy. Although most of the book is devoted to scientific issues, the first 80 pages or so discuss philosophical and religious aspects. This book has an excellent index and exhaustive references, and is the book I recommend to those who only want to read one book on the subject. Strahler is Professor Emeritus of Geology, and former Chair of the Department of Geology, Columbia University.
Evolution and the Christian Doctrine of Creation: A Whiteheadian Interpretation, by Richard H. Overman (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967). This you may have to look for. I found it in the university library. Liberal theology.
Finally, I want to second Rob Day's recommendation that Christians who are concerned about the effects of Creationism on Christianity ponder what Davis Young says in his book, Christianity and the Age of the Earth. Mysteriously allowed to go out of print by its publisher (the religious house Zondervan) soon after it came out, the book is now available again from Artisan Sales, PO Box 2497, Thousand Oaks CA 91360 for only $8.50 postpaid. Young is a knowledgeable geologist who, although doubting evolution itself on religious grounds, nevertheless firmly opposes young-Earth Creationism as scientifically invalid.
New Catholic Study Bible, Saint Jerome Edition, Literary Forms of the Bible, pages 1360-61:
"The first eleven chapters of Genesis are much closer to mythical forms of writing. Myth, in this case, must not be understood to mean that the events told were fictional or untrue. A myth is a profoundly true statement which speaks to universal aspects of life and reality. It is a statement whose meaning rises above time and space. Although biblical myths were influenced by other mythical statements of the ancient world, they are used by the biblical writers to express history's relationship to God. They point to history's origins at the moment of the world's creation. They speak of the beginnings where history touches eternity, and, therefore, to moments which cannot be historically described. Myth is thus essential to biblical faith. We do the Scriptures a serious injustice if we read myth as though it were history. Such a tendency must be resisted along with the opposite tendency to read biblical history as though it were mythical. By reading the early chapters of Genesis with sensitivity to poetic symbol and imagery, we can easily avoid such temptations."
By Davis A. Young, a conservative evangelical writer who is also a geologist. Autor of two books devoted to separating evangelical theology from young-earth and creation-science theories.
"What is much more likely to undermine Christian faith is the dogmatic and persistent effort of creationists to present their theory before the public, Christian and non-Christian, as in accord with Scripture and nature, especially when the evidence to the contrary has been presented again and again by competent Christian Scientists (e.g. Davis A. Young, Creation and the Flood, D. E. Wonderly's God's Time-Records in Ancient Sediments, and numerous articles published over the years in Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation) It is sad that so much Christian energy has to be wasted in proposing and refuting the false theory of catastrophic Flood geology. But Christians need to know the truth and to be warned of error."
"The faith of many Christian people could be hindered when they ultimately realize that the teachings of the creationists are simply not in accord with the facts."
"Furthermore, creationism and Flood geology have put a serious roadblock in the way of unbelieving scientists. Although Christ has the power to save unbelievers in spite of our foolishness and poor presentation of the gospels, Christians should do all they can to avoid creating unnecessary stumbling blocks to the reception of the gospel."
In closing: "We are all dealing with God's world and with God-created facts...We must handle the data reverently and worshipfully, yet we should not be afraid of where the facts may lead. God made those facts, and they fit into His comprehensive plan for the world."
"Another possible danger is that in presenting the gospel to the lost and in defending God's truth we ourselves will seem to be false. It is time for Christian people to recognize that the defense of this modern, young-Earth, Flood-geology creationism is simply not truthful. It is simply not in accord with the facts that God has given. Creationism must be abandoned by Christians before harm is done. The persistent attempt of the creationist movement to get their points of view established in educational institutions can only bring harm to the Christian cause. Can we seriously expect non-Christian educational leaders to develop a respect for Christianity if we insist on teaching the brand of science that creationism brings with it? Will not the forcing of modern creationism on the public simply lend credence to the idea already entertained by so many intellectual leaders that Christianity, at least in its modern form, is sheer anti-intellectual obscurantism? I fear that it will."
[Christianity and the Age of the Earth, by Davis Young, Zondervan 1982. p. 163.]
All of my statements, past, present and future express solely my opinions and/or beliefs and do not in any way represent those of any of my employer's unless such is specifically stated in the content of the text.
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