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Saturday, January 26, 2008

Could there have been death before the Fall?

It is often said that the earth must not be very old, because death could not have occurred before the Fall of Adam and Eve, as told in Genesis 3. When this is said, it means death of non-humans, such as the many generations of animals that would have been needed for, say, the origin of birds from reptiles.

A quick search has led me to six web pages, all arguing, using the Bible, that there could have been, or even must have been, death of non-human creatures before the Fall.

Here they are:
"No Physical Death Before the Fall?" by Glen Kuban.

"No Death Before the Fall - A Young Earth Problem," by Rich Deem.

"Death Before the Fall: God Created Cellular Death Codes," by Glenn Morton.

"Creation Science Issues: Death Before the Fall of Man," by Greg Neyman.

"Animal Death Before the Fall: What Does the Bible Say?" by Lee Irons.

"Creation Essentials, Creation Non-Essentials: Part 1, Death Before the Fall," by Dave Kresta.

I have previously posted on a related matter.

None of these take the view that there couldn't have been death before the Fall, but some of them also present reasons why some people believe that there was no such death.

I have not yet taken the time to evaluate, compare, and review these pages, but have reasons of my own for posting this. I may return to the subject later. Thanks for reading.

See my posts on David Snoke's book, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth. Snoke argues that the Bible allows the death of animals before the Fall. Here's one such post. Click on the "David Snoke" label at the end of the post to see all of them.

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On January 1, 2013, I checked the above links. All were still good, except for the ones I referenced in 2008 from Glenn Morton and Lee Irons. I changed the link to one that is still good, also by Morton, and changed the URL for the article by Irons.

3 comments:

Keetha Broyles said...

I have not read any of those articles- - - but here are my thoughts on the subject anyway.

Genesis 1:1 begins "In the beginning God created the Heavens and Earth." (That's a period - - - pause, full stop.) "And the Earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep."

I have NO IDEA what happened between the period and the And. I know God was in control and supreme over what EVER happened in that full stop - - - but it is not recorded for us what that time/activity was.

Hello dinosaurs. ;-)

Just my thoughts - - - -

kb

Martin LaBar said...

Perhaps that makes you an adherent of the Gap Theory. And you may be correct on the matter. There's a lot that we don't know.

Genesis 1 doesn't tell us where, when, how, or why. It does tell us Who.

Thanks.

Keetha Broyles said...

Exactly right about Genesis.