A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke, part 11

I conclude my posts on David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Books, 2006).The last previous post is here.

In his last chapter, "Implications for Theology," Snoke repeats his view that ". . . powerful forces of the world in which we actually live are under God's control and give glory to him." (p. 177) He has written, in the book, about several such powerful forces, including the sea, and I agree that he makes a good case for the idea. If it is true, what are the consequences? Snoke says that they include these (see pages 177-9):
The forces of nature are not evil, although they may be dangerous and destructive.
God is pleased with His creation, including predatory animals, and it glorifies Him.
Humans are special.
Although humans are special, the universe is God-centered, not human-centered.
The balance of nature is beautiful.
God is good, but not necessarily safe.

Snoke goes further. He writes (I think correctly) that the "standard" stories of the flood, and of creation, emphasize the cute animals too much. He says that the real lesson, especially of the flood, is that "if God were to stop the balance of nature even for a short time, humanity would be swept away in an instant, and that God's ultimate judgment will come without warning in the same way." (p. 183)

The author discusses the differences between Young-Earth Creationism and the Intelligent Design (ID) movement in some depth. He concludes, as I have, that they are mostly incompatible. His emphasis is more on their different theologies, mine more on what they have said about each other. (Snoke is clearly in the ID camp.)

Snoke speaks of an important point, namely that, if the church majors on Young-Earth Creationism, it will cut itself off from being able to influence educated leaders in society. ("If the Bible is so wrong about the age of the earth, how can I expect it to be right about Christ's life and ministry?" would be a likely thought in the minds of such people.)

The author does believe some things, and he sets them out:
There was a real Adam, and a real Noah.
The diverse forms of life were created by God. (I have had correspondence with Snoke, and he does not believe in what is sometimes called macro-evolution, namely that even large groups of organisms, such as, say, the Echinoderms and the Chordates, came about because of natural selection operating on a common ancestor.)
There will be a re-creation of the universe at the Second Coming.

Snoke has added an appendix, which is his own translation of the first part of Genesis. I am not competent to evaluate the value of this.

I appreciate Snoke's book a great deal, and I am glad that he wrote it, and that I read it. It has made me think about a number of important issues related to origins. As I have indicated elsewhere, I have problems with the ID movement that Snoke is part of. But his forthright discussion of the uncritical acceptance of Young-Earth Creationism, showing how the Bible itself does not demand it, and even has evidence against it, is much needed.

Lest there be any doubt, everyone is not so pleased with Snoke's book as I am. Here's a review of the book, entitled "A pathetic case for an old earth." The review claims that Snoke's view of old-earth creationism comes from reading The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris, which is now nearly 50 years old, and ignoring more recent works which answer some of Snoke's arguments. The writer also says that Snoke has not done a good job of interpreting scripture.

Thanks for reading. Read Snoke.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke, part 10

I have published a series of posts on David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Books, 2006). The latest post is here.

In his eighth chapter, Snoke considers the Flood.

He begins by discussing miracles. Real miracles, he says, leave traces (sometimes large traces) in the real world. For example, A blind man healed by Jesus could really see, after the miracle. This relates to the Flood, in that, if there was a world-wide deluge, there should be world-wide traces. He is not convinced that such evidence is present, in spite of the work of so-called flood geologists. (Snoke is not alone. Many other Bible-believing Christian scientists don't find such evidence, either.)

Snoke has a great sentence:
The entire program of flood geology is to argue that science as we know it supports their interpretation of the Bible, not to propose unknown laws of physics that no one could guess at unless they were needed to cover up inconvenient facts. (160)

Snoke supposes that there was a flood that covered the entire earth, including the tallest mountains. He then says that, for the results to be consistent with the biblical story of Noah, and with the scientific evidence, there must have been a lot of miracles, involving the migration of the animals; keeping all the needed animals and their food on an ark of limited space; feeding carnivorous animals on the ark; caring for all those animals by just eight people; heat disposal -- the number of animals in that space must have generated lots of heat, enough to kill some of them, and Noah and his family; survival of animals from extreme climates, or unique habitats, such as tide pools, on the ark; the appearance and disappearance of enough water to cover the earth that much; that the earth's crust did not sink under that much water; that plants and trees survived flooding for that length of time; survival of freshwater fish in salt water (or the reverse); survival of small invertebrates under the water (or caring for anthills, worms, nematodes, etc., on the ark); fossil sorting after the flood; and trees remaining upright during the flood. An amazing list. Snoke concludes that it just didn't happen that way, not because God couldn't have done it, but because the Bible doesn't indicate that any of these things happened.

Says Snoke:
Just as young-earth advocates read in an entire re-creation of the world in the curse of Genesis 3, flood geology reads in another entire re-creation, not mentioned in Scripture, after the flood. Flood geology has God creating the world not once, but three times, without any direct Scriptural evidence, and in contradiction to the statement in Genesis 2:1 that the entire creation was completed by the seventh day. (165)

Snoke, who takes the Bible very seriously, presents evidence, which I'll leave to the reader of his book -- you need to read this for yourself -- that the Bible is consistent with the flood being local, not world-wide. He also thinks that there is no scientific evidence for a world-wide flood.

Thanks for reading. Read Snoke.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke, part 9

I have posted several times on David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Books, 2006). The most recent post is here.

Having considered the main arguments for young-earth creationism, and seriously weakened or demolished them, using the Bible itself, Snoke considers the question of the relationship between science and Christianity. Although he does not mention Ian Barbour (and perhaps is unaware of him) Barbour has been the most prominent voice arguing for Integration of science and Christianity. (As opposed to supposing that they are necessarily in conflict, or that they have nothing to say to each other.) Snoke uses the term, Concordist science. For what it's worth, I agree whole-heartedly. Scientific facts are one part of God's revelation to us, and, although not as important as the Bible, or, especially as God's revelation in Jesus Christ, the different ways in which God has revealed Himself to us should agree, or at least work together, provided, of course, that we understand them well enough.

So why do some Christians, who take the Bible seriously, take the position that science and Biblical revelation are opposed?

Many Christians seem to be afraid to make any predictions based on the Bible that could be falsified, for fear that people will reject all of Christianity if it is attached to a particular scientific theory. This, in my experience, lies at the root of much of the objection to concordantist science. Many Christians want to seal off their Christian belief from any possible contradiction with science, so that it is an impregnable fortress against all attack.
I call this basic mind-set of so many Christians, both conservative and liberal, the "two-worlds" view. . . . This view says, in essence, that science and real-world experience lie in one world and that the Bible and theology lie in another world, completely distinct from the first. The two worlds do not contradict each other because they cannot; no overlap exists so one world does not have implications in the other. The Bible has authority in matters of faith, but not at all in matters of science, because faith and science have nothing to say about each other. . . . This two-worlds mind-set reflects an essentially defensive posture. Having survived a long tradition of attack on Christianity in the name of science, many Christians assume that if the two worlds did overlap, then science would surely contradict Christian faith. Even if science does not presently appear to contradict our faith, the possibility always exists that it will. (pp. 117-8)

Well, says Snoke, so what if there is that possibility? He goes on to make a strong statement:
We must face the facts: if the Bible is wrong, utterly wrong, about the history of our origins, then we should dump it. We cannot avoid this risky aspect of our faith. If we protect the Bible by attacking modern science, or if we protect it by making it speak only about matters of morality and personal faith, we have cut it off from the real world and made it far less than it claims to be. (p. 121)

Wow! But I think he is exactly right about that.

Thanks for reading. Read Snoke.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke, part 8

I continue my posts on David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006). The most recent post is here. In that post, I considered some of Snoke's biblical evidence that the days of Genesis 1, and of Genesis 2:1-3, were not necessarily consecutive 24-hour days.

Snoke has more evidence. On page 141, he points out that Genesis 2:4, which, of course, comes right after Genesis 2:3, uses "day" to refer to a period of time that clearly is not a 24-hour day:

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. (ESV, emphasis added. All scripture quotations from this version.)

(Not all versions of the Bible use "day" here -- the NIV and the NLT do not, but at least the KJV, the NKJV, the NASB and the RSV, as well as the ESV, use "day." I checked the Hebrew -- I do not know Hebrew, but can look it up, using an option in the Blueletter Bible -- and the Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2:4 is the same word, as far as I can tell.)

Mr. Snoke says, correctly, that young-earth proponents often recognize that "day" is used in the Bible for periods longer than a 24-hour period, but say that when "evening" and "morning" are used with "day," it always means a literal day. Not so, he says, citing Psalm 90, which is usually attributed to Moses, who apparently wrote Genesis:

3 You return man to dust

and say, “Return, O children of man!”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

A day, yesterday, is said to be like a thousand years, and evening and morning are used in the same passage. The Hebrew word for yesterday is not the same as the Hebrew word for day, used in the passages above, and doesn't even seem to have been derived from it, which weakens Snoke's argument. Snoke mentions other passages which use evening and morning in a non-literal sense, namely Psalm 30:4-5, Psalm 49:14, and Psalm 90:10, 13-14, but they don't use a word for "day," or even "yesterday."

On page 144-5, Snoke says, again correctly, that some young-earth advocates agree that "day," and "morning and evening" can refer to non-literal periods of time, but say that if days are numbered, they must be literal 24-hour days. Snoke's response is that Genesis 1 is the only occasion where the Bible uses numbers with days, in this way, so there is no way to check this claim. He mentions Numbers 29, but says that the construction is quite different.

Snoke discusses Genesis 2:5-7:
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

I have posted on this passage previously, and, in that post, link to two other, more important authors, both of whom argue, as Snoke does, that this passage is difficult, or impossible, to reconcile with Genesis 1, if Genesis 1 is taken to mean consecutive 24-hour periods when it uses "day."

To quote A Biblical Case for an Old Earth: Note that if the land had emerged from the waters just three days earlier (assuming that these events [of Genesis 2:5-7] happen on Day 6, and the land appeared from under the waters on Day 3, in the young-earth view), then it hardly makes sense that the land would be dry and unfertile. For that matter, giving any discussion of causation for the lack of vegetation seems out of place, if the land had only just appeared. The sense of the text is that the land had been around a long time, so long that it had dried out. (p. 153) The young-earth view is that the events happened on day 6.

Snoke also writes about the rivers mentioned in Genesis 2. He says that the Pishon river (no river now existing is named that) was most likely a river that flowed across the Arabian peninsula in the past. (The other rivers, the Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates, still exist.) He cites Carol Hill (See here for her paper -- Snoke mistakenly calls her "Caroline.") as evidence for this claim.

As Snoke says, these rivers present a serious problem for young-earth creationism:
. . . this river lies on top of sedimentary geological layers that young-earth creationists would say were deposited in the flood of Noah. So do the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. To accept this convincing case for the historicity of Genesis, Bible scholars must either accept an old-earth view or believe that God created sedimentary rock at the beginning, before the fall and the flood. (p. 155. "this river" is the Pishon.)

It seems to me that Snoke has assembled evidence, as presented here and in the previous posts, that makes it difficult to sustain an argument for young-earth creationism.

Thanks for reading.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke, part 7

I return to my posts on David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006) The previous posts have considered what Snoke has to say about death before the Fall. (Here's the last one.) Snoke argues strongly, using Biblical evidence, that there was, indeed, animal death before the Fall, hence demolishing, in my opinion, one of the major arguments of young-earth creationism.

Snoke also deals with the question of the Sabbath, and the matter of whether or not the days of Genesis 1 were literal. Besides Genesis, itself, Exodus 20:8-11 also seems to say that God's creative actions were confined to seven literal days.

Snoke disagrees. First, he (as others have done) says that there was so much that was supposed to have happened after the creation of Adam that it couldn't have fitted into a single day. But his main argument is more direct:

To me, however, the best argument for equating the days of creation with ages comes from the precedent of God taught by the Sabbath law. I ask, "What did God do on the eighth day?" Does God work a six-day work week, taking every Saturday or Sunday off? After his Sabbath rest, did God pick up his tools and go back to work, taking another Sabbath seven days later? If God's activity is to be taken as an exact model for us, then this conclusion seems inescapable. Yet the rest of scripture does not support this. God's activity appears as a single continuity. (p. 102)

Snoke cites John 5:17, which says: But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (all Bible quotations from the ESV) He also uses Hebrews 4:3-4, which, says Snoke, "clearly states that God's Sabbath rest did not end -- it continues up to this day." (p. 103)

Snoke argues, therefore, that scripture does not clearly teach that the days of Genesis 1 were literal 24-hour days.

I hope to post more on this book later.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 6: Death before the Fall? (part 2)

In Genesis 2, God warns Adam:

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (All Bible quotation from the ESV. The creation of Eve is described later in the same chapter.)

If there was no animal death until after the Fall, would it have been possible for Adam to fully understand this warning? Perhaps not. It would seem that, if Adam had seen a dead animal, for example one killed by a predator, he would have comprehended the idea of death more fully.

David Snoke, in his A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), uses this argument in favor of death before the Fall. He also raise other arguments. (See here for my most recent post on this topic.)

Snoke does raise other arguments. One of them is from Romans 1. In that chapter, Paul writes:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Note the emphasized phrase. Snoke points out, correctly, that Paul didn't say "ever since the Fall." He said since the creation.

Snoke claims, with good reason, I believe, after reading his book, that part of God's attributes are, and have always been, his wrath, leading to righteous judgement. If God's wrath was perceivable before the Fall, then some of the effects of God's wrath, or at least animal death, and perhaps similar things (tripping over rocks, seeing tree branches break, and the like) must have been known to Adam and Eve. Says Snoke:
If Adam had obeyed God, this "very good" creation still would have testified to Adam of the power of God and the wrath he had escaped. (95)

Snoke also writes:
We must marvel at the shark, even while fearing it. It is well designed, frighteningly so. So also are many parasites. It is hard to believe that such well-designed weapons could arise by chance --they are good designs. . . . the main reason why many people want Darwinism to be true is that they just cannot accept the idea of God being glorified by violence. Darwin used the example of a wasp-eating larva as an example of something he just could not imagine God making in a good world. . . . If it would have been bad for God to have made wasp-eating larvae before the fall, how is it now justified? If we say that the only merit in making natural evil is to punish humans, then how are we punished by the death of a wasp? If we say, on the other hand, that the death of a wasp serves as a reminder to us of the wrath of God, why could not that have been the case before the Fall? God's wrath did not suddenly spring into existence when Adam and Eve sinned, and God had no desire to hide this side of his nature. (pp. 96-7. I pointed out, in an earlier post, that I do not agree fully with Snoke on the question of intelligent design, but his argument doesn't depend on direct supernatural design of the shark's body, or lack thereof.)

Thanks for reading. I hope to post more on Snoke's book later.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 5: Death before the Fall?

I have been occasionally posting about David Snoke's A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006). For the most recent post, see here, or click on "David Snoke" among the tags at the end of this post.

Snoke, in his third chapter, says that the main reasons that many Christians believe that the earth is not very old are beliefs that the days of Genesis 1 were 24-hour days, and that the Bible says that there was no death before the Fall. Snoke says that the second belief is the more important objection, and chooses to deal with it first.

Why do many Christians believe that there was no death before the Fall? One reason is Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— (all Bible quotes are from the ESV)

A second reason is Genesis 9:3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. God told Noah this, and it seems to imply that humans didn't eat animals before the Flood, which, of course, came after the Fall. Eating meat is one of the main reasons for killing animals.

To quote Snoke:

Proponents of the young-earth view, however, would say that the statements of Genesis 1:29-30 rule out meat-eating before the fall. In so saying, however, they are arguing from a positive command to a negative one. They take the statement, "I give you x for food," to mean, "You are forbidden to eat anything else." This does not necessarily follow. The parallelism of Genesis 1:28-30 and Genesis 9:1-3 may be taken to imply the opposite, that is, that Genesis 9:1-3 is simply a repetition of the same charge given in Genesis 1:28-30, and that the expansion that includes eating animals is the same as other expansions of parallel passages in Scripture, such as the different versions of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 or the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:20-26. The later version dos not negate the earlier version; rather, it is taken as simply saying the same thing with slightly more information. . . .
If eating animals was not forbidden, then why would God single out green plants as food in the charge of Genesis 1:28-30? There are several plausible reasons. The best reason, in my opinion, is that God was establishing the hierarchy of his creation: green plants are the basis of the food chain. (pp. 65-66) Genesis 1:28-30 is here.

If animals didn't die before the Fall, then significant changes in animal types couldn't have been brought about by natural selection. Also, fossils, indicating that significant changes have occurred, wouldn't have been laid down a long time ago if animals didn't die before the Fall.

What does Snoke say about this? He argues that the death referred to in Romans 5:12 and other passages about the effects of the Fall is spiritual death, not physical. Adam, after all, did not die immediately when he and Eve first sinned, but, says Snoke, he did die spiritually, immediately. Since his death was spiritual only, it didn't affect the animals directly.

I will not reproduce all of Snoke's arguments here, but will mention one more such. Job 38 mentions, in the last verses of the chapter, predators and prey. Predators, of course, kill other animals. The context of the chapter is about God's creation. This strongly suggests that there was predation before the Fall. (An article by Snoke, about dangerous animals and the Bible, may be found here.)

I believe that Snoke makes a good case. I hope to post more on his book later. Thanks for reading.

(Note that Snoke, nor the Bible, say very little about the death of plants, so I haven't either.)

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 4, Eden, Revelation, and the present

On pages 52-3, of his A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006) David Snoke discusses two views of the relationship between the world before the Fall, the present world, and that which is to come.
He says that there are two views about this relationship. One holds that the pre-Fall world and the world described in Revelation 21-22 are the same world, restored to the way it was in the beginning, at the end. Snoke does not hold that view. Says he:
In the second view, the original world of creation and our world are essentially the same, and the new heaven and new earth of Revelation 21-22 is utterly different from these. This view is supported by several key differences between the world of Revelations 21-22 and the world of Genesis 1-3. . . . First, Revelation 21:1 (NIV) makes clear that "there was no longer any sea," while Genesis 1 emphasizes the creation of the sea. Also, Revelation 21:23 and 22:4-5 emphasize that there shall no longer be "night" or "the sun and the moon," while Genesis 1 emphasizes the existence of darkness, held back by the lights form the sun and moon,and the balance of morning with evening, that is, nightfall. (p. 53)

Snoke also points out, on page 55, that the serpent, Satan, was present in the garden, while Revelation 20 and 21 state that nothing evil will enter the heavenly city. So, he makes a good case that the present earth is more like the world before the Fall than like the world at the end.

Thanks for reading.

The sea as a symbol of evil in the Bible, from Snoke

In the third chapter of his book, A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), David Snoke includes evidence that the ancient Hebrews saw the sea as symbolic of evil. Most of us do not, but see the ocean as a symbol of calm, rest, vacation, and the like. (See my post, sort of on this subject, which is not nearly as thorough as Snoke's book. See also the most recent previous post on this book.)

Snoke, in his Table 2 (pp. 60-61) quotes 21 Bible references, from Exodus, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, Jonah, Zechariah, Luke, Acts, Jude, and Revelation as evidence. Some of these are not obvious, but the preponderance of the evidence makes the author's case.

Here are a few of the more obvious cases, using Snoke's table, and the ESV Bible:

Exodus 15:19: For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.

Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea;
for it cannot be quiet,
and its waters toss up mire and dirt.

Jeremiah 5:22 Do you not fear me? declares the Lord.
Do you not tremble before me?
I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea,
a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;
though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

Luke 21:25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves,

Jude 1:11-13 Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. 12 These are hidden reefs* at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
*or blemishes
(Snoke didn't include verses 11 and 12)

Thanks for reading!

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 3, starlight

This is my 3rd post on A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006) See here for the 2nd post.

As I mentioned before, Snoke is not a biologist, which means that he does not discuss some issues that I wish he would have, but his background as a physicist is a plus, as well as a minus. On pages 25-30, he considers the question of light from apparently distant stars. As he says, a person who believes that the universe is no more than a few thousand years old has a problem with evidence that some stars are very far away. Such a person has three alternatives:
1) The distance measurements are wrong, and there are no stars more than a few thousand light-years away.
2) The speed of light used to be much faster, so that, say, a star which is really 5,555 light-years away seems to be much further away.
3) The light which seems to be from stars that are far away was actually created in place, giving an appearance of age.

Snoke says that there are serious problems with all of these alternatives.

All of the observed stars can't really be relatively close to us, because if they were, there would be serious gravitational and heat effects, which we don't see.

Snoke writes: Even a slight change in the speed of light over time would imply major changes in the calculations of electric and magnetic fields . . . . The speed of light is not independent of other physical effects. Many phenomena, including radio, light, magnetic and electric fields, X-rays, and friction, are all described by one set of elegant and simple equations, known as Maxwell's equations. These equations were created by James Maxwell, a Scottish Presbyterian believer with a strong faith in the beauty and simplicity of God's creation. The unification of all these effects into one set of equations means that one cannot propose a change in the speed of light without also proposing changes in everything from the structure of atoms to the color of the sun to the cost of computer circuits. (p. 28)

As to the "appearance of age" explanation, in the first place, this raises questions about God deceiving us. In the second, says Snoke, young-earth creationists, like almost everybody else, don't really argue for an appearance of age. They argue that the earth, and the universe, really are only a few thousand years old.

Thanks for reading.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 2: View of Scripture

To part 1 of this series, on A Biblical Case for an Old Earth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006) by David Snoke.

Does Snoke take the Bible seriously? Let's put it this way. There is a Scripture Index in the back of the book, which shows that Snoke has referred to 37 of the 66 books of the Bible, using more than 300 different passages.

Snoke devotes his first chapter to an important issue, namely "is it legitimate for non-Biblical experience, such as scientific evidence, to influence our interpretation of the Bible?" His answer is a carefully qualified "yes." The most important qualification is this: It is illegitimate to place anything generated by human beings in a position of unquestioned authority over the Bible." (13) He also states, on the same page, that it is illegitimate to change our view because our original view did not conform to popular opinion.

So why does Snoke say that extra-Biblical experience, including scientific findings, can legitimately influence our interpretation of the Bible?

He argues for this by using examples. Some of these have no direct relationship to science. Snoke, for instance, says that most Christians do not believe that there are any Apostles now living on earth, in spite of such verses as Ephesians 4:11. The reason that we don't think there are any Apostles now is that we don't have evidence of contemporary Apostles.

Snoke also considers the statement by Christ that some who were alive would not see death until he returned (Matthew 16:24-28, Mark 8:34-9:1, Luke 9:23-27). Here, again, he says, we do not interpret that as having the apparent literal meaning, because of our experience -- Christ has not returned yet.

The author uses other examples, scientific and non-scientific. The science-related example he gives is the matter of the motion of the earth. There are passages in the Bible which seem to teach that the earth does not move, such as Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 104:5. But, because of the scientific evidence that it does move, we have altered our beliefs about what the Bible is really saying about the subject.

I agree with Snoke, and, clearly, other Christians who take the Bible very seriously also do -- we do interpret what God said in the Bible in the light of our experience, including scientific findings.

Thanks for reading. I expect to publish more posts about this book.

A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by Snoke, part 1

I intend, God helping me, to present a critique of A Biblical Case for an Old Earth, by David Snoke. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), in several posts. In the past, I have treated two other important books relating to both science and religious issues in this way. For the last post on The Language of God, by Francis Collins, go here. For the last post on Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, go here.

May I say at the outset that I have two problems with Snoke's book. First, he doesn't seem to understand evolution (by which I mean change over time, due to selective processes), or at least he doesn't write very much about it. This is not surprising, since Snoke is a physicist, I guess. The second problem is related. Snoke is a believer in Intelligent Design. So am I, depending on how you define it. (See the second paragraph of this post.) However, I have serious problems with the Intelligent Design movement, and I'm not alone in this. A number of Christians with scientific training have expressed similar concerns. Snoke doesn't seem to have these problems. I wish he did.

In spite of my reservations, Snoke has written an excellent book. He is a good writer, and a careful one. He examines scripture carefully, knows it well, and takes it seriously. He deals with possible arguments against his position, gently demolishing most of them, in my view.

Snoke's book is best summarized by its title. Snoke recognizes that many Christians have serious reservations about his thesis, in particular, they believe that there was no death before the Fall, and that the days of Genesis 1 were literal days. Snoke discusses these reservations carefully. He makes, I believe, a compelling case that the Bible does not teach that there was no animal death before the Fall, and a compelling case that the Bible does not teach that the days of Genesis 1 were consecutive literal 24-hour days.

Thanks for reading.