Michael Jones, of the channel Inspiring Philosophy, made a video called
TOP TEN Biblical Problems for Young Earth Creationism. I'm numbering them in the reverse, instead of his "top ten" format, but giving them in the same order as I respond.
1) Genesis 17:17, Abraham thinks the ages of begetting of his ancestors in Genesis 5 and 11 are biologically impossible. At least in his case.
Excellent reason for taking the LXX view of ch. 11 as him born when his father was actually 70, and that father born when his grandfather was 79. Not 179. However, the ages are decreasing, both for begetting and for death, and Abraham may well have rightly concluded that they by his time had become impossible, but weren't earlier.
Or he could have disbelieved the tradition he knew and came to believe it only after Isaac was born. By the way, he had no problem believing he could make Ishmael at age 85 / 86.
Abraham was not 75 when Thera did physically die at 205. He was either 75 at Thera's spiritual death (falling into idolatry) or at or after the physical death of his spiritual father (replacing the idolatrous Thera).
Abraham may have known quite a few people who were long lived and who were fertile into high age, but he would have known they were older and of older generations.
There is no symbolic numerology for theological messaging other than in the Masoretic total of ages up to and including Moses. As that total is Apocalyptic, the symbol may if so indicate we'll need to believe the patriarchal ages in order not to be deceived in the end times. One cannot appeal to unknown symbolism or theological messages that are lost. But even the presence of theological messages does not preclude the literal truth of the ages.
2) Genesis 8, contradiction?
And the ark rested in the seventh month, the seven and twentieth day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia And the waters were going and decreasing until the tenth month: for in the tenth month, the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared
[Genesis 8:4-5]
He sent forth also a dove after him, to see if the waters had now ceased upon the face of the earth But she, not finding where her foot might rest, returned to him into the ark: for the waters were upon the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and caught her, and brought her into the ark
[Genesis 8:8-9]
Appearing of mountain tops can have been through the water, like the shipwreck in
Five on a Treasure Island.
Or the water may have been turning the ground (which was already above water) into a mud that was much less agreeable to a dove than to the carrion eating raven which could take foot on his food sources.
Obviously, this is when the waters were already receding, which we see from the beginning of the chapter:
And God remembered Noe, and all the living creatures, and all the cattle which were with him in the ark, and brought a wind upon the earth, and the waters were abated The fountains also of the deep, and the flood gates of heaven were shut up, and the rain from heaven was restrained And the waters returned from off the earth going and coming: and they began to be abated after a hundred and fifty days
[Genesis 8:1-3]
Prior to this, they would have indeed covered the whole globe. Noah would have known they did when the Ark, seated on the highest mountain of the pre-Flood world, began to move, as the water line was arguably halfway up, i e fifteen cubits up:
And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased, and lifted up the ark on high from the earth For they overflowed exceedingly: and filled all on the face of the earth: and the ark was carried upon the waters And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered
[Genesis 7:17-20]
Take the beginning as meaning, the Ark was lifted on the waters on day 40. Take the rest as simply elaborating on that event. Not every "and" means "and then" ...
Therefore in the six hundredth and first year, the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were lessened upon the earth, and Noe opening the covering of the ark, looked, and saw that the face of the earth was dried
[Genesis 8:13]
The only thing we can know for sure as being dry (from that sentence) was what was within eye-sight of Noah. But it was representative of at least the surrounding area. Whether then or later, the land masses not just of today, but of the ice age (when water was lower and more land was seen) were dried. "Earth" means both the globe and the land masses of the globe and in this context maximally the land masses. Just as it does in Apocalypse 7:1.
3) Is Genesis 2:24 literally true?
Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh
[Genesis 2:24]
Both of them, i e both the male and the female, are, through their gametes and chromosomes, in one single flesh, that of the offspring. The big bodies of married couples are not sewn together, but their small representatives are in a moment called "fertilisation of the ovum".
But if you will cavill even at synecdoche as not literal, fine, call it a figure of speech. However, the presence of a figure of speech in one part of a narrative doesn't make the narrative figurative. If two people are discussing options for escaping a trap and one says sth surprising and the other replies "you are pulling my leg" that whole story doesn't become figurative just because that expression is a figure of speech.
An easy to detect figure of speech doesn't mean a whole narrative has to be suspect of previously undetected such.
4) Were Adam and Eve immortal before the Fall?
And he said: Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever
[Genesis 3:22]
We note that Adam never heard the part of "let us therefore" ... he and Eve just see the effect. The experience of God's company is taken away from them mid sentence. But the problem is, does this fit Young Earth Creationist theology?
Tryggve Mettinger is referenced, and he seems to have said (but he's referenced with others) that Adam and Eve retained immortality by eating continuously from the Tree of Life.
One could also present it as, if someone had later on, on God's command, eaten of the forbidden fruit as a death sentence, the tree of life would have been restoring immortality if and when he was pardoned.
Here is the Catechism of St. Pius X:
35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.
36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.
...
39 Q. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they have bee exempt from death?
A. If Adam and Eve had not sinned and if they had remained faithful to God, they would, after a happy and tranquil sojourn here on earth, and without dying, have been transferred by God into Heaven, to enjoy a life of unending glory.
40 Q. Were these gifts due to man?
A. These gifts were in no way due to man, but were absolutely gratuitous and supernatural; and hence, when Adam disobeyed the divine command, God could without any injustice deprive both Adam and his posterity of them.
One could take the answer on Q 40 to imply that, not the nature, but the grace of Adam made him immortal. Like not the human nature but the grace made Isaias or Moses, Simon in the Temple or St. John prophets.
If so, it is possible the Tree of Life would have conferred (or in my scenario restored) this earthly immortality, like its NT counterpart, the Eucharist, Christ Himself, gives the grace of Resurrection. This being the ultimate reason why the Eucharist is not cannibalism.
I don't see verse as contradicting any tenet of Young Earth Creationists like certainly St. Augustine and most probably Pope St. Pius X. Not sure if Kent Hovind would agree, but he's not quite a Christian.
5) Is Genesis 2:4 proof that Genesis 2 story is a continuation of Genesis 1?
Michael Jones on Inspiring Philosophy argues that according to Walton, this is a toledoth introducing what comes after:
These are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the heaven and the earth
[Genesis 2:4]
Let's suppose this were so, for a moment, though I disagree. If so, the solution is simply that two accounts were somewhat clumsily sewn together by Moses, taking each literally as given. I'd argue, the Genesis 1 account, whether it ends in 2:3 or, as I think, in 2:4, was given directly to Moses. The Genesis 2 account was the memory of Adam, which would have originally included this verse:
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth
[Genesis 1:28]
But which was not repeated after Moses already had it in the six-days account which was given to him on Mt. Sinai.
I looked at the last of the toledoth mentioned for comparison.
And Jacob dwelt in the land of Chanaan wherein his father sojourned And these are his generations: Joseph, when he was sixteen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, being but a boy: and he was with the sons of Bala and of Zelpha his father's wives: and he accused his brethren to his father of a most wicked crime
[Genesis 37:1-2]
I would actually say, "these are his generations" refers back to the account in Genesis 35, where Jacob's children are given in order. And the generations of Esau are indeed introduced by ...
And these are the generations of Esau, the same is Edom
[Genesis 36:1]
... but this only works for actual genealogies. And this one is introduced as an aside into the one of Jacob.
But either way, it is Jewish error, it's a pretense there were men before Adam and Eve (from whom Gentiles descend) to pretend that the Genesis 2 account is not a recap in more detail. That Michael Heiser follows a Jewish error is not unheard of. The Catholic Church has condemned this error in the condemnation of a book by Isaac La Peyrère.
6) Does Jeremias 4 prove the language in Genesis 1 can be a metaphor?
Yes, that it can be a metaphor in Jeremias 4, and so presumably elsewhere if appropriate, but it does not prove it can reasonably be a metaphor in Genesis 1.
Again, Jesus is called "the last Adam" and here St. Paul is using "Adam" as a metaphor for the role of Jesus. This doesn't mean Adam was a metaphor in Genesis 1 through 5.
Therefore the fact that a metaphor borrows from a passage doesn't prove a passage is in its original shape and immediate function metaphoric.
Precisely as a metaphor or other figure of speech is not proof the passage containing it is a metaphoric passage.
The cosmos in Genesis 1:2 was disordered, but so disordered that no light was there and water covered the earth all the way up, potentially even to the height of the fix stars.
I suspect that the division of the waters involved electrolysis, which partly led to the hydrogen now being turned to helium in stars, partly to the oxygen running in a cycle involving also carbon and nigrogen inside the stars. Meaning, the stars were and especially the sun was made from material created by that division.
7) Day and night before Sun?
And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years
[Genesis 1:14]
And this after day 3 was already complete.
I'll cite Michael Jones:
genesis 1 14-19 the most popular objection used against young earth creationism is the fact that nights and days exists before the sun which is created on day four days and nights cannot exist without the earth rotating and moving around the sun
Cannot? If so, they don't exist even now. We don't see earth rotating, nor moving around the Sun, nor do we have Biblical revelation that overrides sense data.
God's moving the universe with the Sun around us each day. God put an angel in appointment to make the Sun go around the zodiac each year.
And God created light without a source before He created a light source, and when dividing day from night, He divided the hemispheres of the universe. This is the solution that St. Augustine is giving in De Genesi ad Litteram Libri XII, more precisely book I, as I recall from the Georges Pompidou library. At their new site I wasn't able to check again.
This never meant that the Sun was prior to day four dispersed as pieces of the original light source, it means that the original light was
without a source. Like the accidents of the Eucharist are there
without the substance of bread and wine. The original light was light as we know it and sufficed for plants, even if not coming from the Sun.
However, the seasonal changes over the year and the phases of the Moon, only became possible after day Four.
8) Does Genesis 1:28 imply chaos?
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth
[Genesis 1:28]
Michael Jones says the Hebrew terms are harsh. Let's test the Greek.
κατακυριεύσατε - Strong actually gives a parallel in NT passages that are pretty harsh
ἄρχετε - however, passages include not just Mark 10:42, but also Romans 15:12.
Jesus as ruling over the Gentiles. I think the solution is that κατακυριεύσατε refers to our dominion over minerals, but ἄρχετε to our dominion over beasts. While the prerogatives in Genesis 9:2 were probably already there, before Genesis 9:2, they were used only in sacrifice and before the fall not at all in that way.
The images of the palaeolithic that Michael Jones shows at this point would be appropriate for Noachic men after Genesis 9:2, in the Upper Palaeolithic, or, partly, for some tribes like Neanderthals and Denisovans, in the pre-Flood world. Obviously Adam himself was clothed in skin, and the habit would have continued along sacrifice, even among the just.
9) Use of bara.
I would say, in Genesis 1:1 and 1:27, it means creation from nothing, but in Genesis 1:16 way·ya·‘aś is used for the Sun. It is made of pre-existing material, presumably Hydrogen from electrolysis on day 2.
We do not have just the words of Genesis to analyse, we also have ...
Peto, nate, ut aspicias ad caelum et terram, et ad omnia quae in eis sunt: et intelligas, quia ex nihilo fecit illa Deus, et hominum genus:
I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also
[2 Machabees 7:28]
... which makes Creation ex nihilo (the expression comes from this very verse) an obligatory interpretation of Genesis 1. So, is the following a creation of nothing?
Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels
[Psalms 50:12]
Well, yes. There is nothing in the sinner that is the material for God's grace, and God's grace is a real substance. David is asking God to create the presence or at least working of the Holy Spirit in him from no previous merit.
For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God Not of works, that no man may glory For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them
[Ephesians 2:8-10]
I'd consider the "creation of Jerusalem" in Isaias 65 refers to Pentecost Day, which again is a kind of creation of nothing, in the order of grace, not matter.
10) Meaning of "bereshit" in Genesis 1:1.
Supposing instead of
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters
[Genesis 1:1-2]
we were to put "When God created ..." first, not being a Hebrew scholar, I'm not sure if a principal clause could begin with "and" in Hebrew, as it certainly couldn't in English, but second, we would not need to read "when God decided to form" et c "the earth was [already]" ... we could as readily take it as "when God created, the earth was [at first]" ... which brings Genesis 1:1 back to the beginning of material creation, and of any creation, since "heaven" involves the angelic creature.
That there was such a beginning is not just obliging from II Macc 7:28, but also from ...
But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female
[Mark 10:6]
The Hebrew may or may not imply a change from "in the beginning" to "when", though I doubt it. But the "when" does not argue that Earth pre-existed.
However, the Greek marks out the article as lacking:
ΕΝ ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
And St. John states:
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος
The meaning clearly is, "in the beginning". Except that the one in John 1 refers to sth already eternally true before Creation.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Pope St. Leo IV
17.VII.2026
Romae depositio sancti Leonis Papae Quarti.
