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CREATIONISM AND DARWINISM PART I

Two Wrongs in Need of a Right

Creationist beliefs rest for the most part on the most widely accepted English translation of the Hebrew record; this record is found in the Book of Genesis. Unfortunately, parts of it are significantly altered when correct translations of certain basic terms are used. But a more immediate problem is encountered in the understanding of the English rendering. Several crucial elements of Creationist beliefs are based on an erroneous reading of the English text. Three of these are considered here. If these beliefs are refuted, a corrected translation of the Hebrew text will surely not reinstate them.

A Young Earth? The accepted literalist time of the Creation, some 6,000 years ago, is based upon genealogies of the Hebrew patriarchs recorded in Genesis. Life spans are provided, with the number of years of father-son overlap. Descent is traced from the first man, Adam, to Abraham. Abraham can be roughly dated, and counting backwards from him puts Adam at around 4004 BC. Figures are different, however, in the Septuagint, an ancient Greek version of the Old Testament. Moreover, the Septuagint includes an additional patriarch by the name of Cainan, who also is found in a recapitulation of the genealogies in the Book of Luke (3:36). This leads to the more general debate as to the completeness (continuity) of the genealogies. Clearly, the genealogies are not a reliable basis for establishing dates. They offer no proof of a young earth.

The Genesis Kinds Explicit in the Creationist concept, and in opposition to evolution, is the fixity of species. “Species” is commonly alleged to be equivalent to the biblical “kind,” divulged in Genesis. The central pillar of creationist thought is that all plants and animals reproduce “after their kind”; one kind cannot produce another kind. This fundamental concept appears with varying emphasis throughout creationist literature.

But we read in Genesis 1:25 that “. . . God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind . . .” The creatures are said to have been made after their kinds. Nothing is said about subsequently propagating after their kinds. This seems to be analogous to Plato’s later concept of Forms—the Form being the ideal pre-existent model reflected in all individuals patterned upon it.

The Vapor Canopy Another integral part of creationist belief is the concept of a primordial vapor canopy. It is alleged that in the ancient past, a shell of water vapor surrounded the earth at some unknown distance from the surface. The basis for this canopy is found in Genesis 1:7: “And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament . . .”

The canopy allegedly provided a pleasant and healthful environment throughout the world by means of its shielding action against intense radiations from space. No such canopy exists now, of course, and its presumed catastrophic collapse provides another explanation readily accepted by creationists, a source for the waters of a universal flood. But a glance beyond the single verse on which the canopy notion is based exposes a fallacy.

This fallacy is exposed and all of these matters are treated more rigorously in my book MAN AND HIS PLANET – An Unauthorized History. This book also presents an alternative to the two predominant views of the development of life. Go to www.letthereberight.com.