Frank Hubeny

Sunday Walk 63 – The Biblical Age of the Earth

We are in the year 5782 in the Jewish calendar. It represents the number of years since the creation based on the ages of people in the Bible. This would put creation in 3761 BC (that is, 5782-2021). However, others using various biblical texts calculated this differently. For Luther the creation occurred in 3961 BC. For Kepler it was 3993 BC. For Josephus it was 5555 BC.

Robert Carter gives reasons for these discrepancies in his Origins interview. At about 23:00 in the video he offers as an estimate 4220 BC as the year of Creation using the Masoretic text. This estimated date has a range from 3822 BC to 4339 BC. If that estimated date is correct, the earth would be about 6241 years old within a range from 5843 to 6360 years old.

Robert Carter, Origins: What’s the Biblical Age of the Earth?

Chris Hardy and Robert Carter present this in more detail in their article The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth.

Given these estimates of the age of the Earth we can construct more detailed chronologies of when things happened. Those with competing chronologies can do the same with their estimates. The problem with having a very old estimated age of the Earth is that we also know rates of erosion or entropy. The older the estimated age, the more likely it will be falsified by some rate of decay. For example, a fossil cannot be older than the time it would take for erosion to wash the fossil away.

The Biblical account also provides the means by which the Earth (and universe) began. God was responsible through creation meaning there was an all-powerful intelligence right at the beginning.

Those who reject such a starting point need to come up with some plausible way for the universe that we see today to even be here. They need to provide a coherent explanation of a starting point and identify mechanisms for any evolutionary steps taking us from that starting point to our current state before entropy of some sort washes it all away.

Weekly Bible Reading: Ezekiel (Audio)
10 Cheshvan, 5782, Lech-Lecha: Parashat Genesis 12:1-17:27; Haftarat Isaiah 40:27-41:16
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Ezekiel, Part 42 and Part 43, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Ezekiel (1-33)

Verve – Décima

The foolish ones presume to know
but they’ve no grounds to say what’s true
denying Truth, an odd worldview.
Consistency’s the first to go.
Coherence fails to save their show.
Unfortunately filled with nerve
they preach their faithless thoughts with verve.
Then demons sugarcoat their grim
conceptions as their minds grow dim
forgetting Whom they’re here to serve.

Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “verve” to be used in the C-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I am thinking of Psalm 14.

Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image — Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

Video – Six Sentence Story

In his basement Brian kept books on mystical mathematics, astrology, post-modern literature, psychic philosophy and occult guides featuring faeries, demons, muses, mother goddesses, and witchcraft practices promoting what was in effect a year-long Halloween for him. As he read those books he was charmed by the writing, but nonetheless they failed to relieve him of his self-loathing and depression.

During a particularly low period and after persistent nagging from a friend who insisted that he had nothing of value to lose by doing so Brian started listening to an online audio Bible along with commentaries. Following a suggestion for deliverance in one of the commentaries he destroyed any occult object he could find in his house including books, tarot decks, pendulums, crystals, and horoscopes all stuff he picked up over the years to help him see into what he thought were innocent spirit realms. Who knows where the devil loves to hide?

Today, far removed from those times and looking back, Brian sees his former ways like the viewer of a video asking himself how he could ever have been that guy, but glad he no longer was.

Denise offers the prompt word “video” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon — GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

Old Mostly Unread Books From My Basement

Repetition

Dale offers the prompt “repetition” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. I have picked two sunrises over the Atlantic Ocean. Thankfully they repeat on a daily basis.

Sunday Walk 62 – Baramins and Species

Species are not fixed. The baramin is fixed.
Robert Carter, The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept Is Intrinsic To Creation, (about 4:30 in the video)

In Genesis we read that God created (bara) creatures which came forth after their own kind (min). From here we get the term baramin, a created kind. A baramin may contain a single species, such as mankind being the only species within its own baramin or a baramin may contain many different species, coming and going, but staying within their own kind as they change. That means what is fundamental is the baramin, not the species.

Peer Terborg notes that pluripotent baranomes provide the source for the diversity of life we see today. Life did not start from something simple and evolve into something complex. It started wondrously complicated, designed for change.

That means that Adam was not a primitive human being who evolved into us over time. He was more advanced biologically than we are.

This view of life and change based on DNA does not require deep time to reach the sort of world we experience today. Indeed deep time, even one hundred million years of deep time, would destroy the fossil record through erosion many times over or destroy life itself through genetic entropy. Deep time, along with evolution, are modern myths unworthy of our attention.

I used to have a science fiction view of reality. I thought our species would continue for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years. We would visit other planets inhabited with intelligent life and settle uninhabited worlds. I did not realize that mutations would stop all of that no matter how many spaceships we sent to other stars.

Today, I don’t think there is life of any sort on those distant planets. The reason is because there is no known mechanism for life to pop into existence outside of God’s deliberate creation.

That realization put a brake on my former fantasies and having given up on the schemes of Man my prayers took root in desperation. We live after the Fall revealed in Genesis and before the Kingdom prophesied in Revelation. It is humbling to realize that there is no way out of this but the coming of the Lord. There never has been. Maranatha!

Derek Prince, The Prayer of Desperation

Weekly Bible Reading: Jeremiah (Audio), Lamentations (Audio)
3 Cheshvan, 5782, Noach: Parashat Genesis 6:9-11:32; Haftarat Isaiah 54:1-55:5
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Jeremiah, Part 40, Lamentations, Part 41, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Jeremiah and Lamentations

Autumn

On autumn walks through falling leaves
we offer gratitude and praise.
This gift of life within cleaned hearts
caresses us through all our days.

Eugenia offers for this week the prompt “Autumn”. I am thinking of Psalm 51:10 when David asks the Lord to create in him a clean heart.

One of my short stories, Gray Butterfly, appeared in Whispers and Echoes. I am grateful to the editor for accepting it.

Sweep – Décima

Breathe over me. I want to hear
Your saving Words. With hyssop sweep
my heart so endless joy I’ll keep.
Your Holy Spirit’s ever near.

I humbly bend my listening ear
obeying what You have to say.
I praise You through the end of day
inhaling Spirit with each breath
in gratitude till at my death
the path to You leads where I’ll stay.

Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “sweep” to be used in a B rhyme of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge. I am thinking of Psalm 51.

Fountain – Six Sentence Story

George was told that the fall colors this year were particularly beautiful near the nature center and so he went there and followed a trail leading from the picnic tables by the river.

He hadn’t thought that he had ever been there before, a place where parents would take young children, but then the fountain of his memory opened. He recalled that there should be a loop up ahead of this trail leading back to the center and sure enough there it was with the remembered rustic rail fencing and signs. He also remembered his father and uncle slowly walking behind him while his mother and aunt were waiting for them with sandwiches and pie.

As George returned to the nature center, having forgotten all about the foliage, a rush of regret and remorse led to repentance, something he should have expressed decades ago, for all of his idle words and rebellious deeds directed against his family. Leaving the center he felt a burden lift from his heart opening a future he had not imagined was even there before, but which had been waiting for him all this time.

Denise offers the prompt word “fountain” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. I was thinking of the last two verses of Psalm 138.

Here Comes The Rain

Dale offers the prompt “here comes the rain” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge. Although I feel “under the weather” (even though it’s not raining) I do have some photos from the past that might do.

Sunday Walk 61 – Adam and Eve

The genetic evidence strongly suggests that Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve were not just real people, they were the progenitors of us all.
Carter, R.W., S.S. Lee, and J.C. Sanford. An overview of the independent histories of the human Y-chromosome and the human mitochondrial chromosome. 2018. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 133–151. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship.

After the Fall, Adam named his wife Eve. (Genesis 3:20) Today geneticists talk about Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. The controversy is over estimates of how long ago they lived. If the estimates are over fifty thousand years ago, and you believed it, that would strongly show the Bible is wrong. If the estimates are under ten thousand years, and you believed it, that would confirm the biblical account.

The Bible also mentions a global flood with three couples, Noah’s sons and their wives (Genesis 6-8). This population bottleneck should appear in the genetic record as well and indeed one can find it. Nathaniel T. Jeanson and Ashley D. Holland in 2019 “confirm a 4,500-year history for human paternal ancestry”.

At about 25:00 in the video below John Sanford provided seven lines of genetic evidence supporting the idea of a literal Adam and Eve.

(1) Mitochondrial Eve
(2) Y-Chromosome Adam
(3) Population Bottleneck
(4) Designed Variants in Genome
(5) Babel Dispersion
(6) Ape-to-Man Refuted
(7) Genetic Entropy

John Sanford, Genetic Entropy, Evolution & the Bible

Does that make you look at yourself differently? Do you still think that you are evolved stardust? None of us are.

Additional information on Adam and Eve and other science topics can be found at LogosRA.

I will include the Parashat Torah readings and Haftarah selections from the rest of the Bible in this set of readings since yesterday the reading of the Torah began again in Genesis. I will be using the Chabad.org calendar to find the name of the reading and the Jewish Virtual Library for the verses involved.

Weekly Bible Reading: Isaiah (Audio), Jeremiah (Audio)
26 Tishrei, 5782, Bereishit: Parashat Genesis 1:1-6:8; Haftarat Isaiah 42:5-43:11
Commentaries:
David Pawson, Isaiah, Part 38, Jeremiah, Part 39, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Isaiah (40-66) and Jeremiah