Socrates
April 3rd 2003, 11:55 PM
Wienerdog is a disciple of the leading day-age OEC Hugh Ross (as is Steadele), and still persists in promoting his day-age theory by commenting on the current debate between JohnRanson and me. However, he withdrew from a formal debate with me on the day-age theory (for valid personal reasons) which would have been a proper forum instead of sniping from the sidelines in a thread I'm not allowed to reply to. So let's just take one thing, the commentators on Genesis in the early years of the Church. WD's mentor Ross claims on his website in an article Biblical Evidence for Long Creation Days (http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/longdays.html) (the link is presently defunct but he says the same thing in his books):
Many of the early church fathers and other Biblical scholars interpreted the creation days of Genesis 1 as long periods of time. The list of such proponents includes the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century); Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, apologist, and martyr (2nd century); Origen, who rebutted heathen attacks on Christian doctrine (3rd century); Basil (4th century); Augustine (5th century); and, later, Aquinas (13th century), to name a few.
However, Ross's fellow long-age compromiser Davis Young wrote (Christianity and the Age of the Earth, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 19, 22, 1982):
‘The virtually unanimous opinion among the early Christians until the time of Augustine was that human history had lasted approximately fifty-five hundred years. It is also very probable that the age of the world was regarded as the same number of years, for the writings of the church fathers generally do not reveal any sharp distinctions between the initial creation and the creation of man. …
‘It is also generally necessary that the days of creation (Gen. 1) be regarded as ordinary days if one were to hold that the Earth was only fifty-five hundred years old. We find absolutely no one arguing that the world is tens of thousands of years old on the grounds that the days are used figuratively for long periods of time. …
‘Many of the Church Fathers plainly regarded the six days as ordinary days.’
So who is right? As will be shown, Davis Young is. In fact, I have found quotes from all the early writers Ross cites (Aquinas is far too late), and they clearly did NOT believe in long creation days. They either believed the days were ordinary ones, or were an INSTANT, and they were clearly YECs. So either Ross is incredibly sloppy or lying.
Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 1(1):1, www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-1.htm):
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light: and when that was made, he considered the whole mass, and separated the light and the darkness; and the name he gave to one was Night, and the other he called Day: and he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest, The Evening and The Morning, and this was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day; the cause of which I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give such reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition till that time. After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts, and he determined it should stand by itself. He also placed a crystalline [firmament] round it, and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. On the third day he appointed the dry land to appear, with the sea itself round about it; and on the very same day he made the plants and the seeds to spring out of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures, both those that swim, and those that fly; the former in the sea, the latter in the air: he also sorted them as to society and mixture, for procreation, and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made. And that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we Celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.’
And note that this chapter was headed "Containing the interval of three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three years. From the Creation to the death of Isaac." So Josephus could not POSSIBLY have been a day-ager, since there were only 3833 years from the creation itself up to Isaac (using the LXX).
Basil the Great (Hexaëmeron 2:8, www.newadvent.org/fathers/32012.htm, emphasis added):
‘“And there was evening and there was morning: one day.” And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say “one day” not “the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day”, it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.’
How could Ross POSSIBLY mistake this CLEAR statement of 24 hour days in Genesis 1 and tell people repeatedly that Basil believed in long creation days??
About Irenaeus, Ross totally twists what he says. Again, Davis Young is more honest (Christianity and the Age of the Earth, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 20, 1982):
‘But the interesting feature of this patristic view is that the equation of days and millennia was not applied to the creation week but rather to subsequent history. They did not believe that the creation had taken place over six millennia but that the totality of human history would occupy six thousand years, a millennium of history for each of the six days of creation.’
I.e. each day of creation corresponded to (but was not equal to) one thousand years of subsequent earth history. Therefore there was a scheme of 6000 years of history, a millennium for each Creation Day, followed by the millennium, which that paralleled the 7th Day (of rest). So the world as we know it would last no longer than seven thousand years.
See what Irenaeus said, which shows again that Young is right and Ross is misleading people. In fact, this quote CLEARLY SHOWS that Irenaeus was a YEC (Heresies, 5.28.3; Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:557, emphasis added)
‘For in six days as the world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. … For that day of the Lord is a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.’
Origen and Augustine were of the Alexandrian school, influenced by neo-Platonism. So they were more prone to allegorising. However, they did NOT believe that the days were long periods of time, because they were clearly YECs! Therefore there is no room for any long creation days.
Origen (Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) 1.19, Ante-Nicene Fathers 4:404, emphasis added):
‘After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that the world is uncreated. For, maintaining that there have been, from all eternity, many conflagrations and many deluges, and that the flood which lately took place in the time of Deucalion is comparatively modern, he clearly demonstrates to those who are able to understand him, that, in his opinion, the world was uncreated. But let this assailant of the Christian faith tell us by what arguments he was compelled to accept the statement that there have been many conflagrations and many cataclysms, and that the flood which occurred in the time of Deucalion, and the conflagration in that of Phaethon, were more recent than any others.’
Augustine's most famous work, City of God, has a whole chapter, "Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past", (book 12, ch. 10, emphasis added):
‘Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. … They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.’
So the onus is on Ross to provide some patristic quotations that support the day-age view, and to retract his claims about these writers.
Many of the early church fathers and other Biblical scholars interpreted the creation days of Genesis 1 as long periods of time. The list of such proponents includes the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century); Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, apologist, and martyr (2nd century); Origen, who rebutted heathen attacks on Christian doctrine (3rd century); Basil (4th century); Augustine (5th century); and, later, Aquinas (13th century), to name a few.
However, Ross's fellow long-age compromiser Davis Young wrote (Christianity and the Age of the Earth, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 19, 22, 1982):
‘The virtually unanimous opinion among the early Christians until the time of Augustine was that human history had lasted approximately fifty-five hundred years. It is also very probable that the age of the world was regarded as the same number of years, for the writings of the church fathers generally do not reveal any sharp distinctions between the initial creation and the creation of man. …
‘It is also generally necessary that the days of creation (Gen. 1) be regarded as ordinary days if one were to hold that the Earth was only fifty-five hundred years old. We find absolutely no one arguing that the world is tens of thousands of years old on the grounds that the days are used figuratively for long periods of time. …
‘Many of the Church Fathers plainly regarded the six days as ordinary days.’
So who is right? As will be shown, Davis Young is. In fact, I have found quotes from all the early writers Ross cites (Aquinas is far too late), and they clearly did NOT believe in long creation days. They either believed the days were ordinary ones, or were an INSTANT, and they were clearly YECs. So either Ross is incredibly sloppy or lying.
Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 1(1):1, www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-1.htm):
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light: and when that was made, he considered the whole mass, and separated the light and the darkness; and the name he gave to one was Night, and the other he called Day: and he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest, The Evening and The Morning, and this was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day; the cause of which I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give such reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition till that time. After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts, and he determined it should stand by itself. He also placed a crystalline [firmament] round it, and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. On the third day he appointed the dry land to appear, with the sea itself round about it; and on the very same day he made the plants and the seeds to spring out of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures, both those that swim, and those that fly; the former in the sea, the latter in the air: he also sorted them as to society and mixture, for procreation, and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made. And that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we Celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.’
And note that this chapter was headed "Containing the interval of three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three years. From the Creation to the death of Isaac." So Josephus could not POSSIBLY have been a day-ager, since there were only 3833 years from the creation itself up to Isaac (using the LXX).
Basil the Great (Hexaëmeron 2:8, www.newadvent.org/fathers/32012.htm, emphasis added):
‘“And there was evening and there was morning: one day.” And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say “one day” not “the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day”, it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.’
How could Ross POSSIBLY mistake this CLEAR statement of 24 hour days in Genesis 1 and tell people repeatedly that Basil believed in long creation days??
About Irenaeus, Ross totally twists what he says. Again, Davis Young is more honest (Christianity and the Age of the Earth, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 20, 1982):
‘But the interesting feature of this patristic view is that the equation of days and millennia was not applied to the creation week but rather to subsequent history. They did not believe that the creation had taken place over six millennia but that the totality of human history would occupy six thousand years, a millennium of history for each of the six days of creation.’
I.e. each day of creation corresponded to (but was not equal to) one thousand years of subsequent earth history. Therefore there was a scheme of 6000 years of history, a millennium for each Creation Day, followed by the millennium, which that paralleled the 7th Day (of rest). So the world as we know it would last no longer than seven thousand years.
See what Irenaeus said, which shows again that Young is right and Ross is misleading people. In fact, this quote CLEARLY SHOWS that Irenaeus was a YEC (Heresies, 5.28.3; Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:557, emphasis added)
‘For in six days as the world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. … For that day of the Lord is a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.’
Origen and Augustine were of the Alexandrian school, influenced by neo-Platonism. So they were more prone to allegorising. However, they did NOT believe that the days were long periods of time, because they were clearly YECs! Therefore there is no room for any long creation days.
Origen (Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) 1.19, Ante-Nicene Fathers 4:404, emphasis added):
‘After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that the world is uncreated. For, maintaining that there have been, from all eternity, many conflagrations and many deluges, and that the flood which lately took place in the time of Deucalion is comparatively modern, he clearly demonstrates to those who are able to understand him, that, in his opinion, the world was uncreated. But let this assailant of the Christian faith tell us by what arguments he was compelled to accept the statement that there have been many conflagrations and many cataclysms, and that the flood which occurred in the time of Deucalion, and the conflagration in that of Phaethon, were more recent than any others.’
Augustine's most famous work, City of God, has a whole chapter, "Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past", (book 12, ch. 10, emphasis added):
‘Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. … They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.’
So the onus is on Ross to provide some patristic quotations that support the day-age view, and to retract his claims about these writers.