Dear Steve,
Having read your article, “is the earth 6000 years old” I have to say it is an eye opener and a real radical way of thinking which in turn will make others think, however I have a few concerns which I would like to air with you.
You say that satan then lucifer created ever greater and fiercer reptilian creatures and eventually these were destroyed in the great spiritual war, however although you address various mass extinctions you do not address the mass extinctions concerning mammals right up until roughly the creation of man and possibly even afterwards (cavepaintings depict mammoths). Moreover these mammals that were created were often in a variety of terrifying forms as well, ie sabre toothed cats, dire wolves giant cave bears, hyenas the size of bears, wild boar the size of rhinos, and the plant eaters were just as scarey giant forms of elephant and rhino, giant ground sloths, can you account for these ferocious mammals? Moreover can you account for the many variety of man like animal fossils that have been found? And Finally in the modern age we have plenty animals which kill and eat each other, and others that kill via competition for grazing mates so on so forth can this be explained.
Regards
Jonathan MacDonald
ps I am not a critic just an inquisitive mind, and your other articals concerning biblical truths are fantastic
MYREPLY
Dear Jonathan,
Your email contained very good questions about my article, Is the Earth 6,000 years Old?, and you have no need at all to apologize for being a “critic.” I’ve always adhered to the axiom “the truth will bear scrutiny,” and your questions offer me a chance to provide more in-depth information on the history of the earth as revealed by the Bible. For readers of our email exchange to understand it’s context better, I will very briefly summarize my article to which you refer.
My article addressed the pre-Adamic, prehistoric period of our planet when there were no human beings and it was populated by angels. The angels on earth were led by Lucifer, a “covering cherub” who was created by God with superior powers and gifts (Ezekiel 28:13-15). Unfortunately, Lucifer rebelled and he and his angels were defeated in a war against their Creator. Lucifer and his rebel angels were hurled back to the earth (Isaiah 14:12-15. Ezekiel 28:16-18, Luke 10:18, Jude 6 and 13), which was destroyed during the “war in heaven” which occurred in this primordial, prehistoric time. The originally pristine, beautiful, inhabited earth (Genesis 1:1, Job 38:4-11, Isaiah 45:18) became a darkened, uninhabitable, flooded planet in which the defeated angels wandered over a darkened sea for an unrevealed but indefinite period of time (Jude 6, 13). This is the state of the earth that is described in Genesis 1:2. Science has determined (proven, in my opinion) that the earth is eons old, and an earth which is billions of years old is entirely consistent with a literal interpretation of the Bible. The concept that the earth can only be 6,000 years old comes from a widespread failure to grasp that Genesis 1-2 teaches that the earth was created and devastated in the eons before Creation Week ever began in Genesis 1:3. These verses are easily properly understood once you include the information about the original creation of the earth found in Isaiah 45:18 and Job 38:4-11. The dinosaurs went extinct suddenly in the “war in heaven” that occurred between the Creator and Lucifer. Since the earth was the “headquarters” of Lucifer and his rebellious army of angels, this planet was all but annihilated in God’s “counterattack” against Lucifer’s rebellious kingdom. Lucifer was renamed “Satan” and he and his angels have been dedicated to opposing God and destroying mankind ever since mankind was later created on what used to be “their” planet.
Genesis 1:3 begins the Creation Week account in which God re-created life and many new species on the earth. This creation was capped by the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, who were made in the very image of the Creator but were given physical, not spirit bodies. This may have been the first time in galactic history that sentient beings who could comprehend eternity were not created in bodies that could last an eternity. However, God was beginning a master plan involving mankind, but that is the story for another blog or article. Those who want more information on the complete harmony between scientific discoveries about the age of the earth and the Bible’s narratives are referred to my article, Is the Earth 6,000 Years Old?, available at this website. With the above brief comments about the article you mentioned, I’ll now address your questions and comments (which have fascinating answers!).
You correctly note that my article examines the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, but does not address the mass extinction of many mammalian species which occurred more recently in the earth’s history. That subject is worthy of an entire article but this blog response will have to suffice. When Adam and Eve were created, he also made new mammalian species as well as new species of birds, amphibians, fish, etc., These new species had over 1,600 years to diversify into numerous sub-species before the Deluge which occurred in Noah’s time. The entire earth was inhabitable and life forms had spread everywhere (this is confirmed by archaeological discoveries of wildlife and warm-weather species even in the polar regions). At the time of the Deluge, the mammals and all forms of animals which entered the Ark would have been the ones indigenous to the part of the world where Noah’s family lived. Only the subspecies of each Genesis “Kind” which lived in the general region of the Ark’s construction would have been placed on the Ark and would have survived the great extinction of mammalian species which occurred in the Deluge. When God told Noah to make an Ark big enough to house every type of beast and fowl (Genesis 7:1-3), God was not referring to what we would call “every species,” much less every subspecies of the mammals. God was referring to the survival of a few samples of every type of animal that fit the category of the Genesis “Kinds” which God had originally created.
For this reason, we have several species of tigers today that survived via their ancestors who rode on the Ark, but we have no saber-toothed Tigers. We have Asian and African elephants, but no mammoths or mastodons. There are sloths today, but no giant cave sloths. Huge numbers of subspecies (and perhaps even species) of mammals and other creatures died in the Deluge, but each “Genesis Kind” of animals has specimens on the Ark to begin reproducing new generations after the Deluge receded. The Ark was, quite literally, a “survival capsule” through which humans and modern animals and birds were preserved. Archaeological sites have preserved the skeletons of numerous types of mammals which all perished together in ancient mass extinction locations. That extinction was the global Flood of Noah’s time. The immense wave actions that were unleashed (Genesis 7:11-12) by the global floods and tectonic activity would have swept innumerable carcasses of ancient species of mammals into common mass graves–where their remains are found today). Whenever you fly in an airplane over a mountain range, you can see the remains of ancient rivercourses and erosions as the Noachian Deluge waters gradually receded from off the earth (via both evaporation and God’s action to gouge deep chasms in the oceans–such as the Marianas trench in the Pacific Ocean in order to drain the waters off the earth’s continents).
You also ask a good question when you note that many of the types of mammals destroyed in the ancient mass extinction were of “terrifying” size or had ferocious natures. This touches on a subject that modern mankind does not realize. Genesis 4:20 records that pre-Flood mankind were livestock keepers, indicating that they knew how to inbreed or cross-breed animals to create the kinds of subspecies they desired. Although we do not have a canonized form of the book of Jasher today, we do know that the Bible affirms that there used to be an inspired version of the book of Jasher that was still read by people in ancient biblical times (Joshua 10:13, II Samuel 1:18). I have a copy of the book of Jasher available today, and I find it to be largely credible in its pre-Flood accounts and in those applying to the patriarchal period of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It has clear errors and spurious additions in its later chapters. However, Jasher 4:18 records that pre-Flood mankind was “provoking the Lord to anger” by “mixing of animals of one species with the other.” Pre-Flood mankind was creating types of “chimera” species of mammals which God never intended to draw breath! Since pre-Flood mankind was given to violence (Genesis 6:13), they could have bred chimera species of mammals which were specifically bred to fight each other for the entertainment of a degenerating pre-Flood mankind even as the degenerate Roman Empire had gladiators and different types of beasts fight each other to entertainment the masses. Ecclesiastes 1:9 observes that “there is nothing new under the sun” and that past behaviors and types of events recur in cycles, so arranging man vs. man or man vs. beast combat can occur in far-separate times. Daniel 12:4 prophesies that mankind will experience an exponential increase in knowledge in the “time of the end,”‘ and Matthew 24:38 prophesies that the latter days will mirror the pre-Flood world, so it follows that the pre-Flood world also had an exponential increase in knowledge and had a high-tech civilization like our own.
Since one cannot create chimera species by normal breeding, pre-Flood mankind had to do it the same way modern scientists clone animals or create chimera organisms. They had to do it by mapping the genomes of the species and they “mixed and matched” them in whatever combination they desired to breed formidable “designer” species of predators and prey animals. Obviously, pre-Flood mankind had electricity, electron microscopes, and all the technology to accomplish the same kinds of genetic manipulations that modern scientists do. The artifacts of this period were so destroyed and atomized in the destructive cataclysms on the Flood that there was likely nothing left of them as God wanted to remove all vestiges of that civilization from his sight.
Genesis 4:12 relates that pre-Flood mankind had “corrupted God’s ways” so badly that God was compelled to extinguish life on earth and start over with Noah’s family and a few specimens of animals on the Ark. Genesis 4:12 records that “all flesh” had become corrupted, and this term includes all the animal species, not just mankind. Genesis 7:9 & 15 indicate that God selected the animal specimens which came to Noah for placement on the Ark. Once we realize that all species of flesh were corrupted by mankind’s reckless and unsanctioned genetic manipulations, it makes sense that God would bring to Noah only those animal specimens which had not been corrupted by “species mixing.” The destructions of the Deluge were intended to not only eliminate a grossly-corrupted human race, but also all the chimera species that God never intended to be placed on the earth.
Scientists discuss to a period of archaeology in which there was a rapid and unprecedented explosion in the types and sizes of mammals on the earth. I’ve seen it called “the golden age of evolution” by writers who are duped by evolutionary fables and who do not understand the real history of the earth. Far from “proving the theory of evolution,” this rapid appearance of new and giant-sized mammals supports the record of Jasher 4:18 that pre-Flood mankind was mixing the species to produce all kinds of mammals that God never intended to live on the earth. Genesis 6:12 records that both mankind and animals had become terminally “corrupt” in God’s eyes, so he wiped them all out except for a very small number of survivors on the Ark.
Finally, you asked about animals which kill and eat each other. In Eden, God gave mankind all kinds of vegetation to eat (Genesis 2:9, 16-17), but there is no permission recorded for mankind to then eat animals. It is only after the Deluge that God changed the digestive tracts of mankind to handle eating animal flesh (Genesis 9:3) as well as vegetation. God also changed the natures of animal species after the Flood (Genesis 9:2), and this had to include making some species into predators and changing the teeth of predator animals to rip flesh rather than grind fodder. In the millennium (or Messianic Age) after Jesus/Yashua returns, God has prophesied that he will change the natures of all animals back to their Edenic, peaceful nature and now-predatory animals will have their teeth changed to grind vegetation instead of rip flesh (Isaiah 11:6-9). Even lions will again be like big tabby-cats or affection-seeking household pets they way they originally were created in Eden. Isaiah 11:9 prophesies that “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain” in the Millennium. There will be no breeding of animals for combat and there will be no animals with predatory natures. This also eliminates any possibility of mankind hurting and killing animals, so it you want to hunt wild species–do it now as it won’t be allowed in the millennium. There won’t be any “wild species” in the Millennium nor will there be any weapons in the hands of mankind (Micah 4:3).
Thanks again for your excellent questions and comments. Our exchange will be posted on my website so more readers can see this follow-up information to my article on earth’s prehistory: Is the Earth 6,000 Years Old?
Steve Collins
