Creation

Reading the stories as consecutive seems a bit of a strain, but if you're committed to the Bible being literal and accurate that comes with the territory.The idea of humans before Adam is hardly new, and has a somewhat mixed history.
( e.g. Pre-Adamite )As far as resolving the conflict between evolution and creationism, even if you take an old Earth view and assume that evolution is the primary means of creation there is a lot more to do. The order of creation in the seven-day account is hardly in line with scientific conclusions. And the implicit geocentrism would seem to be a problem.

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I am not an old earth, new earth or intelligent design creationist. I simply read the Bible and see what it says. It is my understanding, just from reading, that Moses was shown creation by God in 6 days.

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I don't think that you will find anywhere in the Bible that says that Moses was "shown creation by God in six days". i don't remember it from my own reading and I've never seen anyone else offer a quote to that effect. There's not even a clear attribution of Genesis to Moses (who, in reality - if he even existed - is unlikely to have written any book of the Bible).Regardless, a young Earth view is not consistent with scientific findings, nor the idea that the creation described in Genesis 1 used evolution to bring about the diversity of plants and animals. It may be that you intended your initial statement to deny that you are a creationist - but I never said that you were.

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God created the universe / multi-verse and all the physical laws of the universe. He could have created the universe the minute before I was born with everything appropriately aged, but I don't feel He did, just from common sense and reading the Bible.

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Omphalism. It's never been a popular view because it requires God to deceive. Unnecessarily creating evidence of a false past is obviously a deception - and Science has found evidence of a very long past, for the Earth and an even longer past for our Universe.

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I don't have scripture or science to back me up on this belief, just common sense.

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I think that the same common sense that tells you that the Universe was not created a few minutes ago, should also tell you that the evidence of an old Earth is to be believed. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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In Chapter 1 men and women were created, it Chapter 2 Adam and Eve were created, this is not a great stretch and I believe a logical conclusion if you simply reading Genesis as if for the first time.

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A rather naive conclusion since there is rather clear evidence that there are two conflicting stories there. For instance the animals being created after Adam hardly agrees with them being created before humans.

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There is actually scientific data published in reliable sources that align with this theory. 1. Nature (Callaway, Ewen, Genetic Adam and Eve did not live too far apart in time, Nature, 6Aug13) 2. (Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age, Science, 18Dec 2009).

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No, there is not. I am sorry if the use of "Adam" and "Eve" confused you into thinking that they referred to the individuals in the Bible but that is not at all justified by the evidence. If you followed the Bible, Noah would be "Adam" and you don't have a great case for identifying "Eve" with the Biblical Eve at all.

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More detail in the book, if you contact me you I will send the manuscript or you can get online

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I think that it is clear that you have a lot of work to do, before you are ready to publish.

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The scientific data simply indicates that we are all descended from one man and one woman, who lived approximately 90k -150k BCE (BC is an oxymoron, there was no time before Christ). This man and this woman lived at the time when there were other men and women around. This data is consistent with the "separate creation" of Adam, Eve and the garden, created after the creation in Chapter 1 of other men and women.

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I think you need a slightly deeper understanding of what the science actually shows.In each case DNA samples were taken and compared, and the time calculated is an estimate of the time taken for the differences in the DNA to accumulate.In one case the DNA came from the Y chromosome which passes down the male line, in the other it was mitochondrial DNA which (with rare exceptions) passes down the female line.Now, since it is hardly unknown for a man to have no sons and a woman to have no daughters it follows that there should be a convergence at some point. And if you think about it there is no good reason to think that the individuals identified are the most recent common ancestors.If we follow the Bible, and assume that the population was reduced to 8 people at some point then the Y chromosome common ancestor would be Noah (most likely). But we can't identify the mitochondrial common ancestor - we don't know the ancestry of the wives at all, let alone have a guarantee that they were all descended from Eve in an unbroken female lineage.However, we also have no evidence that the human population was ever reduced that low or even close to it. So - even assuming a literal Adam and Eve it is rather likely that the common ancestors shown by the DNA are other, unrelated people.

Some dates.While Wikipedia is very far from the last word it makes a good starting place.The origins of agriculture: Neolithic RevolutionAround 12,500 years ago. Y-chromosomal AdamMitochondrial EveThere don't really seem to coincide. In particular, despite the huge uncertainty, the Y-chromosomal Adam is a long way before the Neolithic Revolution.

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The entire point of my book is that Christians are rejecting aspects of science when there is no need, and that men and women trained in science are rejecting scripture when there is no need, they are not mutually exclusive studies.

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If that was your aim you would be better off embracing Genesis as myth and legend and recognising that as the reason for the conflicts between the two creation stories.If you choose to throw in with the literalists you have huge problems with the Genesis 1 creation story, with the dates, with the Flood. Reiterating pre-Adamite ideas does very little to deal with those problems.And, of course, there are better reasons to reject Christianity anyway, but that is a different issue.

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I have made a logical Biblical argument, but if reject the Bible, then a Biblical argument is irrelevant

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If you have a real interest in reconciling the Bible with science then you need to deal with all the relevant science.If, on the other hand, you are solely interested in reviving the pre-Adamite theology by falsely claiming that it reconciles the Bible with science, then there is indeed nothing more worth talking about.

I have some comments on these.

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G1 - the Bible is the word of God (the current 66 books)
G2 - any scripture must be interpreted in light of all scripture, no scripture may be "privately interpreted"

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G1 is contrary to the Bible which presents itself as primarily a human creation.
G2 seems like an excuse to distort the text to hide contradictions.

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E1: The creation in chapter1 describes the creation of the universe from the Big Bang (let there be light - initially photons only existed prior to even atoms) the creation of the universe, the creation of the stars, earth moon, sea life, plants, animals and humans.

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This is false. The Creation starts with the Primordial Ocean - common to Creation Myths in the Ancient Near East, and the cosmology reflects that. It is at odds with science in many ways, which you have so far refused to discuss even when the issue has been raised.

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E6: All mean and women alive today are descended from a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) who was alive when other men and women were alive (Nature 6Aug13 among many other sources)

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I'll just note again that the Y-Chromosomal Adam is certainly not the MRCA (there are more recent ones). Also that your assumptions require that the Y-Chromosomal Adam is Noah who - according to Biblical chronologies - lived much too recently to be a plausible candidate. Further, the human population has never been reduced to an effective population of 5 as a literal reading of the Flood story suggests.

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E7: The are many occurrences in the Bible where the same story is retold from a different perspective (Kings and Chronicles) or to a different audience (the four Gospels)

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Which includes some significant contradictions between the texts. If your doctrine refuses to acknowledge this your doctrine opposes the Bible.

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E8: A lack of archaeological evidence does not prove that something did not exist (e.g. both King David and the city of Troy were thought to be myths until evidence of their existence was uncovered)

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In all cases, the absence of evidence is only significant to the extent that evidence should be present. The absence of evidence for the Biblical Flood is, for instance, decisive.

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D3: The creation described in Genesis 1 is not contradictory to our understanding of the evolutionary process.

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The order of creation is not consistent with what we know of evolution, and the account does not acknowledge the differences between ancient and modern forms.

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D5: Through Noah, we are all descended from Adam.

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For this to be consistent with science, Noah must be placed in the distant past, contradicting the Biblical chronology - and even then science gives us absolutely no reason to identify the Y-Chromosomal Adam with Noah whatsoever.

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C1 The Creation accounts Genesis 1 and 2 are sequential, which is consistent with the genealogies in the book of Genesis and with Genesis 6.

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This conclusion is not adequately supported, since it fails to deal with the differences in the order of creation which you acknowledged in your D6

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C2 The account in Genesis 1 is not inconsistent with science, having Adam and the garden created after other men and women eliminates the conflict with evolution (men and women in chapter 1 followed the evolutionary process as is consistent with the order).

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This conclusion is clearly false, since most of the conflicts have been completely ignored. Which at this point looks like a deliberate tactic.

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C3 We are all descended from Adam through Noah as he was "perfect in his generations", so this is consistent to the references to Adam in the New Testament.

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As I have pointed out above this conclusion is also problematic, at best requiring dubious assumptions.

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I believe Genesis 1:1-3 is a very good description of what happened before, during and after the big bang. "n the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light"

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Did you not notice "darkness was over the face of the deep" or "the face of the waters" ? There is the Primordial Ocean right there. The same waters are moved to uncover dry land in verses 9-10.Now, the presence of large amounts of water - or any ordinary matter prior to the Big Bang would be rather a surprise to science, wouldn't you agree ? And isn't the implied geocentrism - the failure to recognise that the Earth is even a planet entirely consistent with an ANE worldview and not at all with what we know now ?The Memphis Creation stories centering around Ptah have some rather obvious parallels: PtahEdited by PaulK, : Fixed auto "correct" typo

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Yes, there IS a "then", at the beginning of verse 3, after the circumstantial clause which is verse 2. The Hebrew construction is called a "waw-consecutive" or "preterite", and is normally translated "and then".

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The point seems to be that there is no "then" between verse 1 and verse 2.It seems likely to me that verse 1 says what the story is about, while verse 2 describes the original state of everything. Heaven and Earth are created later in the story. The ancient Hebrews had a geocentric cosmology so there is no need to suggest that there is a sudden shift of focus to Earth - there really is nothing else in the author's world-view to shift away from.

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Verse 1 can be seen either as a heading or title for the whole account, or as the initial divine action in the account. Grammatically and structurally, the latter seems most likely to me. I see the heaven and the earth having been created in verse 1, NOT later in the story.

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Since the sky and the celestial bodies are all created in the rest of the text (starting in verse 6) and the dry land, called Earth is created in verses 9-10 it seems that there is good reason to think that they are created later.And certainly there is no good reason to assume that verse 1 refers to the creation of the universe as we see it, not when the stars aren't created until verse 15.

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But the earth is not created in vv 9-10 (Day 3a); it already exists, overlain with water. In vv. 9-10 God separates the water from the dry land, and He names the dry land as "earth"

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That doesn't exactly contradict my point. The dry land - the Earth - is created.

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Likewise, vv. 6-8 (Day 2) is about the separation of the seas from the heavens, not the creation of the heavens. What is created is the "firmament", which is the separator between the seas and the heavens.

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You seem to be contradicting yourself there. Are you assuming that creation must mean ex nihilism creation ?

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Verse 2 notes that the earth is formless and empty. In the literary structure of the account, Days 1-3 address forming (through separation and naming), while Days 4-6 address filling.

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I think that forming can be called creation. Why do you disagree ?

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But that's NOT what the text says. It says that the dry land is "made visible", not "created" on Day 3a. The thing that God "creates" is the separation between sea and dry land

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The literal translation hardly helps you. There wasn't any hidden dry land - it should be pretty obvious that the seabed isn't dry just for start !

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Can you please explain what you perceive to be a contradiction?

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You say that there wasn't any creation and then you describe a creation. How can that not be a contradiction ?

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I agree

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Well, we have some forming which produces Earth, the sky and a distinct region of "waters above the Earth", so I see no reason not to call it a creation of Heavens and Earth.

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The text does NOT say that anything was "created" on Day 3a. The land already existed. God declares that He will allow it to "be seen", NOT to "be created". The text is clear on this. I don't see why you are trying to distort the text to say "created" here?

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I guess I am going to have to Do you think that dry land was somehow simply hidden by the water ? How could it be dry if it was under the water ?And saying "let it be seen" does not contradict the idea that it is created. You really seem to think that a narrow literalism is the only possible reading.

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Where did I say this

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The text is clear on Day 2 that there WAS a creation, that of a "firmament" (not heavens, not earth, not waters, but "firmament"). This "firmament" was created to separate the waters above from the waters below.

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Well I am glad you admit that much. But feel free to go back and read your post.

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On the first three Days, God is forming "realms" which He will populate by "rulers" on the next three Days. The way that God forms these "realms" is by separation of the pre-existing material, and by naming the new realms, thus giving them meaning and function. In some cases, this separation of pre-existing material is accomplished by creating something new; in other cases not.

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Which reveals a lack of substantive disagreement. Refusing to call something a creation even when something distinct is formed is at best a choice of phrasing.
And surely the fact that the material is pre-existing is only relevant if you insist on ex nihilism creation which you denied doing.From your list I get the heavens created in day 2 and the Earth in day 3.

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The land was already here, covered with water. It had already been created.
Since it was covered with water, it was not dry.

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So it is reasonable to say that dry land was not merely revealed.

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I am simply trying to be careful and to urge care with the text, and not to force foreign understandings on it.

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And yet you do exactly that when you insist that there is a move of focus to Earth. And you aren't really doing that here - certainly you offer no argument that any "foreign" understanding is involved.

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When an author chooses the word "created" for some things and "be seen" for others, he is making a distinction that should not be ignored. You might WISH that the text said that the earth was "created" on Day 3, but it doesn't. We should not impose our wishes on the text.

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If you can show that Hebrew writers insisted on using words in that way, rather than varying words because it reads better as English writers do you might have a point. But simply assuming that they did might well be forcing a foreign understanding on the text - exactly contrary to your stated intent.

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That's not what I said, and it's not what the text says.

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Then I guess you are determined to avoid seeing a more general idea of creation and are pretty much stuck with assuming that it has to be ex nihilo to count.