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The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis

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I was brought to faith in Christ through the teachings of Henry Morris' "The Genesis Record" - a book that explained a theory in how science and the Bible are not enemies. I had some remaining questions about how much of secular science could be wrong (e.g., Big Bang theory, age of fossils, etc.) but enthusiastically embraced the Young Earth position. While in seminary I was challenged to understand the various positions on theological topics such as age of the earth. I picked up a copy of "The Genesis Question" wanting to understand the Old Earth argument from their own mouths, although at the time I was confident that Old Earthers were demonically influenced and Hugh Ross was a goat not a sheep (this was what I was taught by my Young Earth friends). After reading chapter one, I began thinking "this guy is making a lot of sense." But I was scared that I would have to abandon my belief in the Bible to accept anything other than a 6,000 year old earth. Ross showed me how I could still believe in a literal interpreation of Genesis, a literal Adam and Eve, still believe the Bible was the inerrant, inspired Word of God AND believe in a 15 billion year old universe. For anyone interesting in learning how you don't have to check your scientific brain at the door to believe in the Bible I encourage you to check out this book!

First, If you're a Young Earth Creationist and don't really care what someone thinks or has to say about this book, please go ahead, mark it as unhelpful and save yourself the time and trouble of reading the book or this review.

After all, why risk possibly interacting positively in a mature and adult fashion with someone who is a fellow believer and has a different understanding of some Biblical Passages but who still affirms Inspiration, Inerrancy and the Diety of Christ? You can't experience anything positively by reading a book you already know you disagree with. We can't have that now? Can we?

As evidenced by the rapid 19 unhelpfuls put up, there is probably 1 person with multiple accounts who has made it their mission in life to attack others rather than defend their own position. It's sad, but that's the type of mentality unfortunately that characterizes some of those with a YEC position. Glad they have a hobby anyway ... keeps them off the streets .... ;)

Assuming you're still reading this review you're either genuinely interested in what this book has to say or you're a YEC'er (gasp) actually fair-minded enough to listen to what someone else has to say. In either event I applaud and welcome your interaction.

Hugh Ross is a astronomer from Canada who has worked through what has been a difficult process for many when it comes to the age of the universe and the earth in particular. As a scientist he is faced with overwhelming data that seems to point very strongly to the universe being very old; billions of years old. (Believe it or not, this is not a Satanic conspiracy from the pit of hell ... Scientists actually believe this based on evidence and not due to their secret membership in the Anti-Christ club.) Further, as a Christian, he is faced with the Bible which in the Genesis account(s), appear to favor a very rapid creation period (24 hour days according to some) and some strong proponents who claim that their interpretation and understanding of that Biblical account indicates that the earth can be no more than 10,000 years old.

So the choice seems to be accept one or the other. Of course, as a Christian you would expect Ross to accept "The Bible."

But wait a minute. "The Bible" is the final authority of Christians right? But the God of the Bible also is the God of creation right? How can "The Bible" and Nature be so out of line with each other (apparently?) Is God trying to deceive us? Is science really that wrong?

Young Earth Creationists have asked the same question and their answer has been to accept their interpretation (very important word there .... interpretation) and understanding of Genesis and the related passages and reasoned that Science must be wrong. So they've invested a great deal of time and effort in the laudable effort in seeking to reconcile the two. Frankly I think what they've come up with is pretty silly, but I have to commend them for making the effort as it comes from conviction and a recognition that they probably should make some sort of effort at reconciliation.

But wait. What about the other possibility? What if it is not science that is wrong. What if the Young Earth Position is wrong? Note, I didn't say what if "The Bible" is wrong. I don't believe it is or can be. Christians can be wrong however in their understanding. It's happened before, hasn't it? Remember a fellow named Galileo? The Church of his day renounced his science of the Sun at the center of the solar system and the proof he provided. Why? Because they believed the Bible taught otherwise. Was the Bible wrong? NO!!! Some Christians were!!!

Maybe we could learn something from that. Do you think?

So, what if something similar is going on here? "The Bible" can't be wrong, but what if we're not interpreting it right in this area?

To his credit, Ross doesn't take the easy way out and simply claim that Genesis is a myth or an unscientific representation and therefore it really can't be taken in a literal sense. Many have done that. The results are devestating. Start playing fast and loose with the Bible in one area and you can do so in the others and you effectively strip it of all meaning, power and authority. Apparently YEC'rs in their zeal can't appreciate that and so they heap scorn on a man trying to hold to the same standards they claim to follow.

That is what this book is all about. Hugh Ross approaches Genesis and works to reconcile it with what he believes to be true in terms of an old earth. It turns out, it's not too difficult to do. Certainly no more difficult than answering some of the tough questions that Young Earth Creationists have to answer as well.

Here's one just for starters. If there are 24 hour days from day 1 to day 6, how do you explain the Sun Moon and the Stars being created on the 4th day? How can there be a 24 hour day without the components that measure that day as such? Young Earth Creationists do have explanations for that, as do Old Earth Creationists. Young Earther's can do a pretty nice exegetical two-step and accept some pretty fancy explaining in that situation. I wonder why they aren't so open minded when it comes to other issues?

Maybe the Hebrew Word "Yom" can mean more than just a 24 hour day. What do you know! Turns out it can!! In fact, if a long period of time is what God and Moses meant to signify in Genesis, do you know what the best word to use in Ancient Hebrew is? Son of a Gun! Turns out it is the word "Yom"! Just the word used!

I don't believe Hugh Ross is perfect. I don't believe all his explanations are necessarily right. But I respect that he is willing to face the hard questions and attempt to give an answer. I believe Hugh Ross is enough of a Christian and a man that he could face new information, interact with it and change his mind if the truth from the Bible and the facts from Science required it. I even believe if he had to turn off his knowledge of Science and accept a Young Earth position on faith if he were convinced that orthodoxy and faith required it, he could do that. (I wonder if the YEC'ers mocking and slandering him could do the same, if they were brave enough to actually interact with what Hugh is saying, and not just throw their little hand-grenades of love, and if not, what they are so afraid of?)

I respect the man who is in the cross hairs wrestling with the issue and demonstrating Christian Qualities more than I respect immature and judgmental Christians who take pot shots and aren't in the battle themselves trying to do something.

Some of the people making reviews on this book and those voting to affirm these immature and decidely un-Christ-like displays could stand to learn a lesson from Hugh's silence in the face of their rudeness and attacking of his character and faith. Apparently their upbringing lacked manners and their education lacked the ability to disagree, agreeably. Great testimony on a web-site viewed by many outside the Church. I'm sure they're impressed.

It's a shame that so many from the YEC camp cannot have the same said of them as can be said of Hugh Ross. They are so sure they are right that they have equated their interpretation of the Bible in this one area to be a litmus test for all Christian faith and have used it to drive other believers away from them. Even sadder, they're driving unbelievers further from Christ because they equate Christianity with intellectual suicide.

I know this, because I used to be a Young Earth Creationist. Hugh Ross's book is not what changed my mind. I read it after that. But I know a good man when I read him and, agree or disagree with him, Hugh Ross is a good man.

I don't agree with all he says but I think he's on the right track. Further he is kind, humble and gentle in his presentation and I sense a genuine desire, far more than I ever evidenced when I was a YEC'er and far more than I see from most who take that position today, although thankfully there are a few exceptions.

I recommend this book regardless of your position when you start, and whether you agree with him or not when you're finished. You should walk away from it better understanding the issues and able to learn something. Unless of course, you really are afraid of that possibility. Thankfully those marked this review and moved on after the first sentence.

Thanks for reading and I truly hope you find this helpful.

Enjoy! ;)

Dr. Ross' explanation of the Genesis creation account is the most reasonable around. Add to this the fact that the science matches the account and ones has a compelling argument for the divine inspiration of Genesis. As a former atheist and well educated person, I recommend this book more than any other to those looking to understand the intersection of science and the Bible. Dr. Ross explains how to correctly exegete Genesis chapter 1 by noting the frame of reference of the author. Using this he explains why light was created before the sun. He points out differences in the different hebrew words used in the Genesis account that mean 'create'. This understanding is crucial to figuring out the creation account. As a person who for years studied science in the search for truth, I found this book to be most helpful- and it leads to a belief in Christianity.

Dr. Ross' careful and nuanced book is a joy to read! He uses an old-earth framework to demonstrate the accuracy of Genesis, in a thorough and systematic way I have not seen from other authors.

Of course, this book is not appreciated by young earth creationists, as many of the reviews below attest. I think most young earth creationists are sincere, though misguided.

The church embarrassed itself once before, rejecting Copernicus and Galileo based upon an overly-literal interpretation of Joshua 10 and other passages stating that the sun moves across the sky. We should be careful not to make the same mistake a second time.

The Bible is divinely inspired and without error. But that does not mean that every word and phrase should be read literally. For example, the Scriptures say that God is a "rock." But no one believes that He is a finite, inanimate piece of stone. That is figurative language. But it dramatically and accurately conveys something about God's protection that literal language could not convey.

Moses was not a scientist. The ancient Israelites did not think in scientific categories. So we should not expect Genesis to use a literal, scientific framework. The use of "days" more accurately conveys, from God's perspective, the relative importance of His creative activity.

On the other hand, for those who prefer to read the creation days as literal 24-hour days, you have an ally in Albert Einstein. According to his theory of relativity, the speed of time depends upon the speed of the object. For objects close to the speed of light, the universe may be only weeks, days or even hours old. Physicist Gerald Schroeder calculates that the universe is literally 7 days old, when measured from the edge of the expanding universe. See his book Genesis and the Big Bang (Bantam 1990).

Dr. Ross's book shows that Moses anticipated the findings of modern science. Scientists are only now realizing that the universe was created a finite time ago. It is not infinitely old.

So you don't have to check your brains at the door to be a devout Christian, Jew or Muslim. On the contrary, you have a head start!

I read this book after I read a book written against Creation Science by a staunch evolutionist. What I imagined I would find in this book was a defense of creation science by a Christian scientist arguing for a young earth, and against evolution. What I ended up discovering was shocking because this book was definitely not what I expected.

Dr. Ross does a wonderful job of illustrating that the Biblical account of creation does indeed support and not contradict the latest scientific findings. Ross believes that the Universe is in fact billions of years old and that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Dr. Ross agrees with the scientific establishment on the age of the earth, and because of this Creation Scientist will hate this book.

Furthermore, Dr. Ross progresses verse by verse through the Genesis creation account and shows how each verse actually agrees with the scientific model. To get around the literal 6 problem, Ross argues that day in this instance is referring to an unknown and quite long period of time. Dr. Ross shows that the Hebrew word Yom, can have several meanings since the language is limited by a small vocabulary, and Yom is used to express a literal 24 hour day as well as a long period of time.

I can't even begin to explain the scientific explanations laid down in this book, but Dr. Ross' arguments are convincing. He does point to the latest findings and argues from within an observable and experimental framework. He accepts all of the fossil evidence gathered by scientists, but does not believe in the evolutionary model. Instead, Dr. Ross understands God's creative work as a gradual process of making the earth inhabitable for humans. Instead of doing this miraculously and instantly, God did this over a long period of time, thus allowing time for all of the animals that are now extinct to have lived out their earthly existence.

Finally, Dr. Ross does an excellent job of dispelling the traditional myths surrounding the Genesis account of creation. He sees the first few chapters of the Bible as the greatest stumbling block to individual conversion because many erroneously believe that the Bible contradicts science. For instance, Dr. Ross shows that Genesis 1 and 2 are not describing two creation narratives, but that Genesis 1 is a general creation account while Genesis 2 is focused on humanity and mankind's central role in God's plan.

I could highlight many of the other arguments employed by Dr. Ross, but that would be unneccessary. Just read the book and keep and open mind in the process. Anyone who approaches this book with an open mind will see that the Bible does not contradict and stand opposed to science, but actually supports science.

Some people today (like Mr. Ross) are claiming that Noah's flood did not cover the entire Earth nor all the mountains of the day. Further, they claim that Noah and the animals floated on a shallow, temporary inland sea caused by the flood, somehow covering only the Mesopotamian region. Thus, they must claim that the Earth's entire human population was limited to this area, or that not all humans were killed in the flood. Is there really biblical evidence for claims of this nature?

Keep in mind that local Noah's flood/old earth advocates postulate the earth before the flood as essentially identical to today's earth.

1. The Depth and Duration of the Flood. The flood waters covered the mountains to a depth of at least the draft of Noah's Ark (Genesis 7:19,20). Today's mountains in the Ararat region include Mount Ararat which rises to 17,000 feet in elevation. The flood lasted for a year, peaking 150 days after it started (7:11, 8:3,4), then it began to abate. A year-long mountain-covering flood is not a local flood.

Noah was in the ark for more than a year, not just 40 days (Genesis 8:14). 53 weeks is absurdly long to stay in the ark for a local flood since dry land would have been just over the horizon. After the flood waters had been going down for 4 months, the dove could still find no suitable ground (Genesis 8:9). This does not seem to fit the circumstances for a local flood in which the dove could fly to dry land. However, these situations are consistent if the Flood was global.

Note that the Bible [Psalms 104:6-9, NIV] talks about mountains rising (in connection with God's rainbow promise, so after the Flood). Everest has marine fossils at its peak. Therefore, the mountains before the Flood are not those of today. There is enough water in the oceans so that, if all the surface features of the earth were evened out, water would cover the earth to a depth of 2.7 km (1.7 miles). This is not enough to cover mountains the height of Everest, but it shows that the pre-Flood mountains could have been several kilometers high and still be covered.

2. The Physical Causes for the Flood. The Bible explains that the breaking open of "all the fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven" (7:11) were the primary causes. The "deep" is the ocean; thus the "great deep" could hardly be the cause of a limited local flood. The "windows" seem to refer to the "waters above the (atmospheric) firmament" (1:7). These were global causes, producing a global effect.

3. The Need for an Ark. Noah was given many years of warning, long enough to walk anywhere on earth. The animals also would have lived globally and so could have migrated anywhere. There was no need for an Ark if the flood was local.

The Ark's size, big enough to carry two (or seven for some) of each land-dwelling, air-breathing animal, testifies for a global flood. Building such a huge ship for a local flood for which there was ample warning would be ludicrous.

4. Destruction of All Mankind. The flood's primary purpose was to destroy sinful mankind. While the earth's preflood population is not given, reasonable assumptions based on Biblical data for average family size, life spans, and age of parent at time of first-born yield a population far in excess of the maximum mesopotamian population. The earth was "filled with violence" (6:11-13), and while this may have included animal violence, it certainly included human violence. An earth filled with violence would necessitate an earth filled with people. Only a global flood could accomplish its primary purpose.

Not only were violent inhabitants under condemnation, the earth itself was to be destroyed (6:13). The word for "earth" was the same word as used in the creation account (1:1). Surely it means the planet, not just a local area.

It boggles the mind to believe that after 16 centuries, no-one would have migrated to other parts outside of Mesopotamia. Or that people living on the periphery of such a local Flood would not have moved to the adjoining high ground rather than be drowned.

5. A "Cataclysm," Not a Mere Flood. Both Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) use words to describe Noah's flood which are different than the ordinary words for flood. In this way, Noah's flood was represented as a totally unique occurrence. [Hebrew--"Mabbool", Greek--"Kataklusmos" (cataclysm)]."

6. Promise of No More Floods. At the end of the flood, God promised that there would never again be such a flood (9:15). But there have been many floods, even regional floods, especially in mesopotamia, since Noah's day. If this was merely a local flood, then God broke His promise, and the rainbow covenant means nothing.

7. The Testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ compared the days immediately prior to His second coming to the days prior to the flood. He reminded us that "the flood came and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:27). The coming judgment will be similarly extensive. If the flood in Noah's day was local, people living outside the area survived, even though they, too, were sinners. This gives great hope to end-time sinners. Will they be able to escape the coming fiery judgment on sin?

8. The Testimony of Peter. Peter also wrote of the coming judgment of the entire heavens and earth (II Peter 3:10-12). He based his argument on the historical facts that the creation was of the entire earth (v.5) and that the flood overflowed the entire earth (v.6), causing it to perish. If the flood was only local, does this imply that only a portion of the earth will "melt with fervent heat" (v.10)?

Furthermore, the entire creation will be fully renewed, replaced by "a new heavens and a new earth" (v.13). The local flood idea produces theological nonsense.

Recommended reading: "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study" by John Woodmorappe.

I needed this book thirty years ago, when my attempts as a young man to make arguments like those in this book met blank stares and offers to "pray with me for healing" from members of my church--with the result that I left that church.

I grew up in Escondido, California, with one foot in fundamentalist Christianity and the other in the geological sciences. I hope--for their sake--that today's members of that church are more open to Dr. Ross' arguments than their parents were to mine.

Hugh Ross does a great job at going back to the original words of the Bible, and showing that our english translation may have been the reason why we think that Genesis is a fable. He also goes on to say that the Bible itself points to creation , and therefore science, as it's "67th book". For example , the 4th day in Genesis uses the hebrew word "hayah"(to make visible) which is very different from the hebrew word "bara"(to create something completely new). This means that on the fourth day the sun, moon , and stars had already existed from verse 1 (the Big Bang), but that on the surface of the Earth you could not see the Sun, moon, and stars until God made them visible by changing the atmosphere from transulcent to transparent. Very curious and remarkable, since this is what science states happened in earth history.

This book is a must-read for anyone who finds it difficult to reconcile science-faith issues, regardless of which side of the debate you fall on. Non-theists who approach with an open mind will find that perhaps the bible is not as scientifically absurd as they think it is, and conservative Christians can realize that science, when used to search for the truth, is not something to be feared. Personally, this book helped to clear up some of the troubling questions that I had based on my understanding of science and my conservative Christian upbringing. A fantastic tool for anyone searching for the truth!