THIS aspect of nature, at once smiling and grand, was the whole education of Jesus. He learned to read and to write, doubtless, according to the Eastern method, which consisted in putting in the hands of the child a book, which he repeated in cadence with his little comrades, until he knew it by heart. It is doubtful, however, if he under stood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make him quote them according to the translations in the Aramean tongue; his principles of exegesis, as far as we can judge of them by those of his disciples, much resembled those which were then in vogue, and which form the spirit of the Targums and the Midrashim.
The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the hazzan, or reader in the synagogues. Jesus frequented little the higher schools of the scribes or sopherim (Nazareth had perhaps none of them), and he had none of those titles which confer, in the eyes of the vulgar, the privileges of knowledge. It would, nevertheless, be a great error to imagine that Jesus was what we call ignorant. Scholastic education among us draws a profound distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received and those who have been deprived of it. It was not so in the East, nor, in general, in the good old times. The state of ignorance in which, among us, owing to our isolated and entirely individual life, those remain who have not passed through the schools, was unknown in those societies where moral culture, and especially the general spirit of the age, was transmitted by the perpetual intercourse of man with man. The Arab, who has never had a teacher, is often, nevertheless, a very superior man; for the tent is a kind of school always open, where, from the contact of well-educated men, there is produced a great intellectual and even literary movement. The refinement of manners and the acuteness of the intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call education. It is the men from the schools, on the contrary, who are considered badly trained and pedantic. In this social state ignorance, which among us, condemns a man to an inferior rank, is the condition of great things and of great originality.
It is not probable that Jesus knew Greek. This language was very little spread in Judea beyond the classes who participated in the Government and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Caesarea. The real mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew, which was then spoken in Palestine. Still less probably had he any knowledge of Greek culture. This culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same malediction “he who rears swine and he who teaches his son Greek science.” At all events, it had not penetrated into little towns like Nazareth. Notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews, it is true, had already embraced the Hellenic culture. Without speaking of the Jewish school of Egypt, in which the attempts to amalgamate Hellenism and Judaism had been in operation nearly two hundred years, a Jew, Nicholas of Damascus, had become, even at this time, one of the most distinguished men, one of the best informed, and one of the most respected of his age. Josephus was destined soon to furnish another example of a Jew completely Grecianised. But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood. Josephus declares that he himself was an exception among his contemporaries; and the whole schismatic school of Egypt was detached to such a degree from Jerusalem that we do not find the least allusion to it either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition. Certain it is that Greek was very little studied at Jerusalem, that Greek studies were considered as dangerous, and even servile, that they were regarded, at the best, as a mere womanly accomplishment. The study of the Law was the only one accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man. Questioned as to the time when it would be proper to teach children “Greek wisdom,” a learned Rabbi had answered At the time when it is neither day nor night; since it is written of the Law, Thou shalt study it day and night.”
Top 10 Facts about the Messiah for Homeschoolers
1. He appears by the side of the Ancient of Days.
2. His face like appearance of a man, and yet so lovely, like that of one of the holy Angels.
3. This Son of Man’ has, and with Him dwells, all righteousness.
4. He reveals the treasures of all that is hidden, being chosen by the Lord, is superior to all.
5. He is destined to subdue and destroy all the powers and kingdoms of wickedness.
6. His Name had been named before God, before sun or stars were created. He is the staff on which
the righteous lean, the light of nations, and the hope of all who mourn in spirit.
7. All are to bow down before Him, and adore Him.
8. He was chosen and hidden with God before the world was created, and
will continue before Him for ever,
9. The Messiah is to sit on the throne of glory, and dwell among His saints. Heaven .
10. The Messiah forgives you of all of your sins and washes you as white as snow.
Brought to you by Learning By Grace, Inc., the nation’s premiere provider of online Christian homeschooling programs.
THE FOSSIL RECORD
Does the fossil record present a problem in the origin of man? Anthropologists, constantly uncovering human bones, tell us exactly how long ago they think these people lived, what they were, where they lived and the importance of their place in man’s ancestry. How do they obtain all this information and how trustworthy is it?
We begin with the Cambrian strata, supposed to be the oldest rock strata containing fossils. Note first a major mystery in the fossil record: the outburst of life in the so-called Cambrian period, though there should be billions of years of evolution represented before this. Tremendous amount of Precambrian rock were laid down, yet they contain only single celled fossils. An index fossil is a particular type of fossil presumed to identify rock formations or strata. The great index fossil of the Cambrian rocks is the trilobite, presumed to be one of the earliest forms of life. Trilobites are really very complex little animals with a nervous system, compound eyes and jointed legs. The eyes in some species incorporated advanced principles of optical science. They certainly are not primitive animals. Evolutionists claim that once life evolved to the one-celled animal, we were more than halfway to man. A trilobite is much farther up that scale, yet we have no record of evolutionary development before it. Trilobites and most other invertebrates are found represented in the Cambrian strata.
My files include a photograph of a particular fossil acquisition in the Cambrian strata. About twenty little trilobites are imbedded in rock in what appears to be a sandal print. This presents a slight problem. The sandal print had to be formed while the trilobites were still living; no other logical explanation can be conceived. However, after scanning this photo carefully one paleontologist at the University of Utah stated that the whole print must be a new type of trilobite that we have never seen before. He is talking about trilobite fossils in what would appear to be a ten-inch sandal print which has deeper impression in the heel mark area than in the toe.
The uncovering of other fossils in Texas tend to make man contemporary with dinosaurs if the findings are accepted at face value. For instance, human prints were located in the same strata with dinosaur prints in the Paluxy river bed in Glen Rose, Texas. In locating the eighth track in one series, we pumped out the water and scraped off the debris until we came to the rock sheet on the bottom, where we found the print in limestone. This human track crossed a three-toed dinosaur track, and one could discern fainter prints going on out into the river. Recently a gentleman who is continuing work on this project has found four good size tracks, approximately sixteen inches long and nine inches across, revealing toes. As more research is completed in the Glen Rose area, a number of questions concerning man will be answered.
How do we confront the claims of those scientists who state that the remains of pre-historic men have been found? The Neanderthal man was for many years considered one of man’s ancestors. Evolutionists suggested that he lived some 80,000 years ago – the dating depends upon which book one reads. Recently it was discovered that Neanderthal is really not much different from modern man. Because a Neanderthal skeleton used 80 years ago as a basis for museum displays had a diseased spine, scientists concluded and the world believed man did not always walk upright. Then they found skeletons from Neanderthals which stood perfectly upright. Subsequently the first skeletons with the curvature of the spine were re-examined and found to have suffered from a form of arthritis. In essence, we located an early human ancestor with an arthritic problem.
Study the skull of the first Neanderthal. Byron Nelson took the side view and compared it to a painting of the Revolutionary War here LaFayette. He found that one can put his features on the skull without any difficulty at all. A Neanderthal skull can be made to look very modern or very primitive depending on how the reconstruction is made. If skull capacity means anything, the Neanderthal man has a capacity larger than modern man, about 1600 cc. Modern man has somewhere between 1200 and 1500 cc. If brain capacity means anything, Neanderthal man would be more intelligent than modern man. Brain capacity may not be the whole answer, but Neanderthal has been identified as very similar to modern man.
The Peking Man has an interesting story. Records and accounts of several men such as Boule and de Chardin, avowed evolutionists who were on the scene in China, state that they never found any fossil men there. They merely found skulls of macaques and gibbons and a few perfectly human skulls. Then the personnel changed on the dig itself, and the third or fourth leader started making extraordinary proposals for the skulls found. A major problem exists today: none of these skulls is available. Drawings and casts of the skulls exist, but the actual skulls were supposedly lost during World War II. Frankly, we are entitled to doubt “scientific” claims when the evidence is missing and the story has progressively improved through the accounts of the individuals who headed up the various excavations.
Java Man, Pithecanthropus Erectus, was found by a man named Dubois. Pictures in the museums and reconstructions of the complete body, including all of the hairs of his head, suggest that the specimen must have been quite intact. One never gets the impression that excavators found only a piece of skull cap, a femur, and a thigh bone! Dubois reported thirty years after the original disclosure that the skull cap of the Java Man was nothing more than the skull cap of a silver gibbon. He also found in Java the large-brained human Wadjak skull. But he hid it for 30 years because his interpretation contradicted its obvious significance. Yet Java Man is still presented in textbooks as one of our ancestors in a long, long line of evolutionary development.
An individual found a tooth in a Nebraska field. He mailed this particular tooth back east to some scientists who were fascinated with such an amazing find. Here, they felt, was proof of early man on the North American continent. This was their first evidence, so they published an article concerning the significance of the find. The London Daily Illustrated News displayed a full-page spread on Nebraska Man – Hesperopithecus Harold Cookii – Harold Cook’s “Ape of the West.” They reconstructed this creature from his tooth, exhibiting his exact shape, even to the extreme brow ridges and the broad shoulders. More significant was the fact that they reconstructed not only his form, but that of his wife as well. So here are Mr. and Mrs. Hesperopithecus, reconstructed from a tooth. Back in Nebraska they were able to find the entire jaw bone. Then they fit the tooth into the jaw bone – to their horror, the jaw bone was that of a pig. Well, men will make mistakes; such is scientific frailty.
You are probably aware of Piltdown Man, which has a perfect skull cap of a man and an ape-like jaw bone. Unfortunately, they do not match. One is fossilized, one is not. One has been fossilized for a length of time, whereas one is modern. The teeth of the ape have been filed down to make them look human in appearance. For some thirty years this was reported as the greatest proof for evolution. The original skull was not accessible, but casts and drawings were placed in many museums. Some time later, determining that the skulls should be carefully re-examined , scientists applied fluorine and other tests. Skull pieces were shown to have different ages. The Piltdown Man in reality was composed of the jaw bone of an ape and the skull cap of a man. This hoax, presented in all of the textbooks, was decisively unmasked by Kenneth Oakley and published in magazines and scientific journals. Scientists claim that with new modern dating methods such a mistake could never be made again.
Zinjanthropus is reconstructed from 400 fragments of skull, the largest of which is the size of a silver dollar. One who views a good picture of the skull usually wonders what it could be, for it doesn’t really look like any type of skull. Yet it is said to be from one of our ancestors. An interesting corollary to the problem is the lava flow immediately under the bed in which Zinjanthropus is found. Under Zinjanthropus they found Homo Habilis, supposedly a more modern man. Evolutionists explain that this bed is overturned, and thus the Zinjanthropus is indeed one of our ancestors – some one and three quarter million years old. The lava flow underneath, when dated by potassium-argon, gives a lesser age of 1.3 million years. Problems are involved in the dating of lava flows by potassium-argon. Recently a lava flow formed in 1801 in Hawaii was dated by the potassium-argon method and found to have an age of 230 million years. Since the lava flow took place in modern times, one wonders about the accuracy of this dating system. Certainly there is strong evidence against the acceptance of the potassium-argon dates given to Zinjanthropus.
We will never know three things about Zinjanthropus from looking at the pieces of skull. One, we will never really know what his fleshy parts looked like. Two, we never know if he had the capacity to think. Three, we will never know if he had the capacity to speak. These are the three criteria for man. In fact, if Zinjanthropus were living today, we might find him caged in a zoo with a special name for him and other supposed ancestors of man. Or we my find him a type of man which has become extinct before our time; we will never know for sure by merely looking at the bones.
Ramapithecus was built around a few fragments, some of which are teeth. Scientists say the teeth are humanoid, human-like. But there is a baboon living in Ethiopia today which has the same teeth as Ramapithecus. How can we decide whether the teeth really belong to an ancestor or to one of these baboons?
We have the tendency to think that if something is primitive, it is very old. In fact, when looking at a skull, anthropologists consistently judge that the older it is, the more primitive it must be. However, such a conclusion cannot be gained just from looking at the skull itself. What, then , is the significance of picking up skulls and fragments of skulls? What can we really learn by looking at a few bones? Not very much. When we consider that many of these creatures are reconstructed from a few teeth, a jaw bone, a small piece of skull, what is really being demonstrated? When one realizes that scientists cannot date the skull itself to determine how old it is, nor directly date the strata (sedimentary layer laid down by water) in which it is found, what is the significance of the ages placed upon these creatures?
In discussing and looking for primitive man, anthropologists seem to proceed with one preconceived idea in their minds – man has evolved. Because of this, they have tried to demonstrate the ancestry of man. With this basic assumption they present what they claim as evidence to support the idea and have made conclusions depending upon the assumptions involved. Nothing is ever said about the missing links between birds and reptiles, between amphibians and reptiles, between vertebrates and invertebrates, although a great deal of time is spent talking about the missing link between man and the ape. Even here the evolutionists cannot agree as to how man came about. Some say that man and the ape have a common ancestor; some suggest that man and the ape evolved through the same fish; some insist they can trace the ancestry back through separate fish down to separate protozoa; some would tell you that man evolved from the chimpanzee, or from the orangutan or from the gorilla. (One man actually proposed that this explains the origin of the races: the white race from the chimpanzee, the oriental from the orangutan and the Negro from the gorilla). These are ideas being proposed by science as to how man came into existence.
CREATION OF MAN
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26-28
Does God say, let man be one of the fish of the sea, one of the fowl of the air, or one of the cattle of the earth; let him be related to all the animals on the earth? No, He instructs man to have dominion over these creatures. The purpose of God in creating man was that he would be distinct from the animals. Nothing happened to man until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life – then man became a living soul. God did not do this with the animal kingdom.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Genesis 2:7-10, 15-20
Notice something about Adam: God did not create a baby and wait for him to grow up. On the day Adam was created he possessed all of his faculties, reflected intelligence, and was full-grown with all the appearance of age. That tells us something about God’s creation. When He created the tree, probably it had growth rings. When He created the mountain, it may have had the appearance of erosion and other indicators of age. Genesis 1:9 says that God caused the waters to gather and the dry land to appear. Some mountain-building probably occurred and possibly some erosion. In any case, the dry land and the mountains would have gained an appearance of age. Adam, created on the sixth day, could see light coming from stars created on the fourth day, though apparently millions of light years away. God created a full-grown, developed universe.
Adam named all the animals, but he did not find anyone who met his specification for a mate. Adam was totally unique. There was no help meet for him. “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:” and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto man” (Genesis 2:21-22). This is a most interesting portion of Scripture and probably one of the most scientific texts in the Bible. Investigation with frogs and other animals has led to some interesting results. Every cell in the body contains the same genetic structure. The nucleus of the skin cell of a frog can be used to replace the nucleus of an egg and eventually cause a tadpole to hatch. The cell, even though a skin cell, has the full template for the entire structure of a frog within it. In other words, every cell in the body has the same template. We do not as yet understand enough about this experiment to transfer the nuclei of skin cells to human eggs.
However, this scientific information suggests something about the method God used to create Eve. He took from Adam a rib. Some people charge the Bible with inaccuracy because men now have the same number of ribs as women, but this is a specious argument. If I lose my hand, my children will still be born with two hands. Adam had one less rib than Eve, but their offspring inherited the proper number of ribs. God took this particular portion of the body because it contained bony substance and fleshy material. From this He could perform a cell reduction (taking half of the chromosomes) and create woman. He could have created woman instantaneously of dust as He did Adam, but He chose to take a rib from Adam. Why?
1) This negates the possibility of theistic evolution or any other evolution. God says He took a rib from man and created woman. In biology we learn that the male has an X and Y chromosome, the female two X chromosomes. These separate and recombine to make makes and females. In taking a rib from Adam God was able to take two X chromosomes and create a female. Suppose He created woman first? She has only two X chromosomes – where would He get the Y? This parallels the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin. There is such a thing as parthenogenesis in rabbits, of course, with a female giving birth without the help of a male, but she always produces a female. One uniqueness of Jesus is that Y chromosome.
2) Adam was created first; then God taking the rib, produced a female. Why is that important? It demonstrates the uniqueness of Adam’s existence, for Adam came not from a woman. Every other male in this world came from a female. Why did God go to all the trouble to do it this way? It demonstrates the unity of the human race. Notice what Adam says in Genesis 2:23: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Have you ever wondered about the fact that on the day God created them, He created only one individual? Adam and Eve were one: the same genetic constitution, one individual, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. That is why Eve could partake of the fruit and not plunge the whole human race into sin; Adam was the one held responsible. If God had created man from the dust and woman from the dust, Adam and Eve individually would have had to fall. Jesus Christ could come to save because Adam fell, and as all men die in Adam, so in Jesus Christ all men can be reborn into God’s family and be made alive (Romans 5:12).
Adam is the individual responsible for the fall of the human race. Eve fell in Adam, for he is the racial head, the one held responsible. This principle is important concerning the fall because our salvation is based upon it. Adam fell into sin, and every man born into Adam’s family was born to die. Thus every man must be reborn into God’s family through Jesus Christ in order to have eternal life. As in Adam all are children of Satan, so in the second Adam, Jesus Christ, all become children of God. Without man’s unity and fallen nature we would not have one way of salvation obtainable by all men.
Why be concerned with how man and woman came into being? God was very specific in how He created man and what He designed and created for him – so specific that we can take no position other that that He created them perfect. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).
God created Adam and Eve and gave them the genetic potential for all people on the earth today. Unfortunately, many men do not choose to believe this, but would rather say that somehow man evolved from a lower form of life. Or they may take the position (as some do) of a theistic evolutionist and say that two apes for some unknown reason fell on their knees; they looked upward, God mistook that for prayer, and He created man and woman. Or perhaps somehow God allowed them to evolve and, when they were ready, gave them a soul. in opposition to these variant possibilities, we must accept what God says or accept theories which go counter to the Biblical account.
GENESIS 1
If we interpret Genesis 1 in the light of what is actually there, we will find a very different picture than what has been proposed. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” God created first of all an expanse and an earth – the word “heaven” means expanse. We seem to think of heaven as sun, moon and stars, but according to Genesis 1:14-17 the stars are hung in the heaven, or something we call space. Evidently before God began His creative activity, before Genesis 1, there was no such thing as space. God created space, mass and time to declare His power and Godhead.
In the beginning, then, God created this great expanse and the earth. In verse 2 He describes what the earth is like – “without form, and void.” In other words, it is empty and vain, unfinished, void of life, as described in Isaiah 45:18. “Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” According to this verse there is one body of water; earth or land exists, but a careful reading of the description in Genesis 1 indicates that land is completely covered by water. We may envision a rotating body of water shrouded in darkness in a vast expanse.
God then created light and divided it from the darkness. On Day 2 God divided the water from above the firmament and from under the firmament, establishing a unique atmosphere for the earth. On Day 3 God called the dry land out of the water. He let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land earth; the gathering together of the water he called seas. He now said, “Let the earth [the dry land area] bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and fruit trees.”On Day 4 God divided His singular light source to create a sun and moon, now distributing that light source, forming stars and star groups as He created the heavens.
Then on Day 5 God created the fish of the sea and fowl that fly above the earth. On Day 6 He created cattle and creeping things. Also on the sixth day He created man, and after seeing that man was not complete, He created woman. At this point, when God finished all His creative activity, He pronounced it “very good.”
Those who argue for a gap theory say that Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” is evidence that people must have inhabited the earth prior to Genesis 1:26, 27. However, the word “replenish” in Hebrew means “fill” or “refill.” Even the English usage of “replenish” may indicate filling the first time. A proper translation would be “to fill” – simply fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air. This was God’s purpose for man.
According to Genesis 2, Adam was created full-grown and intelligent. The day of his creation he was able to walk through the Garden of Eden and name all the animals. In addition, the trees of the Garden were growing and giving fruit, though created only a few days before Adam. As Adam looked into the heavens, he could see the light shining from the stars. By stretching out the heavens (cf. Isaiah 44:24), God created the stars, and the light from the stars was visible on earth, giving the appearance that they had been shining for years, though created only two days before. Because all of God’s creation appeared originally in a mature form, showing evidence of age, we can account for much of the discrepancy between the age of the earth given by the Biblical account and the age as given by the evolutionist. Remember, Adam was created as a full-grown adult.
George Gaylord Simpson, a leading evolutionist, admits that if one grants the premise of the appearance of age, he could not disprove that the earth was created one second ago, in 4004 B.C., or four and a half billion years ago. However, the creationists assume that the earth was created with the appearance of age. God says He did just that: He created man full-grown, a universe perfectly functioning. True creation, unlike evolution, does not predicate a gradual development form the simple to the complex. As the Bible clearly illustrates, creation begins only with God’s eternal power and brings forth a mature product.
DETERMINING THE AGE OF THE EARTH
We now come to a major dilemma. If no gap exists between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2, thus denying the insertion of a long period of time, how do we solve the discrepancies concerning the age of the earth? Certainly there is a serious discrepancy between an age of four and a half billion years and an age of 6000 years. To place the problem in a figurative perspective, both evolutionist and creationist are examining a burning candle which is six inches high at the moment and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. The question is asked: how long has the candle been burning? In order to determine this, they need to know the length of the candle when it was lit. For instance, if the candle were originally eleven inches high, burning at the rate of one inch per hour, they can determine that it has been burning for five hours.
Two of the principal dating methods for obtaining the age of the earth are uranium-lead and thorium-lead, based on the half-life of uranium and thorium. These methods are used with rocks that contain uranium and thorium as well as other minerals. In order to explain this method let us assume that we have a rock which is completely uranium. Theory would state that in four and a half billion years, or the half-life of uranium, this rock would be half uranium and half lead – in four and a half billion years half of the uranium would turn into lead. We know the present amount of uranium, we know the present amount of lead, we know the present rate – but how long has this process been going on? Was it created in almost its present condition – half uranium and half lead? The evolutionist assumes that the rock was totally uranium in the beginning and has been decaying for four and a half billion years, with nothing ever changing its decay rate. Moreover, it is assumed that nothing has occurred to greatly affect the uranium and lead content of the rock. All things have remained constant.
Return to the illustration of the candle. Remember, it is six inches and burns at the rate of one inch per hour. One way to determine how long the candle has been burning is to measure the amount of carbon dioxide being expelled from the burning candle. If all of the carbon dioxide in the room were measured and we assumed that it all came from the candle, we could determine how long the candle had been burning.
What problem might we encounter? If someone were breathing in the room, and additional amount of carbon dioxide would be produced. Carbon dioxide, naturally present in the atmosphere, would also be in the room – as well as the carbon dioxide coming from the candle. Therefore, if we assume that all of the carbon dioxide in the room emanated from the candle, an age or length of time for the burning candle is going to be greater than the actual time the candle has been burning. Our dilemma is clear: the amount of carbon dioxide coming from the candle, from breathing and from the atmosphere cannot be separated. Since all carbon dioxide from all three sources is identical, it cannot be traced to its origin.
Lead is found in its natural state in the earth and is also present from the decay of uranium. By looking at lead you could not determine if it were naturally present or the product of the decay process. Unless you can separate the two, you cannot really judge the length of the decay process. Assuming that all of the lead in the earth came as a result of decay, you might come up with an age of four and half billion years for the earth. But let us return to the example of the candle. As the candle burns and decays, it gives off a certain amount of carbon dioxide, but it also emits a secondary by-product – wax drippings. No wax is naturally present in the room where the candle is burning, so we can be quite sure that all of the wax drippings came from the candle. But then we must ask “Did the candle always burn at the same rate?”
If it did burn at the same rate from beginning to end, we could measure the wax drippings and determine very accurately how long the candle has been burning. By comparison, as uranium in rocks decays into lead, it gives off a secondary by-product, helium. At the present rate of formation the total amount of radiogenic helium in the earth today can be accounted for within the last 12,000 years. Efforts to demonstrate that helium can escape the atmosphere seem futile since helium is being added to the atmosphere by the solar wind. This means that it is totally impossible for the earth to be four and a half billion years old on the basis of the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems, for there simply is not enough helium, enough by-product present.
Using the helium method, measuring the other by-product of uranium decay instead of lead, one finds that it gives an earth-age of something like 12,000 years – if one assumes there is no helium to start with. But helium is a basic element, and so its natural presence would move the earth-age date to an even younger age.
There are other ways of looking at the uranium-lead and thorium-lead dating systems. In some rocks natural lead is not present, as evidenced by the absence of lead 204. Yet lead 208 exists in these rocks without the parent element thorium. Now it is impossible to have a daughter element without a parent element, at least if it is a by-product of some decay system. Yet at times we find lead 208 with very little or no thorium. This causes some scientists, such as Dr. Melvin Cook, a Ph.D. from Yale, to examine the system. He was curious about the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in the atmosphere which is different from the ratio of nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 in certain uranium-thorium minerals containing lead isotopes but not lead 204. Because lead is a very active element in nuclear reactions and would pick up fast neutrons freely, Dr. Cook compiled some calculations on fast neutron capture to indicate that the actual process was as follows: uranium was not decaying into lead, but lead 206 gained a neutron and became lead 207 which in turn gained a neutron and became lead 208. This discovery clearly resolved all the discrepancies between nitrogen 14 and nitrogen 15 ratios. Furthermore, this is the most logical way one can account for lead 208 being found in rocks without thorium, the parent element. According to Dr. Cook’s calculations the uranium to lead system would give a zero age for the earth. These calculations show that the hands of this clock have not moved. When we consider the effects of the helium method gives a maximum age of 12,000 years, we can see there is strong evidence that the earth is very young.
Another method of dating, a little more accurate and easier to deal with, is carbon 14, a radioactive substance which possesses a half-life of 5570 years. It is estimated that a certain constant number of carbon 14 atoms are being produced each year in the upper atmosphere. When the total amount of carbon 14 atoms in the earth has built up to the point where the number of carbon 14 atoms decomposing in one year is equal to the number of carbon 14 atoms being produced in the upper atmosphere, then equilibrium will be reached. This process should take only 30,000 years, and since most evolutionists feel that the earth is older than 30,000 years, it is assumed that equilibrium has been reached. Yet it is now admitted by scientists that only enough decomposing carbon 14 atoms can be found to account for the system being two-thirds of the way to equilibrium. This means that the atmosphere is much younger than 30,000 years in age. If we agree only with the known measurements established by Libby and others who invented the method, we find that there is a non-equilibrium model (the rate of formation of carbon 14 in the upper atmosphere is still greater than the amount of decay)which can be used to correct for the assumption that equilibrium has been reached. All carbon 14 dates which have been published in the science journals can be telescoped to within the last 4000 years by this non-equilibrium model, and a maximum age for the earth of 11,500 years is established. At least that is the maximum age for the earth’s atmosphere, and it would be hard to conceive of the earth existing without an atmosphere. Carbon 14 certainly has a half-life which is commensurate with a young age for the earth and seems to be a reasonable dating method when it has been properly calibrated.
When we examine what the scientists have to say, rather than taking their word at face value, and compare it with the Bible, we find that there is no need to stretch out the days of creation, no need to formulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2. If we are willing to stand behind what the Bible affirms – that God created the heavens and the earth by His power in six literal days, as He says He did – our position can be supported by the actual facts of science. There is no known discrepancy which would disprove Biblical statements. Antithetical proposals are simply the assumptions of men who choose not to believe in God and who are trying to document the development of animals and plants apart from God. They wish to rely on natural processes rather than upon any supernatural force. The evolutionary position is held by faith. How much better to place our faith in a Biblical position of a supernatural God, who has the power and the authority to accomplish what He says He did.