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This question may sound a bit far-fetched, but many Christians are apparently of this opinion, that the Earth is considerably older than the creation which took place about 6000 years ago, and which is recorded in the Bible. This idea, of pre-Eden fossils, is put forward fairly often at our museum, usually by elderly Christians who have "settled themselves to rest" with such a doctrine. What would it mean if there had really been fossils underneath the Garden of Eden? We will examine this question because of its serious implications for our faith.
"Fossils" are petrified organisms - not just of plants but also of dead animals. They must have died by some means before their petrification, but how exactly? Did God create Adam with the intention that he should die? Or, had He said concerning any animal that it should serve as food for some others? Anyone familiar with the chapters relating to Creation in Genesis can answer this for himself.
We are so very familiar with our transient existence, to sin, disease and bloodshed on earth, that, unaided, we cannot have any idea at all of just how glorious and "very good" the creation of God was initially. We can only learn about it from the Bible. And it is there that we also learn why this glory and goodness doesn't exist any longer. God had created us with a free will. It was Adam's sin - rebellion against God - that introduced death into the world (Romans 5:12). Or do we imagine that God would have agreed to share His company with sinners who lived forever?
The word of God paints an absolutely glorious picture of our origin. However, what the Bible says about the subsequent course of the history of mankind covers us with shame. Yes, we did propagate our race and we filled the earth. But we all are descendants of the same single rebellious and unfaithful man and are therefore separated from our Maker forever. By nature we too have become no more than biomass!
Adam's sin has been handed down to us. The way of all flesh is this: to return to the ground! That dead animals can turn to stone is remarkable enough. But this process can, if we remain true to the Word of Truth, have taken place only after the creation was made "very good". No fossiliferous layers lay under the Garden of Eden! Nor, still less, were any millions of years needed to form them! Our earth is really only about 6000 years old!
The first dead animal that there ever was, was killed by God Himself. He made clothes for Adam and Eve from it (Genesis 3:2). An animal had to die to cover their sin. Some time later, Abel brought an offering to God. This was "from the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" (Genesis 4:4). One wonders whether we modern Christians would have been able to discern God's purpose, without any instruction, that He would give His only Son for our sins in due time? Abel's name signifies but a "Puff". Yet he stands at the head of all others who ever have believed in God (Hebrews 11:4)!
We don't intend here to go into the "biblical arguments" that are put forward by modern Christians for an allegedly millions-of-years old earth, for a "creation before creation", or a "restitution" within the six creation days. We have to do that often enough during museum visits. If there really had been rock layers with fossils under the original Garden of Eden, death would not have come into the world through that one man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:21) but would already have been there a very long time! If death was not the "wages of sin", i.e. the payment for it, then Christ could not have paid for our sins with His death on the cross! This makes clear how unwise it is to preach as doctrines from the pulpit, notions like a "creation before creation" or a "restitution of the earth" during creation week!
And now something practical: In Argentina thousands of dinosaur eggs have been discovered on an area of above 1 square kilometres (NATURE, 19 November 1998, pp 258-261). They are from the "Cretaceous" period. It is clear that this period cannot have been before Creation, as we have seen. The "Cretaceous" must have run its course either before, or after, the Flood. How can we decide which?
A geological map of the area shows that before the deposit with the breeding place of the dinosaurs - which is Cretaceous - other fossiliferous deposits of the Jurassic and the Permo-Triassic had already been laid down. The Jurassic fossils are especially important because they contain bivalves that lived world-wide in post-Flood successions (sequences of life communities in disturbed ecosystems). The fossil bivalve genus Trigonia, for example, is distributed, together with quite closely allied species, across Argentina, East Africa, Europe, Turkmenistan etc. During the following period, called the "Cretaceous", the Jurassic sea drained off following tilting movements of the Earth's crust, and the dinosaurs flocked together on that site in Argentina to lay their eggs. Their eggs, however, did not hatch, but were buried under further sediment following some new subsidence of the area.
As long as we take the Bible at its face value we need not perform geological (or theological) contortions! Time and again we rejoice with our visitors about just how firm a foundation our faith in Jesus Christ is built on!
http://www.lebendigevorwelt.de/rundbriefe/1999-04.en.htm
"Fossils" are petrified organisms - not just of plants but also of dead animals. They must have died by some means before their petrification, but how exactly? Did God create Adam with the intention that he should die? Or, had He said concerning any animal that it should serve as food for some others? Anyone familiar with the chapters relating to Creation in Genesis can answer this for himself.
We are so very familiar with our transient existence, to sin, disease and bloodshed on earth, that, unaided, we cannot have any idea at all of just how glorious and "very good" the creation of God was initially. We can only learn about it from the Bible. And it is there that we also learn why this glory and goodness doesn't exist any longer. God had created us with a free will. It was Adam's sin - rebellion against God - that introduced death into the world (Romans 5:12). Or do we imagine that God would have agreed to share His company with sinners who lived forever?
The word of God paints an absolutely glorious picture of our origin. However, what the Bible says about the subsequent course of the history of mankind covers us with shame. Yes, we did propagate our race and we filled the earth. But we all are descendants of the same single rebellious and unfaithful man and are therefore separated from our Maker forever. By nature we too have become no more than biomass!
Adam's sin has been handed down to us. The way of all flesh is this: to return to the ground! That dead animals can turn to stone is remarkable enough. But this process can, if we remain true to the Word of Truth, have taken place only after the creation was made "very good". No fossiliferous layers lay under the Garden of Eden! Nor, still less, were any millions of years needed to form them! Our earth is really only about 6000 years old!
The first dead animal that there ever was, was killed by God Himself. He made clothes for Adam and Eve from it (Genesis 3:2). An animal had to die to cover their sin. Some time later, Abel brought an offering to God. This was "from the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof" (Genesis 4:4). One wonders whether we modern Christians would have been able to discern God's purpose, without any instruction, that He would give His only Son for our sins in due time? Abel's name signifies but a "Puff". Yet he stands at the head of all others who ever have believed in God (Hebrews 11:4)!
We don't intend here to go into the "biblical arguments" that are put forward by modern Christians for an allegedly millions-of-years old earth, for a "creation before creation", or a "restitution" within the six creation days. We have to do that often enough during museum visits. If there really had been rock layers with fossils under the original Garden of Eden, death would not have come into the world through that one man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:21) but would already have been there a very long time! If death was not the "wages of sin", i.e. the payment for it, then Christ could not have paid for our sins with His death on the cross! This makes clear how unwise it is to preach as doctrines from the pulpit, notions like a "creation before creation" or a "restitution of the earth" during creation week!
And now something practical: In Argentina thousands of dinosaur eggs have been discovered on an area of above 1 square kilometres (NATURE, 19 November 1998, pp 258-261). They are from the "Cretaceous" period. It is clear that this period cannot have been before Creation, as we have seen. The "Cretaceous" must have run its course either before, or after, the Flood. How can we decide which?
A geological map of the area shows that before the deposit with the breeding place of the dinosaurs - which is Cretaceous - other fossiliferous deposits of the Jurassic and the Permo-Triassic had already been laid down. The Jurassic fossils are especially important because they contain bivalves that lived world-wide in post-Flood successions (sequences of life communities in disturbed ecosystems). The fossil bivalve genus Trigonia, for example, is distributed, together with quite closely allied species, across Argentina, East Africa, Europe, Turkmenistan etc. During the following period, called the "Cretaceous", the Jurassic sea drained off following tilting movements of the Earth's crust, and the dinosaurs flocked together on that site in Argentina to lay their eggs. Their eggs, however, did not hatch, but were buried under further sediment following some new subsidence of the area.
As long as we take the Bible at its face value we need not perform geological (or theological) contortions! Time and again we rejoice with our visitors about just how firm a foundation our faith in Jesus Christ is built on!
http://www.lebendigevorwelt.de/rundbriefe/1999-04.en.htm
I read it and it says,
