Many liberal theists have made the
claim that the ancient readers of the Bible never believed Genesis
was meant to be literal. When I hear people make this claim, I've
often asked them what literary clues are present that identify
Genesis (or other relevant passages) as figurative and how can we
distinguish them from simple narrative. The usual responses I get
are a swift change of the subject (a red herring), links to liberal
scholars who have made the same claim (appeals to authority), or an
avalanche of literary terms that have absolutely no substance
(argument by verbosity). I intend to write a more detailed
discussion of this criticism in the future but on this occasion of
New Years Eve, I wanted to point out a simple fact that might shine
some light on the matter.
Our Gregorian calender was intended to
count the years since the birth of Christ. There was a little goof
in our math but, for the most part, it's been approximately 2,012
years since the birth of Christ.
Now the Jews, of course, do not
recognize Jesus as the Messiah of Scripture and so their calender
doesn't count the years since His birth. Instead, they have counted
the years since creation. So, what year is it on the Jewish
calender? It's 5,772.
Hmmm. Is it just a coincidence or is
that not too far off from the typical creationist's understanding of
the age of the earth? The claim has been made that creationists like
myself are simply fanatical fundamentalists who take a hyper-literal
view of Genesis that is not intended by the text. It seems to me
that the Jewish calender agrees with me. If they are counting the
years since the creation, they are far closer to my estimate of the
earth's age than any evolutionist's estimate. I guess that means the
ancient Hebrews were also young earth creationists!
