In this series, Pastor Kendall Lankford and Deacon Dan Hult elaborate on the distinctives of The Shepherd’s Church, so everyone who worships with us, visits us, or lands on our webpage will know who we are, how we are, what we are, why we are, and what they can expect. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day….God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

-Genesis 1:1-5, 31-2:3

Scripture is clear about origin: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Some maintain that a clear and straightforward reading of Genesis means the universe is only six to ten thousand years old and was created by God in six literal days.[1] Others adopt scientific theories that the universe is billions of years old and that everything in it—including life—came about through natural processes.  At The Shepherd’s Church, we hold the former position, known as “young earth creationism”.  We will see that this view maintains the supremacy of Scripture without contradicting valid science.

Real Science

How can we reject scientific theories without rejecting science?  As an aerospace engineer, I am a firm believer in science, but origin theories that claim to be scientific are not actually science in its strictest sense.  Science is defined “mainly by the methods by which its data are reached and by the extent to which its conclusions can be experimentally tested….Typically scientific knowledge is of such a kind that it can be verified by competent inquirers who repeat the observations and experiments and make them the subject of independent reflexion”.[2]  When done correctly, science is a rigorous process of observation and verification that largely removes human subjectivity and is arguably the greatest innovation in history.  But in order to use this tool effectively, we need to understand the process:

It uses what is termed the scientific method, in which the investigator observes, hypothesizes, and tests that hypothesis until a valid interpretation results. This conclusion, a theory, is continually subject to verification and modification through further experimentation until the scientific community is convinced that no major or contradicting exceptions have been or are likely to be discovered. Then the theory is given the status of being a law of science.

-Edward E. Hindson and Howard Eyrich, Totally Sufficient, Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers: 1997: 153.

Continued scrutiny is extremely important in science, but many people today stop scrutinizing observations as soon as they become theories, failing to account for the underlying nuances and assumptions.[3]  If those assumptions can be invalidated, the theory must be adjusted accordingly.  As we gain knowledge, we should expect assumptions to be challenged and theories to require refinement. This also means the scientific method can only verify—or dismiss—that which is presently observable, so it is incapable of proving or disproving the origin of the universe and life.  Therefore, theories such as the big bang and evolution are no more scientific than young earth creation.[4]

The Religion of Scientism

Theories like the big bang and evolution are most often posited as scientific laws above objection.  Attempts to scrutinize them meet staunch opposition because they are foundational to the accepted religion of the scientific community: atheism, which necessitates an answer to the origin question devoid of divinity.  They believe that the natural (observable) universe is all that exists, so they must by definition deny the existence of any deity, spiritual realm, or miracles.[5]  Origin theories like the big bang and evolution provide the only plausible answer that fits this presupposition, so they must reject any suggestion that the universe didn’t form naturally billions of years ago or that life evolved gradually over millions of years.[6]  These theories become their source and standard of truth.  Just as we say sola Scriptura, they say “trust the science”.  Science is meant to be objective and unbiased, but it is always practiced by sinful humans and therefore prone to distortion.  Peer review is supposed to counteract this, but when the scientific community collectively holds the same biases, peer review becomes an echo chamber.  Even scientists who are genuinely trying to be unbiased are often at the mercy of whoever is funding their research, so they must put their mouths where the money is.  But the problem goes much deeper: sinful man has a tendency to suppress the truth about God (Romans 1:18), and modern “scientific” origin theories allow just that:

If the creation took place suddenly and recently, God cannot be avoided.  The supposition of long evolutionary ages pushes into the shadows any god there might be….The considerable amount of sheer fakery that goes on in scientific research…results from the desire to prove a theory, the need to “publish or perish”, the lust for fame, but it also results sometimes from a desire to squelch anything that might give aid and comfort to the creationist enemy.

-James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 127-128.

These origin theories are the religious doctrines of scientism and not true science.  True science is about following the evidence and adjusting our theories accordingly, while scientism holds the foundational tenets of those theories without question.  True science should humble us since the more we learn the more we realize we don’t know, but scientism arrogantly claims “the science is settled”.  And true science relies on the universe being ordered and rational, governed by certain laws that can be explored and understood.  These are biblical assumptions, so unsurprisingly most major scientific fields were founded by Christians who believed that God upholds His creation in a regular and repeatable way that can be described as natural laws.[7]  Ironically, this also undermines the assumption which undergirds their origin theories: uniformitarianism.  This assumes that all natural processes are the same today as they have always been, so the present is the key to understanding the past.  In other words, the natural laws we see operating now have always operated exactly the same way, so the universe and life must have developed naturally over long periods of time.[8]  Scripture actually addresses this assumption:

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. - 2 Peter 3:3-6

Peter is specifically addressing those who ignore the coming judgment because they see the world persisting unhindered, but they are essentially using uniformitarianism as their argument.[9]  He then points to Creation and the Flood as times when God interrupted “normal”.  He also describes the antediluvian (pre-Flood) world as “the world at that time”, suggesting a significant difference between the antediluvian and current worlds.[10]  All of this should make us re-examine the evidence to see if the observations of science really do support the claims of scientism.

Science as Minister Not Magistrate

At this point, I could show how science actually supports the young earth view, but that is secondary.  We are Reformed, so Scripture must be our highest authority for everything and the source of truth, being absolutely true about everything it addresses—including origin.  The Christian must therefore rightly interpret Scripture and let that be the filter for all truth claims.  Science can and should aid but must not dictate our understanding of Scripture.  Our use of science must be ministerial rather than magisterial:

The magisterial use of science occurs when science stands over Scripture like a magistrate and judges it.  The ‘problems’ are due to this faulty approach….The ministerial approach accepts that all things necessary for our faith and life are either expressly set down in Scripture, or may be logically deduced from Scripture, the inerrant and authoritative Word of God.  Thus, science must submit to this, and its self-correcting properties should lead it asymptotically closer to the biblical truth.  However, there is much information not revealed in the Bible—Scripture is ‘true truth’ but it is not exhaustive truth.  So science can minister to the bible in elaborating upon its clear teachings in areas where it is silent.

- Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 4.

In this ministerial use, valid scientific observations that seem to contradict Scripture cause us to re-examine our interpretation.[11]  For example, most Christians think the Flood was only 40 days of rain, but skeptics object to this by saying that rain could not flood the earth—and they are right.  Science then causes us to look back at Scripture, where we see this: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights” (Genesis 7:11-12).  Notice how the Flood began with “the fountains of the great deep” bursting open.  Thus the Flood was something much more cataclysmic starting on the ocean floor.[12]  Science does not refute Scripture’s account of the Flood but the oversimplified children’s story which the vast majority of Christians have not moved beyond.  This is a proper application of science.  All things are ours because they are Christ’s and so are we (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)—including science.  Let science be a humble and faithful minister to enrich our understanding of Scripture.  In order to understand the Genesis account, we need to start by properly interpreting the text itself.  Only then can we rightly apply science to enrich our understanding.

Rightly Interpreting the Genesis Account

The primary question is: what does Scripture actually teach about origins?  That is found mostly in Genesis 1-11, so we must answer that question by rightly interpreting that passage.  We are exegetical, so we draw the meaning out of the text rather than bringing our own meaning to the text.  This forces us to look at what the passage actually says and interpret it in light of what the original author intended, what the original audience understood, and how the rest of Scripture interprets it.  What we see in Genesis 1-11 is a straightforward historical account.[13]  It starts with a general description of God creating everything in six days (Genesis 1:1-2:4) and a more detailed description of day 6 (Genesis 2:5ff) followed by the Fall (Genesis 3).  We then have genealogies between Adam and Noah (Genesis 4-5), the account of a global flood that wiped out most of humanity and greatly changed the earth (Genesis 6-9), and another genealogy from Noah to Abraham including an account of people spreading out from Mesopotamia after God confused their languages (Genesis 10-11).  While there is certainly poetic and figurative language in this section, that does not negate the fact that this is clearly a historical narrative.  To claim that it is not literal history simply because some figurative language is used is akin to the antinomian approach to the Law or disregarding difficult New Testament commands as merely cultural.  When we try to force Scripture into manmade genres, we are committing eisegesis.  The Genesis account is clearly historical narrative.[14]  The repeated use of “day” (overwhelmingly used in the Old Testament as a normal, 24-hour day), the use of “evening and morning”, numerical succession, and the clear Sabbath link show that Creation took six normal days.  The Flood account likewise uses clear language that this was a global cataclysmic event.[15]  The genealogies include the age of each patriarch when his first son was born and then how long he lived after that, making the total time from Adam to Noah to Abraham relatively easy to calculate.[16]  The narrative is also clear that death did not occur until mankind sinned at the Fall, which is affirmed in the New Testament (Romans 5:12), contradicting a central tenet of evolution: that death predated man.[17]  In short: “If the plain sense makes sense, we should seek no other sense, lest we create nonsense”.[18]

The rest of Scripture regards the Genesis account as literal history.[19]  The Old Testament affirms that God created everything (Deuteronomy 4:32, Psalm 89:47, 90:2, 95:5, 148:5, Isaiah 40:26, 42:5, 45:12,18, Jeremiah 33:2) and that Noah (Isaiah 54:9, Ezekiel 14:14,20), Adam, and the Fall (Hosea 6:7) were real. Paul says God created all things (Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:16) as described in Genesis (2 Corinthians 4:6, 1 Timothy 4:4) and regards Adam, Eve, and the Fall as real (Romans 5:12-14, 8:20,22, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 1 Timothy 2:12-14).  Hebrews speaks of God creating the world (Hebrews 1:2, 11:3) and Noah’s Flood as a literal history (Hebrews 11:7).  Peter speaks of both Creation and the Flood as they were described in Genesis (1 Peter 3:20, 2 Peter 2:5, 3:5-6).  John and Jude refer to Cain murdering Abel as a literal historical event (1 John 3:12, Jude 11).  Finally, Jesus spoke of the Flood as a literal historical event (Matthew 24:37-38, Luke 17:26-27) and regarded the creation of mankind and institution of marriage as “the beginning” (Matthew 19:4-5, Mark 10:6-8), so He viewed the Genesis account as history.[20]  This means “either Jesus is right or the idea of long ages is right—they can’t both be right”.[21] 

It is also helpful to look at how the Church has interpreted a passage throughout history.  Such interpretations are fallible, but if our interpretation finds scant precedent from faithful expositors of the past, we should seriously question it.  The Church has overwhelmingly interpreted the Genesis account as straightforward history and has therefore held to what we now call a young earth view.[22]  This would include the Westminster Divines: “It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good”.[23]  Since we are confessional, adherence to this confession dictates the young earth position.  

That nearly unanimous young earth position began to erode about a century later: “After the rise of long-age ideas in the ‘Enlightenment’ of the 18th century, many conservative biblical exegetes were intimidated by ‘science’.  So they invented various schemes to squeeze billions of years into Scripture”.[24]  These interpretations include day-age (each day of Genesis 1 refers millions or billions of years), gap theory (God created in literal days separated by gaps of millions or billions of years), and framework (the account is allegorical).[25]  These views try to make the Bible fit “science”, reading into the text what is not there.  The burden of proof is on those who support the old earth view to demonstrate not how their view can fit into the text but how their view comes out of the text.  They must demonstrate that the original author and audience would have understood Genesis 1-11 to mean billions of years.[26]  Otherwise, God misled His Church until recently, which is preposterous.

Some Scientific Evidence and Objections

If proper exegesis of the Genesis account supports a young earth view, how do we reconcile that with science that seem to support an old earth?  Valid scientific observations can be misinterpreted if approached with faulty assumptions, so until we can be certain that we have properly interpreted both Scripture and scientific observations, we cannot assume that Scripture and science are in conflict—and no conflict means no need to reinterpret the text.[27]  We are cessationist, so we believe that history is characterized by short periods of special and miraculous activities followed by much longer periods without.  The last of these periods was the early Church.  The first?  Creation.  Thus we should expect to find evidence of rapid change during key periods like Creation and the Flood.  From astronomy to geology, that is what we find.  Here are a few observations:

• Uniformitarian geological models assume rock layers and features like canyons formed gradually.  But recent examples such as the formation and erosion of the island of Surtsey within 40 years and the creation of a canyon in an afternoon after the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption show that a massive, cataclysmic event is a much more likely explanation.[28]  Seemingly-ancient rock layers have been found to contain fossils with soft tissue and radioactive isotopes of helium and carbon that should have decayed to the point of being undetected.  Numerous fossils have also been found that transcend several layers, and fossilization requires rapid burial.[29] 

• Radiometric dating (using the decay of radioactive isotopes like carbon-14) assumes both the initial concentration of the parent elements and a constant rate of decay, neither of which can be validated.  In fact, radioactive decay was likely much faster during Creation and the Flood.[30]

• Even the oldest big bang models (around 14 billion years) cannot account for the size of the universe, as the radius of the currently-observed universe is about 42 billion lightyears.[31]  Instead of natural expansion, God stretched out the universe on day 2 of creation at speeds much faster than light.[32] The speed of light may not be constant everywhere in the universe or throughout history, likely being much faster during Creation.[33]  Here, sometimes young earth proponents err by claiming that God created the stars and the light emanating from them.  But that means God created light that depicts cosmic events that did not actually happen, making Him a liar.  Instead, the variability of the speed of light and time itself allow light from these distant stars to reach us within a young earth timeline.[34]

• The Creation narrative describes light created on day 1 but no sun until day 4.  Days of normal length are quite possible without the sun, with a rotating earth and a source of light—which until day 4 of Creation was most likely the Shekinah Glory of God Himself.[35] The sun’s unique traits like stability, relatively slow rotation, and large amounts of helium (and therefore high energy output) are also unexplainable with long ages.[36]

• Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing, causing the moon to drift away from the earth at a rate that does not allow for billions of years.[37]

• Modern origin theories assume stars change relatively slowly, but stars have been observed changing drastically in months rather than millions of years.[38]

• Evolution teaches that man evolved from animals, but Scripture teaches that man being made in God’s image is distinct from animals.[39]  Evolution also requires death, predation, and thorns to predate man, but Scripture clearly teaches that these things did not occur before the Fall and that both humans and animals did not eat animals before then.[40]  The only view consistent with both Scripture and the fossil record is that the Fall happened very soon after Creation.[41] 

• Days, months, and years all have an astronomical basis, but weeks do not.  Moses explicitly links the seven-day week to Creation in the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11), and since he uses the same word for “days”, it is unreasonable to conclude that he meant anything other than normal days.[42]  It is likewise unreasonable to interpret man being made from dust as somehow metaphorically referring to evolution from primate ancestors—especially when the Curse includes returning to the dust.[43]

• Critics often say that Adam could not possibly have named all of the millions of species of animals in a day.  But this is eisegesis by likening “kinds” to “species” when it likely correlates to what we would call “family”, bringing the number to around 2,500 land animals—definitely doable in a day.[44]

• Skeptics often claim that the Ark was too small and impractical.  However, John Woodmorappe’s 1996 book Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study “answers virtually all the ‘scientific’ problems raised by critics of the Ark account”.[45]  The Ark’s proportions would have made it stable in even the roughest seas, its pitch-covered wood construction would have been amply strong, and it could have easily carried the roughly 2,000 required land animals and their provisions. And all of those animals could have easily been loaded onto the Ark in the week prior to the Flood.[46]

• Old-earth geological models assume gradual processes, including slow movement of the plates that make up the earth’s crust (Uniformitarian Plate Tectonics), but many geological features are better explained by Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, in which the plates moved much faster during and right after the Flood.  According to that model, rapid movement at plate boundaries on the ocean floor pushed huge amounts of water onto the land in massive tsunamis and brought magma into contact with seawater to produce superheated steam jets (fountains of the great deep)—that produced prolonged, intense rain.  This explains things like evidence of magnetic field reversal, minerals requiring immense pressure to form, and massive cave formation.[47] 

• The beginning of the Flood accounts for wide rock layers (especially sandstone), widespread fossil formation which requires rapid sediment deposition, and the presence of animal tracks in the stone.  The sequence of flooding—from coastal areas to mountains—also accounts for the sequence of the fossil record, starting with bottom-dwelling crustaceans and ending with the animals who could run the farthest in attempting to escape.  As the water retreated, it would have formed channels then pooled behind natural dams.  When those dams burst, the deluge would have carved out canyons.  That rapid formation of canyons by deluge has been observed on a small scale, so it is no stretch to see how the same process on a much larger scale during the Flood could have formed things like the Grand Canyon.[48]  

• Humans have essentially the same Y chromosome, showing that all humans descended from the same man.  There are also only 3 mitochondrial DNA lines, so all humans must have come from three different women.  This is easily explained by Noah’s sons having his Y chromosome and his three daughters-in-law each having their own mitochondrial DNA.[49]

• Skeptics also like to point out that the Flood could not have covered the mountains, but that assumes the mountains were as high as they are today.  The retreating floodwaters had to go somewhere, which required mountains to be raised up and the ocean to deepen, meaning the antediluvian mountains must have been much lower than modern mountains.  And if the earth was smooth, there would be enough water to cover everything to a depth of 1.667 miles, so it is quite reasonable to imagine the Flood covering the then-lower mountains.[50]

• Evolution requires genetic information to be added whereas natural selection can only remove it.  Instead, the wide variety of species we see today arose from isolation as animals spread out after the Flood.[51]  This brings up the biggest problem with evolution: it cannot explain the origin of information.[52]   In Darwin’s time, very little was known about life at the cellular level, but we now know that even single-celled organisms are incredibly complex, requiring huge amounts of information to be stored, interpreted, and used within every cell.  That information is a vital prerequisite for life.  Thus the logical leap from non-life to life that was somewhat reasonable in Darwin’s day is akin to trying to jump over the Grand Canyon.  The irreducible complexity of all life forms simply demands an intelligent designer.  The scientific process should have caused a major refinement or even abandonment of evolution based on these discoveries.

Evidence from science therefore supports the young earth view: “Is there any real evidence that the earth is older than the Bible seems to say it is?…No.  All there is against the idea of a recent creation is a series of scientific constructs, all based on examination of present states of affairs…that are very much open to challenge”.[53]  It is possible that future evidence may challenge the models presented here, but that is a secondary issue.  Again, any position other than young earth must come from the proper exegesis of Scripture, not the eisegesis of trying to cram “science” into Scripture.  

Conclusion

In short, Scripture teaches and the valid observations of science suggest that the universe is thousands of years old not billions.  We are young earth creationists because Scripture teaches it—and we must submit to Scripture in everything.  Genesis 1-11 is presented as straightforward history, so if we cannot trust that then we cannot trust any historical narrative in Scripture, so our faith would be in vain and we would be pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:14-19). This is why maintaining the young earth position is so important. And with so many Reformed churches compromising on it, one of the many reasons we joined our denomination is because they hold firmly to young earth creationism.  So rather than trying to cram atheistic origin theories into Scripture, let us take God at His Word and praise God who made everything in six days roughly six thousand years ago.

Additional Resources:

• Answers in Genesis

• Institute for Creation Research

• Creation Research Society

• Creation Ministries International

• “Is Genesis History?” Documentary

NOTES:

[1] Donald K. McKim, The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press: 2014: 349–350.

[2] J. Arthur Thomson, “SCIENCE,” ed. James Hastings, John A. Selbie, and Louis H. Gray, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Edinburgh; New York: T. & T. Clark; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908–1926: 252.

[3] Edward E. Hindson and Howard Eyrich, Totally Sufficient, Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers: 1997: 153.

[4] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: 2005: 569-570.

[5] David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of Our Day and the Search for Truth, Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers: 1991: 63,114-121.

[6] Ibid: 266-268.

[7] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 5.

[8] Nathan P. Feldmeth, Pocket Dictionary of Church History: Over 300 Terms Clearly and Concisely Defined, The IVP Pocket Reference Series, Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: 2008: 134.

[9] Peter J. Leithart, The Promise of His Appearing: An Exposition of Second Peter, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 2004: 90.

[10] James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 196-197.

[11] Ibid: 18, 113.

[12] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 529-530.

[13] Ibid: 48-49.

[14] Ibid: 31-36.

[15] Ibid: 525-529.

[16] Ibid: 462-467.

[17] Ibid: 80.

[18] Ibid: 39.

[19] Ibid: 47.

[20] Ibid: 337-338, 529.

[21] Ibid: 338.

[22] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 64; James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 17-18.

[23] Westminster Confession of Faith IV:1.

[24] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 107.

[25] Ibid: 110-114.

[26] James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 21.

[27] Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: 2005: 691-692.

[28] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 542-544.

[29] Ibid: 134-136, 539-540, 545-546.

[30] Ibid: 145-146.

[31] Ibid: 155-156.

[32] Ibid: 157-158.

[33] James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 192-193.

[34] Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account: A Theological, Historical, and Scientific Commentary on Genesis 1-11, Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International: 2015 (fourth edition 2021): 214-217.

[35] Ibid: 186-187.

[36] Ibid: 196-197.

[37] Ibid: 204.

[38] Ibid: 210, 395.

[39] Ibid: 249.

[40] Ibid: 377.

[41] Ibid: 273.

[42] Ibid: 284-285.

[43] Ibid: 302-304.

[44] Ibid: 326-327.

[45] Ibid: 495.

[46] Ibid: 495-523.

[47] Ibid: 525, 531-536, 561-562.

[48] Ibid: 537-551, 561-562.

[49] Ibid: 554-555.

[50] Ibid: 558-560, 569.

[51] Ibid: 577-583.

[52] Ibid: 582.

[53] James B. Jordan, Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One, Moscow, ID: Canon Press: 1999: 126.