In The Beginning (Part Two)

This is part two in a four-part series establishing the veracity of the Word of God found in the majority-text. This part establishes the most miraculous—the very beginning. Welcome to GodSaidManSaid. We’re so glad you’ve come. Prepare for the phenomenal! Be free to believe.

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GOD SAID, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

MAN SAID: We just popped out of nothing and here we are! Like Buddha said, “No origin can be perceived.”

Now THE RECORD. Yes, there was a beginning exactly as the Bible declares, and yes, a record has been left in the earth. A quick review of “In the Beginning (Part One)” follows:

1. The Bible said there was light on Earth before the sun was created. Science now theorizes that that was exactly the case.

2. The Scripture’s genealogical and chronological records declare the earth to be just over 6,000 years old. Science built on fact and not uniformitarian assumptions says yes to a young Earth.

No believer should be surprised that the unsaved world is not able to recognize truth when it is spoken, or proof when it is offered, for we once existed in that very same condition. But when the time came, we humbled ourselves before God, believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, repented and turned from our sins. At that moment, our blind eyes were opened to the Light and our ears opened to the voice of the Spirit of God. Unfortunately for those blind to the truth and deaf to proof, they mistake their condition of spiritual ignorance for intellectual superiority. But fortunately for many of them, God’s hand is extended still. It’s the job of His children, the born-again, to be fruitful and multiply and to convince the gainsayer. So believers, let’s be busy about the business.

There was a beginning. God’s Word declares it. Thousands and thousands of years before science begins to discover the reasons why, God in His Word has already clearly defined the issue. The Bible’s description of the pre-Noah atmosphere is just one more example of it. The following paragraphs are from the GodSaidManSaid feature “North Pole Tropical Discovered Again:”

Genesis 1:6-8: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” According to God’s Word, God created the earth with water upon it, a layer He called firmament, and Heaven hovering over it; and above the firmament, another layer of water. When scientists put together a theoretical model designed in the way just described, they come up with some astounding scenarios:

1. A water canopy encompassing the whole earth would create a virtual greenhouse, regulating a perfect temperature around the globe in which there would be no storm of any kind.

2. The water canopy would also act as a filter, blocking deadly UV rays from the sun, which arguably participate in every disease known to man. This canopy would also contribute to much longer life-spans. Students of the Scriptures know that the average life span before the flood of Noah was 911 years. Also take note that Adam and Eve were naked and not burned by the sun. There is also no record of God making a house for them in which to dwell.

3. The first record of rain in the Bible is during the great flood in the days of Noah. Prior to the flood, Genesis 2:4-6 states: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” The perfect year-round temperature, devoid of storms of any kind, as well as the absence of rain, meant that every morning there was a beautiful postcard sky—a place God called Paradise!

4. In Genesis 7, God opened the windows of heaven and poured the protective water canopy down upon the earth. This destroyed every creature that had the breath of life in its nostrils, with the exception of the residents aboard Noah’s ark. Things would never be the same again.

The destruction of this water canopy has produced devastating results. Living creatures that were destroyed by the flood from the loss of the water canopy resulted in billions of buried fossils. There are fish fossils on the world’s mountain peaks. Man’s life span has dropped dramatically, from the average age of 911 years to the Bible’s prophetic “threescore years and ten,” or 70 years. There are huge destructive storms bombarding this earth as well as dangerous temperature swings and the phenomenally detrimental effects of UV rays, and many other disasters.

A flurry of news releases tout new discoveries during a 2004 drilling expedition into the floor of the Arctic Ocean. A May 31, 2006 headline from the Associated Press reads, “Scientists: Arctic Once Had Tropical Climate.” The May 31, 2006 headline at Pravda.Ru reads, “55 Million Years Ago the Arctic Was Tropical.” Finally, the May 31, 2006 headline of Purdue University News reads, “North Pole’s Ancient Past Holds Clues About Future Global Warming.”

The findings of a once tropical climate at the North Pole are, of course, true according to the physical evidence discovered. Incidentally, however, the assertions of millions of years are built upon the faulty assumptions of uniformitarianism, and are not science at all, but simply incorrect hypotheses.

Following is the excerpt from Pravda.Ru mentioned earlier:

Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit (23-degree Celsius) average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It’s smack in the middle of the Arctic. Core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show. [End of quote]

The following excerpts were taken from TechNewsWorld.com:

Scientists already knew this “thermal event” happened but are not sure what caused it. Perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean, the continent-sized burning of trees, lots of volcanic eruptions.

Many experts figured that while the rest of the world got really hot, the polar regions were still comfortably cooler, maybe about 52 degrees Fahrenheit.

The new research found the polar average was closer to 74 degrees, however. So instead of Boston-like weather year-round, the Arctic was more like Miami North. Way north.

“It’s the first time we’ve looked at the Arctic, and man, it was a big surprise to us,” said study co-author Kathryn Moran, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island. “It’s a new look to how the Earth can respond to these peaks in carbon dioxide.”

Purdue University News reports:

The models fail to explain another puzzling fact. The temperature difference between the North Pole and the equator today is about 45 degrees C. But the difference appears to have been much smaller during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum time frame. Otherwise, it would have been too hot for vegetation to survive in equatorial latitudes.

“We still haven’t explained why the tropics stayed cool,” Huber said. “Somehow, we have to explain how you can warm the poles up to 23 degrees Celsius without having the tropics rise to at least 50 degrees, which is 10 degrees too hot for plants to carry out photosynthesis.”

He said the implications are troubling because current models may be providing optimistic predictions.

“Today’s models underpredict how warm the poles were back then, which tells you something disturbing—that the models, if anything, aren’t sensitive enough to greenhouse gases,” Huber said. “At the same time, it is possible that other forces in addition to higher-than-normal greenhouse gas concentrations were involved, otherwise we can’t explain how the tropics maintained livable conditions.” [End of quote]

Scientists are flummoxed. How can this be? The answer, of course, is recorded in God’s book (in particular, Genesis). Purdue researcher Huber was on the right track when he said, “At the same time, it is possible that other forces...were involved.”

Science has discovered a time when the earth was a God-created paradise. Unfortunately for the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, it is a paradise lost. Click onto “Further With Jesus” for instructions for re-entry. [End of quotes]

Was there a water canopy encircling the entire globe in the beginning? Did it cause a greenhouse effect rendering the entire earth tropical—even the frigid poles? Once the water canopy was broken in the days of Noah, did the poles of the earth go into an instant deep freeze, and did the sea levels rise? The following excerpts are from “Noah II” a feature article on this website:

Science writer H. Pringle writes in Discover magazine, in August 2001, attempting to explain how much of the earth’s land mass was once under water and that the whole earth was at one time much warmer. Of course, we know all land was beneath water. He reports the following as new discoveries:

The middle Cretaceous was a time of intense global warming. Throughout the world, fiery volcanoes thundered, lofting immense plumes of ash and gas into the air. As a result of this and other complex global atmospheric changes, levels of greenhouse gases soared. Present-day geochemical studies suggest atmospheric carbon dioxide alone rocketed to levels three times higher than those found today. Inevitably, this thick mantle trapped heat. As Earth warmed, sea levels rose by as much as 1,000 feet.

Does the whole world being tropical before the flood still sound bizarre? Author J. C. Whitcomb, in his book The World That Perished, writes:

“Dr. Jack A. Wolfe in a U. S. Geological Survey report [1978] told that Alaska once teemed with tropical plants. He found evidence of mangroves, palm trees, Burmese laquer trees, and groups of trees that now produce nutmeg and Macassar oil” (p. 348).

In another report:

After a careful analysis of the stomach contents of the Beresovka mammoth, discovered by Russian scientists in 1901, Dillow concludes: “The mammoth must have been overwhelmed suddenly with a rapid deep freeze and instant death. The sudden death is proved by the unchewed bean pods still containing the beans that were found between its teeth, and the deep freeze is suggested by the well-preserved state of the stomach contents and the presence of edible meat (p. 337).” “The animal was peacefully grazing in late July, and suddenly within a half hour of ingestion of his last lunch he was overcome by temperatures colder than 150 degrees below zero, and froze to death in the middle of the summer. Furthermore, he never completely thawed until he fell out of a river bank in 1901 (p. 396).” [End of quotes]

The water canopy, which certainly existed, protected the world from the devastating UV rays of the sun. These rays are direct contributors to nearly 60 destructive diseases and arguably, at least, an indirect contributor to all other diseases known to man. During a discussion on how to protect long-term astronauts from the deleterious effects of the sun’s UV rays, one novel suggestion was to surround them with five feet of water. God said, “water above the firmament,” and pre-Noah man lived an average of 911 years.

Genesis 1:29-30:

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

The following passages are from “All The World Was Once Vegetarian,” a feature on GodSaidManSaid:

The linguistic science called etymology has a defined rule known as “the rule of first occurrence.” This rule declares that when a word is used for the very first time, its first use frames its definition. The original definition of the word meat (and still one of its definitions) is “food,” and in the beginning, at first occurrence, that food was fruits, vegetables, and grains. One of the sacrifices in the Old Testament, which the children of Israel were directed to offer unto the Lord, was a meat offering, and it consisted of meal—grains. Some Bible footnotes say that it literally means “meal,” but that’s erroneous. It means just what it says. It was a meat offering, which in its original form, is grain, herbs, fruits, and the like. It was not until Adam and Eve cast off the pure Word of Truth that man began to eat flesh. At that moment, the law of sin and death began to reign upon the earth.

In the beginning, men—and all animal kind—were vegetarians. When you understand that fact, it makes the following discovery especially exciting. Paleontologist Greg Buckley and his colleagues at Roosevelt University in Illinois recently unearthed quite a discovery. The discovery was a very ancient fossil. The fossil, which has the world of paleontology scratching its head, is that of a crocodile and the shocking revelation is that the crocodile was a vegetarian. Could it be that Mr. Buckley and his friends unearthed the world’s very first crocodile, or at least one of the first, created by the hand of God on the sixth day of creation? [End of quotes]

Did God leave a record?

Genesis 2:7:

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.

Job 10:9:

Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?

Could it be so simplistically true that man is literally recycled mud? The following info is from the GodSaidManSaid article “Man from Dirt:”

The Bible declares that God created man just over 6,000 years ago from the dust of the earth. It teaches that he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul. The Hebrew word Adam means “red dirt” or “ruddy,” and rightfully so, since Adam was made from red clay. The following excerpt is from B. Cooper’s book, After The Flood:

Dirt: This is Truax’s English rendering of the original name, not a transposition. It is clearly meant to portray Adam, the version of whose name in the Miautso language (as in Hebrew, Akkadian and so on), means earth or clay, the substance from which he was created. [End of quote]

The famed historian Josephus, who wrote shortly after the death and resurrection of Christ, recorded this concerning Adam: “This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together; for of that kind is virgin and true earth.” [End of quote]

The idea of God making man out of dirt, as far as unbelievers are concerned, is absurd. In a recent Newsweek magazine article titled “Life From Clay” the following story was printed:

As if the Biblical tale of man’s creation from “the dust of the ground” were haunting their unconscious minds, NASA chemists have presented evidence that life on earth may have gotten its start in clay. They have shown that clays attract the organic molecules that make up protein and DNA, the ingredients of life, possibly from the sea during high tides. The clays might then trigger chemical reactions that string the building blocks into proteins and DNA.

The latest experiments show how, according to NASA’s Lelia Coyne, clays scavenge energy released by such natural processes as radioactive decay. They store energy in the form of trapped electrons and then release it when subjected to stress—an earthquake, for example, or from wetting and drying as the tides rise and recede. Says Coyne, the ability of clays to store energy, catalyze reactions and perhaps self-replicate—all attributes of living systems—“is forcing us to re-examine at a very fundamental level the definition of life.”

It is common knowledge that the chemical and mineral content of a person’s body is identical to the earth’s. Everyone knows that when a person dies, his body turns back to dust—TO DUST!

Man is simply recycled dust and his linkage to the dirt is irrefutable. J. Rubin’s famous book, The Maker’s Diet, makes this more abundantly clear. The following excerpts are from his book:

Does the subject of dirt seem boring to you? Did you know that one gram of soil, enough to fill a little packet of sugar—can contain as many as 10,000 species of microbes unknown to science, according to Jo Handelsman, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin.

Even human intestines—an environment most people consider pretty familiar—are home to perhaps 10,000 kinds of microbes. Indeed, one of the surprises in the decoding of the human genome was that it contains more than 200 genes that come from bacteria. Microbes not only keep us alive; in some small part, we are made of them.

Countless numbers of microorganisms live in the soil, in and on plants, and in the human gut. Inside and out we are at one with the earth (or we should be). [End of quotes]

There was a beginning. God has left a record in the earth.

Genesis 1:26-27:

26 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.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Is there a record? Is it possible there was one common mother and one common father for all of mankind? The following paragraphs from “In The Beginning (Part One)” were used to help substantiate the Bible’s position of a young earth. This information is also pertinent to the concept of one common mother and father.

Dr. D. Chittick, in his book The Puzzle of Ancient Man, discusses in some detail the DNA chain to mother Eve. Scientists have followed the trail of human DNA and discovered that all human life originated from just one woman, appropriately calling her Eve. Concerning the methodology used to date the DNA chain to mother Eve, Chittick explains:

How was this date of 200,000 years obtained? Over time, mutations occur in the DNA of humans (and other animals). How many mutations have occurred since Eve? How fast do mutations occur? In other words, what is the rate at which the mitochondrial DNA clock runs? If the number of mutations since Eve were known, and if the mutation rate were also known, then one could calculate how long ago mitochondrial Eve lived.

Because of their evolutionist world-view, and their belief that humans had been here for a million years or more, those who investigated the mitochondrial DNA attempted to calibrate the clock in accord with their belief system. Only by speculating or hypothesizing about the past could a clock rate be obtained because no actual rates for the mitochondrial clock had been observed.

Chittick continues his dissertation, and goes on to quote Ann Gibbons as she wrote in the January 2, 1998, issue of Science. The title of the Gibbons article is, “Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock.” Chittick writes:

What has been the result of further investigation since the 1988 and 1995 results were published? An interesting subsequent development has been calibration of the mitochondrial DNA clock by using actually observed data rather than by using speculations from evolutionism. The result has shown that the clock ticks very much faster than expected.

Ann Gibbons reports:

Mitochondrial DNA appears to mutate much faster than expected, prompting new DNA forensics procedures and raising troubling questions about the dating of evolutionary events.

In 1991, Russians exhumed a Siberian grave containing nine skeletons thought to be the remains of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family and retinue, who were shot by firing squad in 1918. But two bodies were missing, so no one could be absolutely certain of the identity of the remains. And DNA testing done in 1992—expecting to settle the issue quickly—instead raised a new mystery.

The mystery concerned dates relating to the clock rate. It appears that mutations occur at a much more rapid rate than had been imagined. Although there seems to be considerable debate about the cause of the faster rate, the faster rate has been verified by independent investigations.

Again, Gibbons says:

Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example, researchers have calculated that “mitochondrial Eve”—the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people—lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6,000 years old. [End of quotes]

One common mother and one common father? YES! A 2006 AP article titled “Roots of Human Family Tree Are Shallow” deals with the world’s common ancestry. The article highlights Steve Olson, author of the book Mapping Human History. The following sentences are from the AP story:

With the help of a statistician, a computer scientist and a supercomputer, Olson has calculated just how interconnected the human family tree is. You would have to go back in time only 2,000 to 5,000 years—and possibly on the low side of that range—to find somebody who could count every person alive today as a descendant.

Furthermore, Olson and his colleagues have found that if you go back a little farther—about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago—everybody living today has exactly the same set of ancestors. [End of quote]

There is a record.

A quick review of “In The Beginning (Parts One and Two)” follows:

1. The Bible said there was light on Earth before the sun was created. Science now theorizes that that was exactly the case.

2. The Scripture’s genealogical and chronological records declare the earth to be just over 6,000 years old. Science built on fact and not uniformitarian assumptions says yes to a young Earth.

3. God’s Word said there was a water canopy during the days before Noah that produced dramatic benefits for all the earth and the evidence that it was so is abundant.

4. In Genesis 1, the Bible teaches that, prior to sin and death, all of the world’s creatures were vegetarian. The very ancient fossil of a vegetarian crocodile has raised a lot of eyebrows.

5. Man is simply recycled mud. God literally created us out of dirt and the record says yes. Plus, every school boy knows that when you die, your turn back to dust.

6. God said He created one man named Adam and one woman named Eve who were the parents of all mankind. Scientists now point to one common mother and father as the original ancestors of all who live today.

God has left a record in the earth.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

MAN SAID: We just popped out of nothing and here we are. Like Buddha said, “No origin can be perceived.”

Now you have THE RECORD.




References:

Authorized King James Version

“A Broccoli-Eating Croc,” Discover, 9/2000

Associated Press, “Scientists: Arctic Once Had Tropical Climate,” 5/31/06

Chittick, D., PhD, “The Puzzle of Ancient Man,” Creation Compass, 1998, pp159-161

Crenson, M., “Roots of Human Family Tree Are Shallow,” AP, 7/1/2006

Josephus, F., Complete Works, Kregel Publications, p25

Pravda.Ru, “55 Million Years Ago the Arctic Was Tropical,” 5/31/2006

Pringle, H., “The Creature From The Zuni Lagoon,” Discover, 8/01, pp42- 48

Purdue University News, “North Pole’s Ancient Past Holds Clues About Future Global Warming,” 5/31/2006

Rubin, J. S., The Maker’s Diet, Siloam Publishing, pp67-69

TechNewsWorld.com, 5/31/2006

Truax, E., “Genesis According to the Miao People,” Impact, 4/1991

Whitcomb, J. C., The World That Perished, Baker Books, p83

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