Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Ronald Youngblood of Bethel Seminary West in San Diego also stresses the
literary form and analysis of Genesis in How It All Began: A Bible Commentary for
Laymen L Genesis I-II (1980). The Bible, he says, “categorically rules out evolution on
the grand scale overwhelmingly claimed for it by its supporters,” but he agrees that
creation occurred long ages ago. He suggests that the creation ‘days’ are “indefinite and
timeless,” and that the Genesis account, while historical, is not fully chronological. As in
non-creationist analysis of Genesis as literature or myth, Youngblood points out that the
creation days are arranged in a symmetrical verse pattern of three days of “forming”
followed by three days of “filling” (populating); he argues that this literary sequence may
not be the actual chronological order of events. Youngblood says that pre-Adamic
hominids maybe as old as scientists claim, but that at some relatively late point God
intervened to produce “biblical” man: Adam and Eve. He accepts the description of
Adam’s Fall in Eden as literal, but interprets the long lifespans of the antediluvian
patriarchs as a literary device. Cain may have feared the remaining pre-Adamic
hominids, he suggests.
OTHER OLD-EARTH CREATIONIST THEORIES
Many old-earth creationists insist that young-earth creationism is mistaken
without, however, endorsing any particular old-earth theory. Wilbur Smith, Dean of
Moody Bible Institute, affirms old-earth creationism in Therefore, Stand (1946),
describing both the Day-Age and Gap Theory theories favorably, and also endorsing
Guyot’s combined Revelatory and Day-Age interpretation.
First of all, we must dismiss from our mind any conception of a definite period of time, either for creation
itself, or for the length of the so-called six creative days. The Bible does not tell us when the world was
created. The first chapter of Genesis could take us back to periods millions of years antedating the
appearance of man. [1944:312]
In Smith’s Day-Age harmonization, Day 1 refers to the “primacy of water” in the
primordial earth, and the first penetration of light onto its surface. Day 2, the “dividing”
of the waters, refers to the formation of dense vapor clouds. Day 3 refers to the
emergence of land and appearance of plants. The sun became visible when the opaque
cloud canopy was withdrawn on Day 4. Day 5, the creation of water animals, occurred at
the end of the Paleozoic. “Birds” were also created on this day: Smith stresses the
similarity of birds to fishes (1944:323). Day 6 commenced at the Mesozoic-Cenozoic
boundary.
Evan Shute’s Flaws in the Theory of Evolution (1962; originally published in
Canada in 1961) was published by staunchly fundamentalist Craig Press, but Shute
accepts standard old-earth chronology, and said that Adam was predated by other
hominids. Modern man appeared suddenly about 9,000 years ago, and Adam may have
been the first of this new type of hominid, but Adam’s descendants may have
intermarried with the older, more primitive types. Shute, a Canadian surgeon who edited
a medical journal, published articles in both Nature and the Creation Research Society
Quarterly. His book, though strongly creationist, contains no biblical references, and is
filled with scientific citations. He argues that scientific evidence proves a Creator and
refutes mega-evolution, defending the proposition that “The biochemical probabilities of