The Creation Miracles

Topic Notes

We must be careful about some of the things we say. We must first make sure that we aren’t making Christianity look foolish.

Jeff and Dave both believe in an Old Earth/Universe… around 14 billion years old.

You CANNOT read Genesis and speak meaningfully about age of the Earth without understanding Hebrew language!

YOM – biblical day for word in Genesis.
Genesis 1:3-5

YOM translated means: daylight hours, 24 hour day, a longer period of time not specified

• On the sixth YOM what does Adam do?
• works the garden
• names every animal, searching for a partner
• God puts him to sleep takes out a rib
• God makes Eve
• They get married

Does that Yom sound like just a day? or a period of time?

“evening and morning…” is that literal?

It’s an idiom. Beginning of work, ending of work.
How could there be an “evening” and a “morning” if the sun didn’t exist?

On DAY SEVEN in Genesis God says he is going to rest.
Genesis 2:2

The seventh day doesnt’ describe an evening and a morning. Why?
because He didn’t work… and it was not a description of a 24-hour day but an idiom meaning they started work and ended work during the YOM – time period.

and, the 7th day isn’t over
Hebrews 4:1-2, 8-11

Points to Jesus, real rest! Not about a 24-hour day!
We are talking many thousands of years

Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe pointed out:
Genesis chapters 1-2 have FOUR different verbs to describe creation miracles.

1. Bara (baw-raw) – Used only to describe God’s creating. These are “POOF” miracles
2. Asa (aw-saw) – to do or make, generic term. Implies a recasting of existing material into new form (like using eggs, butter, flour to make a cake)
3. Haya – (haw-yaw) – “comes to pass” or “to be” … implies let nature to run its course, not referring to things that exist for the first time.
4. Yasar – (yaw-tsar) – to mold into form (when God makes mankind out of dust/or animals)

The following verses are from New American Standard, because it’s a WORD-FOR-WORD translation.

Bara (baw-raw) – Used only to describe God’s creating. These are “POOF” miracles

• Gen 1:1
  In the beginning God created (*poofed*) the heavens and the earth.
• Gen 1:21-22
  God created (*poofed*) the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
• Gen 1:27
  God created (*poofed*) man in His own image, in the image of God He created (*poofed*) him
• Gen 2:4
  This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created (*poofed*),

THOSE ARE POOF MIRACLES!!!
– the heavens/earth
– animals/humans

Many people are taught that EVERYTHING in the Genesis account is a “poof miracle.”
But those were the only poof miracles.

Asa (aw-saw) – Hebrew for recasting existing material into a new form?

So what we are going to read is stuff that already existed (God already made it), but he is using things like a recipe, mixing it to make something new…

• Gen 1:16
  God made (*recast*) the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made (*recast*) the stars also.
• Gen 1:25
  God made (*recast*) the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
• Gen 1:26
  Then God said, “Let Us make (*recast*) man in Our image, according to Our likeness;
• Gen 1:31
  God saw all that He had made (*recast*), and behold, it was very good.

Haya (haw-yaw) miracles. These are the miracles that really support the Old Earth view.
Haya, in Hebrew, implies that God let nature run its course, not referring to things that exist for the first time. These were not *POOF* miracles.

• Gen 1:3
  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
• Gen 1:6
  Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
• Gen 1:8
  God called the expanse heaven (or we would say outer space, sky)
• Gen 1:14-15
  Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.

So natural processes created light, stars, atmosphere, and space!!
That is billions of years of natural process.

Then when God makes dry ground appear
New word: qavah – – a verb meaning: “TO WAIT FOR!!”

• Genesis 1:9
  Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

Bible Contradiction

Who Killed Saul?
1 Samuel 31:4-5 vs 2 Samuel 1:6-10

Online Question

Was Pangea real? I don’t believe it happened millions of years ago, but I can’t tell if it was real. My pastor says it was, but my family disagrees. Anyone have answers?

• Pangea – a supercontinent that existed about 300 million years ago and broke up about 200 million years ago.
• There is no Biblical reason to reject the notion of Pangea. So, as long as scientific claims are accurate, we can believe it.
• The point: This is Geology and not Theology.

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