I'm not a YEC...but I do believe the earth was created 6000 years ago and in 6 days as the Bible says.
Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
It doesnt say he created the skies and the land - I checked over 50 versions - they all say heaven and the earth.
And what are "the heavens" and "the earth"? The English word "heaven" in its most basic sense means the sky, from the Anglo-Saxon
heofon, "the visible sky". And the word "earth" means what? We still use the word "earth" to describe the dirt or land under our feet, the same as the Anglo-Saxon word
eorþe meant.
The Hebrew words mean the skies, the heavens, these are synonymous concepts. It's right there in Genesis chapter 1,
"
And God said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.' And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day." - Genesis 1:6-8
The waters below the expanse are what will be called "sea" in the following few passages, and the dry ground is called "earth" (Genesis 1:9-10)
Just because you read translations and you have your own presuppositions about what "heaven" and "earth" mean doesn't mean you are reading the Bible correctly. "Earth" here is not a round ball orbiting around the sun, it's the solid ground beneath your feet; and "Heaven" is not the extra-created ineffable realm of the Divine, but that great big expanse you see when you look up, where clouds float by and the sun rises and sets.
Put yourself in the sandals of someone living three thousand years ago in the ancient near east, how would they understand these things?
Water, like every other mineral and material on earth is part of the earth. The earth has water...it has land...it has many many minerals and elements.
That's a very modern way of looking at it, where "earth" refers to this planet we live on, with a molten core, that is tilted on its axis and moves through its orbit around the sun, located in an arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
That isn't what the biblical writers meant by
eretz. And this is obvious by the explicit words of the text of Genesis 1, again look at Genesis 1:9-10.
When God created the earth it was without form - no peaks and valleys - that is why the water covered the whole earth. By creating form (peaks and valleys), the water gathered together and the dry land appeared. Its not complicated.
The Hebrew says the eretz was tohu and bohu, Both words suggest the concept of emptiness, of a wasteland, tohu can also mean confusion, or chaos; bohu again means empty, or a wasteland. Look at how these words are used elsewhere in the Old Testament. The meaning here is that the earth, the eretz--the land--was empty, it was disordered, chaotic.
God then shapes, gives form, and fills the empty earth. We see this happening over the course of the days of creation, starting on day 3 where the eretz, separated from the waters, produces plants, and then God on day 6 fills the eretz with beasts and creeping, crawling things.
What was the light source? - we don't know...but we do know there was one. Any single major light source, whether its the sun or not, with a revolving earth would create an evening and a morning on the earth.
But that isn't what the text
says. You have to add that to the text.
God said "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is," I take that literally. That is what the Bible says...what God said.
One of my favorite movies is History of Violence - ok yeah maybe not appropriate for most...but the very ending scene the bodyguards are positioned perfectly to kill the nemesis...I mean its a sure and easy kill...but they fail and the boss says how do you mess that up 2 times.
God has been so clear that the earth was created in 6 days (even gives you a description of it by saying an evening and a morning) - yet you cant even get it right...I mean how do you mess that up? Unbelievable to me that you can't get this simple statement from God correct - how do you mess that up - You (and others) make up all sorts of reasoning for it too...even change the meaning of the word "day" LOL. How do you mess that up?!!!!
You aren't taking the Bible literally. You are imposing your own ideas and forcing them onto the Bible.
-CryptoLutheran