Young Biosphere Creation (YBC)

Young Biosphere Creation (YBC) is a biblical creationist theory that says the biosphere (all living things) were created recently (thousands of years ago) by God, but that the universe of galaxies, gas, etc. was created by God first an unknown number of years earlier; perhaps thousands, millions or billions of years ago.

It is one of several creationist origin theories that try to harmonize both biblical and scientific evidence: Young Earth Creation (YEC) says that both the universe and the biosphere were created by God recently, while Old Earth Creation (OEC), known by various labels such as theistic evolution, progressive creation, etc., says that both the universe and the biosphere were created by God using natural forces (evolution) across billions of years.

YBC emphasizes the accurate translation of verses in Genesis chapter 1. It argues that the mistranslation of key words has led to a misunderstanding of the origin of the universe by Young Earth Creationists, and that acceptance of evolution theory for the origin of the biosphere is a mistake by Old Earth Creationists. The "Gap theory" of OEC injects the geologic column history between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, while YBC does not inject the geologic column history between Genesis 1:2 and 1:3.(Gray, p.19)

Narrative

According to Young Biosphere Creation, in the beginning God created the universe, including the Sun, Moon, and Earth. The Spirit of God prepared to work on the Earth, which was barren and empty (tohu wabohu) with a global ocean wrapped in dark clouds (Job 38:8,9).(Gray, pp.58,59) How long this lasted is not known. Then God worked on the earth for six consecutive 24-hour days. "God began clearing the dense blanket on day one and completed it on day four. The light from the created sun and stars was only diffusely visible on day one."(Gray, p.138) On the second day, God raised the clouds high in the atmosphere to open "the expanse where birds fly".(Gray, p.138) On the third day, the ocean was gathered into seas, and the dry land emerged. God created vegetation on the land. On the fourth day, "the sun, moon, and stars were for the first time unveiled in all their glory in the cloudless sky".(Jamieson et al.)[1] On the fifth day, God created the sea-dwelling creatures and birds. On the sixth day, God made the land-dwelling creatures, including humans.

Exodus 20:11, Exodus 31:17 " 'For six days Yahweh worked on the atmosphere, the continental land, and the oceanic sea, and all that is in them,'… that is, the biosphere."(Gray, p.52)

Biblical interpretation

Young Biosphere Creation is based on 3 key points for interpreting the text of the first chapter of Genesis:

1) It highlights a distinction between two Ancient Hebrew words, bara and asah,[2] that are usually given the same meaning in English, "to make", and applies one of the lesser-used meanings to nathan, usually translated as "to place".

2) The first verse is understood to be the creation of the entire universe, including Earth as a planet devoid of life as described in verse two. An unknown amount of time passes before the rest of the chapter unfolds, but billions of years are possible to allow distant starlight to reach Earth and for long half-life radioisotopes inside the Earth to decay.

3) The actions described from Genesis 1:3 through Genesis 1:18 are as seen from the surface of the Earth rather than as one looking down on Earth from a distance.

Author

Age of the Universe book Gorman Gray.PNG

The foundation for Young Biosphere Creation is the book "The Age Of The Universe: What are the Biblical limits?" by Gorman Gray, first published in 1996 by Morning Star Publications in Washougal, Washington. He is a retired tooling engineer from the aircraft industry, and a graduate of Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon. The website is youngbiospherecreation.com

Scholarly support

The forward to the book is by David Eckman, Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies and Old Testament. He studied at Oxford University in England in the 1980's, and is a member of the National Association of Hebrew Professors. In the forward he concurs with the 3 key points of YBC above, although without addressing nathan.

The late Bernard Northrup, Th.D. was a Hebrew language scholar who taught the Tanakh (entire Hebrew Bible – Law, Prophets, and Writings) for 50 years. He concurred with key points 1 and 2 of YBC above, not addressing point 3, in his paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on Creationism in 1994.

The late R.K. Harrison was a professor of Old Testament studies at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, with a Ph.D. from the University of London. He served on the Executive Review Committe of the New King James Version of the Bible, and also translated several of the Minor Prophets for the New International Version.[3] In his 1969 "Introduction to the Old Testament", he concurred with key point 3 above (Harrison, p. 554).

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown authored their “Commentary on the Whole Bible” in 1871. It is a comprehensive, verse-by-verse exposition that is still recognized as one of the great whole-Bible commentaries.[4] Preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote "I consult it continually." In their commentary on Genesis chapter 1 they concurred with key points 2 and 3 above.[5]

Obstacles

Young Biosphere Creation was developed by Gorman Gray as a model for biblical creation that is closer to the truth than Young Earth Creation or Old Earth Creation and its variations,(Gray, p.13) yet there are difficulties for all three.

YEC accepts the conventional translation of the first chapter of Genesis. Gray highlights the problem YEC has with the time required for distant starlight to reach the Earth, the presence of substantial decay products from long half-life radioisotopes in Earth’s rocks, and the awkward sequence of events in the first chapter of Genesis.(Gray, pp.84-85)

OEC aligns with conventional scientific opinion, adapting the first chapter of Genesis to it, and placing God in the narrative in various ways according to the version of OEC. Gray writes that “attempts to harmonize the assertions of evolutionary geology and biology with the Bible… simply cannot be done without stretching the language of Genesis.”(Gray,p.128) Evolutionary biology has its own challenges, for scientific reasons, including:

the failure of biochemists to make any form of life from chemicals

the observation that life only comes from life

the inadequacy of evolution theory’s mutation/natural selection mechanism to build the complex gene regulatory networks and biological systems networks found in all organisms and function only when every part is in place

frequent resort to "convergent" and "parallel" evolution when there is no traceable “descent with modification” or inherited "changes in gene frequencies in populations" to explain traits such as wings or bioluminescence

the natural trend toward increasing disorder (entropy)[6] precludes the requirement by macroevolution for increasing order

the impossibility that random chemical reactions could produce only the "right handed" nucleotides or "left handed" amino acids required by living things[7]

YBC uses informed word translations that are unfamiliar to most creationists. YBC also has the disadvantage of being relatively new (since 1996), so not many are aware of it. On the other hand, YEC and OEC theories are quite well known, and most creationists have chosen one or the other over the years; they might not be looking for or interested in alternatives.

References

Gray, Gorman. 2000. The Age of the Universe: What are the biblical limits? Morningstar Publications, Washougal, WA, 192 pages.

Harrison, R.K. 1969. Introduction to the Old Testament. Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, MA, 1344 pages.

Jamieson, Robert, A. R. Fausset, David Brown. 1871. Commentary on the Whole Bible. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1591 pages.

Northrup, Bernard. 1994. Some Questionable Creationist Axioms Reexamined. In Proceedings of The Third International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh, editor, pages 387-405.