Defending Young Earth Creation

It may come as a surprise to some but in today's conservative evangelical world a Young Earth creation view is fast becoming the minority view. Perhaps this is even the case already. With seminary after seminary becoming all the more vague and even nonchalant on the matter this is not surprising. I recall an Old Testament professor at seminary (4 years ago) saying that in published works in our day, a Young Earth position is definitely the minority. With that in mind here are two arguments from the text itself, and not some type of scientific reasoning, for a Young Earth position. This is by no means an extensive and lengthy defense but I trust it helps in a small way. Here we go:

1. The Hebrew language in Genesis 1 is not poetic. Dr. Steven Boyd, formerly of the Masters' University, and esteemed scholar who focuses particularly upon linguistics, believes (after lengthy study and analysis) that the verbs of Genesis 1 coincide with the verbs used in other portions of non-poetic genre such as historical narrative. Therefore, if you're looking for an example of historical narrative, the verb forms in Genesis 1 are exactly that. The creation account is not poetic and therefore to be taken literally. A biblical hermeneutic demands this. 

2. The word yôm (which is the Hebrew word for "day") can mean more than just a full 24 hour day. You ask well what kind of defense is that? It is one from context. Old Earth advocates will argue away the validity of pointing to yôm because it can be used in different ways. This is true, however, in Genesis 1 yôm is used along side "morning and evening" and "one", "two", "three", etc. This is where the rubber hits the road and biblical hermeneutics expose weakness in the Old Earth position. For this debate very soon finds itself to be a literal vs figurative argument where the Old Earth advocate then brings into question the literal sense of "morning and evening" and the number of each day (i.e., "one", "two"...). At this stage, the argument then must go back to the grammar and genre at hand and the verbal forms of which are clearly not poetic but instead historical narrative. Now, this does not mean that historical narrative is void of figurative language but context makes it clear when something is figurative. Sequential day after day creation, coinciding with "morning and evening",  has no hallmark of figurative language all together.

Perhaps the scariest and strangest thing about the Old Earth position is that it takes into consideration present day scientific theory and re-injects that into how Genesis 1 is interpreted. That boggles my mind.

Hermeneutics matters.