When Satan was cast from heaven

I’m writing in my response to a letter that was recently in the courier titled “Bible stories shouldn’t be taken literally” by Guy King. Below is my letter response:

Though I do not disagree with his opinion on the relative age of our earth (much older than the 6,000 years most Christians believe), I do have to disagree with his assumption that the “stories” in the Bible are just allegorical.

Just because most scientists today believe that the earth is older than 6,000 years by no means disproves the Genesis account of creation — especially when you’ve undertaken an in-depth study of the opening chapters in Genesis without relying on “religious” tradition.

It is quite evident when studying the Bible as a whole, that God did not create everything a mere 6,000 years ago. There is actually a gap of time in between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Genesis opens with “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Period.

We don’t know when this verse took place; it could have been millions of years ago (and based on recent scientific and archeological evidence it most likely was).

The second verse continues: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep...”

When you look up the word “was” in verse 2 in a standard bible concordance, you can see that it’s the word “hayah” in the Hebrew manuscripts, which should be translated “became” instead of “was”. Genesis 1 actually states that God created the world (at an unspecified time in the distant past), and that something happened to that initial creation which made the world “become” void and without form.

This is when Satan was cast from heaven because of his sin, and God destroyed the previous earth age (this is most likely the event that ended the dinosaurs on planet earth as well).

True, the rest of the historical events in the Bible take place from approximately 4000BC onward, but nowhere in the Bible does it claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old; this is a common misconception based on religious tradition, and not actually founded on what the text actually says.

The same goes for the other examples that he listed as being “charming tales”. When you disregard the religious traditions about the Bible, and actually read and study it for yourself, you will indeed see that God does intend for us to take the biblical text extremely seriously.