How Can I Believe What Can't Be Believed? (Genesis 1–3): Questions for a Logical Mind

By Matt W. Leach

The biblical account of the creation of the earth and man and the fall seems unbelievable like an ancient myth. If Genesis 13 cant be believed, can any books of the Bible be believed? Stop! the Bible shouts. You must study me my way, not your way. Then you can believe. Then you will find that history, archeology, geology, and science support my claims. What is the Bibles way? Read and you will know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512775990

Matt W. Leach

Matt Leach, pastor, conference and camp speaker, and author of books and leaflets about prayer, is an honors graduate from the Theological Seminary of the University of Dubuque. He has been active in the Camps Farthest Out and served as a regional vice president of CFO International. Mr. Leach resides with his wife in Milo, Iowa.

Book preview

How Can I Believe What Can’t Be Believed? (Genesis 1–3)

42996.png

Questions for a Logical Mind

Matt W. Leach

43004.png

Copyright © 2017 Matt W. Leach.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Interior image by Doring Kindersley: James Mann / Chris Williams

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP),

Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation

Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked (PHP) are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, copyright 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7598-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7599-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017902231

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/24/2017

Contents

Preface

Introduction The Star Car

CHAPTER 1 The Incredible Story

CHAPTER 2 The Creator

CHAPTER 3 Pilot Torture

CHAPTER 4 Wizards And Sorcerers

CHAPTER 5 Outsmarted

CHAPTER 6 From Disaster Springs A Family

CHAPTER 7 Quirks And Fickleness

CHAPTER 8 Birth Paroxysms

CHAPTER 9 Fasts, Celebrations, And Sacrifices

CHAPTER 10 Solutions

CHAPTER 11 The Missing Piece

CHAPTER 12 It’s Time For An Honest Answer

Endnotes

Other Titles by Matt W Leach

You’ve Got to Know the Territory Before You Pray

Peter, the Professor and the Blue Orb Time Machine

Preface

I was talking with a friend about some of the biblical stories that seemed impossible to believe. The more we talked, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t listening to me but was repeating many opinions and beliefs he held and was defending. Many of his beliefs and opinions were based on flawed science; this was compounded by a lack of understanding of the literal meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words. The Hebrew and Greek words are meant to be understood literally unless they specifically say otherwise. Too often, people assume that words are symbolical or metaphorical. That is especially true today when modern science is unwrapping new knowledge that makes old scientific beliefs seem antiquated or even wrong.

As I pondered this, I thought someone should write a book to help people like my friend uncover the truth. No sooner had I thought that when the words rose up from the Holy Spirit within me saying, You write it! So I have written it. I don’t have all the answers, so don’t look for them here.

Only one thing is required when you read this book—do so with an open mind and seek to understand what I’m writing. Be logical; think logically. Let your mind be stimulated to think in ways you haven’t thought before. Be open to logical possibilities you had not considered before.

INTRODUCTION

DeloreanCar.jpg

The Star Car

Imagine yourself in another world, another dimension, another reality. In your driveway sits your car. While very old, some say ancient, its design is futuristic. Its two doors hinged at the top give the appearance of a gull’s wings when they’re open. Its iridescent, pearl-grey color is accented with silver trim. A car just like yours sits in every driveway. As has everyone else, you have learned to drive your car to work, the store—anywhere—and return home.

You have been told many times—indeed, you’ve attended many lectures that taught, even preached, that what you’re doing with your car is what a car does and that’s all it does. However, as you sit in your car and look at the console and at panels that look like they could be doors that slide open but don’t, you get the gnawing suspicion that your car is designed to do more. Stories, or myths as some would say, are told that declare that it actually it is a star car designed to travel to planets.

This suspicion grows as you study the manufacturer’s handbook. Admittedly, the handbook is a little difficult to understand; it too is very old and its language archaic. The experts all seem to agree that the car is doing all it was designed to do. True, ancient copies of the manufacturer’s handbook say others drove them into space. However, experts remind us, that was only a metaphor and that the first readers of the handbook understood it as such. There is no evidence to suggest that it actually happened.

That’s another thing that bothers you. Countless scholars can tell you all about the manufacturer’s handbook. There are experts on the age of the manuscripts, experts on whether it was written by one author or many, experts on the meaning of words—but there are no scholars, no experts who can tell you how to do what the handbook says to do!

As time passes, your dissatisfaction with all the expert opinions about your car grows. The time comes when you begin a quest of your own. You want to know if your car is more than just a mode of transportation. You want to know if there is truth in the ancient stories. How can you find out?

First, you temporarily set aside everything the scholars have taught on the matter. You will study the manufacturer’s handbook as if reading it for the first time. You will assume the writer is saying what he meant and meant what he wrote. If what is written is a figure of speech, the writer will say so. If not, you will assume the literal meaning. Wherever words are archaic or meanings have changed, you will restate them in today’s language.

Second, you will expand your mind. You read things that challenge you to think big and envision the impossible as though it were possible. You seek out like-minded people who also believe there is more to their cars. You will share what you have learned and your ideas of what has yet to be learned.

Having set out on this quest, a day comes when you’re sitting in your car with the manufacturer’s handbook in hand studying the console when you see something you’ve overlooked. You can’t believe your eyes. You read it again and then you do it. As you turn the ignition key on, you reach out with your other hand and touch a button you had always assumed was only a decoration. The panels on the console slide open. Before you are all the switches, controls, guidance systems, and indicator lights of a star car!

You spend the next weeks and months learning. The manufacturer’s handbook you thought so outdated and ancient has become a new book. Following its instructions, you learn how to accelerate you star car for liftoff. You learn how to overcome gravity and soar out into space. You learn how to rise above the sun and explore vistas of opportunity undreamed of before.

Today in Our Reality

If you were to take a survey today to discover how many people would like to own the star car described above, I don’t think you’d find many. We’re too comfortable where we are and with what we have; we’re too comfortable with our opinions. The lives we’re living even with their miseries and challenges may be far from ideal, but at least they’re familiar; we’ve found ways to cope.

This comfortableness with things as they are is one reason people have difficulty with the Bible. Yet deep down in the back of our minds like an irritation we can’t scratch, there’s the suspicion we actually do have a star car and can soar above the sun.

Sometimes, we hear people say something like, I was meant for more than this. It is a heart cry for life to have meaning and purpose. Life has to be more than eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we’ll die. It may be that deep inside our minds, we wonder if there is any truth in the Bible’s claims that we can live a victorious life now and continue that victorious life in heaven. If for no other reason than to settle things in our minds, we need to answer the questions, Is the Bible a collection of stories or truth? Was humanity created for a purpose? Does my life have a purpose, a goal?

The temptation we must temporarily set aside is that of assuming the Bible is nothing but a collection of stories, even myths. Many people say that’s all it is, but to assume that is dishonest. However, I can understand why we are tempted to assume that. It has been preached to us in school, churches, colleges, the media—everywhere—that the earth is billions of years old and that we are the product of evolution having evolved by chance from primordial scum. We are told the earth couldn’t have been created in six days as the Bible claims. That’s part of our hang-up with the Bible.

We find ourselves asking, if the Genesis story of creation isn’t true, how can we believe or trust or know if any of the rest of the Bible is true? That’s a tough question because it has always been believed that there was no empirical, provable evidence. We easily forget or overlook the fact that there is also no empirical, provable evidence for the theories and opinions that have been accepted as truth. We want proof that can be tested in the lab. At the least, theories must not violate or ignore scientific laws, but we accept as true theories that violate and ignore scientific laws. Discussing those flaws is not the purpose of this book though I’ll mention a few in passing.

Instead, while you are studying this book set aside all you’ve been taught, all you’ve thought, all your opinions, and start from scratch. Keep on pretending that you own a star car and that you’ve just discovered that there’s more to the manufacturer’s handbook than you had ever imagined. To help you do this, we’ll examine the Bible in an unusual way—we’ll stand back as it were and look at the its story as a whole.

Seen from this perspective, the story the Bible tells is strange. It almost reads like science fiction from a galaxy far, far away. It’s a story that many say is true, but it will sound like the strangest tale you’ve ever heard. Many will tell you the story isn’t true. They can’t prove it isn’t true, but they will say it anyway because they don’t want to believe it.

It is the story about the greatest Sorcerer of all—not a weaver of spells or someone who uses magic and potions and stuff but the ultimate source of all power who needs no spells or magic or potions and stuff. The story is told in the only book the Sorcerer says is authentic. So the questions are, Is this source really true? Or is it a tall tale? Or even a myth? There are many voices saying the book conflicts with science, that it is just a collection of myths and tales and some wisdom literature.

If you have wondered, if you have asked those questions, you might find this little book to be stimulating and thought provoking. It will lead you on a quest of discovery. It may take you down paths you’ve not gone down before. It won’t give you answers, but it will help you ask the right questions. Our method of inquiry will be the one prescribed by the Sorcerer himself, who keeps saying, Look at the facts!¹

Is the story true? Is it a tall tale? Is it a myth? You’ll have to make up your own mind on that. You will find space at the end of each chapter for you to jot down your thoughts and questions. In many places, I have chosen the path of the storyteller to fill in the gaps in the story to make it more interesting. I haven’t knowingly altered any fact. For example, it makes the story of the Fall more interesting when we add the thoughts that might have passed through Satan’s mind and through Adam and Eve’s minds as near as we can guess from the details we’re given. That’s what a storyteller does. But he doesn’t change the facts.

CHAPTER 1

The Incredible Story

As we calculate it, time is nothing more than a sum of the 365.25 times the earth rotates on its axis for each orbit it makes around the sun. Logically then, if you don’t have an earth or a sun, you don’t have time!

This is important to consider because the story the Bible tells is an epic drama that began before time. It tells how things were before there was evil. Then it tells how evil came to be, and finally, it tells how evil will end. All the events of creation and the rebellion of Lucifer are linked together in the following narrative. All the recorded facts are unaltered.

The Roll Call of Heaven

The Bible’s story of Creation seems at first to be like science fiction as in a story that’s too far-fetched to be believed. We could leave it at that except for something that happens at the end of the story. For that reason, we’ll take time to repeat the biblical story of Creation.

The story begins before there was a sun or an earth to circle it. It begins so long ago that time didn’t exist. There was no universe, no stars, no planets—nothing. Nothing except a Being without beginning or end. A Being who said of himself that HE WAS, and IS, and EVER SHALL BE.¹ Our minds are conditioned to think that everything has a beginning. Not so, this Being tells us.

This Being was and is by nature loving and kind—the epitome of goodness. Logically, he couldn’t have done what he was about to do if he hadn’t been! The reason is simple. Evil is a destroyer, not a creator. Good and evil can’t coexist because