Jehovah’s witnesses believe in the Genesis account of creation, but with interesting modifications. They believe that a literal person (Adam) was created first, with another literal person (Eve) created shortly thereafter. What’s interesting is that, through a complex series of calculations and application of various other scriptures, they believe this happened in the fall (meaning September or October) of 4026 BC. The main underpinnings of this conclusion stem from the conviction that, first and foremost, the Bible is their absolute authority. If it’s in the Bible, it’s True. Of course, this raises some interesting questions since no one today has the original, but that’s a topic for another entry.
The determination of the 4026 date is a little complex, but it starts with a literal interpretation of the genealogies listed in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament (all the “begats” that seem to go on for days). They believe that those are literal, 365-day years. Combine those genealogies with other scriptures and events in the Bible, pivot everything around a couple of dates that appear to tie archeological and historical dates to Biblical events, add in a little creative thinking (I hope you’ll pardon the pun), and it brings them to four conclusions:
1. Adam was created in the fall (likely September or October) of the year 4026 BC.
2. 1914 is an important year from a Biblical perspective. Specifically, Witnesses believe that in 1914, God established His kingdom in heaven, set up Jesus as the king and kicked Satan and his evil minions from His divine presence.
3. The generation that began around the beginning of the last century would also see the end of earthly governments, and the extension of Jesus’ heavenly rule to earth. (This position has drifted slightly in the past 20 years or so as that generation got older, but the basic belief is the same.)
4. Add the 1,000-year millennial reign of Jesus over the earth foretold in the Bible, and you have 7,000 years of man’s existence on the earth
I’m not going to take the time and pixels to go into the entire line of reasoning here, but suffice to say that they believe these conclusions whole-heartedly; indeed much of Witnesses’ activities are based on them.
So where am I going with this?
Ordinarily, JWs are pretty progressive and open to science; they preach a great respect for scientific achievement (unless it in some way conflicts with how they perceive God’s laws), and in fact, go to great steps in attempts to show that there is no conflict between “true” science and the Bible. So why do they take such a strong stance in rejecting evolutionary biology, when there is a virtual worldwide scientific consensus that we got here that way?
The answer lies in the conviction of the inerrancy of the Bible. If the Bible is true (and is the word of God), then evolution cannot be true. And interestingly, it’s not related only to a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story, because as I’ve said in other blogs Witnesses don’t believe in literal 24-hour creative days; they believe each creative day was 7,000 years long. And they allow for a very old earth. (They interpret the events of the first and second verses of Genesis as being billions of years apart.) No, it’s more related to the logic behind the whole Redemption story.
Stay tuned for part 2.
