The clash between YEC and much of modern science is an example of how shoddy exegesis creates problems that would not exist if the Bible was interpreted in context, rather than in a naive, woodenly literal way. Fundamentalist rejection of geology, biology, and cosmology are without doubt the best known examples of problems created solely by a poor approach to Biblical interpretation, but one lesser known problem is the curious belief that thorns and thistles did not exist until Adam sinned. The reason for this belief? In Genesis 3:17-18 God speaks to Adam after Adam's sin and declares:
Cursed is the ground because of you;In toil you will eat of itAll the days of your life.Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;And you will eat the plants of the field;
Given that earlier in the narrative, God speaks to the serpent and declares that it will eat dust, any genre-savvy reader would be primed to realise that stark wooden literalism is already not how to read these passages. In fact, if one reads it hyper-literally, then the text does not say that thorns and thistles were created as a consequence of Adam's sin, but rather the ground would produce thorns and thistles for Adam, a somewhat different reading.
The fatal objection to the hyper-literal reading is the fossil record. Thorny plants have been around for millions of years, which means any literal reading has been falsified. Take the fossil beds at the Florissant Formation in Teller Counter, Colorado. This formation, dating back 34 million years has some remarkably well preserved animals and plants, with the latter including fossilised thorns:
Credit: NPS
Credit: NPS
Credit: NPS
The existence of fossil thorns 34 million years old alone is enough to destroy the fundamentalist argument. The dating is secure, and the fossil thorns are real. Of course, a careful, non-fundamentalist interpretation of the narrative would already have warned the reader not to take this as a bald declaration that no thorns anywhere existed prior to Adam's sin, but the existence of hard evidence acts as the final nail in the fundamentalist coffin on this point.
This is however not the only example of fossil thorns. Take for example Drepanophycus spinaeformis, a plant from the Devonian around 359-419 million years ago:
Stem of Drepanophycus spinaeformis from Glasgow, Lower Devonian (Source)
Drepanophycus spinaeformis from Glasgow, Lower Devonian (Source)
Reconstruction of Drepanophycus spinaeformis (Source)
Plants with thorns long predated Adam, by hundreds of millions of years. Yet again, the book of nature serves to correct fundamentalist distortions of the Bible.
