Tree Rings a Problem for 6,000 Year Old Earth

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Your understanding of the Bible must be different than mine. The article on this is actually very short if you want to take a look. "Today, we look back in time and we see approximately 15 billion years of history. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah says six days. In truth, they both may be correct."

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx

Nope. An evening and a morning is a 24 hour day. Denying what the Bible plainly because we want to cram secular science into our Bible is not the way. But believe as you wish. I have already brought up 5 points in Scripture that should be sufficient to prove the Earth is young and not old.
 
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Yes, his artcle is very short. Well worth reading if you want to see my perspective on this.

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/AgeUniverse.aspx

I am not new to this topic. I actually believe those who hold to Old Earth Creationism are more into the ways of the world (Generally speaking of course). However, 1 John 2:15-17 says we are not to love the things of this world or to love the world. Secular Science is all about removing God. Secular Science is of the world. Granted, that does not mean Secular Science cannot align with certain observational sciences, but what they are proposing is a belief system that runs contrary to the Bible so as to explain away God.
 
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If we were talking about any other part of the Bible besides Genesis, an evening and a morning coinciding with a day would be a 24 hour period. That is the basic way to read a text. The only reason somebody wants to ignore this fact in Scripture is because they think secular Science is correct and they are trying to cram secular Science based on a theory into the Bible.
 
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joshua 1 9

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It seems like a person has to do gymnastic twists in order to make Old Earth Creationism work in the Bible.
All you have to do is accept that each day is half the length of the day before it. For me this works out just fine. Even if you start with the break up of Pangaea 200 million hears ago. A week later you see the beginning of mankind. Then a week later you see man coming up out of Africa and being dispersed to the whole world. I see a connection between the world being destroyed 200 million hears ago and the flood we read about with Noah. This may not work for you but for me this formula works. Gerald Schroeder is quick to point out that this teaching goes back long before Science arrived at the same conclusion. In this regard Science gives us a better understanding of our Bible. You understanding is outdated and not based on the latest findings. But mankind got by find thinking the earth was only 6,000 years old. It never seemed to be a problem or an issue until recently.

I spent three months once doing a study of the dinosaur bones that they find in Ghost Ranch New Mexico. I do not know if you remember the Billy Crystal movie "City Slickers" but it was made on that ranch. We see that the dinosaurs there died in a flood. Not just there on the ranch. All the way up the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming and Montana we see the remains of dinosaurs that all died at about the same time. The idea of a 6,000 year earth does nothing to explain any of this.

People are taking what God is giving us and doing the best they can to understand what He is wanting us to know. Jesus warns us about the traditions of man. We need to understand the Bible in light of the information that we now have to work with.
 
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joshua 1 9

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See my post #66. It mentions 5 points in Scripture that I believe make are very clear that the Earth is young and not old.
Ok, do you want me to go through this point by point? "#1. The Genealogy of Jesus." What does the genealogy of Jesus have to do with the age of the earth??? Absolutely NOTHING. We have the marriage between Adam and Eve. We have the marriage between Joseph and Mary, we have a lot of marriages in between like Ruth and Boez. If you remember Ruth was not even "Jewish". Then we have David and Solomon. What does any of that have to do with the Earth and the age of the Earth???

"#2. Jesus references the beginning of creation with the story of Adam and Eve." Second verse, same as the first. We are talking about Genesis chapter two. Adam and Eve and the generations that we already talked about with your first point. We know Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago and this has nothing to do with the age of the Earth.

"3. There is no Gap Theory, Day Age Theory, or 2nd Creation Account in the Bible."I am not defending day age or Gap theory. Mostly because there is not enough of a theory there to defend.

"#4. Most who accept Old Earth Creationism Deny a Global Flood." I do not deny a Global Flood. That is why Noah's story is written the way it is written because it represents a global flood at the time Pangea was destroyed. This is a shadow and type although a modern term they use is Paradigm. Just like Jesus talks about the days of Noah when he talks about how the earth will be cleansed by fire. Spiritually we are baptized with water and with fire. Basically Noah saved the Garden of Eden on the Ark. God redeemed and saved the world that was through Noah and his family. If it had not been for Noah you would have no point one and point two because the generation would have been destroyed in the flood.

"
#5. Death entered the world by one man's sin (Who was Adam).

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin

Paul is talking about death by sin. The whole passage has to do with sin and death by sin. There was no sin until Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told them not to eat from that tree or they would die.

Before Adam the cause of death was murder. This was Cain's concern that someone would find him and murder him the way he murdered his brother. I did a study on this. I looked at various skeletons they find before Adam and Eve and they were all killed in the prime of life. Of course they did not grow old and age back then like they did after the flood. So they could have been hundreds of years old. But by today's standards they died in the prime of life or younger.
 
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joshua 1 9

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Is he a Christian?
Gerald Lawrence Schroeder is an Orthodox Jewish physicist, author, lecturer and teacher at College of Jewish Studies Aish HaTorah's Discovery Seminar, Essentials and Fellowships programs and Executive Learning Center,[1] who focuses on what he perceives to be an inherent relationship between science and spirituality. After emigrating to Israel in 1971, Schroeder was employed as a researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Volcani Research Institute, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[4][5] He currently teaches at Aish HaTorah College of Jewish Studies.[6]
 
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Jennifer Rothnie

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Many creationists insist that the earth should be no more than 6,000 years old. Apparently the idea is that the Second Coming is imminent, and after that there will be the 1,000 Millenial reign, and then the Final Judgment. The world, from creation to Second Coming to Final Judgment will come out to 7,000 years. By this reasoning, the world began around 4,000 BC (Bishop Ussher?) and Noah's Deluge was about 3,000 BC.

The Bible simply doesn't say how old the earth is or how long God intends the earth's history to be. A 6,000 year old earth is an arbitrary idea.

Science is in constant collision with the notion of a 6,000 year old earth.

Take tree rings, for example. How simple can you get?

"Bristlecone pine wood that has fallen to the ground can remain intact for thousands of years in the cold, dry climate of the White Mountains. Using a cross-dating technique that overlaps tree-ring patterns of living trees with the still intact patterns of dead wood, scientists have assembled a continuous tree-ring chronology extending nearly 10,000 years."


Link
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/learning/nature-science/?cid=stelprdb5138621

Matching tree rings becomes less and less accurate over long periods of time. It is somewhat easy to reconstruct a chronology of a few decades, but it is nearly impossible to be accurate over centuries or millennia. Too many chances for error and assumption are introduced, and those errors compounded.

"At “medium-frequency” timescales [decades to centuries] the expression of common growth variability is probably invariably weaker than for year-to-year changes – yet we commonly use inappropriate measures of this medium-frequency common variability (e.g. running EPS using short-period window) to claim “a chronology is of acceptable statistical quality.” Low-frequency tree-ring variance [centuries to millennia] is virtually unresolved in all but a few chronologies worldwide. In many multi-century-length series it is undefined or random! This is because of the statistical standardisation techniques used with the intention of mitigating tree ‘age effects’ bias in tree-ring and other treederived measurement timeseries."

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/tree-rings.pdf

For other specific reasons young Earth creationists doubt supposed tree ring 'proofs,' see:

https://answersingenesis.org/age-of...ngs-radiocarbon-measurements-prove-old-earth/

https://creation.com/tree-ring-dating-dendrochronology

http://www.defendingthechristianfaith.org/evidence-for-a-young-age-of-the-earth.html

[For example: Many trees are known to frequently create 'false' rings due to seasonal adjustments or storms within the same year - yet this data is conveniently ignored to claim longer time frames even when it's the exact same species being dated that is known to often create false rings. Also, extrapolating backwards from living to dead trees generally assumes without basis that the climate has roughly stayed the same. Also, the flood model *predicts* that many false rings would be created in the after the flood and would also throw off the Carbon decay clock, so lots of tree rings are not an 'unexpected' finding that would falsify the hypothesis. Basically, young earth creationists would just have a different interpretation of the same observation - the observation itself would not disprove the theory.]

Ironically, tree rings present more of a hurdle for Old Earth proponents. If certain trees had been around for millions of years, and we have access to fossilized trees of that species, then one would expect to find far more than an upper limit of 10-13,000 years. Basically, the relatively short time frame shown by the assumed dendrochronology of the fossilized trees compared to living ones is something 'unexpected' by an old-Earth theory.
 
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And if God spoke trees into existence with the rings already in place? What does that do to your age theory? Are you stating God couldn't do that?
Prove that God didn't create the world last Thursday, planting memories in your mind to make you think you are older than actually.
 
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Jason0047 said:
#1. The Genealogy of Jesus.
Ok, do you want me to go through this point by point? " What does the genealogy of Jesus have to do with the age of the earth??? Absolutely NOTHING. We have the marriage between Adam and Eve. We have the marriage between Joseph and Mary, we have a lot of marriages in between like Ruth and Boez. If you remember Ruth was not even "Jewish". Then we have David and Solomon. What does any of that have to do with the Earth and the age of the Earth???

The genealogy of Jesus through Mary's line shows that it is to Adam. Adam is mentioned as the first man within the creation. Genesis 2:4 states:

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," (Genesis 2:4).

This is followed by the formation of the man named Adam and his test in regards to not eating of the wrong tree. It may appear to be like a different creation account, but it is not. God was making a special small sampling of animals for his convenience in order to name them. God will create again by raising up the dead bones in the valley.

Jason0047 said:
#2. Jesus references the beginning of creation with the story of Adam and Eve.
You said:
"Second verse, same as the first. We are talking about Genesis chapter two. Adam and Eve and the generations that we already talked about with your first point. We know Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago and this has nothing to do with the age of the Earth.

Not true. Jesus Himself said, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female," (Matthew 19:4).

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1).

"...God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27).

Jason0047 said:
#3. There is no Gap Theory, Day Age Theory, or 2nd Creation Account in the Bible.
You said:
I am not defending day age or Gap theory. Mostly because there is not enough of a theory there to defend.

Then what Old Earth Creation Theory do you believe in? Are you afraid to say the truth? Are you saying you believe in the two creation account theory that says that Genesis 1 is one creation account and Genesis 2 is another?

Jason0047 said:
#4. Most who accept Old Earth Creationism Deny a Global Flood.
You said:
I do not deny a Global Flood. That is why Noah's story is written the way it is written because it represents a global flood at the time Pangea was destroyed. This is a shadow and type although a modern term they use is Paradigm. Just like Jesus talks about the days of Noah when he talks about how the earth will be cleansed by fire. Spiritually we are baptized with water and with fire. Basically Noah saved the Garden of Eden on the Ark. God redeemed and saved the world that was through Noah and his family. If it had not been for Noah you would have no point one and point two because the generation would have been destroyed in the flood.

There are a few Old Earth Creationists who believe as you do that the flood was global, but not many.

Jason0047 said:
#5. Death entered the world by one man's sin (Who was Adam).
You said:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin

Paul is talking about death by sin. The whole passage has to do with sin and death by sin. There was no sin until Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told them not to eat from that tree or they would die.

Before Adam the cause of death was murder. This was Cain's concern that someone would find him and murder him the way he murdered his brother. I did a study on this. I looked at various skeletons they find before Adam and Eve and they were all killed in the prime of life. Of course they did not grow old and age back then like they did after the flood. So they could have been hundreds of years old. But by today's standards they died in the prime of life or younger.

It's because he had many brothers and sisters afterward who multiplied or had children and grew up close to the same age as Cain. This was not because there were people living prior to Adam. Why is there no mention of this other first man and first woman before Adam? It makes no sense. Especially when Jesus said that he created the first male and female in the beginning in reference to Adam.

Side Note:

You said before that the cause of death before Adam was murder. Murder is a sin.
 
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Many creationists insist that the earth should be no more than 6,000 years old. Apparently the idea is that the Second Coming is imminent, and after that there will be the 1,000 Millenial reign, and then the Final Judgment. The world, from creation to Second Coming to Final Judgment will come out to 7,000 years. By this reasoning, the world began around 4,000 BC (Bishop Ussher?) and Noah's Deluge was about 3,000 BC.

The Bible simply doesn't say how old the earth is or how long God intends the earth's history to be. A 6,000 year old earth is an arbitrary idea.

Science is in constant collision with the notion of a 6,000 year old earth.

Take tree rings, for example. How simple can you get?

"Bristlecone pine wood that has fallen to the ground can remain intact for thousands of years in the cold, dry climate of the White Mountains. Using a cross-dating technique that overlaps tree-ring patterns of living trees with the still intact patterns of dead wood, scientists have assembled a continuous tree-ring chronology extending nearly 10,000 years."


Link
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/learning/nature-science/?cid=stelprdb5138621
Difference in time between science views and theology views I always point to Relativity. Passage of time is relative to the viewer. The creation Biblical account who is it relative to? Age of earth in science time is earth time. But is the Bible's? The Bible got the steps of creation right despite primitive scientifically knowledge. Moses is the author, so it was written about 1500-1600 BC. Back then man thought the earth was flat and earth was center of universe. So, we know he had no knowledge of even basic science. So, how did he get the steps of evolution right? Thought providing isn't it?
 
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Difference in time between science views and theology views I always point to Relativity. Passage of time is relative to the viewer. The creation Biblical account who is it relative to? Age of earth in science time is earth time. But is the Bible's? The Bible got the steps of creation right despite primitive scientifically knowledge. Moses is the author, so it was written about 1500-1600 BC. Back then man thought the earth was flat and earth was center of universe. So, we know he had no knowledge of even basic science. So, how did he get the steps of evolution right? Thought providing isn't it?

But God is the ultimate author of the Bible; And it is not men.
 
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joshua 1 9

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The genealogy of Jesus through Mary's line shows that it is to Adam. Adam is mentioned as the first man within the creation. Genesis 2:4 states:
What about the male and the female we read about in Genesis Chapter one "28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it". They were told to fill the earth and then God rested on the 7th day. In Chapter 2 7 "Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being" YOU do not see the difference between the male and female in Genesis Chapter one and the man and women in Genesis Chapter 2? Adam and Eve were given the Garden of Eden.

Also we have a ton of science and history that you seem to want to ignore and disregard. I took my first ancient history class over 50 years ago and I have studied history and science for many years now. I would be glad to help you to understand, but you do not want to know so there is no reason for me to wear myself out for nothing.
 
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What about the male and the female we read about in Genesis Chapter one "28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it". They were told to fill the earth and then God rested on the 7th day. In Chapter 2 7 "Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being" YOU do not see the difference between the male and female in Genesis Chapter one and the man and women in Genesis Chapter 2? Adam and Eve were given the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 1 is a summary of events of the 6 day creation week followed by the 7th day where God stopped or rested from the creation week. Genesis 2:4-25 are details of day 6 of the creation week. How do we know? Because Genesis 2 says there was not a man to till the ground yet.

5 "...for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,..."
(Genesis 2:5-6).​

Verse 5 says there was not a man to till the ground. So this means there were no men or humans living yet at this point. Then in verse 7, God forms man out of the dust of the ground. If you were to keep reading, it talks about how this man is commanded not to eat of a certain tree (Which is Adam).

So it is obvious. The only way a person does not want to acknowledge that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are the same creation account are only doing so because they are trying to cram secular ideas into the Bible where they do not belong.

You said:
Also we have a ton of science and history that you seem to want to ignore and disregard. I took my first ancient history class over 50 years ago and I have studied history and science for many years now. I would be glad to help you to understand, but you do not want to know so there is no reason for me to wear myself out for nothing.

I do not place any stock in man made history. I believe the Scriptures when they say,

"...let God be found true,
though every man be found a liar,"
(Romans 3:4) (NASB).

Meaning God is always true in what He says within His Word and men can lie.

So the only time man's history is even remotely valuable to me is when it aligns with Scripture in some way. If it does not, I could care less about it because some guy in the past could be lying about those events so as to make himself or others look good.

Anyways, there is a huge difference between Historical Science and Observational Science. To see what I am talking about, check out this short animated video.

 
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Man taught you that NOT the Holy Spirit of God. You need to be taught by God and not man.

Not at all. I never went to Bible school and or learned what I did from a church. Just good ole fashioned reading the text and believing what it says (with the guidance of God by way of prayer of course).

In any event, my friend... you are NOT reading the text!

Shall we go over it again?

5 "...for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,..." (Genesis 2:5-7).​

Okay. Please read verse 5 that says there was not a man to till the ground. Now, I don't know how you read English, but this plainly says to me there were no humans yet to do any kind of agricultural work. That is what is saying to me. There was not a man to till the ground. Yet, you are saying there was a man around at this time. Yet, God's Word says in Genesis 2:5 that there was no man around yet because there was no man to till the ground yet. Verse 7 then says the Lord God formed man.

It does not get any clearer than that.

You either believe the Bible here or you don't believe it.

The choice is yours.

Do you decide to go with your history classes or the Bible?
 
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Nope. An evening and a morning is a 24 hour day. Denying what the Bible plainly because we want to cram secular science into our Bible is not the way. But believe as you wish. I have already brought up 5 points in Scripture that should be sufficient to prove the Earth is young and not old.

If we were talking about any other part of the Bible besides Genesis, an evening and a morning coinciding with a day would be a 24 hour period. That is the basic way to read a text. The only reason somebody wants to ignore this fact in Scripture is because they think secular Science is correct and they are trying to cram secular Science based on a theory into the Bible.


The notion that a day to the Lord could be a thousand years, or any other number, to us is perfectly Biblical.

3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by
,
or like a watch in the night.

--Psalm 90: 1-4 NIV
 
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The notion that a day to the Lord could be a thousand years, or any other number, to us is perfectly Biblical.

3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by
,
or like a watch in the night.

--Psalm 90: 1-4 NIV

Not when there is a morning and evening attached to that day. A morning and evening lets us know it is talking about a 24 hour day. One could say Jesus was in the heart of the Earth for 3,000 years. But we know that did not happen. The disciples had seen him. That's the context. Just as the evening and the morning is the context of the days mentioned in Genesis 1.
 
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