Compression of Time?
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If God can raise the dead, then of course Earth can be both young to God, and old to nature, both at once. God can do anything. But all of these questions are relatively....about side issues, really. If one truly listens to Genesis chapter 1, without thinking doctrines, but instead truly listening, it changes the person, transports them, lifts their mind into a better place. Prepares them to begin to listen to more of the Word.
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Jermayn
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He could have done it that way, I'm just saying it would seem a bit strange to use the same unit of time for the creation of humans and everything else if they were in fact different.
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Look Up
"What is unseen is eternal"
Gerald Schroeder is an orthodox Jew who once taught physics at MIT. He maps and old earth, Big Bang scheme onto (using Nachmanides and I think Rashi) rabbinic readings of Genesis 1's estimated five-and-a half days until the creation of Adam partly via the General Theory of Relativity and the difference between projected initial temperature of "The Singularity" at maybe 10 to the minus 34 seconds from zero and present day background temperature of space (temperature difference as a measure of time); time is not a constant and is dependent on relative speed. His theory thus maps about 6 days as we see time more or less now (or some thousands of years ago for Adam) onto 13.6 billion or so years. Schroeder holds to an old earth and recent and literal Adam, if I can put it that way and if my memory of his theory is representative enough.
I suggest looking him up (Proof of God in Five Minutes | Gerald Schroeder etc.), for example on Youtube and his website on which latter he sells his books.
I cannot in any case confirm his theory myself in part since my understanding of the General Theory of Relativity is rather limited, though I understand that the variation of time with high speed has been adequately verified. Perhaps Schroeder can at least provide some structured and reasoned argument addressing your OP question.
I suggest looking him up (Proof of God in Five Minutes | Gerald Schroeder etc.), for example on Youtube and his website on which latter he sells his books.
I cannot in any case confirm his theory myself in part since my understanding of the General Theory of Relativity is rather limited, though I understand that the variation of time with high speed has been adequately verified. Perhaps Schroeder can at least provide some structured and reasoned argument addressing your OP question.
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coffee4u
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God made the earth, the core of it, outside of time.
The creation week upon it was a literal 6 days.
We know that God made Adam on day 6 and he died 930 years later which says the day wasn't a long ion of time. Or are you saying Adam and Eve somehow lived through a compressed time? I would be concerned about what that could do to the human body.
We are also told each day as the Lord looked upon the earth was 'evening and morning' which is what happens over the course of 24 hours.
What is the point of long ions of time, what purpose do they serve?
I believe the creation upon the earth is somewhere between 6-15 thousand years old.
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I am agnostic to what actually happened in creation (except that God did it). Now don't get all huffy about the word "agnostic". It's just a fancy way of saying I don't know what happened in creation. This means I neither reject nor accept a literal interpretation (or whatever view you're trying to push).
To me, the literalness of the account of creation is the most unimportant and uninteresting part of the account and we spend far too much time discussing it. The Gen 1 creation account I think is a very packed account that we miss because we are too busy arguing over if it was days or billions of years.
Consider this, If Moses is thought to have penned the account (from direct revelation from God) then the creation event is 2500 years removed from this time. That's like going ahead 500 years in the future and for the first time ever someone writes the gospels. We would immediately laugh at any other culture or religion that demands the same and calls it truth. Look at Islam, they claim scripture is corrupted and only they know the truth but we call them out and say obviously Mohammad borrowed accounts or used some sort of oral version of them then introduced his own ideas. But when Moses did it somehow it makes more sense and existing creation narratives that overlap with the biblical clearly had nothing to do with what Moses was writing.
is the creation account meant to show how God did it, or that God did it. to me, the latter is the greater focus, not the "how" which surely is far beyond what we can fathom. The "how" probably reflects the understanding of the time and would be agreeable with those who held more pagan views but the "who" is the most important part. The account is written in a chiastic structure with intentional parallelisms, it foreshadows Christ and salvation and can be viewed as allegorical as Revelation is. I think we do a disservice to the text when all we can talk about is if it's literal or not.
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Suggestion Box
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There was a time when I considered the historicity of scripture to be unimportant, and I saw no problem with theistic evolution. I changed my mind at some point. I think much quiet disbelief and sin stems from imagining poetry into places where poetry was not intended. There are some places in scripture where a poetic intent is clear. I have come to believe, for reasons I don't fully understand, that the simplest and most obvious answer is usually the right one, unless scripture itself indicates otherwise. For example, Exodus 20:8-11 and other similar passages suggest a literal 7 days; in commanding the Sabbath, God recalls to the Israelites the 6 days of work in creation, and says that for that same reason they must only work 6 days. The context of the command relates the creation days to the literal days of the week. The Israelites would have understood this to mean a literal 6 days because they would also be applying the same schedule to their everyday lives. Therefore, the simplest and most obvious explanation of the creation week would be to interpret it literally, just as they interpreted the week leading up to the Sabbath as a literal 6 days.
In the OP, I don't read "time compression" as having anything to do with theistic evolution. The idea of differences in how we measure time, at least, is compatible with the Young Earth view. I think it's plausible that time could be compressed into 7 days as measured by clocks on Earth, while billions of years passed as measured by clocks in outer space. After all, remember 2 Peter 3:8: a thousand years can be like a day to God, and vice versa. Some Young Earth advocates propose just such a model, and even go to great lengths to demonstrate its mathematical validity here.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the distant past, modern measurements and reasoning can only establish validity; the soundness of this idea cannot be proven, and I don't think its proponents have any delusions about doing so. They are merely saying that a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 can be true, and also the observations of astrologists could be accurate. Any basis for a definitive statement about the literal happenings at the beginning of time can only come from being told by someone who was there: God. He has chosen to reveal a very brief synopsis of the events, easily readable by anyone. Though they are literally true, our knowledge of them is quite limited. I think he kept it that way on purpose.
In the OP, I don't read "time compression" as having anything to do with theistic evolution. The idea of differences in how we measure time, at least, is compatible with the Young Earth view. I think it's plausible that time could be compressed into 7 days as measured by clocks on Earth, while billions of years passed as measured by clocks in outer space. After all, remember 2 Peter 3:8: a thousand years can be like a day to God, and vice versa. Some Young Earth advocates propose just such a model, and even go to great lengths to demonstrate its mathematical validity here.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the distant past, modern measurements and reasoning can only establish validity; the soundness of this idea cannot be proven, and I don't think its proponents have any delusions about doing so. They are merely saying that a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 can be true, and also the observations of astrologists could be accurate. Any basis for a definitive statement about the literal happenings at the beginning of time can only come from being told by someone who was there: God. He has chosen to reveal a very brief synopsis of the events, easily readable by anyone. Though they are literally true, our knowledge of them is quite limited. I think he kept it that way on purpose.
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GirdYourLoins
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Ive been through this as well. What it comes down to is like me, you decided you would believe God.
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Johan_1988
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True, but I don't think all of theo-evo's contend that sin is not wrong. They are however ignorant of the fact that it does weaken their position on sin.
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johneb
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Interesting thought. The Lord said "as high as the heavens are above the Earth are my ways higher than your ways" have you not read this?
During creation when did God create Time? As far as things are said be away from us in the heavens, look for the verse "and god stretched out the heavens" well what does that mean? Your faith to believe God's word and to wait on him who was sent is more important than the mysteries of the universe.
During creation when did God create Time? As far as things are said be away from us in the heavens, look for the verse "and god stretched out the heavens" well what does that mean? Your faith to believe God's word and to wait on him who was sent is more important than the mysteries of the universe.
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Jonathan Walkerin
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First one that comes to mind is why would God use 6 days to do something that He could do instantly ?
It is bit funny to imagine he used days to shape this globe and then just as an afterthought created other hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars and other planets.
Then He rested ; what would be the point of resting for someone who didn’t get fatigued.
No, either you treat it as a miracle or just another creation myth among countless of others but there is a zero need or sense to mix actual science or logic on it.
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To establish the "week" for humans.. as He mentions in later scripture.
Afterthought? Can you give me scripture as to why it was an "afterthought".. These were created in the six days of creation.
Again, setting a pattern for men to follow, in human bodies, in order to keep from burnout but not being lazy doing nothing all the time.. 6 days of work... 1 day of rest... and to worship Him..
This pattern is best for humans to remain healthy and still get things done.
You can do with it what you would like...
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Jonathan Walkerin
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14And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between day and night and to mark the seasons and days and years,
Perhaps you can explain how creating Andromeda galaxy with it’s trillion stars
Andromeda Galaxy - Wikipedia
let’s us “distinguish between day and night and to mark the seasons and day and years”
Imagine the scope - trillion stars like our own “great light” some hundreds of times more massive than our own “great light” and this just one of the hundreds of billions of other galaxies out there.
Simply done to do what cheapest wrist watch can do today.
Yeah, sounds legit. Also all of that written with few lines because creating sea animals sounded like something much more meaningful.
Almost like the people who penned this up had no idea of Andromeda nor could imagine that trillion stars like our sun existed ?
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coffee4u
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I believe once God started time on the earth that it was 24 hour days.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. Regular 24 hour day.
before that,
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
I believe is open to interpretation.
1) each verse happened one after the other in a short space of time and is part of day one.
2) Or, the first verse or two is not a part of day 1, but happened before it and the earth sat empty and void for an undetermined amount of time outside of time.
Note* I am not advocating for the 'gap theory' as its known. That includes a first creation and a remake and other non-Biblical things and I can't find any scripture to support that view.
3) Or, That it can't be measured by time and thinking in terms of time are the wrong question to be asking.
Now the verse in Exodus indicates the heaves and earth were all part of the first day.
Exodus 20:11
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
But since time on the earth needs a light source and for the earth to turn once and we know that didn't happen until verse 3 this leaves a quandary. Maybe before that, there was no time so it can't be counted but is still included within the first day. Or perhaps time existed in the universe but not yet upon the earth itself.
We do know that to God a thousand years is a day and a day a thousand years. In fact, I think we can stretch that to mean that time is meaningless to God. Time was created for us.
If the core of the earth, the dirt and rocks were made before God started time upon the earth they could measure anything, but would not be accurate at all. Perhaps the rocks are both 4 billion and 6 thousand years old. While these questions are interesting to ponder I don't think these are things we will ever understand while we are flesh creatures held by time. We are told God created in 6 days and this is what we should take away from it.
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