How Old Is The Earth?

trinity80

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Genesis 1:2 "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."


Or another way, Jesus is the light. Without him there is a void of darkness.
The more I read Genesis the more I find Jesus:clap:
 
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Smokie

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I was just wondering because we're in the year 2020,.. but isn't that just counting the years after Jesus was born?
Philosophically speaking the Earth is reborn every time a new life is born. The actual years are unknown because the early Earth was either not fully formed or hot and molten.
 
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PrincetonGuy

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The earth is about 4.5 billion years old .

The age of the earth (about 4.5 billion years) is a very well established known. An excellent article explaining, from an evangelical Christian perspective, the source of this knowledge can be found here:

Radiometric Dating
 
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Smokie

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The age of the earth (about 4.5 billion years) is a very well established known. An excellent article explaining, from an evangelical Christian perspective, the source of this knowledge can be found here:

Radiometric Dating
The Earth can not be aged by any dating technique because the early Earth was molten and being constantly recycled. One would think that someone related to Princeton would know this
 
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Smokie

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The earth & solar system as well is 4.5 GA (billion years old).
Again there is no way to confirm this as it may have taken that long for the solar system to form before the debris settled, furthermore the early Earth was molten and being recycled so dating such material is not possible. It should also be noted that unless matter was actually created that all matter in some form is as old as the universe itself. However all is speculative, except to those who know everything 4 sure
 
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Brightmoon

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Actually they use cooling rates to determine how long something molten would stay hot . Lord Kelvin did that in the 19 th century and only got the wrong answer because he didn’t know about radioactive heating!

remember also that we know about the Big Splat and the Iron Catastrophe
 
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Smokie

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Actually they use cooling rates to determine how long something molten would stay hot . Lord Kelvin did that in the 19 th century and only got the wrong answer because he didn’t know about radioactive heating!
LOL did the Earth stop recycling itself in the molten state for a million years or two billion. Thus cooling rates are irrelevant in determining the true age of the Earth which is deduced only from the oldest known and exposed rocks
 
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Smokie

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You do know that the earth has a crust of cooled solid rock, right ? The earth has cooled enough to form that . Take up your argument with the late Lord Kelvin
You apparently do not understand that the early Earth was fully molten and that the cooled rock can only be dated to the cooling time. You also should know that all magma existed before it cooled for how many millions or billions of years that the magma existed as magma is unknown
 
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Job 33:6

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You apparently do not understand that the early Earth was fully molten and that the cooled rock can only be dated to the cooling time. You also should know that all magma existed before it cooled for how many millions or billions of years that the magma existed as magma is unknown

I think it's fair to say that, if we think of every single molecule that makes up earth, we could recognize that such molecules are far older than 4.5 billion years.

However, if we think of earth as an objects which orbits the sun, meteorites also orbit the Sun and are trapped in our solar system. We live in a collective system of objects that orbit the sun. Meteorites do not have plate tectonics and magnetic convection, So they won't be recycled in the same way that Earth is. And meteorites tend to have ages around 4.5 billion years old. So if we consider the idea that Earth itself started out as an object much like a meteorite, then we could come to understand that the Earth is probably in this ballpark of the same age as these other objects in our solar system.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html#:~:text=There are more than 70,and 4.58 billion years ago.

Before the solar system formed, we could say that Earth existed in the form of pieces that had not yet coalesced that perhaps came from other bodies of rock or meteorites. But people usually don't refer to Earth in that sense but rather refer to Earth as an object that orbits the Sun and is part of our solar system.

If we wanted to talk about the molecules of Earth, we could say that the atoms that make up Earth are over 13 billion years old, if we really wanted to. But that's just not what people typically consider to be "earth".
 
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Smokie

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I think it's fair to say that, if we think of every single molecule that makes up earth, we could recognize that such molecules are far older than 4.5 billion years.

However, if we think of earth as an objects which orbits the sun, meteorites also orbit the Sun and are trapped in our solar system. We live in a collective system of objects that orbit the sun. Meteorites do not have plate tectonics and magnetic convection, So they won't be recycled in the same way that Earth is. And meteorites tend to have ages around 4.5 billion years old. So if we consider the idea that Earth itself started out as an object much like a meteorite, then we could come to understand that the Earth is probably in this ballpark of the same age as these other objects in our solar system.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html#:~:text=There are more than 70,and 4.58 billion years ago.

Before the solar system formed, we could say that Earth existed in the form of pieces that had not yet coalesced that perhaps came from other bodies of rock or meteorites. But people usually don't refer to Earth in that sense but rather refer to Earth as an object that orbits the Sun and is part of our solar system.

If we wanted to talk about the molecules of Earth, we could say that the atoms that make up Earth are over 13 billion years old, if we really wanted to. But that's just not what people typically consider to be "earth".
Seems logical until one understands that the meteorites had to come from somewhere that existed prior to the solar system. So when you look at the question from a larger perspective your assertation falls apart.

Why?

Because the solar system is believed to have been created from stellar debris that obviously existed before the solar system, so one would expect a radically older age and not the same age as the Earth itself. Or do you believe that rocks just appeared 4.5 billion years ago?
 
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Job 33:6

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Seems logical until one understands that the meteorites had to come from somewhere that existed prior to the solar system. So when you look at the question from a larger perspective your assertation falls apart.

Why?

Because the solar system is believed to have been created from stellar debris that obviously existed before the solar system, so one would expect a radically older age and not the same age as the Earth itself. Or do you believe that rocks just appeared 4.5 billion years ago?

One could say that the earth had to come from somewhere else too. But like I said, nobody is arguing that the molecules that now make up Earth, didn't exist before 4.5 million years ago.

If you want to be literal about it all, earth could be said to be as old as the big bang. If you want to take that perspective.

But when people talk about Earth, usually they're talking about a specific form of those pieces, they're talking about a specific object that is post lunar impact that is post-coalescence of objects from our solar system, they're talking about something more familiar with what exists today.

It's the same thing when we talk about life and evolution. If we want to be really technical about things, we could say that mankind has been around for hundreds of millions of years just in the form of what we commonly call fish or reptiles, rather than something that only recently came into existence. If we're being literal or even more philosophical about it, our molecules really are billions of years old and so someone could argue that mankind is billions of years old too, if they really wanted to.

But in general terms when we talk about mankind, we're talking about a specific form of molecules that resembles what we are today. A species, as we call it. Something that has only recently come about in the last few hundred thousand years.

And the same goes for Earth. When we say the word "earth", we're talking about a planet that is formed from a coalesced congregation of fragments within our solar system. We arent talking about post Big bang molecules that have yet to come into the gravitational pull of the Sun, as an example. We aren't talking about post supernova heavy metals either. We're talking about something specific to our solar system.
 
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PrincetonGuy

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The Earth can not be aged by any dating technique because the early Earth was molten and being constantly recycled. One would think that someone related to Princeton would know this

The fact that the early earth was molten is totally irrelevant to the dating method employed in the article for which I posted a link. Anyone who has actually read the article would know this.
 
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PrincetonGuy

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God's word declares to His children, that this entire realm in which we live, yes we live in a created realm of existence, came to be fully functional in the span of 6 rotations of the earth upon its axis. God's word also declares to us that on the sixth of those days, He created Adam.

These claims are, of course, untrue. Genesis 1-11 is a unique body of literature written a genre of literature that is not found anywhere else in the Bible—and no where, absolutely no where in these eleven chapters do we find a declaration from God to the readers that God did anything at all. What we do find is a series of stories written in a genre of literature very similar to the genre of literature in which ancient epic tales, sagas, myths, and legends are written.

The Hebrew Masoretic text of Genesis 1:6-8 expressly describes the creation of a flat earth covered with a dome that “separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome.”

1:6 ויאמר אלהים יהי רקיע בתוך המים ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים׃
1:7 ויעשׂ אלהים את־הרקיע ויבדל בין המים אשׁר מתחת לרקיע ובין המים אשׁר מעל לרקיע ויהי־כן׃
1:8 ויקרא אלהים לרקיע שׁמים ויהי־ערב ויהי־בקר יום שׁני׃

The Septuagint concurs:

Gen 1:6 Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός Γενηθήτω στερέωμα ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ ὕδατος καὶ ἔστω διαχωρίζον ἀνὰ μέσον ὕδατος καὶ ὕδατος. καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως.
Gen 1:7 καὶ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ στερέωμα, καὶ διεχώρισεν ὁ θεὸς ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ ὕδατος, ὃ ἦν ὑποκάτω τοῦ στερεώματος, καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ ὕδατος τοῦ ἐπάνω τοῦ στερεώματος.
Gen 1:8 καὶ ἐκάλεσεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ στερέωμα οὐρανόν. καὶ εἶδεν ὁ θεὸς ὅτι καλόν. καὶ ἐγένετο ἑσπέρα καὶ ἐγένετο πρωί, ἡμέρα δευτέρα.

The Latin Vulgate also concurs:

6. dixit quoque Deus fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum et dividat aquas ab aquis
7. et fecit Deus firmamentum divisitque aquas quae erant sub firmamento ab his quae erant super firmamentum et factum est ita
8. vocavitque Deus firmamentum caelum et factum est vespere et mane dies secundus

The Wycliffe Bible also concurs:

6 And God seide, The firmament be maad in the myddis of watris, and departe watrisfro watris.
7And God made the firmament, and departide the watristhat weren vndurthe firmament fro these watris that weren on the firmament; and it was don so.
8 And God clepide the firmament, heuene. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, the secounde dai.

The best Roman Catholic translation in English (NAB) also concurs:

6. Then God said, "Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other." And so it happened:
7. God made the dome, and it separated the water above the dome from the water below it.
8. God called the dome "the sky." Evening came, and morning followed-the second day.

The best Protestant translation in English (NRSV) also concurs:

6. And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
7. So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.
8. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Even the KJV of 1611 concurs:

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters: and let it diuide the waters from the waters.
7. And God made the firmament; and diuided the waters, which were vnder the firmament, from the waters, which were aboue the firmament: and it was so.
8. And God called the firmament, Heauen: and the euening and the morning were the second day.

Needless to say, as more and more Christians came to believe that the earth is round rather than flat, they invented out of thin air a new definition for the word firmament—but that new definition in no way changes what the inspired word of God really says.

The Lord God is not in subjection to anyone or anyone’s preferences, and He was free to give His people His word in genres of literature in which they could understand the truths contained in the Bible. The Israelite people did not need to know the age or the shape of the earth, and God spoke to them through His word within their cultural beliefs.
 
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Aussie Pete

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I was just wondering because we're in the year 2020,.. but isn't that just counting the years after Jesus was born?
You are correct. The earth may be millions of years old. If you take the literal generations from Adam to now, the earth works out to be about 6,000 years old. However, there is a school of thought that there was a creation prior to Adam and it also was destroyed by flood by God's judgement. If that is so, (the Genesis account permits this view) the earth is much older. How old exactly is up for debate. For example, the moon is slowly moving away from the earth. If the earth was billions of years old, we would not have a moon.
 
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Aussie Pete

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The earth is over 4.46 Billion years old. Mankind only recently began recording dates.
Man is also prone to making mistakes. No one can assume anything about the age of the earth. How come we still have a moon? It's moving further away from the earth. It would be long gone by now if the earth was that old.
 
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Job 33:6

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Man is also prone to making mistakes. No one can assume anything about the age of the earth. How come we still have a moon? It's moving further away from the earth. It would be long gone by now if the earth was that old.

If you can show me the math behind your ideas, I'd be happy to explain.

And yes, it is true that people make mistakes. But there are things that we also do correctly.
 
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