How old is the earth?

[public hermit]

Its total nonsense as almost every Christian scholar on planet earth will affirm since it would be tossing out exegesis and instead simply "making stuff up" whenever you read a text of scripture.

What "problem" would that solve for Christians - because at this point it looks like the very thing that Atheists suggest. What am I missing?

not true as even James Barr points out.

If the atheists can see the flaws in that idea - how much more the Christians?

As James Barr points out - there is no symbolism in that text.

there is no reason for the reader to suppose that "days are not days" that "an evening and morning is not a day" , that "plants are not plants" and that the "sun is not the sun".

In fact we have the same 7 day affirmation for it - in the legal code of Ex 20 -- and no scholar argues that the legal code in Exodus 20 is symbolic.

As we all know.

No doubt . but a lot of forms of writing have "spiritual insight about God, creation, and humanity" -- your argument requires paying no attention to the details in the text when understanding its intended meaning.

What all scholars do agree with is "Moses was not a Darwinist" and they all agree that the newly freed slaves from Egypt standing at the foot of Sinai "were not darwinists either"

If someone tells you that the speed limit sign "merely conveys the care and concern that the government has for the people - but provides no more information than that" ... vs "the speed limit sign means what it says" -- is it your claim that there is no difference between those two ideas?? seriously?

Oh well, I guess that settles it then.

 

[BNR32FAN]

But what we don't know the length of time between when Adam was created until through his disobedience he became mortal. It was when he became mortal, that the clock started winding down to his death approximately 600 years later.

Where are you getting this idea from? It’s not mentioned in the scriptures.

When a person is immortal, there is no sense of time.

So if God gave Adam a microwave to cook some popcorn that popcorn would’ve all popped instantaneously because he was immortal, or would Adam still have to wait for it to cook while the timer was ticking away even tho he was immortal? Immortality has nothing to do with time.

Time matters to us because once we are born, sometime in the future we are going to die

So while Adam was immortal, time wasn't an issue, so it was not measured.

But it was measured and recorded in the scriptures. Even before Adam existed there were the 6 days of creation, there was evening and there was morning.

Is is conceivable that Adam and Eve could have lived thousands of years before the snake appeared and tempted Eve.

But the scriptures specifically state that when Seth was born Adam had LIVED 130 years.

“When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

So, the belief that the earth was just 6,000 years old is a misunderstanding that the creation week and the Fall happened within a short time. But we are not told how long it would have been, because time was not an issue until the Fall of man.

It had to have been less than 130 years because according to the scriptures Adam had only lived 130 years when Seth was born which was after the fall. Furthermore all the years he lived were 930 years. I don’t understand how just because time wasn’t an issue somehow means that time didn’t exist. Right now for me time is an issue because I spend most of my life at work. When I retire I’ll still be waiting for my popcorn to start popping in the microwave watching the seconds tick by.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Where are you getting this idea from? It’s not mentioned in the scriptures.

So if God gave Adam a microwave to cook some popcorn that popcorn would’ve all popped instantaneously because he was immortal, or would Adam still have to wait for it to cook while the timer was ticking away even tho he was immortal? Immortality has nothing to do with time.



But it was measured and recorded in the scriptures. Even before Adam existed there were the 6 days of creation, there was evening and there was morning.

But the scriptures specifically state that when Seth was born Adam had LIVED 130 years.

“When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

It had to have been less than 130 years because according to the scriptures Adam had only lived 130 years when Seth was born which was after the fall. Furthermore all the years he lived were 930 years. I don’t understand how just because time wasn’t an issue somehow means that time didn’t exist. Right now for me time is an issue because I spend most of my life at work. When I retire I’ll still be waiting for my popcorn to start popping in the microwave watching the seconds tick by.

What you are assuming is that Adam's fall was very soon after his creation. But there is no indication of that in the Scriptures. We are not told whether it was weeks, months, or even years after his and Eve's creation that they were disobedient and became mortal. There are other places in Scripture where there is one event, and then another, with an undisclosed period of time between the two events, but in the Scripture it appears that the second event followed on the heels of the first, when in fact there could have been years between the two.

There was a kind of time where one event followed another in a linear way. There was a past, present and future, so if Adam had a microwave, the popcorn would have taken a period of time to pop. The difference between where God lives where there is no time, and where Adam lived is that Adam lived in the created universe where the past, present and future were not viewed simultaneously. So of course Adam lived within the context of a 24 hour day where there was evening and morning. But he didn't have a clock to be able to measure individual hours of the day. And being immortal, he had plenty of time to do everything he wanted, because his time was not limited to life's end, because at that point, his life was to have no end.

We set a time frame for what we need to do in life because we know that because we are mortal, we are getting older and the time will come when we will die. This is why we measure our life time in years from our date of birth. Adam had no date when he was created. His 600 odd years of life started to be measured from the moment he became immortal, because his biological clock started running down.

I'm not reading anything into the Scripture. I am just commenting on what is there, and giving a theory about what is not mentioned.

 

[BobRyan]

Is it just me or is he actually saying that the scriptures were written inaccurately? What I’m seeing is that he’s saying that Moses misinterpreted a vision God gave him about Genesis. First of all we aren’t even sure that Moses wrote Genesis but many do believe that and second we have no idea how the story of Genesis was revealed to the author. That’s quite a vision with numerous intricate details spanning what 1500 years or so for the entire book of Genesis? How can someone claim that the author misinterpreted a vision that we know absolutely nothing about or if it even existed to begin with. How can anyone possibly have that information to make such a statement? It’s fabricated that’s how. That’s the only logical explanation because no one can possibly have that information because it doesn’t exist. And on top of that supposedly we can’t use Exodus 20:11 as evidence because that’s not the main focus of the chapter. So apparently Exodus 20:11 is also written inaccurately. He’s basically saying “I’m not wrong, Moses and the author of Genesis is wrong”. I mean am I the only one seeing this or are you seeing this as well?

I notice that in his response he starts with the idea that the stories told about origins in some science circles are more accurate as to what really happened than the details in Genesis 1.

When he tries to tie them together - he leaves out a lot of key details in Gen 1 that cannot be reconciled with evolutionism's story telling regarding origins. I point this out in my post -- #319

so therefore his effort is not so much to change the text - but to skip over certain details and to claim that all we can really be certain of in Gen 1 is that somehow , in some way God created the heavens and the earth. Then any other details that you can possibly link to modern stories in evolutionism are fine (like plants that come before land animals and birds) - but all the other details are just a sort of fog that we should not get too focused on - (as if scripture asks us not to pay attention to details when it comes to legal code , and historic accounts of what God did in real history)

 

[BNR32FAN]

What you are assuming is that Adam's fall was very soon after his creation. But there is no indication of that in the Scriptures.

I’m not assuming anything. Didn’t you read the passages I quoted? How old was Adam when Seth was born after the fall? He was 130 years old. That easily tells us that the fall was before the year 130. Adam’s life didn’t begin after the fall.

“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2‬:‭7‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

God breathed life into Adam on day 6 and he became a living being. So Adam lived in the garden of Eden before the fall. I don’t know where people get this crazy idea that Adam’s life didn’t begin until after the fall. If he was immortal like you said he was before the fall that means he couldn’t die which can only mean that he is alive. He certainly wasn’t an inanimate object before the fall. I’ll post it again for you.

“When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

Seth was born after the fall when Adam had lived 130 years. This means that according to the scriptures it is impossible for Adam and Eve to have lived in the garden of Eden longer than 130 years. And this isn’t even taking into account that Cain & Able were also born after the fall and they had to have been at least 10 years old for Cain to have killed Able. That means that Adam couldn’t have been more than 120 years old before the fall. So I’m sorry my friend but I’m not assuming anything, it’s written right there in the scripture.

 

[BNR32FAN]

But he didn't have a clock to be able to measure individual hours of the day. And being immortal, he had plenty of time to do everything he wanted, because his time was not limited to life's end, because at that point, his life was to have no end.

Adam didn’t write Genesis. Genesis was written by someone else, probably Moses but we’re not 100% sure, but that could only happen thru divine revelation or by conversing directly with God. God knew exactly how long Adam had lived, He doesn’t need a clock or a calendar.

We set a time frame for what we need to do in life because we know that because we are mortal, we are getting older and the time will come when we will die. This is why we measure our life time in years from our date of birth.

I’ve never set a clock because I know I’m going to die some day, have you? Have you actually set a clock thinking I need to get these things done before I die so I’ll set my clock so I can measure the time? Like who does that? Nobody does that. We use clocks for numerous reasons none of which having anything remotely to do with our mortality.

Adam had no date when he was created. His 600 odd years of life started to be measured from the moment he became immortal, because his biological clock started running down.

Adam did have a date when he was created. Day 6. It’s right there in Genesis 1:26-31. And Adam didn’t live to 600 anything he lived to 930 years old.

“So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭5‬:‭5‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

 

[BNR32FAN]

I notice that in his response he starts with the idea that the stories told about origins in some science circles are more accurate as to what really happened than the details in Genesis 1.

When he tries to tie them together - he leaves out a lot of key details in Gen 1 that cannot be reconciled with evolutionism's story telling regarding origins. I point this out in my post -- #319

so therefore his effort is not so much to change the text - but to skip over certain details and to claim that all we can really be certain of in Gen 1 is that somehow , in some way God created the heavens and the earth. Then any other details that you can possibly link to modern stories in evolutionism are fine (like plants that come before land animals and birds) - but all the other details are just a sort of fog that we should not get too focused on - (as if scripture asks us not to pay attention to details when it comes to legal code , and historic accounts of what God did in real history)

I don’t know if you were reading the dialog between him & I but he had mentioned that there is no specific time given between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 so he believes that from Genesis 1:2 to Genesis 1:31 was a 6 day creation but we don’t know how long the earth existed before the creation process began. That’s when I pointed out Exodus 20:11 that tells us that not only were the plants, animals, humans, etc created during the 6 day creation but also the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. Then he said that you can’t use Exodus 20:11 as evidence that the heavens and the earth were created in the 6 day creation period because that’s not the context of the chapter. So in my eyes that’s the exact same as saying that Exodus 20:11 is inaccurate. Then he switched to the topic of the creation days quoting 2 Peter 3:8 saying that we don’t know how long a day was, a day is like a thousand years to God. So I pointed out that for each day in the creation account the words “there was evening and there was morning”. That’s an indication that these were regular 24 hour days. It doesn’t say there were evenings and mornings it says singular, evening and morning. Then he starts going on about how the author of Genesis didn’t correctly interpret a vision God had revealed to him, and I’m like where are you getting this from? There’s no mention of any vision or anything about the author misinterpreting said vision. What I’m seeing here is that when he’s proven to be wrong by the scriptures, instead of just acknowledging them and saying ok I see that makes sense, he ends up saying that the scriptures are wrong and he’s right. That’s what we’ve been discussing and why I’ve become so agitated during the discussion. I was just wondering if you have been reading our discussion and if your seeing the same thing I’m seeing or am I just seeing it all wrong and falsely accusing this person?

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I’m not assuming anything. Didn’t you read the passages I quoted? How old was Adam when Seth was born after the fall? He was 130 years old. That easily tells us that the fall was before the year 130. Adam’s life didn’t begin after the fall.

“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭2‬:‭7‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

God breathed life into Adam on day 6 and he became a living being. So Adam lived in the garden of Eden before the fall. I don’t know where people get this crazy idea that Adam’s life didn’t begin until after the fall. If he was immortal like you said he was before the fall that means he couldn’t die which can only mean that he is alive. He certainly wasn’t an inanimate object before the fall. I’ll post it again for you.

“When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

Seth was born after the fall when Adam had lived 130 years. This means that according to the scriptures it is impossible for Adam and Eve to have lived in the garden of Eden longer than 130 years. And this isn’t even taking into account that Cain & Able were also born after the fall and they had to have been at least 10 years old for Cain to have killed Able. That means that Adam couldn’t have been more than 120 years old before the fall. So I’m sorry my friend but I’m not assuming anything, it’s written right there in the scripture.

You're not getting my point. Adam's life started at his creation, there is no doubt about that. But because he was immortal, his life was not measured in years until the Fall when he became mortal and his subsequent life span became limited. Before the fall, Adam remained as he was - a mature man. We can't say what age he was, because as an immortal being he was ageless. Age started at the fall when Adam started to degenerate over time. We don't know how long he lived in the Garden before the Fall because the length of time he was there was not measured, because there was no need. He didn't start to age until the Fall. Therefore Adam began to age at the fall, and he was 130 years down the track when Seth was born.

I have no argument about the age of Adam after the fall, because the genealogical record makes it clear. But the point is that Adam, being immortal at his creation, did not start aging until the fall, therefore the 130 years start at the fall, and not before. We don't know how long it was between his creation and the fall, because there was no need to age him because he was not subject to aging. He could have lived 1000 years between his creation and the Fall and remained exactly in the same physical condition as when he was created.

 

[BNR32FAN]

But because he was immortal, his life was not measured in years until the Fall when he became mortal and his subsequent life span became limited

The verse says ALL THE DAYS THAT ADAM LIVED WERE 930 YEARS. When did Adam begin to live? This means from the moment he took his first breath until his last breath. The way this verse is worded it means that his life was in fact measured from before the fall until after the fall.

 

[BNR32FAN]

We can't say what age he was, because as an immortal being he was ageless.

No immortal does not mean ageless. Take the Tree of Life for example, that tree will live forever but it was created at a specific moment in time and has an age based on from the time it was created until now. That’s the age of the tree. So far it has lived just over 6000 years, that’s how old it is. The tree is not ageless because it has not always existed. God is ageless because He has no beginning and no end, everything that was created has an age whether it lives forever or not because it has a beginning.

 

[BNR32FAN]

But the point is that Adam, being immortal at his creation, did not start aging until the fall, therefore the 130 years start at the fall, and not before.

Again you need to pay closer attention to the verse. ALL THE DAYS THAT ADAM LIVED. Adam began LIVING on day 6 when God breathed life into him IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

 

[FaithT]

I distinguish between these two concepts of time. The Bible speaks of events that happened in the real historical witnessed-time. Scientific research speaks in terms of space-time even when there were no live animals there to observe the original events. They are both true to me

But what exactly does space-time mean?

 

[FaithT]

I’m new to this debate and am very interested in it. Though I haven’t read it all yet. Just as a jumping off point for me, who here things the earth/universe is 6,000+ years old and who thinks it’s billions of years old?

 

[tonychanyt]

I’m new to this debate and am very interested in it. Though I haven’t read it all yet. Just as a jumping off point for me, who here things the earth/universe is 6,000+ years old and who thinks it’s billions of years old?

To me, it is both dependent on your time perspective. From a witnessed-time point of view, it is some thousands of years old. From the 4-dimensional space-time point of view, it is billions. Space-time is calculated by mathematical formulas.

 

[FaithT]

To me, it is both dependent on your time perspective. From a witnessed-time point of view, it is some thousands of years old. From the 4-dimensional space-time point of view, it is billions. Space-time is calculated by mathematical formulas.

Ok never mind. This stuff is waaaaayover my head.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

The verse says ALL THE DAYS THAT ADAM LIVED WERE 930 YEARS. When did Adam begin to live? This means from the moment he took his first breath until his last breath. The way this verse is worded it means that his life was in fact measured from before the fall until after the fall.

You have your interpretation. My interpretation is just as valid. I persevere with this, not because it is vitally important, but that we shouldn't read into Scripture things that are not there.

By the way, did you know that there are many physicists who now believe that the universe is not maintained by gravity as is common teaching. This is because the vast distances between different star systems make gravitational influence impossible. The emerging theory is that the universe is a type of hologram designed and constructed from a larger reality outside of our universe. That our reality is a digital construct and made to appear that the universe and our world is older than what it actually is.

 

[FaithT]

To me, it is both dependent on your time perspective. From a witnessed-time point of view, it is some thousands of years old. From the 4-dimensional space-time point of view, it is billions. Space-time is calculated by mathematical formulas.

What’s a four dimentional space time point of view? That time exists in another dimension? Can you explain in simpler terms?

 

[tonychanyt]

That time exists in another dimension?

No. On Earth, we experience space and time separately because the Earth is small compared to the speed of light. Out there in the vastness of space, time itself is tied to space by the speed of light. Space and time cannot be separated. When we see the sun, we are actually seeing it 8 minutes ago. We are seeing history

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

What’s a four dimentional space time point of view? That time exists in another dimension? Can you explain in simpler terms?

The four dimensions are length, width, height, and time.

 

[FaithT]

No. On Earth, we experience space and time separately because the Earth is small compared to the speed of light. Out there in the vastness of space, time itself is tied to space by the speed of light. Space and time cannot be separated. When we see the sun, we are actually seeing it 8 minutes ago. We are seeing history

Ok I still don’t get it. Is the earth/universe 6000+ years old or billions?