How Old Is The Earth

[Ace777]

No they are set in the Firmament.

what does that mean: set? What scripture are you referring to?

 

[Apple Sky]

what does that mean: set? What scripture are you referring to?

Set - placed, put them in, fixed.

KJV
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19

 

[Strong in Him]

So where's the problem ?

No problem as far as I am concerned.

I was responding to the post which said that all words in the Bible were dictated/determined by God.
HE inspired the message, and the truth, to be recorded. But he spoke through human beings and left the actual choice of words to them. In other words, he did not place people into a trance and make their pens move across the page by themselves. He did not look down from heaven and say "no, you need an adverb there, Moses", or "you don't need to repeat that verse, David." He did not tell Paul to write that men should go and castrate themselves. That was Paul's frustration coming out; either that or he was using hyperbole to make a point.

When it comes to actual words, the Bible was written in Hebrew/Greek and then translated. There may not always be an English word which corresponds to the Greek/Hebrew.

 

[Apple Sky]

No problem as far as I am concerned.

I was responding to the post which said that all words in the Bible were dictated/determined by God.
HE inspired the message, and the truth, to be recorded. But he spoke through human beings and left the actual choice of words to them. In other words, he did not place people into a trance and make their pens move across the page by themselves. He did not look down from heaven and say "no, you need an adverb there, Moses", or "you don't need to repeat that verse, David." He did not tell Paul to write that men should go and castrate themselves. That was Paul's frustration coming out; either that or he was using hyperbole to make a point.

When it comes to actual words, the Bible was written in Hebrew/Greek and then translated. There may not always be an English word which corresponds to the Greek/Hebrew.

Deuteronomy 27:8
And you shall write distinctly upon these stones all the words of this law."

Isaiah 8:1
Then the LORD said to me, "Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary stylus: Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

Jeremiah 30:2
"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you.

Jeremiah 36:2
"Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah until today.

 

[Apple Sky]

I understand where your coming from @Strong in Him, but there has to be some discernment, we can't just pick and choose.

 

[ozso]

The Earth is almost as old as Joe Biden

 

[Strong in Him]

Deuteronomy 27:8
And you shall write distinctly upon these stones all the words of this law."

Isaiah 8:1
Then the LORD said to me, "Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary stylus: Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

Jeremiah 30:2
"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you.

Jeremiah 36:2
"Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you during the reign of Josiah until today.

So?

God told the prophets to write his words to the people on a scroll - presumably to preserve them so they could later be read.
That's not at all the same as saying that every word in the Bible was dictated by God.

 

[Strong in Him]

I understand where your coming from @Strong in Him, but there has to be some discernment, we can't just pick and choose.

Discernment about what?

If you mean discernment about whether something is a word/command/prophecy from the Lord or pastoral advice, written to a specific individual or group of churches; I would agree.
If you mean discernment about whether something was spoken directly by Jesus or was a comment added later by the church; I would agree. In John 3, for example, some translations end the quotation marks after verse 21 - meaning that it was Jesus who said "for God so loved the world ....". Others end them after verse 15 - so "for God so loved ...." and everything after it, was not said by Jesus but was a comment, probably from John and added later. Does it matter? Not to me, it doesn't. John 3:16 is in the Bible, is true, is inspired by God.
Similarly at the end of Mark. Some translations have a footnote noting that verses 9-20 were not in the earliest manuscripts. If that was the case, then they were added later - probably as a comment about what was actually happening in the early church. They WERE speaking in tongues; Paul DID get bitten by a snake and suffered no harm. Does it matter? No - as long as people don't take it to the extreme and think that handling snakes or drinking poison is a good test to see whether or not a person has faith.
If you are talking about discernment about whether a passage is a faithful translation of the Greek/Hebrew, or whether our English words accurately convey the meaning of Hebrew/Greek words; that's not a matter of discernment, but of study.
There are verses in the Bible where the footnotes say that even the meaning of the Hebrew is unclear. If it's not certain what the original language meant, there are bound to be differences of opinion in how to translate it.

Not only do we need discernment when reading Scripture, we need study, exegesis, commentaries from people who know the language, culture and so on.
None of this devalues the Bible as God's word - it enhances understanding.

 

[David Lamb]

No stars are not billion of light years away, they reside in the firmament along with the sun & the moon.

At creation;

Genesis 1:17​

King James Bible
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

The bible does not tell us how far away the stars are. However, those evolutionists who tell us that the distance of the stars is proof that the universe must be billions of years old obviously don't believe that God created sun moon and stars "to give light upon the earth" as Genesis 1:17. He created them with their light already reaching the earth.

 

[Apple Sky]

There are verses in the Bible where the footnotes say that even the meaning of the Hebrew is unclear. If it's not certain what the original language meant, there are bound to be differences of opinion in how to translate it.

I can only take the Bible in English as this is the only language I know besides Spanish which is quite close to Latin.

 

[Strong in Him]

I can only take the Bible in English as this is the only language I know besides Spanish which is quite close to Latin.

There are many commentaries that can explain the meanings of the original words and help us to be sure we understand what the authors wrote/meant.

 

[tdidymas]

The bible does not tell us how far away the stars are. However, those evolutionists who tell us that the distance of the stars is proof that the universe must be billions of years old obviously don't believe that God created sun moon and stars "to give light upon the earth" as Genesis 1:17. He created them with their light already reaching the earth.

"Do not judge, lest you be judged." Your statement is a judgment about what people believe or not believe about God's purpose in creating the universe. Not everyone who believes in astronomical observations is an evolutionist, and not everyone who believes in an old universe is an unbeliever about God's purposes. You need to rethink what you say to people. You need to stop gossiping about what you think other people believe or not believe and simply state what you believe about the issue at hand, that is, the original post.
Hope this helps.

 

[tdidymas]

God declares the end from the beginning.

We are born we die, our life is what happens between those two events. Like the cover on a book. Or the bread on a sandwich.

Earendel, a star in the Sunrise Arc galaxy, is 28 billion light-years away from Earth. That "implies the U is more than" 28 billion years.

In the beginning the universe expanded very fast. We can still see the light from that early universe today.

I don't know how you imagine the "early universe"; it sounds like you think the "early universe" (perhaps 6 days old?) looks like it does today, only cramped in space? Is this what you're saying?

 

[David Lamb]

"Do not judge, lest you be judged." Your statement is a judgment about what people believe or not believe about God's purpose in creating the universe. Not everyone who believes in astronomical observations is an evolutionist, and not everyone who believes in an old universe is an unbeliever about God's purposes. You need to rethink what you say to people. You need to stop gossiping about what you think other people believe or not believe and simply state what you believe about the issue at hand, that is, the original post.
Hope this helps.

I am so sorry if that was how my post came over - I certainly didn't mean to judge or to gossip. I didn't mean either that everyone who believes in astronomical observations is an evolutionist. Indeed, some astronomers are actually creationists, and they make astronomical observations. Apologies for (completely unintentionally) giving you those impressions. I must try in future to word my posts more carefully.

 

[Apple Sky]

"Do not judge, lest you be judged." Your statement is a judgment about what people believe or not believe about God's purpose in creating the universe. Not everyone who believes in astronomical observations is an evolutionist, and not everyone who believes in an old universe is an unbeliever about God's purposes. You need to rethink what you say to people. You need to stop gossiping about what you think other people believe or not believe and simply state what you believe about the issue at hand, that is, the original post.
Hope this helps.

I found nothing wrong with @David Lamb statement.

 

[BNR32FAN]

You're talking about 2 different contexts. Ex. 20 says that God spoke the 10 commandments, v. 2-17. After that is what Moses wrote. Do you think there is not a difference?

You are assuming that God dictated the words of Gen. 1 just because no one was created until the 6th day? Could you be more specific on how you arrive at that conclusion?

It’s Exodus 20:11 where God said that creation took 6 days. What was written after verse 17 is irrelevant to the discussion. Why would verses after God spoke have any effect on what He said in the 10 commandments?

Genesis 1 coincides with what God said in Exodus 20:11. Therefore since God doesn’t lie and no one else was there to witness the creation process the only logical conclusion is that the creation account came from God.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Since Moses was 4 generations after Abraham, he would be included in the generation range from Abraham to Daniel.

I still have no idea what that has to do with the creation account.

 

[BNR32FAN]

There is evidence outside the Bible that Gen. 1 follows an ANE cosmology and temple building and dedication scheme. You can get more info on that here: Amazon.com

I know where you want to go with this, you want to accuse me of not believing the Bible is inspired of God, but your accusation would be wrong.

But why aren't you answering my critical question, about how can we be observing 10B year old supernovas, if the U is only 6k yrs old? If you can't answer that one, then I think this conversation is over.

That’s not a hard question to answer. Are you aware that scientists predict that the universe is about 13 billion years old? Are you aware that we can actually see stars that are 46 billion light years away? How can this be possible? It’s because the universe is expanding, that’s why we can see stars that are roughly 4 times farther away than the age of the universe. The Bible says several times that God stretched out the universe. That’s pretty impressive information for an ancient civilization from 4,000 years ago that with the naked eye they would be capable of observing such a phenomenon. It’s actually impossible to observe such a phenomenon with the naked eye 4,000 years ago. Genesis 1:14 says that God created lights in the sky to be signs of the seasons for man. It wouldn’t make any sense to place them so far away that man wouldn’t be able to see them for several billion years now would it? So evidently He must’ve altered the light travel in some way to make it possible for man to be able to see it otherwise they wouldn’t serve their intended purpose.

 

[Apple Sky]

Are you aware that we can actually see stars that are 46 billion light years away? How can this be possible? It’s because the universe is expanding, that’s why we can see stars that are roughly 4 times farther away than the age of the universe. The Bible says several times that God stretched out the universe.

No I wasn't aware of this nonsense & the Bible doesn't say that God stretched out the universe, it says he stretched out the heavens.

 

[trophy33]

The Bible says several times that God stretched out the universe. That’s pretty impressive information for an ancient civilization from 4,000 years ago

No Bible says (even once, not to say several times) that God stretched the universe.

Most Bibles say something like this:
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in
NIV

In the (not so impressive) view of the ancient authors, the world had three tiers - the (flat) world, the underworld and the (solid) heavens stretched above, similarly to a tent roof.

Their heavens are not our universe and vice versa. If they wanted to say something like "all that is" (the most close thing to our universe), they would say "the heavens above, the earth and (waters) under the earth". And they never claimed this all is stretched.