How old is the world?

[rmwilliamsll]

The best heremeneuticists all agree that the plain and simple sense of Genesis is that the earth is 6000 years old but they choose to set it aside in favor of weaker interpretations because of the supposed findings of Evolution.

you need to read:
the PCA and OPC creation reports, the sections on framework interpretation,in particular.
http://www.pcanet.org/history/creation/report.html
http://www.opc.org/GA/CreationReport.pdf

Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview
by Meredith G. Kline

The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us About Creation
by Howard Van Till

The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science
by M. Conrad Hyers

In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis
by Henri Blocher, David G. Preston

The Genesis Debate : Three Views on the Days of Creation
by J. Ligon Duncan, et al

Three Views on Creation and Evolution (Paperback)
by James Porter Moreland (Editor), John Mark Reynolds (Editor), John J. Davis, Howard J. Van Till, Paul Nelson, Robert C. Newman (Editor)

then you'd understand that ALL the BEST hermeneutics is not YECist, by any means.

 

[A Freethinker]

Why do people treat the bible like it's an encyclopedia?

Because they are Christians.

 

[L'Anatra]

Because they are Christians.

Not necessarily true.

 

[gunglepus]

The Earth is old, best estimates is that it is 4.5 billion years old as is the rest of the solar system including the sun.

Evolution does not says this but it is a product of astrophysics and geology. Evolution is only about living things. I find it interesting that all science that fundamentalists don't like is called evolution.

 

[Numenor]

Because they are mistaken Christians.

I fixed your reply for you, the Bible is not an encyclopedia. Nor is it an A to Z, or a dictionary, or a phone book or a bicycle repair manual. Stop misusing the Word of God.

 

[urnotme]

Yes, God does say that the earth is 6000 years old. 4.7 billion is YOUR plain interpretation, and not of Scripture but of the Creation. Yet you beleive apparently that 4.7 billion is what God says in Scripture:



Yes indeed I suppose many of the scholars are large that promote the twisting of the plain sense of Scripture. And they are also the majority. The majority of the world does not believe in Jesus. Majority is not a basis for determining truth.

And yes it is our responsibility to speak on behalf of God. The plain sense of Scripture is that the earth is about 6000 years old. Jesus took the Scriptures in this plain sense. It is not arrogance to take God at his word. Rather it is the ultimate arrogance to imagine that we should take the subject differently from the Savior. It is also arrogance to charge a simple believer with arrogance.

How come they found a meteorite somewhere they claim is 4.5 billion years old and the tsunami uncovered stuff that is supposed to be more than 7.000 years old? I know carbon dating can be inacurate but 4 billion years off???

 

[Numenor]

How come they found a meteorite somewhere they claim is 4.5 billion years old and the tsunami uncovered stuff that is supposed to be more than 7.000 years old? I know carbon dating can be inacurate but 4 billion years off???

It doesn't matter what science says, as long as the incumbent YECs here have their dogma to protect.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I know carbon dating can be inacurate but 4 billion years off???

outer band of C14 dating is 55-60K

 

[A Freethinker]

...the Bible is not an encyclopedia. Nor is it an A to Z, or a dictionary, or a phone book or a bicycle repair manual. Stop misusing the Word of God.

I agree with you totally, but what you as a christian think about other christians is open to debate. For every christian that says something like you just did, there will be 10 that will say something totally different, then they'll argue with each other.

They're all wrong.

 

[Floodnut]

* * * * * *If you could work some real logic into some of your posts, more people would be inclined to respect both you and your opinions more.
The difference there is that Evolutionists generally use the Scientific Method, and Creationists generally do not. It's just an observation from my point in space.

You know, I really don't see you as my PR guy advising me how to appeal to more people. I am just telling people what the Scripture says about the age of the earth. It is six thousand years.

So it is OK for you to say that Creationists do not use the Scientific Method? Then I will say that Evolutionists, Chirstian or Not, Do not really follow the Bible on the matter of Origins, but they explain it away and reinterpret it in a sense never taken by Jesus and the Apostles. Of Course Old Earthers who are Christian think we are not following the Bible. We can't both be right, but hopefully if we are following Jesus with respect to Salvation we will both get to heaven and the Old Earthers will find out they were wrong But then Freethinker doesn't care since he thinks the Bible is Bunk. He knows as well as anyone that the plain sense of Scripture is six days and six thousand years. If the Bible conveniently said, God formed the earth over many thousands and thousands of years through mysterious process which will one day be called Evolution, he would still think it is bunk. It is not going to help Freethinker to accept the Bible to imagine this fanciful interpretation, so I will stick with the plain and simple sense of Scripture, the earth is about 6000 years old.

 

[Nathan Poe]

You know, I really don't see you as my PR guy advising me how to appeal to more people. I am just telling people what the Scripture says about the age of the earth. It is six thousand years.

Chapter and verse?

So it is OK for you to say that Creationists do not use the Scientific Method?

If the shoe fits...

Then I will say that Evolutionists, Chirstian or Not, Do not really follow the Bible on the matter of Origins, but they explain it away and reinterpret it in a sense never taken by Jesus and the Apostles.

You may be right. And if that is so, then it's the greatest thing that could happen to human civilization. What else was going to get us out of the Dark Ages?

Of Course Old Earthers who are Christian think we are not following the Bible. We can't both be right, but hopefully if we are following Jesus with respect to Salvation we will both get to heaven and the Old Earthers will find out they were wrong

Or right, as the case most likely will be.

But then Freethinker doesn't care since he thinks the Bible is Bunk. He knows as well as anyone that the plain sense of Scripture is six days and six thousand years. If the Bible conveniently said, God formed the earth over many thousands and thousands of years through mysterious process which will one day be called Evolution, he would still think it is bunk.

Well, even bunk can be right once in a while -- a stopped clock still has the right time twice a day.

It is not going to help Freethinker to accept the Bible to imagine this fanciful interpretation, so I will stick with the plain and simple sense of Scripture, the earth is about 6000 years old.

Well, if you want to be plain and simple, that's your business. But the Bible is neither plain nor simple, but indeed, quite fanciful.

 

[L'Anatra]

How come they found a meteorite somewhere they claim is 4.5 billion years old and the tsunami uncovered stuff that is supposed to be more than 7.000 years old? I know carbon dating can be inacurate but 4 billion years off???

Well, it's not carbon dating your referring to, but radiometric dating in general. Carbon dating is not at all inaccurate if it is used properly.

As good as it is, yours isn't even the best argument in favor of the many dating systems... instead it is that we've made hundreds of different measurements using many different methods that all agree with each other. What are the chances that many very different radiometric dating techniques would give us the same answer?

4.5 billion years.

 

[Floodnut]

* * * * (hint: it wasn't written in English) is apparently something you take for granted.
It is of substance if you're putting yourself in a position of authority on scriptural interpretation. Unless you establish some credibility for doing so, me pointing out that you have none is perfectly valid.

Wow! The Bible was not written in English? Maybe that is why we should apply laws of Hebrew Grammar to Genesis One and see that it is written as a narrative and not as metaphorical poetry. I don't need to give my credentials since the sense of Genesis is there. Feel free to point out my lack of credentials, but still the plain grammatical sense of the passage is literal and this is agreed to even by Old Earthers. I just choose to believe and they choose to subjugate it to the findings of modern "science."

But you've demonstrated no working knowledge of what evidence exists. Here's a challenge - go to this thread [Mikey provided a link which you can find in his post], and read all of those by Glenn Morton. For any single issue you feel he has misrepresented, attempt to rebut it.

And I invite you to go to Genesis and the Gospels, read them and take them as true and repent of your unbelief. I have a prediction - you'll do no such thing even though you are capable of doing so.

Of course as you predicted, I am not going to consider the presentation of Morton. My faith is based on the truth of God's word. If I want science I will go to Scientists who have the same biblical presuppostions which I have for the most part. I have gone to academic sites to demonstrate that Neanderthals were fully human contra Hugh Ross.

Literally all you have is your "plain" understanding of the bible.

Ah yes, how refreshing. I have more, but I don't need more. It must be miserable to be a Christian and not be able to take the seriously the plain sense of Scripture, but then I am not sure whether Mikey is a Christian.

Because it's not that simple. Further, you apparently didn't get the memo that "literal" is not identical in meaning to "true."

That Jesus affirmed elements of the OT as being true does not make them literal. Do you understand the difference?

I didn't get the Memo cause God didn't send it. Where is the chapter and verse for your memo? Of course you don't have one.

And Jesus affirmed ELEMENTS of the OT as being true? Elements? Which ones were not true? The Red Sea Crossing? Jonah in the Fish's belly? The sun standing still on a particular location in ancient Canaan? And of course there is a difference between true and literal.

The literal serpent literally said, "ye shall not surely die" but it was not true. God said "I will make the heavens as Brass" figuratively but not literally, yet it is true.

Genesis One however is not only true, it is also literal. God created the world out of nothing about 6000 years ago.

 

[L'Anatra]

You know, I really don't see you as my PR guy advising me how to appeal to more people. I am just telling people what the Scripture says about the age of the earth. It is six thousand years.

Great. The Bible doesn't actually say that, now does it? You know as well as I do that that date is read into the Bible.

So it is OK for you to say that Creationists do not use the Scientific Method?

They do not. That is a fact. You're deceiving yourself if you believe otherwise.

Then I will say that Evolutionists, Chirstian or Not, Do not really follow the Bible on the matter of Origins

Why should they follow your interpretation of the Bible? There is only one objective reality. And it does not agree with you. I will certainly trust God's Creation. And I will also trust that He is not deceiving me with it.

but they explain it away and reinterpret it in a sense never taken by Jesus and the Apostles.

Why should anyone explain it away? Why should any particular scientist care about what the Bible supposedly says (according to you) at all?

Of Course Old Earthers who are Christian think we are not following the Bible.

They may. Who cares what they think? Christianity, as you know, is about your own personal relationship with Christ.

We can't both be right, but hopefully if we are following Jesus with respect to Salvation we will both get to heaven and the Old Earthers will find out they were wrong

They won't find out they were wrong. The age of this planet (approximately 4.55 billion years) is as much a fact as that this planet is roughly spherical.

But then Freethinker doesn't care since he thinks the Bible is Bunk.

That is his right.

He knows as well as anyone that the plain sense of Scripture is six days and six thousand years.

That is not necessarily the plain sense. It is your interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago that's been translated hundreds of times.

If the Bible conveniently said, God formed the earth over many thousands and thousands of years through mysterious process which will one day be called Evolution, he would still think it is bunk.

Maybe... as I said, it is his right. Still, there still is only one objective reality. And it does not agree with you.

It is not going to help Freethinker to accept the Bible to imagine this fanciful interpretation, so I will stick with the plain and simple sense of Scripture, the earth is about 6000 years old.

Why do you assume that your interpretation of the Bible is correct? Why do you not see the logical fallacy here? Why do you not subscribe to Jesus' teaching of humility? Why do you assume you know the true nature of God? How arrogant is your attitude?

 

[L'Anatra]

My faith is based on the truth of God's word.

Then it is not faith, by definition. You are placing the Bible above God.

 

[L'Anatra]

Of course as you predicted, I am not going to consider the presentation of Morton. My faith is based on the truth of God's word. If I want science I will go to Scientists who have the same biblical presuppostions which I have for the most part. I have gone to academic sites to demonstrate that Neanderthals were fully human contra Hugh Ross.

That is not science. Science has no room for baseless presuppositions.

 

[GodsSamus]

Well, it's not carbon dating your referring to, but radiometric dating in general. Carbon dating is not at all inaccurate if it is used properly.

As good as it is, yours isn't even the best argument in favor of the many dating systems... instead it is that we've made hundreds of different measurements using many different methods that all agree with each other. What are the chances that many very different radiometric dating techniques would give us the same answer?

4.5 billion years.

Bad news. All the dating methods say various ages for the same object. For instance, a lava flow less than 200 years old was dated by the Potassium-Argon method to be 250-300 million years old. Carbon dating would probably say 16,400 years old.

Btw, the whole system of radiometric dating is wrong. They don't use it at all except to establish the "absolute" age of the fossils. However, to establish the relative ages, the evolutionists use the fossil, which is dependent on the ASSUMPTION that Evolutionism is true. When the "absolute" age of the fossil disagrees with the preconceived age, the "known" date, by the nonexistant Geologic Column, wins.

 

[Floodnut]

Floodnut - all this talk of "plain sense of Scripture" basically means that you, for some reason, think that the best way of interpreting a text written thousands of years ago is the modernist, literalist method that is the default interpretation of a non-fiction text in the modern age, although it hasn't always been.

Why would you think that?

Besides, you have another problem. If the Bible really is saying that the world was literally, scientifically and historically created in six days six thousand years ago, all you really show is that the Bible is almost certainly wrong. Isn't that rather a dangerous strategy?

Aha, this is it exactly. The Old Earthers choose that interpretaion because they think it is dangerous to take it seriously, in the simple sense in which it was intended. And actually we want to AVOID MODERNIST methods of interpretation and stick with the old method used by Jesus and the Apostles: Read it believe it and rest in the Lord. When it is a non-fiction text we take it as non-fiction text. The Bible is not wrong when it asserts that the earth is 6000 years old. To base my interpretation of Scripture, or rather my approach to scripture on how modern scientists interpret what they observe in nature, now, there, that is the dangerous strategy. That is what has lead liberal backsliders to deny also the historicity of the Biblical Jesus. Genesis is foundational to the rest of the Bible, OT and NT. Adam and Eve were directly created by God about 6000 years ago and Jesus came as the second Adam to redeem the race of Adam through his space time death on a literal cross of literal wood which would give you splinters if you had run your hand down it.

 

[L'Anatra]

Bad news. All the dating methods say various ages for the same object. For instance, a lava flow less than 200 years old was dated by the Potassium-Argon method to be 250-300 million years old. Carbon dating would probably say 16,400 years old.

That's because you'd be using those methods incorrectly. K-Ar dating is not meant to be used on a lava flow less than 200 years old. Geologists know that... you do not.

EDIT: Additionally, radiocarbon dating can not be used on non-organic material.

Btw, the whole system of radiometric dating is wrong. They don't use it at all except to establish the "absolute" age of the fossils. However, to establish the relative ages, the evolutionists use the fossil, which is dependent on the ASSUMPTION that Evolutionism is true. When the "absolute" age of the fossil disagrees with the preconceived age, the "known" date, by the nonexistant Geologic Column, wins.

You're lying.

 

[Floodnut]

but what if God made Genesis simple enough to understand for us mere mortals that he had to write it in 7 days so that we would understand at that time period. if he said "i did this through the big bang and such" it would confuse many people.

Actually fuz you could write it out in about 10 or 15 minutes. No need to take 7 days (actually 6). If he had said I set a plan in motion and the world formed itself that would have been fine. But what he says is that he created the world on six successive days doing specific and particular things on each day. Then he gave us the names of the first people he created, and the age of the Male at the birth of the male heir of the Messianic Seed of the Woman lineage, and so on down through the ancestors of the nation of Israel, the family of Abraham. You add it up and do the math, the earth is 6ooo years old.