I have a fundamental question-no pun intended

[pathtotheking]

If the Bible says it's true, then I'm fine with that. God can do anything, so if it is written he created the universe in six days, okay. HOWEVER .... being that God is infinite, I can only make the finite asumption (since I am a finite being) that "six days" was written in order for man to have some sort of comprehension of a timeline for creation.

Based on that assumption, I wonder if six days is to be interpreted in our understanding of time or God's? After all, six days to God may be a nanosecond to me or a millinieum.

Although I question how Noah gathered all the animals into the ark, I go back to my basic assumption that anything is possible with God, so I have no specific reasons to doubt what occurred.

I've never labeled myself a "fundamentalist," but apparently I am. I have a girlfriend who is not a Christian, although her parents dragged her to church until she was 18. Her comment on the Bible? "I believe parts of it, but probably 50 percent of it is hogwash. After all, it was written by men." When she said that, the immediate thought that came to my mind was, "Nope. You're wrong. It's neither hogwash nor is your arbitrary 50-percent-is-wrong stance correct." That was the moment I realized I believe what is written to be truth - 100 percent of it.

Bottom line question: How do fundamentalists interpret the timeline of creation?

 

[arunma]

Hello Pathtotheking. Among Bible-believing Christians, there are two major opinions. One is that the universe was created in six literal 24-hour days. This is called "young earth creation." The other is that the six days of creation imply longer periods of time, and that the majority scientific opinion on the age of the universe is correct. This is called "old earth creation." Because of the ambiguity of Scripture on matters of science, both positions could be held by Bible-believing Christians, and neither directly contradicts Scripture. Both of these views reject the theory of evolution, and hold that man was specially created by God, and that all men are descended from Adam. There is no short supply of people who hold to the fundamentals of the faith and who believe in old earth creation (I would count myself in this category). The important point here is to not cause division in the church on the basis of theories which aren't clearly supported in Scripture.

 

[BFG]

If the Bible says it's true, then I'm fine with that. God can do anything, so if it is written he created the universe in six days, okay. HOWEVER .... being that God is infinite, I can only make the finite asumption (since I am a finite being) that "six days" was written in order for man to have some sort of comprehension of a timeline for creation.

Based on that assumption, I wonder if six days is to be interpreted in our understanding of time or God's? After all, six days to God may be a nanosecond to me or a millinieum.

Although I question how Noah gathered all the animals into the ark, I go back to my basic assumption that anything is possible with God, so I have no specific reasons to doubt what occurred.

I've never labeled myself a "fundamentalist," but apparently I am. I have a girlfriend who is not a Christian, although her parents dragged her to church until she was 18. Her comment on the Bible? "I believe parts of it, but probably 50 percent of it is hogwash. After all, it was written by men." When she said that, the immediate thought that came to my mind was, "Nope. You're wrong. It's neither hogwash nor is your arbitrary 50-percent-is-wrong stance correct." That was the moment I realized I believe what is written to be truth - 100 percent of it.

Bottom line question: How do fundamentalists interpret the timeline of creation?

Hello friend.
The questions you ask are very good and well put, they are core and in many ways key, I will try to answer as best I can but alas English is not my first language so if you need to quiz what i write i will understand, I know what i mean to say but its does not always come out right on paper.

Its is to be noted that God is not of time, he is here, in the past and in the future all at the same time, that is a hard concept to vizualize i understand.
Einstein in one of his theories of relativity, i think its the general theory (which though not cast iron, has been widely accepted in the science community)
Links time to the creation of the universe, ie in simple terms the universe is its own clock, no universe=no clock, no clock=no time.

In Genesis Gods existance is shown to be self evident in the very first verse, and nothing is done yet, God is no a Linear being, and being without a begining or an end can not be of time, and the only reason he can have no begining and no end is that he is not of the Universe,
(read that last bit a couple of times as its bit of a mind

Scientist call the start of the universe the the Big Bang, and its end the Big Crunch (ie the universe has a begining and an end), the fact the universe started and will end are recorded in the Bible, the fact the Universe is expanding and that the stars number billions are also mentioned, for 50 percent hogwash as your girlfriend calls it (my wife is the same), the Bible seems to know a great deal that science has only recently discovered,
If you Google the phrase "scientific principles in the Bible " you will get a long list of others too.

We have our divisions in the Christian world as to if these six days and a rest on the seventh are literal 24 hour days, but whatever your take on it i think the idea that it was God giving mankind a pattern to live by is a valid one.

If we think about it, God is not of flesh, he needs no rest, and as for 6 days, one could ask why did God take so long, he has power we cannot comprehend, could have created it all in the blink of an eye.

But six days and rest on severn HAS become our pattern for life, if we think about it there is no real logic to having a severn day week, the year does not divide into severn, and no one month except february has four exact weeks in it, and even Feb is wrong once every four years.

Severn days is God pattern for us, and we live by it to this day, which give the whole length of time and extreme danger the book of Genesis has had to travel to even still exist let alone be lived by is a miracle in itself imho.

As to Noah if you go back and read Scripture of it word for word you will see that he had help in getting the animals (from an almighty source), the words tell all.

I hope I have been of help to you and can only add that if you put you full faith in the word, as you have done, you will never be let down by it.
The Bible tells all that we need to know and answers all the questions asked of it.
Gods blessings may they be upon you,

Steve.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

Bottom line question: How do fundamentalists interpret the timeline of creation?

I'm not quite a fundamentalist, just a regular guest here. I can agree with the "five fundamentals", but I'm more liberal on less basic things, especially on social and cultural attitudes.

So far as Creation, I agree with Arunma that there's more than one way to understand the relevant scriptures. I'm in the OEC camp, and I go with the Framework Interpretation variant of it.

 

[-~Truth_N_Trust~-]

HOWEVER .... being that God is infinite, I can only make the finite asumption (since I am a finite being) that "six days" was written in order for man to have some sort of comprehension of a timeline for creation.

I agree with you. I've wondered the same thing. What I know for sure is that God doesn't lie. God says 6 days. I believe God. Whether I understand exactly what is meant by six days in terms of hours/mins is not a big worry for me.

BFG makes good points about the 6-7days creation week as also a basis for setting an example for us. Theologically it makes sense.

 

[pathtotheking]

This leads me to ask the question: God has set up our 7-day week for us. We are to work six days and rest on the seventh day.

What are the significance of these numbers? I remember hearing a preacher discuss how certain numbers have significance in the Bible. Other than in Genesis, how are the numbers six and seven important?

Thanks for any clarification. I am still a newbie at getting into the Word and there is a lot of it to study and ponder!

 

[BFG]

Well the number 7 is very important and repeats itself in Jewish History, for instance not only did they give us the 7 day week via Gods word, they are the only nation of people that I know of to have had not only one war that lasted severn days but two, (the fall of Jericho and the more modern 7 day war)

I would argue it is very important to the nation of Israel and all our fates are linked to Israel so is important to all of us, I have a link to a site that tells you all you need to know about it, I have not reached the fifty post mark yet so i cant post it.
Here are directions to it though.

Go to google, type in "number severn in the Bible", a link for angelfire.com/az/rainbowbridge etc will come up in the search results near the top, it goes into ever little detail about the number 7, the details will blow you away.

How the Bible can be written by over 40 authors over a span of over 1500 years and link together so perfectly is beyond me but this is yet another peice of evidence that by Gods grace it sure does.

Let me know what you think of the site, or if you have any probs.

 

[ACuriousMind]

I'm not a fundamentalist, and I really hope I'm allowed to post here, seeing as the mods have been extremely lenient with me, but here goes:

The Bible, although possibly inspired by God, was not written by God. The Bible was written by man, and because of this, it is my understanding that the "day" is intended to be understood as a "day" that the transcribers understood. 24 Hours.

Given the idea that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, etc. the idea that the earth was created in six days, I don't think, is a stretch within the context of the Bible. Also, if God gave Moses the job to gather all of the animals on the planet, get them safe for 40 days, and redistribute them to their correct habitats, a helping hand by the divine to complete this task also shouldn't be too far-fetched.

This is all just in the context of the Bible, where many mysterious things happen.

 

[arunma]

I'm not a fundamentalist, and I really hope I'm allowed to post here, seeing as the mods have been extremely lenient with me, but here goes:

The Bible, although possibly inspired by God, was not written by God. The Bible was written by man, and because of this, it is my understanding that the "day" is intended to be understood as a "day" that the transcribers understood. 24 Hours.

Given the idea that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, etc. the idea that the earth was created in six days, I don't think, is a stretch within the context of the Bible. Also, if God gave Moses the job to gather all of the animals on the planet, get them safe for 40 days, and redistribute them to their correct habitats, a helping hand by the divine to complete this task also shouldn't be too far-fetched.

This is all just in the context of the Bible, where many mysterious things happen.

I think you're having a misunderstanding about Scriptural inspiration. Scripture is not "inspired" in the same way that an artist is inspired to make a painting, or even in the same way that God might inspire a person to write a song. We believe in a doctrine known as verbal plenary inspiration, which states that the words of the Bible themselves are written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Various prophecies can be found in the Psalms about Judas Iscariot. And of these prophecies the Apostles said,

Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. (Acts 1:16)
​

In a very real sense, God speaks through the authors of Scripture. Notice furthermore what Moses wrote in the Bible,

Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:23-25)
​

The bolded text is not a quotation of God, but a comment by Moses, the author of Genesis. Christ Jesus spoke of this passage and said,

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? (Matthew 19:4-5)
​

What a high view of Scripture the Lord has! The subject of the sentence is God, and it refers to God speaking. But the quotation attributed to God was actually made by Moses. In saying this, Jesus tells us that all of Scripture, even the parts that are not attributed as quotations from God, are nonetheless the words of God. This means that all of the Psalms of Israel, the prose of the historical books, the letters of the Apostles, the whole of the Gospels, and everything else in the Bible, is the spoken word of God. If you read the Bible aloud, you are hearing the audible voice of God. It is for this reason that Paul said,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)
​

The Scriptures proceed from the mouth of God. They are the voice of God and are fully authoritative, not only for faith and practice, but on all matters to which they speak.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

If the Bible says it's true, then I'm fine with that. God can do anything, so if it is written he created the universe in six days, okay. HOWEVER .... being that God is infinite, I can only make the finite asumption (since I am a finite being) that "six days" was written in order for man to have some sort of comprehension of a timeline for creation.

Based on that assumption, I wonder if six days is to be interpreted in our understanding of time or God's? After all, six days to God may be a nanosecond to me or a millinieum.

No, it six literal days.

 

[BFG]

That is by no means clear, I know the YEC reasoning but it holds no more weight than several other theories.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

That is by no means clear, I know the YEC reasoning but it holds no more weight than several other theories.

Actually, it is very clear. The text says that it is six days. Not six years, six eons, six millinia, but six days.

 

[BFG]

And you treat every word of the Bible that way?
Do you have eyes in your head?, Both hands?, has no part of you offended God that you had to cut it off.

To insist that Day means Day and in no part of Genesis does it say the definition of those Days is twentyfour hours, your difinition of what day means and what it means in the first verses of Genesis can be at odds.

If not the world has to be about six thousand years old, which it is not and would mean the Bible lied, I dont believe the Bible ever lies, we just miss the truth.

It says days but does not stipulate what it means as day, to us its 24 hours but in the context of genesis it can mean many things, was the earth going around the sun in the same orbit as now?, that is where we get a 24 hour day from,

A day on Mars is much longer, and time is not a constant, many things can upset the apple cart of 24 hour days, thing is we cant know either way.

And Time and space are linked, God predates both, not a linear entity as you and I.

Its not very clear atall, its only clear if you read it without thought as to it.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

And you treat every word of the Bible that way?
Do you have eyes in your head?, Both hands?, has no part of you offended God that you had to cut it off.

To insist that Day means Day and in no part of Genesis does it say the definition of those Days is twentyfour hours, your difinition of what day means and what it means in the first verses of Genesis can be at odds.

I don't see any reason to believe that the Biblical description of the creation of the universe is not true.

If not the world has to be about six thousand years old, which it is not and would mean the Bible lied, I dont believe the Bible ever lies, we just miss the truth.

It says days but does not stipulate what it means as day

I disagree. The context is very clear that this day had one morning and one evening. There is nothing in scripture to indicate that the morning and evening that divided this day was anything different than a normal morning and evening.

Its not very clear atall, its only clear if you read it without thought as to it.

Actually, if you study the text and pay attention to the context, it's very clear.

If you look at the order of the creation account, it becomes very clear that we're talking about a literal 24 hour day:

Day 1 - "And God called the light 'day' [yom] and the darkness he called 'night.' So the EVENING and the MORNING were the FIRST DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:5).

Day 2 - "So God called the firmament 'Heaven.' So the EVENING and the MORNING were the SECOND DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:8).

Day 3 - "So the EVENING and the MORNING were the THIRD DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:13).

Day 4 - "So the EVENING and the MORNING were the FOURTH DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:19).

Day 5 - "So the EVENING and the MORNING were the FIFTH DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:23).

Day 6 - "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the EVENING and the MORNING were the SIXTH DAY [yom]" (Genesis 1:31).

Day 7 - "Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the SEVENTH DAY [yom] God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the SEVENTH DAY [yom] from all His work which He had done" (Genesis 2:1-2).

I would also point you to Genesis 7:11, where the same word that is used for day in the creation account is also used to refer to a literal day.

 

[ACuriousMind]

It says days but does not stipulate what it means as day, to us its 24 hours but in the context of genesis it can mean many things, was the earth going around the sun in the same orbit as now?, that is where we get a 24 hour day from,

Hate to nitpick, but our day lengths are based more directly on the earth's rotation than the orbit around the sun.

 

[BFG]

Hate to nitpick, but our day lengths are based more directly on the earth's rotation than the orbit around the sun.

Well spotted, and i will add that to my list of things that can mess with the notion of a Genesis 24 hour day, cheers ACM

 

[BFG]

John, how long was a day?

It does not say 24 hours ive a Bible on my lap now, Ive read everything Ken Ham has ever written on the subject so its no use trying to re-tell it.

We have no concept of what the word day means for all the reasons i stated, which by the way you did not furnish me with an answer, does it say the world was rotating at X speed at X distance from the sun, no is the answer.

We know a day from this, now you have to show that the world is less than 7000 years old or call the Bible lies, what is it?

I know all the AiG stuff and it does not stack up.

The Bible is never wrong so what has to be wrong the comprehension of what length those days were.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

John, how long was a day?

It does not say 24 hours ive a Bible on my lap now, Ive read everything Ken Ham has ever written on the subject so its no use trying to re-tell it.

What reason do you have to believe that "morning and evening" don't really mean "morning and evening"?

We have no concept of what the word day means for all the reasons i stated, which by the way you did not furnish me with an answer, does it say the world was rotating at X speed at X distance from the sun, no is the answer.

Does the Bible say that the world was rotating a X speed at X distance from the Sun when it describes Christ being in the tomb for three days? No? Then how do you know that it was really three literal days?

We know a day from this, now you have to show that the world is less than 7000 years old or call the Bible lies, what is it?

Where does the Bible say that the world is less than 7000 years old.

I know all the AiG stuff and it does not stack up.

I don't know what that means, but I'm much more concerned that you don't believe the Bible.

The Bible is never wrong so what has to be wrong the comprehension of what length those days were.

Only if you assume that it can't be talking about literal 24 hour days, which both the text and the context say that it is.

I can only tell you what the Bible says. I can't make you believe it and, frankly, this isn't really something I'm interested in arguing about.

 

[BFG]

look, I do believe the Bible, but also it has to be said it is not all black and white, I realise my words may have come off as having a go, but understand English is not my first language and it was not my intention, to argue, simply discuss.
In all honesty I think we are batting for the same side, just from differing perspectives,

For all the reasons AiG say, if the days are literal 24 hour days there are no other ways to alot time, the ages of all the people in the Bible Adam to Jesus+ 2000 years to us here now is less than severn thousand years.

Now unless you subscribe to Gap theory (which means all is well with your theory), the only other way to find the truth of the Bible, is yes they were literal days, but did they last 24 hours.

To compare it to Jesus time is to compare it to our time, Jesus lived on a world the same as us, no windows of heaven etc, the Bible tells us that the world as we know it was after Noah and the flood, I have a theory that up to that point the concept of day was very different, but I shall leave it if I upset you, never meant to.

Blessings to you brother.