This is completely consistent with the Bible. Even creationists accepted a very old Earth until the Seventh-Day Adventists invented YE creationism in the 20th century.
Why didn't you research to confirm before making this statement, and
@KomatiiteBIF why did you agree? Where is this being taught? It is wrong. Adherents to a literal interpretation of Genesis go back as far as to when the Bible was being written down. It is clear from Exodus that the Hebrews followed a 7-day cycle with 6 days of labor and observed the 7th day as the Sabbath in recognition that God labored for 6 days and rested on the 7th day.
Further, there are numerous early church fathers who believed that creation was actual narrative including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Basil the Great, etc... Even a number of early church fathers who didn't adhere to a literal interpretation of Genesis, such as Augustine of Hippo (who didn't believe in 24-hr days), held to an orthodox understanding of creation and the earth being young.
Sources (I'll stop at 5):
Theophilus of Antioch – The Contextual Literalist
The Early Church on Creation
ECG: Creation and the Church Fathers
The Early Church Defended Creation Science
Did Early Church Fathers Believe in a Literal Six Day Creation?
In short, it has been believed long before May 21, 1863 at the founding of the 7th Day Adventist Church that God created everything ex-nihilo, and that He has the power and ability to create everything in the way and time we're given in the text of Genesis.
Actually, neither says that it's literal. That's a modern revision.
Given that line of reasoning one is incapable of believing anything that is written. In fact, one is unable to back up their faith that they believe Jesus died for their sins and that by accepting Him as their Lord and Savior, they were given His righteousness while He took the wrath for all of their sins on the cross. Why would anyone believe that? Because it's written in the Bible, so what?? According to this (faulty) reasoning, just because it is written this does not mean it's literal... it's just a "modern revision" (whatever that is meant to imply).
The argument that none of the scriptural references to the creation account is in reference to actual days falls flat because not only is it written and affirmed throughout scripture, but beyond the text we see that this actually affected how people lived their lives... following a 7-day cycle with observance of the Sabbath on the 7th day; it influenced the thinking of early Church fathers. Even continuing on today we still observe this 7-day cycle - though many now worship on the 1st day of the week.
The real reason, and K-BIF touched on it in post #208, is:
"And because of what we see in science, there is further reason to discredit the 6 day literal interpretation."
Aside from the other reasons cited, I believe the main driving reason in this view is that science is being held in ultimate authority, and like Francis Bacon, man's interpretation of the works of God in nature are used to interpret scripture rather than using scripture to interpret scripture.
There are no personal feelings to influence a biased/poor exegesis of, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." It says the same thing in Hebrew. This is hardly more complex in a literary sense than "See Spot run." This is just what the text says - a 3rd grader would understand this as 6 days... so why do those who are so intelligent have difficulty understanding the text? It doesn't even require interpretation to understand "days". On the other hand, it requires a lot of reading-between-the lines / nebulous "spiritual" ideas to infer this means something drastically different. The Bible is evidence, we are living in evidence - what are we doing this
weekend? Hopefully attending a church that teaches the word of God out of the Bible, right? Why every 7 days is this cycle repeated? Think about it. Who is going around saying the Bible is not evidence or lesser evidence than something else? It's better evidence than a rock, a fossil, or DNA... with these things we don't have words that tell us when or how they got there, what they do, how they function... so we have to make up assumptions, create relationships that may/may not exist, and draw inferences from observations in the present. The Bible actually has words--no guesswork as to what Exodus 20:11 means - just ask some kid on the street and have them read it.
Evolution is a theory and a lie. There are no transitional fossils being discovered. What is being dug up, in actuality, are in essence idols - being used to prop up a form of worshiping self and the highly esteemed perception of knowledge. Like a modern-day tower of Babel, but instead of being built upon brick it is built upon theories and assumptions. As the serpent asked in the garden, "Did God really say...?" what I'll say now is, "Yes, yes He really did say not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and yes He really did say 6 days of creation, then making the 7th day holy."