The Age Of Adam!

This is what the Lord showed me is conclusive proof as to whether the days in genesis are literal 24 hr periods, or thousand year periods, or 'ages'.

YouTube - THE AGE OF ADAM

Phil

I dont normally watch videos like this, but I liked ya flag.

Good point, I have never thought about it that way.

I still think that the writing style clearly conveys 24 hour days though, and there should really be no debate on what the author intended the audience to understand.

I completely 100% agree that the days in Genesis are meant to be 6, literal days, within the story.

But its the entire story that is meant to be allegorical.

This interpretation is not new as a reaction to evolution and modern science, but can be clearly shown as far back as Augustine in his commentary on Genesis 1-3 where he states this story can clearly not be historical.

There are also hints of this interpretation being the norm before augustine, but people didn't debate or care about it so we don't have explicit statements either way.

Well, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die". Since Adam lived for nearly 1000 years afterwards, we CAN assume that "a day is a thousand years".

YEah.. is the story told from God's perspective or the earth time frame is the big question? Like someone posted.. the death decree upon Adam was given in God's time frame.

valuecard said:

This is what the Lord showed me is conclusive proof as to whether the days in genesis are literal 24 hr periods, or thousand year periods, or 'ages'.

YouTube - THE AGE OF ADAM

Phil

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Hey.. long time no hear from..
Is that you in the video?

Great video, but it's probably worth noting that most evolutionary creationists don't, in fact, read vast periods of time into the days of Genesis 1. That's more of an OEC thing to do.
I'm an evolutionary creationist and I interpret the days of Genesis 1 as literal 24-hour periods of time. As Siyha notes, though, that does not mean that the entirety of the story itself is meant as a literal or historical narrative. I think the significance of Genesis 1 is much better understood through the framework interpretation.

visionary said:

Hey.. long time no hear from..
Is that you in the video?

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Hi Visionary! Yep, thats me

you forgot one group of Christians. Those who accept the fact that the book of Genesis is just ancient Hebrew mythology. Useful only for story telling and completely unimportant to Jesus' message.

Hi valuecard. That's very interesting. But I'm not sure that you've adequately addressed other common interpretations. A few possibilities I've seen:

1. Not all interpretations of Genesis involve a one-to-one correspondence of events. By that I mean many figurative interpretations treat the account of an allegorization and not as a plain sequence of rote historical facts. Siyha has advocated this view. The days are 24-hour periods but there is no way to reconcile them with historical 24-hour periods because the thought of scrutinizing history in our modern critical way was as far from the author's mind as computers.

2. Within the set of interpretations that _do_ treat the story as something one-to-one, there are variables that make it less clear than what you may be used to hearing. For example, one interpretation is that we are right now in the seventh day. The seventh day is God's rest and it continues until today. Alternatively, one ancient interpretation holds that all the days were one day and that each is a retelling that emphasizes a different part of creation (if I'm not mistaken, St. Augustine held this view -- at any rate, it's ancient).

3. With respect to the account of creation (not necessarily extending into the temptation and the fall, etc.) there is a popular interpretation that the days mentioned are days of revelation. The author received revelation for a week and each day a part of creation was brought to the mind of the author who proceeded to write about the revelation in a literal way. Thus, the explanation for things relating to creation were actually related to the revelation he had received (e.g., the Sabbath).

For myself, I think Siyha hit it on the head. The natural way for one of us to read the text is quite different from the way an ancient Hebrew would have heard it. Unfortunately, their society did not have certain forms of literature that ours does, and ours lacks certain forms theirs had. This is not an insurmountable problem, of course. It also does not mean that the meaning of God's revelation in the Bible is not for everybody in all ages. But it does add a layer of complexity and it means that we will have faulty intuitions about what we read; this above and beyond language barriers.

And the last couple of centuries are not the first generations to have these disputes. We're in good company. The interpretation of Genesis (especially the first few chapters) has been hashed over by various saints holding various interpretations for the length of extant Christian history.

I must admit, I had no idea there were so many interpretations given to that one passage of scripture. Whilst on the one hand, various interpretations are unavoiable, because the human heart is desperately wicked, and furthermore, not everyone reading and commenting on the bible actaully hears from God. That said, amongst the remnant whom God has called there SHOULD be one uniform belief as to this important passage of script, and no scripture is is of any private interpretatoin. Im convinced my view is the Lord's view, it would take some compelling evidence to change my mind.

valuecard said:

Im convinced my view is the Lord's view, it would take some compelling evidence to change my mind.

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If you want compelling evidence, take a geology course and a biology course. And I don't mean go look up wikipedia or youtube, I mean take actual college level courses on those subjects. Ask the instructor the right questions, you will get all the compelling evidence you need.

valuecard said:

I must admit, I had no idea there were so many interpretations given to that one passage of scripture. Whilst on the one hand, various interpretations are unavoiable, because the human heart is desperately wicked, and furthermore, not everyone reading and commenting on the bible actaully hears from God. That said, amongst the remnant whom God has called there SHOULD be one uniform belief as to this important passage of script, and no scripture is is of any private interpretatoin. Im convinced my view is the Lord's view, it would take some compelling evidence to change my mind.

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Of course you think your interpretation is more in line with God's. All people tend to see their view as more consistent with the Lord's than everybody else's. That's the definition of private interpretation. It's only after one is more willing to accept that one may be mistaken that one is able to enter into the public discourse and contribute in a meaningful way.

valuecard, of course you believe your view is the Lord's view, everybody believe there view is bibically correct. You are not telling me anything that I already know. Of course you believe you "hear from God" that when you interpret Scriptures, the Lord is telling you how to interpret a specific passage . Everybody does.

rockytriton said:

If you want compelling evidence, take a geology course and a biology course. And I don't mean go look up wikipedia or youtube, I mean take actual college level courses on those subjects. Ask the instructor the right questions, you will get all the compelling evidence you need.

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He should, but he will not like the answers. There are abundance of evidence that prove that the Earth is not 6,000 years old. All the evidence suggest that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. There can't be a "young earth" with all the scientific evidence out there. The Genesis account does not have to be taken literally, nor the days be taken as literal 24 hour time period.

I suggest valuecard go here:geological time

And here:The Talk.Origins Archive: The Age of the Earth FAQs

You want compelling evidence valuecard? Go to any college/university, and take a course in biology and geology. Ask a professor and look at all the evidence. And if you still walk out believing the Earth is young, you are letting pride override reason.

In IC.XC,
Ramon

Ramon, ive started looking at those links u gave me.
Rockytriton and ramon, i would also point you to something, which i feel is the most logical place to start when looking how old our earth is - and that is by looking at the age of our surrounds, sun, moon and planets and their moons within our solar system. This video by former nasa engineer about the findings of nasa's satelites have greatly contradicted what they expected to find based on old solar system theories and models

YouTube - Our Solar System: Evidence for Creation, Part 1 of 9

Thats just part 1, its a 9 part video that goes through nasa's findings about each planet and moon in our solar system, its both really interesting and really challenging to those who are fully persuased of the billions of years belief system.

Cheers

Phil

valuecard said:

Im convinced my view is the Lord's view, it would take some compelling evidence to change my mind.

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So the Lord came down and told you himself that this was his view?

The reason i think the Lord spoke to me is, as I explained, I was driving along, not thinking about any of these things, and the distinct words "the age of adam" were zapped into my mind. The following revelation that hit me, in regards to this topic, turned out to be a proof that the six days in genesis are literal. So yes i beleive it was the Lord - information coming from external, info which I didnt know, and info which checks out to be biblically accurate, yes to me that points to God

wow.. I love those moments... and they are verified by His Word.

valuecard said:

The reason i think the Lord spoke to me is, as I explained, I was driving along, not thinking about any of these things, and the distinct words "the age of adam" were zapped into my mind. The following revelation that hit me, in regards to this topic, turned out to be a proof that the six days in genesis are literal. So yes i beleive it was the Lord - information coming from external, info which I didnt know, and info which checks out to be biblically accurate, yes to me that points to God

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No offense, honestly believe what you want and I respect that, though that can be easily explained by how our brains work. Such a thing is not even an uncommon thing.

valuecard said:

The reason i think the Lord spoke to me is, as I explained, I was driving along, not thinking about any of these things, and the distinct words "the age of adam" were zapped into my mind. The following revelation that hit me, in regards to this topic, turned out to be a proof that the six days in genesis are literal. So yes i beleive it was the Lord - information coming from external, info which I didnt know, and info which checks out to be biblically accurate, yes to me that points to God

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Understand from our perspectives, though. You are advocating a new interpretation of Genesis because you heard a voice. And although it is true, as you point out, that not everybody who interprets Scripture hears from God, you sound unwilling to accept that this may also be the case with you. So I hope you will understand if we are hesitant to receive a new teaching that is contrary to the traditional interpretations and appears to contradict natural discovery.

Ultimately, to make your case, you will have to address why the Church has been in the dark for so long -- and why reality doesn't line up with what can be perceived. This is my advice for your own internal analysis of what you have experienced, too. If a voice told me something that was inconsistent with both of those things it would take a lot for me to think that it was from God -- not that it couldn't be, but that so many godly people would have been so ignorant of hermeneutics for so many centuries, and so many observers of nature would have been moving in such drastically wrong directions within their fields of inquiry.