The Bible does not say the Earth Is 7,000 Years Old

[Phoneman-777]

The Sun, Moon, and Stars in our little region of the Universe did not exist until Day 4 - but, is God's ability to calculate a 24 hour "evening/morning" period dependent on the existence of a celestial body? Of course not.

God's glory illuminated the "morning" and that same veiled glory marked the "evening" until He ordained that the Sun should take over. The problem with this OP is that the poster doesn't understand the "Order of Creation":

During the first 3 days, God created the spaces.
During the next 3 days, God filled the spaces.
Finally, He created one more day - a space of time called the "Sabbath"...and what does He fill that space with?

Himself...for those who are willing to put away the devil's "venerable day of the Sunday" and keep the Sabbath day holy, where we will find God waiting for us in a special way once a week.

 

[The Barbarian]

God created the Earth in 6 literal days and rested the 7th literal day, period.

We understand that you believe this new interpretation of Genesis. But neither scripture nor the evidence support it.

 

[The Barbarian]

The Sun, Moon, and Stars in our little region of the Universe did not exist until Day 4 - but, is God's ability to calculate a 24 hour "evening/morning" period dependent on the existence of a celestial body? Of course not.

If you have to redefine words to make your new doctrines work, that's a pretty good clue that you got it wrong.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

If the Bible had a verse that said " The Earth is exactly seven thousand years old" Would that make it so?

 

[TPop]

Weren't you using science when you said there were time-keeping devices? Don't we use science to demonstrate most aspects of nature? Jesus created a world that can be investigated using principles of knowledge to increase our understanding. If that were not so, then how could we know that the sun and moon are even physical creations now?

Yet the passage is clear that there was both evening and morning, and that was after the darkness and light were separated. So, can you apply that to Jesus? Are you saying that there was some darkness in Him, and that His darkness and His lightness were somehow separated? Please explain how Jesus, being only light, can be both dark and light.

In addition, today the world spins. It might or might not have been spinning when first created (we don't know, since the bible doesn't say), but once the sun was created and set over the daylight, I think we wold both agree that the world was spinning by that time. If darkness was separated from the light, Gen 1:4, then there must have been some places where there was light and some places where there was no light. This was after the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters, and after light was created. It seems natural to assume that the reason there were periods of darkness and periods of light on the earth at this point was because the light (not part of the earth) was present on one side of the earth, and that darkness was present (or light was absent) over the other side of the earth. There are two ways we know of for such a system to work.
1. That the earth spins while the light source is relatively fixed in space, or
2. That the earth is fixed and the light source progresses around it.

Since the latter doesn't comport with how the solar system works today, the former seems much more tenable. But I can't say for sure based on the information given in the text. Just in case we might have something wrong, let's try your way of understanding the light/dark/earth system.

1. Jesus is the light
2. Jesus might also be the dark, but I'll wait for you to clarify
3. The earth is not spinning
4. Therefore Jesus is going around the earth once per day, or once per 24 hours, at least until the sun is created to relieve Jesus of His job, at which time the earth starts spinning and going around the sun. Today the earth is somewhere around 25,000 miles in circumference. If Jesus is going around the earth once every 24 hours, assuming the earth today is the same size as it was back then, Jesus was traveling at a little over 1000 miles per hour, assuming He was at the surface of the earth, but probably quite a bit faster, because He was higher in altitude.

I'm being a little facetious there, but I'm having some difficulty understanding why Jesus being the light of the world would result in any darkness at all, since "in Him is no darkness, nor shadow of turning"? And why, since there is no shadow of turning, would Jesus be spinning around the earth at such a high rate of speed (though, certainly, Jesus would be able to travel that fast without too much trouble).

All things that God made have some supernatural aspect, wouldn't you agree? But since God made light on Day 1, and Jesus is eternal, how could Jesus be that light?

To you as well!

Hello, my friend!

First off. I don't know. Jesus ways are not my ways. Light and Dark. We don't know what that means. We have no indication that this is related to Days. We are only told that this is the first day, 2nd day, and third day.

Physics is science. Science is man's attempt to 'know' what Jesus did. Jesus holds the universe together and prevents my gas heater from blowing up the gas main because of how He set things in motion and controls the universe. Not because of how man's science explains it.

No darkness in Jesus.
You can say that Jesus circled. But that is your attempt to explain what was. And you are either bringing science into it, or you know how Jesus did things. I am simply stating that you do not know that. And science does not answer this.

Everything that Jesus made has Huge Monolithic supernatural spiritual aspects. Yes.

The earth may not have been spinning prior to day 4. I don't know.

Jesus says darkness was on the face of the waters. Jesus said, let there be light. I do not know what this light was other than Jesus as the Sun, Moon, and Stars were not yet created. The Godhead did not need 'light'. Creation did. And mans physical light was not for 3 more days on day 4

I've been gone for a while. So if I missed something let me know.

Let me ask you this. You appear, correct me if I am wrong, to believe that days 1 thru 3 could have been much longer. Is that correct? If so, please tell me why days 1 thru 3 could not have been microseconds, 60 seconds, etc. Everyone argues that the days could have been longer. Why? Because they feel the need to be able to explain things. To themselves and believe it. I have no problem believing Days 1 thru 3 were a blink of an eye, a 24 hour day, or 10 trillion years.

What I do have is days 4 thru 7 as cosmic clock 24 hour days or very close to it. I do not have to explain dinosaurs, living or dead, time to get here there, anywhere. Jesus spoke it into existence.

I believe you need to be able to demonstrate why the first 3 days are longer. And why not shorter? And why you need it so?

I believe you have to speculate a lot about creation to make it longer than 24 hour days. And that is not how we get to truth and is actually dangerous. Longer days are I hate to use the word, but Always used to explain other things. I don't need longer days to explain anything. In fact, attempting such only leaves us with ever-changing needs by secular in how the universe did this or that.

Peace and Blessings.

 

[TPop]

The tilt would be the same.
There's different constellations throughout the year and comets and other celestial activities. Using a sun dials or counting stars wasn't the only thing they used. If it was cloudy for weeks forget about counting the civil time.

Nothing is mentioned about stars being used for seasons, days, years. They are not the lights in the expanse or the great or lesser light. Scripture clearly separates the stars from being lights, because they are not lights but planets.

[Gen 1:14 KJV] 14 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:

The heaven spoken of here is the second heaven now? And are part of the cosmic clock. Science says it is only the Moon and Sun. God does not say that.

They are made on the same day. They are not extrapolated out of the celestial clock. They are part of it. We may be able to work the Days and years and seasons without them. Just like the weakest player on the team or the injured teammate is not playing. But they are still part of the team.

Peace and Blessings

 

[TPop]

The early universe the heavens was dark until green pea galaxies busted through the surrounding hydrogen barrier.
View attachment 341468

You are using science to explain. Scripture does it truthfully, accurately, and perfectly. 'Science' does not understand much about the 'world'.

Peace and Blessings

 

[TPop]

God created the Earth in 6 literal days and rested the 7th literal day, period. That's why the Sabbath day was made...to commemorate the 6 days of Creation.

The Earth is about 6K years old, and soon Jesus will come and kick off the 7th millennium, which is the "1,000 years" of rest for the Earth as it lies in ruins awaiting for our post-millennial return, at which He will create the New Heavn and New Earth.

Yes. But it does not equate or answer concerns that people have that do not see it that way.

The Sun, Moon, and Stars in our little region of the Universe did not exist until Day 4 - but, is God's ability to calculate a 24 hour "evening/morning" period dependent on the existence of a celestial body? Of course not.

God's glory illuminated the "morning" and that same veiled glory marked the "evening" until He ordained that the Sun should take over. The problem with this OP is that the poster doesn't understand the "Order of Creation":

During the first 3 days, God created the spaces.
During the next 3 days, God filled the spaces.
Finally, He created one more day - a space of time called the "Sabbath"...and what does He fill that space with?

Himself...for those who are willing to put away the devil's "venerable day of the Sunday" and keep the Sabbath day holy, where we will find God waiting for us in a special way once a week.

That is very good!

Peace and Blessings

 

[The Barbarian]

If the Bible had a verse that said " The Earth is exactly seven thousand years old" Would that make it so?

If God said so, I'd believe it, because if God said it, it would be true. Assuming the context isn't an allegory or other figurative account. That is, while the Bible says the sky is a solid dome with windows in it through which rain falls, that is clearly figurative, not a literal story. This is why such a statement as "exactly X years old" is not in the Bible.

 

[RandyPNW]

God created the Earth in 6 literal days and rested the 7th literal day, period. That's why the Sabbath day was made...to commemorate the 6 days of Creation.

The Earth is about 6K years old, and soon Jesus will come and kick off the 7th millennium, which is the "1,000 years" of rest for the Earth as it lies in ruins awaiting for our post-millennial return, at which He will create the New Heavn and New Earth.

I prefer to see the creation coined in the terminology of "days, evening and morning," in order to convey periods of time from God's point of view. God does have a different sense of time than men do.

Science has indeed established a progressive account of the appearance of creatures, seemingly similar to the order of creation in Genesis 1. If these dating techniques do not "hold water," fine. Until I know better, I think science simply confirms the biblical record, in which case God's "days" are reckoned differently than our own. We have to decide for ourselves.

 

[Derf]

If God said so, I'd believe it, because if God said it, it would be true.

No, you wouldn't, for the reason below.

Assuming the context isn't an allegory or other figurative account. That is, while the Bible says the sky is a solid dome with windows in it through which rain falls, that is clearly figurative, not a literal story.

The story could easily be literal with figurative language to describe aspects of it. For instance, "flood" really means a large amount of water, as opposed to an invading army or some such. And if a large amount of water, the water came from two sources, one below the land (fountains of the deep) and one somewhere above the land (windows of heaven). "Fountains" might be figurative, but likely is not. "Windows" is probably figurative, at least in English. "Deep" and "heaven" are not figurative at all, but accurately represent the direction of those two sources, just like we say "rain" falls from the "sky".

This is why such a statement as "exactly X years old" is not in the Bible.

Such a statement would immediately outdate the book itself, because if written 2500 years after creation, the next year it would have to be updated to say "2501", and therefore would NEVER be used by any but a fiction writer.

 

[The Barbarian]

No, you wouldn't, for the reason below.

I notice you don't believe it when God says that the sky is a solid dome with windows in it for rain to fall through.

"Windows" is probably figurative, at least in English.

Because you have no way to re-interpret them to be literal statements. But wherever you can you revise His word to make it literal.

"God's word is literal except when I say it's not." Which is what we see a lot from some people here.

People who try to insert their ideas of how old the Earth is, or how evolution works, or many other things into the Bible are missing the whole message God has for them.

 

[Derf]

I notice you don't believe it when God says that the sky is a solid dome with windows in it for rain to fall through.

Does it say "the sky is a solid dome with windows in it"? I missed that part.

Because you have no way to re-interpret them to be literal statements.

Nor am I trying to in all cases.

But wherever you can you revise His word to make it literal.

I do? Or do I just see where it can be literal, and then see if it is to be taken that way?

Because if I'm not revising His word, but looking for His intent in it, do you think that's a bad thing?

"God's word is literal except when I say it's not." Which is what we see a lot from some people here.

But you didn't see that from me.

People who try to insert their ideas of how old the Earth is, or how evolution works, or many other things into the Bible are missing the whole message God has for them.

Unless part of the message includes how old the earth is, and how creation works (because if God didn't use evolution, then I doubt He would spend much energy explaining how it works), in which case, you are the one missing the message. You caution is a double-edged sword, my friend.

 

[The Barbarian]

Does it say "the sky is a solid dome with windows in it"? I missed that part.

Genesis 8:2 The springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained.

It's why the Bible calls it the firmament.
In English, the word "firmament" is recorded as early as 1250, in the Middle English Story of Genesis and Exodus. It later appeared in the King James Bible. The same word is found in French and German Bible translations, all from Latin firmamentum (a firm object), used in the Vulgate (4th century).

[3] This in turn is a calque of the Greek στερέωμᾰ (steréōma), also meaning a solid or firm structure (Greek στερεός = rigid), which appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made by Jewish scholars around 200 BC

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament [TWOT], s.v. raqa, makes an important correction regarding this translation: "In pre-Christian Egypt, confusion was introduced into biblical cosmology when the LXX [Septuagint], perhaps under the influence of Alexandrian theories of a 'stone vault' of heaven, rendered raqia by stereoma suggesting some firm, solid substance."

Firmament - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Unless part of the message includes how old the earth is, and how creation works (because if God didn't use evolution, then I doubt He would spend much energy explaining how it works), in which case, you are the one missing the message.

The difference is that I realize that God didn't dictate a science text. He says He created all things, but doesn't tell us how He did it. But obviously, He allowed the assumptions people made at the time to be in His book as long as it didn't change His message.

You caution is a double-edged sword, my friend.

Would be, if I asserted that scripture actually endorses atoms and evolution and radio waves. But I don't.

 

[TPop]

God does have a different sense of time than men do.

Hello my Friend,

How do you know this? God is outside of time. Time was not made for God. Jesus made time for us. Jesus does not live in days, years, or ages. Jesus is not chaos. So why would He make days of different lengths within the Time that he made for us and through His Creation?

Peace and Blessings

 

[Phoneman-777]

We understand that you believe this new interpretation of Genesis. But neither scripture nor the evidence support it.

"New"?

It's a easily seen pattern by anyone who isn't blinded by the enemy. All you have to do is read the Genesis story and you'd see God created the spaces in the first 3 days, filled them over the next 3 days, created one last space of time on day 7 and then filled it with Himself by resting in it.

And, He commands you to rest from your work every Sabbath day "as God did from His". Simple.

 

[Phoneman-777]

If you have to redefine words to make your new doctrines work, that's a pretty good clue that you got it wrong.

Redefine what?

What's being redefined is the truth by the satanic lie of theistic evolution, which Jesus Himself proves false when He asked if the people read how God created them "male and female".

Peter, too, reminds us that God destroyed the Earth with a Flood, but theistic evolutionists know to admit there was a world wide Flood is to expect us to believe that "evolutionary lotto" hit the jackpot twice, which even they understand was mathematically impossible to hit once...hence, the denial of the worldwide Flood.

 

[Phoneman-777]

I prefer to see the creation coined in the terminology of "days, evening and morning," in order to convey periods of time from God's point of view. God does have a different sense of time than men do.

Science has indeed established a progressive account of the appearance of creatures, seemingly similar to the order of creation in Genesis 1. If these dating techniques do not "hold water," fine. Until I know better, I think science simply confirms the biblical record, in which case God's "days" are reckoned differently than our own. We have to decide for ourselves.

They aren't day "periods" - the word "yom" means "day" aka a "24 hour day" defined by a light portion and a dark portion.

The only symbolism associated with time is in prophetic passages of future events when a symbolic "day" is used as a symbol for a literal "year" as in the "70 Weeks" which all agree are not 490 days, but 490 years.

When it comes to declaring past events such as Creation Week in Genesis, there's no reason to interpret a "day" as anything more than just that.

 

[Derf]

Hello, my friend!

First off. I don't know.

Good answer! We're talking a lot about speculations here.

Jesus ways are not my ways. Light and Dark. We don't know what that means.

I disagree. God gave Adam the ability speak from his first day, which means Adam knew a bunch of words' definitions that he had never heard nor experienced. We also have language that is fairly easy to decipher, being descended from one of the languages God gave to those at Babel. So we know what "light" and "dark" mean, though we may not know the source of the light or the blocking object to make dark, since dark is the absence of light, or shadow once light exists.

We have no indication that this is related to Days. We are only told that this is the first day, 2nd day, and third day.

And we are told how to distinguish between one day and the next...by noting the evening and morning sequence, followed by the next evening and morning sequence.

Physics is science. Science is man's attempt to 'know' what Jesus did.

The root of the word "science" means "knowledge". God tells us to "get knowledge"
[Pro 10:14 KJV] Wise [men] lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish [is] near destruction.
[Pro 15:14 KJV] The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness.

Jesus holds the universe together and prevents my gas heater from blowing up the gas main because of how He set things in motion and controls the universe. Not because of how man's science explains it.

If Jesus "set things in motion and controls the universe" in such a way that we can benefit from the things we see and study, then I don't see why both can't apply.

No darkness in Jesus.

Good.

You can say that Jesus circled. But that is your attempt to explain what was. And you are either bringing science into it, or you know how Jesus did things. I am simply stating that you do not know that. And science does not answer this.

Does not answer what? How a body that receives light from a source can experience both the light and the absence of the light in a single day? It does answer that now. And it is not too foolhardy to say that the same thing was happening prior to the sun and moon, just with some light source that we can't identify.

Everything that Jesus made has Huge Monolithic supernatural spiritual aspects. Yes.

The earth may not have been spinning prior to day 4. I don't know.

You might not know, but it is not unreasonable to speculate that it was, seeing how "morning" and "evening" had to carry over from the pre-sun days to the sun days.

Jesus says darkness was on the face of the waters. Jesus said, let there be light. I do not know what this light was other than Jesus

If the light that Jesus spoke into existence is Jesus, how is He able to speak Himself into existence?

as the Sun, Moon, and Stars were not yet created. The Godhead did not need 'light'. Creation did. And mans physical light was not for 3 more days on day 4

I think the best you can say is that the current sources for man's physical light were not for 3 more days. But that doesn't make the light some kind of ethereal, non-physical light. The creation story is about the creation of the things we see and experience, including light.

I've been gone for a while. So if I missed something let me know.

Let me ask you this. You appear, correct me if I am wrong, to believe that days 1 thru 3 could have been much longer.

Or shorter, as you point out.

Is that correct? If so, please tell me why days 1 thru 3 could not have been microseconds, 60 seconds, etc. Everyone argues that the days could have been longer. Why?

Because the scripture doesn't say how long they were. Nowhere does scripture define a day in terms of hours, and I believe that's because hours are defined in terms of days, i.e., an hour is 1/24th of a day. To say then that a day is 24 hours is providing no additional information.

Because they feel the need to be able to explain things. To themselves and believe it. I have no problem believing Days 1 thru 3 were a blink of an eye, a 24 hour day, or 10 trillion years.

Good. Then don't define a day as 24 hours anymore.

What I do have is days 4 thru 7 as cosmic clock 24 hour days or very close to it.

We don't really know that, either, though I expect you are correct, and those days were at least getting close to 24 days.

I do not have to explain dinosaurs, living or dead, time to get here there, anywhere. Jesus spoke it into existence.

That's fine, but it is also a useless answer if we are trying to understand things better about the age of the earth and the days of creation.

I believe you need to be able to demonstrate why the first 3 days are longer. And why not shorter? And why you need it so?

I don't. I just don't see the need to say anything about hours when defining a day. And saying "a day back then was 24 hours" makes people think of a specific length of time that the bible doesn't give us. Thus, it is confusing, at best.

I believe you have to speculate a lot about creation to make it longer than 24 hour days. And that is not how we get to truth and is actually dangerous. Longer days are I hate to use the word, but Always used to explain other things.

Except if "24 hour days" is used to explain things, when it's not biblical, isn't that also a recipe for danger and loss of truth?

I don't need longer days to explain anything. In fact, attempting such only leaves us with ever-changing needs by secular in how the universe did this or that.

We don't want to introduce untruths into our understanding of biblical truth.

Peace and Blessings.

Good posts. Thanks for the conversation.

 

[RandyPNW]

They aren't day "periods" - the word "yom" means "day" aka a "24 hour day" defined by a light portion and a dark portion.

The only symbolism associated with time is in prophetic passages of future events when a symbolic "day" is used as a symbol for a literal "year" as in the "70 Weeks" which all agree are not 490 days, but 490 years.

When it comes to declaring past events such as Creation Week in Genesis, there's no reason to interpret a "day" as anything more than just that.

The problem is, your point is based on an interpretive fallacy. You could be right, but not with your argument. The idea that the Bible interprets "day" in only one way begs the question. If the Bible uses "day" in Genesis for periods of time, then your argument doesn't hold.

A word is determined by its use in context. The word "day" does not carry with it the necessity of being a 24 hour day, even though that is its normal use.

In English we use day freely as an "era," or as a distinct period of time. It can be used that way in Genesis too if we assume "day" can be used flexibly for an era.

Zech 14.6 On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 7 It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.