[__ Science __ ] Old Earth vs. Young Earth

[miamited]

Daniel 8:14 (NASB)
"He said to me, 'For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored.'"

In this prophetic vision, the phrase "2,300 evenings and mornings" is commonly understood to represent 2,300 days, with each "evening and morning" signifying a full day (as in the Jewish reckoning of a day, which begins at evening). This is the only direct instance where an extended period of time (over six years) is explicitly described using the phrase "evenings and mornings."

J.

Hi Johann!@#

Yes, tell him what he's won Johnnie!! 2,300 hundred evenings and mornings is 2300 days. A singular evening and morning is one day. My point exactly, thanks for the help.

What I have said, is that the Bible offers zero evidence to support the idea that Dinosaurs lived with Adam and Eve. This theory is quite literally made out of thin air.

No, the Scriptures offer ample evidence that all the land creatures were created on the sixth day, right along with Adam and Eve. So yes, the dinosaurs, all living land creatures, lived with Adam and Eve. They were actually created on the same day. I'm really not clear on what it is that you think God should have told us for us to understand that the animals all lived with Adam and Eve beyond the fact that He tells us they were all created on the same day of His work in creating this realm in which we live.

I mean what, because you can't believe it, God should have told you that the dinosaurs specifically were also created on day six?

I am simply saying that due to the “young earth doctrine,” young earth Bible teachers are forced to place all of Creation and world history into a 6,000-year window which does not fit.

And why doesn't it fit? I don't get it. God's testimony to us is that everything in this realm was created in six days and you think somehow that doesn't fit. Fit what? Your understanding that science has told you that dinosaurs are millions of years old? Therefore dinosaurs can't fit into a young earth creation model? You do understand that none of the scientists that are telling you how old the dinosaurs are weren't actually there to prove their claim. God's testimony is that He made all the land animals on day six. I believe that. I don't believe the science that tells me differently because I know that God was there... they weren't. They are just making guesstimates based on a number of assumptions that they've made to fit the dinosaurs into some many millions of years of earth history. The truth could well be, and is as far as God's testimony is concerned, that all land animals were created on day six of the creation event and that they lived with Adam and Eve, just likely not right around them or any of civilization for quite some time.

As I said, I have never come upon an elephant in my walking about the earth. I've seen them in zoos and circuses and the like, but I've never seen an elephant in my little area of the earth. As far as we know, all of civilization, for some time, was gathered in the Middle East area of Turkey and Pakistan. They didn't have jets and they didn't have cars and they were limited to going as far as they could walk in a few days or even a month for a long journey, but the earth is a big, big place and I can walk for 3 months to Missouri and I still won't run into any elephants. So, just because you don't see some concrete sidewalk where Adam wrote in the wet cement that he was there with a dinosaur at his side, doesn't mean that the dinosaurs did not dwell on the earth at the same time that the first generations of man dwelt upon the earth. I've also never run across a lion on my walk abouts either.

Please explain to me why you believe that the dinosaurs living with Adam and Eve doesn't fit some mold that you have conceived.

 

[miamited]

Then if your idea has truth in it, common sense along with all the sciences would say that there would be dinosaur bones/skeletons found along with human ones in Israe.

Again, why would that be so? I'm trying to tell you that dinosaurs may not have inhabited the earth where Israel is. How many elephant skeletons have been dug up in Indiana? How many lion skeletons have been dug up in Missouri? Why have you latched on to this idea that if the dinosaurs lived on the earth at the same time as Adam and Eve, that they must have been in Israel? Try this on for size. What if dinosaurs were native to the South African area like the lions? What if they called the body of land we call North America home? I mean, we have dug up several skeletal remains in North America. You seem to have this idea that if dinosaurs existed, they must have covered the entire earth... why? Many other animals don't.

 

[Free]

The problems with old earth theory are the same as with the theory of evolution. It's couched in the language of science and yet gets extremely theoretical and speculative the minute you try getting them to pin things down.

The problem is that there is no one "old earth theory," one way to look at it biblically, which is really what this thread is about. There are a number of ways of the Bible can legitimately support an old earth view, some get more theoretical than others, but nothing extreme. And certainly even a young earth view is speculative; it's all speculative because the Bible is silent on the matter.

What does a "day" specifically constitute, such that each of the seven "days" of creation are equal? A thousand years perhaps? That at least might have scriptural support. But instead what you usually get are a wild playing around with numbers, none of which will be exact because the entire thing is purely speculative. That to me doesn't constitute science.

Perhaps you need to read my posts yet, which aren't based on "day" meaning an indefinite period of time, although it can. Nothing to with old earth belief is any more speculative than in using the Bible to determine that the earth is young. Nowhere does the Bible give a number on the age of the earth.

What was it that largely caused us to believe the world was round and that the sun was the center of the solar system? Science, not the Bible. Many used the Bible to support a geocentric model of a flat earth; some unfortunately still do.

It's constitutes faith as Post #22 alluded to, only it is not faith in the word of God but faith in a theory concocted to question the very idea of creationism, and cast doubt upon the word of God itself instead.

Whether the earth is young or old it should never cause one to doubt the Bible. That only happens if one begs the question by first assuming that the Bible teaches the earth can only be 6,000 years old. Unfortunately, too many fundamentalist churches and thinking still exists where it is taught the earth absolutely is very young, when the Bible itself is silent. It is then often made a salvific issue, and many young people lose their salvation as a result--because they have not been taught how to think critically about Scripture and interpret it properly.

 

[Hidden In Him]

The problem is that there is no one "old earth theory," one way to look at it biblically, which is really what this thread is about. There are a number of ways of the Bible can legitimately support an old earth view, some get more theoretical than others, but nothing extreme. And certainly even a young earth view is speculative; it's all speculative because the Bible is silent on the matter.

Let me provide an ancient argument here, because I think it still stands:

“On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, He understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order, therefore, that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it” (Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).

Those who would claim that millions of years divided the "days" of creation face a problem with the order of creation. On the 3rd Day God created all the fruit bearing trees, and then on the 4th Day He created the sun. This runs counter to evolutionary thought, because the trees would not grow without the sun. As Theosphilus argued, the sun cannot cause plant life to come into existence if it existed only after the grass and the trees were already in existence. This is an example of why the evolutionist model and the true creationist model are simply incompatible.

Perhaps you need to read my posts yet, which aren't based on "day" meaning an indefinite period of time, although it can. Nothing to with old earth belief is any more speculative than in using the Bible to determine that the earth is young. Nowhere does the Bible give a number on the age of the earth.

What was it that largely caused us to believe the world was round and that the sun was the center of the solar system? Science, not the Bible. Many used the Bible to support a geocentric model of a flat earth; some unfortunately still do.

I don't oppose genuine science, but I do object to science falsely so-called.

Whether the earth is young or old it should never cause one to doubt the Bible. That only happens if one begs the question by first assuming that the Bible teaches the earth can only be 6,000 years old. Unfortunately, too many fundamentalist churches and thinking still exists where it is taught the earth absolutely is very young, when the Bible itself is silent. It is then often made a salvific issue, and many young people lose their salvation as a result--because they have not been taught how to think critically about Scripture and interpret it properly.

Well I certainly could never sign off on that. I agree with you. One's beliefs on it in no way affects salvation. Seems like maybe an overreaction to the influence of secular thought, as if threatening others' eternal welfare is at stake. It's one of the reasons I'm thankful I didn't have a "Christian" upbringing. I came to Christ with a clean slate, and quite honestly approached the whole evolution vs. creation, young earth vs. old earth questions with complete objectivity. I just found the more traditional views more "logical," if you can call it that.

Thanks for sharing. I do find it troubling that there are those out there who would lay such a "heavy" on people, over something that doesn't carry nearly so much weight.

 

[miamited]

finally Rodger

I'd like you to try out this way of thinking. God created everything. He created it just as He has told you. But God's working among us is a miracle to us. A miracle, by definition, cannot be explained as to 'how' an event happened. So on the day that God commanded the earth to exist, do you believe that scientists, two years later, could have correctly dated the earth? What about 100 years later? Would there be something that they would find in the natural make up of all that God created that would say to them, "nothing in here is older than two years." All the mountains and the oceans would have somehow shown that they were only two years old?

God is telling us in His testimony that He created all that exists in this realm in which we live, in six days. He is a being that merely commands a universe of stars and planetary bodies to just near instantly come into existence and hold our awe and wonder for the one who created it all for us. He merely speaks or desires that a sea split wide to allow a group of people to walk through... and it does! That's who God is and His power is soooooo far beyond just being able to part a sea or turn back the sun or make ax heads float or a son to be born without a man's sperm to initiate the pregnancy. That's who God is! He merely thinks to imagine trillions of stars to scatter the known universe and it happens!!!! He merely speaks and a singular planet comes to exist in a dark inky blackness of just empty space. But because He is now there, there is light! For God is light.

Now, that's His fairly clear account of what He has done. I believe it. I believe that somewhere around 6,000 years ago, there were no stars in the night sky. There was no planet spinning aimlessly in space covered in water. Then God spoke and commanded these things to exist as He began to build a realm in which a being that breathed oxygen and ate foods to sustain the flesh of their bodies could live. A being that would be the last of His creating in this realm. And He set Adam and Eve in a garden that He had prepared for them, and they lived with the creator God. That happened about 6,000 years ago according to the fairly clear testimony of God's word and all that they tell us of the matter.

And He knew that we wouldn't believe it. He encouraged by the Spirit for Paul to write that a time was coming when men would not put up with sound doctrine. But to soothe their itching ears they would gather around them a crowd of those who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Fables and myths. So He codified it in the law. The law that He wrote with His own finger on the tablets that in 6 days He created the heavens... and the earth... and all that is in them. He actually had Moses write that in the law when He was recounting for Moses how He had created everything and brought Moses to that place where he now stood.

Do you really believe that some 1600 years after God created everything that exists, that He wouldn't have written that differently in the law that He gave unto Moses... if it wasn't the truth of the matter? Did God create everything that exists in the heavens and in the earth in 6 days?

And if so, then yes, Adam and Eve lived on the earth at the same time that there were dinosaurs roaming somewhere on the earth.

BTW do you have any deer where you live?

 

[Johann!@#]

finally Rodger

I'd like you to try out this way of thinking. God created everything. He created it just as He has told you. But God's working among us is a miracle to us. A miracle, by definition, cannot be explained as to 'how' an event happened. So on the day that God commanded the earth to exist, do you believe that scientists, two years later, could have correctly dated the earth? What about 100 years later? Would there be something that they would find in the natural make up of all that God created that would say to them, "nothing in here is older than two years." All the mountains and the oceans would have somehow shown that they were only two years old?

God is telling us in His testimony that He created all that exists in this realm in which we live, in six days. He is a being that merely commands a universe of stars and planetary bodies to just near instantly come into existence and hold our awe and wonder for the one who created it all for us. He merely speaks or desires that a sea split wide to allow a group of people to walk through... and it does! That's who God is and His power is soooooo far beyond just being able to part a sea or turn back the sun or make ax heads float or a son to be born without a man's sperm to initiate the pregnancy. That's who God is! He merely thinks to imagine trillions of stars to scatter the known universe and it happens!!!! He merely speaks and a singular planet comes to exist in a dark inky blackness of just empty space. But because He is now there, there is light! For God is light.

Now, that's His fairly clear account of what He has done. I believe it. I believe that somewhere around 6,000 years ago, there were no stars in the night sky. There was no planet spinning aimlessly in space covered in water. Then God spoke and commanded these things to exist as He began to build a realm in which a being that breathed oxygen and ate foods to sustain the flesh of their bodies could live. A being that would be the last of His creating in this realm. And He set Adam and Eve in a garden that He had prepared for them, and they lived with the creator God. That happened about 6,000 years ago according to the fairly clear testimony of God's word and all that they tell us of the matter.

And He knew that we wouldn't believe it. He encouraged by the Spirit for Paul to write that a time was coming when men would not put up with sound doctrine. But to soothe their itching ears they would gather around them a crowd of those who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Fables and myths. So He codified it in the law. The law that He wrote with His own finger on the tablets that in 6 days He created the heavens... and the earth... and all that is in them. He actually had Moses write that in the law when He was recounting for Moses how He had created everything and brought Moses to that place where he now stood.

Do you really believe that some 1600 years after God created everything that exists, that He wouldn't have written that differently in the law that He gave unto Moses... if it wasn't the truth of the matter? Did God create everything that exists in the heavens and in the earth in 6 days?

And if so, then yes, Adam and Eve lived on the earth at the same time that there were dinosaurs roaming somewhere on the earth.

BTW do you have any deer where you live?

Understanding "Yom" in the Jewish Context
The Hebrew word "yom" (יוֹם) primarily means "day" and can refer to:

A 24-hour period (from evening to evening)

The daylight hours (from sunrise to sunset)

An indefinite period (an era or age)

Biblical Usage:
Genesis 1:5 (NASB):
"God called the light day (yom), and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day (yom)."

Here, "yom" is clearly used as a 24-hour period, marked by an evening and a morning.

Genesis 2:4 (NASB):
"This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day (yom) that the LORD God made earth and heaven."

In this context, "yom" refers to the whole period of creation, indicating a more general span of time.

Jewish Calendar and the "Day" Concept:
In the Jewish calendar, a day (yom) begins at sunset and ends at the next sunset, following the pattern described in Genesis 1:5. This is why Sabbath and Jewish feasts start in the evening.

Why It Matters
For those holding to a young earth creationist view, the "yom" in Genesis 1 is interpreted as a literal 24-hour day because of the evening and morning formula and the numbering of days (first day, second day, etc.).

This interpretation supports the idea that the creation week consisted of six literal days.

Shalom.

J.

 

[miamited]

Hey Johann!@#

And when you understand the basic definition of a day merely being the time it takes for a planet to rotate on its axis and has nothing whatsoever to do with there being sunlight or an evening moon, then there's no reason not to understand that the six days started from the moment that the earth was created. That there wasn't a single star in all of the heavens for the first three rotations of the earth. The moment of creation we are told that there was light, but there is yet nothing to cause light except for God Himself. God then spent the first three days preparing the atmosphere and the physical properties of the earth. It isn't until day four, right after He created all of the plants, that He created the sun to sustain them in their growing and maturing.

Now, plants living for 24 hours without sunlight isn't an impossible thing. But for plants to live for a few thousand years without sunlight, using the day for age understanding, would be a different matter. Personally, I think the creation of the plants before the sun is a great way for us to understand that the six days were actually six regular days. Plants wouldn't live without sunlight for a month or even a year. They require it for the very act of living just as much as we absolutely must have oxygen to live and breathe. For God to make the plants before the sun, for me, would absolutely point to the understanding that the sun must have come around fairly quickly after the plants were created. Like within a 24 hour 'day' period.

 

[daddd]

Well the problem with that is that we as people/humans accept Science when we have an operation to remove a tumor.

We have faith and accept science when we need a heart stint or brain surgery.

We have faith in airplanes when we travel but when it comes to believing the sciences that made those things possible, we say ---they must be wrong and I choose to ignore them!

Doesn't that bother you?

No. Origin sciences are bad religion, all faith based. Not actually science.

 

[daddd]

Yes, or "science" falsely so-called.

Exactly

I took upper level courses in paleontology during college, and the entire theory of evolution is make believe when you get down to the actual fossil record.

Since man and most life probably could not even leave fossil remains in the far past, I would not worry about the fossil record. It is not a full picture of life to say the least.

As for old earth theory, that's just as fraudulent, and adopts conformity to the theory rather than rejecting it.

All old earth dating is faith based. They do not account for creation and ratios (etc) that were here from day 1

It didn't take God untold millions of years to create the plants and trees, and then more untold millions of years to create the animals, and then more untold millions of year to create man. That's placing far greater faith in "science" than in scripture.

That is placing faith in Satan, and His so called science fables.

 

[Free]

Let me provide an ancient argument here, because I think it still stands:

“On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, He understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order, therefore, that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it” (Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).

Those who would claim that millions of years divided the "days" of creation face a problem with the order of creation. On the 3rd Day God created all the fruit bearing trees, and then on the 4th Day He created the sun. This runs counter to evolutionary thought, because the trees would not grow without the sun. As Theosphilus argued, the sun cannot cause plant life to come into existence if it existed only after the grass and the trees were already in existence. This is an example of why the evolutionist model and the true creationist model are simply incompatible.

First, a person can have belief in an old earth without believing in evolutionary theory. It's only that belief in evolutionary theory requires an old earth. Second, there are at least two counterarguments to what you have given.

The first thing God said was, "Let there be light" (v. 3) which he then "separated . . . from the darkness" (v. 4). That could easily be the light that helped vegetation grow. However, there is also the possibility that day four isn't speaking of the creation of suns and stars, which could have happened in verse 2, but rather their appointment "for signs and seasons, for days and years" (v. 14), and, interestingly, once again, "to separate the light from the darkness" (v. 18).

I don't oppose genuine science, but I do object to science falsely so-called.

That would need some clarification. We must keep in mind that there are Christian scientists that reject the theory of evolution, but believe in an old earth.

On the issue of the meaning of "day," it is worth noting some additional things. First, there is no definite article for the first five days, but there is for days six and seven. That must be meaningful; grammar matters. For instance, it could mean that the days are not back-to-back, like a standard seven-day week. That is, they could be 24-hour days, but with space between them.

Second, note that each creation day begins with "And God said." The first time we see that is in verse 3, after "God created the heavens and the earth" and "The earth was without form and void," in verses 1 and 2. That suggests the possibility that the first two verses were when the actual creation of the universe and form of the earth and planets and stars was done. The rest is about turning the lights on and making the earth habitable and life-sustaining for animals and humans.

As I have stated, there are a number of ways of looking at only the text itself as supporting an old earth without even considering science. These are as legitimate as believing in a literal six consecutive, 24-hour day creation for a young earth, as far as just looking at the text.

Well I certainly could never sign off on that. I agree with you. One's beliefs on it in no way affects salvation. Seems like maybe an overreaction to the influence of secular thought, as if threatening others' eternal welfare is at stake. It's one of the reasons I'm thankful I didn't have a "Christian" upbringing. I came to Christ with a clean slate, and quite honestly approached the whole evolution vs. creation, young earth vs. old earth questions with complete objectivity. I just found the more traditional views more "logical," if you can call it that.

Thanks for sharing. I do find it troubling that there are those out there who would lay such a "heavy" on people, over something that doesn't carry nearly so much weight.

The problem is that science and the Bible should agree. Unless significant issues with the science can be proven, then one is needlessly, and erroneously, pitting it against the Bible. And that is why the faith of many has needlessly failed.

 

[miamited]

MSN

So this article came up in my reading. The understanding that some seem to have, according to this article, that at some point in time several trillions of years ago, all that exists... all that we see with our eyes and telescopes, was contained in some dot of energy for which the best descriptor that the article can apply to it, as to it's size, is a proton.

Of course, no one can say anything as to 'where' the miniscule proton sized container of all the matter and energy in the known universe came from. And, for them, that seems more plausible than a loving God, one who has provided for us His written testimony of His work in creating all that is, merely spoke it all into existence. I quote:

Big Bang theory, in science, is the idea that all the matter and energy of the Universe was once crushed into a single point, a single infinitesimal granule of everything.

And sadly, those who follow this line of reasoning for the age and creation of the universe, seem to do so because there are scientists who are telling them that this is how we got here despite the fact that God has already told us all how we got here. Now, one part of the big bang theory I do agree with. Everything came to exist rapidly, but it wasn't trillions of years ago, but roughly 6,000 years ago. It wasn't some proton sized dot of matter and energy that created all that is, but a God who created it all for a creature that He would place within His creative work, to live and to enjoy the life that only God can make.

I'm sticking with God being the one who knows, and is telling us, the truth.

 

[Elijah7777]

Some choices you might consider...........
1. All scientific answers are wrong.

Science is a method, not a belief system or an absolute truth itself. It's a structured way to explore, test, and refine our understanding of the world. Through observation, experimentation, and reasoning, science helps us uncover facts and build knowledge—but it’s always open to improvement and change as new evidence emerges.

I have no problem with using science to help us understand out Bible and God's message to us.

 

[Elijah7777]

reject the theory of evolution

Scientific Laws in Evolution – While evolution itself is not a law, certain principles within it are considered laws, such as:

• Hardy-Weinberg Law – Describes how allele frequencies remain constant in a population under specific conditions.
• Law of Common Descent – States that all living organisms share a common ancestor.

We need to understand the difference between a law and a theory. The law of God is very exact and very precise. His scales are perfectly balanced. He is a God of absolute Justice. This is why Jesus had to go to Calvery.

 

[Free]

Scientific Laws in Evolution – While evolution itself is not a law, certain principles within it are considered laws, such as:

• Hardy-Weinberg Law – Describes how allele frequencies remain constant in a population under specific conditions.
• Law of Common Descent – States that all living organisms share a common ancestor.

We need to understand the difference between a law and a theory. The law of God is very exact and very precise. His scales are perfectly balanced. He is a God of absolute Justice. This is why Jesus had to go to Calvery.

I don’t understand what your point is.

 

[Free]

MSN

So this article came up in my reading. The understanding that some seem to have, according to this article, that at some point in time several trillions of years ago, all that exists... all that we see with our eyes and telescopes, was contained in some dot of energy for which the best descriptor that the article can apply to it, as to it's size, is a proton.

Of course, no one can say anything as to 'where' the miniscule proton sized container of all the matter and energy in the known universe came from. And, for them, that seems more plausible than a loving God, one who has provided for us His written testimony of His work in creating all that is, merely spoke it all into existence. I quote:

Big Bang theory, in science, is the idea that all the matter and energy of the Universe was once crushed into a single point, a single infinitesimal granule of everything.

And sadly, those who follow this line of reasoning for the age and creation of the universe, seem to do so because there are scientists who are telling them that this is how we got here despite the fact that God has already told us all how we got here. Now, one part of the big bang theory I do agree with. Everything came to exist rapidly, but it wasn't trillions of years ago, but roughly 6,000 years ago. It wasn't some proton sized dot of matter and energy that created all that is, but a God who created it all for a creature that He would place within His creative work, to live and to enjoy the life that only God can make.

I'm sticking with God being the one who knows, and is telling us, the truth.

Then stick with what God says and show where he says the universe is 6,000 years old. Of course, you must realize that you’re fallaciously begging the question.

 

[jasonc]

there are old earth creationists .

my brother is that way .I don't agree with that but they are brethren

 

[Elijah7777]

I don’t understand what your point is.

The point is that fact and truth are two different words in the dictionary.

Science deals with observable facts—things that can be tested, measured, and verified. It helps us understand the physical world through evidence and discovery. The Bible, on the other hand, is often seen as containing deep spiritual and moral truths that guide faith, meaning, and purpose.

For many people, science and faith coexist rather than contradict each other.

 

[Elijah7777]

Then stick with what God says and show where he says the universe is 6,000 years old.

The blastula, or more specifically the blastocyst in mammals, typically reaches the uterus around day 4-5 after fertilization. Implantation into the uterine wall usually occurs around day 6.

Psalm 139 16 "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

We need to take a closer look at what and when "God says". People make a lot of assumptions.

 

[daddd]

First, a person can have belief in an old earth without believing in evolutionary theory.

One could have a belief in anything. One could not have bible support though.

That would need some clarification. We must keep in mind that there are Christian scientists that reject the theory of evolution, but believe in an old earth.

The question is what bible support they have for that. The answer is none.

There is no reason to think that things existed before He created them, including the stars.

 

[Free]

One could have a belief in anything. One could not have bible support though.

Okay. I'm not sure how this addresses what I said.

The question is what bible support they have for that. The answer is none.

I've given some and have others. Perhaps you would care to address some of it rather than merely stating that there is none.

There is no reason to think that things existed before He created them, including the stars.

Of course not. But this means you didn't understand what I said.