Old Earth or Young Earth

[Guest shiloh357]

3 minutes ago, OneLight said:

You weren't.  See below.

 

Okay, you quoted me not him, so I naturally thought your comments were directed at me. 

[SavedOnebyGrace]

 

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Biblical Interpretation and Theology

Creation Science and Genesis 1

 

by Greg Neyman

© Old Earth Ministries

 

     In our discussion of Genesis 1, we shall break it apart into the individual days of Creation, and explain how they fit into an old earth belief, without compromising any other Scripture, or the key doctrines of the church.  All Scripture is from the New King James Bible.

Day One

 

Genesis 1:1-5

     In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  ²The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  ³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  ⁴And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.  ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  So the evening and the morning were the first day.

     Have you ever seen those young earth t-shirts that say, “I believe in the big bang…God said it, and “Bang,” there it was.”  Unfortunately, the young earth creation science believer does not understand that this also supports the old-earth belief.  In the beginning, about 13.7 billion years ago, the big bang occurred.  God said it, and it went “bang.”  During the next 9.2 billion years, the universe was expanding from this “bang.”  As the earth began to coalesce from interstellar matter, it eventually formed the general size and shape of our present world about 4.5 billion years ago.

      ²The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

     At this point, it is appropriate to mention the most important item for correctly interpreting the Creation.  As in any scientific experiment, you make observations of what is occurring.  It is extremely important to consider your “frame of reference” when interpreting any observation.  In other words, where are you observing these events from.  For the entire creation event, the key to this is in verse 2.  To an observer, standing on the surface of the earth, God was hovering over the earth.  The rest of the creation events must be interpreted as if the observer were standing on the surface of the earth.  Only with this “frame of reference” will you reach the right conclusions.

     In verse 2, the earth has just formed into a planet, and is simply one jumbled mass of material with no apparent form.  Young earth creationists make a big deal about God not creating junk...what He creates is fully formed.  If that's the case, why does verse 2 say the earth was void and without form?

 

     ³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 

 

     God creates light in this verse.  This is not the point at which light actually was first created, but, from our frame of reference on earth, it is the point at which the earth’s atmosphere first let the light become apparent on the surface of the earth.  In other words, to the viewer standing on earth, God would have appeared to create light at this point, even though it was pre-existing before this point.

     Many young earth creation science experts would argue that it clearly states that God created light here, and did not merely clear the clouds from the earth and reveal the light.  However, one must remember that God is revealing the creation event to us just as it would appear from the surface of the earth.  Isn’t it wonderful that God would reveal the creation of the earth to us, with such scientific accuracy?  Look up any astronomy book, and look at a model of how a scientist thinks a planet would form.  You will find that it would mirror God’s creation story! 

     ⁴And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 

     God was pleased with the fact that light was now reaching the surface of the earth.  Please keep in mind, that although light is reaching the surface, the atmosphere is not anywhere close to being “clear”…there is still much material in a primordial world which would cloud the atmosphere, and it would still take many years for this material to settle and the atmosphere to be clear (this is why it appears, from the surface, that God created the sun and moon on day four). 

     ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  So the evening and the morning were the first day.

     God made the days and nights.  Clearly, the earth was rotating at this point, enough for it to produce the “days and nights” alluded to.  The verse concludes with the statement, “evening and the morning were the first day.”  Young earth creation science proponents have long argued that this statement clearly implies that this was only one twenty-four hour period.  However, the meaning of the Hebrew word for day, yom, can be interpreted as long periods of time. 

     Young earth theorists argue that yom is never used elsewhere in the Bible to indicate a long period of time…so what?  When one looks at the scientific record, one realizes that these “days” must have been long periods of time, therefore yom must mean long periods of time when used in Genesis 1.  (for more, see Word Study: Yom.)

     Another young earth objection is this…if we are interpreting Genesis 1 from the frame of reference of a viewer on earth, then that viewer would see the setting of the sun, thus he would have viewed the days of creation as being single 24-hour days.  However, one must remember that there are no humans on earth at this point.  The first human, Adam, only saw the sunset on the sixth day, so this argument has no basis.  The viewer, on the surface of earth, for the duration of the creation days, is God Himself.

     Other passages of scripture support a day as being a long period of time.  Psalm 90:4 states, “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past.”  Indeed, it would seem like that to an eternal God.  For God, time has no meaning.  “Wow, there goes another million years!”  So what…God has millions upon millions more millions.  Why then did God not say, “During the first 13 billion years I created the heavens and the earth”?  Why did God not tell the plain truth about the true age of the universe?

     We can see at least two reasons.  First, God was giving us the general pattern of our calendar, the week.  We have specific instructions to rest on the seventh day, just as God rested after His work.  Second, Adam was introduced into a non-technological world, with no TV, calculators, nor higher mathematics.  To Adam’s simple point of view, which is easier to comprehend…seven days, or 13.7 billion years?  Adam did not need to know how long it took…he only need to understand that God was the One who created it.  Time did not matter.

     This does not mean that God lied about the age of the earth.  Since time has no meaning to an eternal being, a “day” to God could be billions of years, or even hundreds of billions of years!  If you don’t sleep, you can divide time however you want to.

     In addition to Psalm 90:4, II Peter 3:8 is even clearer in this “length of day” discussion.  It states, “…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”  Again, time has no meaning.  Since the first six days of creation are from God’s viewpoint, we cannot limit Him to six 24-hour days.

Source: Genesis 1:1-1:5

Word Study on the Hebrew Word Yom: Yom

None of this prevents the Christian from a scientific understanding of God's creative work.  He spoke and it was, like the Big Bang 14.8 billion years ago, give or take.  The chaos and turmoil on the planet Earth comes from an unspecified judgment on the land.  We know of this judgment throughout the Old Testament and New Testament.  

So we know the heavens and the earth were created in Genesis 1:1.  Why did God create an earth in turmoil?  He didn't.  The state of the Earth at this point was from a prior judgment by God.  That time period on Earth is separated from Adam's time by the remaking (recreating) of the land as detailed in Genesis 1:3 going forward.

[SavedOnebyGrace]

20 hours ago, OneLight said:

You weren't.  See below.

I suppose you are referring to me.  If God leads you to show you where my understanding of Holy Scripture is in error, I am open to correction.  But I am not open to arguments to boost someone's ego if their argument is in error.  I will not sacrifice God's truth for it may be a stumbling block for others preventing the truth that science and the Bible are in agreement.  I see YEC as akin to flat earth proponents.  God is not the penultimate scientist, He is the Ultimate Scientist and everything is held together by His will and the power of His word. 

I've been fortunate to work with a ride variety of engineers and scientists over my long engineering career.  The further I delve into the inner workings of some scientific or engineering principle, I see God.  I don't like to see someone rob God of the glory He so richly deserves.  I can't stand by and let that happen, but some people cannot stand being wrong.  I was like that once before I became a Christian.  I sometimes wonder why God loves me.  But I'm exceedingly thankful He does and has blessed me with a wonderful varied career with Christian fellowship at many of the companies I've worked at.  I won't back away from God's truth, but I'll let the Holy Spirit guide my understanding and communication of His inspired words and revealed truth.

[dprprb]

I just read jeremiah 4 in toto and I must say I cannot side with the interpretations. God is allowed to lament the creation that flops. He is deliberately unsaying the words of Gen 1 to make a point because before Him the people have sinned and are faced with His wrath. The rainbow promise prevents Him from acting further but He makes it very clear through this word CHOICE here that He is having that old feeling again.

Thats what I hear....disappointment and the inability to see a redemptive spirit in us.

[Guest shiloh357]

13 hours ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

 

Source: Genesis 1:1-1:5

Word Study on the Hebrew Word Yom: Yom

So let's look at this "study" on the Hebrew word, "yom."  Quotes from the article will be in italics.   My response will be in regular text.

The Hebrew word for “day” is the word “Yom.”  Young earth creationists have always argued that the word used for the days of creation can only mean a 24-hour day.  In this article, we will examine the uses of Yom in the Old Testament, and show that it can mean a wide variety of time periods.

Right here we have a big hermeneutic problem that sets the stage for the reset of the article.  It doesn't matter how yom is used in other parts of the Bible.   No one denies that yom is used in other parts of the Bible in  a way that describes periods of time longer than 24 hour days.    If the author wants to show that Moses meant to be understood as referring to the 6 days as long epochs of time, then it has to be shown in the text of Genesis 1.  The author of this article needs to show that there are internal textual indicators in Genesis 1 that would make long epochs of time apparent to the reader.

The author spends a long time in his study trying to refute an argument that YE creationists are not making.  There are no  YE creationists, that I am aware of in the mainstream, who  limit the use of yom in the Bible to 24 hour days.   

Even within the creation account, Yom is used to represent four different time periods. 

1. Genesis 1:5  "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night."  Here, Moses uses Yom to indicate a 12-hour period
2. Genesis 1:14  "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."  Here, Moses uses Yom to indicate 24-hour days
3. Genesis 2:4  "...in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."  Here, Moses uses Yom to indicate the entire creative week.

     The fourth usage of Yom in the creation account is in the summary for each of the six creation days, "and there was morning and evening the first day". Yom is used to represent a finite, long period of time, usually either millions or billions of years.  To show support for this, consider the uses of Yom by Moses.

This is again, something that is not dispute.  We are able to clearly differentiate other uses of "yom"  from the 24 hour days mentioned in Genesis 1 relative to the creative chronology presented.  Again, how Moses used "yom" outside of Genesis 1 isn't really all that important.  Furthermore, the author provides no evidence for his claim that yom is used in Genesis 1 to mean long epochs of time spanning millions or billions of years.    It should be pointed out that if the author wanted that to be our understanding, there are words in Hebrew, far more precise than the word "yom,"  to communicate that idea.  Ancient man was not so dumb as to not be able to conceive of long epochs of time.

  Young earth creationists say that whenever Yom is used with an ordinal or cardinal number (1st, 2nd, 1,2, etc) that it always represents a 24 hour day. 

Actually this is a misrepresentation of what we say.   We always make room for context.  Nowhere does any creationist make it a hard and fast, absolute statement that EVERY TIME a number is used in connection to yom, that it refers to a literal 24-hour day without exception.    Context is ruling and controlling factor on that, so this is a case of someone building an argument against YEC through improperly framing our arguments for a young earth.

  In Genesis 1 Moses says "and there was evening and morning the xx day".  Does the use of evening and morning indicate a sunrise and sunset for each creative day?  First, let's look at what evening and morning are not.  They are not actual evening and mornings, as this requires a sunrise and sunset.  According to young earth theory, the Sun was not created until Day Four, thus there could be no sunrise or sunset for the first three days of creation.  However, God uses the terms evening and morning for those first three days.  Therefore, they cannot be actual evenings and mornings. 

Evening to morning does not require the sun and moon.  In the first day of creation, God created light and separated the light from the darkness.  He called the light day, and the darkness he called night.   What this tells us is that the earth was already spinning on its axis and there was day and night already in operation before the sun and moon and stars were created. So, there was evening and morning and God doesn't qualify his use of those words.   He uses them in the ordinary sense that we understand them, just as he uses "yom" for the days of creation; He uses it is the ordinary sense of the word.

 

This argument says that you cannot use a word figuratively until after you have used it literally (see this Answers in Genesis article).  The author gives two examples, which appear to be correct and follow this rule.  However, is this rule valid?  I see no reason to suppose that it is.  You have to be careful with young earth claims about biblical interpretation methods.  Again, they will invent rules that support their cause, when there is no basis for their rule in Hebrew.

     In this case, it makes no difference which order the word Yom appears in, i.e. literal before figurative or vice versa.  Yes, these are the first words of the Bible, but they are not the first words of mankind.  All the time from Adam to Moses, men were speaking in their own languages, thus the literal interpretation via spoken language would already have been established.  There was no need to suppose a literal/figurative structure.

 

Actually, the hermeneutics rule that AiG appeals to, is sound.  They did not say that you cannot use a word figuratively until you use it literally.   What they said was that you cannot use a word figuratively unless it already has a literal meaning.  That is a basic rule of hermeneutics and it is perfectly sound.  No one is making up rules, but the author of this article is misrepresenting what AiG said.   The purpose of interpretation is to get at the literal meaning of the word and how it is used by the author.  

 

And it should be noted that there is no such thing as a "figurative" interpretation.   Interpretation is always literal and it doesn't matter what kind of text you are reading, whether it is the Bible, or some other secular text. There are figurative devices, but those are employed to help the reader ascertain the literal interpretation. And those figurative devices (metaphor, simile, hyperbole, etc.) are supplied by the author, not the reader.  It is up to the reader to apply sound literary analysis in regard to those devices to arrive at the meaning the author intends to convey to us.

 

When God refers to a large number, He uses picture stories, such as Abraham's descendants being as numerous as the sand.  Why does He do this?  If God had said, "You will have millions of descendants," Abraham would have asked, "What is a million?"

 

No, that is not true.  Abraham was raised in a very well educated and sophisticated culture and the idea that they  could not conceive of long periods of time like millions of years is simply not true.  

 

One must also consider that time with God has no meaning.  To Him, 10 billion years is like a day.  Thus, it is no problem for God to put billions of years into one of His days.  Dr. Hugh Ross puts it best in his determination that the frame of reference for creation is the surface of the earth.  Genesis 1:2 puts the witness of creation on the surface.  But who is witnessing these events?  It is God himself.  During the first 5.99 days of creation, God is the only one present.  Thus, human time does not matter...no humans were there to witness the passage of time.   What matters is how God sees time!  Thus, a billion year day is only a passing moment in God's eyes.

 

Yes, God is outside of time, but that doesn't really matter.  We all know that.   But God is speaking to people who are within time and we have no point of reference for living outside of time.  There is nothing within the scope of our experience that allows us to fully conceive of timelessness as it applies to God.   So for God to speak to us outside of our context, and our frame of reference would be pointless.

 

God is speaking to us and communicating to us and God doesn't make mistakes when doing so.   He is able to communicate to us correctly in terms we can understand.   When God said in Exodus 20 that he created the heavens and earth in 6 days, there is no indication that the usage of yom in that context means anything else other than literal 24 hour days.   If God created the earth, in long epochs of time spanning billions of years, then God isn't telling the whole truth and that is an obvious theological problem for us.

 

The creation account is written in such a manner for all people to understand it.  The issue is not how long creation took...the issue is that God did it, and that's all that matters in the end.

 

It absolutely does matter.   Nothing God says is unimportant.   It matters because it goes to the authority of His Word.  Either we can trust what we read, or we can' trust it at all.  God says in more than one place that He created the earth in 6 days.  He doesn't qualify that claim, He doesn't clarify what days mean.   He uses the word "day" in the ordinary sense in relation to the days of creation and expects us to understand what He meant.  If we cannot trust what we read in Genesis 1,  how can we trust Him in other parts of the Bible?

 

 

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None of this prevents the Christian from a scientific understanding of God's creative work.  He spoke and it was, like the Big Bang 14.8 billion years ago, give or take.  The chaos and turmoil on the planet Earth comes from an unspecified judgment on the land.  We know of this judgment throughout the Old Testament and New Testament.  

So we know the heavens and the earth were created in Genesis 1:1.  Why did God create an earth in turmoil?  He didn't.  The state of the Earth at this point was from a prior judgment by God.  That time period on Earth is separated from Adam's time by the remaking (recreating) of the land as detailed in Genesis 1:3 going forward.

 

So that others are not misled by this false teaching, it is important to note that God did not create the heavens and earth in Genesis 1:1.  As I have demonstrated earlier, from the Hebrew, Genesis 1:1  is simply a synopsis of the information to follow.  Genesis 1:1 is not a creative event.  The creative event starts in Genesis 1:2 and carries on to the end of the story in Genesis 2:3. 

The Hebrew disconnects Genesis 1:1 from 1:2 making it impossible for what we see in 1:2 to be the product of some kind of judgment from God.   There is no prior earth and if there were, there would be multitudinous evidence to that end in the Scripture.  All of the available evidence points away from viewing Gen. 1:2 as being the result of a judgment from God on a prior earth.

The notion that there was prior judgment from God, contradicts Romans 5: 12-21 which states that it was Adam who bought sin and death upon the earth.   It also violates God's redemptive nature that in judged a prior earth without the possibility of redemption. 

 

[Guest]

Testing data of the Earth's core proves the yom definition of an undefined period of time in 6 epochs according to Dr. Hugh Ross. 

[Guest shiloh357]

34 minutes ago, Allroses48 said:

Testing data of the Earth's core proves the yom definition of an undefined period of time in 6 epochs according to Dr. Hugh Ross. 

There is no definition of yom of an undefined period of long epochs.  That is being imposed on the word.  Do we judge the Bible by science or do we judge science by the Word of God?    Which is our final authority?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, shiloh357 said:

There is no definition of yom of an undefined period of long epochs.  That is being imposed on the word.  Do we judge the Bible by science or do we judge science by the Word of God?    Which is our final authority?

Yes that is one of the Hebrew definitions of yom- an undefined period of time. The science and the Bible are in agreement on an old earth. 

[Guest shiloh357]

Just now, Allroses48 said:

Yes that is one of the Hebrew definitions of yom- an undefined period of time. The science and the Bible are in agreement on an old earth. 

I read Hebrew and that is not one of the definitions.   It can be applied that way depending on the context.   And one of the reasons that Evolutionists reject Genesis 1 is expressly because they correctly identify it as a speaking to a young earth. 

There is nothing in the Bible that supports an old earth if one is truly honest with the text. Science and the Bible don't agree on that point. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

I read Hebrew and that is not one of the definitions.   It can be applied that way depending on the context.   And one of the reasons that Evolutionists reject Genesis 1 is expressly because they correctly identify it as a speaking to a young earth. 

There is nothing in the Bible that supports an old earth if one is truly honest with the text. Science and the Bible don't agree on that point. 

 

The Bible talks about how God speaks through nature. 

One of the definitions is an undefined period of time: H3117 םוי yôm yome From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figuratively (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverbially): - age, + always, + chronicles, continually (-ance), daily, ([ birth-], each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever (- lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (. . . live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+ age), (full) year (-ly), + younger. H3118 םוי yôm yome (Chaldee); corresponding to H3117; a day: - day (by day), time.

 

Here is a thorough word study of Yom: http://www.oldearth.org/word_study_yom.htm