How Old is the Earth?
 

Dr. Al Mohler's argues for a young earth theologically. :grampa

http://www.christianity.com/ligonier/?speaker=mohler2

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

How old is the earth?

I don't think anybody knows.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

A slightly sarcastic commentary:

TJ,
First let me thank you for sending me that BioLogos link, in which they took Al Mohler to task for his views on creation. Thanks as well for your amusing comments, ribbing me for advocating a 6-day, Day-day, understanding of the Genesis 1 text. You're always so kind in sending me links to news stories about science, life, the universe and everything.

I answered a lot of questions for you yesterday, my responses to the BioLogos queries to Dr. Mohler. I actually came up with a few questions for you, if you don't mind.

Now, you are in fact quite theologically conservative, a PCA elder in fact. Not only so, but you teach elder candidates. You are a Biblical inerrantist and also hold firmly to the Westminster Confession of Faith, with very few reservations. Lets leave aside IV.1. for the moment.

You believe that Jesus Christ was born from mother who was a virgin. Born male, of course. So it is not a case of human parthenogenesis. I can look up some links for you, if you want, but I think I am not overstepping my knowledge to point out that this is biologically impossible.

You fully accept the account that Jesus walked on water (and Peter for a moment). Perhaps we can explore the physics involved here. Studies have shown that human bodies have a tendency to pass through the surface tension of a body of water, though there is a variable amount of buoyancy to them. Empirical evidence suggests that both you and I enjoy a relatively high degree of buoyancy, owing to the generous lipid content of our body habitus.

You affirm that Jesus transformed a quantity of water into wine. I take it that where there was previously only H20 and some mineral solutes, after Jesus effected His change, the batch now included fructose, alcohol, and various tannins, among others. I seem to recall a little ditty we learned in school known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, which assures us matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Have we got ourselves a clash with science here?

Now Jesus also raised a number of people from the dead, including one man who had been dead for three days, with olfactory evidence of significant tissue breakdown. Medically speaking, this sort of thing just doesn't happen, can't happen. You (and I too) turn a deaf ear to science at this point, and maintain that whether or not it could happen, it did happen. And if science doesn't like it, too bad.

Jesus Himself rose from the dead. You would never dream of suggesting otherwise. I wonder if you would mind giving me your scientific understanding of this event. You know, we even have an account of a "science vs. faith" clash recorded in the Bible, on this very subject. I Cor. 15:12-13

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

You know, scientifically speaking, those guys had a point. Once dead, always dead, would be a succinct way of putting the scientific view of the matter. Oh, a couple of minutes on table, and the paddles can get a heart beating again, sure. But Jesus went at least from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning in a state of deadness, and then all of a sudden, He was alive again.
In fact, you believe the same thing is going to happen to you, only you possibly will have been dead hundreds or thousands of years. After this, you fully expect to continue alive indefinitely, with a body impervious to pain or disease or aging, a life never to come to an end. What would you suppose is the scientific view on the possiblity of this happening?
In fact the whole cosmos is due to be entirely re-created, is it not. You affirm this. Given your views about what did or did not happen in the original creation, informed by the pronouncements of science, how would you suppose that this re-creation of the heavens and the earth are likely to concord with science?

Well, my point is, you believe a great many things that science, observation of the phenomena of the cosmos, tells us did not happen, could not happen, will not happen. Yet when I suggest that taking the language of Genesis 1, in regard to the seven-day time references, as a reliable report on its face, you ridicule my suggestion as being risible, clearly not to be believed, in light of what science tells us.

Is it possible you are being a tad selective in your objections? Am I not somewhat justified in complaining of a double standard? Is there something about the creation account being long ago, and less central to the essentials of the faith, that allows us to treat it differently than all the other matters I've cited?
Just wondering.

http://theologica.ning.com/profiles/...er-to-tj-about

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Sorry, Sam.

It should say "Why does the Universe look so old?"

You'll find the answer given in the 62nd minute..."the universe looks old, because the Creator made it whole."

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

What exactly does that mean?

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

The earth is far, far more than 6,000 years old. A study of the geology of the earth makes that clear and it calls back to the days (which I have known) of preachers saying there was no such thing as dinosaurs to say otherwise.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

there is no way to ever know how old it really is .. no man can say this is 1,000,000 years old ,, what guy lived that long to know how it will look in that time span? what devise could we definitly say can measure it since noone has or can live that long to prove that it can? lol.

in the beginning god created heaven and the earth, earth was without form and void,, we dont know, how long god left it like that till. he started saying let there be......

what does it really matter anyhow? doesnt change salvation ,make god biger or lesser by being older or younger ,,,only way i know i am 51 years old is my mom has a paper that says i was born on such a date ,,

the earth is pretty old ,alot older than me lol. between god makeing a world and forming it and putting things on it , heck he might have went and built a few more somewhere else ....inbetween that ..who knows ,,,

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

There definitely isn't a clock or a calender somewhere we can consult but things such as the Hawaiian Island chain shed some light on it. I'm not just speaking of the visible islands. I am speaking of the entire 3700 mile stretch of undersea mountains. They were all formed from the same magma plume. As the volcanic activity spews out hot lava it cools and gets higher and higher forming islands. Then over time the islands erode back down beneath the sea surface.

This chain is formed by the gradual movement of the Pacific tectonic plate. This 3700 mile stretch of islands & undersea mountains would have taken millions of years to form.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

I can't view the video's on this computer, but I'm sure he brings up Genesis 1:2. The Hebrew word for was, could also be translated became, thus the verse would read, "And the earth became without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

I heard Bro. Booker teach this a long time ago.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Define "the earth."

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Sorry Digging

But what man thinks must take billions of years to happen God can bring to pass is just hours or days. Check out Mount Saint Helens in Washington state. What scientist say must take millions of years to happened, happened in one year.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

The universe looks old, from our perpective, because it is old. But it may have aged differently earlier on because of the conditions were different. Different speeds, different temperatures, etc. etc.

A good source on this is a book by Gerald Schroeder, Ph.D., "Genesis and the Big Bang". We should not be ignorant, God is much greater than our experience, and short history.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Middle Earth?

ouden

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

I'm not sure why a God who is not the author of confusion would do what you speak of... But could you please explain what you are speaking of please.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

lol

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Where is Pel, when we need him?? LOL

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Below are notes from the Scofield Bible on the first few verses of Genesis chapter one. If you don't have a Scofield Bible, the notes can be accessed online at
http://www.biblestudytools.com/comme...ference-notes/

Chapter 1

1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

without form and void

Jeremiah 4:23-27 ; Isaiah 24:1 ; 45:18 clearly indicate that the earth had undergone a cataclysmic change as the result of divine judgment. The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe. There are not wanting imitations which connect it with a previous testing and fall of angels.

See Ezekiel 28:12-15 ; Isaiah 14:9-14 which certainly go beyond the kings of Tyre and Babylon.

1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Let there be light

Neither here nor in verses 14-18 is an original creative act implied. A different word is used. The sense is, made to appear; made visible. The sun and moon were created "in the beginning." The "light" of course came from the sun, but the vapour diffused the light. Later the sun appeared in an unclouded sky.

1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

day

The word "day" is used in Scripture in three ways:

(1) that part of the solar day of twenty-four hours which is light Genesis 1:5 Genesis 1:14 ; John 9:4 ; 11:9 .

(2) such a day, set apart for some distinctive purpose, as, "day of atonement" ( Leviticus 23:27 ); "day of judgment" Matthew 10:15 .

(3) a period of time, long or short, during which certain revealed purposes of God are to be accomplished, as "day of the Lord."

evening

The use of "evening" and "morning" may be held to limit "day" to the solar day; but the frequent parabolic use of natural phenomena may warrant the conclusion that each creative "day" was a period of time marked off by a beginning and ending.

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.

firmament Lit. expanse (i.e. of waters beneath, of vapour above).

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

firmament i.e. the expanse above, the "heaven" of the clouds. Genesis 7:11 ; 8:2 .

1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

bring forth grass

It is by no means necessary to suppose that the life-germ of seeds perished in the catastrophic judgment which overthrew the primitive order. With the restoration of dry land and light the earth would "bring forth" as described. It was "animal" life which perished, the traces of which remain as fossils. Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

That all sounds very interesting. I'll have to watch the video later on.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Was Jesus confusing folks when he made water into wine and gave it a flavor that would normally take time to age?

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

He's playing detective/legal beagle.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

That was a miracle performed in front of other people. A miracle is a known deviation from natural order.

What would that have to do with God creating a world 6000 years ago (or whenever) and then purposely making all of that creation to resemble millions of years per known and observed natural law?

That's apples & butterflies.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Jesus turned normal rocks into dinosaur rocks so we would have faith that the earth is 6,000 years old. >_>

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

(God can turn an apple into a butterfly)

:)

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So we would have to have faith. :) Yep... what a theory.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

He can... But it doesn't occur naturally. Anything done by God outside normal natural processes is a miracle and a known deviation from natural order. Each incident is a singular known act of God and, therefore, brings no confusion.

To create a world that mimics a natural process that prudent observation tells us would take millions of years is purposeful deceit and confusion.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Therefore the devil made dinosaur rocks :-O

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

I don't buy the "God antiqued the planet to confuse the inhabitants" bit either.

It isn't a lack of faith to believe that God set the universe in motion by bringing forth a singularity 13.7 billion years ago, He designed the machine in the beginning, determined the laws by which it would function and behold, the machine still works.

There is just too much evidence for an old earth, and practically none for a young earth that can really be taken seriously.

It isn't lack of faith to examine the evidence.

The bottom line is that "God created the heavens and the earth." The account of creation in Genesis is no less factual or relevent if it is an allegorical representation of events rather than a direct record of events.

Considering the original audience to whom the book was written: absolutely nothing in their psyche could handle concepts such as 13 billion years, stars being other suns, the vastness and scope of creation.

The truth of creation was presented to them in a fashion they could understand and receive.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

:)

Nope. Natural processes made dinosaur rocks... from dinosaurs... oddly enough. :)

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Agreed... on so many levels.

On the bolded portion. I certainly don't discount what you are stating here but I believe, too, that much of the battle is not with the word but with what we require that word to mean per our own interpretations.

Life gets easier when I find myself able to set down all my preconceptions and let God's word speak to me without interruptions from me correcting God on what he really meant.

Again...great post. Thanks.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

But seriously,

We know by observation of solid facts that the universe as we know it, and the planet on which we reside, are both much older than 6,000 years. These facts are more than iffy hypotheses, or error-prone calculations on carbon decay. Cramming the age of the universe into 6,000 years requires adherence to pseudoscience and violations of standards of plain and decent horse sense that young earth creationists vehemently appeal to in their own attempts to strike down the beliefs of others.

But frankly, this has very little to do with the Bible. Usages of the word "earth" in the KJV and other English translations of Scripture are not only completely different from today's global definition of the word, but are not even consistent with Hebrew terminology. In the Bible, we've used the word "earth" to translate more than one word, and a number of concepts...and that's on the side of concrete literalism.

Furthermore, Genesis 1 does not place the Earth at the beginning of all existence (that's not even in the scope or realm of thought for the work), neither does Genesis 3 place Adam at the beginning of all people. These are assumptions that we have made from our English words, and then we've tried to squeeze them into the Scripture with gap theories and more assumptions.

A dogmatic slogan of young earth creationism is the question of whether or not we are going to believe the Bible, or our own observations. My question for young earth creationists is whether they are going to believe the Bible, or their own sacred cows born and nurtured from anachronistic derivations of tiny fragments of Scripture.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

I had a pastor who said that the wine in John chapter 2 was non-alcoholic because it is called "water wine" in John 4:46 where it says in the KJV "So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee,
where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

not sure what you mean by that?
could you explain it a little?

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Oh groan.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

That is where he does a huge amount of damage to the scriptures to make them fit what he thinks nature is saying. The Word of God cannot be trusted.


Ge 3:20 - And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Matt 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

What does "at the beginning" mean to you Sneek?

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Clearly, Adam was the first of those considered "Adam" in Hebrew, which we often equate as "humanity." This coincides with the English "man," which is also named after the Germanic ancestor.

What we refuse to examine is why Cain, the first child of Adam and thus by our estimation the 2nd man in existence, was afraid for his life.

Gen 4:14 “See, You have driven me from the face of the ground [adamah] today, and I am hidden from Your face. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and it shall be that anyone who finds me kills me.”

The Scripture clearly indicates that Seth was the 3rd son of Adam, ultimately his firstborn, and that he was not born until Abel was dead, thus his name (he was called "Seth," meaning "sat down," as God had "sat down" another son in the place of Abel). At the time of Cain's punishment, if there were only 2 men on the face of the planet, why was Cain afraid of many men? Why was he not only afraid of Adam, and not "anyone?" Cain and Adam were simply not alone.

We interpret the Bible in the fashion that we wish, and that with English terminologies that convey the original meanings only in part. We read the English word "create" and assume that it is describing the act of making something out of nothing, when the Scripture makes no claim of the sort. We read the word "man" and assume that it applies to all of what we call "humanity." We read "earth" and assume that it is referencing a planet, when the Scripture makes no reference to a planet at all, and cares very little for physics, since physics has nothing to do with its scope.

Instead of making excuses for the Bible, we should read it for what it says in its original context. The Bible isn't about how the universe by the hand of God came to be, or how or if it will end. That is irrelevant to its message. The Bible is about how we can reach Him. It's about why we should reach Him. It's about the consequences of reaching Him, and walking away. It's about the covenant. Period.

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Excellent thoughts.

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The Bible says that the beasts of the field are alive. In fact, the word translated "beast" in that context literally means "a life."

Did Eve also give birth to the beasts of the field, or are you damaging the scripture to make them fit what you think nature is saying?

Re: How Old is the Earth?
 

Bereshith, which is the first word written in the Bible and the word Jesus would have used here as Jesus was a Galilean--a speaker of Hebrew. Josephus, also a Galilean, testifies to this fact.

Bereshith in this application indeed might best be translated "at first." In the strictest sense, "At the head," or "At the summit." A variation of "resh," literally "the head," Bereshith is used throughout the OT denoting the first born, the first fruits, captains, mountain summits, the beginning. "At the beginning" is not a poor translation. What we have done with this translation, however, is not true to Scripture.

The assumption that "the beginning" means "the beginning of all matter" is not just the injection of a western abstract into a culture which doesn't care to examine it, but it is a direct defiance of how Genesis explains the first statement of the Bible. The beginning is not the beginning of all time. The beginning is the beginning of the heavens and the earth. What are the heavens and the earth?

Tell me, why does Jeremiah suddenly change subjects here?

Jer 4
14 O Yerushalayim, wash your heart from evil, and be saved. Till when would your wicked thoughts remain within you?

15 For a voice is declaring from Dan, and is proclaiming trouble from Mount Ephrayim:

16 “Announce to the nations, look, proclaim against Yerushalayim, that besiegers are coming from a distant land and raise their voice against the cities of Yehuḏah.

17 “Like keepers of a field they are against her all around, because she has rebelled against Me,” declares YHWH.

18 “Your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you. This is your evil, because it is bitter, because it has reached into your heart.”

19 O my inward parts, my inward parts! I am in pain! O the walls of my heart! My heart pounds in me, I am not silent. For you have heard, O my being, the sound of the ram’s horn, a shout of battle!

20 Destruction upon destruction is cried, for all the land is ravaged.
Suddenly my tents are ravaged – my curtains in a moment.

21 How long shall I see a banner, and hear the sound of the ram’s horn?

22 “For My people are foolish, they have not known Me. They are stupid children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”

23 I looked at the earth, and saw it was formless and empty. And the heavens, they had no light.

24 I looked at the mountains, and saw they shook, and all the hills were swaying.

25 I looked, and saw there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled.

26 I looked, and saw the garden land was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of YHWH, by His burning displeasure.

27 For thus said YHWH, “All the earth shall be a ruin, but I shall not make a complete end.


Why would Jeremiah lament the wickedness of Israel, then suddenly jump in midstream to a rehashing of how the planet was formed, only to suddenly jump back to the destruction pending Jerusalem's departure from the covenant? Was Jeremiah schizophrenic?