Principal Uncertainty said:

---

The problem with the day-age theory is not that the Hebrew yom can't mean a longer time such as an "age" ( much like the English word "day"), but that these Yom are described as having an evening and a morning. That fixes it to an earthly solar day. Nowhere in all of Jewish literature has an evening and a morning period ever been used for a greater time period either in actuality or symbolically. So, you have to look for another theory to reconcile the Genesis account with a scientific old-earth.

---

dermdoc said:

---

94chem said:

---

Yom is such a made up problem. It's the perfect word in the literary context of the passage. Some seminary professors have done their students a disservice by arming them with this, as if it were some unassailable proof of a young earth.

---

Agree. But never get in an argument with a young earth person. It is a waste of time.

---

dermdoc said:

---

I know it's AI but if you google "Did the church fathers believe in a literal 7 day creation" there is wide spectrum of thoughts. Just like there is today. I did not do individual articles as most are based on the viewpoint of different Christian groups I.e. Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, etc. I had to read several articles to get an overview.

---

BenFiasco14 said:

---

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 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."
Genesis 1:1-2 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/gen.1.1-2.KJV

Currently working through a book with my pastor - Hard Sayings by RC Sproul. The first two chapters are about creation and whether or not it was six 24 hour periods or perhaps millions or even billions of years.

I told my pastor frankly I believe evolution and the scientific concepts that shape our world today are glimpses at "God's paintbrush" and I'm a believer that the 6 "days" were not 24 hour days.

I was shocked to learn that I'm one of a handful of folks at my church that believe in this so called "old earth" theory.

I post this purely out of curiosity and desire to know more. If there are any here who believe the earth is only 6000 years old, I'd like to learn why - not out of a place to retort - but as a place to learn.

Perhaps yall see ME as the weird one even asking about this. But I'm a reformed Christian. I think the dinosaurs, great extinction events, etc., all happened prior to God ordaining man.

Am I wrong? If so please tell me why!

---

fredfredunderscorefred said:

---

I'm a little in the 'sin of certainty' mindset. Considering oral history being passed down and then written down, then language translations, the books in the Bible being written and selected and translated by fallible man. Whether it is 'young' or 'old,' has no bearing on my belief that a guy name Jesus walked this earth and rose from the dead, and this one person's existence and then resurrection is literally what we base on our calendar on now. Science I think ends up at 'intelligent design' now. I think that designer was God. Science and the Bible are not dichotomous, but I think science could actually explain a lot we see written about in those ancient writings (similar to the video above about the Big Bang).

I do find it interesting that the half-life used for for carbon dating is close to the approximate young-earth age when considering the appearance of age (e.g, if a 'full grown' tree is all of a sudden put on the earth, is it 1 day old or a century old; same for mountains, valleys, etc). Carbon dating is 'accurate' to the approximate age of the young earth and then goes bonkers after that requiring assumptions upon assumptions. And the half-life has 'changed' if I recall (albeit not by much in the short time we have known about it) - would be interesting what the half-life is in 1000 more years.

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

Interesting post and I will say I have never thought of it that way as regarding the genealogies.
But then you have all the scientific data which definitely leans towards an old earth.
I honestly do not know.

---

Principal Uncertainty said:

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

Interesting post and I will say I have never thought of it that way as regarding the genealogies.
But then you have all the scientific data which definitely leans towards an old earth.
I honestly do not know.

---

The genealogies are very precise from Adam to Abraham and show Abraham born 1948 years (interesting date, BTW) after Adam. From there, you get the approximate 400 years in Egypt, 40 years in wilderness and approximate 400 years of the Judges until you get to the Kings where we can cross-reference the mention of other kingdoms we have archeological evidence to provide dates. This shows King David was about 1000BC. The math backs up from there to Adam about 3000 years prior. That's how people arrive at the 6000 year old earth from the 6th day of creation with Adam until now. The math for that is relatively precise and known; hence the angst over a 4 billion year old Earth and hundreds of thousands of years for modern humans in science.

---

PacifistAg said:

---

I have never really understood why people take hard lines, either way, on this question. I was raised in a world where believing in an old earth meant you couldn't be a Christian. It just never made sense. The age of the earth isn't the point of the story.

So, I just don't debate this topic anymore. This argument seems as though it could fall under Titus 3:9.

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

Interesting post and I will say I have never thought of it that way as regarding the genealogies.
But then you have all the scientific data which definitely leans towards an old earth.
I honestly do not know.

---

AGC said:

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

Interesting post and I will say I have never thought of it that way as regarding the genealogies.
But then you have all the scientific data which definitely leans towards an old earth.
I honestly do not know.

---

That's an ok theory, until you start evaluating the other genealogies present in the Bible and they don't align (look at Christ's for example). Is it because they're wrong, they made a mistake, or they're emphasizing certain people (or even numbers, like seven sevens)?

Or what about the idea that it is 'death' coming after such long life, to emphasize the inescapability of the fall, rather than how long one lived? In this manner, the emphasis is on the wrong side of the equation!

Reading them as simple mathematical formulas isn't a great solution when the book wasn't written to answer that question.

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

AGC said:

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

No one has mentioned the genealogies yet. Approximately 6,000 years get us back to Adam. Don't think it took more than an actual day to create him. But then when did day 7 start? Are we in day 7 now? If day 6 was just one day, how long were the other days of creation? Are we thinking we had day 1, then millions of years before day 2? Did plants exist millions of years before animals? And then animals another millions before humans? What about before plants? The earth just sitting around twiddling its thumbs for billions of years? If the whole purpose in creation was the gospel, what was the purpose in waiting billions of years to create Adam?Was each day equal or were they different periods of time? If it didn't matter and was all arbitrary, why even mention "days" of creation in the first place? Why not just say God created this, and this, and then this?

It's personally easier for me to read Genesis plainly as the historical book it is. If we can't read creation plainly, what happens to the rest of the book?

---

Interesting post and I will say I have never thought of it that way as regarding the genealogies.
But then you have all the scientific data which definitely leans towards an old earth.
I honestly do not know.

---

That's an ok theory, until you start evaluating the other genealogies present in the Bible and they don't align (look at Christ's for example). Is it because they're wrong, they made a mistake, or they're emphasizing certain people (or even numbers, like seven sevens)?

Or what about the idea that it is 'death' coming after such long life, to emphasize the inescapability of the fall, rather than how long one lived? In this manner, the emphasis is on the wrong side of the equation!

Reading them as simple mathematical formulas isn't a great solution when the book wasn't written to answer that question.

---

Different purposes for the listed genealogies. Also, different wording in how they were recorded. I've seen no strong evidence to support not taking the Genesis genealogies exactly as written.

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

I'm not sure. I know I grew up hearing the earth was millions of years old from going to school. Then one day I decided to read the Bible for learning and understanding and went "Wait a second…"

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

I'm not sure. I know I grew up hearing the earth was millions of years old from going to school. Then one day I decided to read the Bible for learning and understanding and went "Wait a second…"

---

dermdoc said:

---

Howdy, it is me! said:

---

I'm not sure. I know I grew up hearing the earth was millions of years old from going to school. Then one day I decided to read the Bible for learning and understanding and went "Wait a second…"

---

So my problem is with the science. Do you believe it is all false? Hard for me to do.
And I also wonder what the scientists' motives would be. It is.nut like Covid our other diseases where there are vast amounts ought money to be made off of vaccines and treatments.
Or even global warming where there are political motives. I do not get it.

---