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NASB | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim) created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth. [Heb 11:3] |
Subject: How old is the earth scripturally? |
Bible Note: Dear Phillip, I definitely say "Amen" to the glories of God being far beyond our ways and to the wonders of His love in sending Jesus to die for us. I do look forward to seeing you in heaven, when the final truth on all of these issues regarding interpretation of His Word will be made clear by His Presence. Halleluia! Meanwhile, in working with these issues, may I humbly suggest that you consider distinguishing between sciences and pseudo sciences? Evolution, particularly theories of human evolution, derives from extrapolation far beyond what the "evidence" of fossils suggests. Distances between stars are measurable - you don't have to "time" the light from one star to another - we can measure how fast light travels and we can calculate the distance to stars geometrically. Also, in the same way, while we both have serious objections to evolution, there is no reason for us to object to the scientific work of the average zoologist who spends his time making lists of animals, and categorizing and describing them. The original basis of the zoological effort was the statement in Genesis that they were made "after their own kinds". From reading the Bible, zoologists decided to try to categorize the animals according to these kinds. They have been quite successful, although we might object to a few of their choices. The result is you don't have to count the animals yourself, you can look up estimates of the number of animals in the published works of these zoologists. You can then examine the categories and drop out any that you feel aren't included in Adam's effort to name "all the animals" - for example, it might be reasonable to propose that despite the word "all" that the text is not intended to include naming all of the bacteria, etc. I would caution you about the line of reasoning that would say that since Adam was fully formed when he was made that God might have had the light from distant stars already arriving at earth when He made those stars. Some people have proposed this, but this idea has a significant problem. Adam being fully formed with an "appearance of age" as an adult is not deceptive because there was no one else there to be deceived by it. It was only Adam and God and God could explain it to Adam. Light already arriving from far distant stars would remain as a false evidence about the age of those stars for all generations following - it would make God's creation inherently deceptive. Neither of us would dare call God a deceiver. Old age creationists believe all of God's Word - including Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 records that God made the world in six days - old earth creationists agree with that also - it is revealed in Scripture. However, old earth creationists find that a number of unusual features of the text indicate that God did not intend for us to see these six days as being the same sort of days as the 24 hour calendar days we are familiar with today. Instead these are six periods of time, called days, but with a length which is not revealed. Before you complain that the word day means day and nothing else, let me point out two more things from the account. (1) In Genesis 2:4 the word "day" is used to collectively refer to the six days of Genesis 1 (See NAS). A big problem if these are calendar days, no problem if "day" in this context only means a length of time. (2) In Genesis 2:8 we are told that "the Lord God planted a garden toward the east". Use of the word "planted" instead of "created" implies that the garden needed time to grow. If the sixth day is "long" this is no problem, but if it is a 24 hour day then the garden grows quite unnaturally fast. With that, let's let it rest for now. We can simply agree to disagree on this issue and rejoice in our salvation in Christ and in the knowledge that one day, He will explain all of the mysteries to us. God bless you! In Jesus' love, DaninJapan |