Age of the Earth and all that

[Spiritsword]

Since someone has already breached the science/Christianity topic, I thought I'd ask a couple of related questions that have really given me trouble in my faith. I've heard some really great answers regarding faith questions so far here at CAA, so I'm hoping that people here can help me in some of my areas of greatest trouble.

At this point I've almost given up on some of these topics, simply accepting that I may never find the answers here on Earth, and simply putting all my faith in God that I've got the important parts down (I'm saved by the blood of Jesus Christ) and that I'll know the answers when I get to Heaven. But that's tough for me because I've been given such an analytical, questioning, inquisitive mind. And God has never steered me away from questioning certain parts of the Bible, because I know there's only one destination to reach on those intellectual journies: Truth. So please help if you can, but if not I'll just continue to go forward in my faith.

The parts of the Bible I have the most trouble accepting verbatim are the beginning parts of Genesis. One of my biggest questions is this: How old is the earth/universe?

I've heard that if you go by Genesis, the earth and all creation can't be more than 10-11 thousand years old. I'm not proposing that the universe has to be 16 billion years old or whatever, but it just seems impossible that the earth and all creation is only 10-11 thousand years old. There are so many questions this would bring up if it were true:

How did all the creatures we have fossil records of live, die, reproduce and have time to be compacted into fossils in that amount of time?
How could all those creatures have coexisted in their respective ecosystems?
How could so many have perished? In the flood? I thought God saved two of every animal. After the flood? We'd have more records of them. (And how did all the animals/dinosaurs/whatever fit on the ark, which we know was 450X75X45 feet?)
How could all the geological features of the earth, including layers of rock, have formed?
How could the light of stars well over 10-11 thousand light years away already have reached earth?
How could man have populated all corners of the globe so quickly?
I could go on and on. It seems that every piece of evidence except the interpretation many people have of Genesis points to a much older earth, and simply knowing the earth is much older than 10-11 thousand years old would help me to reconcile so many of these other pieces of evidence with a God-based theory of creation. Please help!

Oh, and perhaps I shouldn't even bring this up, it could be a whole other topic, but while looking back through Genesis I noticed this verse:
Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

I've always wondered what that verse refers to. Who are the Nephilim, and what is this about sons of God and daughters of men, like they have two different origins?

Whew! That was a book! I hope someone is willing to tackle this one because it could potentially help me out in my faith. Thanks!

Spiritsword

[Rashiir]

I think the first thing to do when tackling Genesis (or any Biblical passage, for that matter) is to try and determine the main purpose and message of the passage. Count the number of times the word "God" is used in the first chapter. 30 times. In 31 verses. I think that it is obvious that the main point of the passage is that God did it.

How He did it used to matter to me, but it really doesn't anymore. I don't think Genesis was meant to be a literal, meticulously thorough, scientific account of how God did it. But there are definitely problems with evolution too. I think that science is still a long way away from figuring out just how God did what He did. I think to give a thorough account would have required hundreds of pages by itself and would have detracted from the essence of the message, which is that God (not chance and not anything else) created the heavens and the earth.

[inkhana]

I know I'm just throwing fuel on the fire of questions, but here's this: if the universe were billions and billions of years old, wouldn't the laws of entropy and the gradual winding down of the universe (both proven facts) already have caught up with it?

[uc pseudonym]

I find myself generally caught between sides on this issue, because I don't really agree with either extreme (young earth/ancient earth). In my mind, there are problems with both that I believe are serious enough to cast significant doubt on the entire issue.

I agree with Rashiir in a big way regarding the passage in general.

I'm really not going to try to answer these questions, not tonight. But I do have a few light things to point out.

First off, we aren't really sure about the ark's measurements. We really don't know how long a cubit is, we can just estimate. Secondly on this issue, I should point out that the dimensions listed are pretty big. Also, we have to keep in mind micro-evolution (nobody get mad about that). There are many types of dog, all of which are the same species, and are now merely specialized. You could have had only two dogs and covered a lot of ground.

Also, one key thing that's easy to forget about Genesis. Stuff happens before the beginning of day one. Even if you insist that each day is a linear day, we have unknown time before this. In fact, the Bible begins after God is already working, because he goes down to the formless waters (depending on translation). So he's already had something in the works. What's to say we didn't have thousands of years of formless waters? It isn't like God is on any sort of time table...

In regard to the Nephilim... I'm just not going to go there.

[Spiritsword]

Originally posted by Rashiir:
God did it

Yes, I totally agree. It's just the specifics that I have trouble with.
And just for the record, I'm NOT arguing evolution. I believe God created the universe and everything in it, including humankind. I just have trouble with the way Genesis portrays some aspects, especially the timeline, of that creation.

I'm not up on physics enough to answer your question, inkhana. I'll leave that to someone else. I will also add that I'm not necessarily even wondering about billions of years when I talk about the age of the universe. Even mere MILLIONS would make more sense than 10,000.

Spiritsword

[Technomancer]

With regards to the second law:
Yes, assuming there is no "big crunch" the universe is heading towards heat death as far as the second law of thermodynamics is concerned. However, the existence of entropy does not do anything to discredit a universe that is ~16 billion years old. What matters is the amount of energy that is in a useful form in the system's initial state. In the case of the universe, this depends on the amount of hydrogen available, and its distribution.

[uc pseudonym]

Technomancer is right, but the real part of that theory is that if the sun continued using energy at its current rate, we can count backward and figure out how big the sun should have been at any given time. Given billions of years, it would have eclipsed Earth and everything, a condition not conducive to forming life. I haven't really checked up on this bit.

[Rashiir]

There are books that answer questions like this...although I haven't really looked into it very much myself. Shouldn't be hard to find the right ones, though. I bet the folks here could recommend a couple.

[Technomancer]

With regards to solar shrinkage, this link may prove helpful:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-solar.html

As for books, I mentioned a few in the "Jesus, Dinosaurs, etc" thread that are worth reading. The talkorigins site also presents some excellent summaries.

[MasterDias]

:?:
Oh, and perhaps I shouldn't even bring this up, it could be a whole other topic, but while looking back through Genesis I noticed this verse:
Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

I've always wondered what that verse refers to. Who are the Nephilim, and what is this about sons of God and daughters of men, like they have two different origins?

Whew! That was a book! I hope someone is willing to tackle this one because it could potentially help me out in my faith. Thanks!

Spiritsword

From a strictly neutral standpoint, I'll attempt to explain this.
There have been two main theories proposed as to the identity of the Nephilim. I'll explain both.

1. Some have proposed that the "Sons of God" actually refered to fallen angels since it translated to "angels" when used everywhere else in the Bible. In this case it was proposed that "angels" lusted for human women and joined Satan in the rebellion because of it. If that were true than the Nephilim would have been the children of humans and fallen angels. Of course that theory has some major holes in it. The main one was that it contradicted something else in the Bible that explicitly stated that all angels lack gender and don't marry or have sex. Thus, it would have been impossible for angels to have lusted for anyone at all.

2. The 2nd theory proposed was that the "Sons of God" refered to the family line of Adam's son Seth while the "Daughter's of Men" refered to the family line of Adam's other more rebellious son Cain. The people who are for this theory have proposed that the two lines inter-married and that Cain's line supposedly "corrupted" Seth's line and the Nephilim were born. This theory also has some holes in it. For one, by the time of the flood, all people except Noah's family were evil, Seth's line included. Seth's line became evil anyway with or without Cain's line's influence. Secondly, everywhere else in the Bible "Sons of God" always refers to angels. This theory doesn't really stand up very well either.

So, there you have it. Two theories. Both of which have huge holes in them.

[kingoleer]

I've always understood the Nephilim to be the giants of the land. We know that the angels in heaven don't marry or have sex for there is no need, but does that mean that the fallen angels wouldn't have thought to do this?

I'm not trying to start a debate here, I'm just trying to pose a different view of the whole thing. Keep in mind that the fallen angels were evil and would not have stayed with what they were originally allowed and not allowed to do.

Then again, most likely I'm way off and have confused the Nephilim with the Anakim, which I believe were Goliath's people (meaning the sons of Anakim, not the Philistines).

[Retten]

I happened to read a couple of articles on this particular subject here is a good one from Institute for Creation Research

HOW OLD IS THE EARTH ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE?
- BTG No. 74b February 1995
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.*
© Copyright 2003 Institute for Creation Research. All Rights Reserved.

"By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." (Psalm 33:6, 9)

The Institute for Creation Research has always taught, as an integral part of its ministry, the concept of the young earth. We have never put an absolute date on the age of the earth. We feel that the Bible doesn't provide all the information necessary for certainty, as shown by the fact that almost every Bible scholar who has ever tried to discern the exact date has come to slightly different conclusions. Maybe all the information is there but we just don't understand it fully yet.

However, lest we be too concerned, every honest attempt to determine the date, starting with a deep commitment to the inerrancy of God's Word, has calculated a span of just a few thousand years, most likely close to 6000 years, since creation. The largest figure I've ever seen from a trustworthy scholar is approximately 15,000 years, but even this seems to stretch the Biblical data too far.

To calculate the date one must first employ the genealogical data given in Genesis, I & II Chronicles, the Gospels, and elsewhere. Information gleaned from Judges, I & II Kings, Daniel, Acts, and other books must be included as well. Since dates are fairly well established archaeologically beginning at about the time of David, these can be a big help. This is because so many Biblical events are referenced to the reigns of individual kings. Obviously, the job is difficult.

Of course the genealogies only begin with the creation of Adam, so the question of time before Adam remains. As has been well noted on these pages, the six days of Creation Week must be of the same length as our days. We recognize, however, that the Hebrew word yom, translated "day," can have a variety of meanings, including an indefinite period of time. Thus, some have suggested that these six days might then be equated with the billions of years claimed by geologists.

Whenever a word in Scripture can have a variety of meanings, we must go to the context to determine what it does mean and not be content with what it might mean. And when we do, we find that the first time yom is used, it is defined as a solar day (Genesis 1:3), and then a total day/night cycle (1:3).

Furthermore, yom is modified by "evening and morning," which in Hebrew can only mean a literal day. It is also modified by an ordinal number (first, second, etc.), a construction limited in Hebrew to that of a literal day. Elsewhere the six days of creation are equated with the six days of our work week (Exodus 20:11), a formula incorporated in the fourth of the Ten Commandments regarding the Sabbath rest. We should mention that the use of a numeral to modify "days," in this case "6," is again reserved for a literal day in Hebrew, as is the use of the plural word "days."

Suffice it to say that no one could conclude that Scripture specifically places Creation any longer ago than a few thousand years, and to my knowledge no one does. Many do hold to an older position, but not for Scriptural reasons. They are convinced by radioisotope dating, perhaps, or maybe the molecular clock of mutation rates, or some other line of thinking, but not from Scripture.

Scripture teaches a young earth, and the time has come for Christians to stop twisting Scripture to fit the evolutionary and uniformitarian speculations of some scientists about the unobserved past. We suggest it's time for such Christians to stop calling themselves "Bible-believing" Christians and start using some such name as "world-believing" Christians.

*Dr. John Morris is the President of ICR.

[Saint]

Ahhh, Snap. you people should PM me so i know for sure where all the interesting threads are. ... shall I??? how can i resist?

As for the age of earth let us remember that the earth was around before the creation scences in the book of Genisis. the theory i will provide is referred to as the "gap" theory, i believe. take the very first verse of the bible. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Gen. 1:1 Ok, now the theory. if you study the original language, hebrew there is something in the punctuation or what not that indicates a passing of time between the events of verse 1 and 2.
I personally can't tell you off the bat. I was in chaplaincy school, but not full out theological training. so i know some greek, but hebrew... hehehe.
Well, as those of you who know (Antichrist thread readers) the first thing God created was the angels and heavens. or all the angels and universe. this period of time between the very first moment to the beginning of Gen. 1:2 could be an unbelievable vast amount of time. in fact it would stand to reason that Lucifer prolly slowly grew towards his eventual sin to "be like the most High." (read about Lucifer/Satans sin in Isaiah 14:13-14)
There very well could have been creatures on earth, it is even possible there were animals that look like humans. (for later when it says that "let us make man in our image" God is talking about the human soul/spirit. For God is a Spirit... its not like God the Father is gonna look like this regal old man. hehehe.)
WELL, we know from the verse above that at some point Lucifer sinned against God and then got his band of angels to join him in rebellion. Well they are cast out of heaven... guess where they went? (well prolly a lot of places, but Earth would be a choice as well.) then the plea of Satan (which also accuses the perfect character of God) "how can a loving God send us to the lake of Fire?"
While God has no need to prove himself to anyone, he gives one to Satan. Thus the proof that Humans could choose or reject him and that his grace AND justice are both perfect.
Special note... see how Satan played the same idea of sin to eve as his own... telling her the fruit would make her wise and like God... just how satans sin was he wanted to be like God. my my my.
ok than the fallen angels prolly trashed the planet pretty good... so the Holy Spirit came upon the earth and into verse 2... the earth was formless and void... (time to start over). continue... so with the "gap theory" there could be billions of years of time... you never know.
any questions or opinions on this theory?

[Saint]

The Nephilim

I was gonna talk about the angels responsible for this in the other thread. but... ok. first the setup info.
1) Angels have no need for sex, they are not multiplying.
2) Lucifer/Satan trys to foil Gods example of grace/justice in the deal with humanity.. how, well first the fall of man. but God had planned for this, God would send a savior, Jesus Christ. So Satan was back on the job trying to end the plan and save his skin. how.. by stopping the coming of the Mesiah. you all should be familiar with atleast some of the tactics satan used. they are all in the bible. the Nephilims would fall under this one--- Jesus had to be born of a specific blood line according to the scriptures.

So what Satan was gonna try was to destroy the pure blood line by haveing some of the fallen angels "breed" (loss of a better word.. sorry) with the humans. So they did, and the earth was full of evil... very full of evil. in fact only one man and his family was found to be holy. Noah. so God was to destroy this evil people and the ones that were also half-breeds the Nephilim. And did... FLOOD. After that God no longer allowed the angels to take on human form to "have relations" (hard to come of with words...). Not all fallen angels were involved in this, in fact those that were involved were locked in the Abyss, in chains of darkness, if i recall.
Jesus visited these angels durining his 3 days/nights in the grave. proclaiming that he had come and it was over, God was victorious.

anywho.. in my very personal and playful opinion.. these half angel/half human beings could very well be the basis for such things as the Greek mythologies... while it would have been much later, i think if i was Noah or one of his sons i would remember a guy whos dad was a "god" [angel] and had super strenght, "hercules." those 'gifted' people called the Nephilim would be ones to remember... (hehe, also brings to mind the X-men..) anyway... that part is all just my opinion. cause i too like to think about issues that really have no significance to my life or relationship with God, but it is intresting. My basis for this take is the last part of Gen. 6:4 "... They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

final note... after the ressurection of Jesus, the only way now for Gods plan to be foiled would be to wipe out all of God's "people" (not talking about chrisitans in this way) the Jews. have you noticed any trends in the world or our realitively recent past with and anti-Jew theme... hmmm.... wonder who inspired that.

[Technomancer]

Scripture teaches a young earth, and the time has come for Christians to stop twisting Scripture to fit the evolutionary and uniformitarian speculations of some scientists about the unobserved past. We suggest it's time for such Christians to stop calling themselves "Bible-believing" Christians and start using some such name as "world-believing" Christians.

The trouble is, Morris seems to require a literal reading of Genesis as being the only accpetable interpretation. This is more than problematic, as a literal reading is so completely contradicted by the physical evidence. In any event, there are many great theologians who do not hold to a literal reading of Genesis (literalism of the sort that Morris peddles is itself a 19th century innovation). Moreover, there is no real debate within the scientific community anymore; it must be stressed that individuals like Morris, Hovind, etc are thoroughly marginal in their opinions. A simple glance at any journal in geology, astronomy, biology, physics, etc will demonstrate this. It is also worth noting that many of the pioneers of geology were not only Christian, but were actively trying to reconcile the physical evidence with Genesis. However, they never used a literal interpretation themselves because they realized it was simply untenable.

Given the overwhelming physical evidence available to us, reliance on a literal interpretation must inevitably lead to one of the following conclusions:

a)Apparent age- God made the universe look old deliberately. This is no good, since it implies that God is deliberately deceptive.

b)The devil did it- The devil produced the evidence to muddy the waters. This is as bad as (a), since it implies that the devil had a significant hand in creation.

c)Conspiracy- There is a massive conspiracy in the scientific community to enforce a particular viewpoint. Anyone who has ever worked in science can tell you that this is flat-out ludicrous. Getting scientists to all move in the same direction would be worse than herding cats high on amphetimines.

d)The bible is wrong- "O ye of brittle faith" (the misquote is deliberate). If the bible cannot match experience on a literal level it must be junked.

e)Our interpretation is wrong- If the works of God proceed from the word of God, and scripture is also the word of God, then these two truths cannot contradict each other (for the word of God is Truth in its ultimate form). Therefore we must find ways of reconciling the fruits of both Reason and Revelation by reexamining out underlying theology.

Having long considered the evidence, both through a personal study of science, and through the course of my education, it is my opinion that the world had its physical origin in pretty much the way that modern science describes (give or take some fine tuning). The Genesis account must be understood in the language of myth. That is, it tells us of God's role in creation, and our own place in it. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman "A story need not have happened for it to be true"

[Spiritsword]

As usual, you all have come through with some great points and explanations!

Originally posted by Technomancer:
The trouble is, Morris seems to require a literal reading of Genesis as being the only accpetable interpretation.

Yep. This is where I run into trouble too. If taken absolutely literally it is impossible (as far as I have seen) to reconcile Genesis with the physical characteristics of God's creation we see before us.

And interesting stuff about the Nephilim, all who posted! Fallen angels breeding with humans. Does their almost superhuman intelligence and strength also explain things like the building of seemingly impossible structures like the pyramids, stonehenge, etc. which could've taken place around that time?
Kind of fun to think about, though we probably won't ever know for sure while in this world.

Looking forward to hearing others' opinions too!

Spiritsword

[Rashiir]

I am tired of all this twisting of Scripture regarding Jesus being a man. It is obvious that He was a lamb, a member of the species ovis aires.

Scripture teaches that He was a lamb, and the time has come for Christians to stop twisting Scripture to fit the legends and tales unobserved past. We suggest it's time for such Christians to stop calling themselves "Bible-believing" Christians and start using some such name as "world-believing" Christians.

[Jericho]

Rashir,

Are you saying that you believe Jesus was actually a literal lamb?

[Mithrandir]

Uh oh. Sarcasm no properly detected. Danger Will Robinson!

[Jericho]

Okay......I failed to read the entire thread......I'm guilty

[Saint]

While it takes a ton of research to really understand what is being said in the bible, I would never want people to think God's word is anything but absolute truth. It is a characteristic of God to be perfect Truth.
I think we have to realize a few things, we should look at what was originally said. Like in the original language, also the history behind it, who it was written to, its purpose. How does it relate to other verses in the bible. (another characteristic of God is immutability... He never changes). His word compliments its self, not contradict.
When we gather verses from Gen., Psa., Ezk., Isa. and so on we continue to get more pieces of what happened.
knowing the history really helps in the new testament... knowing who the letter is written to and the culture of the time helps make since out of some otherwise "contradictory" statements.

Mainly, I would say please consider God's character before dismissing His word as just "a story to quiet His children." From what is told in scripture, it leaves enough open to where it could have been like a lot of peoples posts. we don't know for sure and God didn't seem to see that as necessary to our lives. so lets keep trying, but we won't know for sure till we ask in heaven. But please, the word of God is flawless, its just all of our interpretations that are sometimes less than perfect.

[Spiritsword]

Originally posted by Saint:
we don't know for sure and God didn't seem to see that as necessary to our lives.

I've thought about this point a lot in the past. I could start a whole new thread on this but I'll just sum it up here quickly.

It always strikes me how the Bible contains so much in so (relatively) few pages. Everything we need to know to achieve salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ, worship God, and live Christian lives is in there! Plus you get a whole lot more--inspiration, knowledge, background information, and just words to live by in general. And in most parts it's very readable. My thought is that when God inspired people to write His word, He included exactly what we would need to know to achieve His greatest priorities (in my belief those listed above), but not so much that it would overwhelm us, be difficult to understand or translate, or be difficult to share with others. A perfect balance that only the Most High could achieve.

What God did NOT do was compile all available knowledge and write a comprehensive account of His creation. The first, and obvious, reason for this is that God is omniscent--if He were to include in written form all His knowledge (or even the fraction of His knowledge relating to our universe and everything in it), well, He'd have to create another universe just for storage purposes. And obviously, we'd never be able to read even a tiny fraction of it even if we spent our entire physical lives reading. Plus, we could spend our whole lives reading something basically irrelevant, like the makeup of a certain solar system in the next galaxy over, and never get to the central parts--Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. God realizes we have all eternity to share in His infinite knowledge (if we're not too busy worshipping Him), so He's focused on the important part--making sure we're saved so that we CAN have those eternal opportunities.

(So I agree with you there, Saint, as to where our focus should be!)

I think the second reason that always occurs to me when considering why God didn't reveal all the secrets and details of creation to us is this: He created us to be intelligent, curious, inquisitive beings who enjoy exploring and learning. Our lives would be pretty boring if we already knew all there was to know. Therefore, God gave us yet another gift--the joy of discovery--to add another measure of happiness and inspiration to our lives here on Earth.

So no, not everything is in the Bible, and yes, what is in the Bible is God's Word and thus Truth. But yeah, some parts seem like they're more open to interpretation than others. I guess as long as one knows they're saved, that's the important part.

Spiritsword

[Ashley]

Well said, my friend, well said indeed.

[Rashiir]

I concur. See, you already knew the answer. You didn't need us. Or is that an incorporation of what we said?

[HeavensTek]

wow...some good points on this thread.

basically i gotta go with the overall fact that i'm not God, and only God truly knows how and why things happend.

but....

i do personally think that there might have been a whole lotta time in between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.....

as far as the Nephilim.....there are small references to them throughout the bible. i did a little study on it awhile back. (once again, only God knows the truth)

In Gen 6, they make mention of fallen angels going after human women....(at least thats the theory)......and having children by them....thus the Nephilim. whats interesting though is that the Nephilim are called "the heros of old, men of renown" .... that doesn't sound like evil devil spawned giants to me....probably something weird in the translation....

anyway....there is some other references to all that ......er lemme dig...

---

Jude 1:6-7
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandonded their own home - these he kept in darkness bound with everlasting chains for judgement on the great day. IN A SIMILAR WAY, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion (angels giving themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion? such as sleeping with human women?) They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

---

there is a few more mentions of the "everlasting chains in darkness" and if i remember correctly that place is called Tatarus. its basically the holding cell for naughty angels.

hmmm i need to dig back into this little study...i can't remember where i found the rest of the stuff...

it may all be just speculation and sensationalism.......but half-angel "heros of old" running around in the ancient world is a pretty interesting topic.

[Saint]

yeah.. thats one of the verses i was trying to recall. where the angels that participated were kept.

[Technomancer]

Just as an aside, for those interested in the Nephilim issue. There is a very good book by Jeffrey Burton Russell titled "The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity" (part of a series examining perceptions and theology of the same through time). Much of the focus is on ancient Hebrew traditions, and this issue is gone into in some depth (various apocryphal books are also discussed, since they help to expand on some of the traditions).

[freeze]

i didnt read all the posts but this site has helped expalin things to me a lot

[HeavensTek]

oh sweet.... that site just about covers everything. good call freeze.

[Master Kenzo]

Nice site *bookmarks*