How Old Is The Earth?

The question is; What does scripture teach concerning the creation of this world?

Before one goes off into science he needs to answer this first.

 

God flooded the earth prior to Noah. It happened when Satan fell in Ez 28 which is the reason the gap theory was taught before Darwin was even born. The idea that the gap theory is to provide “dinosaur space” is simply unworthy scholarship. The gap theory predated Darwin.

 

Yes, but the account doesn't start there. Prior to this is an event called the beginning in which God created the heavens and the earth. He initially brought them into existence, formless and void—unformed, and unoccupied.

Gappers see these first two verses and a completion, but they missed something. The completion of the heavens and earth isn't recored until after the 6th day.

Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(six days of creation)
Gen. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.

Noticed how the six days are sandwiched in between these two creation phrases.

 

Satan's fall, recorded in Ezekiel 28, was in Eden.

Ezek. 28:12
....‘You were the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The sardius, topaz, and diamond,
Beryl, onyx, and jasper,
Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.
The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes
Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers;
I established you;
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created,
Till iniquity was found in you.​

It is impossible for Satan's fall to be prior to the creation of Eden. This is corroborated by the fall account in Genesis 3 where God curses the Serpent, who is really the devil. Both Adam and Satan fell in Eden according to the Bible.

This is the problem I have with the traditional gap theory. It speculates wildly on things that are nowhere in Bible, and even contradict clear fall accounts.

 

The Eden of God spoken of here was a mineral garden (fiery stones). Evidently Satan was its ruler and dominion was given to him. That dominion that was usurped again from Adam after God separated the waters that covered the Eden of God and recreated into the vegan garden of Eden. Obviously sin existed before the creation of Adam.

 

Yes, what was finished was God's re-arrangement of an already-existing earth.

 

What is a mineral garden? Have you heard of such a thing in Scripture or elsewhere? Is that kind of like a fruit mine? Or a Vegetable mine?

This is what troubles me about this theory. Anything goes.

 

Yet, that's not what the text says. You have a creation statement and a finish statement surrounding the 6 days.

Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The 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.

Gen. 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”….
Gen. 1:6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament….
Gen. 1:9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens…let the dry land appear”….
Gen. 1:11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass….”
Gen. 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament….
Gen. 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures,….let birds fly above….
Gen. 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature….
Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image….
Gen. 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good….

Gen. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.​

You also have this clear statement from Moses expressing exactly the same thing.

Ex. 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.​

It's clear he didn't believe in a gap theory. The heavens, land and sea, and all their hosts, were created in six days.

 

Rom. 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world.....​

 

Gentlemen, please remember I mentioned that 99% 0f all plant & animal species that ever existed are extinct, most of them known only to us from fossils. They were already gone before Noah was. I believe they perished when God ended previous arrangements of earth's surface.

 

But the verse mentions THE DEEP, which refers to WATER. And the best translation of the Hebrew of V2 is that the earth was undeveloped and empty, not that it wasn't already there.

 

I think you'd find Carl Werner's documentary on living fossils fascinating.

There's also this presentation.

 

Yes, which makes sense if the land was formless and not yet solid. Waters is a great description of such a state.

Earth is the biblical word for land. We know this because God told us so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas.​

Peter seems to allude to these primordial waters as the substance of the earth, also, when he says:

2Pet. 3:5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.​

Peters seems to be going back to the beginning, when the unformed land was made into the dry land.

Understand, according to the text, the land (earth) and the sea aren't fully formed until day 3. They are in their formless state for the first 2 days, while God creates light and the expanse. Then they are formed on day 3, and named.

 

There aren't any significant number of fossils from before the Flood. You deny the catastrophic upheaval of the Flood so you postulate that things were destroyed before the Flood without any scientific evidence whatsoever.

Actually, old earth *science* is obsolete and outdated although it is popular with people educated over thirty years ago. Modern science has passed old earth scenarios by.

We see with our eyes the Great Unconformity that shows the basement rock from Adam's time as granite scoured and ground down to almost level by the sediments from the Flood and the floodwaters. The fossils are from Noah's day.

 

No, Scripture says Noah took at least one pair of EVERY land animal & bird aboard the ark. Scripture does NOT say "every animal but dinosaurs", etc. You can readany thorough work of biology to see that over 99% of all species of plant or animal known to have lived is now extinct. And true fossils don't form in a short time.

 

It would be nice if you would define the term *true fossil* and if you would provide a link for your opinions.

And Scripture does not say that Noah took every species of land animal or bird. You are misquoting.

And how many times have you failed to reply to the point that Noah took sexually mature juveniles on board, including such dinosaurs?

What is your link that 99% of everything is extinct?

 

A fossil is the remains or impression of a prehistoric organism, preserved in petrified form, or as a cast in rock.

MMRRPP! WRONG !

gEN. 6:19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

Gen.7: 2 You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; 3 also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.

What does"every living thing of all flesh", "every sort" or "each" leave out ?

I believe he took many eggs of different animals aboard, among egg-layers. And GOD gathered most of them for Noah, as no one, even today, could collect a pair of every animal species on earth & bring them to one place. And there's no evidence that men ever encountered T-Rex, Apatasaurus, or other better-known large dinos.

Here's one: 99 Percent Of The Earth's Species Are Extinct—But That's Not The Worst Of It

You may Google to find a few dozen more.

 

Of course, fossils form rapidly. They formed rapidly during Noah's Flood

Genesis 6:19 is amplified by Genesis 7:14 Genesis 7:14 (KJV) They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.

Kind does not mean species as you postulate. For example, all cats such as lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, and household cats and bobcats all would be one kind and so only two animals male and female would be needed for the cat kind.

The clean animals are the kind used for domestication and they had three pairs and one more for sacrifice. Genesis 8:20 (KJV) And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

No, Noah did not take eggs instead of animals. There is no mention of eggs in Genesis. Dinosaurs did not live so long ago. They were called dragons until the late 19th century. Many remains of dinosaurs have been discovered with blood tissue still in tact. That indicates that they were alive in the last 4,300 years.

As for the 99% think that you linked to the Discovery channel, they give no details and just make a flat statement and pass it off as truth so we can conclude that they are 100% wrong and that this 99% is probably evolutionists talking unless you can find a link with an exact list of all the animals ever to live and all the animals now extinct. Back to the cat example. Certainly there are some extinct cat species but the cat kind is all over the place. A species is just a variation of a kind.

It is a young earth but old earthers are behind in doing their homework in science.

 

I'm still not quite understanding the point you're making. Scripture does say 2 of every land animal, and Creationists do not deny the dinosaurs were on the Ark, in fact Behemoth was a postdiluvian sauropod described by Job.

Did you watch the presentation on living fossils? I think that disproves your theory about 99% being gone. The truth is, the vast majority of fossils found still have living ancestors, even right down to the specific species. They've just been given different specie names, which Dr. Werner exposed. You really need to check out his documentary.

The other issue is your use of the word species. The Bible, rather, uses the word kinds. Creationists liken this closer to the modern animal category family. In fact the great paleontologist Jack Horner believes that the number of dinosaur species has been greatly exaggerated. There may actually be only 50 basic kinds. God didn't have to preserve thousands of species on the Ark, but just representative kinds. Noah only needed an ancient dog kind to produce all the variations of wild and domestic dogs we have today. In fact, virtually all domestic dogs have come about in the last 300 years.

 

The IGH series did a good job on this subject. This isn't the main segment, but an add-on.


This presentation is also helpful.