How old is the earth?

I pondered that possibility when I was writing the post. It makes good sense, but we can be absolutely sure that the plants that Adam & Eve digested "died". And tecnically Adam didn't die physically (in that day)when he sinned, though God had told him that he would "surely die".

Lacy

PS I commend you for your kind, intelligent, and thoughtprovoking posts, HankD.

 

Do you have a Biblical precedent for this theory? Is there a verse, a story, an inkling that only originals are the "primary authority". Because I do have a Biblical precedent for my (radical) view. </font>[/QUOTE][/qb] God inspired the originals. The Bible makes this claim. All translations derive their authority from their degree of agreement with what the originals said. It is that simple and all biblical texts concerning inspiration and preservation support this view.

My point was about the original fundamentalists however. If you simply pick up a copy of "The Fundamentals", you can prove for yourself what they believed about the Bible.

A willingness to twist and distort scripture, apply biblical concepts to issues without a biblical reason for doing so... does not constitute biblical proof.

 

Hi Lacy,

You wrote concerning my post…

I would say that the “death” of anything requires self-awareness/self consciousness and personally would not call the digestion of organic matter (without a “nephesh”-soul) a “life” although it is alive in terms of certain life processes.

Also, I raised animals for a while when I lived in the State of Maine.
Grazing animals eat the sheaf of the grass but do not kill the grass because they don’t pull the plant up by the root.
Organic material is supplied the grazer without the “death” of the plant as a living entity (howbeit without a nephesh-soul).

Eating an apple does not actually kill anything but if done in the proper manner aids the reproduction of the tree by the elimination of the seeds. We can speak of a tree dying but usually not of an apple dying.

Another point: Jesus ate with the disciples while in His resurrected body, the point being that “digestion” may take on a different process depending on the body of the one who is eating.

“surely die”: I don’t have my Hebrew Bible or the available time right now but if you check a commentary of an author who knows Hebrew you will see that the text literally says “…and dying you shall die” (or you will begin to die) which is a Hebrew-ism indicating that the death process will begin on the day that Adam eats of the forbidden tree ending with his eventual death and I believe the death of the cosmos (without God’s intervention).

Romans 8

19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

HankD

 

Between 6000 and 10000. The older time lines are based on naturalistic/modernistic/materialistic assumptions. They were derived by people who believe that everything that is "true" must be measureable. However both this assumption and their basis for measurement are flawed.

God is real. God is not measureable. The human soul is real. The human soul is not measureable. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Scientists look at the nature and interpret what they see to develop rules for predicting results. Fair enough. Then they say that the factors that effect the rules have always been the same and discount the notion of supernatural intervention... but then they are forced to explain that the rules were different in the past in an attempt to overcome problems in their view of natural history. IOW's, the factors might have been different in the past but ONLY in agreement with their presuppositions. For instance, abiogenesis obviously cannot occur under any known current (or past for that matter) environmental conditions so evolutionists must assume that some unknown conditions occurred in the past to facilitate the rise of life.

Johnv and I had an interaction on the C/E forum about miracles. He said in effect that science can say how something happens but not why it happened in a particular place or time. (If I have misrepresented what you said John please feel free to correct me). My response was that he had just answered every objection I had ever heard to a six day creation.

God is not bound by natural law. God never said that either the factors effecting natural history or even natural law itself has always been uniform. In fact, His existence prior to what we observe as natural law is proof positive that natural law has not always been uniform. And for those who would object by saying that God left all this "evidence of an old universe", I would simply respond that God never gave you a promise of infallible discernment nor did he promise you all of the answers. It is pure vanity to think that God owes us an answer that He did not choose to give.

In continuation of my last point, God gave us an explaination. Moses spent time communicating directly with God in His very presence. God inspired the scriptures penned by Moses.

God could have said nothing... but He spoke.

God could have given us just the story of Adam and Eve leaving the rest to scientific discovery... but He didn't.

God could have given Moses the basic outline of evolutionary natural history... but He didn't.

God could have given us and every other believer since Moses some indication that Genesis 1-3 was some kind of allegorical story meant only to teach spiritual truths, that it should not be taken seriously... but instead it reads like an historical account of events and people.

The one eyewitness we have to creation says it took Him six days to do it. He knows what a day is. I find no reason to believe that creating everything in 6 literal days would be any more difficult for God than creating everything in 4.5 billion years. If God is the sovereign, omnipotent ruler and creator of nature (and its laws) then He can speak the whole universe into existence in the same amount of time it took Him to speak life back into Lazarus' body or to rise from the dead Himself.

 

Tree rings are counted back more than 6000 years - as many as 10,000 or more. Annual sediment layers in the bottom of some lakes are more than 20,000. Seasonal layers in Antartic and and Greenland ice count more than 200,000 years. Starlight arrives from galaxies billions of light years distant. Hawian island chain is formed over thousands of miles from a single lava plume that pokes up through the moving Pacific ocean plate - moving at inches per year. Radioactive decay isotopes have accumulated as if for billions of years.

If the world and the universe are not old, then they were created precisely as if they were old.

Which is more reasonable - to assume that the universe was merely created with the appearance of age OR to assume that the Bible was merely written in words suitable to the understanding of those who initially received it?

 

You're referring to the Russian wolly mammoth. If this is true, then the behemoth of Job is not a dinosaur. The mammoth is not a Jurassic animal. It's a modern animal which became extinct somewhat recently. But the bottom line is that the OT behemoth is does NOT mean "elephant". It means "water-ox". "Water-Ox" is what the hebrews called a hippo.

Again, the Hebrew word is crocodile.

 

There are a large number of explainations that might account for this observation.

The one I would submit is this: Contrary to most others I have heard speak to the subject, I think Adam and Eve may have lived a significant amount of time in the Garden. While they were there, the animals were procreating and spreading into the expanses of open field.

By the time the flood occurred, I believe that the human population was still relatively small and for the most part had remained in a small geographical area while the animals had spread and proliferated. Additionally, humans were more likely to use their reason to avoid being destroyed quickly. They probably climbed mountains and fashioned makeshift floats in efforts to escape. Their bodies would have been widely dispersed. Few would have found a proper place to become fossils. We may yet find them but it would be a rare find. If found such a fossil would probably catagorized an anomaly by palentologists then systematically ignored since it fails to conform to the paradigm.

Most if not all fossilized human remains came from the years after the flood.

 

The biblical descriptions I gave of Leviathan are not of a crocodile. They may threaten boats but they do not threaten ships on the sea. Nor do they rise above...

 

It is reasonable to assume that God could give the required understanding to whoever needed it... rather than telling them a fairy tale then allowing believers for more than 3000 years to believe the tale actually occurred.

 

...or the conditions during creation were radically different from those observed in nature today... which by the way is exactly what evolution requires to be true as well.

Both sides make assumptions that different forces were operational some time in the past. The difference is that single Eyewitness and what He had to say about it.

 

Hi Scott! I'm interested in hearing you expound a little more detail by what you mean that "conditions were different" in both views of origin . . . could you set forth a few of the differences you see to be postulated by the various parties? What the differences were as to physical laws, etc.

 

1) The Bible never makes such a claim. It is just assumed. (And I would agree that the autographs were inspired.) But the Biblical word "scripture" NEVER ONCE, in one single verse, denotes original autographs.

2 Tim. 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the HOLY SCRIPTURES, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 ALL SCRIPTURE is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

I guarantee you that brother Timothy never saw an autograph! The "Scriptures" in verse 15 were copies and probably Greek translations!

God's lack of regard for the "originals" and his Powers to "write them over" is seen in Exodus 31: 1, 27 and in Jeremiah 36:21-23,28-32 and in Jeremiah 51:61-63.

2) What have I twisted? You believe God set the clock of scripture (in the "originals" and let it wind down and become somewhat corrupted over time. I believe he resurrected it from the dry bones of 5000 manuscripts. At least I have a Biblical precedent. If I'm wrong teach me. That is what debate is all about.

Lacy

 

See my previous post about the description. But regardless, the Hebrew word is livyathan, which is what the Hebrews called a crocodile. The English "leviathan" has a different meaning than the Hebrew "livyathan".

The NIV has the following footnote:
Job 41:1 Possibly the crocodile

Strong's has the following reference:
a wreathed animal, i.e. a serpent (especially the crocodile or some other large sea- monster); figuratively, the constellation of the dragon; also as a symbol of Bab.:--leviathan, mourning.

 

Again, the Hebrew word is crocodile. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]How could crocodile blow fire out of its mouth?

 

How could any creature blow fire out of its mouth? What part of "giving a real animal metaphoric properties" was unclear in my previous posts?

If the fire-breathing arguement is being used to say it was a dinosaur, it's only a dinosaur of mythology. No, Job was giving a real animal metaphoric properties.

 

Since we are getting way off topic, I started a new one with my response to you in the Versions forum.

 

Different conditions would include those forwarded by Helen and others to account for the apparent age associated with star light et al.

On the part of evolution, they must assume some sort of non-uniformitarian model for many things. For instance, the earth's orbit and axis. Following a uniform model, life on earth 100,000 years ago would have been impossible due to the distance between earth and sun.

 

Different conditions would include those forwarded by Helen and others to account for the apparent age associated with star light et al.

On the part of evolution, they must assume some sort of non-uniformitarian model for many things. For instance, the earth's orbit and axis. Following a uniform model, life on earth 100,000 years ago would have been impossible due to the distance between earth and sun. </font>[/QUOTE]The Setterfield theory et al are discussed in the archived evolution forum. The arguments for varying cosmological conditions in the past few thousand years are flawed and are proven false by direct astronomical observations.

A hundred thousand years ago would put us in an ice age but nothing more serious than that. Lots of life did just fine in the ice age, including men, mammoths, saber tooth tigers, etc. The earth was the same distance from the sun then as now.

 

Current observations don't prove anything about the past. Those observations must be interpretted. You basically just proved my argument. You utilize a uniformitarian model when it suits your purpose...

... but ignore it when it doesn't. The earth's orbit is decaying. The sun's light and energy output are changing. These are not in harmony leaving us with two choices: a) The earth is younger and has a dramatically different history than the one supposed by evolutionists, or b) the uniformitarian model that 'disproves' "varying cosmological conditions" when proposed by creationists must now be discarded because to use it consistently would likewise disprove evolution.

[ September 18, 2003, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: Scott J ]

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm not a scientist and I have no direct expertise in these things but I do try to keep up. This is the first time I've ever heard about the earth's orbit decaying. So forgive me for not taking that decay into account, but also I have to be skeptical - why do you think it is true, and how much do you suppose the earth loses in distance to the sun per year, or century, or whatever unit you care to name?
Our scientists have some expertise in what makes nuclear reactions happen, as can be witnessed by our ability to make atomic bombs and nuclear power plants. These experts tell me that the sun is not cooling down over time but is gradually heating up over millions of years; and in about another billion years it will become to hot for earth to support life in its current state.
Somebody is telling you different, I suppose, but I have to ask, how are they at predicting what happens in atomic bombs and nuclear power plants?

And as for your comment about observations needing to be interpreted, it would appear you are trying to say we can never be postitive about anything in the past. Carried to its logical extreme, you would be asserting we can never convict a killer and send him to prison, since we have no way to know if he did it except interpreting things. I prefer to convict killers based on left behind fingerprints and dna evidence; and if a map maker pretends he originated a map all on his own but includes a false street inserted by another map maker to trap him up, well, I agree he's guilty of copyright violation. Perhaps YOU would be swayed by an attorney who said its possible they both put in the same false street by chance for the same reason but I would vote to convict.

So why does the ordinary inferences we all make about the past suddenly become illegal when extended to the universe? Any particular reason come to mind? Your points don't seem to add up for me.