The Bible and an Ancient Earth

In this thread I would discuss with other readers of the Bible why some of us believe in an earth which is older than 6,000 years.

I don't know about the posts of others but my reasons will be primarily theological. I have nothing to mention about dating methods. My approach here is why some of us Bible students have theological reasons for believing that a "millions of years old earth" is no threat to our understanding of the Bible.

I also will be drawing on quotations of other readers in the past, especially of those who read ancient Hebrew.

Once again my submissions will be about my theological reasons for believing in an ancient earth (older than 6,000 years). I have nothing to say about science dating methods in this thread.

http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/7000_Years_for_web_site.jpg
for a quick diagram of why the earth would be no more than 6,000 years old if the bible were true, and http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm goes into it in further detail.

I am biased towards the Bible. In life eventually we all will put our trust with someone. I have grown to trust that God is the source of the Bible.

My attitude is that if there is a descrepency between what science says and what the Bible says, my leaning is toward the Bible. God, I believe and trust, knows all the facts. But science, wonderful as it is, is man's invention.

Having said that, I would add that though the Bible is to me God's revelation, it becomes necessary for us to go back from time to time to ascertain exactly what it says there. If there is a descepency between science and the Bible I want to go back to see what exactly did the Bible SAY, not what is traditionally thought to have been the meaning.

What is says and even what it did not say is important to me to come to a knowledge of the truth. I believe that the Bible says that the first man to exist was Adam. So it is hard for me to believe that there were other human beings who existed before the creation of Adam.

What about the age of the earth itself? What about the age of the universe? What about life forms that existed before Adam? I have theological reasons for believing that worlds prior to Adam's world were destroyed.

Other readers of the Bible had this understanding before geology or evolution were invented. Some readers re-examined these opinions when Evolution theory and Geology became prominent in science. But it is not at all accurate to say such a biblical understanding of Genesis was only reactive or apologetic based on the arrival of Evolution theory and geology.

Some examples of quotations will be upcoming.

Originally posted by doodinthemood
http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/7000_Years_for_web_site.jpg
for a quick diagram of why the earth would be no more than 6,000 years old if the bible were true, and http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm goes into it in further detail.

I probably will not be following a lot of links.

I think most Internet Forum readers are sophisticated enough to realize that short posts of this nature do not and cannot cover all sides of an issue.

We can't write a book here. We can only write a few paragraphs. People are welcomed to explore links on other discussions pro and con. I will be writing short posts which just touch on some ideas I hope some people will think about.

I understand that there is an old creation and there is something called the "new creation." The old creation is the creation that God performed before the resurrection of Jesus. The new creation is the creating that God does initiated by the resurrection of Christ.

The old creation consists of God outside of man as his Creator. The new creation consists of God Himself living within man so that God and man are united and mingled together.

Some fundamentalist are concerned very much that they stand firmly on the truth of the revelation of the old creation. Their way to do this includes adopting Usher's chonology which purports to be able to figure out how old the old creation is - namely about 6,000 years.

God has an enemy which came out of the old creation. This enemy is fighting against the coming into existence of the new creation - the creation which is headed up by man united with God in an organic life relationship. The ancient origin of this enemy is obscured by misunderstanding of "pre-Adamic" world.

I don't say that Satan's origin is altogether lost in Young Earth Creationism. But it is greatly obscured. This obscuring and clouding of the biblical details concerning God's enemy is not a benefit in understanding God's purpose to have a new creation relationship with man.

I share with YEC that God is the origin of the creation. I don't share with YEC that the economy of the ancient Lucifer and the economy of the Adam ran concurrently. What I mean is this, God did not have two deputy authorities to have dominion for Him over His creation at the same time.

Satan had an ancient pre-Adamic history which is only lightly hinted at in Genesis. The details of this enemy gathered in other portions of the revelation of the Scripture. By the time Adam was created, many of us understand, that Satan had already had a long ancient history of rebellion against his Creator.

This hint of this pre-Adamic rebellion is found in the second verse of Genesis one where we are given two words in Hebrew to discribe the condition of the earth - it was found waste and void. The two words used together as a pair are elsewhere found to indicate an overthrow, a judgement from God.

The word pair is a play on words similiar to the French phrase topsy turvy. That would mean things put out of order or in a chaotic and messed up state. The earth had become topsy turvy so to speak. Whatever was here before was overthrown and judged.

Just with Genesis 1:1,2 alone one could not assume such a major theological construct. But with other portions of the Bible the picture emerges that we are only generally told that God created the universe "in the beginning" but that something happened to render that world wasted, overthrown, voided out, and empty - topsy turvy - wohu bohu.

The words individualy located in the Hebrew do not always carry this meaning. But as used as pair they do. Wohu - Bohu indicate overthrow, destruction, judgement, and things divinely put into disarray.

I would only mention that over the last 50 years I have noticed some quarters of science inch closer to this understanding of the ancient earth. More than one catastrophy theory is used to explain what happened to life on the planet millions of years ago.

The enemy of the new creation (and old for that matter) had some kind of deputy authority over this earth which was overthrown and destroyed. The nature of that world may have been so strange to us now that we could hardly understand its purpose. Anyway, I think most YEC presentations obscure this matter in favor of upholding that 6,000 years ago with the arrival of man, the universe arrived also.

I believe a pre-existing creation with a pre-existing governmental arrangement was judged by God. Then God created a new creature man and said "Let THEM have dominion ..." (Emphasis mine). The previous dominion was taken away from a previous creature who became God's arch enemy to spoil His eternal purpose to indwell and unite with man.

Originally posted by jaywill
I am biased towards the Bible. In life eventually we all will put our trust with someone. I have grown to trust that God is the source of the Bible.

My attitude is that if there is a descrepency between what science says and what the Bible says, my leaning is toward the Bible. God, I believe and trust, knows all the facts. But science, wonderful as it ...[text shortened]... he arrival of Evolution theory and geology.

Some examples of quotations will be upcoming.

The earliest gospels were written decades after Jesus' death. it wasn't even decided until the 4th century which books were to be considered canonical and which ones were apocryphal. We have no original manuscripts from the bible. The earliest manuscripts we have are copies of copies of copies made hundreds of years later, in the 4th century. One of the oldest, the Codex Sinaiticus, contains the Epistle of Barnabas and part of The Shepherd of Hermas, both of which are now considered apocryphal. Of the thousands of ancient biblical manuscripts we have, no two are exactly the same. They contain hundreds of thousands of differences, varying from simple scribal errors to deliberate alterations of the text.

Even if we accept that a god exists and that he is the inspiration behind the bible, how can we know that what is currently in it accurately reflects his intentions? Does the current manifestation of the bible reflect the word of god, or the political evolution of the proto-orthodox christian church? Perhaps it was one the early "heretical" sects, like the Gnostics, or the Marcionites, or the Ebionites, that were the closest to Jesus' alleged message. And finally, how can you say you "trust" this biblical conglomeration over science?

Originally posted by doodinthemood
http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/7000_Years_for_web_site.jpg
for a quick diagram of why the earth would be no more than 6,000 years old if the bible were true, and http://independencebaptist.org/6,000%20Year%20Old%20Earth/6,000_year_old_earth.htm goes into it in further detail.

The first link starts the time clock with Adam though. That presupposes that the seven days of creation are a literal 24 hours, even though the number seven indicates completeness rather than being a specific number.

Originally posted by rwingett
The earliest gospels were written decades after Jesus' death. it wasn't even decided until the 4th century which books were to be considered canonical and which ones were apocryphal. We have no original manuscripts from the bible. The earliest manuscripts we have are copies of copies of copies made hundreds of years later, in the 4th century. One of the old ...[text shortened]... sage. And finally, how can you say you "trust" this biblical conglomeration over science?

This an interesting post but it is off of the subject matter that I intended for this thread.

Originally posted by pawnhandler
The first link starts the time clock with Adam though. That presupposes that the seven days of creation are a literal 24 hours, even though the number seven indicates completeness rather than being a specific number.

I have no problem believing that 7 days is intended.

But these are seven days of restoration and recovery of something which had become without form and void. Of course to be sure some further creation is also taking place there. Man is a new addition to the creation.

For the dry land to appear from underneath the water on the third day is recovery and restoration. What was rendered without form and void before the first day needed to be restored with a new governmental arrangement under the new creature MAN.

The clock starts "in the beginning".

There is a gap of unspecified time betweem "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (v1.)

and

"And the earth was waste and void: and darkness was upon the face of the waters" (v.2)


We could place 100 years in that gap or 1000 years or 1,000,000 years. It is unspecified but it is an Interval.

Some would call this Gap Theory. Some would call it Destruction / Reconstruction. I just call it the Interval.

What happened within that interval is not the burden of God to tell us in that portion of Scripture. Elsewhere in the Bible we have some scant but crucial details of the events of that time. Lucifer became Satan and his world was judged by God.

When man is created Satan already has a pre-Adamic ancient history.

Originally posted by jaywill
In this thread I would discuss with other readers of the Bible why some of us believe in an earth which is older than 6,000 years.

Because I can trace my family back longer than that!

Originally posted by jaywill
In this thread I would discuss with other readers of the Bible why some of us believe in an earth which is older than 6,000 years.

I don't know about the posts of others but my reasons will be primarily theological. I have nothing to mention about dating methods. My approach here is why some of us Bible students have theological reasons for believing t ...[text shortened]... (older than 6,000 years). I have nothing to say about science dating methods in this thread.

I am very curious about where you go with this. I will withhold comment until I see more details, however. I'm not settled on the issue, but I do have leanings towards old earth. I'm not sure I agree with your premises thus far, however I will keep an open mind. I intend to listen to what you have to say and then either better define my position, solidify my current position, or even change positions. Be well.

Originally posted by jaywill
This an interesting post but it is off of the subject matter that I intended for this thread.

Not at all. Don't you care about the accuracy of the source information?

Originally posted by rwingett
The earliest gospels were written decades after Jesus' death. it wasn't even decided until the 4th century which books were to be considered canonical and which ones were apocryphal. We have no original manuscripts from the bible. The earliest manuscripts we have are copies of copies of copies made hundreds of years later, in the 4th century. One of the old sage. And finally, how can you say you "trust" this biblical conglomeration over science?

I don't know why you call the Bible a conglomeration. To many of us who have really spent our lives to prayerfully explore the 66 books,we see the product of a divine mind overall unifying its message into a unified theme. And whatever ''political" motive you imagine in the Bible I would question.

It certainly is not easy to claim that the Bible pushing anyone's particular political agenda. But most people wouldn't know that if they only listen to the modern media coverage of this and that group's selective usage of Scripture.

Attempts to portray the Bible as the property of any single political idealogy is a hard sell to those who bother to explore the entire Bible.

This part of your comment only I feel to respond to now. It is related to the topic.

Originally posted by rwingett
The earliest gospels were written decades after Jesus' death. it wasn't even decided until the 4th century which books were to be considered canonical and which ones were apocryphal. We have no original manuscripts from the bible. The earliest manuscripts we have are copies of copies of copies made hundreds of years later, in the 4th century. One of the old sage. And finally, how can you say you "trust" this biblical conglomeration over science?

I think that the spiritual realm has a parellel in the natural realm in terms of knowing the truth of a matter.

Sorry folks. I am using a finger mouse and a laptop this morning which I am not use to. I will have come back latter to dontinue.


And I agree that some of the poster's comments should be replied to.