Ping
What difference does it make?
The whole question of the actual, temporal length of a Biblical day in Genesis seems like a futile pursuit. The early part of Genesis is clearly metaphorical (even poetic). I don’t think the author intended the wording to set a thousand mathematicians in action.
God tells us what a day was in creation
William Jennings Bryan was an old earth creationist. The contrary impression created by the play Inherit the Wind is false - it may have been what Clarence Darrow hoped Bryan would say, but he didn’t.
FR has creationists as well as evolutionists on the site. I don’t any of them will ever change their mind.
Well, leaving aside Darwin (who I think was kind of a jerk) and the science of geology, it strikes me that Genesis uses the word “day” as a unit of time, but that it’s hard to see how it can be a “day” in the strict sense if the sun and the moon were not yet created on the first day, since they supply us with the measures of time.
Similarly, the Bible says that the sun rises and sets and goes around the earth, but that is a way of speaking that we still use today, even though most of us believe that the earth goes around the sun. But to all appearances, the sun rises, travels across the sky, and sets, and there’s no reason not to speak of it that way.
Or, as Terry Pratchett might say, “It’s turtles all the way down.”
“whether orthodoxy necessarily entails believing in a young earth”
This isn’t the sort of question we should waste our time on in that it is clearly no, orthodoxy does not entail necessity to believe in “young Earth”.
I see this insistence on young Earth a form of idolatry.
I don’t think anyone will argue the following:
God is eternal, having no beginning and no end.
(Well, the Mormons will argue with that one, but anyway....)
The arguments in the article and the thread boil down to this, as far as I can tell:
1. God was alone for all of eternity, doing nothing, until a weeklong burst of activity brought everything into existence, somewhere between 6,000 and 50,000 years ago (that’s what the article said, I only repeat it), and that’s what Genesis 1 says, and anyone who disagrees dares damnation.
2. God created everything, in such a way that certain derived knowledge and/or conjecture can be deemed correct, and the text of Genesis 1 has been mistranslated, or misinterpreted, or just plain misunderstood.
3. There is no God and you’re all a load of useless dolts whose arguments are a nuisance to the rest of us (this doesn’t include me!).
Then there is my theory, which I do not urge on anyone, but will suggest if people are curious; it gets me in trouble with my YECist friends, and I don’t really like to talk about it. Since I regard it as of minimal doctrinal importance, I am content to wait until my entry into eternity, when I am certain all will be made clear.
The Beginning Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Time.(the beginning)..The Universe.(the heavens)...Matter.(Earth)..All in one sentence long before the scientists and agnostics ever got their warped little minds wrapped around it.
From a unbiased and straight reading of the Genesis account of creation - without carrying forth any of today’s bias ... that straight reading indicate ordinary days, with an evening and morning.
If one was to dig down into the original language of the Old Testament, the analysis FORCES one to conclude it’s an ordinary 24-hour day.
There is one reason and ONLY ONE REASON why ANYONE would look for another explanation outside of an ordinary 24-hour day ... and that is, this person has been INDOCTRINATED (and INTENSELY SO) into “having to believe” that there could not be 24-hour days to creation because the earth has been around a WHOLE LOT LONGER than that. Before that indoctrination came into being, no one had a single problem with it.
BASICALLY those people who have a problem with it do not want to accept God’s Word or the Authority of Scripture in that section.
Old-age "creation" demands that"by death (hence sin) came man" rather than "by man came sin (hence death)."
Old-age "creation" demands that whatever God made, It was not made "good" enough. Something had to make it better.
Old-age "creation" not only demands, but insists, that The God not be in toto beyond man's comprehension.
Sure are.
Too many people spend too much time trying to prove the first chapters of Exodus.
Too many people spent too much time trying to figure Revelation.
They tend to ignore what is between which is what is really important. Once you understand this you then can figure out the end pieces.
I seem to remember years ago when a little child would ask where babies came from, some people would tell them a stork brought them, others had different stories, I was told that they found me under a rock.
We are just little children to God so why would he waste time explaining something too deep for us to understand, and besides any one knows that even if a little child may understand it might be a bad thing to tell them.
Once again, we have biblical theologians either, at odds or in agreement, of attempting to use science, to either accredit, or discredit the bible.
A different question is what i ask.
How the truck does that matter, to all those today, that are sitting on the sidelines, taking bets, snickering at your foolishness, wagging their tongues and shaking their heads at you, when it is THEY that you should turning your attention towards, and making THEM envious of what you’ve got?
With nonsense like this, how ya’s gonna do d’at?
But then God threw in a caveat:
2Pe_3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Bible history researchers tell us that Adam and Ever lived here 6000 years ago...Or, six days...That ought to perk some ears up...
Rev_20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev_20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Rev_20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Rev_20:5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Rev_20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Rev_20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
A thousand years is the time period that the Kingdom of Heaven will take place on earth...The kingdom prophesied all thru-out the Old Testament...Where the Messiah will reign on earth from Jerusalem...A thousand years, or, one day...The seventh day...A day of rest (for Israel)...Just a coincidence that 'one thousand years' was mentioned six times in the chapter...
The bible says six days/six thousand years...History shows six thousand years...
2Pe_3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
The heavens were of old...And the world perished being covered with water...God created a flood...Was this Noah's flood???
2Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
Some where along the line we got a new earth AND a new heavens...Couldn't have been Noah's flood...
Makes sense to me that people ought to just believe God and then search the scriptures to understand what he is saying instead of trying to discredit the bible...
Couldn’t God have created in six days a fully mature universe that appeared to be billions of years old? Before you answer that, consider this question: Was Adam created as an infant or a fully grown man?
Seems simple to me. WHY would any one beleve it is 6 days and WHY would anyone NOT beleve it is 6 days?
To answer the first question, Because God says so. To answer the second question: Beats the hell out of me.