Posted on 07/08/2025 5:22:46 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
How old is the earth?
Unfortunately, neither Christian conservative Old Testament scholars nor Christian scientists are in universal agreement. This topic covers a broad spectrum of issues so I am going to try and narrow the focus of the discussion. I will first briefly discuss the biblical aspects of the question, then move on to geology, the flood, and the Grand Canyon…
First, how do the "young-earth" and "old-earth" positions view the Scriptures? Let me emphasize right at the start that both young- earth and old-earth creationists bring a reverent and submissive attitude to Genesis. The difference is a matter of interpretation. Well-known young-earth creationists Henry Morris, Duane Gish, and Steve Austin, from the Institute for Creation Research, interpret the days of Genesis 1 as literal 24-hours days, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as consecutive or nearly consecutive generations, and the flood as a universal, catastrophic event. This leaves little room for much more than ten to thirty thousand years as the true age of the earth.
Old earth creationists such as astronomer Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe see the days of Genesis as long periods of time, perhaps even millions of years. Genesis 1, then, describes the unfolding of God's creation through vast periods of time...
…I have noted that old-earth creationists believe that the Grand Canyon strata were formed over hundreds of millions of years and that the canyon itself was carved out in less than five million years. Young-earth creationists, on the other hand, believe that the strata of the canyon were formed as a result of Noah's flood and that the canyon was carved out catastrophically less than five thousand years ago. A critical question to ask is, how can we know how old the rocks in the Grand Canyon really are?
(Excerpt) Read more at bible.org ...
That “Grand Canyon” was going to be a big thing someday.
https://youtu.be/xf4pUZPaz5k?si=8IhDWp60Ag4Z8Soy
Maybe about 20 years ago my grandparents drove from NC to the Grand Canyon.
They stayed about 20 minutes and drove home.
My grandparents weren’t impressed.
Exactly! How could anyone know how a brand new, baby rock would appear? Adam was created as a grown man, not an embryo or infant. It is called "apparent age".
6000 years.
Niagara Falls... Same thing. It looks pretty cool but after 10 or 15 minutes... I’m bored. Let’s hit the casino.
20K max.
Job 38:4-7
New International Version
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy
The universe was created in six, 24 hour days. The universe is sixteen billion years old. In ‘The Science of God’ physicist and biblical scholar Gerald L. Schroeder shows how both are true.
I could believe it in my grandparent’s case.
I like That !
They find indigenous sites in North America... They claim they can tell when the stone arrows were made. My guess is... Stone age arrows are stone age arrows... They were using stone arrows when Europeans arrived on theses shores in 1492... So who’s to say whether the site was there in 1492, or 14,092 years ago?
How was that 16 billion year figure arrived at? The ramifications of that figure are many.
We tell everyone that if you’re in Vegas and have a SUV rental, drive to Peach Springs, AZ and drive to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. one of the best kept US secrets.
Absolutely. When the waiters drew the wine from the jars at Cana they must’ve believed it was a decades old vintage. But it wasn’t. God the Son had just created it and this it was only minutes old.
“”Maybe about 20 years ago my grandparents drove from NC to the Grand Canyon.
They stayed about 20 minutes and drove home.
My grandparents weren’t impressed.””
Take a look at these two stories.
A Martian Grand Canyon as wide as the United States of America.
https://www.humanmars.net/2023/06/valles-marineris-compared-to-usa.html?m=1
LoL! Love the Flintstones.
Wonder what the Jetsons would have thought.
Thanks for the laugh. 😊
And before that Augustine was hesitant to try to interpret too many guardrails around what is meant by "day" in Genesis 1 (12-hour period, 24-hour period, and era of unspecified length are all literal definitions of the Hebrew word yôm). That's pretty much where I am. I hate to draw a line in the sand on exactly the length of each creation "day" or exactly how long ago they were. There's not much there there in the Bible to answer those questions. I lean old earth, and can even make a case for it being a valid literal interpretation (not just figurative interpretation like some young earthers claim is the only old earth position). But the case I can make for an old earth is no more exegetically described in the Bible as the young earth position (at least IMHO). So at best is I can say that old earth is A valid case, not THE valid case.
For example, Hebrews 4:4 seems to at least suggest that God's 7th day of rest is still going on and we can enter it with Him. IMHO that doesn't imply that God's 7th creation "day" is much longer than a 24-hour period, nor does it imply that the 6 creation "days" before that must necessarily also be much longer than a 24-hour period. But it's safe to say that Hebrews 4:4 is a possible clue (like other references to creation such as in Job) that the creation "days" are much longer than 24-hours each. Or it could very well be that the 7th rest day is unique in timing in that it is more of a stopping point (like a lawyer saying he rests his case) than trying to equate the 7th day or 7th era to having a similar span of time as the prior 6 days.
But I am sure of this. There is plenty of description about creation in the Bible to know that God had a direct hand in all of it. God created light. God created the waters. God created the ground. God created plants. God created the sun, moon, and stars. God created plants. God created birds. God created the creatures in the water. God created animals on land. And God had a very personal, you may even call it intimate, creation activity with man (even blowing His Spirit into Adam's nostrils). I believe it's a mistake to take a Deist type perspective of creation and think that God deserves credit only for setting up some elaborate environment and natural selection type system then sat back and watched it all happen by itself, even mankind coming to being. In other words, I have trouble believing in theistic evolution. I don't know if this would surprise people who lean young earth, but I, who lean old earth, and almost all of the old earth people I've known personally and also most of the old earthers I read from (like Reasons to Believe) don't believe in theistic evolution either. We believe in God as our personal Creator just like young earthers do.
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