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Genesis 1 - what is a day?
- Thread starter Phillip
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Great topic Bro! ... Thanks @Phillip !
I’m with @FollowingHim big time here...
Young Earth Creation is what you get when you just read the text as is. Samuel, I think you did great presenting several of the key points that supports Young Earth being the clear and simple interpretation.
My question is always, “Why?”
Why read long periods of time into the Creation account?
I just don’t see it.
I see the first week of life.
I see our beginning recorded perfectly and simply for us... by our Creator who doesn’t want us confused about it... which is why it’s written so plainly and simply.
I find it very hard to believe anyone prior to the 1800s was ever considering whether or not for some odd reason the word “day” recorded in the very beginning to even give us the concept of what a day is, might possibly mysteriously be referring to a long unknown stretch of time? What? Lol that’s absurd! Throw out Evolutionary thinking and there’s no reason to even consider this silly notion of magical gaps of time.
Couple of my favorite Young Earth resources would be...
Dr. Kent Hovind , aka Dr. Dino (his older seminars and stuff from his ministry Creation Science Evangelism) ... also his son Eric Hovind has been carrying the family torch of Young Earth and dinosaurs !!! Great stuff... especially for kids!
Ken Ham and his ministry Answers in Genesis.
I’m with @FollowingHim big time here...
Young Earth Creation is what you get when you just read the text as is. Samuel, I think you did great presenting several of the key points that supports Young Earth being the clear and simple interpretation.
My question is always, “Why?”
Why read long periods of time into the Creation account?
I just don’t see it.
I see the first week of life.
I see our beginning recorded perfectly and simply for us... by our Creator who doesn’t want us confused about it... which is why it’s written so plainly and simply.
I find it very hard to believe anyone prior to the 1800s was ever considering whether or not for some odd reason the word “day” recorded in the very beginning to even give us the concept of what a day is, might possibly mysteriously be referring to a long unknown stretch of time? What? Lol that’s absurd! Throw out Evolutionary thinking and there’s no reason to even consider this silly notion of magical gaps of time.
Couple of my favorite Young Earth resources would be...
Dr. Kent Hovind , aka Dr. Dino (his older seminars and stuff from his ministry Creation Science Evangelism) ... also his son Eric Hovind has been carrying the family torch of Young Earth and dinosaurs !!! Great stuff... especially for kids!
Ken Ham and his ministry Answers in Genesis.
I really appreciate everyone jumping in on this subject. I stayed up till 3 am last night going thru Genesis 1 and 2. What I’m seeing, is for everyone that sees a 6 24 hour period there are those that see day meaning time period. The comment I’ve heard twice now is the need for certain insects to be made at the same time as plant life. (Pollination and such)
There are times I wish I could go back in time and ask God to give a more detailed answer about a couple of subjects. But as I heard in a video last night and it made me laugh, “Move on to the next church splitting controversy that’s got no bearing on salvation doctrine.”
There are times I wish I could go back in time and ask God to give a more detailed answer about a couple of subjects. But as I heard in a video last night and it made me laugh, “Move on to the next church splitting controversy that’s got no bearing on salvation doctrine.”
This was not a religious argument. What you describe is the 'Copernican principle', the idea that the earth was once believed for theological reasons to be in a "privileged" central position and thus most important, but Copernicus discovered it is just one of many planets, so we are not in any special place. This "principle" is a myth invented in the 20th century.
In reality, the theological implications at the time were precisely the opposite. In the geocentric model, the earth was seen as being the lowest and filthiest part of the universe. The heavens, where God lived, were exalted and far more important, the earth was below them, cursed and sinful. In placing the earth in orbit around the sun, the earth became part of the heavens and thus more important.
The church did not oppose Galileo etc. because they believed the Bible said the earth was the centre - that did not have any positive connotations - but because the prevailing scientific consensus at the time was that the earth was the centre, and the church had accepted the words of scientists as correct, then found proof-texts to back it up. This illustrates why we should never place the words of man ahead of the words of God, and need to be skeptical about the theories of modern scientists also.
That I completely agree with. I just disagree with where I expect the conclusions to land!
This is a very important point. Just because the earth might LOOK old when considering it with certain presuppositions, does not mean that it IS old.
The idea that the earth is old is based on the theory of uniformitarianism - that things have basically continued as they are now for all time, such as whenever you see a valley it must have been carved by the river that runs through it today, and when you see a sedimentary deposit that must have been deposited slowly by the processes we see around us now. If there were ever any global events that caused rapid production of any features, these no longer fit into that framework, as features that would take millions of years to form under today's conditions could be formed very rapidly.
In scripture, we have two such key global events - the Creation, and the Flood. First, as God is omnipotent, He could create things in as little time as he liked. You cannot apply uniformitarian assumptions to the Creation week, as God's active intervention completely changes the maths. Secondly, the Flood would have enormously altered geology, made massive sedimentary deposits, carved valleys etc, all in a much shorter timeframe. Again, uniformitarianism just doesn't apply, the maths is completely changed.
The result is an earth that looks old IF you assume it formed slowly, but may be young if it formed rapidly.
It's like meeting a man in the supermarket, finding he's from South Africa, and saying "it must have taken a really long time for you to swim over here". If he didn't swim, and there was some sort of external transportation factor that you have overlooked, the assumption is irrelevant.
I would like to interject something here. I have seen a documentary called 'Is Genesis History?' Its premise is just that, Genesis is History, and not a story. It attempts to relate that the great flood happened over a few weeks instead of thousands of years and that the animals on the Ark were the progenitors of all land animals we know now. While I do not see this as 100% correct I believe it is possible, if not probable. I too take the scriptures as close to verbatim as translation will allow. I am also thankful that this is not a salvation issue and so I can be wrong in my current understanding and continue to search it out.
If you haven't found these yet, make sure you browse around both of these websites, they've got masses of information on a wide range of topics, as well as books to purchase for a more detailed understanding, but here are links to one relevant article on each to get you going. Do use the "search" box on each website to find articles about "six days".
Answers In Genesis:
https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/in-the-space-of-six-days/
Creation Ministries International:
https://creation.com/keith-h-wanser-physics-in-six-days
Click the links on the left of this article to read testimonies from many more scientists etc about why they believe the earth is young and created in six days.
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I have to agree here. (Not saying the rest I'm going to say is what you believe @steve) When dinosaur bones or any other old thing is found and carbon dated, why couldn't have God create it that way. Since everything created is in God's mind anyway, I would subscribe to the idea of the big bang theory, but in the since that at one instance there was nothing and then in another instance it was all in place as described by the Word of God for us to understand. God created the seven days at once. Even to the point that God created eternity at once. We are just playing it out because we see things through time.
Why read "day" and think "a long period", or think "an instant"? God said he took seven days. Why not just believe that? Why do we need to change it in any direction, one way or the other?
He could have created it that way. However, when you look into how these dating methods actually work, you soon find that they're actually completely consistent with young ages. Carbon dating does not give an absolute age, but a maximum possible age depending on a number of important assumptions, assumptions which are fundamentally changed by the flood and end up completely consistent with a young age.
Interestingly, were they millions of years old it would be impossible to carbon date dinosaur bones (as it doesn't work past 50,000 years), so most scientists don't try, but some creationists have sent dinosaur bone specimens to labs for carbon dating (without telling them they're dinosaur bones) and have received very recent date results... So carbon dating actually backs up the young earth view quite strongly.
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That's interesting about the carbon dating. I always assumed that its purpose was to prove years in the millions.
Note of interest, in the test zones in Nevada, they took an item (I can’t remember what it was) to be carbon tested for age. The results came out that the item will be created in the future, 600+ years into the future. Radiation screws up carbon testing.
Here are dinosaur bones dated at <40,000 years old.
Note that the way carbon dating works, it gives a maximum possible age, there are many things that can result in the actual age being substantially less (I can explain the assumptions in more detail if you're interested). This means that these dates are consistent with a young earth of 6-10,000 years old, but completely inconsistent with any old earth view.
Too funny!BOOM BABY!!! Get some!
I got $100 on Samuel!!!
I should point out that there are other radioisotope dating systems, such as uranium-lead and potassium-argon, that are used to date things into the millions of years. However, once again these give maximum rather than absolute ages and thus remain consistent with a young earth. For instance, here is lava that is known to be only 50 years old (people saw it erupt), dated at around 1 million years and up to 3.5 million years. Which perfectly illustrates that the ages are maximums, not actuals, and why all such 'ages' need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt. These techniques have their uses, e.g. to look at the relative difference in age (ie which rock is older than the other rock), but not necessarily to give an actual age for either rock.
The God-fearing professional scientists who study space-time, and who believe in the inerrancy of scripture, have already thought, "Maybe God created it *appearing* old from the start? Like it's really only 10K years old and it only *appears* 4.7 billion years old!"
God certainly could have created it old, but they've found it doesn't appear it was done that way. It goes over my head very quickly with string theory and quantum physics but I'll see what I can find - it has something to do with the "rules" of nature being consistent across the universe - for example light always travels at the same speed in a vacuum... It doesn't travel one speed on this side of the universe and another speed on the other side of the universe. For the universe to work as the way we observe it working, light seems to have a rule that it travels the same speed everywhere. Same thing with creating the universe old... Doing so would somehow (I don't remember) screw a lot of things up and/or leave some gravitational wave or something similar that would leave a fingerprint. Will try to find it, sorry. Hold please.
Another example of this "altering the built in rules of creation" was the Greek gods, who like Thor, seem to step in and change lightening willy-nilly, based on feelings or whatever. The amazing thing about the Christian God is that's not done - there's a few examples of the sun standing still, star of Bethlehem, etc but those can be explained and it's certainly the exception, not everyday business like Thor and Apollo. Again, the thought is God built the framework for the universe in from the start and its been consistent - at least that's what's being observed, so the thought of it being created "old" without actually have been though that time doesn't jive but again, hold please... Sorry to type so much without supporting documentation - totally bad form.
My concern with Answers In Genesis and Creation Ministries International is that most of their leadership hasn't been published in journals - in other words, they don't have skin in the game. It's not per se they're "unstudied" it's just they can say anything they want and still feed their families and get donations. It's like my pastor at my church giving talks about medicine or astrophysics. He can say anything he wants as long as it aligns with popular thought on what the Bible says! These professional scientists on the other hand, if they say things which aren't backed by observable, repeatable science, they'll lose their jobs at universities and research institutions and will be living under a bridge. That said, I appreciate that AIG & CMI are pushing people to get invoked in science and they make some good homeschooling materials, although I disagree with them.
I'd encourage everyone here to go really talk to (or listen to) a real, professional, Christian astrophysicist. Unlike many scientists, many astrophysicist *are* Christian because the account in Genesis is an absolutely amazing match to how the actual creation event we see unfolding in science. None of the other faiths align - just the People Of The Book. It's absolutely amazing and wonderful stuff.
Hope I haven't been pushy here.
With much respect,
--JAG
God certainly could have created it old, but they've found it doesn't appear it was done that way. It goes over my head very quickly with string theory and quantum physics but I'll see what I can find - it has something to do with the "rules" of nature being consistent across the universe - for example light always travels at the same speed in a vacuum... It doesn't travel one speed on this side of the universe and another speed on the other side of the universe. For the universe to work as the way we observe it working, light seems to have a rule that it travels the same speed everywhere. Same thing with creating the universe old... Doing so would somehow (I don't remember) screw a lot of things up and/or leave some gravitational wave or something similar that would leave a fingerprint. Will try to find it, sorry. Hold please.
Another example of this "altering the built in rules of creation" was the Greek gods, who like Thor, seem to step in and change lightening willy-nilly, based on feelings or whatever. The amazing thing about the Christian God is that's not done - there's a few examples of the sun standing still, star of Bethlehem, etc but those can be explained and it's certainly the exception, not everyday business like Thor and Apollo. Again, the thought is God built the framework for the universe in from the start and its been consistent - at least that's what's being observed, so the thought of it being created "old" without actually have been though that time doesn't jive but again, hold please... Sorry to type so much without supporting documentation - totally bad form.
My concern with Answers In Genesis and Creation Ministries International is that most of their leadership hasn't been published in journals - in other words, they don't have skin in the game. It's not per se they're "unstudied" it's just they can say anything they want and still feed their families and get donations. It's like my pastor at my church giving talks about medicine or astrophysics. He can say anything he wants as long as it aligns with popular thought on what the Bible says! These professional scientists on the other hand, if they say things which aren't backed by observable, repeatable science, they'll lose their jobs at universities and research institutions and will be living under a bridge. That said, I appreciate that AIG & CMI are pushing people to get invoked in science and they make some good homeschooling materials, although I disagree with them.
I'd encourage everyone here to go really talk to (or listen to) a real, professional, Christian astrophysicist. Unlike many scientists, many astrophysicist *are* Christian because the account in Genesis is an absolutely amazing match to how the actual creation event we see unfolding in science. None of the other faiths align - just the People Of The Book. It's absolutely amazing and wonderful stuff.
Hope I haven't been pushy here.
With much respect,
--JAG
Ha! Totally! Usually not wise to take a conflicting opinion with Samuel! I might put $100 on Samuel too! LOL!BOOM BABY!!! Get some!I got $100 on Samuel!!!
Maybe I was thinking of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
That said, my point was that burying our heads in scripture, as good as that is, can sometimes disconnect us what God is doing around us but I have faith that God will steer any of us to a new fresh path if we're holding on to a way of doing things that can be explained by scripture, whether it's persecuting Christians like Paul, thinking Jesus wasn't for Gentiles like Peter, or thinking plural families aren't for today like JAG.
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Interesting about things on the quantum level is that you see the things you measure for (observe). If one wants to measure for an old earth they will find an old earth, a new new. It all depends on the the reality of what one expects to collapse into the probability one seeks.
The idea here is that the phrase, Does a tree make a sound in the forest when it falls if there is no one to hear it, can even be further stated, Is there a forest if there is no one to see it.
If one dies and does not have a relationship with God, is there an earth, or even a physical realty?
If God said that He created the world in 10 days then that is what those who believe would see. Those who don't believe that see other things. If God said that He created it in 7 days than I assume there is reason for that because He could have created it in any span of time. All we have to do is believe it.
The other thought I have is, how big was creation? If the universe is expanding as they say, then creation would have been smaller and since gravity (mass) effects time, then time would have been different but still defined the same at creation. 24 hours could have been different, life would have been different. It is obvious God has no issue with time being different but the same, a day is a thousand years. Two meanings. And a week can mean a week or it could be an unspecified time period.
Au contraire. Increasing evidence is demonstrating that the speed of light is slowing and the known points indicate an asymptotic curve that is a)10,000 years old and b) demonstrates that all matter coalesced from light and a MASSIVE input of energy.. . Hmmm... sounds like creation and the state of life in the first 2000 years...
Been awhile since I read/researched this but not only supported young earth, but perfectly supported the Creation narrative.
The rate at which the sun is shrinking is another huge obstacle to the old earth idea. Run it in reverse back to the billions of years that evolutionists claim and it’s bigger than earths orbit... basic science of mass and gravity and such makes it impossible for earth to have existed billions of years ago...