What does the Bible say about the age of the earth?
What does the bible say about the age of the earth?
First off, there are essentials to the Christian faith we should believe in, like; Jesus being God in human flesh, salvation through faith in Christ, the virgin birth, and that God is Triune in nature.
Apart from these essentials, there are other issues that Christians can disagree on, and one of those issues is the age of the earth.
There are spirit-filled Bible-believing Christians who are persuaded that the earth is young and likewise others who believe that the earth is old.
Both sides have their explaining to do with regards to the science supporting the text, but this is an issue that Christians can disagree upon as an ‘in-house’ disagreement and not one that we should divide over.
Whether you are a young or old earth creationist, it all comes down to how you interpret the creation days in Genesis.
If the days in Genesis were consecutive 24-Hour periods, and if the earth was created on the first day – then adding dates as per the biblical genealogies reveals that the earth was created only thousands of years ago.
If the days were indeterminate or nonconsecutive in length, then the Bible does not reveal when the earth was created.
Both sides agree that the genealogies of Adam and Eve exist only thousands of years ago.
Young-earth creationists (YCs) interpret the days as 24-hour, consecutive periods for the following reasons;
- The days in Genesis 1 are consecutively numbered and comprised of an “evening and morning.”
- Exodus 20:8-11 commands a literal week of six days of work and one day of rest based on God’s original creation/rest week. The weeks would seem then to be of equal duration.
- According to Romans 5:12, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,” but old-earth creationism would have animal death entering the world before the sin of Adam and Eve.
Old earth creationists (OCs) argue against 24-hour creation days for reasons such as these;
- The Hebrew word for “day” (Yom) is used in different ways in the creation account, which can vary based on interpretation in the text in context when translated. For instance, Genesis 1:5 refers to Yom only as daytime (daylight), not nighttime. Also, Genesis 2:4, literally translated, speaks of ‘the Yom that the Lord God made the earth and heavens.”
- God’s rest on the seventh “day” has no evening and morning. Genesis 2:2-3 and Heb 4:3-11 portray this same Sabbath as continuing to the present time.
- Adam could not have named all the birds and animals in 24 hours, according to Genesis 2.
Both sides believe they have strong arguments favoring their interpretation when rebutting each other.
Some YCs accuse OCs of compromising the Bible with evolutionary science. Some OCs charge YCs with undermining biblical credibility by generating false conflict between science and the scriptures.
Another good example to compare the two sides is in explaining the existence of dinosaurs.
Both sides explain dinosaurs differently.
The OCs believers use standard scientific dating stating the dinosaurs existed 65 million years ago, and a comet or some other phenomenon wiped out their existence.
Young Earthers have a problem with the standard scientific carbon dating as they believe that the earth is 10,000 or 12,000 years old. So they would account for dinosaurs by saying that they lived with humans and were also on the ark with Noah. In addition, they state that the only type of animal that does not stop growing is a reptile, and considering human beings lived for around 600 to 900 years before the flood; the assumption is asserted that the rest of the animals also had a longer lifespan and would have been massive in size.
There is no stance that I will make right here, but there are two options that are presented to you, and you can decide what you think best fits the biblical understanding. Either way, the existence of dinosaurs poses no threats to the Christian faith any more than young or old earth poses for God as the Creator.
As stated earlier, the essentials of the faith matter.
On Judgment day, God will not ask you whether you believed in a young earth or old earth or in the dinosaurs. But what matters is if you accepted and put your trust in His son Jesus Christ who came to this world to redeem mankind.
On Judgment day, God will not ask you whether you believed in a young earth or old earth or in the dinosaurs. But what matters is if you accepted and put your trust in His son Jesus Christ who came to this world to redeem mankind.
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