Does the Bible say the Earth was created in 6 days, 6000 years ago?

Good point cavediver! I sometimes make the mistake of assuming that Christians might know their Bible. Stupid of me I know...Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Hi, Peg. Okay, that wasn't even close to the point I was making.Look, you pointed to where the Bible says, "an expanse was placed between the waters," and interpreted it as, "the atmosphere was thicker in the beginning than it is now."This is called a non sequitur (that's Latin for "It doesn't follow"): there is absolutely no connection between the biblical text and what you inferred from it. There is absolutely no biblical support for the "thicker atmosphere" line that creationists have been towing for years.Speaking as a life-long Christian myself, I would highly recommend that you stop trying to reconcile science with the Bible, and just learn when to let things go. Learn to accept the possiblity that much of the Bible is simply mythology. It's easy when you realize that the mythology changes drastically throughout the Bible (e.g., the Jews didn't even mention an afterlife until after they were taken into Babylon, where, curiously enough, the local religions included the concept of an afterlife).

---

-BluejayDarwin loves you.

Only Pauls epistles always close with his phrase grace be with you all, Amen. etc...Paul before he was killed was free to write letters from Italy but instead of letter to the Gentile church it was a letter to his Hebrew brothers in the Lord.P.S. Its said the book of Acts is about the preaching of the gospel to the Jews in reference to the kingdom. In the last chapter of Acts Paul gathers the chief Jews in respect to the kingdom yet they still rejected the gospel thus the kingdom was taken from that generation but the letter to the Hebrews too me was to the Jews that believed that will be part of the first resurrection to come with the gentile brothers in the Lord to rule and reign with the generation of Jews living in our generation that survive the coming apocalypse in the coming thousand year kingdom of Christ.This explains the kingdom preaching again to the Jews before the destruction of the temple by Titus by Paul in the very last chapter of Acts. Enjoy the video think the video too believes Paul's writting to the Hebrew church perhaps the very church that sent Paul to the gentiles?Wilt thou at this time
Restore the Kingdom?
DSL Video 56K Video Audio DSL Machttp://www.prophecyinthenews.com/Interestingly they mention Hebrews in respect to the creation of the world made from the things not seen in time, etc...Time travelers of the Biblehttp://66.155.114.80/PC01N.htmlEdited by johnfolton, : No reason given.

I think probably Paul wrote Hebrews.The mentioning of Timothy is also suggestive of Paul's authorship (Hebrews 13:23).The interesting thing is that whenever Hebrews refers to Old Testament passages it simply says that God said or something generally divine as a source is indicated.Perhaps the point is that it less important as to which human wrote the prophetic message down. It is more important that Scripture is God's speaking.Consistent with that attitude no author for the book of Hebrews was supplied.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

jaywill responds to me:

quote:

---

What are you quoting specifically?

---

Greek mythology. You mean you don't know? Now, I know this stuff inherently, being Greek, but I suppose that others who weren't held by the ankle and dipped in the river Styx might have to do some homework.Why are you expecting me to do your homework for you? Are you incapable of typing "greek myth creation universe" into your favorite search engine and looking it up?

quote:

---

Whatever Muspelheim and Ginnungagap were, they existed and were seperate, So this example is not quite as good as the first.

---

You need to go beyond that. Do your homework. Ginnungagap was the void from which all came.

quote:

---

But there is something rather than nothing.

---

What part of "nothing" is not "nothing" but rather "something"? Considering that the Bible starts off with "waters," then your claim that the Bible starts with "nothing" is false.It starts with something.Greek mythology starts with absolutely nothing from which everything comes forth. You do know what the word "" means, yes? It is not mere "disorganization."

quote:

---

So where did it come from if not God ?

---

According to Greek mythology, gods come from chaos, not the other way around (well, other beings first and eventually gods, but the chaos, the nothingness, is first and everything arises from it.)

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

quote:

---

An existing Planet
Atmosphere Created
Dry Land Bought Forth
Sea Creatures Created
Flying Creatures Created
Vegetation created
Land Animals Created
Mammals Created
Mankind Created

---

But this isn't accurate. Plants came before the flying creatures. Plants came before the sea creatures.In fact, the Bible directly contradicts the fossil record: It declares that fruit-bearing plants came before insects and it is the other way around. Fruit-bearing plants require pollinators, thus the insects need to come first and, indeed, that's exactly what the fossil record shows:Insects first, fruit-bearing plants second, in direct contradiction to Genesis 1.

quote:

---

you wont find another creation account as believable as this one

---

But this one isn't believable. Why are you advocating it?

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

quote:

---

in a thick atmosphere

---

Hold it just a parboiled second there.And I mean that literally. If the atmosphere were as thick as you require it to be to prevent the sun from being visible, then we would be living on Venus with enough pressure and heat to melt lead and life could not exist at all, yet the Bible says that plants came into being before the sun.

quote:

---

the light from the sun could have reached the earth without the sun being visible.

---

Irrelevant. The statement of the Bible is not that the sun became visible on the third day. It's that it came into existence on the third day. Regardless of the thickness of the atmosphere, there was no sun of any kind until the third day.Your claim is in direct contradiction to established fact. The sun came before plants.

quote:

---

Just like on an overcast day, there is still light coming through but no sun.

---

Incorrect. I can see the sun on an overcast day. It isn't as clearly defined as it is on a cloudless day, but it is identifiable.

quote:

---

this tells us that the initial light was coming from the sources of light

---

But there are no other sources of light of any significance outside of the sun. Moonlight is reflected sunlight and starlight is of no consequence.Since the sun, moon, and stars didn't exist until the third day and thus could not be the sources, where did this "initial light" come from?

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

quote:

---

i've read a lot of information to the contrary

---

Oh, really? What? Could you provide a reference? All of the information I have ever seen on the evolutionary history of life on this planet has been consistent.

quote:

---

this is what confuses me about evolutionary science....there are sooooo many different opinions

---

Where? I need specific references because the exact opposite is what I have found: Depsite the fact that literally thousands of independent scientists have looked into the problem with hopes of finding something new, they all came to the same conclusion.

quote:

---

The Book of Popular Science says: “From [earliest] times down to the present, the perpetual process of building and destroying mountains has continued. . . . Not only have mountains originated from the bottom of vanished seas, but they have often been submerged long after their formation, and then re-elevated.”

---

That is true.That also has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about.The passage you quoted is referring to how Mt. Everest came to be: It used to be underwater and then the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate and a process of uplift happened, resulting in the tallest mountain in the world arising out of the ocean.But all of that assumes that the ocean exists in the first place and we're talking about where the ocean came from. It was not always here.When the earth first formed, it was incapable of supporting liquid water upon its surface. Eventually, it cooled down sufficiently to allow liquid water to pool on the surface. Thus, dry land came first and then the oceans settled upon it.

quote:

---

The New Encyclopædia Britannica says: “The average depth of all the seas has been estimated at 3,790 metres (12,430 feet), a figure considerably larger than that of the average elevation of the land above the sea level, which is 840 metres (2,760 feet). If the average depth is multiplied by its respective surface area, the volume of the World Ocean is 11 times the volume of the land above sea level.”14 So, if everything were leveled out”if the mountains were flattened and the deep sea basins filled in”the sea would cover the whole earth to a depth of thousands of meters.

---

Again, absolutely true and absolutely irrelevant.You are talking about the process of plate tectonics and we're talking about the formation of the oceans.See, the problem is not that there are "different opinions" or "information to the contrary."It's that you do not understand the information you have.

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Not every version of creationism, Granny. I don't know how familiar you are with my creationist version as per a literal reading of Genesis one.Genesis 1 uses the term, "evening and morning." Before day five when the sun and moon were completed, the evening and mornings were not determined by the sun and moon since they did not yet exist according to the Biblical record. Thus there is no recorded measurement of days one through four since we don't know how long it took to create the sun and the moon on day four. The record says the sun and moon determined the days years and seasons etc. Obviously the days before these existed were determined by the Spirit of God who was the member of the trinity there doing the work.The Buzsaw Hypothesis reasons that a great amount of heat was applied to the planet on day one to evaporate/separate the waters below the firmament from the waters above the firmament (atmosphere) and the reason no sun and moon before day four is that God wanted time and heat desired to do the work of the previous days.Verse one of Genesis begins with the introductory statement that whenever the heavens and earth were created, God did it. Then it proceeds into God's work in preparing the planet for life etc as Peg as stated.So not all so called literal interpretations of Genesis claimed by creationists are YEC.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Buzsaw writes:

quote:

---

Genesis 1 uses the term, "evening and morning." Before day five when the sun and moon were completed, the evening and mornings were not determined by the sun and moon since they did not yet exist according to the Biblical record.

---

Incorrect. The reason the phrase "evening and morning" was used is because that is one of the ways in which Hebrew describes a literal, 24-hour day. The Bible was written in a human language and thus it uses human phrasing to define things.When you tell a speaker of Hebrew, "evening and morning of the nth day," as you see in the Bible, you mean a literal, 24-hour day. Surely you're not saying that a person trying to describe how long something is wouldn't use terms that the listener would understand, are you?Hebrew has ways of describing indefinite lengths of time as English does. If you wanted to describe a long time in English, you'd say "age," not "day." The reason Hebrew chose that particular phrasing is because it was describing a literal, 24-hour day.

quote:

---

Thus there is no recorded measurement of days one through four since we don't know how long it took to create the sun and the moon on day four.

---

Yes, we do. It took less than a day. The sun and moon were created after the third day but before the end of the fourth day and the days are literal, 24-hour days.

quote:

---

The record says the sun and moon determined the days years and seasons etc. Obviously the days before these existed were determined by the Spirit of God who was the member of the trinity there doing the work.

---

But it turns out that they were literal, 24-hour days because that is how they were described. If they weren't, why use language that indicates you mean a literal, 24-hour day? Why not use other terminology that indicates that it took longer than a literal, 24-hour day?

quote:

---

The Buzsaw Hypothesis reasons that a great amount of heat was applied to the planet on day one to evaporate/separate the waters below the firmament from the waters above the firmament (atmosphere)

---

This completely contradicts the geological record. The earth came first. The ocean came second. Genesis has it completely backwards. Therefore, your "hypothesis" is trying to describe something that didn't happen. While it may be internally consistent, it needs to be externally consistent.Earth first, water second, Buzsaw.

quote:

---

So not all so called literal interpretations of Genesis claimed by creationists are YEC.

---

But you're not taking it literally, Buzsaw. You are taking it metaphorically. A literal translation would take the Bible at its word: It uses a phrase that means a literal, 24-hour day. But you are saying that despite the fact that it goes out of its way to pound home the fact that it was a literal, 24-hour day, it doesn't really mean it but instead is speaking metaphorically.So which is it? Is it literal or is it metaphorical?

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

1. I would hope anyone reading Genesis one could figure out that if you have no mechanism in place to effect the 24 hour evening and morning until day five, the length of the first days would be undetermined. That's being literal to the information provided in the text.2. Read Joshua 10:14. By Jehovah's providence, the day was longer than 24 hours, yet it was called a day, i.e. evening and morning. No we're not talking ages in Genesis. It's evening/night and morning daylight. The length of each is unable to be determined as it would have been for the purpose of effecting the work of preparing the planet for life. For example it would have taken a lot of heat to evaporate enough water into the atmosphere to create it and effect the forming of the land and sea, etc. But we don't know how long the day had gone until the work of day four was finished. So yes, it took less than all of day four, but until the sun and moon were completed, the sun and moon would not determine the length of day four.Not until day five when the sun and moon were finished can we be sure that there was a 24 hour day. Assuming I'm right, what terminology would you expect for something unusual? It would be like Joshua's long day. It would be one evening and morning. Nothing in the Hebrew states emphatically that an evening and a morning must be 24 hours.quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's what Genesis 1 says. The earth came first and the oceans were formed second. There were no seas and no continents until the watery mix of earth and water were separated after heat/light came. The record states clearly that seas were created after the formless void earth was created. Earth first, water second, Rrhain. Check! Is this a first, or what?

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Buzsaw responds to me:

quote:

---

I would hope anyone reading Genesis one could figure out that if you have no mechanism in place to effect the 24 hour evening and morning until day five, the length of the first days would be undetermined.

---

I would hope anyone who speaks a language could figure out that words have meanings regardless of the existence of a sun. I would certainly hope that they could realize that if you are explaining something to someone else using language, then you use words that mean what you actually intend to convey.After all, if you didn't mean "literal, 24-hour day," why would you use a phrase that means "literal, 24-hour day"? Wouldn't you use another term that means an indeterminate length of time? It isn't like "yowm" is the only word to refer to a period of time in Hebrew.

quote:

---

Read Joshua 10:14.

---

Why? We're talking about Genesis, not Joshua. The Joshua passage is not referring to the events described in Genesis 1 nor is the phrasing used in that passage similar to what was used in Genesis 1. Therefore, it cannot assist us in determining what Genesis 1 is saying.Again, if Genesis 1 didn't mean a "literal, 24-hour day," why did it use a phrasing that means a "literal, 24-hour day"? I would certainly hope that anybody communicating in language would understand that words have meanings regardless of the existence of a sun and would thus use words and phrasings that mean what you actually intend to convey.

quote:

---

No we're not talking ages in Genesis.

---

If it isn't a literal, 24-hour day, then why would "age" be an inappropriate term? In English, an "age" refers to an indefinite period of time defined not by mere calendar concerns but rather by significant events.

quote:

---

It's evening/night and morning daylight.

---

No, it's a colorful phrase that is used to describe a literal, 24-hour day. It is based on the fact that when the text was written, a literal, 24-hour day was marked by a period of night followed by a period of day. But that's the thing about phrasing: It carries meaning.That's why the scientists working on the Mars probes talk about "sols" rather than "days." A "day" means 24 hours. But Mars doesn't rotate once every 24 hours. It rotates once every 24 hours and 37 minutes. The workers on the team function on Mars time, not Earth time, so their schedules slip 40 minutes every day. It's important to do this because the rovers are dependent upon the action of the sun not only to power the solar cells but because the heat from the sun warms the rover and affects its functioning. You have to be at the lab when Mars tells you it's time to be there.So if you were going to talk about time on Mars and wanted to make sure people understood what you were talking about, would you use the word "day"? Of course not. You'd use some other term to ensure that people understood you. Perhaps a phrase that used features of Mars such as a "crossing of Olympus Mons."

quote:

---

The length of each is unable to be determined as it would have been for the purpose of effecting the work of preparing the planet for life.

---

Incorrect. Words have meanings. It doesn't matter whether or not the sun exists. A person who speaks English knows what a "day" means. The people on the space shuttle orbit the earth every 90 minutes. They see sunrise and sunset 16 times in 24 hours. And yet, they still talk about "days." Now, do you think they say that when they are going on a "13-day mission," they mean they're going up for about 20 hours? Of course not. They mean a 24-hour day despite the fact that sunrise and sunset are happening at a rapid clip.Words and phrases have meanings. Why would you use a word or phrase that doesn't mean what you intend to convey? I would certainly hope that anybody trying to communicate using language would not say things they didn't mean.

quote:

---

For example it would have taken a lot of heat to evaporate enough water into the atmosphere to create it and effect the forming of the land and sea, etc.

---

But that isn't what Genesis says. Genesis says the water came first. And you've just contradicted yourself (Message 54): So which is it? Did the water come first or did it come second? Genesis 1 says it came first. Geology says it came second.

quote:

---

But we don't know how long the day had gone until the work of day four was finished.

---

Yes, we do. It took less than a day. The sun and moon were created after the third day but before the end of the fourth day and the days are literal, 24-hour days.Surely somebody who is trying to communicate using language wouldn't use a phrase that means a "literal, 24-hour day" without meaning that.

quote:

---

Not until day five when the sun and moon were finished can we be sure that there was a 24 hour day.

---

So why describe everything using "day"? Why use a phrase that specifically means a literal, 24-hour period of time when that isn't what you mean? It isn't like "evening and morning of the nth day" is the only way Hebrew can describe time.

quote:

---

Assuming I'm right, what terminology would you expect for something unusual?

---

How about the amount of time that it took? If it was more than a day, why use a phrase that means a literal day? Why not tell us how long or if that would ruin the poetry of the description, why not use a phrasing that gives some sign of the amount of time involved? There are plenty of ways to describe very long periods of time. Why use the phrase that means a short one?

quote:

---

That's what Genesis 1 says. The earth came first and the oceans were formed second.

---

Incorrect. It says the waters came first:Genesis 1:2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.Water first...there is no earth for it is without form and void.But wait, there's more:1:6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
1:7: And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
1:8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
1:9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
1:10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.According to Genesis 1, there was no dry land until it rose up out of the water. But geology says differently: There was dry land and the water settled upon it.

quote:

---

There were no seas and no continents until the watery mix of earth and water were separated after heat/light came.

---

But you're missing the point: "Sea" only makes sense in the light of having dry land. As the thought experiment goes: A "lake" is a body of water surrounded by land while an "island" is a body of land surrounded by water. Now suppose you have a planet where one hemisphere is all land while the other hemisphere is all water. Is the water a "lake" or is the land an "island"?[Yes, yes, I know that most people would say that the land is a "continent" and the water is an "ocean." That misses the point.]

quote:

---

The record states clearly that seas were created after the formless void earth was created.

---

Incorrect. The record states clearly that the seas were created after the formless void. The earth didn't come along until the seas came along and even then, it emerged from the water.Water first, land second, according to Genesis. Geology says it's the other way around: Land first, water second.

quote:

---

Earth first, water second, Rrhain. Check! Is this a first, or what?

---

But that isn't what Genesis 1 says:Genesis 1:2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.No earth, but there is water.Genesis 1:9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.Water first, land second.Geology says differently: Earth first, water second.Which is it?

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Rrhain:1. Earth = Planet Earth in Genesis one. That's the name of our planet; Earth.2. Joshua's long day is relevant to this debate. It proves that a day need not be 24 hours in the Hebrew language. The text calls that long day "day."3. You choose to ignore my argument that there was nothing in place before there was a sun and moon to determine the 24 hour day. That's your prerogative, but so long as we are at an impasse on that it's useless to continue knocking our heads together on that count.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

I am making a general comment since this reply is to the entire topic.One problem, that I see, is that people are looking at Genesis through 21st Century eyes, not through the eyes of the writers or the audience he was writing for. If the writer writes "evening & morning were the first day, he meant day and his readers would have understood day, whether it meant 24 hour day or 24,000,000,000 year day. Trying to adapt Genesis to modern times is absurd. Reading it as it was written and understanding what humans would have believed 3000, 4000 or 5000 years ago, one should be able to understand what the writers were saying in terms of the writer's period rather than ours.

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

If we accept, for a moment, that the Genesis account is an inspired work meant to convey the actual creation event. Would anyone have bothered with it if it was written as a literally correct description that no one would be able to understand for a few thousand years?I look at it as like trying to explain ATM machines to pygmies. Now, to be sure, your average pygmy is, in my opinion, far brighter than your average American, but there is simply no way you are going to be able to literally describe how ATM machines work because they will have no frame of reference. Using technically correct terms like "electricity", "fiber optics", and "credit" won't convey anything meaningful, instead you need to relate these concepts to something your listener already knows by saying "Credit is like. . ." and even then there's no assurance of success. What you will end up with (if you fair better than me) is a meaningful portrayal of an actual concept that is, at the same time, not literally word for word true. Or you end up with comments like this:"You mean, there's tubes under the ground with money shooting through them? Why doesn't anyone dig them up?"