A Day Age Concordance

Faith & Science Conversation
1

But that’s not when the universe was made. Verse 3 is billions of years after verse 1.

There is a conversion factor for Creation Days based on 2 Peter 3:8:

  • But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Is this just a poetic way of repeating the same thing but in reverse order? No, it’s both ways. The second instance of a thousand years corresponds to the one day with the Lord. So it’s …“and a thousand years (with the Lord) as one (Creation) day.” This makes sense because God is not bound by time. He can act slowly with a drawn out formative creation event, or very quickly with miracles. This is the plain meaning, but there is also a hidden formula here.

A “day with the Lord’’ is us spending a day with the Lord. We have been made in God’s likeness, so it’s our time, our day (same as Adam’s day) with the Lord that is measured as one thousand years of literal earth time. Earth time is to our time as our time is to God’s time. Adam lived a little less than 1,000 years but God said he would die “in the day” he ate from the tree – and that he did!

Lets look at the verse again with some clarification:

  • But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years *(with the Lord) as one day *(of the Lord) or (of Creation).

*Implied clarified meaning added in parenthesis.

The context of this verse is talking about when the Day of the Lord will be which is the same as the 1,000 year reign of Christ (Millennium) where He returns and we reign with Him (i.e. our time with the Lord). It is also the same as the 7th Day (Sabbath) of Creation. This Creation Day is the Day of the Lord which is important to distinguished from a day with the Lord.

So to convert a literal day to a Creation Day, we have:

1 day with the Lord = 1,000 literal years
so 1 year with the Lord = 1,000 literal years x 365 (days per year) = 365,000 (365K) years
so then, 1,000 years with the Lord = 365K x 1000 = 365 million years

I believe the return of Christ was on the Day of Pentecost when He returned in the form of the Holy Spirit and indwelled His multi-part Body of Christ which we are, His physical Return. Jesus is the Image of God, and He completed the 6th Day creation event by making us in His Image. This provides our starting point, 2,000 years ago, to count back from.

One Creation day is 365 million years, but that wont add up to 4.5 billion years over 6 days (365m x 6 = 2.2 bya). If anyone got to this point before, they probably abandoned the idea. The one thing we are missing here though is that a day is not a constant as we go back millions of years. Here is what I’ve compiled from various sources:

Years ago Hours in a year Hours in a day Days in a year
Today 8,766 24 365
100 million 8,766 23.33 376
200 million 8,766 22.66 387
300 million 8,766 22 398
400 million 8,766 21.33 411
500 million 8,766 20.66 424
600 million 8,766 20.33 431
700 million 8,766 20 438
0.8 - 1.5 billion 8,766 19 461
2.0 billion 8,766 18 487
2.5 billion 8,766 17 516
3.0 billion 8,766 15 584
3.5 billion 8,766 12 731
4.0 billion 8,766 10 877
4.5 billion 8,766 4 2192
13.8 billion 8,766 1 8766

By using the number of days in a year starting from the beginning of a Creation day we then get this (the time of Christ being the beginning of Day 7):

Literal Length of Day Days in a Year Beginning of Day End of Day
Day 7 365,000,000 365 0 -365,000,000
Day 6 411,000,000 411 411,000,000 0
Day 5 461,000,000 461 872,000,000 411,000,000
Day 4 461,000,000 461 1,333,000,000 872,000,000
Day 3 487,000,000 487 1,820,000,000 1,333,000,000
Day 2 516,000,000 516 2,336,000,000 1,820,000,000
Day 1 2,192,000,000 2,192 4,528,000,000 2,336,000,000
Beginning 8,766,000,000 8,766 13,294,000,000 4,528,000,000

In conclusion, according to the Scriptures, the universe created “In the beginning” was at least 13.29 bya (0.60% margin of error with scientific estimate of *13.37 bya for first stars), and the Earth was created at the beginning of Day 1, 4.53 bya (0.26% margin of error with scientific estimate of 4.54 bya).

*Everything before the most distant stars/galaxies is theoretical:

The universe could be much older, but this point where stars recede from us at the speed of light and can no longer be seen is when one hour equals one day. If we can spend at least one hour with the Lord each day, He will fill our whole day with light!

  • Matt 26:40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?
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I totally agree. Yet I don’t think we can use it as a formula. I think Peter was being general.

3

I believe Peter was inspired by God to write that, and agree that he was being general. If everyone had followed that meaning of creation days having an indetermined timeframe, we wouldn’t have the YEC views today. But Peter’s understanding of the inspired words should not limit the full meaning of what the Holy Spirit has to say to us today.

  • John 16:12-14 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

The many things he still has to say to us are not in other texts like the Koran, Book of Mormon, etc., but in the things already said by Him and that He declared through his apostles including Peter. Peter spoke not on his own authority (his own understanding), but whatever he heard, he spoke. He spoke of “things to come”, for us today to understand.

And yet the formula lines up very well with what we observe. Not just the Beginning and Day 1, but also each day and what we observe in our common decent with all life:

Common Decent Order by Day:
(Timeline for different species based on: Evogeneao: The Tree of Life)

Beginning of Heavens (immaterial) and Earth (material) (13.3 bya)

Day 1 (4.5-2.3 bya)
Light detection with photosynthesis beginning in cyanobacteria.

  • Bacteria (3 bya)
  • Archaea (2.5 bya)

Day 2 (2.3-1.8 bya)
Separation of layers (atmosphere, earth’s crust forming/tectonic activity).

  • Protists (2 bya)

Day 3 (1.8-1.3 bya)
Stabilization of continents and mountain building.

  • Plants (Algae, Mosses, Trees, etc) (1.6 bya)

Day 4 (1.3-0.87 bya)
Lights (a spectrum of light). Early signs of eyespots and neurons begin to evolve in some species.

  • Amoebas (1.2 bya)
  • Fungi (1 bya)
  • Choanoflagellates (900 mya)

Day 5 (872-411 mya)
Sea life and Cambrian Explosion with insects, fish, etc.

  • Sponges (800 mya)
  • Corals (650 mya)
  • Protostomes (Flying Insects, Crustaceans, etc) (630 mya)
  • Echinoderms (600 mya)
  • Fish (470 mya)
  • Lungfish (415 mya)

Day 6 (411-Present (Time of Christ))
Terestrial life with Tetrapods (four limbed)

  • Amphibians (355 mya)
  • Reptiles (Dinosaurs, Birds) (325 mya)
  • Mammals (175 mya)
  • Humans (Image of God) (350 kya)

Day 7 (Present-365 million years into future)
Return of Christ and Millennium

New Heavens and Earth (Eternal)

4

I think that
trying to rectify Scripture with science is fallacious.
If God is otside of time then any tie period assigned to Hi is meaningless.
Peter’s statement is not a scientific reference to time.

Richard

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5

Your correct that God is outside of time and I am not assigning time to Him, but to his Creation which is within spacetime. God could have broken up the timeline any way he wanted but chose to present it in the form of a work week for us. At the completion of creation, God came down and took on our flesh nature and experienced spacetime for Himself. That is the key point 2,000 years ago that we can then measure back from.

Science breaks up the creation timeline in its own ways based on events with eons, epochs, periods, etc. The creation week does the same thing and we can correlate it like I did above. They both have the same starting and ending point.

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No, you are trying to rectify a myth with reality just because it is written in a text that has been deemed sacred.

However, using the word Myth conjures up notions of falsehood or fantasy and that does not sit well with scared texts. It is a shame really. So much time wasted trying to prove that Genesis is based on reality. Why?

Very little in this life is inerrant or 100% perfect or efficient. Why must Scripture be so?

None of the disciples were perfect. Few if any of the Patriarchs or Prophets were perfect. Why should their literature be perfect?

Can’t you see that Scripture itself shows this?

Richard

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7

Well a myth can obscure, shroud objective truth. The truth can be hidden in the myth, but if we deem the myth a falsehood, we are not going to give it a second look and so it becomes meaningless to us today. On the other hand, if modern science was explained plainly to ancient Hebrews they would have thought the author was nuts!

Ancient Hebrew: "You think there are little critters hidden in my food?" 🤣🤣🤣 

Modern Scientist: "Ah, forget it! Just go back to your hand washing ritual."🤦‍♂️

So history is mythologized into an allegorical story to be revealed at a later time (today perhaps). Even at the time of Christ it was not ready to be revealed.

  • John 16:12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

And what He still has to say is in what He has already said (either directly or through His apostles):

  • John 16:14… He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

It has been proven to me that it is based on reality. The time was well worth it, and now I get to rest and enjoy sharing it with you.

Because Jesus takes ownership of Scripture and fulfills it making it perfect, just as He makes us perfect in Him. Genesis is a part of the Torah (the Law) and He makes the creation account true and complete as part of that fulfillment. By being a doer in believing the Word, truth is revealed.

  • James 1:22-25 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
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I love the fantasy of George MacDonald. In his work, truth is hidden in myth.

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If you think that somehow proves your view it doesn’t.

Being a doer of the word only requitres you to understand what Scripture is teaching it does not make Scripture inerrant or perfect or Genesis 1-11 real history.

The understanding of Genesis 1-11 is subjective at best. There can be no proof that it ever happened and there is plenty of proof that it is scientifically inaccurate. Even if you can spin a view of 6 or 7 days it does not change the content and the structural picture that is clearly not the one we have now.

Richard

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Understanding the Word comes by faith.

  • Rom 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

If the understanding is subjective, it cannot be proven as scientifically inaccurate. Take another look at my understanding and it will confirm science.

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Scripture is the beginning of fait, not the end or completion. faith based on Scripture alone is second hand at best. Until or unless the faith becomes real it is the seed sewn on rocky ground.

Your science is no better that YEC’s, or scientific Evolutionists. Regardless of the data used, it is the interpretation and usage that is faulty. You see what you want to see, not what is really there. (or in the case of evolution, not there)

Richard

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Your right that faith is not based on Scripture alone, but no its not second hand but rather in conjunction with the Holy Spirit.

Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and to catch the ‘wind’, I recommend a Spirit filled church. To receive the seed of faith you need good soil (a right heart) and water (the Word) to grow in understanding.

I don’t have my own science like YEC. I interpret Scripture and find that it aligns with mainstream science.

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Your belief is highly problematic there

First…Christ also said to watch out for signs in the leadup to his second coming…none of those were recorded during the weeks leading up to the day of pentecost.

Secondly…the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation 60 years AFTER the death and resurrection of Christ…so its impossible for the second coming to have predated the book of Revelation…everyone knows 100% was written in the mid A.D 90s whilst he was a prisoner on the isle of Patmos.

Third…Christ said He would send His comforter to help spread the gospel…that was what they were waiting for in the upper room, not the second coming!

Fourth…“and this gospel shall be taken to the WHOLE WORLD, and then the end will come” (they hadnt even started that process yet!)

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Agree with you there Richard…for starters, that text is talking about prophecy time…not real time. It is used by ancients in figuring out 70.week prophecy time periods in the book of Daniel (thats where the apostle got it from in the first place).

The Magi from the east (they were either from Persia or Babylon) that came to king Herod looking for the Messiah…the king had his own scholars check the 70 week prophecy from Daniel…once they realised the Magi had the right date, Herod sought to kill all babies 2 years old and less so his reign could not be challenged.

Neither Herod nor the Jews really understood what the prophecy really meant. Christ clarified this common misconception/mistake during his ministry…“my kingdom is not of this world”

Prophetic time has nothing to do with a 7 day Creation or the age of the earth…prophetic time doesnt look back…its forward looking. We cant use that for historical claims of day age theory…this is why that theory gets shredded in debates every time it comes up…theres no consistent biblical support for day age theory.

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YEC have their own science?

How do you figure that when God created science and He created all of us??

Your reasoning there is highly problematic…did God do it or are you claiming man created the laws of science???

See this is one area where i tear shreds out of TEism…it cant even consistenly figure out who created science..what happens here are word games conveiently used to try to get around ridiculous problems caused by statements like what you just made there.

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Those signs are observed by every generation, and the coming Kingdom is not outside ourselves.

  • Luke 17:20-21 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Noting the above passage from Luke:

  • Matt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

All the nations (of the known world) had representation in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost:

The Gospel reached Europe long before Paul took it to Macedonia. On the day of Pentecost, when the apostle Peter preached to thousands in Jerusalem, there were visitors from far and wide in Jerusalem, including Rome Act 2:10 where there was a Jewish community Act 18:2 and Act 15:21. About 3000 people were baptised as Christians that day and took the Gospel back to their home districts as far apart as Libya and Rome in the west to Persia and Mesopotamia in the east Act 2:9-11. – When did the Gospel first reach Europe? – Donald's Thoughts

The Spirit gave them the ability to speak in tongues (foreign languages) to speak to those people visiting from other countries.

  • Matt 24:15 “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand),

We are the temple of God (the holy place) and while the disciples were waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit, they had a lot of time for self reflection… to identify the ‘abomination of desolation’.

Before Pentecost, the disciples really struggled with unity. The disciples were often self-willed and self-promoting. On three different occasions, Jesus had to correct the disciples because they were arguing about which of them was the greatest, and one of these happened at the Last Supper. – Pentecost Changed Everything by Tony Cooke | Tony Cooke Ministries

They became much more united, waiting and praying there together in the upper room.

  • Acts 2:1-2 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

  • Matt 24:27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Its a spiritual return, everywhere at once!

Revelation is not future prophesy, but the ‘revealing of Christ’ to John in visions.

Yes, pseudoscience like flood layers and the earth only being 6K years old.

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In this case, I have to agree with what @adamjedgar wrote: your interpretation is problematic. The interpretation does not rise from the cited verses, instead the verses are interpreted to fit to the general frame or hypothesis you have in mind.

You are not alone in this type of ‘eisegesis’. To be painfully honest, most if not all denominations have at least some tendency for it. A denomination has certain doctrines and the verses in the biblical scriptures are interpreted so that the interpretations fit to the doctrines.
The doctrines may be originally based on one or few texts in the scriptures but after the doctrine has been formed, it guides the interpretation.

Despite this, there is a difference between interpreting difficult-to-understand verses so that they fit to a doctrine, and using the verses to support a rather ‘wild’ hypothesis that does not seem to get credible support from either biblical scriptures or other theological study.

If I have understood your claims correctly, your hypothesis rests primarily on an unusual interpretation of one verse (2 Peter 3:8).
I am somewhat sceptical towards any hypothesis that rests on a single verse - a credible interpretation should be based on multiple passages in the scriptures. In this case, the hypothesis is not even based on the apparent message of the single verse - both the context and what the verse tells speak about something else.

You seem to be rather consistent in how you interpret the texts, which may be seen as a positive character. Yet, you will have great difficulties in getting supporters to your hypothesis, at least among those that know the scriptures, for the reason I wrote.

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18

I appreciate your response Kai. Backing up to how this came about, I did not have a doctrine that I was fitting this verse to… well I was an OEC that just had a feeling that I was missing something from Scripture as a whole. I had to reset and allow the Holy Spirit to lead me in opening up my understanding. While I had always been against ToE I was trying to be open minded. To my surprise, it was the result of my study of the Word that lead me to accept ToE as a process that God used to create (EC). This was about 4 years ago.

To start, I was looking at all the impossibly long ages of the patriarchs and thinking how could this be real? People don’t live that long so either the ages given are made up or its not really individual people that are being talked about.

So I look up the meaning of the name ‘Adam’ which means ‘mankind’ (120. אָדָם adam) – ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.) – If you break that compound word apart it could mean a ‘kind of man’, and biblical ‘kinds’ are often equated to a ‘species’.

Then I look up the meaning of the word for ‘year’ (8141. שָׁנֶה shanah) – a year (as a revolution of time) – I’m seeing that word ‘evolution’ embedded in the word ‘revolution’ and thinking, no way! These two words are contrasting types of change. A revolution is a sudden rapid change in a short amount of time while evolution is a slow gradual change over a long period of time. The difference is the amount of time. Could what is being presented in this genealogy be a highly condensed (revolution) of the actual timeline?

  • Gen 5:3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

If Adam is a kind (or species), perhaps he could live not just 130 years but a lot longer before begetting a new species. And that brought 2 Pet 3:8 to mind.

Its fair to say that it is an unusual interpretation as it is not obvious from a plain reading, but keep in mind that Peter does say:

  • But, beloved, do not forget this one thing,

This suggests that what follows is something that has been said before and also is important to pay close attention to. The ESV says, “do not overlook this one fact”:

  • that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years , and a thousand years as one day .

This appears to draw from Psalm 90, titled “A Prayer of Moses the man of God” – Moses who is the traditional author of the Genesis creation account.

  • Psa 90:4 For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.

The real difference here is that Peter appears to repeat it in reverse order. But why? @St.Roymond has suggested that my interpretation is “an abuse of poetry”. If Peter was just being poetic, why wasn’t Moses’ original poetry good enough? But no, that is not the intent.

Additional support can be found from Jesus Himself in the feeding of the 5000:

  • Mark 8:18-19 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.”

The ‘fragments’ (2801. κλάσμα klasma) – fragment, piece, broken piece – are not just leftover crumbs but practically the full original bread that Jesus broke. One loaf of bread was food for one person for 1 day, so the 5 loaves would normally feed 5 people. The 5 turned into 5000 is our 1 to 1,000 ratio. That would be 1 day equal to 1000 days.

The twelve baskets full then represents 12 months, and I imagine Peter looked in his basket and counted 30 broken pieces. If its the same in each basket, that’s food for a year for one person. So we now have 1 day for 1 year. If Peter put two and two together, that could be how he got 1 day as 1,000 years.

What was multiplied by Christ when given to the disciples was multiplied again when picked back up from the multitude.

Some scholars believe that the number 1,000 in Hebrew elef (אֶלֶף) may mean a family group, clan, or a military unit. Its related to the word allup, (אלוף ) meaning “chief” or “leader,” particularly a leader of thousands. This solves other potential “issues” are like the number of Hebrews exiting Egypt (600 families/clans, not 600,000 men)

Jesus leads us and He gives us dominion over the earth, so there is support for this three tiered interpretation of 2 Peter 3:8.

The numbers bear witness themselves as the math does not lie as I applied it to the creation days as well as the patriarchs representing an evolutionary timeline from Adam to Isaac. The meaning of their names and when they begat children matches up closely with scientific estimates.

Adam died in the day he at from the tree a little less than 1,000 years later. All these ages close to 1,000 years confirm this ‘death curse’ passed on by Adam. Adam lived to 930, Seth lived to 912, Enosh lived to 905, Kenan lived to 910, Mahalalel lived to 895, Jared lived to 962, Methuselah lived to 969, Noah lived to 950. And get this: Enoch lived to 365 and was caught up to heaven! Sweet Jesus, thats some significant digits! (1,000 x 365 x 1,000 = 365 million)

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Much of what you say is certainly interesting, especially that to the ancients, numbers had far deeper meanings than we give them. For sure. The numbers of the breaking of the loaves have always fascinated me. But what’s most important is that Jesus is the bread of life and he was broken for us. When I was new to Christianity I remember how a pastor explained how Jesus blessed and broke and gave the loaves. Same thing he does for us.

Regarding finding specific meaning of numbers and the Bible, well, since I’m not an ancient, I’m lost. But that’s OK, I don’t feel compelled for that study for any particular reason and I do think following numbers has lead many on some wonky paths. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit reveals to us what’s needed.

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Thanks for explaining how you got your idea.

Seeking ‘hidden information’ through turning the biblical scriptures to numbers and simple mathematical equations have happened often in the history. Usually, it has happened by replacing the letters with numbers. It has also been quite common to interpret the words and numbers as allegorical messages. I have read books that use either or both approaches to interpreting the scriptures. In addition, interpreting some numbers in the biblical scriptures as symbolic messages has been common even among otherwise ‘standard’ interpretations - numbers like 1, 7, 12, 666.

Despite all these approaches in the history, your way to interpret the numbers is new to me. As it is a novel hypothesis, there is an elevated demand for critical inspection of how the novel interpretation fits to what the other parts of the scripture tell and, especially in this case, how your predictions fit to what the study of the creation (science, history, etc.) tells.

One way to get credibility is to first make predictions based on your method and thereafter, check if the predictions match the findings. The order needs to be this because reading first about the findings and then trying to fit them to your system leads easily to such twisting of both that is not credible.

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