Did Jesus Christ, our Lord, during His physical ministry on Earth, in his truly mortal body, believe in Young Earth Creationism?

Faith & Science Conversation
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I wonder why nobody has asked this or perhaps someone did but didn’t notice.

While I perfectly believe that now, in His Divinity, the Son of Man, the second Person in the Holy Trinity, our Lord and Savior, God Himself, Lord Jesus Christ has the perfect knowledge of the state of the universe, there have been some verses, the sayings of Lord Jesus Christ Himself that may imply a 6000-year universe, or at least as it has been repeatedly pointed out by our Christian brothers who interpret them that way.

I’ve been a Young Earth Creationist until my early 20’s when I was trying to oppose the Evolution theory and to defend the Young Earth Creationism materials, mainly from the Answers in Genesis website, including and especially the writings of Dr. Duane T Gish who was also quoted heavily by Answers in Genesis.

After contrasting the arguments there at Answers in Genesis with the rebuttal or counterargument or antitheses at Talk Origin and some other Theistic Evolutionist websites, and carefully perusing the literatures quoted by both, I, shockingly, found out that all seemingly scientific refutation by Answers in Genesis and Dr Duane T Gish are fallacious and deliberately manipulated in order to justify or to support the notion of 6 literal 24-hour independent creations of the Earth, Animals, and Human species around 6000 years ago.

Even so, I was still in years long state of denial because I was (and still am) convinced that Lord Jesus Christ Himself believed in the notion of 6 literal 24-hour independent creations of Earth, Animals, and Human species around 6000 years ago. It was a truly giant leap in faith because many verses in the Bible do explicitly imply Young Earth Creationism.

Interestingly, some of Members and senior Members in this forum believe that Jesus did not share the Young Earth Creationism view.

Please indicate with a Yes or No or not so sure regarding your View whether Jesus believed in Young Earth Creationism and please explain or support your stance.

Some Verses that might imply or indicate Jesus Christ’s belief in Young Earth Creationism i.e.,

“Because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.” Mark 13:19

“But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female” Mark 10:6

Note: when Christ said the beginning, He actually explicitly referred to the Book of Genesis or Bereshit which means “in the Beginning.”

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You’re not the only one to puzzle over this question. But another question I’ve had to ask alongside of it is, did any of the biblical writers actually believe in a particular age of the earth? There is always Ussher’s chronology, which as far as I know is the first preserved instance of someone adding up the ages and assigning a “date” for creation – but that was only a few hundred years ago. Nowhere in the Old or New Testaments does anyone, anywhere mention or even allude to the earth or universe having a particular age. Why not? And why is it so important to some people now, to the point where they’d stake their entire faith on it, if it’s not even mentioned in the Bible? Sure, Jesus mentions “the beginning” – but we read into that what we want to, especially those of us who have grown up with all kinds of information alongside Genesis that doesn’t actually appear in it. So it doesn’t bother me that much. If Genesis 1 was simply an “exalted prose” description of God assigning purposes and functions to the created elements, then surely Jesus knew that too and didn’t mention it either. It’s as if the age of the earth isn’t that important when it comes to our spiritual development.

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I have always found it interesting the Jesus never mentioned Adam by name. So that would make me a No.

But then I have never believed Jesus was all knowing while here. Otherwise how do you explain the “growing in wisdom” comment.

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Is it a Yes or a No?
Do you think Jesus believed in Literal Young Earth Creationism?

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I don’t really know… but I’d lean toward no.

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It is a No.

So, you believe that Jesus Christ at the time of His physical presence on Earth fully knew that the Universe is 13.8 billions years old?

This number is still subject to Science as there is still disagreement on the precise billions.

Or, let say, you believe that Jesus knew that the ‘Days’ in the Book of Genesis should not be interpreted literally?

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But, He did mention Jonah and Noah.

  • As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be
  • The sinful people of this day look for something special to see Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of a big fish
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What I believe is: Jesus Christ when He was born as a Mortal Baby, He was 100% human baby yet 100% God.

There has been no indication in the Bible that Jesus knew the Hebrew Aleph-Bet on His own without nobody teaching Him.

If Jesus, or anyone in the first century, knew about quarks, relativity theory, black holes, galaxies, dark matter, it would be through Supernatural intervention from God or in Christ’s Divine Nature.

I think in His incarnated presence, Christ is fully Human.

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I didn’t say that.

The billions have been nailed down. The only part of the age in question would be the precise number of millions. :wink:

yom means day, which I am sure that Jesus knew. We have no way of knowing how He chose to interpret that. We do know He had unique interpretations for other parts of the OT.

How does this relate to a 6 day creation?

That should be 3 days in Sheol.

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It means that Jesus affirmed or confirmed of the historicity of Noah’s flood and arc and that Jonah was swallowed by a giant fish.
It means that many of the passages written in the Bible, especially the ones written during Babylonian captivity have to be taken literally, including the Book of Genesis.

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I think this is new.
When I was in college, there was a controversy between two ways of determining the Age of universe and they’re off for 2 Billions years at 6 sigma.

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Adam and Eve were created on Day 6, not Day 1, so even in a 24/6 reading it wasn’t even at the literalist ‘beginning’.

I think Jesus was aware of the poetic aspects of Genesis 1 as being in not different ‘voice’, exactly, but enough different that it could be understood to contain metaphors.

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When Jesus said ‘the beginning’, He didn’t mean Day 1 of creation but it was said on the Book of Genesis.

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I think some YECs don’t know that, or at least push the point beyond breaking.

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The issue here is: the majority of Orthodox Rabbis at that time (virtually all), and surprisingly also today, in many supporting documents like Talmud, believed in literal 6 24-hour days.

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In Indonesian earliest translations of the Bible in 19th and early 20th century, the Book of Genesis was named “Permulaan” or the Book of Beginning but now it’s named “Kejadian” or the Book of Genesis.
“Kejadian” is the standard transliteration of Genesis with every day meaning of ‘Event’ or, sometimes, could also be ‘Nativity’.

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Again, I think Jesus recognized the possibility of metaphors, and maybe that was something he talked about with the leaders when he was ‘left behind at school’ at the temple when Mary and Joseph didn’t know he was. :slightly_smiling_face: At any rate, I’m sure he kept the issue in the right perspective, i.e., minimally important in the overall theological and soteriological picture, and not amplified beyond all reason like YECs do today.

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This is like asking if Jesus believed in capitalism, or whether he endorsed the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM. The answer would reasonably be ‘no’ because these things didn’t exist (identified as such) in his day. The closest anybody here (or there) can come to claiming Jesus’ support for this or that scientific proposition is to attempt to show that what he did positively teach must inevitably lead to the desired modern proposition. And that effort requires one to extract varous isolated texts and press them into tortured modern propositional service. In the end, all those gymnastics end up revealing much more about the modern apologist than they do about the purported agenda of the orginal teacher.

So, on the question of whether Jesus belived in a billions year old earth or a thousands year old earth - I would have to answer: neither. At least not in any way that would satisfy the modern apologist. To attempt to marshall Jesus’ (or Paul’s or anybody else there) into service on this is a bit like trying to use scriptures to try to esablish that Pumpkin spice is overused this time of year. It’s a quixotic pursuit, because it just wasn’t an issue for them like us. And if one is to counter here that none of them back then would have been thinking in terms of billions of years (which is almost certainly true - why would such a thing occur to them?), then if that is to become a criteria for truth now, we would also be obliged to accept a whole lot of other stuff too that they would almost certainly have also accepted (like an unmoving earth, or that history was very near its end, or that the slavery of some is just a part of the nature of things to be accepted…) and all sorts of stuff like that. So we already move in the tacit agreement that we need not try to preserve all ancient understandings as somehow being correct in regard to how we imagine they might have touched on our modern agendas.

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Though am not an American, I am Democratic in between socialism and capitalism, the strengths of both with none of the weaknesses. I used to love the Copenhagen interpretation until some years ago when they found out that the electron transition or the quantum leap wasn’t instantaneous skipping the space time in between but gradual. I am still infatuated by the classical Copenhagen interpretation.
As of for Jesus: I believe He is a Socialist in Bernie way, not so sure if He sides with Bohr.

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I believe if someone openly said that he believes that the Earth revolves around the Sun, that guy would be at least ostracized if not stoned for leaving the Jewish religion.
The reason is because: Zoroastrianism, the Babylonian religion, was the only faith that recognized the Heliocentrism. By adhering to Heliocentrism, it would have been enough to expel someone form the Jewish faith. And, this kind of issues mattered at least as much as they do today.
The question is: what was Jesus’ view?
Or, this question is fallacious because Christ as He is God knew already but he just pretended He didn’t know while He was on Earth.