One aspect of this discussion that hasn’t been mentioned (probably because it’s tangential) is the fact that all of the commands of the Decalogue are repeated and supported by NT authors, with the exception of one – Sabbath observance.
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I thought I was coming closer to understanding your position. I may be getting farther away. Please bear with me until I get to the end of this post.
I thought you were saying something like this:
If something is important - that is, if the Lord wants us to be concerned about an issue - then He will have made it explicit in the Scriptures.
Now, it sounds like you may be saying something like this:
The only reason that the age of the earth could be important is if it was necessary for us to keep one of the Ten Commandments…and it’s not.
Have I got one or both of these right? If one, which one? If neither, then could you generalize the principle or assumption you are following that leads you to say that the age of the earth is unimportant?
If I’ve exhausted your patience on this point, just tell me so and I’ll stop asking you about it. I don’t want to be an annoyance if I can avoid it.
Did God make explicit the computation of the age of the earth? Consider the following from Primeval Chronology by William Green, 1890:
But do not the chronological statements introduced
into these genealogies oblige us to regard them as neces-
sarily continuous? Why should the author be so partic-
ular to state, in every case, with unfailing regularity, the
age of each patriarch at the birth of his son, unless it
was his design thus to construct a chronology of this
entire period, and to afford his readers the necessary ele-
ments for a computation of the interval from the creation
to the deluge and from the deluge to Abraham? And if
this was his design, he must of course have aimed to make
his list complete. The omission of even a single name
would create an error.
But are we really justified in supposing that the author
of these genealogies entertained such a purpose? It is a
noticeable fact that he never puts them to such a use him-
self. He nowhere sums these numbers, nor suggests
their summation. No chronological statement is deduced
from these genealogies, either by him or by any inspired
writer. There is no computation anywhere in Scripture
of the time that elapsed from the creation or from the
deluge, as there is from the descent into Egypt to the
Exodus (Ex. xii. 40), or from the Exodus to the building
of the temple (I Kings vi. 1). And if the numbers in these
genealogies are for the sake of constructing a chronology,
why are numbers introduced which have no possible rela-
tion to such a purpose? Why are we told how long each
patriarch lived after the birth of his son, and what was
the entire length of his life? …
3.The abode of the children of Israel in Egypt affords
for our present purpose the best Scripture parallel to the
periods now under consideration. The greater part of
this term of 430 years is left blank in the sacred history.
A few incidents are mentioned at the beginning connected
with the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt and
their settlement there. And at its close mention is made
of some incidents in the life of Moses and the events lead-
ing to the Exodus. But with these exceptions no account
is given of this long period. The interval is only bridged
by a genealogy extending from Levi to Moses and Aaron
and their contemporaries among their immediate relatives
(Ex. vi. 16-26). This genealogy records the length of
each man’s life in the principal line of descent, viz., Levi
(ver. 16), Kohath (ver. 18), Amram (ver. 20). The corre-
spondence in the points just indicated with the genealogies
of Gen. v. and xi., and the periods which they cover, is
certainly remarkable. And as they proceeded from the
same pen, we may fairly infer from the similarity of con-
struction a similarity of design. Now it has been shown
already that the genealogy from Levi to Moses cannot
have recorded all the links in that line of descent, and
that it could not, therefore, have been intended to be used
as a basis of chronological computation. This is rendered
absolutely certain by the explicit statement in Ex. xii. 40.
It further appears from the fact that the numbers given
in this genealogy exhibit the longevity of the patriarchs
named, but cannot be so concatenated as to sum up the
entire period; thus suggesting the inference that the
numbers in the other genealogies, with which we are now
concerned, were given with a like design, and not with
the view of enabling the reader to construct the chronology. …
5.The structure of the genealogies in Gen. v. and xi.
also favors the belief that they do not register all the
names in these respective lines of descent. Their regu-
larity seems to indicate intentional arrangement. Each
genealogy includes ten names, Noah being the tenth from
Adam, and Terah the tenth from Noah. And each ends
with a father having three sons, as is likewise the case
with the Cainite genealogy (iv. 17-22). The Sethite gene-
alogy (chap. v.) culminates in its seventh member, Enoch,
who “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”
The Cainite genealogy also culminates in its seventh
member, Lamech, with his polygamy, bloody revenge, and
boastful arrogance. The genealogy descending from
Shem divides evenly at its fifth member, Peleg; and “in
his days was the earth divided.” Now as the adjustment
of the genealogy in Matt. i. into three periods of fourteen
generations each is brought about by dropping the requi-
site number of names, it seems in the highest degree prob-
able that the symmetry of these primitive genealogies is
artificial rather than natural. It is much more likely that
this definite number of names fitting into a regular
scheme has been selected as sufficiently representing the
periods to which they belong, than that all these striking
numerical coincidences should have happened to occur in
these successive instances.
It may further be added that if the genealogy in chap.
xi. is complete, Peleg, who marks the entrance of a new
period, died while all his ancestors from Noah onward
were still living. Indeed Shem, Arphaxad, Selah, and
Eber must all have outlived not only Peleg, but all the
generations following as far as and including Terah. The
whole impression of the narrative in Abraham’s days is
that the Flood was an event long since past, and that the
actors in it had passed away ages before. And yet if a
chronology is to be constructed out of this genealogy,
Noah was for fifty-eight years the contemporary of Abra-
ham, and Shem actually survived him thirty-five years,
provided xi. 26 is to be taken in its natural sense, that
Abraham was born in Terah’s seventieth year. This con-
clusion is well-nigh incredible. The calculation which
leads to such a result, must proceed upon a wrong as-
sumption.
On these various grounds we conclude that the Scrip-
tures furnish no data for a chronological computation
prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records
do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date
either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.
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What the passages meant to the original audience was God created the universe in six days. They believed this to be true. What the passages mean to us given the additional revelation from God’s creation is that God created the universe. To me this makes the passages true to the original audience in their understanding and true to us in our understanding. The Word of God is always true, but not always in the same way.
Sure.
Psalm 104:5 He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever. NASB
Psalm 93:1 The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. KJV
And many others of course. And remember what is important is what those verses meant to the original audience.
Just my poor attempt at humor coupled with one of the ways I learned to answer test questions in my school days. After seeing how I answered the first two questions you should be able to guess what my answer would be to the third.
And let me add another thought here. I was thinking yesterday about our exchanges which raised a question. What Biblical authority do we have for changing anything in the Word of God? Muslims believe that the Quran is only inspired when read in Arabic. So I dug up my copy of “The Hermeneutical Spiral” to see what it had to say and in the skimming I did last night couldn’t come up with anything. Lots of words on why and how but nothing on if it is allowed or to what degree. This seems to be an unstated assumption of everyone. Osborne did say as we move from text to interpretation to contextualization the level of authority goes down so we need to make sure of our understanding of what the text meant to the original audience. A common phrase seems to be “going from what it meant to what it means.” BTW that is a great book if you want to get into the nitty gritty of interpretation.
The epistles always talk of Paul going to the synagogue on the Sabbath to preach the Gospel. When the Jews rejected him, he and others met elsewhere. The four Gospels all show that Christ went to the synagogue and often spoke to the congregation.
The early Church began to meet on Sunday to commemorate the resurrection - this became the Christian Sabbath.
It is this aspect, that we observe a day of rest and worship God that is central, not the ability to identify a specific period that is referenced directly with the creation week.
Indeed, you did - to which I responded in post #53, which I won’t reproduce here, though anyone who’s interested can go back to post #41 and find it among the replies. There, they will also find some additional back and forth between you and me on this point. Since people can find all that there, I won’t repeat all of it here.
It is disappointing to read this, as you seem to have lost sight of how I began my response to you on this point in post #53:
I recall being quite happy with your emphasis on the image of God and ethically imitating Him, particularly through Christ. It was the exclusion of all other meaning from the text to which I objected - hence my concern about the “mutual exclusivity” you were employing. I went on to say in post #70:
I wasn’t the one who chose to position “six days plus one” - first by God, then to be imitated by man - as the explicit verbal centerpiece of Ex 20:11 and Ex 31:17 as well as the chronological frame of Gen 1-2. That was Moses (God). I’m just searching for the faithful way to react to that positioning.
I don’t think I am, for the reason I just stated…and more. However, even if I am straining out a gnat, let us consider Jesus’ warning in context (italics added):
Matt 23:23 ¶ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
Matt 23:24 "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Notice that Jesus is discouraging the application of mutual exclusivity where it is not warranted.
As for ascertaining just how important or unimportant is the issue of “six days plus one,” I’ve spoken of that before and will probably do so again, so I won’t do so now.
In closing, I remind you that I love your emphasis on our imitation of God through Christ - which by means of the scriptures you listed and other like them gives us even richer and more rewarding meditation than Thomas a Kempis does - and wholeheartedly welcome your bringing it into the discussion. Let nothing I am saying about the Lord’s “six days plus one” take away from it.
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Perhaps I cannot make myself clear, so I will try this:
Each statement of the ten commandments is clear - thou shall not steal thou shall observe the Sabbath, thou shall not worship idols, and so on.
I cannot find a similar phrase of sentence that would read in this way, such as, this is the age of the earth, or the beginning of creation was x thousand and y hundred years before Abraham, and so on.
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Oh, I quite agree. I don’t see a sentence like that in the Bible either. What I’m asking is if you think the mere absence of a sentence like in the Bible that makes the issue unimportant for people who revere the Bible.
Jay,
This man’s argument is with Archbishop Ussher - not me. Thus it is a straw man in this thread.
My interest in what the Bible has to say about the age of the earth is strictly binary: thousands of years or billions of years. I need no answer more precise than that.
I would replace the word “literally” in that sentence with the word “scientifically” or “exclusively.” The earth was fixed under the feet of the ancient man just as it’s been fixed under my feet all my life. It’s also true that the earth is moving very fast. Both are true. Discovery of the sphericity, spinning, and revolving of the earth did not make us all dizzy and give us chapped lips. These discoveries just gave us additional - not replacement - ways of engaging physical reality.
Thus I see the earth as fixed for me as it was for the ancient man. What’s different for me from him is that I understand why it’s possible for us to go to the moon and back.
From the other side of the river, let me just say that this sounds like “Santa Claus history” to me. That is, you present it as true in the beginning but later on acknowledge that it’s not true - all in the name of what’s best for everyone at the time. To my sensibilities, it’s wrong. I wouldn’t want to be on either the giving or receiving end of such a “history.”
Moreover, I’m struck by the disparity of the two answers: through the Bible, God tells everyone in the pre-scientific ages that it took six days and was finished, but to the scientific generations He says it took billions of years and still is not finished. Was He trying to be funny by making the two answers so dramatically different from each other? Was that whole “six days” schtick really such a good idea given how short of the mark it falls?
The legendary newspaper editor made good use of equivocation when he wrote the inquiring eight-year-old girl, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus…” but most grown people - ancient or modern - would appreciate a straight answer.
What it indicates is that however important it may be for people who revere the Bible, it is not a matter of importance for the Bible itself. Nowhere from one end of the Bible to the other do we get any impression that anyone in the entire Bible is remotely interested in the age of the earth, and nowhere from one end of the Bible to the other do we get any impression that it is a matter in which the Bible suggests we should be interested. We can be interested in it for our own reasons, but we shouldn’t confuse our opinion with the Bible.
The Bible says absolutely nothing about the age of the earth. On the other hand, God left a physical record of His handiwork written in the earth itself. Why not read it and take His word for it?
What do you mean “but to the scientific generations He says it took billions of years and still is not finished”? That doesn’t make any sense.
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One aside that affects our modern so-called “veneration” for the Decalogue.
I agree, Jay. BUT the use of the Name of YWHW has been removed from the English Bible and is rarely heard for a number of scholarly, and not so scholarly justifications. Yet he said “This is my name for all generations…” (Exdous 3:15)
Just for the Jews use??? I am not convinced.
Using “The LORD” is certainly eschewing the name (thanks @gbrooks9 for that word). We are certainly not obeying it. The LORD is a title, not his NAME!
Ray 
A confirmed YHWHist!
True, but they also began to meet on Sunday (the Lord’s Day, Rev. 1:10) to distinguish themselves from the Jews, especially in the aftermath of the Jewish War and the persecutions they experienced, and the early Christians never called it Sabbath.
It’s not really a straw man, because it demonstrates that the age of the earth was not the primary concern of Moses. As the author of the article said, Scripture elsewhere has no problem adding up ages and generations to come up with a hard-and-fast number. We are told the number of years from Joseph to the Exodus and the number of years from the Exodus to the temple. Matthew neatly divides Jesus’ genealogy to create 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to the Christ. Only with the Genesis genealogies do we not see this feature. If Moses was concerned to establish the age of the earth, why this silence? Why are these genealogies the only ones treated this way in Scripture? If the age of the earth was actually of any importance, let alone primary importance, wouldn’t God have made it explicit, which is your own criteria of establishing importance?
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Maybe, just maybe, it was God’s intent to provide a description of his creative activity that would satisfy every generation of mankind, from pre-scientific to today and on until tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, God intended to communicate greater and more important things than how long it took.
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Sorry for the multiple posts:
The binary choice between two interpretations of Gen. 1 is this: 1) Did God create in 6 literal days, and Moses merely reported that fact and drew a lesson for the Israelites from it in the Decalogue? or 2) Did God create over a long period of time, and Moses chose to represent it as 6 days in order to teach the Israelites an ethical principle?
Since we have extra-biblical evidence that supports interpretation #2 but not #1, I choose #2.
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Yes but you have a different understanding of what “fixed” means.
But you don’t. You are aware that with continental drift even as you stand “still” the ground is literally moving under your feet. You have a greater understanding than they had.
That would be totally new knowledge unrelated to the earth moving. You could call it progressive revelation by God using nature and science. And if there can be progressive revelation for our understanding of nature why could there not also be progressive revelation for our understanding of history? Why can nature be changeable but not history?
And it is. Does an adult have a good reason to tell their children about Santa Claus? When a small child asks “Where did I come from?” does a parent have a good reason not to go into all the details of reproduction? Would that make the facts of reproduction false?
Could the disparity be explained by the difference in knowledge between the ancients and us?
Sometimes I think your biggest hurdle is just coming to an understanding of WHY God did it this way. Sorry to say but no one can know the mind of God and the why question really can’t be answered.
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Bill, I wanted to provide a Hebrew exegesis reminder to the scriptures you cited in relation to “The earth does not move”:
And that is my interest as well: What did these verses mean to the original audience?
If we look up these two verses in the Hebrew Bible, you will notice the key words ERETZ and TEBEL. I have already made the point on many occasions that ERETZ primarily means “land”, “nation”, “region” and sometimes even works like “the ground” in English. TEBEL has sometimes been called “the poetic equivalent of ERETZ” [which can sometimes confuse the issue, IMHO, though I see the point], but it too should not be automatically assumed to refer to planet earth.
I compare the Hebrew word TEBEL to the Greek word KOSMOS in the New Testament. KOSMOS was often used to refer to the inhabited world while GE in Greek often referred to the entire planet of rocks and continents. Thus, 2Peter 3 refers to the Noahic flood judgment by water as destroying the KOSMOS, inhabited world of people, while the future judgment by fire will destroy the GE, the entire planet earth. And when God so loved the WORLD in John 3:16, he loved the people of that world, not the rocks and continents (in which case the Greek text would have used GE instead of KOSMOS.)
[KOSMOS is also used at times to refer to the entire order of things in the universe. A lexicographic commentary on KOSMOS gets quite complicated, but it is very difficult to discuss any of the English Bible scriptures involving the words “earth” or “world” without first checking to see what is behind the translation in the Hebrew or Greek original texts.]
We are reminded of how the ancient Hebrews thought of the TEBEL when the Psalmist says:
Ps 97:4 His lightnings lighted up the world [TEBEL]; the earth [ERETZ] saw, and trembled.
Notice that “planet earth” doesn’t really make a great equivalent for TEBEL here (nor for ERETZ, for that matter, without providing a translation footnotes and a bit of commentary.) Is the Bible claiming in Psalm 97:4 that God’s individual lightning strikes are visible throughout the planet? No. Is the passage claiming that every region of the planet experiences lightning? No. What we must keep in mind that when the ancient Hebrews talked about TEBEL and ERETZ, they were basically thinking about their daily experience----where the above was the HASHAMAYIM (the heavens) and the below was the ERETZ (the land.) Indeed, for them, “the heavens and the earth”, as in Genesis 1:1, was a kind of idiom for our words “the universe.” Yet, both TEBEL and ERETZ were usually viewed as a “personal phenomenon” they experienced because it referred to where they lived: the land, that is, their world.
So my caution is as before, when people today say “The Bible claims that the earth cannot be moved”, they assume that that means “The Bible claims that planet earth doesn’t move.” But that is not at all what was on the minds of the Hebrews. They were saying something far more obvious: We live on solid ground, and even if earthquakes and mudslides happen at times, we plant our feet on solid ground. We build houses on stable foundations which will still be here tomorrow. Other things move around all the time and can even be moved by people. But only YHWH can move the ERETZ----because God established the ERETZ and it cannot be moved by others! Only God has that power.
The moment people today make statements like “The Bible says that planet earth doesn’t move.”, they’ve already started falling into an anachronistic fallacy hole. I’m NOT saying that the ancient Hebrews had a scientifically sound cosmology. They did not. They had lots of wrong views. Yet, I’m emphasizing that they weren’t trying to make the kinds of scientific statements or even the emphasis upon cosmological statements which many people today imagine.
Frankly, I wish all English Bible translations of the Hebrew Old Testament would stop using the word EARTH. Too many English readers will automatically assume that EARTH means “planet earth”, when that is an anachronistic label which wouldn’t have made sense in that culture. [Of course, “the circle of the earth” that is often gleefully cited by many popular apologetics website is NOT an ancient reference to the earth being a sphere. That is so wrong that it makes me nauseous. “The circle of the ERETZ/land” refers to the horizon and the disk of land on which every person with eyes knows that they live. We all live on an ERETZ which you observe every time you step outside: you see a disk of land extending to the horizon in all directions no matter where you look! That is exactly what the ancient Hebrews were talking about—and it is also an entirely valid “scientific description” of one’s world.
Bill, you might find interesting my impromptu translations/paraphrases of the two verses you quoted:
Psalm 104:5 He established THE GROUND WE WALK UPON and its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.
Psalm 93:1 The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: THE INHABITED WORLD also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
In this manner, we generally side-step any implication that the Psalmist was describing the shape and absolutely motionlessness of planet earth.
This is also a good illustration of why Bible translator have a really hard job.
I have not said that it was.
I have not said that Moses was concerned to establish an age of the earth.
There are all sorts of issues we have to deal with in modern times that were not made explicit in the Bible. Does this mean that all these modern issues must be relegated to unimportance? Should we tell people asking about transgenderism that it’s not important and none of us need to be talking about it because the Bible is not explicit about it? Should we tell people struggling with the morality of commercial third-party reproduction that they’re obsessing over something that the Bible doesn’t think is important? Is the Bible’s omission of any prohibition against same-sex “marriage” God’s way of making sure that people never think that He cares which side they take on the issue?
The reason that the age of the earth is important is not because God - or Moses, for that matter - has said it’s important, but rather because humanity has said it’s important. And I don’t just mean scientists, I mean practically all of pop culture, for it’s practically impossible to escape some allusion or even explicit reference to the age of the earth in the course of a day when exposed for any length of time to mass or social media. Whether it’s a PBS program calling us to join in swooning over Neil deGrasse Tyson’s latest riff on how we’re all stardust, or political pundits tut-tutting presidential candidate Scott Walker for being too slow to say he accepts the truth of evolution, modern man has made quite an issue of the age of the earth - insisting that it is billions of years older than anyone whose only exposure to ancient history is the Bible would ever think.
Neither I nor the Bible have made the age of the earth an important issue. The scientific age already did that. I’m just trying to cope with that reality, and, as with any important issue, I look to the Bible for guidance. When I do, what I find staring me in the face is a book that has resisted two hundred years of exegetical effort to either make it agree with billions of years or, if not, shut up. One thing that BioLogos adherents have in common is that they have no common way to interpret the Bible on the subject of origins.
I’ve spent most of my Christian life avoiding the issues of age of the earth and evolution. It’s seeing the importance modern society places on it, and the effect this is having on today’s young people, that has forced me to face it head on. I find the Bible bearing a relatively quiet witness on the subject, but a witness nonetheless.
@Casper_Hesp,
Could you explain what is the alternative less heretical approach would be? Perhaps this is a semantic snafu? I was under the impression that we were discussing the topic in the same way?
If what we have is “a description of his creative activity that would satisfy every generation of mankind, from pre-scientific to today and on until tomorrow,” why have day-age, gap, literary framework, John Walton, and assorted other interpretations and variations popping up in the last 200 years?
See what I wrote to you earlier about the importance of the age of the earth.