The Age of the Earth is unknown from the Bible

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@JoelHinrichs

RIchard, it would be good to examine the specific verses. You offer one passage and several others are like it, yet a roughly equal number do "visit the sins of the father onto his sons unto the third and fourth generation.

I have not checked, but I would hope that the verses discussing curses through generations come chronologically ahead of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

Things are muddies a by by the belief that God can and does influence people to become hard hearted, or reject Himself, usually because of the apostasy you describe. The punishment is universal rather than individual. The cycle in Judges assumes that ony re Judge is righteous amongst the whole country of sinners, and their actions somehow redeem everyone else.

The Biblical cycle is of corporate punishment for corporate sin with individuals redeeming, which runs right the way throught to Christ Himself.

Richard

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

Hi Biologos, I have been busy writing future daily Bible Studies on my gap for my fellowship group. But I have prayed to my Heavenly Father about my no longer being able to copy my full studies here so that everyone can read and hopefully see where in the Bible I am getting my understandings. I still have no clear answer from my Heavenly Father. So for the time being I will attempt to go over comments and questions raised from my earlier posts that I have not yet addressed. Again, as stated earlier, I will only be answering those questions/comments that are Biblically based and where I sense that the person has a genuine interest by what the person wrote. I am at this point referring to David Campbell, as an example. I rather appreciated the sincerity of his comments about three days ago and I believe I already addressed some areas of his concerns. I will try to answer other concerns from David Campbell and perhaps anyone else that I may have missed. Thanks.

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

Hello again David.

I believe I have answered sufficiently enough your point# 1 and your closing statement.

Now I aim to tackle point# 2:

“Textual uncertainties in the dates that are given.
The Masoretic, Septuagint, and Samaritan versions of Genesis give different numbers for ages of the early generations. Something has gone wrong with the dates for Saul’s reign in 1Samuel.”

Nothing has gone wrong with the length of Saul’s reign. That information was revealed only to my namesake, the Apostle Paul:

Acts 13:21 And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.

The Old Testament does not give Saul’s length of reign. But not to worry, for the Old Testament gives us a span from the Exodus to the commencement of the building of the first temple and this span includes Saul’s reign:

1 Kings 6:1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.

The span of 480 years is a part of the reason I name my calendar, the detailed Biblical Calendar because it fills in all the time spans with their details. Thus there would not be full details without the New Testament.

Now I will comment as briefly as I can on textual uncertainties with the chronogenealogies. My Heavenly Father saved me when I was 22 and He gave me the Masoretic text via the KJV and the Strong’s Concordance. That’s how I harmonized and reconciled every historical time statement in the Old Testament, setting them out in Excel chart form, so that I knew there were no gaps. Well, that’s before my gap which I wrote came about in 2007. However, it was when I was done doing all my detailed calendar work and published it on my website two decades ago that I got a bunch of detractors who argued in favor of Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch. When I did my research on the time statements with the chronogenealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 in those spurious texts I realized that they made adjustments to those numbers because they simply could not reconcile and harmonize them with all the Scripture as the numbers appear in the Masoretic Text. They also did the same with the length of stay in Egypt. Thus they fudged the Masoretic Text!

Well, that’s why my Heavenly Father gave me His correct Masoretic Text upfront and only after I had reconciled and harmonized EVERY historical time statement. That’s how wise is my Heavenly Father. And, David, I know that my usage of ‘my Heavenly Father, is offensive to many and a turn off to others. But David, what can I say? For the glory belongs to Him:

John 3:27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

1 Corinthians 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

I learned very quickly to give the praise to WHO its due.

And when I write about downloads by my Heavenly Father. Let me explain. While going through the entire Bible in great detail to work on all time statements I had to read and study the greater context of every time statement. Well, looking back now from the downloads, I realize that while writing the detail Biblical Calendar over two decades, my Heavenly Father was simultaneously writing His Words in my mind and heart. Having done so, He can now bring up in my mind His verses and then show me His understandings by comparing spiritual things with spiritual in this very manner:

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1 Corinthians 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Thanks very much David and I hope to cover your point #3 soon. Take care. I love your name ‘David’.

[St.Roymond]

@JoelHinrichs

The Age of Science calls verses 1 and 3 the big bang.

Actually . . . no. Verse 3 (as some Hebrew scholars figured out from Genesis centuries ago!) would be when the ‘waters’ (fluid) that made up the universe thinned enough for light to shine, so God commanded it to be. Now the first suggestion of the Big Bang came from verse 1 long before there were even telescopes when Hebrew scholars concluded from the text that the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard and expanded incomprehensibly fast, so when in the twentieth century the name “the Big Bang” was coined it fit what Genesis says.

@JoelHinrichs

No other part of the first ten chapters and ten verses of Genesis (i.e. up to and including the Tower of Babel) connects with the universe God made

That’s not true: we know from archaeology that what would have been the largest ziggurat ever if it had been finished didn’t get completed, that the purpose of a ziggurat matches the account in Genesis, and that the workforce did in fact scatter because different languages were spoken, and the city itself was abandoned. What Genesis does is take that reality and provides theological commentary.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

@St.Roymond

that the workforce did in fact scatter because different languages were spoken

Just curious, where do you find that (outside of Genesis)? I would think that the scattering took place, then the languages developed, Even the Bible is a little hazy on that point if you squint.

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

After an email and a follow up one, a week later, setting forth my gap to the world’s premier organization holding the view of ‘OLD EARTH CREATION’, I just now got this response:

“Paul,
Thank you for taking the time to submit your question!
As our ministry efforts continue to expand, our ability to respond to individual questions is limited. Although our scholar team is unable to personally respond to your science-faith inquiry, a member of our team will add your query to our database to be considered as a topic for future resources (blogs, podcasts, videos, etc.)….

Thank you for your understanding and for engaging in the science-faith conversation with us so we can see more people come to know Christ.

Blessings,
Ministry Care“

Such a great disappointment! But I am in my Heavenly Father’s will.

[Randy]

@St.Roymond

That’s not true: we know from archaeology that what would have been the largest ziggurat ever if it had been finished didn’t get completed, that the purpose of a ziggurat matches the account in Genesis, and that the workforce did in fact scatter because different languages were spoken, and the city itself was abandoned. What Genesis does is take that reality and provides theological commentary.

Hm, interesting–can you cite the reference? I did not know that. Thank you!

[St.Roymond]

@jpm

Just curious, where do you find that (outside of Genesis)? I would think that the scattering took place, then the languages developed

Eridu, perhaps the first city in the Fertile Crescent. The city embarked on the project of building the greatest ziggurat ever, which would surely be more attractive to the gods than lesser ones, and which would have made the city famous across the known world. They didn’t have a large enough labor force so they brought in foreigners. Then they either neglected to provide interpreters, or something happened so they lost those they had, which made the workforce useless, and when the work thus ground to a halt the workers packed up and left. Shortly after the city itself failed.

I have a nagging thought that there’s a good explanation for what happened with interpreters but I can’t recall it. There’s also a good explanation for why the city failed (besides the crushing loss of prestige due to failure of the project) that I can’t recall either.

This indicates about how far they got before the project got abandoned:

Assuming standard ancient near eastern practice, the zone within the walls above the top of the ramp would be the “outer courts”, and the incomplete mound would have been where the outer holy place/zone would have been, and finally on top would have been the “most holy place” where authorized representatives would go to meet the gods when they came down to the top of this artificial mountain. It may also have been intended to have a verdant garden around the top since gardens and mountains were two places associated with deity.

Something like this:

though the design is a bit different, and imagine fruit trees and fruit bushes on at least the top level.

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

Hi again, David.

I have responded above to all your concerns except for your third point:

“Interpretation of the dates. Kings had a bad habit of not dying precisely at dusk of the last day of the year. Thus, reigns started during a calendar year. Is that year counted towards the previous king’s reign, the new king, both, or neither? What if a specific heir was designated crown prince - does the co-regency get counted for both? In the chaotic times of the Judges, how many overlapped in time? Reign explain is not always plain, as Eliza Doolittle might say. Why are the ages for the ancient genealogies in Genesis weird? Significant astronomical numbers and other symbolic numbers are prominent, and the end digits are not randomly spread across the possibilities.”

And I will now address the above matters except for the Kings. And I am copying from notes to my Biblical Calendar which were first written as earlier as three decades ago:

“At certain points of the calendar, the Bible gives “frog leaps” and jumps forward a number of years to establish the timing of events further along in history. Then, to fill in the intervening time, requires searching other parts of the Bible for the needed information.

For example, 1Kgs 6:1 (“And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.”) establishes the year of starting March-April of 968 B.C. and ending March-April of 967 B.C. as the four hundred and eightieth year after Israel departed Egypt in 1447 B.C. And this was the fourth year of King Solomon’s reign when he began to build the house of Jehovah. To fill in the intervening years with the events that occurred we have to look at the books of Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, I Kings, etc. The four hundred and eighty years is a capping of that period so that when the details are filled in they must tie back in total time elapsed to the four hundred and eighty years proving that the Bible is accurate in all its time references as it is the infallible word of Jehovah.”

Now I will also add in the case of laying out the period of the judges that it’s done chronologically by synchronizing the lengths of reigns of individual judges with periods that the land had rest such as:

Judges 3:11 And the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

AND,

Judges 3:30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years.

I most certainly appreciate your comments/questions and they show that you too have grappled with matters that I also had to struggle with until my Heavenly Father stepped in.

Now in my next post I will copy out my notes on how to properly reconcile the Kings of Israel and Judah for this post here is already much too long in my understanding of private discussions with moderators. And I wish to stay within their guidelines. Thanks.

[St.Roymond]

@Randy

@St.Roymond

That’s not true: we know from archaeology that what would have been the largest ziggurat ever if it had been finished didn’t get completed, that the purpose of a ziggurat matches the account in Genesis, and that the workforce did in fact scatter because different languages were spoken, and the city itself was abandoned. What Genesis does is take that reality and provides theological commentary.

Hm, interesting–can you cite the reference? I did not know that. Thank you!

I thought I had a browser bookmark to an article, but it’s not showing up in searches for “Eridu”, “Babel”, “Tower”, or “ziggurat”. A web search just now wasn’t helpful except for finding that Eridu is often considered the oldest city and that it was known for its zuggurats.

I found an interesting piece of trivia, though: given the strength of the bricks they used and the known tapering typical of ziggurat walls, if it had been a continuous tower it could have been structurally sound as tall as 2.1 kilometers! plus “by making the walls taper towards the top they … could well have been built to a height where the men of Shinnar would run short of oxygen and had difficulty in breathing before the brick walls crushed beneath their own dead weight.” From the known structure, though, it wouldn’t have reached higher than 200 to 300 meters even if they started aiming for height. I also found that the abandoned structure was later used to put a smaller zigurrat and temple on when the city was inhabited again (it was abandoned and re-inhabited several times over four thousand years) – while the unfinished ziggurat itself sat on the ruins of eighteen previous temples, each larger than the one before it,

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

Hi David,

Well now I am addressing the matter with the grave difficulty of the chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah due to co-regencies and reigns starting and ending during the calendar years and not exactly at the end of each calendar year and also small gaps in between reigns in the Kings of Israel. Now I guess the most noteworthy attempt that was done to do this chronology in published literature would be ‘The Chronology of the Hebrew Kings’ by Edwin R Thiele in 1977. I have never read Thiele’s work but I did read a book by Mr Harold Camping in which he did use Thiele’s secular principle of accession and non-accession year to account for the reign of the Kings. However, I don’t find in the Bible anything about accession and non-accession year. But what I did find is that God did mathematics using inclusive numbers and exclusive numbers. So this Biblical principle is what I mainly used to do the chronology of the Kings. I also used that ages given in Scripture of when kings begun to reign and their death ages as well. That information also helped. Then right throughout the accounting of the reigns of Kings in the two kingdoms, God gives us the start of the reign in one kingdom and what was the already length of reign in the adjacent kingdom. For example we read:

1 Kings 16:29 And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

So God gives us multiple points of time by which He can cause His elect to do an accurate chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel. And that is what I accomplished in my detailed Biblical Calendar with every historical time statement in Scripture, say longer than a few days.

Now I just wrote the above from sheer memory. For it was three decades or so ago that I labored on this period of my detailed Biblical Calendar. I know I wrote a note to the calendar showing how this section of the calendar was compiled and when I find it I will copy it here if it gives more details.

Thanks, David. You are truly a student of the calendar as your deep searching comments and concerns reveal. I hope to also find a note in my Acts chronology that will show that even during the Acts of the Apostles, God was giving His timestamps very accurately in step with the Gregorian Calendar. His timestamps are His dating for His works of salvation which He foreknew and completed in this manner:

Hebrews 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

His timestamps were attached to His works when He completed them from the foundation of the world and He manifested them in history based on those timestamps.

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

Hi David,

I did find my note to my detailed Biblical Calendar that I mentioned last evening. It does provide some more information than I wrote from memory last evening pertaining to the chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah. I start copying:

The Bible, prior to 587 BC, kept the calendar going through the period of the kings using the length of the reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel (1047 BC to 587 BC). After the division of the Kingdom of Israel upon the death of King Solomon in 931 BC until 587 BC, God used (1) the inclusive and exclusive numbers principle (see Matt 1:1-17 where God employs this principle) along with (2) specific references to the year of the reign of a monarch in the adjacent kingdom, and also (3) the ages of kings to determine co-regencies and the passage of time.

After 587 BC with the destruction of the kingdom of Judah there were no more Jewish monarchs, so the Bible keeps track of time by the length of the captivity of Jehoiachin and Ezekiel until the 37th year of their captivity in 561 BC. After this point, the Bible switches and starts to date events to the reigns of gentile kings (that had dominion over the Jews) such as Belshazzar, Darius, Artaxerxes, and by the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, critical dates were established by reference to the reigns of Herod, Archelaus, Caesar Augustus, Cyrenius and Tiberius Caesar. By using this dating methodology after 561 B.C., the Bible is certifying that the specific secular time records that it refers to are accurate because God knows what evidence is out there in the world.

This conclusion is borne out by the historical fact that writing, by 587 BC, was so advanced that many nations had been keeping records of the timing of their political events and these records can be corroborated with each other with amazing accuracy as well as with astronomical tables because the political records included certain astronomical events. It is also at this juncture that God has unified His calendar to the secular calendars, which themselves were first synchronized by the universal Julian Calendar and which is now succeeded by our present-day Gregorian Calendar. Both calendars are pegged to the coming of Jesus Christ, being divided supposedly around His birth into BC (Before the coming of Christ) and AD (Anno Domini’-year of our Lord) periods.

Thanks David,
Paul Aarons

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

The Age of the Earth is unknown from the Bible.

Of course. The Bible isn’t about that any more than it is about how to fix computers. The הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (ha-a-res) of Genesis is in no way referring to the planet we name earth in modern times.

It is like taking a story of Danielle Boon and equating its setting with the entire universe and its span of time with history of everything – quite an absurd thing to do.

But point taken… the attempt to do such a thing lacks support or consistency in the text.

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

I looked up your Hebrew and found:

“ The term “ha-a-res” (הָאָרֶץ) is a Hebrew phrase that means “the earth” or “the land”. It is often used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the land of Israel or the earth in general.

In Hebrew, the word “ha-” (הָ) is a definite article meaning “the”, and “a-res” (אָרֶץ) means “earth” or “land”.

So, “ha-a-res” can be translated as “the earth” or “the land”, depending on the context in which it is used.”

Thanks for your input.

Paul Aarons

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

@mitchellmckain

But point taken… the attempt to do such a thing lacks support or consistency in the text.

I have not found any inconsistency in the Scripture. I have synchronized and harmonized every historical time reference in the Masoretic Text with the help of the Textus Receptus and showed them in my detailed Biblical Calendar. I can speak on this issue because I have done the work myself. Thanks.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

I was speaking of an inconsistency with determining the age of the planet Earth from the Bible.

I see little point in such an exercise which you boast of doing because I see no reason to identify the word ha-a-res in Genesis with the planet Earth because the description in the Bible do not agree with that of a planet (but rather more like something a lot smaller).

[PaulAndrew (Paul Andrew Aarons)]

@mitchellmckain

I see little point in such an exercise which you boast of doing because I see no reason to identify the word ha-a-res in Genesis with the planet Earth because the description in the Bible do not agree with that of a planet (but rather more like something a lot smaller)

I know of only one Earth that the Bible speaks of in Genesis 1 and it’s this planet we inhabit. It was created in stages but the stages reflect the spiritual stages in God’s salvation.

I believe I pointed out in an earlier post that I am not a boaster when it comes my work in the Scriptures. For this is how it came about which I explained in my earlier post:

Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

He works in me to His own glory and I acknowledge such publicly always stating where I received my understanding of Scripture:

John 3:27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

And so there is never any boasting by me:

1 Corinthians 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

Yes, my Heavenly Father makes me to differ from others for His glory. Hence He named me Paul Andrew Aarons. Thanks for your comments.

[St.Roymond]

@PaulAndrew

I know of only one Earth that the Bible speaks of in Genesis 1 and it’s this planet we inhabit.

That’s not what he said: he said that he sees no reason to take הָאָֽרֶץ (ha-ah-retz) as meaning “the planet Earth”.

And he is correct: הָאָֽרֶץ means “the land”, even “the territory (of)” or “the region (of)”, most often referring to either all the are under the solid dome (firmament) that holds back the “waters above” or the known world.

None of them refer to a planet; as @mitchellmckain noted:

@mitchellmckain

because the description in the Bible do not agree with that of a planet (but rather more like something a lot smaller)

BTW–

@PaulAndrew

this planet we inhabit . . . was created in stages but the stages reflect the spiritual stages in God’s salvation.

(bold mine)

Where is that in the text? It only works if you don’t think the text was meant to be read as it was set down but instead was intended for whatever allegorical interpretation someone might like.

@PaulAndrew

He works in me to His own glory and I acknowledge such publicly always stating where I received my understanding of Scripture:

John 3:27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

That’s totally out of context. Your claim here is no more valid than the claim of the Bishop of Rome to be the rightful ruler of all Christians.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@PaulAndrew

I know of only one Earth that the Bible speaks of in Genesis 1 and it’s this planet we inhabit.

That is impossible. Nobody even had the idea of the earth as a planet until the 16th century when Copernicus made this hypothesis.

Just because people used the word god for a statue they had in their house doesn’t mean they believed in anything like the God you believe in. And if you are noticing the latter is capitalized and are thinking this means something different, the same is true of the word “earth” which is only capitalized when it is the name of a planet. Nothing in the Bible supports equating ha-a-res with the planet of modern science.

[Bill_II]

@PaulAndrew

I believe I pointed out in an earlier post that I am not a boaster when it comes my work in the Scriptures.

And yet here you are a few lines later in the same post boasting.

@PaulAndrew

He works in me to His own glory and I acknowledge such publicly always stating where I received my understanding of Scripture

I believe you don’t see it but it is clear to me that you do boast and that is it putting it mildly.