What biblical reasons are there to accept the scientific view of the earth as billions of years old?

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

Right here.

@Jonathan_Burke

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that the wine Jesus produced at Cana was not accompanied by any evidence of having been produced through a very long process. On the contrary, it was seen to be water one second, and it was wine the next second. It did not leave behind vineyards stripped of grapes, a winepress covered in grape juice, or empty fermentation jars still smelling of fermented grape juice. It did not leave any misleading evidence whatsoever.

So when we examine your analogy, we find it does not fit.

• The earth: evidence of very long process of development, evidence of thousands of years of change, evidence of billions of life forms having lived and died over millions of years; massive evidence indicating the earth is very old and life has been on it for millions of years

• The wine at Cana: no evidence of grape picking, no evidence of grape juice production, no evidence of fermentation; no evidence indicating the wine had been produced over time

And yet again here.

@Jonathan_Burke

Where are we told that the taste gave the false impression that the wine had been produced over years of vine growing, harvesting, fermentation, and bottling? You’ve ignored all the reasons why your analogy was false. There’s no indication that Jesus deliberately created the wine with a false appearance of a fictional past.

If the head steward had asked where the wine came from, he would not have found the usual trail of evidence.

• The amphorae in which the wine had been delivered
• The broken seals on the amphorae
• The sales record and receipt for the amphorae
• The household inventory record for the amphorae
• The name of the seller

And so on, and so on, all the usual evidence for wine with a past. Instead he would have asked the servants “Which wine was this, who did we buy it from?”, and they would have replied “It didn’t exist until about an hour ago; we saw it created miraculously”. There was no false appearance of age.