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

[Mike_Gantt]

My Problem Is Not “Day”- It’s “Six Days”

I pray that we do not descend into arguments about yom. Please recall something I said in the original post above:

@Mike_Gantt

I most certainly don’t want us to digress into the typical OEC-YEC back and forth. If AIG, ICR, CMI, and all the rest surrendered and folded up their tents tomorrow, I would still face the two obstacles I listed above. Therefore, I did not come here to defend their views.

Arguing about “yom” is an example of that “back and forth.” I have heard Herb Ross and Ken Ham (as well as others) argue indefatigably about whether “day” in Genesis 1 can mean “an indefinite period of time” or must mean “a 24-hour day” - and it is not an argument I wish to participate in or hear again. I certainly don’t want to read it here.

I am wide open to the possibility of a “day” of creation being an indefinite time period. I have no problem, for example, reading in Genesis 1 that God did such and such on such and such day and thinking to myself, “This could either mean a 24-hour day or an indefinite period of time.” Therefore, “day” is not the obstacle of which I speak; rather, the first biblical obstacle (enumerated above in the original post) preventing my acceptance of a 4BYO earth is “six days” - and this problem is independent and separate from the controversy over yom. Please read again and consider carefully what I wrote above in the original post.

@Mike_Gantt

Six Days: Three separate passages (Gen 1-2; Ex 20:11; Ex 31:17) state that creation was accomplished in six days, followed by a day of rest. Since both the earth and the first human were created during that week, and since the Bible’s genealogies trace back to him, the age of the earth would number in the thousands of years. Even if there were some gaps in the genealogies, it would only extend this time line by, at most, thousands of years - not billions.

The reason I say that my issue is “six days” and not “day” is that with the “six days” in the passages I mentioned, the issue exists regardless of whether you consider “day” to mean 24 hours or an indefinite period of time. If you’ll just think through what “six indefinite periods of creating” followed by “one indefinite period of ceasing that creating” means if you interpret Ex 20:11 and Ex 3:17 in that way, you’ll see what I mean. No matter how long those indefinite periods are, you’re still stuck with a time line for humanity in the thousands of years.

It also does not matter whether you consider the seventh indefinite time period to be over or still in progress. Since all references to it are past tense, you know it has commenced - which means the sixth day has to be over. All the genealogies are tied to the man created on the sixth day, the thousands-of-years time frame is maintained in spite of the fact that “day” was interpreted to mean “indefinite” instead of “24 hours.”

Therefore, know that I have no problem with the fact that “day” can work just as well in “the day of the Lord” or “in Richard Nixon’s day” as it can in the one that is counted as 24 hours. Let us therefore not re-fight “the battles of yom” - let us leave those fights for others.