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

Faith & Science Conversation
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I’m puzzled.

To explain my puzzlement, here’s a fuller context of the comment of mine to which you were responding:

I share your awareness of the additional reason God gave the Israelites for observing the sabbath of Mosaic law found in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. I also share your enthusiasm for the eschatalogical sabbath referenced in Hebrews 4, for it is greater than the Mosaic sabbath by just as much as the sacrifice of Christ is greater than animal sacrifice. However, I do not understand how either gives you the ability to understand “six days” in Ex 20:11 and Ex 31:17 as meaning “six indefinite periods of time.” Please explain.

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You’re misrepresenting science yet again. The “history” you glibly denigrate as “implied” is actually hypotheses and theories that make many, many accurate predictions about what we will directly observe before we observe it.

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I’m puzzled too. Not at your puzzlement but I don’t really know how to resolve the tension comparing
Exodus 20:11 and Deuteronomy 5:15. God says we are supposed to do the Sabbath because of the pattern of seven days of creation, but then God later says we are supposed to do the Sabbath because of the exodus. So my question then is, which is it God? There’s obviously no pattern of sevens in the exodus (unless I’m not aware of some). For me, the Deuteronomy passage works as a better (or clearer/more updated explanation) because not only is it later in the Scriptures (as our revelation progressed), but there are so many parallels between the Exodus and Christ bringing us into our true rest. So for me, this description supersedes the explanation given in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17.

In other words, something like:

  • In Exodus God says to roast the Passover lamb and definitely not boil it. In Deuteronomy, God says boil it. In Chronicles, God says to roast and boil it (Exodus 12:8-9, Deut 16:7-8, 2 Chron 35:13)
  • In exodus and Deuteronomy, God says Israelites can be slaves and go free after 6 years, in Leviticus, God says they can’t even have Israelite slaves, only foreign ones (Ex 21:2-11, Deut 15:12-18, Lev 25:39-43)

To be honest, I would chalk Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 as the result of an overzealous Israelite intent on keeping the Sabbath to the letter of the law- or perhaps much longer after the Exodus its true significance was starting to come out. I see Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and its strong connection to Hebrews 4, not to mention Jesus revealing the true intent of the Sabbath. Now this is problematic in the sense that traditionally, or at least in more evangelical circles Moses is the author of both texts and he seems to contradict himself.

Clearly six indefinite periods of time is no good for interpreting Exodus 20:11 and 31:17, so you are rightly perplexed. To be honest, I think that even the Israelites were generally convinced that God just did it all in 6 literal 24 hour periods and that was that. It is the best way for God to communicate the main point, that He is Lord of all. What a stumbling block and mockery of the text for God to put billions of years into Genesis 1. It takes away from its timelessness, its beauty, its highly stylized prose that is quite unlike all other writings in almost all of history. If the text said billions of years, then we would have mocked the Genesis text for thousands of years as nobody had any idea how old things were until relatively recently (see: Age of Earth - Wikipedia).

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You say “but for some reason” as if I did not give the reason. Actually, I gave two reasons. The first one was that all other references to “six days” in the Scripture are to six regular (i.e. 24-hour) days. The second was that the internal logic of Ex 20:8-11 and Ex 31:15-17 break down if you try to interpret “day” as “an indefinite period of time” in those verses.

Because, as I’ve said, I do not see Scripture elsewhere using this expression to have the meaning you suggest…and because the internal logic of the two cited passages break down if you try to interpret “day” in those verses as “an indefinite period of time.” Therefore, you are arguing for an interpretation of these passages that is 1) unique in all of Scripture, and 2) doesn’t yield a coherent meaning even if such an ad hoc interpretation were to be allowed.

This interpretation is not even specious. That is, your reasoning is not even superficially plausible. There is no logical basis for interpreting those passages to mean “because the Lord worked for six indefinite periods of time and then rested for one indefinite period of time you should work for six definite periods of time and then rest for one definite period of time” - which is what you’re suggesting. The only possible motivation for such an interpretation is desperation to avoid the obvious consequences of the obvious interpretation. [quote=“Bill_II, post:48, topic:36256”]
The basic meaning of day is a unit of time but the actual duration is based on the context.
[/quote]

Yes…but it is the context you are ignoring!

Believe it or not, I am actually willing to believe that “six days” could mean “six indefinite periods of time,” but you have to offer some cogent reasons for doing so!

Whether you believe the seventh day was 24 hours or that it continues until now, its inception marked the cessation of the Lord’s creative actions. How then can you simultaneously believe that natural creative processes have been constantly at work for 4.543B years producing the earth we behold?

?

Yes, I see the pattern applied in more than one way in Scripture, but I see God applying the pattern with consistency. Whereas you seem to scramble them all together and reduce them to “Well, since we recognize a pattern of one out of seven we can choose what period of time we want in any given sentence as long as we keep the ratio 1/7.” (I know you’re not actually intending to be that wild about it, but it is the net effect of your current interpretation of Ex 20:8-11 and Ex 31:15-17.)

I can agree with you that your position “does address the age of the earth” but I can’t go along with “quite nicely.” I don’t say this with any glee. It just feels like you’re stretching and contorting yourself to painful lengths in order to accommodate pressure that’s coming from outside the Scripture. Every time I’ve come to a better understanding of Scripture it has meant fewer mental contortions, not more.

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Why do you accuse me of “glibly denigrating” science because I describe its age of the earth as implied. Am I “glibly denigrating” the Bible when I describe its age of the earth as implied? Nature can only imply things to us because it cannot speak otherwise. The Scriptures, by contrast, can both be explicit and implicit with what they have to impart. When it comes to the age of the earth, however, the Bible is only speaks implicitly. In that sense, the Bible and nature are on equal footing.

Granted, when it comes to understanding something we probably all prefer explicit statements to implied ones no matter who the source, but this preference does not amount to denigration of that which is implied.

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God bless you for your intellectual integrity!

I don’t see them as mutually exclusive. I often gave my children more than one reason to obey their mother and me in a given matter, and especially did I have to do this in their teenage years. The “Exodus rationale” meant that Israel would bear witness to the surrounding nations of idol worshipers that one true invisible God had made the heavens and earth and all that is in them. The “Deuteronomy rationale” meant that Israel could bear this witness to the nations only because God had miraculously liberated them from the bondage of Egypt, giving them a measure of rest that would have been unthinkable to Pharaoh.

Again, sir, I must salute your intellectual honesty.

This, to me, is a very important point and it is one of my biggest struggles in this age of the earth (and evolution, etc.) issue - though I have not spoken of it until now. That is, I think you are absolutely right about what you say here about what Israel thought. Throughout Scripture I see God vindicating His spokesmen, not making them look naive and childish in human hindsight. Why would God have ancient Israel bear weekly witness to themselves and to all the nations who knew them regarding His claim to have created the world in six days knowing it was only a matter of time before He’d have to grossly modify the claim. In fact, “grossly” is understating the matter because the claim would go from “God created the universe in an incredibly short period of time!” to “God created the universe over an incredibly long period of time!” Would God not be eager to give His nation a more lasting message about His role of Creator than that? God’s prophets were always at risk for life and limb, and in return God always sought to vindicate them in due time.

If the truth is that the earth is 4.543B years old, I do not think God would have needed to say “billions” in Genesis 1 in order to better allow for acceptance by Bible thumpers like me. I don’t know Hebrew, but I see enough variety and richness of language in my English Old Testament that there were ample ways God could written Genesis 1 in majestic language that would be no obstacle to modern scientific discoveries. Consider OT phrases you have encountered: “ancient times,” “distant past,” “from the days of eternity,” just to mention a few. God knows how to be obscure and leave room for later revelation when He wants to. The very starkness of the contrast between “six days” and “4.543B years” begs the inquiry, “Why, God, why?” It’s almost as if God wants us in the 21st century to have to choose between a supernatural beginning and a natural one.

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If a day in Genesis 1 could be a long period of time what requires you to assume that a reference to six days automatically means 6 literal 24 hours when you don’t require that in Genesis 1? All of these six day references you keep mentioning are talking about the commands that man is supposed to be keeping. As a command yes they refer to 24 hour days. When they refer to God they are not required to be a 24 hour day. When God created by just speaking why do you think that required a literal 24 hour day? Ex 20:8-11 and Ex 31:15-17 make perfect sense when you apply a 24 hour day to man and a God day to God. In fact I don’t think it makes sense to say that God required or used all of the daylight hours of a normal day to create what he created just by speaking. If this is not an indication of a figurative use of day what is?

What do you define as the beginning of the seventh day? The seventh day marked the cessation of the Lord’s initial creative actions. This seventh day was the day following the creation of man in God’s image. God’s creative work has been in progress for 4.543 billion years or six “days”. The beginning of the seventh day therefore was at most 50,000 (possibly 10,000) years ago. Does this not agree with the Biblical history? If you are not seeing this let me know.

Why would accepting that a day to the Lord is not necessarily a 24 hour day when there is Scripture to support that require mental contortions? Peter did say that With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. In fact when you consider that God created time and exists outside of time it makes no sense to try to force a period of time on anything that he does.

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[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:54, topic:36256”]
Why do you accuse me of “glibly denigrating” science because I describe its age of the earth as implied.[/quote]

Because science is much more than that. You accept much of science as settled fact and you have yet to offer a reason to doubt the science on the age of the earth.

BTW, it’s “inferred,” not “implied,” and science is much stronger than the retrospective inferences in your portrayals of it. In science, the retrospective inferences are tested by their ability to predict direct observations that no one has ever seen before.

No, the age of the earth is figuratively stated, not implied.

[quote]Nature can only imply things to us because it cannot speak otherwise.
[/quote]Nature doesn’t speak. You’re conflating implications with inferences.

Science isn’t about statements, explicit or otherwise. That’s your other misrepresentation of science as hearsay.

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@Mike_Gantt,

Your refutation about personal witness would have some persuasive power if it even had a chance of turning to a fictional human witnessing the 6 days of Creation.

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And geneaologies tell us that human text writers frequently present historically unrepresentative and non-factual material.

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

The most important biblical reason to accept the scientific view is that the age of the earth is not the foundation of our faith, it never was. The earth looks old, so why not wonder if it was? Our faith is founded on Jesus, not specific interpretations of Genesis.

Genesis was written about 1700 BC, or earlier if one starts Moses’s sources. At this time, no one had ever written or conceived of “billion.” If Moses knew the true age, how would he have written a number that no one could conceive?

There is a parallel in the size of the universe. The observable universe is about 93 Billion Light Years, but may extend much farther. It is vast beyond comprehension, with galaxies, black holes, and dark matter. The Bible only talks about stars, the sun and the moon. There is no hint of the vastness of the universe in the account. Both the heaven and the earth are created, but most attention is given to earth. But even if Moses knew, how could he have written about it? No one at the time could even fathom the length of a single light year. 93 billion is just silly. How could he have put it into words.

We think the earth is about 4.8 billion years, and the universe is older. This is just a fraction of the age that the universe is large. If there is no hint of the vastness of the universe in Genesis, I’m certainly less concerned there is not a clear sign of its age.

That being said, I think Genesis is ambiguous. God was wise in it with this ambiguity. He made a universe beyond the comprehension of those who first read Genesis. The vastness of the universe declares His power. However large the universe is, God is greater still. The age of the universe amplifies His title, the Ancient of Days. The older it is, the more we understand His ancient nature.

He was beyond their comprehension in Genesis, as the universe was beyond their comprehension now. We can write down numbers like 93 Billion light years, but this beyond our comprehension too. Both the size and age of the universe declare a truly ancient God of the greatest power.

This is another Biblical reason to affirm a old earth. The Ancient of Days would make an ancient earth. 10,000 years is conceivable. That world does not declare an Ancient. Billions of years does. The Creator of all is the Ancient of Days.

Yes these verses are of days. But we also know that a day is a 1000 years, and a 1000 years is a day to God. When he created the heavens and the earth, with whose days did he use? Our days or his? How long are the days of the Ancient of Days? They are longer than ours.

I could go on. There are good textual, historical and theological reasons to question a young earth. At the very least, it is debatable. Scripture does not teach billions of years, but it certainly makes sense of it. We follow Jesus. He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the Ancient One.

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I have often marveled that I swallow with eagerness and ease so much that science proclaims but am finding it so difficult to swallow when it comes to the age of the earth and evolution.

To address this, let me return to something @Mervin_Bitikofer wrote early in this thread:

As I told him in our exchange, I have asked myself this many times. It has not been a blind spot in my thinking. I have pondered it repeatedly. But it occurs to me now that I could be even more vigorous in asking this of myself. Here’s the vigor I propose: that I would review all the biblical objections made in the past to the scientific facts I so blithely accept today as not conflicting with the Bible.

The scientific facts without biblical obstacles of which I am speaking are those I’ve stated colloquially as:

I do not feel the need for biblical warrant to believe that we are all flying through space on a ball spinning at 1,000 mph, revolving around the sun at 66,000 mph, and flying together with it through the Milky Way at 432,000 mph without windburn or even chapped lips…and the reason is because I see no biblical obstacle to believing scientists when they tell me such things.

Had I lived in the time that these scientific facts were first being established, however, would I have seen biblical obstacles to them that I do not see now? As I say, I’ve asked and answered this question of myself numerous times. However, I’d like to re-ask it of myself in the most rigorous way possible. To do that, I need an exhaustive list (if one exists) of biblical objections made to the scientific facts underlying my colloquial statement above at the time scientists were seeking to make known those underlying facts. Does anyone know if such an exhaustive list exists and, if so, where I might find it?

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@Mike_Gantt,

I have already given you Two items off such a list:

  1. Job’s discussion about God storing Snow and Hail (i believe Job may have several more such erroneous positions in the natural world);

  2. Jesus’ statement that the Mustard Seed is the smallest seed. The wiki article below offers the meaning of the parable.

Let’s be clear; I’m not saying there is no solution to these oddities. What I am saying is that the usual styles of re-interpretation - regularly offered to explain them away - is denied as not available to those attempting the same thing with the even more vague narrative thought by YECs to require a Young Earth timeline.

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Please take note that I am asking if there is an exhaustive list, or at least a comprehensive list. As for the two examples you mention, I have already considered them as well as many others. As I’ve said, this is not a question I have not considered before. What’s new is that I want to search and see if there are examples I have not considered which might lead me to a different conclusion than the examples I have considered. I have considered many, but don’t have the confidence to say I’ve identified them all.

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A (very brief) Google search did not yield up to me any neatly complete list of biblical references on this, though I’m sure there are many out there. Meanwhile, short of that, I can give a few of the main ones here, and by the time a few others might supplement, it will probably give you a sufficiently exhaustive list. In any case, though, I’ll do you one better than merely providing some proof-texter’s list. I’ll give you a great essay with the exact context you need to look into this. I can’t give a higher recommendation than Cardinal Bellarmine as written of here in Ted Davis’ biologos post on it. And if you are short on time: here is Bellarmine’s letter that Ted links to in the essay. And now, in case you are still wanting that list: As a great beginning I excerpt for you a note appended to Bellarmine’s letter (linked above) … which should get you started. All the remaining words below are that pasted excerpt.

Notes:

Solange Hertz makes the problem clear in her commentary on this letter (in an article which contends that the earth is indeed the center of the Universe):

“There are many such passages in the Bible, outstanding among them being, of course, the one relating how Joshua commanded, “Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon,” whereupon, “the sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies” (Jos.10:12-13). And again, as St. Robert Bellarmine pointed out, the Preacher says,” The sun riseth and goeth down and returneth to his place: and there rising again, maketh his round by the south and turneth again to the north" (Eccles. 1:5-6)

“Scripture also specifies that the Earth is immovable in the face of these solar and lunar peregrinations, Psalm 92 stating flatly that God “hath established the world which shall not be moved.” Psalm 103 says He has"founded the earth upon its own bases ; it shall not be moved forever and ever,” Psalm 95 telling us God has “corrected the world, which shall not be moved.” Again, in I Paralipomenon 16:30, “He hath founded the earth immovable,” and according to Job 26:7, God by His power"stretched out the north over the empty space and hangeth the earth upon nothing." No less an authority than the Catechism of the Council of Trent, in its commentary on the Creed, states furthermore, “The earth also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world, rooted in its own foundation.”

Corrective edit: The psalm numbers referenced above are off by 1 chapter from our current reckoning of how the Psalms are numbered, so where Psalm 92 is referred to, for example: that is what we now call Psalm 93. I had forgotten about that and was puzzled why these seemed to be off.

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@Mike_Gantt

3 points:

  1. Atheists have long curated a list of factual errors about the natural world. Googling “errors in the Bible” will produce dozens of such lists… some even organized to group similar types of errors, including errors about the natural world.

  2. I don’t think you need such a whole list. The Snow/Hail example is frequently overlooked and I think is the most compelling of all the O.T. problems.

  3. Your dismissal of the Snow/Hail text is a clear foreshadowing that you will not find a text you are unable to rationalize away.

The problem is not the exemplar chosen; the problem is your lack of consistency in how you defend the Young Earth timeline.

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I don’t have time to do it now, but do a Google search for Muslim or Islam sites that challenge the Bible. They will provide extensive lists of the problems in the Bible. A Muslim co-worker gave me a list with 10-20 items but I didn’t keep it.

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Again … if it’s only a list you’re after, I’ll distill my post down even further for you. Here are the verses or passages referenced. The commentary surrounding these from that time, though, are what you should really be looking at.

Joshua 10:12-13
Ecclesiastes 1:5-6
Psalm 93:1
Psalm 96:10
Psalm 104:5
Job 26:7

Edited to correct psalm 103 to 104 (verse 5), and to change the other Psalm chapter numbers to our current reckoning of how the Psalms are numbered.

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I have a list in my digital fingers right now. I’m reviewing it to get rid of the examples that I don’t think are very convincing … I’ll try to have it on the list by lunch time (E.S.T.)

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I appreciate the responses so far to my request for a list, but please keep in mind that it is a very specific list I am looking for: it is a list of Bible verses that were actually used to refute early scientific findings that, for lack of a better single term, the earth is part of interplanetary motion. This would include rotation of the earth, revolution around the sun, and movement of our solar system through the galaxy.

By contrast, it will be of no use for you to send me lists of “errors in the Bible” or to encourage me to search the Internet for the same. I am familiar with such lists and how to find more of them. They will contain many and varied verses extraneous to my purpose. It’s the very specifc list I described for which I am looking.

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