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

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. Hereā€™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 Iā€™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 lipsā€¦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, Iā€™ve asked and answered this question of myself numerous times. However, Iā€™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?

1 Like

@Mike_Gantt,

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

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

  2. Jesusā€™ statement that the Mustard Seed is the smallest seed. The wiki article below offers the meaning of the parable.

Letā€™s be clear; Iā€™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.

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 Iā€™ve said, this is not a question I have not considered before. Whatā€™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 donā€™t have the confidence to say Iā€™ve identified them all.

A (very brief) Google search did not yield up to me any neatly complete list of biblical references on this, though Iā€™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, Iā€™ll do you one better than merely providing some proof-texterā€™s list. Iā€™ll give you a great essay with the exact context you need to look into this. I canā€™t give a higher recommendation than Cardinal Bellarmine as written of here in Ted Davisā€™ biologos post on it. And if you are short on time: here is Bellarmineā€™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 Bellarmineā€™s letter (linked above) ā€¦ 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):

ā€œThere are many such passages in the Bible, outstanding among them being, of course, the one relating how Joshua commanded, ā€œMove not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon,ā€ whereupon, ā€œthe sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemiesā€ (Jos.10:12-13). And again, as St. Robert Bellarmine pointed out, the Preacher says,ā€ 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)

ā€œScripture also specifies that the Earth is immovable in the face of these solar and lunar peregrinations, Psalm 92 stating flatly that God ā€œhath established the world which shall not be moved.ā€ Psalm 103 says He has"founded the earth upon its own bases ; it shall not be moved forever and ever,ā€ Psalm 95 telling us God has ā€œcorrected the world, which shall not be moved.ā€ Again, in I Paralipomenon 16:30, ā€œHe hath founded the earth immovable,ā€ 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, ā€œThe earth also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world, rooted in its own foundation.ā€

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.

@Mike_Gantt

3 points:

  1. Atheists have long curated a list of factual errors about the natural world. Googling ā€œerrors in the Bibleā€ will produce dozens of such listsā€¦ some even organized to group similar types of errors, including errors about the natural world.

  2. I donā€™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.

1 Like

I donā€™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 didnā€™t keep it.

Again ā€¦ if itā€™s only a list youā€™re after, Iā€™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.

I have a list in my digital fingers right now. Iā€™m reviewing it to get rid of the examples that I donā€™t think are very convincing ā€¦ Iā€™ll try to have it on the list by lunch time (E.S.T.)

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 ā€œerrors in the Bibleā€ 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. Itā€™s the very specifc list I described for which I am looking.

1 Like

By the way, I trust that some of you can surely share my amusement at the fact that while my declaration that I see biblical obstacles to a 4.543B year old earth has produced in more than a few people the reaction that Iā€™m just doing the same thing that Bible thumpers did in the past about geocentricity, yet no one seems to find it easy to produce a list of all the objections said Bible thumpers supposedly made. :wink:

P.S. I did not see this coming. I did not set you up for this.

What I got out of the second reading of your question is not what I got out of my first. Sorry that I misread.

The only thing in the list you provided that was ever argued against Biblically would be the sun revolving around the earth. That was decided so long ago that the others parts, the various actual speeds, were never considered anti-Biblical, at least in my memory. The opposition to the heliocentric model was based on a combination of Scripture and Church Teaching. The name Galileo ring a bell?

If you would like 67 scriptures that prove geocentricism you can try this Sixty-Seven Scriptural References Which Tell Us That It Is the Sun And Not the Earth That Moves but be forewarned the writer is probably not to be trusted. And of course there are a whole pot-load of web sites that try to show geocentricism is actually correct.

I donā€™t believe ā€œBible Thumpersā€ have ever opposed the heliocentric model. Evolution yes. :wink:

Is this more in line with what you were asking for?

@Mike,

For clarification purposes, let me ask you a question:

Case Type #1
In the 1500s, some prominent individual demonstrated that men and women had the same number of ribs. This was considered shocking and a breakthrough.

But there is nothing in the Bible that specifies that Men have one less rib.
So would this case fit your requirements? I would think it wouldnā€™t.

Case Type #2
There is a verse about Hares chewing their cud. I am skeptical that anyone made any attempt to insist that Hares must chew their cud. But obviously, somewhere along the line, naturalists confirmed that Hares donā€™t have cud to chew. Does this one meet your criteria?

Case Type #3
There are several verses that create the impression that the Philistines were living in their coastal towns early enough for Abraham to interact with them. This would be about 800 years prior to the date of the actual entrenchment on the coast by the Pelest (the source of the name Philistines); Archaeologists have more or less narrowed down the time of their first settlement (presumably in cooperation with the Egyptians) to be about 1230 BCE, with the time of their entrenched presence strong enough to keep the Egyptians out of the Sinai and Canaan for centuries to be about 1130 BCE.
Does this one meet your criteria? It should. Even today there are those Christians who argue that there was yet another group of ā€œSea folkā€ living along the Coast - - also called Philistines.

Post deleted ā€¦

@Mike_Gantt

Your scripture is taken from the OT, and are related to the Sabbath.

  1. As you should know a primary point of conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders as over the Sabbath.
    _John 5:16-18 (NIV2011) _
    _16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute Him. _
    _17 In his defense Jesus said to them, ā€œMy Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.ā€ _
    18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God.

Here Jesus says that the Father did not rest on the seventh day, but is still working.

  1. While Exodus version of the Decalogue bases the Sabbath on six days of Creation, the Deuteronomy version does not. Do you claim that one is more authoritative than another?

Deuteronomy 5:12-15 (NIV2011)
_12 ā€œObserve the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. _
_13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, _
_14 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. _
15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

The Sabbath is not inextricably bound to a six day creation and many think that the Priestly editor made this change to highlight Sabbath worship at the Temple.

  1. John 1:1-3 (NIV2011)
    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    2 He was with God in the beginning.
    3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The NT Creation Story indicates that creation is a process of change or evolution, not revolution as is Gen 1.

Do not mistake your interlocutorā€™s mistake as evidence of absence.

I do not have it on hand, but the right place to read is Keplerā€™s introduction to Astronomia Novia. He exegesis at length all the key passages of the day that were being wielded against geocentrism. The Joshua Day is the most important one, but he also points to some key Psalms.

His thoughts here are widely quoted (but I recommend reading the whole essay):

https://www.amazon.com/Selections-Keplers-Astronomia-Classics-Humanities/dp/1888009284

I hope @TedDavis can jump in with the right quotes, but I do not have them on hand at the moment. It is a shame this is not easily available on the web. It is perhaps the most important work I have read from the early scientists.

For me, the key thing here is not just the list of verses that you seek, but how Kepler thinks about them, and how others respond by rejecting his thoughtful theology.

1 Like

@Swamidass and @Mike_Gantt,

If I were going to be in my office again soon Iā€™d be glad to be more specific and more helpful, but I am traveling for a while and canā€™t do much more than Josh already said. Heā€™s right that the introduction to Keplerā€™s Astronomia nova (1609) is one of the key texts, and the translation by Donahue cited by Josh is the standard. So is Galileoā€™s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (see below), IMO the single most important text on science & the Bible ever written.

In a number of places the Bible speaks of the motion of the sun and/or the immobility of the earth (some such passages are Josh 10:12-14; Ps 19:4-6, 93:-1, and 104:5; Is 38:8; Eccles 1:5).

On Galileo, see http://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/galileo-and-other-good-books-about-science-and-the-bible

2 Likes

@Mike_Gantt,

Mostly Iā€™m amused that you think this thread has lead to amusing results.

Posters here have no problem at all conveying problems with an inerrantist stance. My point about the really really long lists of ā€œerrors/problemsā€ kept by Atheists is not that such lists are on point - - but that some of the better lists are organized in a way that it is easier to pull out the category of problems that are focused on science and the natural world, rather than on issues of philosophy or other contentiousness.

I trust you have had some time to ponder my three categories of issues, so that we can better focus on what you think is most relevant. Here is my discussion again from my prior posting:

Case Type #1
In the 1500s, some prominent individual demonstrated that men and women had the same number of ribs. This was considered shocking and a breakthrough.

But there is nothing in the Bible that specifies that Men have one less rib.
So would this case fit your requirements? I would think it wouldnā€™t.

Case Type #2
There is a verse about Hares chewing their cud. I am skeptical that anyone made any attempt to insist that Hares must chew their cud. But obviously, somewhere along the line, naturalists confirmed that Hares donā€™t have cud to chew. Does this one meet your criteria?

Case Type #3
There are several verses that create the impression that the Philistines were living in their coastal towns early enough for Abraham to interact with them. This would be about 800 years prior to the date of the actual entrenchment on the coast by the Pelest (the source of the name Philistines); Archaeologists have more or less narrowed down the time of their first settlement (presumably in cooperation with the Egyptians) to be about 1230 BCE, with the time of their entrenched presence strong enough to keep the Egyptians out of the Sinai and Canaan for centuries to be about 1130 BCE.

Does this one meet your criteria? It should. Even today there are those Christians who argue that there was yet another group of ā€œSea folkā€ living along the Coast - - also called Philistines

I hope no-one looses patience with me, and so I need to make my posts very clear. To this end, can I state what I have gleaned from these discussions, and you can say that I finally understand you, or perhaps I still fail to comprehend your position.

THUS, I would say: (1) you propose a period of creation that is described by the six days, followed by the Sabbath rest, as completing the creation, without inferring a time line. (2) you then count the genealogies in the bible, until Adam, and from this you arrive at a numerical value, which I presume you believe is equal to the age of the earth, and (3) you maintain that since God rested from a completed work (and here I struggle even more) you conclude that God sustaining His creation must differ from His 6day creation acts.

I would appreciate more or less an answer from you that is (a) yes I now understand your position, or (b) no I still misunderstand you, and perhaps you focus on where I misunderstand you.

Given the confusion this post has caused, I regret having sent it. Please just disregard it if you can.

As Iā€™ve written elsewhere, I regret sending that post. I was not trying to communicate that no one would be able to produce such lists, and Keplerā€™s sounds like a particularly noteworthy one. Thanks.