How old is the earth?

[trophy33]

So what you’re really saying is that Genesis isn’t true, it’s fiction and you find it hard to believe that people on a Christian website would actually believe that it is not fiction but is instead fact. It shouldn’t be surprising that you would encounter people who actually believe the Bible on a Christian website. I mean that’s mainly what I would expect to encounter on a Christian website. I can tell you it would take much more than some guy on the internet making claims that the Bible isn’t a record of true events to convince true believing Christians that it is all fiction. YEC is plausible despite what scientists claim. I showed you the unreliability of carbon dating and you declined to comment on it. Best guesses and inconclusive evidence is not proof and that’s precisely all that science has to offer on the subject of the age of the earth and the universe.

Its a standard Christian view worldwide that Genesis is not meant to be read literally, as a scientific journal, and placed against our science.

For some reason, this view is exotic to some Christians from English speaking countries (mainly US and Australia), though.

It has nothing to do with Christianity as such. I do not need to read parables or psalms literally just because I am a Christian. And in the same way this applies also to the creation story or genealogies of patriarchs. Creation mythos and legendary patriarchs were a specific genre, rare in our times, common in theirs.

Not recognizing the genre of the literature in the Bible is not "more Christian" and does not need to be associated with Christian websites.

 

[trophy33]

Is it necessary to include the age of each person when they had their first child throughout the entire lineage to accomplish that?

It was common to come with various details to provide some frame for the nation's origin. It did not need to be precise or factual.

 

[trophy33]

Ok so you believe that God gave the ancient Hebrews (Israelites) a mythical account of Creation instead of an actual account of Creation? I just want to confirm that is what you believe, that God gave them a mythical instead of actual account of Creation.

Not sure how you understand the words "God gave them". The creation story did not fall from heaven. Its a work of ancient Hebrews for ancient Hebrews, in the style and language of ancient Hebrews.

Inspiration is not an automatic dictation.

Yes, its a creation mythos, mythological drama, whatever you want to call it. That was their popular genre.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It’s a standard Christian view worldwide that Genesis is not meant to be read literally, as a scientific journal, and placed against our science.

That’s irrelevant. It’s a standard Christian view that once a person’s saved they can’t never lose their salvation. Just because something is a mainstream belief doesn’t make it sound theology.

 

[BNR32FAN]

It has nothing to do with Christianity as such. I do not need to read parables or psalms literally just because I am a Christian.

This is a ridiculous comparison between parables and psalms and the creation account in Genesis. They’re not even remotely similar. Are you seriously suggesting that Genesis is written anything like psalms and parables? If so then you really shouldn’t be questioning the education level of Americans.

 

[trophy33]

This is a ridiculous comparison between parables and psalms and the creation account in Genesis. They’re not even remotely similar. Are you seriously suggesting that Genesis is written anything like psalms and parables? If so then you really shouldn’t be questioning the education level of Americans.

Its the same principle. As parables or psalms are not commonly used today, so also creation mythology is not commonly used today, as a genre.

It does not mean that parables are mythology, indeed. But both have this thing in common - they are not literal.

Edit: Various creation mythologies are actually used today, in computer games or fantasy movies, so it makes some kind of a comeback. Their place in our culture is not so prominent as in ancient cultures, though, because we do not create them about us.

 

[trophy33]

That’s irrelevant. It’s a standard Christian view that once a person’s saved they can’t never lose their salvation. Just because something is a mainstream belief doesn’t make it sound theology.

I did not make a claim "its a standard Christian view, therefore its a sound theology". Its not even a theology, its simply an education about the genre, about the culture in which this writing was created.

I pointed out that this knowledge is quite a standard Christian view worldwide, in the context "this is a Christian website".

 

[BNR32FAN]

It was common to come with various details to provide some frame for the nation's origin. It did not need to be precise or factual.

Those ages were included for a purpose. The purpose of those ages was so that we could determine when key individuals lived and use that as a reference to when different different events took place. It basically created a timeline for everyone to be able to understand how long ago certain people lived and how long ago certain events took place. All you’re doing is ignoring the evidence. I’m 100% confident that you know full well the difference between a parable and a psalm and the literature used in Genesis 1. They are not even remotely similar and you know it.

 

[trophy33]

Those ages were included for a purpose. The purpose of those ages was so that we could determine when key individuals lived and use that as a reference to when different different events took place. It basically created a timeline for everyone to be able to understand how long ago certain people lived and how long ago certain events took place. All you’re doing is ignoring the evidence. I’m 100% confident that you know full well the difference between a parable and a psalm and the literature used in Genesis 1. They are not even remotely similar and you know it.

This is your personal interpretation which is not common for the majority of Christians.

There is no strong evidence for such interpretation, and therefore, if it leads you into a direct conflict with science, its absurd to hold to it.

a) nobody in the Bible used it for the age of humanity or even of the universe
b) no elementary Christian creed is about the age of humanity or even of the universe

Therefore, its a needless, conflict-bringing interpretation.

 

[BNR32FAN]

This is your personal interpretation which is not common for the majority of Christians.

There is no strong evidence for such interpretation, and therefore, if it leads you into a direct conflict with science, its absurd to hold to it.

No this is not an interpretational issue because interpretations are built upon the information provided in the text. Interpretation is a matter of deciphering or explaining the meaning of information, what you’re doing is ignoring information which is completely different. Interpreting the genealogies would be reading them and asking yourself, what is the passage saying? What you’re doing is reading it and completely ignoring and omitting information, that’s not interpreting.

 

[trophy33]

No this is not an interpretational issue because interpretations are built upon the information provided in the text. Interpretation is a matter of deciphering or explaining the meaning of information, what you’re doing is ignoring information which is completely different. Interpreting the genealogies would be reading them and asking yourself, what is the passage saying? What you’re doing is reading it and completely ignoring and omitting information, that’s not interpreting.

There are quite a few possible interpretations, for example: Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? - Article - BioLogos

And there is nothing wrong with having no interpretation of a 3,000 years old section of a text. Its not essential for any Christian doctrine and its perfectly natural that some of original intents of authors will be lost in time, when culture and even audience change.

 

[Platte]

Not sure how you understand the words "God gave them". The creation story did not fall from heaven. Its a work of ancient Hebrews for ancient Hebrews, in the style and language of ancient Hebrews.

Inspiration is not an automatic dictation.

Yes, its a creation mythos, mythological drama, whatever you want to call it. That was their popular genre.

I’ll explain how God gave us The Bible later. I did have just 2 more questions to move this conversation on
1) Do you know how Historians have determined the timeline for the Egyptians? (It was the same for the other ancient civilizations you mentioned earlier)
2) I’ll ask my second question after we get past question 1

 

[BNR32FAN]

a) nobody in the Bible used it for the age of humanity or even of the universe
b) no elementary Christian creed is about the age of humanity or even of the universe

Really? So how do you suppose that you can look up any person who played a significant role in the Bible and find out what era they lived in? How do historians know when Moses lived? Or when Abraham lived? Where do you think they got that information from, fossil records? The only place they could find such information is from the genealogies in the Bible.

 

[BNR32FAN]

There are quite a few possible interpretations, for example: Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? - Article - BioLogos

And there is nothing wrong with having no interpretation of a 3,000 years old section of a text. Its not essential for any Christian doctrine and its perfectly natural that some of original intents of authors will be lost in time, when culture and even audience change.

There are quite a few possible interpretations, for example: Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? - Article - BioLogos

And there is nothing wrong with having no interpretation of a 3,000 years old section of a text. It’s not essential for any Christian doctrine and it’s perfectly natural that some of original intents of authors will be lost in time, when culture and even audience change.

Ok I’m not going to continue reading past this paragraph because it’s already getting too ridiculous.

“The first thing more careful observation reveals about these 30 numbers is that all of them end with the digits 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. You might not think that is too remarkable until you realize that it eliminates half of the possible numbers. It is like seeing a list of 30 numbers that are all even. We wouldn’t think that was a random distribution of numbers. In fact, the odds of getting all thirty numbers to end with just these “approved” digits in a random distribution of ages are about one in a hundred million.1 That should make us suspicious that Genesis 5 is merely giving a historical report. Something else must be going on here.”

So because all the ages in Genesis 5 and 11 end with the numbers 2,5,7, or 9 this somehow represents some numerical code is beyond ridiculous when there’s only 10 digits that these ages could’ve possibly ended in and 4 of them are used. There’s only 30 ages that are given. Yeah the odds of these particular numbers coming up might be a hundred thousand to one but the odds of 4 out of 10 digits coming up in 30 tries of rolling a 10 sided die is nowhere near that high, not even close. So that right there already tells me that they’re exaggerating the truth and this is not a credible website.

 

[BNR32FAN]

There are quite a few possible interpretations, for example: Long Life Spans in Genesis: Literal or Symbolic? - Article - BioLogos

And there is nothing wrong with having no interpretation of a 3,000 years old section of a text. Its not essential for any Christian doctrine and its perfectly natural that some of original intents of authors will be lost in time, when culture and even audience change.

Ok so this doesn’t even make sense to me maybe you can help me understand their point here. So when they calculate how old Methuselah was when he had his son which was 187 years old they say that equates to 60+60+60+7 years. What is the point of this equation if it still equals 187 years? The same with Adam when Seth was born. Adam was 130 years old so they calculate it as 60+60 years and 60+60 months which is again still 130 years. So what’s the point of the equation?

One option is attaching some significance to the fact that all of the 30 numbers can be expressed as combinations of the two “sacred” numbers 60 and 7 in terms of years and months. 60 was culturally significant because it was the number that Babylonian mathematics was based on (the influence of this sexagesimal system is still felt today with our 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute). And 7, of course, has a prominent place in biblical symbolism beginning with the Sabbath. So when we’re told that Methuselah was 187 years when he had his son Lamech (Gen. 5:25), we can see that 187 = 60+60+60+7 years. And then because 60 months = 5 years, when Adam is said to be 130 years at the birth of his son Seth (Gen. 5:3), that can be expressed as (60+60 years) + (60+60 months).

This could explain why all the reported ages end in 0, 2, 5, 7, or 9. These are what common combinations of 60 years, 5 years (=60 months), and 7 years end with: besides the obvious 0, 5, and 7, numbers ending with 2 come from adding 7 to a number that ends with 5; and 9 comes from adding 7 twice to a number ending with 5.

For some of the numbers in Genesis 5, the combinations have to get more complicated. Check the footnotes to see how to calculate Seth’s 912 years2 when he died, or the 782 years3 Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech. These and all the others can be generated by combinations of 60, 5, and 7.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Not sure how you understand the words "God gave them". The creation story did not fall from heaven. Its a work of ancient Hebrews for ancient Hebrews, in the style and language of ancient Hebrews.

Inspiration is not an automatic dictation.

Yes, its a creation mythos, mythological drama, whatever you want to call it. That was their popular genre.

Ok I have a few questions for you, how did anyone know how old Adam was when he had Seth? How did anyone know how old Adam was when he died? Did Adam have a calendar? Did Adam count all the days that he lived and then pass that information on thru his descendants all the way to Noah? Because that information had to be kept and survive the flood somehow if it wasn’t revealed to Moses thru God.

 

[DamianWarS]

Both are true depending on the time perspective

I would say in the sense of prepared wine that only one is true and that the wine is seconds old. despite its characteristics being similar to that of old wine doesn't actually make it old wine, it just makes it appear like old wine. Science doesn't care how old the wine is, it cares how accurately it can describe the wine base on what it knows, if it fails in doing this then the science is wrong not the wine. For example, if the earth is actually a young earth, then science has misinterpreted its observations to determine it's an old earth but it is not a young earth trapped in an old earth body it's either young or old, not both.

an issue with science and God is that science exists within the observable world, which in the bible would be called creation and which God preexists. So God is innately outside of this observable area of science, science may see God's interaction with creation but it cannot see God outside of creation because that's outside of science's field of vision. Science may trace all things back to a giant burst of energy but of course, the elephant in the room is what was before the burst of energy. Then it gets further muddied with multiverses conversation. To me, it's a "turtles all the way down" response that science seems to be content with and somewhat blinded to which is a bit ironic because that's a very counter-science phrase. Science is self-preserving and will always give an answer that it can explain but that in itself creates a void of the unexplained.

If we admit to a source outside of the observable as the source of this energy then it can help explain the origins that science cannot see, so cannot or needs not to explain further. Although this doesn't exactly answer the question of God it creates a space where God can exist and science admits it's possibility even if it can't see it.

 

[tonychanyt]

I would say in the sense of prepared wine that only one is true and that the wine is seconds old.

Do you think there are two different time perspectives?

 

[DamianWarS]

Do you think there are two different time perspectives?

no

 

[Diamond7]

Its a standard Christian view worldwide that Genesis is not meant to be read literally, as a scientific journal, and placed against our science.

Why not, science and evolution line up perfectly. They are in 100% agreement. Oh people grasping at straws will try to say this came before that, or that before this. If nothing else they admit that all the events in Genesis can be confirmed by Science to be true and actually take place.