| How Old is the Earth According to the Bible? Supplemental Reading | John D. Morris, Ph.D. Back To Genesis No. 74b, February 1995
| | "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them bythe breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." (Psalm 33:6, 9).
The Institute for Creation Research has always taught, as an integral partof its ministry, the concept of the young earth. We have never put anabsolute date on the age of the earth. We feel that the Bible doesn'tprovide all the information necessary for certainty, as shown by the factthat almost every Bible scholar who has ever tried to discern the exact datehas come to slightly different conclusions. Maybe all the information isthere but we just don't understand it fully yet.
However, lest we be too concerned, every honest attempt to determine thedate, starting with a deep commitment to the inerrancy of God's Word, hascalculated a span of just a few thousand years, most likely close to 6000years, since creation. The largest figure I've ever seen from a trustworthyscholar is approximately 15,000 years, but even this seems to stretch theBiblical data too far.
To calculate the date one must first employ the genealogical data given inGenesis, I & II Chronicles, the Gospels, and elsewhere. Information gleanedfrom Judges, I & II Kings, Daniel, Acts, and other books must be included aswell. Since dates are fairly well established archaeologically beginning atabout the time of David, these can be a big help. This is because so manyBiblical events are referenced to the reigns of individual kings. Obviously,the job is difficult.
Of course the genealogies only begin with the creation of Adam, so thequestion of time before Adam remains. As has been well noted on these pages,the six days of Creation Week must be of the same length as our days. Werecognize, however, that the Hebrew word yom, translated "day," can have avariety of meanings, including an indefinite period of time. Thus, some havesuggested that these six days might then be equated with the billions ofyears claimed by geologists.
Whenever a word in Scripture can have a variety of meanings, we must go tothe context to determine what it does mean and not be content with what itmight mean. And when we do, we find that the first time yom is used, it isdefined as a solar day (Genesis 1:3), and then a total day/night cycle(1:3).
Furthermore, yom is modified by "evening and morning," which in Hebrew canonly mean a literal day. It is also modified by an ordinal number (first,second, etc.), a construction limited in Hebrew to that of a literal day.Elsewhere the six days of creation are equated with the six days of our workweek (Exodus 20:11), a formula incorporated in the fourth of the TenCommandments regarding the Sabbath rest. We should mention that the use of anumeral to modify "days," in this case "6," is again reserved for a literalday in Hebrew, as is the use of the plural word "days."
Suffice it to say that no one could conclude that Scripture specificallyplaces Creation any longer ago than a few thousand years, and to myknowledge no one does. Many do hold to an older position, but not forScriptural reasons. They are convinced by radioisotope dating, perhaps, ormaybe the molecular clock of mutation rates, or some other line of thinking,but not from Scripture.
Scripture teaches a young earth, and the time has come for Christians tostop twisting Scripture to fit the evolutionary and uniformitarianspeculations of some scientists about the unobserved past. We suggest it'stime for such Christians to stop calling themselves "Bible-believing"Christians and start using some such name as "world-believing" Christians. |
"Vital Articles on Science/Creation" February 1995 Copyright © 1995 All Rights Reserved |
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