I have heard conflicting reports about the age of the Earth. There are three diffrent point of views that I am aware of.
- Some say six literal days and that the Earth is 6,000 to 11,000 years old.
- A pre Adameic race- they say God wiped out a human race before Adam and created the world over again. Making the Earth Millions of years old.
- God worked with evolution and the days of creation were actually thousands of years apart.
Could you shed some light on this question, please. God Bless
I find Chaldean’s Rite’s hypothesis very interesting.
Or we could use the scriptures to identify a 4.5 billion years old earth…would it be a correct interpretation is another question.
In Genesis, there are two different definitions for a Day.
God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
The first definition is the time when light hits upon a place on the earth (God called the light “day,” ). This is the time when God
is actively creating, so we’ll call it a Lord’s Day. However a Genesis Day is twice as long as it involves the night time as well (And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.)
Now,if we take the words of Peter: A Day for the Lord (Lord’s Day) is as a thousand years.
Some Jews take this also litterally, and so, I “personally” accept it…
chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=108400
“However, the Talmud states that there is a predestined time when Mashiach
will come. If we are meritorious he may come even before that predestined
time. This “end of time” remains a mystery, yet the Talmud states that it
will be before the Hebrew year 6000. (The Hebrew year at the date of this
publication is 5763.)”
And so 2 Peter 3:8-9 reads:
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like
a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow
in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness…”
He is speaking to the chrisitans who are impatiently waiting for the coming
of Christ,having been told that they were living in the last Days…Here,
Peter seems to be claiming, the last Days, as meaning the next couple of
thousands of years, being in accordance with the Jewish Talmud. Therefore,
if 1 Day litterally can be 1,000 years, then if we continue his statement
“and a thousand years are like a day”. Either he is speaking of
timelessness, which is possible, or, if he takes a Day to be 1,000 years in
the litteral sense, then, 1,000 years equalling a Day could also be meant to
be taken litterally. If so, he
must be speaking of 2 separate and disntinct type of Days. The first mention
of Day is symbolically equal to 1,000 years. Now, he maybe saying that 1,000
years “of such a Day” is equal to the 2nd definition of Day, and let “this”
be a "Genesis Lord’s Day.
So, 1,000 years of a Day equalling 1,000 years =
364,000,000 years; and this would be equal to a Lord’s Day; and 364 million
years x 7 = 2.5 billion years.Now, if the Genesis Day speaks of
a Lord’s Day plus “morning till evening”, then, the 2.5
billion is to be doubled into 5 billion years.Even closer would be the belief that we are still within the 7th Day, reducing 5 billion by 364 million years (from evening till morning),for Genesis does not mention the evening to morning period in the 7th Day, which is equal to 4.6 billion years.
Certainly, I am speculating; however, it
matches one interpretation of scriptures with scientific data…
Andre
