Young Earth in an Ancient Cosmos ?

[jason]

Is there really any problem with a young earth in an ancient cosmos ?

I can't really think of any. Leaving the physics and the like aside, I can't see any scriptual problem even from the YEC Camp.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Clearly there is a gap (or at least the potenial for a gap) between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2.

The earth could even be ancient at this point and simply untouched by God.

There appears to be no reason in scripture why this cannot be the case that I can see.

You could still have a 144 creation week and a global flood without compromising anything, while solving the ancient star light, and probably the radio isotope decay problems without ad hoc solutions.

At least, so it appears to be so to me.

Thoughts ?

Incidentally these are idle musings, and if I am accused of "attacking the bible" may I remind you, that it is not the inerrancy of the bible in question, but your interpretation. And unless you are the pope you are in no position to claim your interpretations are inerrant (and if you are the pope you had better be typing from the chair).

Jason

[Socratism]

Most YECs that I know (which is admittedly not many) actually do believe in an ancient cosmos and a young Earth.

This is not a problem as far as scripture is concerned since the focus in the Genesis account is on the events occurring on the Earth. Hence the account refers to Earth time. In other words creation took place in 6 days as measured in Earth time.

[jason]

Today @ 08:36 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270213#post270213)
Socratism:

Most YECs that I know (which is admittedly not many) actually do believe in an ancient cosmos and a young Earth.

This is not a problem as far as scripture is concerned since the focus in the Genesis account is on the events occurring on the Earth. Hence the account refers to Earth time. In other words creation took place in 6 days as measured in Earth time.
My point was that the universe could be billions of years old, prior to the creation of the earth, in line with big bang astronomy, and still not be at odds with genesis.

Jason

[Socratism]

Today @ 04:03 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270263#post270263)
jason:


My point was that the universe could be billions of years old, prior to the creation of the earth, in line with big bang astronomy, and still not be at odds with genesis.

Jason

If we believe that general relativity is essentially correct, and there is evidence that it is, then it is possible that the great age of the cosmos is not because there was a period prior to the ordinary Earth days of Genesis, but instead because time was elapsing at a far greater rate in areas far removed from the Earth.

Such an effect could well have been due to the "stretching of the heavens" mentioned a number of times in scripture.

It is interesting to me that many people believe that time essentially "stops" within a black hole, but do not see that this has anything at all to do with the time dilemma regarding an ancient cosmos and a young Earth.

[jason]

Today @ 10:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270330#post270330)
Socratism:

If we believe that general relativity is essentially correct, and there is evidence that it is, then it is possible that the great age of the cosmos is not because there was a period prior to the ordinary Earth days of Genesis, but instead because time was elapsing at a far greater rate in areas far removed from the Earth.
We don't see this time dialation effect though.

My suggestion makes this a non-issue, and it apparently is not ruled out by the text (my original question) because if it was I presume you would have said something.

Jason

[Socratism]

Today @ 06:00 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270380#post270380)
jason:
We don't see this time dialation effect though.

The effect can be measured today, therefore this is used as one of the proofs of general relativity.

Since the stretching out of the heavens may have been only operable during creation week, we might not be able to detect its effects today.


My suggestion makes this a non-issue, and it apparently is not ruled out by the text (my original question) because if it was I presume you would have said something.
Jason

Whether it is ruled out or not by the text is not something that would be affected by anything I said or didn't say. Therefore your satisfaction from my silence is wishful thinking on your part.

The usual reason for denying long ages prior to creation week is that it is extra biblical: nothing in scripture can be cited to support the concept (at least I have never heard anyone make such an argument using scripture only to support it.).

[jason]

Yesterday @ 11:20 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270411#post270411)
Socratism:
Since the stretching out of the heavens may have been only operable during creation week, we might not be able to detect its effects today.
We should be able to because as we look further away from the earth we look further back in time.


The usual reason for denying long ages prior to creation week is that it is extra biblical: nothing in scripture can be cited to support the concept (at least I have never heard anyone make such an argument using scripture only to support it.).
Nothing can be cited to deny it either. Scripture appears to be silent on the topic. Making either interpretation viable.

Yes or No ?

Jason

[Socratism]

Today @ 01:00 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=270801#post270801)
jason:
... as we look further away from the earth we look further back in time.

Although that is true as a general comment it does not mean that we see events from the photons we receive at the same rate that they were originally emitted.

Setterfield explains this as follows with respect to SN1987:


However, there is one factor that negates this conclusion for both these features of SN1987A. Let us accept, for the sake of illustration, that c WAS equal to 10c now at the LMC at the time of the explosion. Furthermore, according to the c decay (cDK) hypothesis, light-speed is the same at any instant right throughout the cosmos due to the properties of the physical vacuum. Therefore, light will always arrive at earth with the current value of c now. This means that in transit, light from the supernova has been slowing down. By the time it reaches the earth, it is only travelling at 1/10th of its speed at emission by SN1987A. As a consequence the rate at which we are receiving information from that light beam is now 1/10th of the rate at which it was emitted. In other words we are seeing this entire event in slow-motion. The light-intensity curve may have indeed decayed 10 times faster, and the light may indeed have reached the sheets 10 times sooner than expected on constant c. Our dilemma is that we cannot prove it for sure because of the slow-motion effect. At the same time this cannot be used to disprove the cDK hypothesis.


Scripture appears to be silent on the topic. Making either interpretation viable.
Yes or No ?
Jason

No. Scripture is not silent on the topic.

[Socrates]

11-03-2003 @ 09:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=269727#post269727)
jason:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Clearly there is a gap (or at least the potenial for a gap) between Genesis 1:1 & 1:2.

:lol: Even Hugh Ross doesn't believe the nonsensical "gap theory" :rofl: There is nothing at all "clear" about any gap (and how could it be clear if there may be only the potential :huh:?) except that it's yet another old-earth Scripture twist that was absent from the Church Fathers and Reformers. For a more detailed refutation, see From the Beginning of Creation: Does Genesis have a Gap? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1132.asp).


Incidentally these are idle musings, and if I am accused of "attacking the bible" may I remind you, that it is not the inerrancy of the bible in question, but your interpretation. And unless you are the pope you are in no position to claim your interpretations are inerrant (and if you are the pope you had better be typing from the chair).

Nonsense. I claim that it my mathematical interpretation of 2+2 equalling 4 and not 3 or 5 is inerrant, without claiming that I'm an inerrant mathematician. Similarly with Genesis -- it means what Hebrew scholars have understood it to mean for most of Church History before anti-Christian deists invented uniformitarian geology. One day we might be spared this existentialist crap about fallibility of interpretation.

[jason]

Today @ 03:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=271115#post271115)
Socrates:

:lol: Even Hugh Ross doesn't believe the nonsensical "gap theory" :rofl: There is nothing at all "clear" about any gap (and how could it be clear if there may be only the potential :huh:?) except that it's yet another old-earth Scripture twist that was absent from the Church Fathers and Reformers. For a more detailed refutation, see From the Beginning of Creation: Does Genesis have a Gap? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1132.asp).
Jeez your an idiot at times. Read what I said.

I said the universe could be old, without any need for the earth to be old.

There is no timescale for verse 1. The time scale starts in verse 2. I was making no reference at all to the age of the earth, or to some ruin and reconstruction theory.


One day we might be spared this existentialist crap about fallibility of interpretation.
Last I checked it was cult leaders and the pope that claimed it was impossible for them to be wrong. Oh I see ...

Jason

Jason,
Please reacquaint yourself with the rules of this section. Vitriole of the type I edited above is against the rules. Please refrain in the future.

[Augustine2004]

I think that in General Relativity determining the relative age of a distant region is treacherous business. Some readers may not realize how much time or simultaneity is a convention in General Relativity. GR allows spacetime to be sliced into 3-surfaces in any of many ways. A 3-surface is essentially 3D space with the same time, e.g. noon, First Creation Day, everywhere. Somewhat like taking a 3-D snapshot and labeling it, "8:03 AM October 30, 2000 BC." I think that our spacetime can be sliced up so that, assuming time is continuous (infinitely divisable), each distant space point is no "older" nor "younger" than any other space point on Earth. Time may run faster or slower in distant parts than on Earth, yet someone can still claim with some justification that every part of the universe is no older than 6,000 years old.

What is meant by the term "ancient cosmos" or the like will have to be specified in operational terms.

text replaced with this message by request of poster because he became embarrassed with it.

[jonathanmoore]

>>Is there really any problem with a young earth in an ancient cosmos ? <<

Yes.

If a person believes that God created the universe then everything in the universe is a creation of God and the study of the Universe is a study of the work of God.

Thus if I look at the evidence in the universe and can detail ages and times these are ages and time set forth by God.

The earth is not young, it ws formed as all other planets have been formed and life developed as we will find all life developed. And all of this is part of the wisdom of God if you believe that God created the universe.

No matter what the inspiration, the Bible was penned by humans. If the Bibel, penned by humans, disagrees with the Universe, the work of God, I must conclude the Universe hold the correct answer and that the writer og the passage disputing the universe was unfocused.

[Sinai]

Jason appears to be referring to the Gap theory (also known as the Interval and Restitution theory, the Divine Judgment theory, and the Recreation theory), which was more popular about 50-80 years ago than it is now. The Gap theory is usually largely based upon the fact that Hebrew tends to be more general and less specific than English or Greek. Thus, Hebrew words can often have a wider range of meanings.

In the first part of Genesis 1:2 ["and the earth it was formless, void and empty"], the verb hayethah (which is generally translated "it was") can also be translated as "it became." Proponents of the Gap Theory therefore generally claim that Genesis 1:2 should be translated to read "and the earth became formless, void and empty" rather than using the more common translation of the phrase.

There are, however, some proponents of the Gap theory who go about it slightly differently. Instead of translating hayethah as "it became" they use verse one of Genesis to emphasize that God had created the Earth "in the beginning" of creation, but by verse two, the Earth was formless, void and empty. These persons tend to ignore the fact that Hebrew had no single word for universe and that the Hebrew phrase "the heavens and the earth" is the Hebrew equivalent of the English word universe.

This theory often uses passages (primarily in Isaiah and Ezekiel) regarding the fall of Satan or Lucifer to bolster the theory that the world was created in Gen. 1:1 but became formless and void because of Satan's fall, and then creation continued in verse two.

[Socrates]

12-20-2003 @ 11:49 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=349326#post349326)
Sinai:

Jason appears to be referring to the Gap theory (also known as the Interval and Restitution theory, the Divine Judgment theory, and the Recreation theory), which was more popular about 50-80 years ago than it is now.

But totally absent from the Church Fathers and Reformers, because it is not in Scripture. It was one of the many dodges to try to twist Scripture into the rising uniformitarian geological theories of long ages. I explained this 10 months ago at www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?action=showthread&postid=12630#post12630


The Gap theory is usually largely based upon the fact that Hebrew tends to be more general and less specific than English or Greek. Thus, Hebrew words can often have a wider range of meanings.

Which is probably why so many compromise teachings consider words in isolation and not the context, which narrows the semantic field.


In the first part of Genesis 1:2 [&quot;and the earth it was formless, void and empty&quot;], the verb hayethah (which is generally translated &quot;it was&quot;) can also be translated as &quot;it became.&quot;

But only when it has le -- the Hebrew idiom for "to become" is "to be--to". And the gap theory is even more untenable because Genesis 1:2 is a waw disjunctive which indicates a parenthetical statement and not a waw consecutive which would advance the narrative forward.


This theory often uses passages (primarily in Isaiah and Ezekiel) regarding the fall of Satan or Lucifer to bolster the theory that the world was created in Gen. 1:1 but became formless and void because of Satan's fall, and then creation continued in verse two.

And wrongly so. After Genesis 1:31, the whole creation was called "very good", so the fall of Satan must have happened after that. I analyse this in detail in When did Satan Fall? (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?action=showthread&postid=56280#post56280)

[Augustine2004]

Anyone wishing to prove Genesis wrong must show that all possible scientific models created to elucidate Genesis are wrong in one detail or another. How about proving wrong D. Russell Humphreys' model as presented in Starlight and Time available through http://www.AnswersinGenesis.org ? I would be glad to explain any of the points in that book, if I can.

[jason]

12-23-2003 @ 10:26 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=353349#post353349)
Augustine2004:

Anyone wishing to prove Genesis wrong

You asssume we think Genesis is wrong.

I take exception with a YEC misinterpretation of the scriptures not the accuracy of genesis itself.

Jason

[Sinai]

Socrates, you did a rather good job of outlining most of the scriptural problems that are generally leveled against the gap theory--which is one reason it is probably not as popular now as it was 50-80 years ago (as I noted in my post). The other major reason it has dropped in popularity is that it is not particularly well supported by scientific discoveries over the past half century.....

[Sinai]

>>Is there really any problem with a young earth in an ancient cosmos ? <<

Yes.

If a person believes that God created the universe then everything in the universe is a creation of God and the study of the Universe is a study of the work of God.

Thus if I look at the evidence in the universe and can detail ages and times these are ages and time set forth by God.

The earth is not young, it ws formed as all other planets have been formed and life developed as we will find all life developed. And all of this is part of the wisdom of God if you believe that God created the universe.

No matter what the inspiration, the Bible was penned by humans. If the Bibel, penned by humans, disagrees with the Universe, the work of God, I must conclude the Universe hold the correct answer and that the writer og the passage disputing the universe was unfocused.

If God's word is true (as I believe it is), then we can believe the Bible when it tells us that God is the truth and does not lie, nor is He deceitful or false. Thus, both His word and His world should give consistent and true accounts of His creation. If you think they are inconsistent and contradictory, you may find it helpful to make a closer study of both.

A study of physics, astronomy, biology and other sciences at a good accredited university--including Christian universities like Notre Dame, Baylor, SMU and Wake Forest--would probably be a good place to start, and there are many excellent scientific journals and books that cover the tremendous scientific discoveries that have been made over the past 70 or so years that are giving us a much clearer picture of the creative process.

Similarly, get into the actual meanings of what the Bible says by studying the original languages of the Bible--Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek--and ancient commentaries on the scriptures in question. Even if a word-for-word translation were possible, it would still not really be fully "literal" and true to the original meanings, since it would not express all the nuances of the original language.

Since Hebrew is a rather ancient language that lacks the large vocabulary available in English, the same word or phrase may have many different possible meanings. The person or persons translating Hebrew into English generally use the most common meaning that is possible within the context--but that may cause what appears to be a conflict with a different verse or with a scientific or archelogical discovery.

However, most such apparent conflicts disappear upon a closer inspection of the range of meanings and the full context of the passage in question. When dealing with scripture that has scientific implications, in order to avoid reading a meaning into a passage that it probably should not have, I like to both study the passage in the original language and--when possible--to cross reference it with analysis and commetary from outstanding biblical scholars who wrote more than 700 years ago (well before modern scientfic discoveries).