Age of the Earth

[jdrbts]

How does one reconcile the apparent discrepancy between the age of the earth according to the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which indicate an age of perhaps no more than about 40,000 years, and the age according to scientists of about 5 or 6 billion years?

This discrepancy is significant because the genealogies purport to go straight back from Jesus to Adam, the first man according to the book of Genesis. If the Bible is inerrant, then that would make the earth perhaps no more than about 40,000 years, at most.

Jesus gave credence to the Old Testament, because, for example, he spoke of Moses and the prophets as having pointed to him as the coming Messiah. So, I suspect he likely would give credence to the genealogies concerning him in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

But, how could he, if the earth is as old as scientists claim it to be?

Some, including Jews for Jesus, say that the earth is young, no more than about 5,700 years. If they are right, then all is well (at least with respect to the genealogies concerning Jesus). If they are not right, then the Bible, or the New Testament, anyway, is not inerrant.

And, if it is not inerrant, then I have difficulty following Jesus; and, I guess I want to follow him, because, overall, I like his values.

I would be interested in knowing how other persons can follow Jesus without being certain that the Bible is inerrant.

Thank you.

[MuggleOrSquib]

I guess I'll be the first to respond. I suppose it sort of helps that I'm an ex-fundamentalist.

It occurred to me a number of years ago that if Jesus were to communicate with Second Temple Period Jews, He would have to communicate as a 2nd Temple Period Jew. The core of His message (which includes Himself) transcends the socio-cultural constraints within which we look at life in 2 ways. The first is simple enough that a young child can understand, in spite of little understanding of life. The second is beyond the comprehension of any of us, and has been the source for philosophical and theological debates for roughly a couple millenia. The second part deals with the how and why. The first part deals with the what.
The What:
What is God like (character question--what kind of god is God?)
..Things like 'what can we expect of God' fall under this
What does God want of us

If Jesus is God's communication to and through 2nd Temple Period Jews, there are going to be assumptions He may not correct, if it's not relevent to the message. The belief of some that Hebrew was the original language (and probably Hebrew as spoken in Judea during the 2nd Temple Period, as opposed to that of the early kingdom...) would be one such unaddressed issue. The age of the earth would be another.

The Orthodox Churches pay little attention to Biblical inerrancy. The GOSPEL is inerrant, but that isn't The 4 Gospels. It is given to us in the gospels, and in Paul's letters, and in the teachings of the Church (the Body of Christ, represented by its members).

Inerrancy actually became an issue after the Muslims decided that the Koran was eternal (and thus preceded creation). (Note, the first Muslims didn't believe this. Only a few centuries later did it become the established doctrine.) As Muslim philosophy made its way into Western Europe through the universities in Spain, Christian students had to deal with Muslim claims of a perfect book, a final revelation.
----
An ultimate summation of my position:I have met God in and through Jesus Christ (Jesus of Nazareth). I have met God in Jesus through the Bible (and through the Church). Minor possible inconsistencies, or even questions about how old the Bible seems to say the earth is, can't change that. Likewise, the human failings (multitudinous -- like mine) of my fellow Christians can't change that.

So, for anyone who seeks to follow Christ, I'd say, "Come, follow!" If an acquaintance says 'Well, did you know that the Bible says thus-and-so, and therefore you shouldn't follow this Jesus?' I'd say 'Research what the Bible says, and then ask 2 things--from the context, can you tell why the Bible says thus-and-so; and why does this acuaintance bring up this question'.
Ultimately, the Scriptures are going to have to speak to all cultures from when they were first written until the end. Many beliefs about the world, about science, and stuff, are going to change over the centuries, as they have in the past. In regards to science, I don't believe that we have it correct now, nor do I believe the Jews of the 2nd Temple Period had it correct.
On the issues regarding Christ, Salvation, God, ethics... I believe the Bible is impeccably, inerrantly, and eternally correct, but it's not the sort of thing you can subject to scientific proof, just as you can't submit a declaration of love to scientific proof.

I hope that helps a bit.
There should be a number of people here who will argue that Matthew is scientifically and historically correct about a recent creation and they can give you reasons to accept their viewpoint. I no longer believe in a recent creation, but I believe very strongly in Jesus Christ, God's Son, my Savior.

Yours in Christ,
Bob Griffin
PS I'm praying for you (nothing specific, simply entrusting you to God)

[TrinityKicker]

How does one reconcile the apparent discrepancy between the age of the earth according to the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which indicate an age of perhaps no more than about 40,000 years, and the age according to scientists of about 5 or 6 billion years?
...
I would be interested in knowing how other persons can follow Jesus without being certain that the Bible is inerrant.First, the age of the earth debate is no reason to disbelieve the Bible. God could have created the earth with the appearance of age. The geneology may not cover everyone who was born. There are a lot of reasons. What you need to realize is that scientists infer that 5 or 6 billion years from about 200. This is a fantastic claim to say that you can conclude billions of years of history from 200 years of study.

Second, the Bible doesn't need to be innerent for christianity to be true. On the contrary, if the Bible is only mostly true, that is enought to believe that Jesus of Nazareth lived, died, and raised. That's the cornerstone of the christian faith, not geneology. The Bible actually says not to be distracted by geneologies.

There are a lot of explanations for the geneologies, but it is such a marginal issue that i can't quote them off the top of my head.

[HRG_new]

[QUOTE=TrinityKicker]First, the age of the earth debate is no reason to disbelieve the Bible. God could have created the earth with the appearance of age. The geneology may not cover everyone who was born. There are a lot of reasons. What you need to realize is that scientists infer that 5 or 6 billion years from about 200. This is a fantastic claim to say that you can conclude billions of years of history from 200 years of study.
[quote]
As "fantastic" as the claim that you can conclude 150 mio km - the orbital radius of the Earth - from a few meters (the length of telescopes).

Every observation we make is an observation of the past. Sometimes we observe the near past, sometimes the far past. Did you believe that one has to stand nearby an event in order to observe it ?

[AntonS]

As for me, i believe that the age of the Earth is around 13.7 billions of years, not 5-6 billions. The Earth is a hypersurface.
Truth sometimes is more unbelievable than any fantasies. The Bible is completely true.
God manages time. He can take a man in His hand and put him in another point of time. To live N years is not to be born N years ago. For example, David lived around 100 years and died with being born around 2000 years ago.

[Berean Todd]

There are many possible explanations:

1. Old earthers can avoid having to accept evolution (which is complete BS) by using the day-age theories. The days in Gen were day-ages of unknown time meaning the creation process took a great amount of time.

2. The earth was pre-existant to the creation process of Gen 1. This does not say that it pre-existed God, but that it pre-existed the events in Gen 1. I read an interesting theory on this recently. Earth was where Satan was cast down to after his fall, and the Gen 1 story is the account of God recreating it into something good.

3. The earth was created aged. This is the one I hold most to (though I also have some feelings for #1). Adam and Eve weren't created as babies and neither was the earth. Testing would indicate older ages because it was created mature.

Those are just a few possible sollutions, but as you can see there are many ways these things can be handled ...

[Thedonhopeless]

I think when man says age, he doesn't know what he speaks of.

let me explain, I don't think God created the earth to "look" old,or create it to be old, I think it is society that says the earth "looks" old. What woudl about the earth does it make it seem that it is old?(woa what a moronic sentence, i left it in tact so you can laugh at my stupid grammar.) JUst caus eyou see huge mountains and the sort, or large trees, I don't know what eve rmakes peopel think "old", that doesn't mean they are old at all. Not in a millions or billions of years sense.

To truly and factually say the earth is "old" or created "old" by God, oen would have to compare it to a young "looking" earth.

To me, from my studies, there is nothing that happens on earth that takes all that long, whoel forests can grow quickly, large chasms can form quickly, as well as rivers and lakes and the like. There is nothing that takes millions of years.

This tells me there is nothing inately old about the earth, and to me doesn't even appear old. It appears liek a thriving relatively young planet. I wouldn't even say 40 thousand years. I woudl take genesis literally, and say by most 10 thousand years old, if that. There is nothing to me to prove the opposite.

[Tickle Me Goody]

I would be interested in knowing how other persons can follow Jesus without being certain that the Bible is inerrant.

Thank you.
Like MoS says, an inerrant Bible is not a prerequisit to following Jesus. Christianity originally spread by word of mouth, when Bibles were not universaly available.

The Gospel mesage is not about biblical innerancy

GG

[b488]

My answer is that there simply is no discrepancy whatsoever. The earth could be eons old and the geneology could just show 50 generations and there would still be no apparent problem.

why?

Because the geneolgies found in the bible are representative and not exhaustive. They were never meant to be used as a means to determine the earth's age. They are ment to show that God has a 'plan for man' that has been in effect since people have been around. That there has been a continuity of divine action in history. A narrative of faith.

The problem is simply over-interpreting what is there..thinking it says something it does not. (is the word eisogesis? :/ )

[TrinityKicker]

As "fantastic" as the claim that you can conclude 150 mio km - the orbital radius of the Earth - from a few meters (the length of telescopes).Looking at a telescope doesn't allow you to calculate the orbital radius of the earth. Looking through the telescope might be a good start, but the process of calculating an orbit of a body when you are part of that body is much more complicated than simply look at a telescopes.Every observation we make is an observation of the past. Sometimes we observe the near past, sometimes the far past. Did you believe that one has to stand nearby an event in order to observe it ?While in the literal sense, we may experience events after they actually happen, the time difference is so miniscule that it is not even recognized. We observe events as they happen. We infer past events from events we observe currently, but that's a big difference.

I infer that the lasagna I am eating was cooked by someone because it is too organized and hot to have happened by chance. However, I did not observe the cooking of the lasagna. Likewise, no living human has observed events very far in the past, but most of us infer that the great wall of china was built and took years to complete, the Roman Empire was wide spread, and Harvard started out as a christian college.

Generally, as the distance from an event increases the accuracy of the observation decreases. We are talking about billions of years infered from hundreds of years. I think skepticism is in order here.

[SteveF]

I'd personally say that if a particular interpretation of the Bible said that the earth is young, then the interpretation is likely to be wrong.

[Lion]

I'd like to stick my oar in here and stir things up a bit. The age of the earth has been debated in theological circles for many years with no resolution in sight. The latest thinking I have heard is that the universe, meaning the solar system and the stars, was created a long time, perhaps millions or billions of earth years ago. Earth years, of course, is determined by the earth's orbit.

The problem comes when we try to determine the age of the earth. What are we talking about? Is it the age of the planet, or is it the age when life began. They can be two different things.

I am a YEC christian. I believe the Genesis story implicitly. I think the life history of the ages of men are fairly accurate, and there was a worldwide flood that destroyed the previous civilization and the fossils are the signs of a world that was destroyed. That being said, the planet can be much older because the planet probably existed long before God began to create life on it. This creates an argument between evolutionists and YEC over who is right. I think they are both right, they are just measuring two different things and saying one is the other. This creates confusion.

[BWSmith]

How does one reconcile the apparent discrepancy between the age of the earth according to the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which indicate an age of perhaps no more than about 40,000 years, and the age according to scientists of about 5 or 6 billion years?

Depends on why you want to know what the age of the earth is (and "simply knowing what the truth is" doesn't count, because there is always an ulterior motivation for looking up "facts" like the age of the earth).

If your occupation is scientific, and your need to know depends on consistent measurements, then believe what your scientific tools tell you. If you are interested in "proving the veracity of a straightforward reading of the Bible" then no scientific measurements are going to convince you of anything that contradicts what is written.

If you really want to resolve the discrepancy, you have to ask different questions, namely: a) where does the 4.3 billion-year scientific figure come from, and b) where does the Biblical text come from? The answer to (a) is well-documented, and how you answer (b) determines how you resolve the conflict.

This discrepancy is significant because the genealogies purport to go straight back from Jesus to Adam, the first man according to the book of Genesis. If the Bible is inerrant, then that would make the earth perhaps no more than about 40,000 years, at most. Jesus gave credence to the Old Testament, because, for example, he spoke of Moses and the prophets as having pointed to him as the coming Messiah. So, I suspect he likely would give credence to the genealogies concerning him in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But, how could he, if the earth is as old as scientists claim it to be?

"Inerrant" is a 19th-century term that is based on 18th-century Enlightenment philosophy that forces questions regarding "absolute empirical factuality" on the Bible that did not exist for either the writers or original audience of the Bible.

"Is the Bible true" is the wrong question. It is impossible to give the right answer without asking the right questions based on the expectations of the original audience.

Some, including Jews for Jesus, say that the earth is young, no more than about 5,700 years. If they are right, then all is well (at least with respect to the genealogies concerning Jesus). If they are not right, then the Bible, or the New Testament, anyway, is not inerrant.

Proving or disproving "Biblical inerrancy" is a useless method for determining the value of Christianity in your life. (Deism maybe, but not Christianity.)

And, if it is not inerrant, then I have difficulty following Jesus; and, I guess I want to follow him, because, overall, I like his values. I would be interested in knowing how other persons can follow Jesus without being certain that the Bible is inerrant. Thank you.

Christianity is not about admiring values. That's Buddhism. Christianity is the good news that Jesus is Lord.

God has delegated some of his power in the books of the Bible as those writings that He wants us to have.

But ultimately, all power is God's power, and following God is knowing God, not picking nits about the divinity or humanity of His written messenger.

[Lion]

The inerrancy of scripture does NOT depend on what you may want to know about the scripture. Scripture is unique. It contains history, poetry, philosophy and prophecy. It claims to be inspired by God. It has been tested and proven accurate.

Often people have challeged the accuracy of scripture and have been proven wrong in every instance. It is true there are gaps in the father-son relationships after Gen 11, but not before.

[BWSmith]

The inerrancy of scripture does NOT depend on what you may want to know about the scripture. Scripture is unique. It contains history, poetry, philosophy and prophecy. It claims to be inspired by God. It has been tested and proven accurate.

Often people have challeged the accuracy of scripture and have been proven wrong in every instance. It is true there are gaps in the father-son relationships after Gen 11, but not before.

I thought this was a non-debate forum. Why are you responding to me, rather than the original poster?