How old is the earth?

[CrowCross]

Actually, Yom has many meanings; there are very few words in Hebrew. And one meaning of Yom is, from sunrise to sunset. Another is a period of time and there are others.
Why any Christian would want to force humanism into creation is beyond me.

You said...."And one meaning of Yom is, from sunrise to sunset.".....then when the days in Genesis are addressed in those terms why do you deny it with insisting the word YOM means a long period of time?

 

[EarlyActs]

Creation ex nihilo is indicated, I believe, in Genesis 1:1. True, it may be taken as introduction to the following verses or a summary of their events, but it also may be taken as a statement in itself, that precedes the events following. Thus, yes, it includes the creation of the "materials of earth".

(Whatever, I can't personally stomach the notion of a god who comes upon an already existing set of circumstances, and organizes it. That is not God, and such a being is only another resident in the universe, no matter how powerful 'he' is.)

The idea of the Hebrew verb 'spreading out' is that there is random motion and action. It is to be compared with the one for 'stretching out' which is also used of the universe, but seems to have the ancient middle eastern meaning of using a fabric on poles to block the sun, but you see the bright points of light through it--like the night sky.

If you follow along in Gen 1, you will see that the local objects are designed for communication and time-marking, but not the distant ones. They aren't even mentioned again until Gen 15 about the numerous seed of Abraham.

So God did the spreading/stretching out, too, but earlier than earth's creation week. It's form was already there--a water covered rock mass, lifeless. This does not mean there are not many other entities at work in the universe, but it is an explanation of earth and how man is a marker of God's property.

 

[XrzrX]

The idea of the Hebrew verb 'spreading out' is that there is random motion and action. It is to be compared with the one for 'stretching out' which is also used of the universe, but seems to have the ancient middle eastern meaning of using a fabric on poles to block the sun, but you see the bright points of light through it--like the night sky.

If you follow along in Gen 1, you will see that the local objects are designed for communication and time-marking, but not the distant ones. They aren't even mentioned again until Gen 15 about the numerous seed of Abraham.

So God did the spreading/stretching out, too, but earlier than earth's creation week. It's form was already there--a water covered rock mass, lifeless. This does not mean there are not many other entities at work in the universe, but it is an explanation of earth and how man is a marker of God's property.

So are you suggesting there are other "creators" in the universe?

 

[CrowCross]

This does not mean there are not many other entities at work in the universe

Just curious...what does that mean?

 

[EarlyActs]

So are you suggesting there are other "creators" in the universe?

No, it's very simple. The 'spreading out' of Job, Psalms, Isaiah, is not Gen 1. For two reasons: the verb is much more random action than 'placing' in Gen 1, 3 and 4.

2,

 

[EarlyActs]

No, it's very simple. The 'spreading out' of Job, Psalms, Isaiah, is not Gen 1. For two reasons: the verb is much more random action than 'placing' in Gen 1, 3 and 4.

2, with the simple tool of transliteration, a person can see that Gen 1 is about the local 'shama-raqia' "the sky-firmament" not about distant objects (the kavov). The kavov is just barely mentioned, and literary comparison shows it is quite in the category of a relegated after-thought, in v16. It's not even a complete phrase. They are not mentioned again until ch 15 when they have a role, not of signifying communication about Christ (Jn 8, Gal 3), but of the tally of descendants Abraham will have through Christ.

The 'shama-raqia' has the function of making signs/communication and of marking time; the 'kavov' does not. A few distant objects can be involved because the criterion is actually their apparent movement. This is central to understanding what the Nativity star did, and these people had the skill to 'dial' their understanding of moving objects forward and backward. The term 'read' in Gen 15 may actually be compute.

I further believe that the 'yowr' (illumination) of Day 1 was general light arriving from the distant stars, giving us a timestamp that should be set by how long it would take light from Sirius to reach earth (9 years), or perhaps Orion (this term was used in Greek to mean 'heaven'), about 1300 years, I recall. Notice that it is not enough to grow plant life, but could mark the evening start of the day. In the middle east latitude, Sirius has marked evening as a navigation start down through time.

We don't have to learn Hebrew, but it sure helps to learn transliteration, which shows us word choice. The worst thing about Gen 1 in English is what people assume 'heaven' is.

Regardless of the amount of travel time, that means that starlight's arrival, in real-time, was what God was telling Adam about, and that our then water-covered planet existed from the earlier 'spreading out.' There is a detail about 2 Peter 3 which confirms this distinction. It is that Peter never asserts that creation (the week of forming earth out of water and through water) was the start of earth. It and the universe are 'from old' while the earth was (more recently) formed into what ante-deluvians lived on (civilization before the Cataclysm).

 

[CrowCross]

No, it's very simple. The 'spreading out' of Job, Psalms, Isaiah, is not Gen 1. For two reasons: the verb is much more random action than 'placing' in Gen 1, 3 and 4.

2,

The spreading may have started in verse 6 (day 2)....and stopped on day 4 when the stars and such ended up in their "place"

 

[John Bauer]

Well, that's pretty easy: Can you cite your source for said distinctions?

Sources:

1. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (1948; Banner of Truth, 2014).
   
   ​
2. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., God's Word in Servant Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture (Reformed Academic Press, 2008).
   
   ​
3. Dennis E. Johnson, Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures (P&R Publishing, 2007).
   
   ​
4. Michael Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).
   
   ​
5. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (1980; P&R Publishing, 1987).

Relevant honorable mentions:

• Meredith G. Kline, both The Structure of Biblical Authority, 2nd ed. (1997) and Kingdom Prologue (2000).
  
  ​
• Gregory K. Beale, both The Temple and the Church's Mission (2004) and A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (2011).

My point exactly.

Then answer the question: If carbon exists, how is it "theoretical" evidence? Remember, you're the one who said there is such a thing—"a cumulative body of actual, not theoretical evidence" (source).

How long does it exist in the form of measurable carbon?

That depends entirely on what kind of carbon you mean. Elemental carbon doesn't disappear at all; only radiocarbon (¹⁴C) decays, and after 60,000 years its signal is so faint that it merges with laboratory background and noise, even with accelerator mass spectrometry.

 

[John Bauer]

I would tend to disagree.

You neglected to explain why. Yes, an evolutionary origin for the human species is incompatible with a young-earth creationist interpretation of Genesis 1–3, but that's not the contrast I highlighted. Remember, Adam and Eve being specially created de novo by God doesn't somehow deny an evolutionary origin for humans. As Swamidass has shown, humans could have been around for hundreds of thousands of years by the time God decided to form Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib. Affirming the latter is not a denial of the former.

 

[EarlyActs]

You neglected to explain why. Yes, an evolutionary origin for the human species is incompatible with a young-earth creationist interpretation of Genesis 1–3, but that's not the contrast I highlighted. Remember, Adam and Eve being specially created de novo by God doesn't somehow deny an evolutionary origin for humans. As Swamidass has shown, humans could have been around for hundreds of thousands of years by the time God decided to form Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib. Affirming the latter is not a denial of the former.

Dr. J Seegert: mutation causes deterioration. You are using the term evolution as though it progressed forward intelligently. See Seegert's book-chapter analogies for the 3 kinds of mutation. Simply put: it befuddles any existing 'life' into failure.

People tend to forget the force of the Hebrew verbs in Gen 1 and think rather palid thoughts about them. 'Swarm with swarms' is a sudden, abrupt, massive formation of life; cp a feeding miracle, or a sudden stop of a life-threatening ocean storm... It is possible to some YECs that microorganisms were there in layers of rock before a given creation day, but that is not the 'life' that the text is referring to, in the same sense that we might find something similar 3000LY away, but relative to what Gen 1 actually says, so what?

I have never understood why collagen is supposed to have survived several hundreds of thousands when the elastic samples are known to be just a few thousand. Why is the most needed proof weakest, while the obvious is ignored?

 

[XrzrX]

Sources:

1. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (1948; Banner of Truth, 2014).
   
   ​
2. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., God's Word in Servant Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture (Reformed Academic Press, 2008).
   
   ​
3. Dennis E. Johnson, Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures (P&R Publishing, 2007).
   
   ​
4. Michael Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).
   
   ​
5. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (1980; P&R Publishing, 1987).

Relevant honorable mentions:

• Meredith G. Kline, both The Structure of Biblical Authority, 2nd ed. (1997) and Kingdom Prologue (2000).
  
  ​
• Gregory K. Beale, both The Temple and the Church's Mission (2004) and A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (2011).

Well, I'm not going to read all these books this afternoon.. so, some quotations would be helpful. Where do they delineate "redemptive history vs natural history" and support that such is a valid distinction?

Then answer the question: If carbon exists, how is it "theoretical" evidence? Remember, you're the one who said there is such a thing—"a cumulative body of actual, not theoretical evidence" (source).

I should have put "theoretical evidence" in quotations. You missed the nuance.. my bad.
*It's 'theoretical' because they extrapolate a 'theorem' from a 'hypothetical' half-life rate of decay of radiocarbon. It's a hypothesis, not "evidence".

That depends entirely on what kind of carbon you mean. Elemental carbon doesn't disappear at all; only radiocarbon (¹⁴C) decays, and after 60,000 years its signal is so faint that it merges with laboratory background and noise, even with accelerator mass spectrometry.

Well, do we measure 'elemental carbon'?.. if not, that's moot. So, they keep moving the goalposts on radiocarbon, a few decades ago it was 20K years, then 25K and 30K, now I read the consensus is 50K, and you cite 60K...sooo, I figure in a few years we'll be up to "4 billion", just keep at it! Radiocarbon dating.. "safe and effective"!

 

[CrowCross]

You neglected to explain why. Yes, an evolutionary origin for the human species is incompatible with a young-earth creationist interpretation of Genesis 1–3, but that's not the contrast I highlighted. Remember, Adam and Eve being specially created de novo by God doesn't somehow deny an evolutionary origin for humans. As Swamidass has shown, humans could have been around for hundreds of thousands of years by the time God decided to form Adam from the dust and Eve from his rib. Affirming the latter is not a denial of the former.

My bible tells me Eve was the mother of all humans.

The conclusion would be if evolution brought about humans...rather than special creation then Eve wasn't the mother of all.

Gen 3:20

 

[CrowCross]

Well, I'm not going to read all these books this afternoon.. so, some quotations would be helpful. Where do they delineate "redemptive history vs natural history" and support that such is a valid distinction?

I should have put "theoretical evidence" in quotations. You missed the nuance.. my bad.
*It's 'theoretical' because they extrapolate a 'theorem' from a 'hypothetical' half-life rate of decay of radiocarbon. It's a hypothesis, not "evidence".

Well, do we measure 'elemental carbon'?.. if not, that's moot. So, they keep moving the goalposts on radiocarbon, a few decades ago it was 20K years, then 25K and 30K, now I read the consensus is 50K, and you cite 60K...sooo, I figure in a few years we'll be up to "4 billion", just keep at it! Radiocarbon dating.. "safe and effective"!

One thing we need to do is account for the pre-flood conditions and how they effected the formation of C14.

We know cosmic radiation interacts with atmospheric nitrogen.....and forms C14.
If the shielding environment around our planet was higher pre-flood then less cosmic radiation would enter and produce less C14.

This would mean anything dated pre-flood would give a higher age compared to the ratio between C14 and C12 we measure today.

 

[XrzrX]

One thing we need to do is account for the pre-flood conditions and how they effected the formation of C14.

We know cosmic radiation interacts with atmospheric nitrogen.....and forms C14.
If the shielding environment around our planet was higher pre-flood then less cosmic radiation would enter and produce less C14.

This would mean anything dated pre-flood would give a higher age compared to the ratio between C14 and C12 we measure today.

Sounds suspiciously like a Theory.

 

[CrowCross]

Sounds suspiciously like a Theory.

If we were in a discussion over lunch or in a small group I would say....
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

 

[XrzrX]

If we were in a discussion over lunch or in a small group I would say....
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying.

It's a hypothesis, not evidence.

 

[CrowCross]

It's a hypothesis, not evidence.

True...but why would it be a bad hypothesis?

 

[XrzrX]

True...but why would it be a bad hypothesis?

Because it's source is a humanist desire to 'disprove' the Creation account. Again, it's strings out a 'decay' algorithm that goes so far beyond the actual measurable decay, that it's not just a total guess, but one so exaggerated it screams agenda, not science.

 

[CrowCross]

Because it's source is a humanist desire to 'disprove' the Creation account. Again, it's strings out a 'decay' algorithm that goes so far beyond the actual measurable decay, that it's not just a total guess, but one so exaggerated it screams agenda, not science.

What I presented supported and didn't 'disprove' the Creation account.

I was simply cautioning people about carbon dating of objects pre-flood and post flood until the C14/C12 ration was reestablished.

Do you think the carbon ration would remain the same pre and post flood?

 

[XrzrX]

What I presented supported and didn't 'disprove' the Creation account.

I was simply cautioning people about carbon dating of objects pre-flood and post flood until the C14/C12 ration was reestablished.

Do you think the carbon ration would remain the same pre and post flood?

No, but it's not just 'amount', it's measurable half life.. rate of decay. But yeah, what you are saying actually does track, because if they equate "amount" to "decay", as you say there would have been less pre Flood period, not the same amount as after Flood.. so actually, it would mean Young Earth, not Old.
*Took me a minute, but yes.. I agree with you. Actually, decent hypothesis!