Young Earth vs. Old Earth - Christianity?

Question

1) Are Christians required to believe in the literal 6,000 - 10,000 year creation? I have read that those who believe that the Genesis 1 "day" was more than a 24 hour period, perhaps a thousand years, contradicts the New Testament.

2) What is the difference between the two?

Answer 1

You people are so funny.  Who has authority over what 'Christians' believe.  Of course most of us believe in evolution and a 4.5 billion year old earth.  Most of us went to school.  Do not confuse mainstream Christians with West Virginia snake handlers.

Answer 2

1. Not all Christians believe in the literal 6-10k year Earth, nor the events of the Bible.

2. The 24 to a thousand year "day" is just put out there by Creationists to further their political advances.

3. There are many contradictions in Creationism as well as in the Bible itself: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra...

Answer 3

Abr 3:4

4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord's time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

Answer 4

No, not all Christian religions even support the notion that the Earth is only a few thousand years old since it doesn't conflict with belief in God.  God is seen as eternal and having no beginning or end which means no matter how old the Earth is it doesn't predate God anyway.

Answer 5

1)  Of course not,  if you read Genesis 1 you can see that a "day" came before the creation of the sun and moon.

Now look at the first five verses:

(1 - In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 - And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 - And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 - And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 - And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. )  Gen. 1:1-5  KJV

Notice that the first "day"  is simply the division between light and dark-no mention of one revolution of the earth on it's axis.  In fact,  the "earth"  (matter?) did not even have a form at this time.  In my opinion,  this implies that a "day" is another measure of time.  Certainly it had nothing to do with the solar system that we call home.

2)  Old earth means that the earth is actually the age that we have ascertained by carbon dating ( app.4.5 billion years old),  and young earth is the age that some fundamentalists have tried to ascertain by certain genealogies in the Bible ( a very shaky and unscientific process) which is about 6000 years old.

Answer 6

Christians are only required to believe in Jesus as Lord, and him crucified.

Creation could be literal 6 days and a day of rest, or 6 thousand, or 6 billion years.  

Answer 7

I've been taught that God's time is different than ours.... I mean, he's a supreme being that will never cease to exist, right? So why should he have such short days? I've been taught that One day in the Lord's time is 1000 years in our time. Thus, the earth will only be around for about a week and then it's all over. When we leave him to be born, we're only gone for an hour or so by his watch.

hehe.  

Answer 8

I agree completely with johnusmaximus1's response:

Here is something I posted to a similar question a couple of days ago:

Old-earth creationists (like myself) believe that the universe was created about 14 billion years ago and that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, but that all creation was created by God through his own design and through continued acts of creation, not evolution (which is one way we are different than theistic evolutionists).

One might argue that old-earth creationists don't believe in Genesis or interpreting the Bible literally, but that is not correct. First, the Hebrew word for "day" in Genesis one has multiple meanings - it can mean a literal 24-hour day or it can mean as much as "a long, undefined period of time" (I think there are 2 other meanings, but I have forgotten them). Thus, while "day" means something specific to us in modern times, that doesn't mean it meant the same thing when Moses wrote Genesis. Second, even if the term day is interpreted as a 24-hour period, that does not mean the days of creation were consecutive. Although one can certainly infer from Genesis that the days followed one another with no time in between them, that is not the only reasonable inference from the text. Each day could be referring to a "day of creation" - in other words, the days that God created something.

Think of it this way. On my 1st birthday, I was born. On my 2d birthday, my parents threw a party for my at my house. On my 3rd birthday, my parents took my to Chuck E. Cheese. And so on. . . In this example, the events are consecutive, in that they follow one another in order, but they do not occur immediately after one another - there is a time-span of a year between them.  So, God could have created light and darkness on the "1st day that he created something."  Then, after a long period of undefined time, on the "2nd day that he created something" He could have created sky.  Etc.

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

I could care less if a day was 24 hours then or a billion years, what I care about is your SALVATION, period`

Answer 10

Honestly, no one knows that answer.  It's all speculation and myth.  We can't say if it is 6,000 year old, 6,000,000,000 years old, or just 300 years old (no one that is living knows anyone who knew anyone that has lived before 300 years, so it could mean it was all a fabricated lie.

But believe me, it isn't that important.  What's important is how is humankind to survive the future if we are able to have a future.

Answer 11

Christians are not required to believe that the earth was created in such a short time. You are correct when you say that some believe that the word "day" in Genesis does not mean a period of 24 hours. True, the "New Testament" does say that 'a thousand years is like one day to God'. (2 Peter 3:8) The purpose of that scripture, though, is not to provide us with a formula of determining how God views time. Rather, it reminds us that God is not affected by time. What seems like a long time do us, is not a long time to God. (2 Peter 3:8, 9) A close examination of the term "day" in Genesis shows that it did not refer to literal days. Rather, each "day" refers to a period of creation, an era, perhaps thousands or millions of years long. For example, the Genesis account says that earth was created in 6 "days". However, in Genesis 2:4 all 6 "days" are further lumped into one gigantic "day". Hence, the 6 eras mentioned in Genesis, the era of 'light coming to be', the era of 'grass coming forth', etc, are all lumped together into one grand creative era, "day" in Genesis 2:4.

Like in hebrew,in the english language, "day' has multiple meanings:

1. day: 12 hour period of light; daytime. (opposite night)

2. day: period of 24 hours

3. day: era (for example, an old person may say "Back in my day we didn't have TV")

The 6 creative days in Genesis refer to eras, with the exact length not being specified. Here are some top reasons that show that the word "day" used in Genesis refers to more than 1,000 years each, nor 24 hours each:

1. Genesis 2:2 states that on the 7th day, God rested. Thousands and thousands of years later, Paul wrote to Christians that we can 'enter into God's rest', refering to Gensis 2:2. (Hebrews 4:4, 10, 11) The seventh rest day of God has continued to our day, at least 6,000 years since God's rest began. That would make the seventh day at least 6,000 years long. Likewise, the other 6 days were much longer than 24 hours or 1,000 years. The word day refers to an era. We are in God's rest "era".

2. The Hebrew word translated “day” has a variety of meanings, including ‘a long time; the time covering an extraordinary event.’ (Old Testament Word Studies, Grand Rapids, Mich.; 1978, W. Wilson, p. 109

3. All 6 days lumped into one "day", or era, in  Genesis 2:4.

Answer 12

believe anything you want. don't let people tell you what to believe in, make up your own mind.

Answer 13

As a Catholic, I see no problem in accepting creation as science now presents. One day is as a 1000 (billions) years with God and a 1000 years is as one day. I see no contradiction with the New Testament. God created the universe. Period.

Answer 14

could you be a little more specific on your question

the bible does not contradict itself only people do

Answer 15

http://www.halos.com/videos/index.htm

Answer 16

no they arent..required to believe a certain timeframe although everyone I know believes Adam was made 6000 yrs ago.There was a void before creation. Did you notice that? I think there was damage bigtime from the war with Satan....im old earth myself..

NOTE....GOD MIGHTVE DONE REJUVENATION HERE MANY TIMES...WE JUST DK

Answer 17

This occurs when man tries to force man's ideas into God's Word where they obviously don't fit or belong. But if a Christian believes in the idea of millions of years it does not mean they are not Christian. However, if you can't trust God to say exactly what He means and mean exactly what He says in Genesis 1 then you can't really believe anything the Bible says. God not only defines a "day" in Genesis 1, He makes it painfully and blatantly obvious exactly what He means by a day. Jesus taught a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, as did all of the apostles. The Bible is always to be taken literally unless the context demands otherwise. If Genesis 1 is not to be taken literally than several, if not all, of the Biblical doctrines are wrong and therefore not to be trusted. The Hebrew Word used for "day" in Genesis 1- yom- always means a literal solar day when it is used in conjunction with a number and or the phrase morning and or evening. There are no exceptions. Also, if God did not create all things in 6 literal days then Exodus 20: 8-11 makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.