Young earth vs. ancient earth- where do you stand?

[Guest]

good response, derek. i appreciate your consistency! i tend to be more wishy washy about things like this.

let me ask you a hypothetical: what would it take (scientifically speaking) to prove to you that the earth(universe) is actually billions, as opposed to thousands of years old? current findings obviously have not convinced you.

what i am driving at is whether any single scientific discovery would change your mind ( i really have no idea about what this discovery might be, short of an alien race appearing who documents their history for several million or billion years), or whether you would simply state that the discovery is not being interpreted correctly.

sure, i realize that most scientists are naturalists and disposed toward evolution, etc. but i dont think they are all lying about the scientific findings, per se. i.e., i think they, for the most part, are honestly reporting what the findings are, but maybe i am naive.

TK

[Guest]

Then you don't mean "today" literally. You are using it as a figure of speech that means "these days" or "in our time". This is like when dispinsationalists say they take "figures of speech" literally. That doesn't make sense.

I disagree -- this usage is not a figure of speech. It is an alternative literal definition. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a lexicographer who would say this is a figure of speech.

Personally, I am not one of the people that think you have to take every word in the bible literally. I am amillenial. That's not where I'm coming from as far as the YEC thing. However, I do think that we should take as literal what the author intended to be literal.

Of course, that begs the question of what the author intended. Besides that, I believe many of the authors did not understand the full meaning of much of what they wrote (in the context of the entirety of God's revelation).

[Guest]

Well, I didn't go to "sunday school" when I was a child, so I didn't learn my view there, and I think I gave some pretty good reasons (from the bible no less) several posts back that should give you a basis for changing your mind. No one ever responded to them.

Fair point -- these have been hashed and rehashed in other threads -- when I get some time, I'll put something together here.

Until then, here's an exchange I recently had with a friend of mine:

Year
Four times in the Old Testament Yom is translated "year."
In I Kings 1:1, "David was old and stricken in years..."
In 2 Chronicles 21:19, "after the end of two years" and in the very next verse "Thirty and two years old."
In Amos 4:4, "...and your tithes after three years." In each case, Yom represents years, not days.

Ever
Ever is used to represent a long period of time, such as in Deuteronomy 19:9, "to walk ever in his ways."
Nineteen times Yom is translated "ever."
The old testament uses "for ever" instead of the word forever.
In sixteen cases of use of the word ever, for is placed before it, indicating an infinite period of time.
I will not list them all (consult Strong's Concordance for a full listing) but here is an example.
In Psalm 23:6, it says "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." Here Yom is translated as the final word of this verse, ever. Thus, Yom in this verse, and 16 others, represents eternity.

Ordinals/Cardinals
Young earth creationists say that whenever Yom is used with an ordinal or cardinal number (1st, 2nd, 1,2, etc) that it always represents a 24 hour day. However, this is not true. In Zechariah 14:7-9, the "one day" refers to a period of time when the Lord shall be king over the earth. In other places, some say that Isaiah and Hosea have numbers with the word day which are figurative (External Link).
Sarfati addresses the verses in Zechariah an Hosea. Although his argument sounds impressive, you have to recognize it for what it is...he is arguing for his young earth agenda, thus any rules that he espouses must be examined by true Hebrew scholars who are impartial. Hebrew scholars do not recognize this fabricated rule.1
What Sarfati thinks is not important...what is important, as Dr. Walter Kaiser points out,1 is the intentions of the author. We should not create rules that support our own agendas, but should strive to understand the author's intended meaning.

Here's a bit more to chew on from our exchange:

Here's the best line from this Statement:

From the standpoint of presenting an effective apologetic (defense) for the Christian faith, this point must be considered --- Why put heavy emphasis on a doctrine that can stand in the way of some people's arriving at Christian faith when it is not even certain that the biblical data supports the obstacle in question?

Here's one thing Hank doesn't distinguish, though -- to argue that "yom" is a "literal" or "finite" day doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be a 24-hour day as we know it. We can agree that use of an ordinal with yom is consistent with a "definite" period of time without agreeing that it necessarily follows that it MUST be, therefore, a 24-hour period. Besides, it's a logical fallacy to suggest that merely because a particular type of usage is consistent in one context of a small sample of text that a generalization can be made as to a common reason for that consistent usage (at least without a large and diverse sample of like usage).


CHRISTIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Thu Aug 25 2005 00:43:32 GMT-0500
STATEMENT DA060 AGE OF CREATION

While all Christians believe that the universe was created by God (Genesis1:1), opinions vary widely concerning when this creation took place. In the seventeenth century Catholic Archbishop James Ussher presented his biblical chronology, which drew upon such genealogies as those listed in Genesis five and eleven, to date the creation at 4004 B. C. Bishop Ussher's chronology was widely accepted by the Christian world for centuries, but today even most of those evangelical scholars who advocate a "young earth" position agree that the biblical genealogies are meant to show line of descent, not strict chronology, and thus may have large gaps in them (this position is explained in-depth in J. Oliver Buswell's A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, and Francis Schaeffer's No Final Conflict).

The question of whether the earth is 4.5 billion years old (as modern geology affirms) or roughly 10,000 years old (as some evangelical scientists and theologians are now maintaining) hinges largely on whether the "days" of Genesis chapter one are to be taken as indicating literal 24-hour days or as poetic references to indefinite periods of time. An analysis of the biblical material reveals that the answer to this is not eminently clear, and that some justification can be found for both positions.

Included among the points in favor of the "day-age theory" are the following:
In Genesis 2:4, immediately following the account of creation in seven days, we find: "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." (Emphasis mine) Here the same Hebrew word, "yom," is apparently being used in a poetic manner, to indicate the period of time in which God performed His creative work. Since the same author in the same work writing of the same subject uses the word for day in a non-literal sense, a basis is therefore established for interpreting the word in a non-literal sense in chapter one.
"Day" is a relative term. A day on earth is a different span of time than a day on any other planet in our solar system. It must be remembered that that which determines our earth days, the sun, was not even functioning until the fourth day of the biblical account (Genesis 1:14-19). Furthermore, we are told in II Peter 3:8 that "...with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." It seems altogether conceivable that to God these periods were experienced in a manner analogous to how we in our situation experience 24-hour days.
With the above biblical data in mind, we cannot easily dismiss the fact that an overwhelming majority of authorities in the fields of geology, paleontology, biology, etc., are convinced that there is abundant evidence to substantiate a very old earth. Additionally, most of the strongest arguments against the creationist viewpoint currently being made by contemporary science are eliminated when we let go of our insistence upon a 6,000-10,000 year old earth. From the standpoint of presenting an effective apologetic (defense) for the Christian faith, this point must be considered. Why put heavy emphasis on a doctrine that can stand in the way of some people's arriving at Christian faith when it is not even certain that the biblical data supports the obstacle in question?

On the other hand, there are some definite points in favor of the young earth view, which also need to be considered. Those include:

The word, "yom" (day), is never used in Scripture with limiting numbers (i.e., "first day) except in a literal sense.
References to "evening" and "morning" (such as are used in connection to the successive creation days in Genesis one) are used more than 100 times in the Old Testament, always with a literal meaning.
The fourth commandment affirms: "Six days you shall labor and do all your work,...For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day: therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy" (Exodus 20:9,11). The analogy here between six days of creation and six days of human labor conveys to many people the impression that corresponding periods of time are being alluded to.

[Guest]

Hi Derek and thanks for the welcome.
I really do believe that the earth was so to speak recreated. Several translations (but the only one I have at my side right now is the NIV) in Genesis 1:2 have a footnote after Now the earth was- and the footnote says "or possibly became" -

[Guest]

A bit more of my exchange with my friend (regarding some of Hugh Ross' views)....

Hugh presents yet another lexical argument (related largely to how 24-hour days are referred to in the bible as from evening to evening or, occasionally, morning to morning, and never morning to evening) -- my point is only that both areguments are just that -- "man's logical or lexical arguments for an understanding of an archaic and rich poetic language."

I believe the beauty of its ambiguity in certain areas is what enables the Bible to have such rich parallelism with both historic and spiritual views throughout virtually the entire Old Testament. I don't believe it's any mistake that the New Testament was later penned largely in languages evolving during a period of logic and rational thought (Greek and Aramaic) instead of a highly interpretive language for a poetic and emotive people (the Hebrews).

Look at the actual sentence structure in Hebrew translated to English: We've tampered with it a lot even with modern sentence structure -- maybe rightly, but tampered nonetheless. Even our transliteration and restructuring for English is interpretive and is based on premises that have to be tested if we're to be dogmatic:

Hebrew Transliteration
In the beginning created God the heavens and the earth the and earth was without form and empty and darkness on face the of the deep the and of Spirit God moving gently on the of face the waters said then God let be light and was light saw and God light the good that and separated God between the light and the darkness called and God light the Day the and darkness He called Night and was evening and was morning day one.

Modern Hebrew bears quite a bit of difference to historic and, especially, biblical Hebrew. Look at how even English sentence structure and word usage has changed over even just the past 100 years or so. Couple that with very little non-scriptural extant historic hebraic texts, and I wouldn't rest my salvation on a lexical argument. I believe the Lord reveals through the Bible exactly what we need to know when we need to know it, and I think we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit if the bible could be read like a patent or a structured programming language.

It's funny how non-scientists think literary truths are more reliable than scientific observations. The scientist can be just as certain as to how the bible is shown true in nature as the layman is sure how evident the lexical proofs are. Maybe in the end the scientist who isn't afraid to explain his science through God's Word (though the converse is surely invalid) sees more of the majesty and beauty and limitlessness of God's creation than the lexicographer.

Personally, to hold fast to any of "the traditions of men" would prevent me from doing the sort of exploration that has been a blessing in other areas of the Bible. It's "easy to drink the cool-aid." It's hard to let go of the pride of even biblical interpretation. It's easy to rely on "once saved, always saved" type jingos, but the Bible is often less than clear on a lot of these issues. Often, though, it's quite clear and contrary to those traditions of interpretation (which is why the Catholic church was so afraid of the Vulgate -- oh, no, they can't be trusted to read it themselves, can they?!?). It can sometimes be hard to remember what is actual biblical truth versus traditions we've heard over and over and forgot to question.

I think most theologians throughout history (other than John Calvin, who somehow felt he had developed his full-out mature theology at 20-something that never wavered or changed throughout his old life) have expressed doubt at some point over the interpretations they held fast to through their lives while standing firm in the fundamental truths of the bible and of God's provision through Christ. I hope I can always remain true to God's Word without yielding to man's attempts to "explain away the bible" while also not letting the "traditions of the church or of men" shield me from a deeper understanding of God's rich Word. At some point (my wife frequently reminds me) I have to walk away and say "God, I don't understand -- how can they be so sure what this means?! -- it seemed so clear to me before, too, but now it doesn't -- I believe, help me in my unbelief -- I will simply trust you for now." Then, I can come back later with a fresh perspective. If I never go back, my Faith is shallow. But, years of doctrinal teaching are hard to undo sometimes.

In the end, when I get confused by all the conflicting "experts" and "commentaries," I remember my favorite quote from Steve Gregg -- "It's funny how much the bible helps you understand the commentaries."

[Guest]

let me ask you a hypothetical: what would it take (scientifically speaking) to prove to you that the earth(universe) is actually billions, as opposed to thousands of years old? current findings obviously have not convinced you.

what i am driving at is whether any single scientific discovery would change your mind ( i really have no idea about what this discovery might be, short of an alien race appearing who documents their history for several million or billion years), or whether you would simply state that the discovery is not being interpreted correctly.

Good question. I can't think of anything. Frankly, I don't think that anything is true that does not comport with God's word. As I said before, there are good arguments from both sides scientifically. I don't have a major scientific problem with the Old Earth postion on a lot of points. That's not my problem with it. My problem is that the OEC view is in conflict with what God says happened, and is therefore false IMO.

When Christians talk about what God has done, it should line up with what He says He did.

sure, i realize that most scientists are naturalists and disposed toward evolution, etc. but i dont think they are all lying about the scientific findings, per se. i.e., i think they, for the most part, are honestly reporting what the findings are, but maybe i am naive.

It's funny you should say this, because I got an email news letter from American Vision just today called "The Myth of Objectivity". Here's a few quotes:

“The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”
-Stephen Jay Gould

-The coldly objective, rationalistic, and materialistic field of science claims to be immune from presuppositional bias. At least that’s what scientists want non-scientists like us to believe. Science is not an objective field of study, and it doesn’t operate independent of certain non-empirical starting assumptions, as Paul Davies, Professor of Mathematical Physics, points out:

"However successful our scientific explanations may be, they always have certain starting assumptions built in. For example, an explanation of some phenomenon in terms of physics presupposes the validity of the laws of physics, which are taken as given. But one may ask where these laws come from in the first place. One could even question the origin of logic upon which all scientific reasoning is founded. Sooner or later we all have to accept something as given, whether is God, or logic, or a set of laws, or some other foundation for existence. Thus “ultimate” questions will always lie beyond the scope of empirical science as it is usually defined."

I do not think that either camp (Christian/Naturalist) can just objectivly put out the findings. You can't observe the earth being millions of years old, or thousands for that matter, so the data will have to be interpreted somehow.

Both groups have to interpret the data. And they will do so according to their presuppositions. These presuppostions will act as the ultimate authority to which all of their observations will be filtered through. I am not sure how this can be escaped.

I don't think that these scientists are "lying" per se. They are honestly interpreting the data according to their presuppositions and those of their teachers and their teacher's teachers, etc...

All that being said, I think that the only way I could be convinced, is by someone coming up with a reasonable interpretation of the relevant scriptures. That really could change my mind.

God bless,

[Guest]

A bit more of our exchange.....

Every English translation of Genesis puts the word day in place of yom. 

That's beside the point and "begs the question."  We all agree it means day -- each use in most English translations use day for 'yom.'  The question remains -- what does "day" mean.  Just like Hebrew, the English word "day" is subject to more than one literal definition.

Even in this ONE verse, the term "day" is used in more than one context.  Otherwise "he called light day" would be exegeted as "he called light a 24 hour time period."  Even if it is referring to the "light of a 24 hour day," (which I don't believe) then it's false, because in that context "light and dark" would be called "day."  To require it to mean 24 hours is simply to read something into it and place limitations on the text when you don't have to.

God defined in at least two places what he meant by that word.  Once in Genesis 1 and the other in Exodus 20.  When I read it I see that God was going out of his way to say that they were 24 hour days.  That is the basis for my young earthiness. 

I fail to see how Exodus 20 in any way shows what he "meant" by that word -- at best, it's an allusion to the creation event and its progression to create a parallelism for the expression of the type of the creation account.  I wouldn't exactly say he went out of his way to say anything about the duration of the days.  If he had, how could we be having any meaningful discussion on this topic.

Also, you could see the creation account as a "type" to teach the significance of the Shabbot.  Since when is a type EVER exactly the same (in manner or characteristic) as its reality?

Also, it could be that the ONLY reason for even pointing out the 7 "time periods, if you will" of creation was to express the Truth of the perfection of His creation (indicated by "7s") and of the nature of man, and not really how quickly he could do it.  Consider the extension of the parallelism with the many "7s" in Jewish Tradition to reflect the Shabbot concept -- such as the jubilee or feasts, etc.  They clearly took the "7s" in as many ways as possible.  The Truth is -- on the 7th something, rest! 7th day, 7th year, 7th 50 years, etc.

If you think God would have been pointing out how miraculous it was and how quickly he could do it, then what's so special about 24 hours?!!?  If God is truly outside of our physical realm and is timeless and infinite and is outside any of the laws of thermodynamics or Newtonian or non-Neutonian physics, or even time or causation itself, then 24 hours is an INSULT to God.  If he could take 24 hours to arrange the planets, why not a million years?  What's the difference?

I have found nothing in the rest of Scripture or in science that compels me to alter that.

A skeptic would point out that you're also not likely to find either if you don't look (sorry, that borders on the ad hominem).  I can respect an opinion that thinks it is isn't necessary because it just isn't a crucial issue that you care much about, but if it affects how you judge others' theology or salvation or even "walk," then I would suggest that you must think it is crucial or at least very important.

I simply cannot find any context in Genesis that makes me want to take it anything other than literally.  The entire book of Genesis is a historical account.  As such it would not be vague about the timing.  That is why I think that God put the "evening and morning" stuff in there.  To me it seems to dismiss the 144 hour creation causes us to have to make too many other adjustments in Scripture that are simply not necessary.

I don't think any part of Genesis is just a history or even primarily so.  Here's a brief snippet from one commentary I have on Genesis, which makes the point.

"Genesis is not only a history.  Obviously it would have little significance to us if it were only that.  But the book of Genesis is one with a tremendous message which can be declared in one statement:  It reveals to us the inadequacy of man without God.  That is the whole purpose of the book, and, as such, it strikes the keynote of all subsequent revelation of God.  It reveals that man can never be complete without God, that he can never discover or fulfill the true meaning of his life without a genuine personal relationship with an indwelling God.

Now this inadequacy is revealed to us in three realms, realms in which each of us live: 

    • First, it is revealed in the realm of natural relationships, through what we call the natural sciences:  cosmology, the study of the universe, itsorigin and make-up; then geology, about the earth, all the manifold aspects of it that we think we know so much of today; and biology, the study of life itself in all its manifestations. 

These natural relationships circumscribe our contact with the physical world around us. 
 
    • The second area is the realm of human relationships.  This takes in what we call sociology, psychology, psychiatry, along with all the other “psychs” that are made so much of today. 
 
    • And then, finally, the realm of spiritual relationships – theology, soteriology and philosophy. 

In all three of these vital areas, including many of the particulars with which we are concerned, the book of Genesis reveals that man apart from God is totally inadequate.  This one message echoes throughout the book like the sound of a bell. "


That's pretty big stuff and much bigger than how long the day may have been.

I agree that giving the evolutionists the millions of years at first gives their theory credence and I know that is not what Hugh Ross is doing.  I have met orthodox creationists who see this as the reason to reject it outright.  It is out of fear that we get dogma.  I have really been fighting that same thing over the last few days and that is what I appreciate about this argument.  When it comes right down to it I want to know the truth, PERIOD!

Same here! Ditto in spades -- believe me, over the past few years I've had a number of crises of Faith, but if I'm patient, God ALWAYS has shown me my error or been patient Himself to let me learn to be ok with not understanding.  Sometimes, I think that's the point in some parts of the bible -- to keep us from the pride of thinking we CAN understand it all.  You and I are at jeopardy in that regard -- we really do want to be "RIGHT" and "UNDERSTAND."  If you missed Ben's recent sermon on Faith and Doubt, you should go online and download it -- it's REFRESHING!! to hear that kind of honesty from the pulpit!

This principle hit home with me when they sent the Huble telescope into orbit.  All the hype on the telescope was about being able to peer into the past and discover more answers about our origins.  I was really aggrivated about the whole thing and I was hoping that it would be broken.  It was broken and at first I saw this as a sign from God.  Then God started dealing with me about it.  The basic message that I got from Him was, "Why are you afraid of these scientists looking at more of my creation?  I made it, and the more they look at it the more they will have to realize that I made it."  I still had concerns about what these scientists would do with the information but I realized that God was big enough to deal with it and that is when my dogma died.  My dogma died because my fear died.  I don't fear science anymore.  It always fits with the Bible, ALWAYS!!!

I've been there!  Exactly, so (even with the telescope) !!!  Sometimes, I didn't realize how much "fear" I really had.  I just thought I was right and hid -- sometimes it's just easier to be stalwart and to think something must be right since so many in the world resist it.  "NOW", I'm ok with the "appearance" of conflict with Scripture -- THAT took some time for me.  I'm only ok with it now because I KNOW now that I will eventually either learn something new (about my observation or my scriptural interpreatation) that makes it fit or get true conviction to ignore what I think I see which seemingly conflicts.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, since it's a life-long study), it almost always then leads to more questions to make me re-consider yet something else (and ultimately learn something new about God or myself -- even if I eventually revert to my original understanding).  As long as I stand firm to the foundational points, I think God will honor my efforts to understand and gain wisdom from His Word.


The fundamental difference that I have with Hugh Ross is that he uses his science as his starting point.  We all have access to the same data.  The way we interpret data will be affected by what assumptions that we use to begin our interpretation.  Hugh Ross starts with science and allows his science to influence his interpretation of the Bible.  I'd rather take the Bible and use it to interpret the science.

After listening to a "LOT" of what Ross has to say, I just really don't believe that to be the case.  To my mind -- Ross takes his understanding of the bible, and uses that as a lens to interpret the scientific data he sees.  Of course, that leads to having to interpret SOMETHING anew (both in scripture and science) in light of that progressive and iterative revelation, but he ALWAYS seems to be ok with saying "we don't yet understand how that fits with somesuch scripture, but it will!"  You'd be surprised how often that happens.  Since he's been doing this so long (and because he and I believe that natural revelation is REALLY unwinding for us in a way that never did in scriptural history), he often has the opportunity to "revisit" those things he previously had to "put on the backburner" until they proved or were reconsidered in a way that was consistent with the bible.

To be fair, I DO have some problems with some of the leaps he makes and some of his logical points, and (like everyone in the ministry) sometimes carries it too far.  But, I REALLY find him humble on these issues (more so than most, anyway).

It is interesting stuff, though, and (even if he's wrong on the age of the earth), it's nice to be able to learn about scientific discoveries in a way that at least attempts to fit them within scripture instead of the other way round -- not so coincidentally, it seems to make more sense that way, too.

I could easily get on the Hugh Ross bandwagon if I didn't completely believe that God created the universe in 144 hours.  That is our disagreement.  The Bible is big enough to accept those millions of years and not change much except for that pesky first chapter that keeps telling me 144 hours.  I assure you that I have prayed about this single issue more in my studies than any other and I still come away convinced that it was 144 hours.

I wouldn't say I'm on his bandwagon, but I hear you and realize it must seem like I am.

Ken Ham does have to accept a certain level of evolution.  I hate to even use that term.  The problem lies with the definition of 'kinds.' 

This is exactly the same problem with "day."  We can all agree on the translation, but don't really know the meaning. (Ross and others have a good bit of info on this "kinds" issue -- some of it hoky, to be honest, but some of it quite thoughtful, and as difficult to follow for ME as taxonomy and biology were)

We know that dogs begat dogs.  But do wolves begat poodles?  I suspect that they do.  It has been long held by most creationists that the taxonomy of life (the whole kingdom, phylum, order ... thing ) has some problems.  There are animals and plants that don't fall neatly into these groups.  It is not perfect. 

Would it surprise you to learn that the guy who invented taxonomy was a die-hard Christian ?

But then we try to say that Ken Ham is a macro evolutionist because there would have been some cross-speciation to get from the ark to here.  That is not quite fair, because then you are assuming that the taxonomy is correct.  I don't think it is.  Again this is me using the Bible to help me understand my science.  My personal belief (based on nothing either Biblical or scientific) is that God's kinds fall somewhere between genus and species, but I haven't studied it much. 

It's not the taxonomy that requires it -- it's the numbers of species around today and what even basic engineering says about the ark (which was QUITE explicit in the bible) and zoo management.

So we get back to the definition of macro evolution.  What Ken Ham believes (we listened to this CD just the other day) is actually more of a devolution not evolution.  In other words there was some animal on the ark.  This animal had all the genetic information that there would ever be for that 'kind' of animal.  He uses the wolf as his example.  The way I understood it, is that the poodle is made up of a sub-set of the information that a wolf contains.  (obviously we are not quite sure it was a wolf this is just for the sake of discussion).  Over the years there have been 'mutations' or genetic mistakes.  This is what causes the animals to change within their 'kind.'  Once you have the genetic mistakes that create a poodle then if you keep breeding poodles to poodles then you keep those same mistakes and you get a poodle.  If you breed a poodle with a great dane you will regain some of the information that was lost to the poodle, as well as the great dane, and reclaim some of that original pool of information.  I guess the way to say is that the animals that were on the ark were the ultimate mutts and the specialized breeds that we see are actually a devolution of that animal, not an evolution.  I'm probably not making much sense with this but basically the argument is that of taxonomy not of macro vs. micro evolution.  Ken Ham is not a macro evolutionist, nor is any other young earth creationist that has any Biblical credibility.  If you are not an evolutionist of some kind then you simply ignore the world around you.  The debate is over the dividing line between micro and macro evolution.  We may never know what God meant by the work 'kinds' but we know that there is a line somewhere that these animals were not meant to cross. 

I am looking forward to the day that we break the DNA code.  Of course we won't know about it because once they do it they won't like the answers that they get so they'll sweep it under the rug.

I agree it's a matter of degree, but I think all would agree that inter-species evolution (specie modification or adaption) occurs -- intra-species evolution is a completely different animal.  (By the way, we consider poodles varieties not species -- that's not what the Ark space arguments are talking about -- we all agree varieties come and go -- but, species just go).

I've read stuff on Ken Ham's position on this to suggest that he has modified this belief continually in response to specific geneticists and others criticizing his views. I can honestly say that I (and from what I can tell -- Ken Ham, too) lack the background to have a working knowledge of these mechanisms.  I just don't know, but I simply don't buy Ken's logic on this point, but -- like you -- just can't quite put my finger on it.  I also haven't tried very hard.  It just "strikes" me as the type of debate argument to COME FROM or PRE-EMPT the response.  It also just doesn't jive from what we see even now in nature (and I have no reason to think that God changed the nature of his creation over the past 2000 years or so).  It IS a quite clever thought, but I haven't heard ANY reputable scientist confirm its possibility.  My gut tells me, though, that the statistical odds of so many species evolving in such a short period of time without significant redundancies of species evolving in parallel is astronomical -- even when compared to the evolutionists hypotheses given millions of years.

This also just sounds like the type arguments he used to use that they are now asking people to quit using because they're just ridiculous in light of unquestionable observation and they cast doubt on his credibility  (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/ar ... nt_use.asp).  After listening to quite a bit of Ken Ham, myself, I don't doubt his motives or beliefs -- I just don't think he tests his theories too much and is entrenched on a big train that would be difficult to get off of.

Also, like other scientific understandings, we're actually learning that we may have even been dead wrong about DNA and its role in carrying data for reproduction -- it may be more of a diary than a code (which really puts an illogical spin on Ham's argument).  They're beginning to think that there is a more fundamental, yet not discovered mechanism that controls characteristics and leaves its mark in the DNA.  Consider what we have learned about the atom and fundamental particles over the past decade.

This will blow you away -- Did you know my Dad was a biology major and DNA hadn't been discovered yet when he was either in college or dental school?

My favorite section in Scientific American (which I love, but often makes me VERYYYYY ANGRYYYY) is their "history page" where they show articles from 100 years ago or whatever, and to see what silly things they believed then.  I can't see how they can keep their dogmatism  (and if you want to see bad logic and dogma, just read SA)  and pride and certainty with a straight face in light of their poor track record. It's also interesting how vigorously THEY reject Hugh Ross and his likes because he accepts their discoveries, but use them to support a divine Creator.  Now, THAT proves THEIR motivations for SURE!

[Guest]

And a bit more......

"That is not what God said in Genesis 1 and my God is big enough to create old stuff out of nothing." Everything else in the creation story was created mature. To say that the universe must be billions of years old because of some red shifting theory, or some radiometric dating method doesn't fly with me because that makes God smaller than the universe. Could God have done it that way? Sure, but that is not what He said in one of the most plainly written pieces of text in scripture.

How does an old earth make God smaller -- he is timeless and outside of the space-time continuum and cause and effect, so how does a 1,000,000 year first day, for example, minimize God -- a painter might take joy in a 3 inch square of his canvas -- this isn't a debate over creation vs. evolution, it's just over the meaning of the word yom and whether the rainbow was a later creation (after the Lord rested from creation, by the way) or an existing creation that the Lord used for a sign of his covenant (he used existing things for every other sign for his covenants in the bible).

If such scriptures are proven out to be a description of phenonema that could not be understood at the time, wouldn't that be an awesome! witness to the divine inspiration of the bible? Why not try and reconcile the bible to what we observe in nature (not to say the conclusions to date in the observations are correct, but why not try)? (like Joshua's missing day, which still hasn't been proven, but will be one day -- wouldn't that be cool?!?).

Also, it's obviously not that plainly a written piece of text or there wouldn't be such a debate on its meaning.

When God "separated the light from the darkness," He called "the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." That is plainly read as a definition of a day. Nowhere else does He change the definition. Could it mean something else? Of course, but the question is "Does it?" I don't think it does because if it does then it was pointless to include in the first place. If we need to make adjustments to fit somebody's worldview then I guess we can but I refuse to do that. All the arguments about a non existent sun and moon at this point, are simply a way make this fit their worldview not a way to understand what the scripture says. It's a loophole. A billion years is a blink of an eye to God. Okay I'll buy that. But then why include this sentence unless His goal was to confuse us.

Good question -- so, why is it so much more miraculous that he created all this out of nothing in 7 24 hour days than even 7 billion years -- it's awesome! nonetheless. To your logic, why would God even say yom? These "adjustments," as you say, have been quite recent in history, and only in knee-jerk reaction to Darwin. We have to ask why. When the logic falls apart, why not revert to the orthodox view that happens to be consistent with both the rest of scripture and also natural observations. It was fear of a flawed natural observation that led to young-earth hypotheses -- why not abandon them now that we know enough?

I will tell you that as soon as somebody proves to me that the Bible is false with observational science then it's eat drink and be merry time. I don't doubt there are some reasonable arguments that the days of creation "could" have been more than 24 hour days. What I can't get from anybody is an answer to "Why would God do that?" I think that Kay Arthur's way of studying the Bible is a good one. The basic premise being that you interpret the Scripture literally unless you have a good reason to do otherwise. If you assume that every piece of Scripture is open to interpretation and that it is okay that Christians have differing viewpoints on all of it, then, God sent us his Word to keep us confused. It's a big joke. If He didn't make at least some of it very plain then why would He send it to us in the first place. I'm not trying to say that all of the Bible is understood and that we should all agree on everything. What I am trying to say is that the opposite is not true either. There are parts of Scripture that are plain to read and I have to believe that God did that on purpose. He didn't send us His Word so that we would bicker over it forever. There are parts that are deeper than others, there are parts that are more plainly interpreted than others, and I think that is part of the fascination of Scripture, nobody no matter how long they study can grasp every concept in the entire book. But there are concepts that children can understand.

This isn't a literal vs. figurative issue -- it's a definition problem each of which is a literal interpretation. No Christian I know would subscribe to the figurative or allegory view of Eden and the Creation account (though many of our church fathers did such as Origen and Augustine). I believe in a fixed, specific meaning of yom -- not some allegorical, unreal, day-type thing (except maybe with day 1, where light and dark weren't yet separated to define evening and morning the way "we" understand it -- that one is troubling). People like Kay Arthur claim to be literal whenever it's convenient, but will quickly point out that some "literal" interpretation is an example of a figure of speech (that's figurative language, if you ask me). I don't automatically take a literal interpretation. Some verses are intended through their context and style to be taken figuratively and others literally. The whole of scripture is my test, but God is also quite logical and if something defies logic and understanding, maybe it's the wrong interpretation (I say -- sometime -- recognizing that sometimes the only way a scripture can be read consistent with remaining scripture is to accept what APPEARS to be contrary to observation -- yes, observation and logic can get you to bad places, but can't be ignored and where it doesn't contradict scripture, should be followed in my book). Sometimes, that becomes iterative and will require a lifetime of reflection and re-thinking. This is even more true when you aren't trying to decide between figurative vs. literal meaning, but instead just what that meaning is.

We can have textual based arguments, scientific arguments, theological arguments but what it comes down to for me is God's character. There is nothing about any of the descriptions of God that make me believe that his Word was given to us to be vague. Frankly I'd have a real philosophical problem with a God like that. Some of it is very difficult to understand. Some of it we may never understand, but not all of it. There are things that It plainly says and I think that we do ourselves a disservice to think otherwise.

What's vague about it??? -- it's not vague, there's just a difference of opinion on what the word means -- the Bible is replete with examples of this. Besides, it is also God's character to be oblique at times when he doesn't want us to focus on the facts, but instead grasp a greater meaning -- consider even Christ's consistent use of parables and mysteries. Can you imagine the frustration of Christ (ok, He probably wasn't frustrated, but I would have been) at the way the apostles kept trying to take everything He said literally? They just didn't get it, and what makes us think we are any different when we might "SOMETIMES" try and over-literalize what the bible says.

If not then at what point does it end. There are people that can argue Jesus off of the cross. That is why I think we have to draw a line in the sand at some point. Perhaps the length of the Creation week is not the place. At the moment I believe that it is but I'll try to be open about it.

If we water down what we believe to be true then we will eventually become like the Catholics. That is how we wound up with Mary worship, Holy water etc. These were attempts to make the pagans comfortable with Christianity. My model of origins has worked so far with all of the data that I have seen in the world around me. I don't feel a need to adjust my model to fit somebody else's worldview so that they are comfortable. My worldview doesn't even make me comfortable. Truth is seldom comfortable, but it is truth nontheless, and if we deny that then we soon wind up being "lukewarm" and our witness dies. I'm not trying to say that we should cram the 144 hour creation event down every throat at the revival meeting, or that anybody that believes otherwise could not be a Christian but I do believe it to be the Truth and hopefully I can convince others of that "In Truth and Love." I also hope that if I am wrong, others can convince me in the same manner.

Most of the people that I have talked to that subscribe to the "Gap Theory" or the "Day Age Theory" are trying to make the Scriptures mesh with something outside of the Scriptures. I take the other view. What does the Bible say? Now use that to interpret the data that we find. If that interpretation doesn't work THEN we go back and decide whether or not our original interpretation of Scripture is wrong. I don't feel compelled to do that with the 1st chapter of Genesis because the 144 hour creation model seems to fit all of the data that I have seen.

Well, the point doesn't end here (at least for me) -- The fact that some people use logic to argue Christ off the cross doesn't mean that logic and observation are not part of a proper overlay for scripture, especially scripture with multiple possible and reasonable interpretations. If old `earth is inconsistent with some other portion of the bible, then that portion has to be re-thought or the interpretation abandoned. I agree that EVERYTHING has to be tested by remaining scripture. In fact, that's where I draw the line. If I draw it anywhere else, I run the risk of bad doctrine that can affect interpretation of other scripture. This isn't relativism! I am "ok" with not feeling comfortable about aspects of the bible that my interpretation takes me that I believe are true (like eternal security, soteriology, or eschatology), especially when they're inconsistent with prevailing belief. Is Kay? My beliefs may change with study and prayer, but that doesn't make them relativistic.

By the way, did you know that most young earth adherents have admitted that to repopulate the earth after the ark in a global flood would require macro evolution and rapid speciation (denying the fixity of the species upon creation) -- even Hugh Ross doesn't believe in ANY macro evolution and believes that God fixed all the species that would ever exist at the end of the sixth day. As you can tell, there's nothing lukewarm about my beliefs -- though they may change over time, they're not relativistic.

This has nothing to do with the debate, but it caught my recollection on reading some of this -- do you think that the new heaven and new earth (some one say the 8th creation day) will have gravity? A cube as big as is described can't exist in our gravity -- it would become a sphere -- just something that makes me wonder like a two year old what mysteries God has for us.

[Guest]

I would really prefer actual dialogue to just copy/pasting huge amounts of information that I won't possibly be able to respond to (and have a life at the same time). But thanks for the info.

God bless,

[Guest]

There is a view that we only bootstrap our biblical OEC views based on modern science, and that this modern science was "discovered" or at least "interpreted" to disprove God, so is unreliable.

The author of the following work takes the unusual strategy to consider for his argument only ancient evidence that pre-exists modern scientific discovery so there's no argument of bootstrapping the text to support scientific knowledge. He then takes that interpretation and considers it against modern scientific observation.

Gerald Schroeder, Israeli scientist from MIT

The Age of the Universe

One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5758 years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the number at 15 billion years. In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it's interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. But what is available is to look at how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging picture of the Torah. Because the Torah doesn't have the option of changing. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always.)

So the only data I use as far as Biblical commentary goes is ancient commentary. That means the text of the Bible itself (3300 years ago), the translation of the Torah into Aramaic by Onkelos (100 CE), the Talmud (redacted about the year 500 CE), and the three major Torah commentators. There are many, many commentators, but at the top of the mountain there are three, accepted by all: Rashi (11th century France), who brings the straight understanding of the text, Maimonides (12th century Egypt), who handles the philosophical concepts, and then Nachmanides (13th century Spain), the earliest of the Kabbalists.

This ancient commentary was finalized hundreds or thousands of years ago, long before Hubbell was a gleam in his great-grandparent's eye. So there's no possibility of Hubbell or any other scientific data influencing these concepts. That's a key component in my attempt to keep the following discussion objective.

 A universe with a beginning.

In 1959, a survey was taken of leading American scientists. Among the many questions asked was, "What is your concept of the age of the universe?" Now, in 1959, astronomy was popular, but cosmology - the deep physics of understanding the universe - was just developing. The response to that survey was recently republished in Scientific American - the most widely read science journal in the world. Two-thirds of the scientists gave the same answer. The answer that two-thirds - an overwhelming majority - of the scientists gave was, "Beginning? There was no beginning. Aristotle and Plato taught us 2400 years ago that the universe is eternal. Oh, we know the Bible says 'In the beginning.' That's a nice story, it helps kids go to bed at night. But we sophisticates know better. There was no beginning."

That was 1959. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang in the black of the sky at night, and the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning. Science had made an enormous paradigm change in its understanding of the world. Understand the impact. Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first word of the Bible is correct. I can't overestimate the import of that scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that we now understand that we had a beginning.??Of course, the fact that there was a beginning does not prove that there was a beginner. Whether the second half of Genesis 1:1 is correct, we don't know from a secular point of view. The first half is "In the beginning;" the second half is "G-d created the Heavens and the Earth." Physics allows for a beginning without a beginner. I'm not going to get into that today, but my new book, "The Science of G-d," examines this in great detail.

 It all starts from Rosh Hashana.

The question we're left with is, how long ago did the "beginning" occur? Was it, as the Bible might imply, 5758 years, or was it the 15 billions of years that's accepted by the scientific community? The first thing we have to understand is the origin of the Biblical calendar. The Jewish year, 5758 years, is figured by adding up the generations since Adam. Additionally, there are six days leading up to the creation to Adam. These six days are significant as well.??Of course, what the question would be is where we make the zero point. On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, we blow the Shofar three times during the Musaf service. Immediately upon blowing of the Shofar, the following sentence is said: "Hayom Harat Olam - today is the birthday of the world."

This verse might imply that Rosh Hashana commemorates the creation of the universe. But it doesn't. Rosh Hashana does commemorate a creation, but not the creation of the universe. We blow the Shofar three times to commemorate the last of the three creations that occurs in the Six Days of Genesis. First, there's a creation of the entire universe and the laws of nature. Then on Day Five, there's a creation that brings us the Nefesh, the soul of animal life. Finally, at the end of Day Six, there's a further creation that brings us the Neshama, the soul of human life. Rosh Hashana commemorates not the first or second of the creations, but the creation of the Neshama, the soul of human life. Rosh Hashana falls right here. Which means that we start counting our 5758 years from the creation of the soul of Adam.

We have a clock that begins with Adam, and the six days are separate from this clock. The Bible has two clocks.?That might seem like a modern rationalization, if it were not for the fact that Talmudic commentaries 1500 years ago, bring this information down. In the Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 29:1), an expansion of the Talmud, all the Sages agree that Rosh Hashana commemorates the soul of Adam, and that the Six Days of Genesis are separate. Now 1500 years ago, when this information was first recorded, it wasn't because one of the Sages like Hillel was talking to his 10-year-old son who said, "Daddy, you can't believe it. We went to a museum today, and learned all about a billions-of-years-old universe," and Hillel says, "Oh, I better change the Bible, let's keep the six days separate." That wasn't what was happening.??You have to put yourself in the mind frame of 1500 years ago, when people traveled by donkeys and we didn't have electricity or even zippers. Why were the Six Days taken out of the calendar? At the time, there was no need to make them separate. The reason they were taken out is because time is described differently in those Six Days of Genesis. "There was evening and morning" is an exotic, bizarre, unusual way of describing time.

Once you come from Adam, the flow of time is totally in human terms. Adam and Eve live 130 years before having children! Seth lives 105 years before having children, etc. From Adam forward, the flow of time is totally human in concept. But prior to that time, it's an abstract concept: "Evening and morning." It's as if you're looking down on events from a viewpoint that is not intimately related to them.

 Looking deeper into the text.

In trying to understand the flow of time here, you have to remember that the entire Six Days is described in 31 sentences. The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches in trying to understand science vis-?-vis the Bible are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high-energy physics of creation. Up the river at Harvard, at the Weiger library, they probably have 200,000 books on these same topics. The Bible gives us 31 sentences. Don't expect that by a simple reading of those sentence, you'll know every detail that is held within the text. It's obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.

The idea of having to dig deeper is not a rationalization. The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2) tells us that from the opening sentence of the Bible, through the beginning of Chapter Two, the entire text is given in parable form, a poem with a text and a subtext. Now, again, put yourself into the mindset of 1500 years ago, the time of the Talmud. Why would the Talmud think it was parable? You think that 1500 years ago they thought that G-d couldn't make it all in 6 days? It was a problem for them? We have a problem today with cosmology and scientific data. But 1500 years ago, what's the problem with 6 days? No problem.

So when the Sages excluded these six days from the calendar, and said that the entire text is parable, it wasn't because they were trying to apologize away what they'd seen in the local museum. There was no local museum. No one was out there digging up ancient fossils. The fact is that a close reading of the text makes it clear that there's information hidden and folded into layers below the surface.

The idea of looking for a deeper meaning in Torah is no different than looking for deeper meaning in science. If you get up early in the morning, look over and there comes the Sun, rising in the east. Wait a few hours and the Sun sets in the west. The simple "reading" is "there's the Sun again going around the Earth." But there's much more to it. How about the Earth rotating on its axis. And if you neglect the rest of the universe and just take the Sun-Earth system, it's not the Sun that's moving, although that's every perception of human perception.

In the Sun-Earth system it's the Sun that is standing still, and the Earth that is moving, rotating on its axis which means that this moment, as we are sitting here, we are moving about 800 miles an hour. There go the clouds. Look at them zooming by. No, that's not what's happening, because we're all moving together. We don't feel it because it's inertial motion, there's no acceleration. So it feels like we're standing still. But in fact we are moving at 800 miles an hour as we rotate around to get a day and a night out of that one 24-hour day. Our Earth is moving around the sun at about 20 miles a second. And the entire Solar System is moving around the center of our galaxy at about 250 miles a second. That's per second. Do we feel any of it? No. So when Galileo argued and claimed that Earth is not standing still, he got put under house arrest. Just as we look for the deeper readings in science, we need to look for the deeper readings in text. Thousands of years ago we learned that there are subtleties in the text that expand the meaning way beyond. It's those subtleties I want to see.

Natural history and human history.

There are early Jewish sources that tell us that the calendar is in two-parts (even predating Leviticus Rabba which goes back almost 1500 years and says it explicitly). In the closing speech that Moses makes to the people, he says if you want to see the fingerprint of G-d in the universe, "consider the days of old, the years of the many generations" (Deut. 32:7) Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah, says, "Why does Moses break the calendar into two parts - 'The days of old, and the years of the many generations?' Because, 'Consider the days of old' is the Six Days of Genesis. 'The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward."

Moses says you can see G-d's fingerprint on the universe in one of two ways. Look at the phenomenon of the Six Days, and the development of a universe which is mind-boggling. Or if that doesn't impress you, then just consider society from Adam forward - the phenomenon of human history. Either way, you will find the imprint of G-d.

I recently met in Jerusalem with Professor Leon Lederman, Nobel Prize winning physicist. We were talking science, obviously. And as the conversation went on, I said, "What about spirituality, Leon?" And he said to me, "Schroeder, I'll talk science with you, but as far as spirituality, speak to the people across the street, the theologians." But then he continued, and he said, "But I do find something spooky about the people of Israel coming back to the Land of Israel." ??Interesting. The first part of Moses' statement, "Consider the days of old" - about the Six Days of Genesis - that didn't impress Prof. Lederman. But the "Years of the many generations" - human history - that impressed him. Prof. Lederman found nothing spooky about the Eskimos eating fish at the Arctic circle. And he found nothing spooky about Greeks eating Musika in Athens. But he finds something real spooky about Jews eating falafel on Jaffa Street. Because it shouldn't have happened. It doesn't make sense historically that the Jews would come back to the Land of Israel. Yet that's what happened.??And that's one of the functions of the Jewish People in the world. To act as a demonstration. We don't want everyone to be Jewish in the world, just to understand that there is some monkey business going on with history that makes it not all just random. That there's some direction to the flow of history. And the world has seen it through us. It's not by chance that Israel is on the front page of the New York Times more than anyone else.

 What is a "day?"

Let's jump back to the Six Days of Genesis. First of all, we now know that when the Biblical calendar says 5758 years, we must add to that "plus six days." A few years ago, I acquired a dinosaur fossil that was dated (by two radioactive decay chains) as 150 million years old. (If you visit me in Jerusalem, I'll be happy to show you the dinosaur fossil - the vertebra of a plesiosaurus.) So my 7-year-old daughter says, "Abba! Dinosaurs? How can there be dinosaurs 150 million years ago, when my Bible teacher says the world isn't even 6000 years old?" So I told her to look in Psalms 90:4. There, you'll find something quite amazing. King David says, "1000 years in Your (G-d's) sight are like a day that passes, a watch in the night." Perhaps time is different from the perspective of King David, than it is from the perspective of the Creator. Perhaps time is different.

The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2), in trying to understand the subtleties of Torah, analyzes the word "choshech." When the word "choshech" appears in Genesis 1:2, the Talmud explains that it means black fire, black energy, a kind of energy that is so powerful you can't even see it. Two verses later, in Genesis 1:4, the Talmud explains that the same word - "choshech" - means darkness, i.e. the absence of light.

Other words as well are not to be understood by their common definitions. For example, "mayim" typically means water. But Maimonides says that in the original statements of creation, the word "mayim" may also mean the building blocks of the universe. Another example is Genesis 1:5, which says, "There is evening and morning, Day One." That is the first time that a day is quantified: evening and morning. Nachmanides discusses the meaning of evening and morning. Does it mean sunset and sunrise? It would certainly seem to.

But Nachmanides points out a problem with that. The text says "there was evening and morning Day One... evening and morning a second day... evening and morning a third day." Then on the fourth day, the sun is mentioned. Nachmanides says that any intelligent reader can see an obvious problem. How do we have a concept of evening and morning for the first three days if the sun is only mentioned on Day Four? We know that the author of the Bible - even if you think it was a bunch of Bedouins sitting around a campfire at night - one thing we know is that the author was smart. He or she or it produced a best-seller. For thousands of years! So you can't attribute the sun appearing only on Day Four to foolishness. There's a purpose for it on Day Four. And the purpose is that as time goes by and people understand more about the universe, you can dig deeper into the text.

Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" - but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet - the root of "erev" - is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" - "boker" - is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement.??Order can not arise from disorder by random reactions. (In pure probability it can, but the numbers are so infinitesimally small that physics regards the probability as zero.) So you go to the Dead Sea and say, "I see these orderly salt crystals. You're telling me that G-d's there making each crystal?" No. That's not what I'm saying. But the salt crystals do not arise randomly. They arise because laws of nature that are part of the creation package force salt crystals to form. The laws of nature guide the development of the world. And there is a phenomenal amount of development that's encoded in the Six Days. But it's not included directly in the text. Otherwise you'd have creation every other sentence!

The Torah wants you to be amazed by this flow of order, starting from a chaotic plasma and ending up with a symphony of life. Day-by-day the world progresses to higher and higher levels. Order out of disorder. It's pure thermodynamics. And it's stated in terminology of 3000 years ago.

 The creation of time.

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: "There is evening and morning, Day One." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, Day Two." Rather, it says "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Echad"). Many English translations that make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative.

Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That's a phenomenal insight. Time was created. I can understand creating matter, even space. But time? How do you create time? You can't grab time. You don't even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy, you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah's use of the phrase, "Day One." And that's exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: hat there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.

 Einstein's Law of Relativity.

We look at the universe, and say, "How old is the universe? Looking back in time, the universe is about 15 billion years old." That's our view of time. But what is the Bible's view of time? How does it see time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you're viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It's a small difference, but it's measurable and measured. If you could ripen oranges on the Sun, they would take longer to ripen. Why? Because time goes more slowly. Would you feel it going more slowly? No, because your biology would be part of the system. If you were living on the Sun, your heart would beat more slowly. Wherever you are, your biology is in synch with the local time.

If you could look from one system to another, you would see time very differently. Because depending on factors like gravity and velocity, you will perceive time in a way that is very different. Here's an example: One evening we were sitting around the dinner table, and my 11-year-old daughter asked, "How you could have dinosaurs? How you could have billions of years scientifically - and thousands of years Biblically at the same time? So I told her to imagine a planet where time is so stretched out that while we live out two years on Earth, only three minutes will go by on that planet. Now, those places actually exist, they are observed. It would be hard to live there with their conditions, and you couldn't get to them either, but in mental experiments you can do it. Two years are going to go by on Earth, three minutes are going to go by on the planet. So my daughter says, "Great! Send me to the planet. I'll spend three minutes there. I'll do two years worth of homework. I'll come back home, no homework for two years." Nice try. Assuming she was age 11 when she left, and her friends were 11. She spends three minutes on the planet and then comes home. (The travel time takes no time.) How old is she when she gets back? Eleven years and 3 minutes. And her friends are 13. Because she lived out 3 minutes while we lived out 2 years. Her friends aged from 11 years to 13 years, while she's 11 years and 3 minutes.

Had she looked down on Earth from that planet, her perception of Earth time would be that everybody was moving very quickly. Whereas if we looked up, she'd be moving very slowly. Which is correct? Is it three years? Or three minutes? The answer is both. They're both happening at the same time. That's the legacy of Albert Einstein. It so happens there literally billions of locations in the universe, where if you could put a clock at that location, it would tick so slowly, that from our perspective (if we could last that long) 15 billion years would go by... but the clock at that remote location would tick out six days. Nobody disputes this data.

 Time travel and the Big Bang.

But how does this help to explain the Bible? Because anyway the Talmud and commentators seem to say that Six Days of Genesis were regular 24-hour periods! Let's look a bit deeper. The classical Jewish sources say that before the beginning, we don't really know what there is. We can't tell what predates the universe. The Midrash asks the question: Why does the Bible begin with the letter Bet? Because Bet (which is written like a backwards C) is closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction. Hence we can't know what comes before - only after. The first letter is a Bet - closed in all directions and only open in the forward direction.

Nachmanides the Kabbalist expands the statement. He says that although the days are 24 hours each, they contain "kol yemot ha-olam" - all the ages and all the secrets of the world. Nachmanides says that before the universe, there was nothing... but then suddenly the entire creation appeared as a minuscule speck. He gives a dimension for the speck: something very tiny like the size of a grain of mustard. And he says that is the only physical creation. There was no other physical creation; all other creations were spiritual. The Nefesh (the soul of animal life) and the Neshama (the soul of human life) are spiritual creations. There's only one physical creation, and that creation was a tiny speck. The speck is all there was. Anything else was G-d. In that speck was all the raw material that would be used for making everything else. Nachmanides describes the substance as "dak me'od, ein bo mamash" - very thin, no substance to it. And as this speck expanded out, this substance - so thin that it has no essence - turned into matter as we know it.

Nachmanides further writes: "Misheyesh, yitfos bo zman" - from the moment that matter formed from this substance-less substance, time grabs hold. Not "begins." Time is created at the beginning. But time "grabs hold." When matter condenses, congeals, coalesces, out of this substance so thin it has no essence - that's when the Biblical clock starts.

Science has shown that there's only one "substanceless substance" that can change into matter. And that's energy. Einstein's famous equation, E=MC2, tells us that energy can change into matter. And once it changes into matter, time grabs hold. Nachmanides has made a phenomenal statement. I don't know if he knew the Laws of Relativity. But we know them now. We know that energy - light beams, radio waves, gamma rays, x-rays - all travel at the speed of light, 300 million meters per second. At the speed of light, time does not pass. The universe was aging, but time only grabs hold when matter is present. This moment of time before the clock begins for the Bible, lasted about 1/100,000 of a second. A miniscule time. But in that time, the universe expanded from a tiny speck, to about the size of the Solar System. From that moment on we have matter, and time flows forward. The clock begins here.

Now the fact that the Bible tells us there is "evening and morning Day One", comes to teach us time from a Biblical perspective. Einstein proved that time varies from place to place in the universe, and that time varies from perspective to perspective in the universe. The Bible says there is "evening and morning Day One".

Now if the Torah were seeing time from the days of Moses and Mount Sinai - long after Adam - the text would not have written Day One. Because by Sinai, millions of days already passed. And since there was a lot of time with which to compare Day One, it would have said "A First Day." By the second day of Genesis, the Bible says "a second day," because there was already the First Day with which to compare it. You could say on the second day, "what happened on the first day." But you could not say on the first day, "what happened on the first day" because "first" implies comparison - an existing series. And there was no existing series. Day One was all there was.

Even if the Torah was seeing time from Adam, the text would have said "a first day", because by its own statement there are six days. The Torah says "Day One" because the Torah is looking forward from the beginning. And it says, how old is the universe? Six Days. We'll just take time up until Adam. Six Days. We look back in time, and say the universe is 15 billion years old. But every scientist knows, that when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there's another half of the sentence that we never say. The other half of the sentence is: The universe is 15 billion years old as seen from the time-space coordinates that we exist in. That's Einstein's view of relativity.

The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. But since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes the perception of time. Imagine in your mind going back billions of years ago to the beginning of time. Now pretend way back at the beginning of time, when time grabs hold, there's an intelligent community. (It's totally fictitious.) Imagine that the intelligent community has a laser, and it's going to shoot out a blast of light, and every second it's going to pulse. Every second -- pulse. Pulse. Pulse. It shoots the light out, and then billions of years later, way far down the time line, we here on Earth have a big satellite dish, and we receive that pulse of light. And on that pulse of light is imprinted (printing information on light is called fiber optics - sending information by light), "I'm sending you a pulse every second." And then a second goes by and the next pulse is sent.

Now light travels 300 million meters per second. So the two light pulses are separated by 300 million meters at the beginning. Now they travel through space for billions of years, and they're going to reach the Earth billions of years later. But wait a minute. Is the universe static? No. The universe is expanding. That's the cosmology of the universe. And that mean it's expanding into an empty space outside the universe. There's only the universe. There is no space outside the universe. The universe expands by space stretching. So as these pulses go through billions of years of travelling, and the universe is stretching, and space is stretching, what's happening to these pulses? The space between them is also stretching. So the pulses really get further and further apart. Billions of years later, when the first pulse arrives, we say, "Wow - a pulse!" And written on it is "I'm sending you a pulse every second." You call all your friends, and you wait for the next pulse to arrive. Does it arrive another second later? No! A year later? Maybe not. Maybe billions of years later. Because depending on how much time this pulse of light has traveled through space, will determine the amount of stretching that has occurred. That's standard cosmology.

 15 billion or six days?

Today, we look at time going backward. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah says six days. In truth, they both may be correct. What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. Any one of a dozen physics text books all bring the same number. The general relationship between time near the beginning and time today is a million million. That's a 1 with 12 zeros after it. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says "I'm sending you a pulse every second," would we see it every second? No. We'd see it every million million seconds. Because that's the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe.

The Torah doesn't say every second, does it? It says Six Days. How would we see those six days? If the Torah says we're sending information for six days, would we receive that information as six days? No. We would receive that information as six million million days. Because the Torah's perspective is from the beginning looking forward. Six million million days is a very interesting number. What would that be in years? Divide by 365 and it comes out to be 16 billion years. Essentially the estimate of the age of the universe. Not a bad guess for 3000 years ago.

The way these two figures match up is extraordinary. I'm not speaking as a theologian; I'm making a scientific claim. I didn't pull these numbers out of hat. That's why I led up to the explanation very slowly, so you can follow it step-by-step. Now we can go one step further. Let's look at the development of time, day-by-day, based on the expansion factor. Every time the universe doubles, the perception of time is cut in half. Now when the universe was small, it was doubling very rapidly. But as the universe gets bigger, the doubling time gets exponentially longer. This rate of expansion is quoted in "The Principles of Physical Cosmology," a textbook that is used literally around the world.

(In case you want to know, this exponential rate of expansion has a specific number averaged at 10 to the 12th power. That is in fact the temperature of quark confinement, when matter freezes out of the energy: 10.9 times 10 to the 12th power Kelvin degrees divided by (or the ratio to) the temperature of the universe today, 2.73 degrees. That's the initial ratio which changes exponentially as the universe expands.)

The calculations come out to be as follows:

The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
The fourth day - one billion years.
The fifth day - one-half billion years.
The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.

When you add up the Six Days, you get the age of the universe at 15 and 3/4 billion years. The same as modern cosmology. Is it by chance?
But there's more. The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day. And I'll give you a hint. They match up close enough to send chills up your spine.

Footnote
Occasionally, during question sessions following my talks, and in occasional emails that I receive, I have found a recurring error in understanding my approach to the age of the universe. 

The ancient commentaries found in the Talmud, Rashi, and the Kaballah all insist that the six days of Genesis, that is, the time prior to Adam, are in fact 24 hour days, BUT contain all the ages of the world. 

How can six days contain billions of years?, is the common question. 

I give a full account of this in two chapters of "The Hidden Face Of God".

Briefly here, let me be emphatic. I base the correlation of six 24 hour days being able to contain the billions of years of our universal history not on changes in gravity, nor on differences in velocity. 

I base it on the effect which the stretching of space has on the perception of distant information. 

This is a concept used many times daily in astronomy, manifesting itself as the red shift or blue shift. And the location of this perception is not from any particular point in space, but rather from a particular moment in time, the time at which energy and quarks confined into the stable matter, that is, protons. 

Kaballah tells us that time only grabs hold when stable matter forms. Since the universe is some 78% hydrogen atoms, and has been so since quark confinement (changes since then have been minuscule) , that is the only logical moment to choose from which Torah views those evocative six 24 hour days. The actual calculations are carried out in detail in "The Hidden Face Of God".