"Old" Earth - Genesis 1:1-2

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KingofHazor
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In reply to Silent For Too Long • 3:27p, 11/13/25
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1. Sure, but the audience the Torah scribes were working within that frame work.

Several questions. What does that even mean? And how do you know? And so what? Holy Spirit inspiration is not bound or restricted by any "framework".

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2. The underlying Sumerian story almost certainly dates much earlier. Sumerian Babylon stopped being a real thing by 1850 BC.

And the underlying Biblical story explicitly dates much earlier, to ~4000 BC.

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No, I don't think the Torah was written till about 1200 BC. 1446 is just a difficult time to reconcile with the historical record. The archeological record and the Amarna letters seem to make it clear Egypt controlled the Levant until the bronze age collapse. So, an early date for the Exidus becomes harder to justify.

Egypt did not "control the Levant". It controlled, at most, certain cities along the coastal plain. The Israelites were located primarily in the Shephalah and in the regions to the east of the Jordan, areas where there is no indication of Egyptian presence.

The Armana letters are one of the primary pieces of evidence for the presence of Israelites throughout Canaan at that time. They consist of numerous complaints by Egypt's Canaanite vassal leaders pleading for help from Egypt against the invading "Habiru" or "Apiru".

There is abundant other archaeological evidence that strongly support 1446 as the date of the Exodus and 1406 as the date of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan.

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3. The people who wrote the Torah had a long history with literacy. I mean, the cradle of the alphabet is the land that would one day be called Isreal. We can find examples of the alphabet in Lacish as far back as 1750 BC.

I think people severely underestimate literacy rates in the region at this time period.

Absolutely agree. Petrovich has interpreted inscriptions in even earlier Egyptian mines in the Sinai peninsula as being proto-Hebrew.

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4. God Imspired would communicate His Purpose. My hypothesis is that purpose seems to better answer Why Creation? Then How Creation?

Why are you limiting it to Why when he also explicitly describes How?
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KingofHazor
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In reply to Zobel • 3:30p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
i dont think it matters, personally.

as silent for too long said, the message is why creation, not how or when. the message that God created Man in the image of God, to reign over earth as priest and king is what matters.

Except God also explicitly told us how and when. You projecting your interpretation, that essentially deletes or ignores the language of the Bible, over God's explicit word?
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AGC
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 3:40p, 11/13/25
AG
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?
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Zobel
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In reply to KingofHazor • 3:50p, 11/13/25
AG
it would be trivial for Moses to record the name of pharaoh - ancient sources routinely recorded king names, they were used as date and time markers. he did not. those who edited the torah after him did not. ergo, we don't need to know that. "when" is a question that the torah isn't particularly interested in answering.
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to AGC • 3:56p, 11/13/25
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html
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Zobel
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 3:58p, 11/13/25
AG
you're assuming that Moses intended for you to know certain things a certain way. i don't know that is an assumption that holds.

if you want to say that the text is woodenly literal, ok - go for it. i won't stop you.

i think the danger is that this is accepting a modernist premise and way to read and understand history, and then attempting to use that approach to validate the scriptures. the reason being - that same approach is used to upend the scriptures. for example, people on this thread are challenged with their belief in genesis because the apparent age by scientific reckoning doesnt match up to the age you get from reading the text as a modern historical document. here you have two choices: accept modernist framing, and argue that the text is true as a modernist defines true, or ignore modernist framing and tell them they don't even know what true means.

the truth of the text is about God and creation - the year that it happened is not the means of conveying that truth. i think if you approach the text as a modernist, with modernist demands, you're going to have a bad time.

as i said to the other poster, it would have been trivial to provide concrete, hard date markers. Moses and those who edited the texts after him chose not to. therefore the "when" is not the primary focus.

similarly it is obvious the text of scriptures are incomplete. it doesn't say it is a complete reckoning of the history of the world, or of israel. the books of the old testament are open about their selectivity - they say things like - as for the rest of what so and so did as king, aren't they in the annals? because the message isn't a history as a blow-by-blow account, it is a history as a story that defines a worldview for people to understand their place and purpose in existence - a mythic or story framing. which in no way undermines truth! it reinforces it.

modernist reading of history is a mythic framing as well - just a different once, with different presuppositions about epistemology and truth.
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KingofHazor
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In reply to Zobel • 3:58p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
it would be trivial for Moses to record the name of pharaoh - ancient sources routinely recorded king names, they were used as date and time markers. he did not. those who edited the torah after him did not. ergo, we don't need to know that. "when" is a question that the torah isn't particularly interested in answering.

What's your evidence that "ancient sources" (i.e., pre-1000 BC) "routinely recorded" names of pharaohs? Which writings and when were they written? And show how they used pharaonic names as time markers.

Your argument is easily contradicted by the fact that the writer of the Pentateuch went out of his way to give us very detailed chronologies with very specific times.

Finally, you're projecting a 21st century bias on to Moses. We sometimes use pharaohs as time markers because that's all we've got. Is there any evidence that the ancients did?
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to Zobel • 4:02p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
you're assuming that Moses intended for you to know certain things a certain way. i don't know that is an assumption that holds.

if you want to say that the text is woodenly literal, ok - go for it. i won't stop you.

i think the danger is that this is accepting a modernist premise and way to read and understand history, and then attempting to use that approach to validate the scriptures. the reason being - that same approach is used to upend the scriptures. for example, people on this thread are challenged with their belief in genesis because the apparent age by scientific reckoning doesnt match up to the age you get from reading the text as a modern historical document. here you have two choices: accept modernist framing, and argue that the text is true as a modernist defines true, or ignore modernist framing and tell them they don't even know what true means.

the truth of the text is about God and creation - the year that it happened is not the means of conveying that truth. i think if you approach the text as a modernist, with modernist demands, you're going to have a bad time.

as i said to the other poster, it would have been trivial to provide concrete, hard date markers. Moses and those who edited the texts after him chose not to. therefore the "when" is not the primary focus.

similarly it is obvious the text of scriptures are incomplete. it doesn't say it is a complete reckoning of the history of the world, or of israel. the books of the old testament are open about their selectivity - they say things like - as for the rest of what so and so did as king, aren't they in the annals? because the message isn't a history as a blow-by-blow account, it is a history as a story that defines a worldview for people to understand their place and purpose in existence - a mythic or story framing. which in no way undermines truth! it reinforces it.

modernist reading of history is a mythic framing as well - just a different once, with different presuppositions about epistemology and truth.

It can't be that modern because figures throughout church history have attempted to come up with a year and date of creation. The how & when does not undermine the why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Mundi#Jewish_tradition
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AGC
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 4:04p, 11/13/25
AG
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html


That doesn't really matter, though. It's incomplete in copies of Genesis. Are these copies not the true Genesis if someone is missing? Should we disregard them? Doesn't this become problematic in dating the world if that's your prooftext?
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Zobel
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In reply to KingofHazor • 4:05p, 11/13/25
AG
sure - thousands of cuneiform tablets from assyria and babylonia from way back (2500 BC!) follow the format of "in the x year of so and so" or "the accession year of theophiric pagan king such and such". many artifacts in egypt do as well - papyri, annals, monuments say thing like "year five under thutmose III". hittite annals do the same, as do later authors in the scriptures. there really wasnt any other way of dating in an absolute or era-based sense until maybe after alexander?
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Zobel
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 4:08p, 11/13/25
AG
attempting to come up with a chronology isn't the same thing as a modern reading. you can also see in history that people happily disagreed and didnt seem to think that their disagreement falsified the scriptures.
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to AGC • 4:08p, 11/13/25
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html


That doesn't really matter, though. It's incomplete in copies of Genesis. Are these copies not the true Genesis if someone is missing? Should we disregard them? Doesn't this become problematic in dating the world if that's your prooftext?

I don't know. I've never done it. But yes, if you were to attempt it, you would have to determine if Shelah was the son or grandson of Arphaxa.
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to Zobel • 4:12p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
attempting to come up with a chronology isn't the same thing as a modern reading. you can also see in history that people happily disagreed and didnt seem to think that their disagreement falsified the scriptures.

I can't object to that. So you view Luke's geology as historically complete/accurate? Adam was a real person and not (only) an allegorical or symbolic figure?
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KingofHazor
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In reply to Zobel • 4:19p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
sure - thousands of cuneiform tablets from assyria and babylonia from way back (2500 BC!) follow the format of "in the x year of so and so" or "the accession year of theophiric pagan king such and such". many artifacts in egypt do as well - papyri, annals, monuments say thing like "year five under thutmose III". hittite annals do the same, as do later authors in the scriptures. there really wasnt any other way of dating in an absolute or era-based sense until maybe after alexander?

You need to re-check your archaeology. Please provide a citation or link to any assyrian or babylonian document prior to 1500 BC that mentions any pharaoh. I'm not aware of any. The earliest was a letter in the Amarna collection (an Egyptian collection), dated to ~1350 BC, and was a letter to a pharaoh.

Artifacts in Egypt do mention pharaohs, of course, since by and large they were commissioned at the instance of the pharaoh they mention.

There are no very ancient documents that attempt to date events by tying them to specific pharaohs. The ancients didn't write histories, in the first place. That is one of the very unique characteristics of the Pentateuch.

The use of Pharaohs as time posts is a modern conceit since we have no other time posts that provide even rough dates. Even our modern attempts to date stuff in the Middle East via pottery dating are themselves anchored to Pharaonic dates. The very ancients did not do the same.

And again, you are forcing God's Holy Spirit into a framework of your making. Even if the ancients did use Pharaonic reigns as time posts (they didn't), that doesn't require Moses or God's Holy Spirit to do the same.
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Zobel
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 4:20p, 11/13/25
AG
i dunno, it isn't important to me one way or another.

i think the main point of St Luke's genealogy is to give a universal history for gentiles to participate in.
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to Zobel • 4:23p, 11/13/25
And that history included a real man who was created from dust.
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AGC
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 4:25p, 11/13/25
AG
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html


That doesn't really matter, though. It's incomplete in copies of Genesis. Are these copies not the true Genesis if someone is missing? Should we disregard them? Doesn't this become problematic in dating the world if that's your prooftext?

I don't know. I've never done it. But yes, if you were to attempt it, you would have to determine if Shelah was the son or grandson of Arphaxa.


The entire point was that it can be both true and metaphor/allegory/etc. 'True' is not the same as 'complete', and 'complete' in the context of story telling isn't a requirement for truth in all cultures. If it must be exhaustively complete to be true, we have an untrue copy of Genesis floating around in all our bibles (and the world is older than 6,000 year by at least cainan's age).

So pick up the point or put it down, but at least require the same thing from all of scripture instead of picking and choosing to make a point.
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Zobel
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In reply to KingofHazor • 4:31p, 11/13/25
AG
haha - you've moved the goalposts twice. i said ancient sources recorded king names as date and time markers.

you narrowed it to names of pharaohs - which is fine.

but we have thousands of cuneiform tablets with regnal year dating from Fara / Iraq that are pre- Akkadian (2500 BC. so there's that.

there's an example of regnal dating in egypt even earlier - 3000 BC - where Aha led an expedition against the Nubians, where the year is noted with that event and the king's name. there are other explicit examples of dating for other early pharaohs. these are date and time markers.
Quote:
Artifacts in Egypt do mention pharaohs, of course, since by and large they were commissioned at the instance of the pharaoh they mention.

cool. so we agree that the ancients routinely used king names as time markers.
Quote:
And again, you are forcing God's Holy Spirit into a framework of your making. Even if the ancients did use Pharaonic reigns as time posts (they didn't), that doesn't require Moses or God's Holy Spirit to do the same.

i'm not the one requiring any dating at all from the text.

the text is silent on the name of pharaoh. that means the name of pharaoh isn't important. which means the specific pharaoh isn't important. which means the specific year isn't important. QED.

i think the burden of proof is actually the other way 'round. do you have any evidence of ANY other method of determining year other than regnal year dating int he ancient world? or modern?? because we still use it today. that's what AD is.

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FTACo88-FDT24dad
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In reply to Zobel • 4:36p, 11/13/25
AG
Zobel said:
you're assuming that Moses intended for you to know certain things a certain way. i don't know that is an assumption that holds.

if you want to say that the text is woodenly literal, ok - go for it. i won't stop you.

i think the danger is that this is accepting a modernist premise and way to read and understand history, and then attempting to use that approach to validate the scriptures. the reason being - that same approach is used to upend the scriptures. for example, people on this thread are challenged with their belief in genesis because the apparent age by scientific reckoning doesnt match up to the age you get from reading the text as a modern historical document. here you have two choices: accept modernist framing, and argue that the text is true as a modernist defines true, or ignore modernist framing and tell them they don't even know what true means.

the truth of the text is about God and creation - the year that it happened is not the means of conveying that truth. i think if you approach the text as a modernist, with modernist demands, you're going to have a bad time.

as i said to the other poster, it would have been trivial to provide concrete, hard date markers. Moses and those who edited the texts after him chose not to. therefore the "when" is not the primary focus.

similarly it is obvious the text of scriptures are incomplete. it doesn't say it is a complete reckoning of the history of the world, or of israel. the books of the old testament are open about their selectivity - they say things like - as for the rest of what so and so did as king, aren't they in the annals? because the message isn't a history as a blow-by-blow account, it is a history as a story that defines a worldview for people to understand their place and purpose in existence - a mythic or story framing. which in no way undermines truth! it reinforces it.

modernist reading of history is a mythic framing as well - just a different once, with different presuppositions about epistemology and truth.


Double harrumphs… all of which is exacerbated by a system underpinned by the man-made doctrine of Sola Scriptura. If the "Bible" is the sole infallible rule of faith then it makes sense why someone would contort themselves into semantic pretzels trying to make it intelligible. It's a procrustean bed of their own making.
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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to AGC • 4:37p, 11/13/25
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html


That doesn't really matter, though. It's incomplete in copies of Genesis. Are these copies not the true Genesis if someone is missing? Should we disregard them? Doesn't this become problematic in dating the world if that's your prooftext?

I don't know. I've never done it. But yes, if you were to attempt it, you would have to determine if Shelah was the son or grandson of Arphaxa.


The entire point was that it can be both true and metaphor/allegory/etc. 'True' is not the same as 'complete', and 'complete' in the context of story telling isn't a requirement for truth in all cultures. If it must be exhaustively complete to be true, we have an untrue copy of Genesis floating around in all our bibles (and the world is older than 6,000 year by at least cainan's age).

So pick up the point or put it down, but at least require the same thing from all of scripture instead of picking and choosing to make a point.

What point did you think I was trying to make? I said accurate. You said complete.
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AGC
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In reply to Martin Q. Blank • 4:40p, 11/13/25
AG
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Martin Q. Blank said:
AGC said:
Who's this Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah? And where are they in Genesis 10:24 and 11:12?

He appears in the septuagint which I assume is what Luke was working from.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/genesis/11.html


That doesn't really matter, though. It's incomplete in copies of Genesis. Are these copies not the true Genesis if someone is missing? Should we disregard them? Doesn't this become problematic in dating the world if that's your prooftext?

I don't know. I've never done it. But yes, if you were to attempt it, you would have to determine if Shelah was the son or grandson of Arphaxa.


The entire point was that it can be both true and metaphor/allegory/etc. 'True' is not the same as 'complete', and 'complete' in the context of story telling isn't a requirement for truth in all cultures. If it must be exhaustively complete to be true, we have an untrue copy of Genesis floating around in all our bibles (and the world is older than 6,000 year by at least cainan's age).

So pick up the point or put it down, but at least require the same thing from all of scripture instead of picking and choosing to make a point.

What point did you think I was trying to make? I said accurate. You said complete.


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Martin Q. Blank
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In reply to AGC • 4:59p, 11/13/25
You said I have to pick up or put down "the" point. What point is that? All I'm trying to establish is Luke thought Adam was a historical person. And that he had no father other than God. His genealogy doesn't have to be "complete".
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KingofHazor
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In reply to Zobel • 5:02p, 11/13/25
Zobel said:
haha - you've moved the goalposts twice. i said ancient sources recorded king names as date and time markers.

you narrowed it to names of pharaohs - which is fine.

Nope, you're moving the goalposts. You're the one that initially claimed that the lack of reference to pharaonic names in the OT meant that God didn't care about chronology or dating.

Quote:
but we have thousands of cuneiform tablets with regnal year dating from Fara / Iraq that are pre- Akkadian (2500 BC. so there's that.

Perhaps, but that's for their own kings. They don't reference external kings.

And that's what the Scriptures do too. They reference key figures in Jewish history as their timeposts.

Your own argument defeats you.

Quote:
there's an example of regnal dating in egypt even earlier - 3000 BC - where Aha led an expedition against the Nubians, where the year is noted with that event and the king's name. there are other explicit examples of dating for other early pharaohs. these are date and time markers.
Quote:
Artifacts in Egypt do mention pharaohs, of course, since by and large they were commissioned at the instance of the pharaoh they mention.

cool. so we agree that the ancients routinely used king names as time markers.

No, I did not agree to that. They at times did make reference to their own kings, but did not use external kings as time markers.

Quote:
Quote:
i'm not the one requiring any dating at all from the text.


the text is silent on the name of pharaoh. that means the name of pharaoh isn't important. which means the specific pharaoh isn't important. which means the specific year isn't important. QED.


No, the text does that itself. You're the one denying the explicitly meaning of the text for some strange reason. How can you say that the specific year isn't important when God explicitly provides the specific year?
Your argument is quite strange. You are trying to twist the facts and scripture to your pre-existing conclusion.

Quote:
do you have any evidence of ANY other method of determining year other than regnal year dating int he ancient world? or modern?? because we still use it today. that's what AD is.

Well, there's some obvious ones: the very specific genealogies in the Pentateuch.

And with that, I'm out. You're once again arguing for the sake of arguing and ignoring the clear evidence that's right in front of you.
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Zobel
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5:31p, 11/13/25
AG
numbers in ancient languages are dodgy because they didn't have numerals, and the numbers in the Hebrew and Greek don't match. Both can't literally be true the way you reckon it. What do we do with that?
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Zobel
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In reply to KingofHazor • 5:41p, 11/13/25
AG
Hahah so we've gone from disbelief that "'ancient sources' (i.e., pre-1000 BC) "routinely recorded" names of pharaohs" (instead of kings as I said) to wellllll they only record their own kings, not external kings. Don't throw your back out carrying those uprights.

Know how I know the Torah isn't particularly interested in us knowing precise timelines? Because there has never been a universal agreement of any timeline across Christianity. So if it is, it is doing a poor job.

Contrast this with other parts of the scripture - the chronicles, prophets or the gospels. We have clear and incontrovertible timelines, and so there is no argument whatever. God chose to preserve those things for us. The name of the pharaoh in exodus He did not. I trust Him: I don't need to know it.
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BonfireNerd04
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In reply to Zobel • 2:50p, 11/15/25
Zobel said:
sure - thousands of cuneiform tablets from assyria and babylonia from way back (2500 BC!) follow the format of "in the x year of so and so" or "the accession year of theophiric pagan king such and such". many artifacts in egypt do as well - papyri, annals, monuments say thing like "year five under thutmose III". hittite annals do the same, as do later authors in the scriptures. there really wasnt any other way of dating in an absolute or era-based sense until maybe after alexander?

The Greek Olympiad system started in 776 BCE.

The Mayan Long Count goes back to 3114 BCE, but nobody in the Old World would have known about it at the time.
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Zobel
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In reply to BonfireNerd04 • 3:31p, 11/15/25
AG
Nice yea
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BusterAg
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10:58a, 11/25/25
AG
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.
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dermdoc
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In reply to BusterAg • 12:03p, 11/25/25
AG
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.
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FTACo88-FDT24dad
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In reply to dermdoc • 1:54p, 11/25/25
AG
dermdoc said:
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.


Read The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is an MIT astrophysicist and a Hebrew Bible scholar. He makes the point you guys are making about the nature of time, especially at the very beginning of creation.
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In reply to FTACo88-FDT24dad • 2:17p, 11/25/25
AG
FTACo88-FDT24dad said:
dermdoc said:
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.


Read The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is an MIT astrophysicist and a Hebrew Bible scholar. He makes the point you guys are making about the nature of time, especially at the very beginning of creation.


It is kind of like the ages the early OT characters lived to. I think time was interpreted differently then.
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FTACo88-FDT24dad
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In reply to dermdoc • 2:55p, 11/25/25
AG
dermdoc said:
FTACo88-FDT24dad said:
dermdoc said:
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.


Read The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is an MIT astrophysicist and a Hebrew Bible scholar. He makes the point you guys are making about the nature of time, especially at the very beginning of creation.


It is kind of like the ages the early OT characters lived to. I think time was interpreted differently then.

Interesting and I agree. I think the appropriate way to read something like Genesis is to try and discern the intent of the author. What was he trying to convey? Was he trying to convey a very fact specific account of an event he witnessed or was he trying to convey truths within the context a specific cultural milieu whose members would have understood him to be conveying truths but not necessarily a science text book?

The idea of time in the infinitessimally small moments after the Big Bang is completely foreign to the idea of a 24 hour day on Planet Earth. Schroeder does a good job explaining how the two work together.
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Zobel
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3:55p, 11/25/25
AG
The fact that they didn't have numerals is easily glossed over. They're "doing something" with the words that form the numbers, but without context it's hard to know what that is.
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BusterAg
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In reply to FTACo88-FDT24dad • 6:35p, 12/1/25
AG
FTACo88-FDT24dad said:
dermdoc said:
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.


Read The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is an MIT astrophysicist and a Hebrew Bible scholar. He makes the point you guys are making about the nature of time, especially at the very beginning of creation.

Thanks for this suggestion.
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FTACo88-FDT24dad
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In reply to BusterAg • 6:38p, 12/1/25
AG
BusterAg said:
FTACo88-FDT24dad said:
dermdoc said:
BusterAg said:
An existentialist view on creation:

On what "day" did God create time?

Was time in existence before light? Are light and time made up of the same basic thing (arguably so)?

The speed of light is constant to all observers. The speed we experience time, the shape of space, are both beholden to that universal law, but light is also bound by, and influenced by, gravity, and gravity also impacts the speed we experience time. When you put that all together, why things work the way they do becomes simply incomprehensible.

When it comes to creation, I do think that we have some limitations as temporal beings to deduce things based on a set of assumptions that we can't always see that we are relying on.

There is no reason to believe that the way time was experienced during the creation is the same as the way that we experience time now. If you loosen up that assumption, contemplation on how creation actually worked starts to get fuzzy, and logic and deduction cease to be helpful.

I don't see how believing in an old earth versus a young earth has any impact on your daily life.

That said, I tend to believe more of an old earth, but am flexible enough to believe that maybe time was very different during creation than it is now.

Agree.


Read The Science of God by Gerald Schroeder. Schroeder is an MIT astrophysicist and a Hebrew Bible scholar. He makes the point you guys are making about the nature of time, especially at the very beginning of creation.

Thanks for this suggestion.

Let me know what you think if you do read it.
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