Hi ,
Recently I received a letter in which the person was writing to point out my "error" - that being that I believe the age of the earth can be accurately gauged as being thousands of years old, not billions. Of course, the letter was anonymous.
Here are his major points:
1. The verses he quoted all included phrases like, "long ago...", "Of old...", "...before the foundation of the world...", etc.
2. Adam wasn't used to gauge "oldness", but the earth and the heavens are.
3. "With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years..." (2 Peter 3:8)
4. Too much happened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve for it to have been a single day.
5. Since the Hebrew for "father" can mean "ancestor", "grandfather", etc., it follows that there were many generations not listed in the Scriptures.
Here's why I disagree:
1&2. The use of the terms "long ago", or "of old" are totally relative. I could say that the Revolutionary War took place "long ago". Or, I could say that Moses lived "long ago". Or, I could even say that I went to college "long ago". None of the specific verses he used that included these phrases had anything to do with the specific age of the earth. They all simply refer to God creating in the beginning, which was
"long ago". You cannot infer billions of years from this.
More thoughts about this next week...
