Gospel

The big bang is claimed to have been the start of the universe, but not the start of time as we know it on earth.  The time immediately following the big bang would have been one where the earth was in the form of molten rock.  There were no nights or time division.  Initially, all the waters of the oceans were contained within the cloudy canopy surrounding earth and blocked all light from the sun.  It was only after the earth cooled that the moisture was released via rain from the clouds, allowing the sun to peak through and begin the division of day and night.  This is the scenario painted by the big bang theory. 

 

The earth, say scientists, is around 4.5 billion years old.  Science has estimated that the solar system itself is about 4.6 billion years old.  If that is true, what was the big bang that allegedly occurred nearly 14 billion years ago.  It took about 9 ½ billion years for every planet to find its right place in the universe to sit, yet the universe is only 4.6 billion years old?  The dates don’t work.  Some stars, such as globular clusters, evolutionists say are 16 billion years old.¹ How can the stars be older than the universe?

 

In Genesis we find the order in which God created earth and its inhabitants.  The first day God created earth. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”² The earth had yet to be formed into the planet we know it as, particularly with the mention of formlessness, emptiness, and darkness.  God proceeded from darkness to light^3-5, an expanse (sky) to separate water from water on the second day.^6,7 On the third day God created land to separate the waters and from the land10, vegetation (seed-bearing plants and trees).^11-13  The fourth day God created the night sky, filled with stars as signs to mark seasons and days and years.^14-19  On the fifth day, God created the birds and living creatures of the waters.^20-23  It wasn’t until the sixth day and final day of his work that God created living creatures to inhabit the land and finished by creating man in his own image.^24-31

 

New and old earth creationists disagree on the length of the days that God used during the creation period.  Both agree that there was no time until God separated the nights from the day.  If God chose to separate one day from another day, one night from another night, by 24-hour increments (one rotation of the earth on its axis relative to the sun), was that simply the time frame he chose for our days without defining His own?

 

The confusion over the definition of ‘day’ as first introduced in Genesis is explained at https://www.meaningofgenesis.com/search/label/Day.  “In addition to using language that a common person thousands of years ago could understand, Genesis also utilizes the word "day" to account for time. Sectarian interpretations of Genesis have tried to put forth a literal doctrine, proposing that all of the matters of creation, from the beginning to the end took seven earth days consisting of 24 hours. Does this make sense?

 

Any scientist will tell us that the word "day" is relative to the observer. To a person on the planet Venus, a day would last about 243 earth days. Depending upon the planet's position to the sun, and its rotation on axis, the length of the day is different for every planet. Now let's consider what a "day" might be in other solar systems, where planets are on significantly different orbits, with different types of suns. Then let's consider what a "day" might be to a person who wasn't a citizen of a particular planet or even solar system, but someone who's realm was greater and larger than that even of a galaxy.

 

Or further, let's consider the Supreme Being, Who is not subject to time. Time does not control God. Therefore, the "day" discussed here is not only relative, it is entirely meaningless in terms of gauging using our earth clocks.

 

In other words, a "day" here would translate to millions of earth-years.”

 

The definition of a day isn’t important to anyone but us as God is unbound to any clock. The important point is the of all things point to one source ─ God.  To satisfy man’s desire to know about the origination of earth and life, the bible clearly outlines how the fossils are dated, from oldest to youngest:  vegetation─ birds and water creatures ─ land creatures and man.  It makes logical sense to create a suitable environment and food (vegetation) to sustain the living as was done on days one through three.  On the fourth day God created the night skies, before introducing fish and birds on the fifth day.  It wasn’t until the sixth and final day of creation that land creatures were introduced.  The last item brought forth on the final day was man.

 

The book of Genesis was probably written by Moses around 1440 BC.  He relied on revelation from God and possibly earlier oral or written records.  Aristotle took up the issue about 1,100 years later in the mid to late century of 300 B.C.  He believed life spontaneously arose from non-living matter. It wasn’t until 1861 that Louis Pasteur’s experiments showed that organisms such as bacteria and fungi do not appear of their own accord in sterile nutrient-rich media, and support for biogenesis and rudimentary cell theory began to grow.  To this day, man has never shown a single instance of life originating from non-living matter.  The debate rages on 3,458 years after Moses wrote of it via revelation from God.

 

¹Ivan R. King, “Globular Clusters,” Scientific American, Vol. 252, June 1985, pp. 79-88.