The creation as recorded in Genesis - when did it all begin? Read = Genesis 1:1. The Bible doesn't say when the beginning was but here are some ideas.
A) The creation began around 13.7 billion years ago, so light has only been able to travel that long. No matter which direction we look into outer space, from Earth, we can't see further then 13.7 billion light years. There are stars further then 13.7 billion light years from us but we can't see them because their light hasn't had time to reach us yet. Here are links to nasa's wmap satellite and images taken by it of the universe, when the universe was only 380,000 years old. There are stars about 13.7 billion years old. = Old universe creationists.
B) The creation began less than 180 million years ago. = Some planetary catastrophist creationists.
C) The creation began around 20 thousand years ago. = Young universe creationists.
D) The creation began 6 thousand years ago. = Young universe creationists.
All four groups of creationists believe God took Adam's rib and made Eve.
Who created everything? God!
What is God? Spirit. John 4:24. God is NOT physical. Luke 24:39. Colossians 1:15. (Science can only detect what the instruments of science can detect.) How long has God existed? Forever! Micah 5:2. Isaiah 44:6. Hebrews 9:14. Did God create the Angels also? Yes! Colossians 1:16. John 1:3.
What did God create everything out of?
Many people believe God created the visible universe out of nothing. They might be right. However, Hebrews 11:3 tells us God didn't make the things we can see out of that which is visible. It's true that "nothing" is "invisible." But, God is also invisible! Colossians 1:15. Perhaps God made the visible and invisible items in the universe out of himself!
By the way, Copyrighted 1998-2015 by Wayne Mckellips. Last updated 12 April 2015. Please copy and share but don't sell. You do not have permission to mirror this article or site on the Internet.
Read = Genesis 1:2. What was the earth empty of? Life!
Where was the Spirit of God? Over the face of the waters. Notice,God seems to have given us the Genesis creation account from the viewpoint of someone on our planet's surface.
Read Genesis 1:3,5. Where did the light come from?
A) God himself. Revelation 22:5.
B) Our sun, which may be a second, or a third generation star, condensed more via gravity and began emitting light.
C) Our sun - which had been on fully - but whose light was unable to reach the earth's surface because a very thick and perhaps dark atmosphere completely surrounded the earth. So God simply used physical laws to make the atmosphere of the earth thinner or more transparent so the light from the sun could reach the earth's surface.
D) Our sun - via a combination of the preceding ideas.
How much light reached the earth's surface? Probably enough light so you could see your hand in front of your face but not enough so you could look up and actually see the source of the light. That is, the Sun, moon, and stars.
Read = Genesis 1:6-8. Apparently, the earth's surface was covered by liquid water, with a thick fog above the liquid water, with clouds above the fog. In our terms we might say God caused the fog to go away.
In "Report on the Firmament" Douglas Cox presents an entirely different viewpoint on this passage. He believes "raquiya" (Strong's # 7549) refers to the earth's crust, not the firmament or atmosphere. Note: Sometimes I refer to articles I don't agree with entirely. However, I think Douglas Cox's well written and researched report is worth looking into. "The New Strong's Complete Dictionary of Bible Words" notes that "raquiya" (Strong's # 7549 is from "raqa" (Strong's # 7554) to pound, not the sky, but the earth. Waters or rivers do flow under the earth's crust in many places. Perhaps "raquiya" is better translated "earth's crust" instead of atmosphere. "Daniel's 2,300 Days" and "The 2,300 Days of Daniel" contain more information on Douglas Cox's theory.
How long were the "days" in the Genesis creation account?
A) Many people feel very strongly that the days were approximately 12 or 24 hours long.
B) Others believe just as strongly that the days were of varying lengths. Day one may have lasted for over 13 billion years. While day six may have only lasted for a few days, months, or years. Also - the overlapping day age view holds that some of the the preceeding days may have extended into say the sixth day. Reasons they give for believing the creation days were periods of time are:
1) The Hebrew word "yom" translated day can also mean a varying period of time, an age, or an epoch.
2) The Hebrew word "eveb" translated evening and "boker" translated morning can also mean start and finish or beginning and ending.
3) Genesis 2:4,19, 2nd Peter 3:8, and Psalm 90:5b-6 are often cited to support this viewpoint.
4) In Hosea 6:2 days, which appears with the numbers two and three, seems to refer to a period of time involving years.
5) Some leaders in the early church felt the creation days were periods of time. Also, in the 1850's many leading Christian geologists believed the earth was eons old, and Noah's flood waters covered the whole "erets" land or country, but not the whole earth.
6) Psalm 19:1-2 tells us the heavens and the skies constantly tell everyone about God and his handiwork. Evidently, God designed them so they would tell us the truth about Him and his creation. That is, the scientific evidence seems to support the idea that the creation days were long periods of time.
Why stars, Carbon-14, coal, oil, tar pits, and other dating methods point to an old universe, old earth, old life viewpoint.
Scientists measure the distance to stars in a variety of ways. For close stars they can use trigonometric parallax. They can measure the distance to nearby galaxies by studing special kinds of bright stars called Cepheids and even brighter ones called supernovas, all whose brightness oscillates. The longer the stars take to oscillate, the brighter they are, or would be if they weren't so far away.
However, to accurately measure galaxies that are billions of light years distant from earth, scientists like to use "gravitational lensing." They can use gravitational lensing when the light from a super far away galaxy bends around both sides of a closer galaxy in order to reach the earth. This will normally result in the light from one side reaching the earth slightly ahead of or behind of the light that traveled on the other side of the intervening galaxy. Scientists can then use this difference in arrival time together with a couple of other measurements to fairly accurately calculate the distance to the super far away galaxy. You can see a galaxy whose light took 13 billion years to reach the earth as well as read and see how gravitational lensing helped determine how distant it was.
Coal, oil, oil shales, limestone, etc, contain carbon from once living plants and animals. How much carbon do these deposits contain? They contain tens of thousands of times more carbon than currently exists in all life forms on earth today. It seems clear that these deposits rich in carbon, were deposited over eons of time.
Is it possible all the coal in the United States of America (USA) was produced in one year, as the result of Noah's flood? According to "The United States Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States:" (117th Edition.) Washington D.C. 1997, pages 708-709, in 1980 there were 830 million short tons of coal mined in the USA. If one estimates that same tonnage of coal was mined each year from 1980 to 1984 that would mean 4,150 million tons of coal were mined in those years. Between 1985 and 1991 there were 6,647 million short tons of coal mined in the USA. Moreover, between 1960 and 1979 there were approximately 167.5 quadrillion Btu's of coal mined in the USA. This was deduced from figures in "The World Almanac and Book of Facts" Copyright 1997 by K-lll Reference Corporation page 201. Converting Btu's to short tons by using the information on page 581 of the above United States Bureau of the Census book, we find that between 1960 and 1979 approximately 5,692 million short tons of coal were mined in the USA. This means between 1960 and 1991 around 16,489 million short tons of coal were mined in the USA. However, coal actually began to be mined in earnest in this country around 1830. Anyways, the USA contains slightly less than 3.7 million square miles. The square root of 3.7 million is approximately 1,923.5 miles. Multipling 1,923.5 miles by 5,280 feet, and squaring that, we find the USA has around 1.03e+14 square feet of land. This means between 1960-1991 there were .32 pounds of coal mined for every square foot of land in the USA. Moreover, the coal reserves in the USA, at the start of 1992 were approximately 476 billion short tons. Adding 476 billion tons to 16 billion tons we get 492 billion tons. Multipling that by 2000 pounds we find 9.84e+14 pounds of coal used to exist in the USA. Now, let's divide that by the number of square feet in the USA. This shows us in 1960 there were more than 9.5 pounds of coal for every square foot of land in the USA. Clearly, all the coal in the USA was not produced in one year, as the result of Noah's flood. Any idea how many feet of biomass it takes to make one pound of coal? Remember the USA also has a lot of oil, oil shales, gas, limestone, and animals.
Many plants and animals but no dinosaurs have been found in the La Brea tar pits near Los Angeles, California . It is estimated these tar pits trapped plants and animals between 40,000 to 8,000 years ago. Over 1,000 saber-toothed cats, 3,000 dire wolves, mammoths, mastodons, lions, sloths, horses, bison, moles, foxes, bears, camels, llamas, and even one human who perished about 7,000 B.C., have been taken out of the La Brea tar pits. However, no dinosaur bones have been found in these pits. Why? Probably because there were no dinosaurs in California at this time. I believe the vast majority of dinosaurs were already extinct.
Dr. Roger C. Wiens explains from a Christian perspective why Christians can trust radiometic dating. Here is more information about coal and how it is formed. This is an interesting article on polystrate fossils. Read about the enormous amount of limestone that was formed in Kansas when the land was covered by seas many years ago. Visit the limestone and shale filled Canadian Rockies. They were pushed up from the sea millions of years ago. Glenn Morton reveals the entire geologic column is found in proper order at 24 different locations. Glenn, a Bible believing Christian, examines this evidence, and shows Noah's flood covered the whole "erets," land or country, but not the whole earth.
Here are answers to many of the evidences that are suppose to support the Young Earth position. There are answers to things like the amount of dust on the moon, the supposedly shrinking sun, the earth's magnetic field, questions about radioactive decay rates, atmospheric helium, etc. You can read Glenn Morton's "Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look." You can find several more answers to Young Earth arguments from the Talk Origins archive index.
God could have completed the creation in 6 seconds if he had wanted to. So the question is not what God can or cannot do but the question is what did He actually do. Until we know for sure, let's not discount any idea that is scriptural.
Read about the severe crisis of belief a former Young Earth Christian (YEC) experienced when the tremendous evidence for the antiquity of the earth finally convinced him the YEC position was wrong. He argues that we should speak out, and remove this and other stumbling blocks from the paths of all Christians, especially young Christians, lest they fall and lose their faith.
Read = Genesis 1:9. God caused land masses. Whole continents rose above the waters. Dry land appeared.
Read = Genesis 1:11,13. God had already provided the light for plants. So now he made vegetation to grow. Notice that God did not list all the thousands of different types of plants he made.
Read = Genesis 1:14-16,19. Some people believe that up to this point the Sun, moon, and stars didn't exist. They believe this was when God made the Sun, moon, and stars. That could be.
However, Gleason Archer a Hebrew scholar in his book, "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties" points out that in verse 16 the Hebrew verb wayya'as translated made can be accurately translated either "made" or "had made" depending on the context. A number of people believe God "had made" the Sun, moon, and stars back in verse one but they didn't become visible from the surface of the earth until the 4th day. So on the fourth day, God made the atmosphere more transparent. God made the sun, moon, and stars appear.
Read = Genesis 1:21,23. At this time God created great sea creatures, whales and fish, etc. He also created birds. Perhaps this was also when God made dinosaurs. Many people believe dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago. Read about the asteroid that may have caused the extinction of large dinosaurs. See evidence of the impact an asteroid left in Mexico 65 million years ago. However, there is evidence that at least one dinosaur coexisted with people. Job 40:15-19.
I read the account of a scientist who died and came back. While on the other side he asked God about the beginnings of the universe. According to the account, God showed him the explosive beginnings of universe after universe after universe as God allowed him to see backwards through eons of time. I believe it is highly likely that this is not the first universe in time that God has created. I believe God has probably created many, many universes through the eons of time. I think the universe we live in is just the latest universe God has created.
Hugh Ross PhD does a great job of covering all of Genesis one in his youtube video "Latest Scientific Evidence for God's Existence." I found his video extremely informative.
Back to the start of "Reasons You Can Trust The Bible" at www.trustbible.com