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by Steve Risner

We are hip deep in answering 10 questions Mr. Michael Roberts wanted to ask Biblical creationists. I stumbled upon this writing online and decided it would make a nice series to write about. We covered Mr. Roberts' intro here and his first question (Is the Gospel more about the Rock of Ages than the ages of rocks?) here. This week's question is sort of interesting because, by itself, it's a good question. But with his commentary on it, he quickly erodes the question into false statements and nonsense. Let's look at it:

Does the age of the earth – or its shape – matter to a Christian?

I don't think the age of the earth is on the forefront of every Christian's mind all the time. In fact, I'd wager that most don't pay that much attention to it. I don't think they care about the shape of the earth either as the Bible isn't perfectly clear on that, but it does give us some clues about it. Isaiah 40:22 tells us that “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth ...” The word translated circle here can easily be rendered sphere or, as the link here indicates, vault. I doubt a flat disc would be considered a vault. I'm not sure if Mr. Roberts is eluding to being a flat earther, but it makes no difference really. The earth's shape is mentioned in the Bible, but we're not given complete specifics on it. However, we are told very specifically when creation occurred. I fear his combining these two different things into a question are his way of equating the two, which really would show how disinterested he is in functioning as a follower if Christ. But that's another topic.

I mentioned that the poser of this question was going to make some false statements. This is seen in his remark that the Bible makes no indication of the earth's age. As stated above, it actually clearly states when creation occurred. I'll outline that below.

The Bible obviously doesn't give a date for creation. That would be impossible, actually. It does, however, give us exceptionally easy clues to follow so we can figure out when the creation and Flood took place. Here's how it works:

We start with Genesis 5 where we have genealogies recorded for us from Adam to Noah. This is not just a record of who was someone's father, but it also gives the number years in between. This is not like most other genealogies in the Bible which may be incomplete or without these age indicators. This makes them reliable for calculating time to within a year or so. Genesis 7:6 tells us how old Noah was when the Flood started. So, using the years indicated in Genesis 5 which ends with Noah and Genesis 7:6, we reasonably know that the Flood occurred 1656 years after Adam's creation (which was on day 6 of the creation week). This is reasonable but could be off by 10 years or so, depending on how the years actually fall. Genesis 11:10 begins another genealogy with ages assigned to its members from Shem, the son of Noah, to Abraham. Genesis 21:5 tells us how old Abraham was when Isaac was born. Genesis 25:26 tells us how hold Isaac was when Jacob (Israel) was born. Genesis 47:9 tells us that Jacob was 130 when he went to Egypt. Using only these numbers, we come up with Jacob moving to Egypt 2298 years after the creation of Adam.

Exodus 12:40 tells us that Israel was in Egypt for 430 years (confirming what God told Abraham about his descendants being in Egypt for 400 years). This puts the Exodus at 2728 years after the creation of Adam. Israel wandered the desert for 40 years, so they entered the Promise Land 2768 years after the creation of Adam.

Now we need to move on to 1 Kings 6:1, which states clearly that it was 480 years after the Exodus that Solomon began working on the Temple of God in Jerusalem. This means Solomon began work on the Temple 3208 years after the creation of Adam (that's over half the history of the world now). Based on the chronologies written for us in the Old Testament (which are too complex to list here), we know that the time from the Temple to the Exile was about 345 years. I say “about” because it is a little less solid a number, but it's certainly not thousands or millions of years off. It's probably within 100 years and likely much closer than that. This puts the Exile of the Israelites at about 3553 years from the creation of Adam. Here we can jump from the timing found in the Bible and put it in our terms. The Exile is generally considered to have occurred in 586 BC. That means the year 1 AD was 4150 since the creation of Adam, plus or minus no more than 50 years! Then we add 2018 years to get us to 2019 and we end up at 6168 years since the creation of Adam, who was made in the image of God on the 6th day of the creation week.

Does the Bible say when God created the heavens and the earth? Well, actually, quite clearly it does. It’s not possible to give us a date, but it does give us a timeline—a very clear timeline with years attached to give us a very discernible time frame for when God began creation. For Mr. Roberts to indicate the Bible is not clear on the matter only exposes his desire for the Bible to not be clear on the matter. It is, in fact, very clear and people have calculated the years since creation for many centuries. It's not a new idea by any means. In fact, it's a much more recent idea that the earth is billions of years old.

Mr. Roberts goes a step further, showing us his hand when he says, “to go against the proven results of science is simply folly.” This statement says so much about where his authority lies and what he truly thinks of the Bible. The “proven results” of science are ever changing—being modified as more data comes in. However, we know for a fact that if you use 3 different methods to date a rock or fossil, you'll get 3 different ages—sometimes wildly different. This is true if we use the same test multiple times on samples as well. The “proven results” of science are far from a sure thing. In fact, they're based on numerous assumptions and built on the presupposition that such information is true prior to it being verified. The circular reasoning here is astounding and for an intelligent person to not even question it is disappointing to say the least and also a little alarming.

My advice here: if you read the Bible and get a VERY clear message (as we do with the creation account and the timing of it) and you “read” nature and get a very different idea, you've read one of these two things incorrectly. We know this because you cannot have 2 conflicting ideas at the same time. However, one of these messages is from God and is captured in His perfect Word. The other is a fallen man's biased (there is no denying bias) interpretation of a fallen world that was ravaged by a global catastrophe that wrecked the entire surface of the planet (as is stated numerous times in the Bible). It would be wise to follow Martin Luther's statements here when he said, “When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. For you are to deal with Scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God Himself says what is written. But since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantonly to turn His Word in the direction you wish to go.”

In other words, if what you think you're seeing in nature doesn't line up with the clear teaching of Scripture, you'd be better off accepting what the Bible clearly states rather than trying to make it fit what you, a fallen human being viewing a cursed world, sees in nature.

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