As it pertains to both science and religion do "years" in the Bible equal the same as the calendar years we currently follow?
Asked by
pleiades (
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February 25th, 2014
I learned briefly about the worlds calendar set up in art history 2. But we only barely touched on the subject.
When people argue about the age of the Earth I tend to wonder if there is some sort of possible mix up within the bible in explaining the dates.
You know, it’s widely thought that Earth is about 4.6 billion years old but the Bible teaches the Earth is around what? Several thousand years old only?
Also this zircon is dated back to 4.4 billion years old with two methods of testing
Have a gander
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5 Answers
They mean whatever believers want them to mean.
See young earth creationists vs “1 day is like a thousand years” creationists.
@ragingloli statement is correct even if it is a bit bare bones way of expressing it.
I’ll flesh it out a bit for you.
For some peculiar reason YECs (Young Earth Creationists) just can’t seem to grasp the meaning of the word “metaphor”.
I have no idea why you state that the Bible teaches a young earth (6–10 thousand years). Tha Bible does nothing of the sort.
That comes from man-made interpretations or assumptions of various translators or commentators.
If someone is telling you that the Bible “teaches” YEC, the only thing they have to offer usually is the six “days” of creation.
Language studies in both Hebrew and Greek have multiple usages of various words for describing “days” and time in general which make it clear that a young earth theory is only feasible by an absolute LITERAL use of the ENGLISH language. But the Bible wasn’t written in English, now was it?
If one understands the use of metaphor, its very clear that an “old Earth” scenario makes a whole lot more sense. And it does not contradict science. And most intelligent Theists realize that there is no conflict with scientific discoveries indicating millions and billions of years rather than the under 10,000 years proposed by the YECs.
If you want one persons outline of the reasons for why an old earth scenario is the most tenable, this link gives a pretty decent overview.
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http://godandscience.org/youngearth/longdays.html
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If those first 6 days each had just one sunrise and one sunset and the days collectively took up billions of years, that makes for long stretches of light and dark. That certainly contradicts science, or are the terms morning and evening also metaphors? Is the term metaphor to be used for any Biblical text that contradicts what we know?
I have heard what I think is junk science, about how the days were counted differently in the biblical days, which is why it reports the characters as living for 900 or so years. I don’t remember their rationale for that, but then I wasn’t paying attention, as I think the bible is a work of fiction, anyway.
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