I as a 30 year Christian try to think outside the box of normality. Is the universe 6000 years old? Is the universe 13.7 billion years old? Do these two questions clash or is there a translation barrier !! This is how I think. I try to bring both poles of thought towards each other starting with the facts. We know the universe has to be over 6000 years old because we see light from stars that are millions of light years away, so we would have to be naive to think the universe is 6000 years old.
Onward to what Genesis says about creation, does it really say the universe or earth is 6000 years old? I don’t think it does, I think its a mistranslation of a primitive language that had only around 4000 words at the time Genesis was written, whereas the English language has 500,000 words. So many of the Hebrew words were used in multiple ways. For instance the original meaning of the Hebrew word YOWM (Day) means “to be hot” and there are at least 50 other meanings listed in strong’s concordance’s lexicon of Hebrew words. A year, a month, a period of time, chronicles, evening and morning (Beginning and end), age, perpetually, long, some time, whole, X required season, continually etc. etc., well you get the point.
YOWM or “To be hot”, what would this mean and why was it used since God is supposed to have given Moses the first five books of the Torah. Well when the universe was spoken into existence by God, it took 400 million years for the first stars to form. So the first Day (to be hot) was the Evening (Darkness, 400 million years of darkness) and the Morning ( The stars started forming) and the first day was a “period of time” and in my opinion it lasted from 13.7 Billion BC until 4.5 Billion BC (9.2 Billion years) when the Sun & Earth were formed. So lets take a second and look at the Bible and the WMAP research and see if this matches.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Now look below at the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) which launched in 2001 and won many awards, they mapped the whole universe out. Below as we see, you had Quantum Fluctuations which I contend is God, then you had Inflation, followed by Afterglow, followed by 400 MILLION YEARS of Darkness !! Just like the bible says in verse 2, and there was Darkness on the Face of the Deep !! Gods word is perfect, it is us who are confused. DARK AGES Mapped out by the WMAP, followed by what? The first stars forming at the 400 million year mark. Verse three says what? and God said “Let there be light” God is right again. We are looking at Creation from Gods POV, no man was there of course and with God he is not subject to time, he created time for us via this universe, but He is eternal and thus was never created. Remember the verse, a thousand years is like a day and a day like unto a thousand years unto God. In other words God lives in the past, present and future all at the same time.
Link to WMAP MAP.......
https://www.google.com/search?q=wma...UICigB&biw=1366&bih=662#imgrc=exoZXVH4Cqw4EM:
So we had the Big Bang, followed by Inflation, followed by Cosmic Microwave background where after 375,000 years loose electrons cool enough to combine with protons. The Universe becomes Transparent to Light. The Microwave background begins to shine. Then the dark ages/clouds of dark hydrogen gas cool and coalesce.
The first stars appear….Gas Clouds collapse, the fusion of Stars begin, the first of which appears at about 400 million years after the big bang. So, when the bible says Darkness was on the face of the deep, God knew exactly what was happening in the very beginning !! The more we look for the answers, the more that science and the bible will converge, if both sides with differing viewpoints would only take their blinders off.
The second day (period of time) of course would be from the Earth & the Suns formation until the grasses and trees came forth on the Third day (period of time) then on the Fourth day it seems God Set the Seasons or placed the Moon in its perfect orbit where our seasons are not strange, but orderly, I know the moon and earth is supposed to have collided. Anyway, that set the seasons, times, years etc. etc. Mind you, all of these ideas are rudimentary observations. A theory of how the things God says in His Holy Word and Science can both be factual. They are not meant to imply everything went down just so and in like manner, the dates of course are guesstimates, I wasn’t there.
On the Fifth day God created the Sea animals/birds and what not, were the Dinos created here or with the land animals? The fifth day lasted 300 million to 400 million years or so. On the Sixth Day around 300–350 Million BC God created the Land Animals. During this period of time the Dinosaurs became extinct about 70 Million years ago. Then during this “TIME PERIOD” (6TH DAY) God decided to create man 6000 or so years ago. Some might protest that men have been around much longer, but I offer this up, where is the data? Men are record keepers and we don’t have proof of men going back further. Now as per “MEN” being observed by scientists to have been around X Number of years, I never said Animal like men weren’t around, I stated Human Beings were created 6000 years ago, when God placed His spirit in us and thus we are immortal in that our souls can not die. We were at that point in time “Created in Gods Image”. The other fossils and bones mean nothing, because Scientists have no way of testing for God imparting His spirit into mankind and creating “Human Beings” with powerful intellects.
On the Seventh Day God rested, which only means He ceased Creating the Heavens/Earth/Mankind/Animals. So when we see stars and galaxies created today, it was ordered forth 13.7 Billion years ago. So its not necessarily either or. We need to start looking at things with an open mind, be we an atheist or a Christian.
P.S. Just something to think about. Einstein’s theory of relativity is in the very first verse of the bible, relatively speaking…LOL.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning (TIME) God created the heaven(SPACE) and the earth(MATTER).
