Scriptural
Evidence for an Old Earth
Robert C.
Newman
Biblical
Theological Seminary
Introduction
In the area of origins the major point of
dispute among evangelical Christians today is probably the age of the earth. Is our planet only a few thousand years
old, as most people think the Bible teaches? Or is it some billions of years old, as most people think
science teaches?
In handling the available data relevant
to this problem, young‑earth creationists tend to construct their models
on origins from the Bible alone, and then interpret scientific data within this
framework. Theistic evolutionists
tend to construct their models from science alone, and then interpret the
Biblical data within this framework.
As an old‑earth creationist, I suggest we should construct our
models using both sets of data taken together. Ockham's razor should not be applied to choose the simplest
model when only one of these sources has been used as the data base.
Special & General Revelation
As a Bible believer, my reason for this
suggestion involves a distinction made in Scripture between two kinds of
revelation, traditionally called special revelation and general revelation.
Special revelation is God's disclosure to
mankind of Himself, His world, His plans for mankind, etc., by means of direct
(or supernatural), usually verbal, information. This information was
conveyed to His prophets and subsequently
written down in the Bible (see, e.g., Deut 18:14‑22; Ps 19:7‑11; Ps
119; 2 Tim 3:14‑17).
Deut 18:14-22 (NIV) The nations you will dispossess
listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD
your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The LORD your God will raise up for
you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. 16
For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the
assembly when you said, "Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor
see this great fire anymore, or we will die." 17 The LORD said to me:
"What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you
from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell
them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that
the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 But a
prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to
say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to
death." 21 You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message
has not been spoken by the LORD?" 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the
name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD
has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of
him.
Psalm 19:7-11 (NIV) The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the
simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The
commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 9 The fear of the
LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and
altogether righteous. 10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. 11 By them is your
servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
2Tim 3:14-17 (NIV) But as for you, continue in what you
have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you
learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which
are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work.
General revelation, on the other hand, is
God's disclosure to mankind of Himself, His world and the nature of mankind
itself by means of indirect (i.e., providential, or nonsupernatural), non‑verbal
information. This information is
conveyed to all mankind externally through the universe and internally through human
conscience (e.g., Ps 19:1‑6; Eccl; Rom 1:18‑2:16).
Psalm 19:1-6 (NIV) The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth
speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or
language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the
earth,
their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he
has pitched a tent for the sun, 5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from
his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. 6 It rises at one
end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from
its heat.
Rom 1:18-20 (NIV) The wrath of God is being revealed from
heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth
by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them,
because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world
God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been
clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without
excuse.
Questions regarding origins involve
information from both general and special revelation. Therefore both should be used together in constructing
accurate models of what happened.
Harmonization of Revelation
How are both of these to be used in
constructing such models? An
example of harmonization within special revelation from Biblical interpretation
may help. I count myself among
those who
accept the Bible as an accurate
revelation from the God who cannot lie.
Therefore, when I see apparently divergent accounts in the Bible of what
seems to be the same incident, I proceed as
follows. First of all I consider whether the accounts do indeed record
the same event. If I am satisfied
after investigation that the accounts do refer to the same incident, I will
then interpret the accounts in such a way as to harmonize with one another, yet
trying not to ignore or twist what either account says.
For instance, accounts of Jesus casting
out demons into a herd of swine are recorded in Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8.
In each Gospel this incident occurs after Jesus stills a storm. All record that it took place E of the
Sea of Galilee; that the demon‑possessed had lived in tombs; that the
demons recognize Jesus as Son of God; that they seek permission to enter the swine;
that the swine all drown; that the herdsmen flee to the city; and that the
people beg Jesus to leave the area.
It is therefore most likely that the same incident is in view.
This being so, I attempt to harmonize the
apparent discrepancies regarding number of demoniacs (2 in Matthew, 1 in Mark
and Luke) and the place (Gedara, Gerasa). In this case, it is suggested that there were actually two
demoniacs, but that one was probably in a less serious condition than the other
(perhaps fewer demons?) or took less part in the dialog. Therefore Mark and Luke, in
constructing a condensed account, eliminated reference to him. The location I take to be on the E
shore of the Sea, slightly N of the middle, at a geographically suitable site
known today as Kursi. The term "Gerasa" is probably intended to
represent this place rather than the distant Decapolis city of that name 40 mi
SE. The reference to Gedara, about 10 mi away, may indicate that Kursi was in
Gedara's city territories. Or
perhaps this was the nearest town Mark and Luke thought their Gentile readers
would be familiar with.
With regard to the creation account of
Genesis one and scientific theory regarding the origin of the earth, I find a similar
situation. In my book Genesis
One & The Origin of the Earth (IVP,
1977; 2nd ed., IBRI, 2007), I point out a strong correlation that
exists between the events of Genesis one and the scientific sequence for the
origin of the earth, as follows:
Biblical Material
Scientific
Theory
In beginning God created A
beginning, the big bang?
Earth without form, void Earth
amorphous, tenuous nebula
Darkness on face of deep After
some contraction, cloud becomes dark within
Spirit of God moves on (Providential
oversight with
face
of waters
occasional
intervention)
Let there be light
Further
contraction causes cloud to glow
Light divided from darkness Planetary
material thrust outside glowing cloud
Light = day, darkness = night Planet
condenses from planetesimals; sun,
rotation
give day/night sequence
Waters burst forth from
Earth
is heated within by pressure, radioactivity,
womb
of earth (Job 38); driving
out water & gases to produce atmosphere
firmament
appears
&
oceans
Division of waters above Presence
of atmosphere allows both surface & atm. water
&
below firmament
Gathering of water, dry
Continental
material develops
land
appears
from
sub‑oceanic by vulcanism & erosion
Earth brings forth vegetation Land
vegetation appears
Lights appear in sky to
Photosynthesis
by vegetation replaces carbon dioxide with
mark
off days, seasons; oxygen,
clearing atmosphere so sun, moon, stars
sun
to dominate day; visible;
also prepares atmosphere for animals, man
moon
to dominate night
Such a correlation leads me to believe
the two accounts are talking about the same event; hence I seek to harmonize
apparent discrepancies. The most
serious of these would be how long ago
these things occurred and how long they
took to happen.
In this paper I am not considering the
scientific evidence for an old earth and a long period of creative
activity. Some helpful works
treating this subject are: Daniel Wonderly, GodŐs Time Records in Ancient
Sediments (Crystal
Press, 1977); Davis Young, Christianity & the Age of the Earth (Zondervan, 1982); and Alan Hayward, Creation
& Evolution (SPCK,
1985).
Scriptural Evidence for an Old Earth
Does the Bible really teach that the
earth is only a few thousand years old and only a few days older than
mankind? This is the prima
facie view, but it seems
to overlook certain Biblical evidence that points in another direction.
First of all, there are indicators in
Scripture that the period from Jesus' ascension to His second coming is very
short on a time-scale that takes all of history into account. For instance, the book of Revelation
speaks of His return as "soon" (Rev 1:1; 2:16; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20).
The apostles Peter (Acts 2:17), Paul (2 Tim 3:1) and Jude (18, ref to 2 Pet
3:3) consider themselves to be already in the "last days" or
"last time." John even
says we are in "the last hour" (1 John 2:18), though it has now been nearly
two thousand years since he penned these words. If we suppose the figure involved in John's words views
human history as a day, then we are carried back far beyond Ussher's 4004 BC to
something like 20,000 BC. If we view his reference to the "last
hour" as part of a year, we increase
this period to hundreds of thousands of years. On such time scales, the second coming of Christ will indeed
be soon, even if it should still be several
thousand years in the future (which I
doubt).
Something of the same sort appears in
references to God's view of time.
He sees a thousand years as a day (Ps 90:4; 2 Pet 3:8) or even as a
watch in the night (Ps 90:4). Suppose we ask,
"Against what background of a larger
unit of time we are to view these figures?" Some will claim they are to be viewed against a week (so one
traditional view, with human history lasting only seven thousand years). But the context of Ps 90 is not
primarily the creation week (though creation is mentioned) but the human lifespan
since the fall, never more than a thousand years, and by Moses' times reduced
to 70 or 80 years. If we use this
context, then we could say that God's "lifespan" since creation or
the fall is seventy or eighty years of thousand‑year days, i.e., 20
or 30 million years. If we use the watch in the night as the
unit for a thousand years (3 per night, or 6 in 24 hours), this increases the
span by a factor of six, to about 100 million years. If we take God's "lifespan" as patriarchal (a
thousand such years), then the time back to creation would scale up to half a
billion to several billion years, depending on whether the unit representing a
thousand of our years is a day or a watch.
Something similar is obtained if we
consider Ps 102:25‑27, where the decay of heaven and earth is compared to
the wearing out of a garment.
[Note that the Bible does not consider the
heavens a permanent, changeless realm,
though this idea came into medieval Christian theology via Greek thought.] The rate at which a garment wears out
will vary depending on its quality and
the type of use it receives, but it is
not unreasonable to think of a typical garment lasting some years. Since it is God who is "wearing"
and changing this garment, we use His time scales,
getting hundreds of thousands to millions
of years, not a few thousand.
The point here is not that we can
calculate the time of creation from these figures. Rather, they warn us not to be so sure that the Bible
requires a young earth. And they
hint that the Bible is compatible or harmonizable with an old earth.
There are other such hints. The last plague of Revelation is a great
earthquake. "No earthquake
like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the
quake" (Rev 16:18).
Why not "since the earth was
created"? Perhaps because
there were worse earthquakes earlier in geologic history, before man was
created.
Scriptural Evidence for a Long
Creative Period
Did the events of creation occupy only
one week as we humans measure them?
This is certainly the traditional view of the matter, but again there
are hints that point in a different direction.
The most obvious of these hints involves
the enormous activity that must have taken place on the sixth day according to
the traditional scheme. This
scheme assigns all activities mentioned
between day n and day n +1 to the latter of these two days. Thus the events of day six are
described in Gen 1:24‑31, between the reference to day five in Gen 1:23
and the reference to day six in 1:31.
From Genesis one we learn that both the
land animals and mankind (male and female) were created on this day. Turning to the more detailed
description of creation in Genesis chapter two,
we see that the events of this day would
involve the following: (1) God created the land animals; (2) God created man;
(3) God put man in a garden which He had grown for him, with instructions to
take care of it; (4) God brings before man all the birds and land animals in
order for Adam to name them; (5) Adam names them all, finding no helper
suitable for himself; (6) God puts Adam to sleep; (7) God makes Eve from Adam's
side; (8) Adam awakes, sees Eve, and says, "At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh!"
Now many of these things were done by God
and therefore might occupy Him for as much or little time as He pleased, though
the use of the term "caused to grow" (Gen 2:9) suggests some longer period
of time. But Adam, being neither
omnipotent nor omniscient, needed considerable time to name the animals, particularly
in view of the Biblical idea that names are not arbitrary, but tell something
about the one named. Thus Adam would
presumably not just rattle off a series of nonsense syllables, but would observe
each kind of animal to choose an appropriate descriptive name. It is hardly likely that the orginal
created kinds were so few that Adam could study and name them in just one day.
In addition, we get the impression, both
from God's own remark that it is not good for man to live alone, and from
Adam's "at last!" (the
literal force of the Hebrew word happa`am in 2:23),
that Adam had had sufficient time to
become lonely between his own creation and that of Eve. [For a more detailed
treatment of this argument, see R. John Snow, "How Long is the Sixth
Day?" an appendix in my book Genesis One & The Origin of the Earth.] All this indicates that the events of
1:24‑31 took longer than one day, so that either the days of creation are
longer than regular earthdays or the days do not follow one another
consecutively. [This latter
alternative is my own personal preference here.]
In addition, the Bible intimates that the
seventh day either has not yet occurred or is still in progress, neither of
which is consistent with the idea that the days of creation were earthdays
immediately following one after the
other. In Hebrews chapters three
and four, we are told that at the time of David and in the first century AD
(and presumably, still today) it was possible to
enter into God's rest, which is
identified in Heb 4:4 as the rest of Gen 2:2. So apparently the seventh day is
either still going on or hasn't yet started.
Conclusion
It seems to me that the Bible provides
internal hints that the creation account is not to be read simply as narrating
a recent event occurring some few thousand years ago which lasted no more
than a week of our time. Instead, using the same procedures of harmonization
between general revelation and special revelation that evangelicals commonly
use within special revelation, we
obtain an old‑earth view in which
God intervened at various points to prepare our earth over a span of time
consistent with the generally accepted findings of modern science. In fact, a
stronger correlation between Genesis and
science is obtained by this procedure than is the case with the interpretations
of either young‑earth creationism or theistic evolution.
[Since this paper was prepared some time
in the 1980s, David Snoke has prepared an excellent book, A Biblical Case
for an Old Earth (Baker,
2006), which contains a number of other congent arguments for an old earth.]