What evidence?

Someone on an old post said something about there not being any verses in the Bible that specifically say the earth/universe is young — “young” meaning on the order of 10,000 years or less — much less than the Big Bang or the chance arising of life from nonliving materials would allow. [Leaving aside the history of Genesis with a pretty strict chronology that allows one to add up dates of each man being X years old when he fathered a particular son, working your way back to Adam who was created on day 6 of the existence of the universe, I guess.] There isn’t a verse which says, “And in the 4th year of the reign of David, king of Israel, the earth turned 2035 years old,” or anything like it. But I contend it’s not necessary, given the history — much like one could say, “In the year 1776, the American colonies declared their independence from Britain,” without reiterating 230 years later that the country is 230 years old. Past history suffices. He also said that “not all thinking Christians/Jews from time immemorial have subscribed to the young earth-young universe model.”

So I asked him, but have not yet received an answer (he may just be ignoring me, although he may ultimately answer), “What Biblical evidence do you have that the universe is old? Which Christian or Jew prior to, say, the 1800s believed that the earth/universe was old?”

Yes, I know there are verses that talk about the earth being old, but it depends on perspective. Compared to humans which live about 70 years, 1000 years would definitely qualify as “old.” But, I’m just curious if there are any verses which teach that the universe is hundreds of thousands or even millions or billions of years old. I’m not talking about fitting things in sideways, or twisting passages — like the “gap theory” which says there’s a gap of several millions of years between Gen. 1:1 & Gen. 1:2 — I’m talking about verses which teach it, not those that might possibly could maybe somehow be construed to allow for millions of years.

Also, if anybody knows any Bible-believing Christian or Jew prior to the 1800s (the century when long-age philosophy first became popular in modern times) who believed in an old universe/earth, please tell me his name or link somewhere to it.

Just curious. And here is a list of articles that are available that demonstrate my position.

“Show Me God” by Fred Heeren, a review

I just finished reading Show Me God and must say that I’m a little disappointed in it. As a Bible-believing Christian, I assumed that this book confirmed the Bible. And it does….except for the literal Creation story in Genesis. If you don’t believe the Bible is literal and accurate, then you won’t have a problem with this book.

First, the good parts–Heeren shows through interviews and quotes and scientific deduction/logic that the Big Bang is the only theory that fits what science currently knows or believes; and that eminent scientists such as Albert Einstein have no possible explanation for the universe as it exists today, except for a Creator. Simplistically, according to their calculations, the universe cannot possibly have always existed, so it must have come about somehow, and matter cannot come from nothing. Since it cannot come from nothing, it must have come from someone or something outside of this universe. In that, it does not necessarily confirm the God of the Bible, but he does point out that no other ancient deity was presumed to have created everything; but that all other religions show the gods coming out of the natural world. Further, it shows that proceeding from the Big Bang theory, there must have been exceedingly precise adjustments in order for the universe to exist as it does (something like 1 to the 10 with 40,000 zeros behind it). It is written in “accessible” language with a minimum of jargon, so the average person should be able to understand it. However, it does rather boggle the mind, simply because of the necessary technical discussion of the world of astro-physics. If a person believes that the Big Bang theory precludes a creator, then this book shows that idea to be inaccurate.

Now, what I had against the book. Perhaps it was that it’s been so long since I’ve been in high school and college, but there seemed to be some loopholes in the theory and presumptions that the Big Bang is built on. I was reminded many times while reading this book that prior to the days of Galileo and Newton, there were pretty plausible theories on how planets moved, and the earth was the center of the universe; and only after the laws of planetary motion and gravity were discovered were these old theories shown to be completely false. I can understand that so far the calculations line up with the Big Bang theory; but there are some unanswered questions that are not so far answerable, and that makes me think that there are other better theories out there yet to be discovered.

This book demotes the Genesis account to myth or fabrication. Those aren’t the words of the author!–he affirms the accuracy of the Bible, and speaks very well of the truth of the Creator-God of the Bible, and Jesus, and those things. However, he accepts the Big Bang theory as truth, and thereby demotes the first chapter of Genesis. He says that the Big Bang theory confirms the creation account, but never explains how this theory which has the stars forming from plasma or a cosmic dust cloud hundreds of billions of years ago jives with the Genesis account which says that God created the stars on the 4th day. Further, the author declares that the earth is millions of years old, and ascribes to “punctuated equilibrium” as his method of believing that God created the animals–the “six days” aren’t literal days, but eons of time. My biggest problem with that theory is that in order for the fossil record to exist for millions of years, these animals must have lived and died prior to man arriving on the scene and sinning; yet the Bible is extraordinarily clear that death came about as a result of man’s sin, so I can’t quite understand how millions of animals lived and died for millions of years without sin being the cause of it. I also reject the evolutionists’ interpretation of the fossil record, and a good book on that is The Genesis Flood, which very handily exposes the logical and scientific fallacies of geologists as they assume evolution to be true and then bend the facts to support that conclusion.

Heeren’s main logical argument for a Christian to believe the Big Bang theory instead of the Bible (in addition to believing scientific theories to be completely accurate) seems to be the following argument: As we look deeper and deeper into space, we can see light coming from stars that are billions of years away; therefore, these stars must be billions of years old. To see a supernova explode that must have happened millions or billions of years ago, when the universe is only thousands of years old, would make God be deceptive, since that event did not actually happen–He just made it appear to be so. And the only reason for that appearance would be to make us believe that the universe is millions or billions of years old when it actually is not. The alternative is that the Genesis account is lying, and that means that God definitely would be a liar to tell man through His inspired Word that He created the universe in 6 days, when He actually accomplished it over the course of billions of years. Or else, the Genesis account is inaccurate; and then that puts the accuracy of the whole Bible into question. Now, which scenario makes God to be the bigger liar? Did it make God to be a liar to have created humans as adults? They were only one day old, but had the appearance of being years old. Was that deceptive? Or is man perhaps willingly deceiving himself when he looks through a telescope and builds theories upon suppositions on theories?