Genesis 1:31 comments: dating creation

1:31 ¶  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The initial act of creation took six physical, literal days. The Bible doesn’t specifically say when this happened. This is disturbing because it could have. For example, the beginning of the building of Solomon’s temple is pinned to the Exodus from Egypt as shown in;

1Kings 6:1  And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.

But, God did not see fit to set the creation down in a specific statement of a date although many, including myself, believe that it probably did not take place much earlier than 6,000 years ago as a general reading of who was father to whom can show. This goes against all modern dating techniques and the theories of both atheistic evolutionists and intelligent design advocates. They all believe in long ages of millions and billions of years although some of the latter believe in a God or gods while some of the former believe in panspermia from a stellar cloud or perhaps the seeding of earth by an alien super-civilization.

In any event, modern dating methods are either pinned to events in history whose date we think we know when calendars in the past have been as much cultural and religious constructs as they have ever been an accurate method of dating. So, some dating methods are pinned to historical events which are pinned to other historical events and processes whose dating accuracy is, at best, uncertain. Other dating methods are pinned to things that are subject to transport contamination where the materials being measured may have been altered by some other material. Other dating methods are pinned to events that are affected by climate conditions. Most of them are dependent upon things happening in the distant past, which is not observable, as they are in the present, of which the Bible denies this is the case. The conditions of creation were vastly different than they are now.

As an example, dinosaur bones have typically been dated by the strata of earth they are found in and the bones not carbon-dated themselves. Recently, not only have red blood cells been found in supposed 60 million years old bones, which is an improbability at best, but actual carbon-dating of dinosaur bones have declared them to be no more than a few tens of thousands of years old rather than tens of millions.

My point is, to the young Christian who is uncertain, that there is not enough evidence as the fossil record is incomplete and inconsistent and the methods and procedures of dating are uncertain and questionable that we should not spend any time doubting God’s word, the musings of theoretical scientists aside. Long ages of earth fit rather easily into pagan Hindu mythology just as the Big Bang Theory’s Singularity is a linear descendant of the Kabbala’s mustard seed or the Hindu Golden Egg and modern atheistic evolution is merely a continuance of ancient Greek philosophers guessing about man moving from puddle to paradise rather than from God’s creation to Satan’s helpless stooge.

The conclusion is that God’s creation took six days to complete and it was good. Enough said, so it is settled for anyone who has faith in God’s written word.

Now, a final word on the topic of dates and date setting. Until the arrival of the Greek king Seleucis I Nicator in Babylon in the spring of 311BC time was not reckoned like we figure it. Events were hinged to political and religious events like a priesthood or kingship or from an historical event. It was not continuous, one year after another and on and on. In fact, it was even localized, only relevant to the place you were in, there was no world-wide figuring of when events happened by an absolute year like 1956, the year I was born. For instance there is no date given for creation. The Bible does not say, in the year O or in the year 1. Such a thought would have been an absurdity at one time. The Bible gives time as relative to events not as a year with an absolute number. But, today, the whole world; atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and others when dealing with the world at large and not just their own communities reckon their year from the birth of Christ which is pretty ironic. But, that is our standard. You can’t escape the God of the Bible no matter how hard you try.