How Old Is The Earth 5 Best Scientific Evidences For A Young Earth
If you Google How old is the earth? youll get an answer of around 4.5 billion years. But according to a plain reading of Gods Word, the earth is closer to 6,000 years old. If Gods Word is true , then we should expect to find numerous scientific evidences for the earths young age.
And thats exactly what we find.
Despite what you might hear in evolution-based science classrooms, there is evidence for a young earthand quite a bit of it.
In this article, were walking you through five of the best scientific evidences for a young earth.
What Does The Bible Say About The Shape Of The Earth Part 1
Moderate Christian apologists have done an astonishingly good job of sweeping under the rug the fact that the OT does indeed describe a flat, disc-shaped Earth covered by a solid dome called the firmament.
So much so that when I attended a Christian private school, we were taught that scientists in ancient times were the ones who thought Earth was flat even though the Bible said its round. EDIT: Apparently this needs clarification. I do not mean science as general efforts to figure things out. I mean the scientific method as we know it today, including its naturalistic philosophical framework.
Anyway, what they mean by round is a single verse that says Earth is a circle. But the Hebrew word for circle used in that verse does not mean sphere. There was a different word meaning ball-shaped they mightve used instead, but they didnt.
Interesting to note: This sleight of hand is similar to the Islamic apologists claim that verses in the Quran describing Earth using a word for an ostrich spreading out a flat space to lay eggs is, instead, referring to the eggs themselves .
Further confounding attempts to interpret circle as sphere is a verse wherein the circle is said to have been inscribed upon the face of the deep as though with a compass. Theres a medieval painting of Jesus doing this . It is clear from this context that a flat circle was the intended meaning.
Can you beat out the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal
The Four Corners Of The Earth
There are three verses in the Bible that are often quoted by Christian proponents of the flat earth theory. The first, Revelation 7:1, states: And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. The repetition of the number four creates an obvious connection between the four angels, the four corners of the earth and the four cardinal points from which the winds are about to blow: North, South, East, and West. As Faulkner points out, not even a hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible can disregard the symbolism of the book of Revelation. The four corners of the earth is an expression which is widely used in different languages, but always with the same meaning: to indicate the farthest points on earth or a great distance, not literal corners.
In some translations of the Bible, mentions of the four corners of the earth appear almost 30 times and, if understood literally, would not only suggest that the earth is flat but also that it is square. There is no cosmology in which the earth is square. Not even followers of the flat earth theory claim such a thing. This once again highlights the non-literal interpretation of the phrase.
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Is The Firmament A Dome Over The Earth
The cosmology of the flat earth holds that a dome covers a circular, flat earth, with its edge resting on the earth beyond the ice wall of Antarctica. The stars are affixed to this dome, while the sun and moon are above the earth but beneath the dome. Some have called this a snow-globe cosmology, because of its resemblance to a snow-globe. Supposedly, this is the cosmology that the Bible teaches. Ironically, skeptics make the same argument, but their intent is to discredit the Bible. Few flat-earthers appear to be aware of this fact or the irony. Let us examine the Scriptures that supposedly support this cosmology.
Key in this discussion is the firmament. The Hebrew word rÄqîaâ is translated as firmament in the King James Version. It appears a total of 17 times in the Old Testament, with over half of the occurrences in chapter 1 of Genesis alone. The word is a noun that derives from the Hebrew root rqâ, meaning to stamp out.4 An example of this action is to stamp or pound a metal into thin sheets. This is a common practice with gold, because gold is so malleable. Gilding is the process of attaching gold leaf to objects, giving the impression that the objects are pure gold. For instance, the Ark of the Covenant was gilded with gold leaf over acacia wood . Gold leaf can be pounded or rolled so thin that bright light can be seen through it. From the meaning of this word, we can deduce that the rÄqîaâ is something that has been pounded or stretched out.
Very Little Sediment On The Seafloor
If sediments have been accumulating on the seafloor for 3 billion years, the seafloor should be choked with sediments many miles deep, writes Dr. Andrew Snelling.
Its true! On average, seafloor sediments around the globe are less than 1,300 feet thick. That doesnt make sense if winds and water have been depositing 20 billion tons of eroded dirt and rock debris onto the seafloor each year, as they do today.
Granted, some sediments seem to dislodge as tectonic plates slowly slide beneath continents . But even so, at this rate, the seafloor wouldve accumulated 1,300 feet of sediment in under 12 million years. Certainly not billions of years as evolutionists claim.
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What Does The Bible Mean By The Four Corners Of The Earth
The expressions the four corners of the earth and the ends of the earth used in the Bible are not to be taken literally, as if the earth were square or had ends. Instead, these evidently are figures of speech referring to the entire surface of the earth. The Bible uses the four points of the compass in a similar way.Luke 13:29.
The Hebrew term translated corners or ends seems to be an idiom based on the word for wings. According to The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, because the wing of a bird is used as a covering for its young, acquires the meaning of the extremity of anything stretched out. The same reference work adds that at Job 37:3 and Isaiah 11:12, the term means the coasts, boundaries, or extremities of the land surface of the earth. *
What About The Devils Temptation Of Jesus
To tempt Jesus, the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Some claim that this Bible account teaches that the entire world is visible from a single spot on a flat earth. However, the unusually high mountain in this account seems to be a metaphor and not a physical location. Consider why this conclusion is reasonable.
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There is no literal mountain on earth from which all the kingdoms of the world are visible.
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The Devil showed Jesus not only all the kingdoms but also their glory. Such details could not be seen from a great distance, so it seems that the Devil used some sort of vision to show these to Jesus. This could be similar to the way a person uses a projector and a screen to show someone pictures of various places on earth.
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The parallel account at Luke 4:5 says that the Devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth in an instant of time, which would not be possible through normal human vision. This implies that the Devil presented this temptation to Jesus through some means other than literal human sight.
^ par. 1 The Bible refers to God as the One who dwells above the circle of the earth. Some reference works allow for the possibility that the word here rendered circle could mean a sphere, although not all scholars agree on this point. In any case, the Bible does not support the idea of a flat earth.
^ par. 3 Revised Edition, Volume 2, page 4.
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How Can You Prove The Earth Is Round
There are many ways to prove the Earth is round, but perhaps the easiest method is to merely go to the seaside, look out to sea, and locate a boat. As you’ll observe if it’s distant enough, it appears to dip below the horizon. Or save yourself the trouble of going to the seaside by looking at this image of wind turbines.
This wouldn’t happen if the world was flat you would be able to see the boat clearly on the horizon. Unless you caught the boat during the precise moment it fell off the edge of the Earth, of course, which nobody in the history of our species ever has.
Is The Earth Flat What The Bible Says
So how do these considerations relate to the shape of the Earth? Despite the preceding qualifications about reading and interpreting Scripture, we cannot locate a single verse in the Bible that teaches the Earth is flat. Neither in prose nor in poetry, neither by means of phenomenological language nor metaphor, do we find Scripture communicating a flat Earth. The flat-Earth theory is an interpretive deduction, usually based on poetic hyperbole. But is a flat Earth even an accurate interpretive deduction? As we will see, it is far from obvious that the Bible teaches the Earth is flat.
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Flat Earth Science And The Bible
The following is from Rob Skibas The Bible and the Still Flat Earth at Below are a number of Bible verses without commentary. Unless otherwise noted, all of the Scriptures are taken from the KJV. Pretending you have never heard of a globe or even a flat earth before, lets just allow the Bible to speak for itself. Read them over a couple of times, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what they mean. Without forcing an interpretation based on preconceived notions, meditate on them and ask yourself, What is the Bible really showing me concerning the nature of the heavens, the earth, the sun, moon and stars? Then, in the next section after this one, I will give my commentary on these Scriptures, revealing what I believe they are saying to me.
The Scriptures below are arranged by topics in order to set the stage for what will follow. I have placed the book of Job before Genesis as many scholars believe it is the oldest book of the Bible. And I have also emphasized words in bold for us to consider as we read. This is by no means an exhaustive list of Scripture. It is essentially just a first run, which I will continue to add to as I find more in the future.
Scriptures concerning the nature of the heavens/sky above and their relationship to the earth:Job 9:8 Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.
Does The Bible Teach That The Earth Is Flat
Flat Earth Theory support has grown rapidly. This is largely due to the influence of social media. Unfortunately, many well-meaning Christians fall for this theory. These websites claim that until 500 years ago, it was largely taught that the earth was flat. However, if you look at many of the ancient scholars this claim is disproven. Geoffrey Burton Russel, a medieval scholar taught that the earth was spherical. So did Aristotle. Even Eratosthenes in the 2nd century accurately measured the circumference of the earth. These early writers held to a geocentric view, it included a spherical earth.
Two late 19th century skeptics are largely to blame for this theory. John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These two men held to the Conflict Thesis. They believed that due to the religion that largely dominated medieval Europe certain intellectual advancement was halted. And that it was only after man escaped his religious bindings in the Renaissance that he was able to think for himself. They claim that the church opposed Galileos heliocentric theory due to their blindness from their faith. However, the contention in accepting Galileos theory was largely due to the geocentric theories promoted by Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy.
Creationism and flat earth
2) Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
Verses that Bible critics use
Another verse that is used is Job 37:10, and the breadth of the waters is straitened
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Soft Tissue In Fossils
Evolutionists claim dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. But if thats true, why do some of their fossils still contain living tissue?
Supposedly, living tissue can survive in fossils for 3 to 4 million years at most, but scientists have found signs of life in a dinosaur bone thought to be 68 million years old. When Dr. Mary Schweitzer analyzed bone slices from the fossilized femur of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in Montana, she found what seemed to be blood vessels from bone and marrow.
At first, skeptics argued that what she found wasnt actually blood vessels and bone cells but rather dead bacteria aggregated in slime. But Schweitzer and her team later found evidence of protein collagena distinctive protein that bacteria dont make.
There Is Not A Single Verse In The Bible That Suggests A Flat Earth
Most of the verses that skeptics use to suggest that the Bible supports a flat earth are figures of speech. For example, in Job 38, if you isolate verse 13, you might get the impression of a flat earth. That is until you read it in context. When you read the verses above and below verse 13 you see that it was a figure of speech. Obviously the dawn cannot grasp anything. Does the sunrise literally shake the wicked out? Of course not.
In other verses, like Revelation 7:1, reference is made to cardinal directions . This is similar to the way we speak today of the sun rising and setting each day, although we know that it is the earth orbiting the sun which causes this.
If you are looking for an in-depth explanation of each verse, I recommend this article by AnswersInGenesis, which covers them very well.
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The Bible On The Flat Earth Theory: A History
Perhaps the final argument from the flat Earth camp is that up until 500 years ago the church supported the model of a flat Earth, as many still do today. Again, this is wrong.
As we will see shortly, the church never claimed that the Earth is flat, but supported the theory of geocentrismwhich says that the Earth stands still and the Sun, Moon and stars revolve around itplacing humans at the centre of creation. This generated the conflict between heliocentrist Galilelo Galilei and the church. So where did this long-standing false idea of a conflict between Christianity and science on this point come from? It comes from an attempt to discredit the Bible at the end of the 19th century, Faulkner says.
If you are familiar with the Flammarion engraving, a very well-known illustration of the flat Earth covered by a dome, you might believe it originates in the medieval period but it actually dates from the 1880s. Such illustrationsof a religious or scientific originare almost non-existent in the medieval period, because during the Middle Ages almost nobody believed in the flat Earth theory, not even the church leaders. Therefore, if the proponents of the flat Earth theory are geocentrists, it is important to know that from a historical point of view the converse is not true.
What Does A Flat
The flat-Earth maps, much like actual Earth maps, do vary. For instance, one proposed on the Flat-Earth Society website show the world as a circle.
“The North Pole is at the center,” they wrote of Charles K.Johnson’s map, president of the International Flat Earth Research Society. “At the outer edge lies the southern ice, reputed to be a wall 150 feet high no one has ever crossed it, and therefore what lies beyond is unknown.”
In this version of Earth , the Sun and the Moon are about 32 miles across and circle above the Earth to give the illusion we are spinning. The Moon provides its own light, and lunar eclipses are “caused by an unseen dark body occasionally passing in front of the moon.”
Other flat-Earth maps show a square Earth, meant to be based more literally on passages in the Bible that refer to “the four corners of the Earth” . This one by Orlando Ferguson in 1893 went the extra mile in trying to square the circle by including a square and a circle in order to satisfy references to the Earth being a circle as well, including “it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth” at the bottom of the map.
Other maps include a bubble above the Earth, with rock stretching out below. Those who believe this map say the bubble stops us from being able to get to space, raising the question of why they were so enthusiastic about Mike Hughes going there in order to find out if the Earth was flat.
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