Changing Land of Promise—Part IX – The Biblical Time Scale

In ancient Hebrew, the word rosh meant “father of the Gods,” and baurau meant “organize” (Joseph Smith, Teachings, p 350). Genesis records: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” However, an actual translation of the Hebrew would read: “The head one of the Gods brought forth the gods and sat in Grand Council to bring forth the world” (Joseph Smith, Teachings, p 348).  

The earth was formed and organized in an area outside its present location in the Solar System, or at least in an area where there was no Sun shining upon it
    Moses wrote from a vision given him that on the first day, “when the earth was without form, and void, and after darkness was brought upon the face of the deep, light covered the earth,” a description also written by Abraham, who said that “after the earth was formed, it was empty and desolate, because they had not formed anything but the earth.”
    This light, however, was not from a Sun, but from the glory and majesty of God, himself, for it was very bright.

    Then, on the fourth day, there were organized lights in the firmament that provided for the first time a division of night and day and of seasons and of days and of years, wherein two great lights were made, the greater light to rule the day (the Sun) and the lesser light to rule the night (the Moon).  These lights were then placed in the firmament for the sole purpose “to give light upon the earth.”
    On the following day, life was established on earth, once the Sun was in place, which provided life to plants and, in turn, gave life (through ingestion) to other animals, which also supplied other animals with life—which then supplied humans with life. And, of course, it is the sun that provides radiation, filtered through the atmosphere, and as the earth rotates on its axis, it allows all parts of the earth to obtain sunlight.

When the Earth was completed, it was moved into the Solar System
    Thus, once the water was divided from the land, and the dry ground prepared for planting, and the Sun was in place, the earth could be moved into its rotating position around it, which allowed animal, fowl and sea life to be established during the fifth and sixth days, including the placement of man on the earth. According to the ancient text, it was on the morning of the fourth period of time that the earth was placed in its current celestial position relative to the sun, “let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.” Whether this means the other planets in the solar system were already in place, or put in place at the same time, is not known. What we are told is that this light was in the firmament of the heavens and its purpose was to divide the day from the night, create the signs of the seasons, and to establish the days and years. That is exactly what the rotation of the Earth around the Sun does!
    In all of this, Abraham tells us that the gods, that is, those beings who Elohim had fathered, ordered the elements and matter in the forming of the world throughout the six-day formation process, and the gods were obeyed, actually “watching those things which they had ordered until they obeyed.” From this we can conclude that the gods, under the direction of Elohim, the father of the gods, had the power and authority to command the elements from the sub-atomic level to the final structure of finished and organized matter and life.
    The sixth day, then, was the culmination of the “creation” period—the heaven and earth were finished. At this point in the vision, Moses was informed that “these are the generations of the heaven and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God, made the heaven and the earth…”

In addition, there had not been set any time of reckoning for the earth until after Adams actual placement in the Garden of Eden. That is, the earth had not been given a rotation of time. This becomes clearer when Abraham, adding almost as a parenthetical note, wrote of this statement regarding Earth's time:
    ". . . Now I, Abraham, saw that it was after the Lord's time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning."                            
    It would seem likely that the earth would have been spinning on its axis so that gravity existed, but we can only surmise this fact.  Abraham’s ancient text only tells us that when Adam was in the Garden of Eden, he had not yet been given his reckoning of time.

All of this tells us that “In the beginning…” God formed this world for our use, and upon this world has unfolded approximately six thousand years of history, all of it recorded.
    Today’s scientists—particularly, evolutionary scientists—would scoff at such “prattle” as this, however, their idea of life evolving out of nothing, by some chance act in a primordial soup randomly struck with lightening or some other energy source until life in a simple atom was created that eventually grew into an RNA and then a DNA protein and began the life process, is the worst kind of “prattle” since it not only makes no sense, cannot be shown, even through assumed steps, and violates all the known laws of physics.

Yet, this anti-God evolution is taught in every college and university throughout the land where Bibilical teaching is forbidden. We are raising generations of young people, in many cases who are now adults, who, for the most part, are not at all familiar with God’s teaching and his organization of the worlds. Even for those who know of this, it is still difficult for many today to think of changes to the Earth in modern terms—the idea of evolution is so deep into the public conscience that for someone to consider that South America east of the Andes rose out of the sea 2000 years ago is a real stretch for their thinking. It is even more difficult for many to think in terms of mountains rising from valley floors in the time of man.
    However, all of this has been done, and was done in the Land of Promise, at the time of the crucifixion (3 Nephi 8), of which we have the testimony of the Nephite prophets.
    So this brings us to the issue at hand. How old is the Earth? Scientists tell us it is 4.55 billion years old. The Lord, through Moses, tells us it is 13,000 years old. In order to determine the location of the Land of Promise, we have to make the right choice in time frames, since cataclysmic events that happened over a 13,000 year period will be seen very differently than such events happening over 4.55 billion years.
    After all, if the Earth was divided in Peleg’s time, as the Biblical record states, then we can expect to have geologic events occurring in a short and very recent time frame. However, if they happened millions of years ago, then they hold no value to our search for a landscape only two thousand years old.
    So who do we believe?
(See the next post, “Changing Land of Promise—Part IX and the Biblical Time Scale,” for an understanding as when South American changes took place and how they are recorded in the Book of Mormon)