The Biblical record is also clear that from the time of Adam down to the time of Christ was approximately 4000 years, and from the time of Christ down to us is another 2000 years. Thus, the Earth has been in existence for approximately 13,000 years, from first creation moment to now.
We should also keep in mind that while Moses used a word in Genesis meaning a period of time, the word he used in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, as translated by Joseph Smith, is rendered day. In Abraham's writing, again as translated by Joseph Smith, the word he uses to describe the creative process is time. Careful study, then, of the scriptural meanings of the two terms indicates that a creative time is synonymous with a creative day.
Now if this creative day was different than the living day as referred to in the scriptures—that is, one of God's days is one thousand years to us—we have no indication. Certainly, the seven days of earth life, as indicated in the previous post in the Doctrine and Covenants, is synonymous with seven thousand years, or one thousand years for each day. If this living day is the same as the creative day, then it would appear that the earth was created in six days of the Lord's time, or six thousand years of our time.
Certainly, earth life will be completed somewhere near the end of the sixth thousand years since Adam's fall. And assuming we are living toward the end of that sixth thousand year period, then we are indeed living in the Saturday Night of time as it relates to this world.
The seventh day, or seventh thousand years, then, will be the millennium. This would suggest, from the scriptures at least, that a day is equal to a thousand years and it has been six thousand years since Adam's fall. To verify this, consider that God warned Adam while he was in the Garden that if he partook of the forbidden fruit: "... in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die...."
Adam then lived for 930 years, dying within a thousand years of leaving the Garden, or within one day to the Lord.
For those because of the so-called Geologic Ages, or for other reasons, cling to a belief that evolution and creation can be compatible, such as in the Gap Theory, it should be recognized that Paul in the scriptural record tells us that there was no sin or death until man (Adam) brought them into the world: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
On the other hand the evolutionary process would require billions of years of suffering and death in the world before Adam or man had sinned, and that means that God Himself would be directly responsible for sin in the world, but God, of course, could not be the author of sin. So the evolutionary process where there had already been billions of years represented by the fossils and the sedimentary rocks of the earth’s crust, which are supposed now to identify the geological ages, with death recorded in the fossil remains in rock and strata, dinosaurs, and cave man simply does not fit the scriptural record. The two are not conceivably compatible in any manner.
Consequently, no matter what science might say, it would be impossible for the premortal life prior to the Fall to have produced any fossils. Lehi, in his teachings to his son Jacob, proclaimed that the life in the Garden of Eden was one in which there was no death or change.
"And now behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end."
Obviously, one cannot believe in the special creation as indicated in the scriptures, and also believe in the theory of evolution as espoused by Darwin and others—phyletic gradualism, sybiogensis, molecular evolution, quantum evolution, macro evolution, lamarckanism, zoogenesis, emication, orthogenesis, gangenesis, or any of those who have suggested such combination theories as the Gap Theory, Theisic evolution, or creative evolution—the latter three being totally incompatible with the scriptural accounts.
Yet fossils exist. Therefore, they must have come from one of two sources:
• They were deposited by other creations then extinct. That is, in the remodeling of the earth, or its organization as indicated in the first two of the three methods indicated earlier, left over bones (fossils) from the previous tenants remained in the matter used to remodel or organize the earth;
• They were left by the posterity of those creatures that were with Adam and Eve in the Fall. In this sense, biologists and other evolutionary theorists have misread, mislabeled, or misunderstood the fossils that have been found, which non-evolutionary scientists claim have happened.
Obviously, we are living in the latter days, and many great and wonderful things are being manifest to us. We know more about the cosmos, more about the principles by which God made this world, than ever before. Why is the Lord pouring out this knowledge unto the earth if not to verify His word and to provide answers to the questions about creation, the heavens, and scientific matters that for so long have escaped the learned men of the earth? Is this important for us to know, and if not, why did He tell us He will reveal things that are above, and things that are beneath, things that are in the earth, and upon the earth and in heaven. Can we say that this scripture is more important than that scripture, or that this revealed fact is less important than another? Perhaps the Lord expects us to know more about our world than we might think (D&C 124:41).
To understand the age of the earth and to determine just how plant and animal fossils exist that are claimed to be millions of years old and, in many cases, of creatures long extinct on the so-called evolutionary ladder, two important points must be recognized:
• The age attributed to living things is based upon Radiocarbon dating (Carbon-14 or C-14). Though this is widely accepted, there is every indication that this time clock was originally set incorrectly based upon carbon-14 having achieved equilibrium despite evidence to the contrary. When the clock is set in an unequilibrium method, Radiocarbon dating shows the earth to be less than 20,000 years old.
• The remodeling process which organized this earth. That is, was it a gathering together of elementary, unorganized matter, or was it more like a remodeling job where parts of previously used planets or earths were brought together?
While the actual age of the earth as a whole, or as a celestial body in the scientific sense, is not given explicitly either in ancient or modern scripture, the Lord gave a particular definition of "earth" based upon which an approximate age may be assigned from scriptural references:
"And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters caIled he Seas..."
Since the beginning of "earth," in this sense, was after the "second day" of creation, based on the scriptural time scale, the age of the dry land called by the Lord earth, is between ten and eleven thousand years. It is interesting to know that Radiocarbon dating of once living organisms, when using the Libby time clock in an unequilibrium state, as he first had it, shows the earth to be about 10,000 years old!
(See the next post, “Changing Land of Promise—Part XII 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)
Excellent posts about the true age of earth. Thank you.
ReplyDelete