Getting rid of all the dinosaur fossils and other evidence that our planet could have been 4.5 billion years old.
Many people claim that science disproves the Bible’s account of creation. However, the real contradiction is, not between science and the Bible, but between science and the opinions of Christian Fundamentalists. Some of these groups falsely assert that according to the Bible, all physical creation was produced in six 24-hour days approximately 10,000 years ago.
The Bible, however, does not support such a conclusion. If it did, then many scientific discoveries over the past one hundred years would indeed discredit the Bible. A careful study of the Bible text reveals no conflict with established scientific facts. For that reason, Jehovah’s Witnesses disagree with Christian Fundamentalists and many creationists. The following shows what the Bible really teaches.
Genesis does not teach that the earth and the universe were created in six 24-hour days just a few thousand years ago
The Genesis account opens with the simple, powerful statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) A number of Bible scholars agree that this statement describes an action separate from the creative days recounted from verse 3 onward. The implication is profound. According to the Bible’s opening words, the universe, including our planet, Earth, was in existence for an indefinite time before the creative days began.
Geologists estimate that the earth is 4 billion years old, and astronomers calculate that the universe may be as much as 15 billion years old. Do these findings—or their potential future refinements—contradict Genesis 1:1? No. The Bible does not specify the actual age of “the heavens and the earth.” Science is not at odds with the Biblical text.
What about the length of the creative days? Were they literally 24 hours long? Some claim that because Moses—the writer of Genesis—later referred to the day that followed the six creative days as a model for the weekly Sabbath, each of the creative days must be literally 24 hours long. (Exodus 20:11) Does the wording of Genesis support this conclusion?
No, it does not. The fact is that the Hebrew word translated “day” can mean various lengths of time, not just a 24-hour period. For example, when summarizing God’s creative work, Moses refers to all six creative days as one day. (Genesis 2:4) In addition, on the first creative day, “God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night.” (Genesis 1:5) Here, only a portion of a 24-hour period is defined by the term “day.” Certainly, there is no basis in Scripture for arbitrarily stating that each creative day was 24 hours long.
How long, then, were the creative days? The Bible does not say; however, the wording of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 indicates that considerable lengths of time were involved.
Moses wrote his account in Hebrew, and he wrote it from the perspective of a person standing on the surface of the earth. These two facts combined with the knowledge that the universe existed before the beginning of the creative periods, or days, help to defuse much of the controversy surrounding the creation account. How so?
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