Any gap theory believers out there? Pre adamite civilization believers? We had a bible study this week where one of the members taught on this. I think in some ways it makes a lot of sense. The only thing I am fully convinced of is there is a lot more to that time frame than what I was taught growing up. Would love to hear your thoughts one way or the other.

I personally don't believe in a gap theary.
I also don't know of course, no one can. It's an interesting concept.
But I believe Adam was the first man.

I also don't believe in the 70th week gap theary.
I believe the 70th week of Daniel fell right in line with the first 69 weeks.

I lean more towards the day age creationism theory. Current known scientific discoveries & facts parallel this theory.

God's "day" isn't what we consider a day.

But, the bottom line is that we don't know 100% and this will be argued about until the end of time.

Oh no! I think Swamp Wolf I may be on the same page. I love it when people get on the 24 hr day thing in creation and the sun wasn't created til the 4th day.

Another thing I can't get the concept of is dinosaurs on the ark.

This is something I really struggle with. The world just ain't 6000 years old. It's just not. I can hold homo sapien bones and artifacts in my hands that are far older than that, let alone other species in the homo genus, and the fossils of other creatures that are millions of years old.. And, if it's true that the world isn't 6000 years old, then the lineages in the new testament tracing jesus's ancestry back to Adam can't be true either, unless Adam wasn't the original human by a long shot. And then that calls into question the whole thing about this Adam character being the first human to sin, among other things.

At the same time, the world is far too complex to be created by just random chance, and a basic principle of biology is that life cannot come from non-life, implying we didn't come from some primordial soup. I'm not sure how to reconcile these beliefs.

The whole Adam and Eve thing is taken far too literally in my opinion. As are many old testament stories.

This is a good thread so far,
I am enjoying reading different opinions and philosophy of Genesis.

I agree Loose Goose and when ever I get in a discussion about randomness I steer toward the Fibonacci Sequence. Then to design.

I think we can conclusively say God didn't give us all knowledge which would suggest he had a motive and purpose that we should not be all knowing. Logic tells me a God with the power to create this world and every living create on it, and a God with a motive for us not to be all knowing definitely would have the ability and agenda to create things in nature that would confuse us.
A simple analogy would be God creating fossils just like he created the rocks themselves. Not saying he created all fossils as we know they can and are created naturally. But a God that didn't want us to have all knowledge could very easily create things to misdirect us.
I'm a person that likes debating these things but I also realize focusing on learning the things God wants us to know can have more benefits than try to learn the things he doesn't want us to know.

I agree, but the gospels give a lineage from Adam directly to Jesus, and the ages of a lot of those people are found in the old testament (that's how we get the aprox. 6000 year age). Plus, the Bible says Adam was the first man. Given those things. either.....1. The world is millions of years old and some parts of the Bible are wrong 2.The lineages and ages are correct and humans have only been around for 6000ish years, or 3. There were people before aprox. 6000 years ago that the Bible doesn't talk about and weren't considered "man".

I'd like to say that the Adam and eve thing is intended to be a story or poetry, but the lineages point to them as intended to be a real historical event.

Loose Goose, Im with you. The gap theory answers a lot of those questions for me. There is also some, to me, pretty compelling scripture to back up the possibility of gap theory.

Yes sir, you are absolutely right. It is the glory of God to conceal things. We dont know what that looks like. I have heard the argument that he could have put fossils in the ground. I have an open mind to most of these theories as long as they dont go against scripture. I like to ponder the possibilities and am content with not knowing for sure.

I think we can all agree if God didn't want us to have all knowledge there will be things we can never or ever understand

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Many biblical scholars say this was the first flood that probably wiped out the dinosaurs, etc. It was after that God created mankind, which would account for approximately the 6,000 years some refer to. But, the earth itself could easily be millions of years old accounting for the fossils that have been found. It wasn't until after God had finished his remodeling of the earth that he created man in chapter two. The flood of Noah would be the second flood which God caused because he was sorry that he had created mankind. Since God found favor in Noah, as he was a righteous man, he spared him and his descendants. Noah was a descendant of Adam and Eve.

If you believe God has the power to create this earth and every living thing on it there really isn't any argument whether he "could" create fossils. The question is whether he did and if he did do it to keep us from knowledge, well, we'll never have the answer to the question did he create fossils.
Not trying to be argumentative just enjoying a little debate

I think when we get to talking time and years there was a mix of calendars and with a lot of April foolers thrown in. The Babylonians believed the sun revolved around the earth and the earth had a big tunnel thru it and the sun would go thru it and thus caused night time.
The Babylonians number system was set up on 60's unlike ours on 10's. We were much smarter than that, yet retained the 60 seconds and minutes on our clocks.

And then there is the years that the old test people lived that many explain as no germs and disease at the time, or could it have been the calendar thing again?

If we follow the fossil things as being made that way then the coal and oil would be in the same suit?

Then as far as knowledge Adam ate from that tree so how much did he get, a lot I hope, he and his heirs paid dearly.

Not everything with God is a big secret, His Son didn't die in some dark corner but out on a hill for all to see!

A couple things I am totally convinced of and you'll never change my mind. I have spent the last 40 years studying this.

1) What we see in nature and in humans is not the result of millions of happy little accidents. Especially the beginning of life springing from non-life. That's preposterous. There is evidence of design every where you look and design must have a designer.
2) The Earth as we know it is not as old as so called scientists want you to believe. There is plenty of science that backs up the age of the earth as we know it to be a lot younger than millions of years. There has to be a first man and woman, and I believe the description of the man and woman in the book of Genesis is as accurate depiction as the people who passed along the stories of creation could keep them, down through the eons before there were written languages. I also think the concept of original sin is important to the entire narrative of God's relationship to man through the ages.
3) There is so much evidence of a flood it's not even debatable. The ice age resulted from it, tectonic plate movement was involved with it. The entire climate of the earth changed with it, even people started living much shorter lives. The large reptiles couldn't survive the new climate because of the change in the Ozone layer. Throughout the middle east and even africa, aboriginal peoples have a story about a worldwide flood where their ancestors were saved by building a boat. Were there dinosaurs on the ark? It's actually a very plausible theory that young dinosaurs or eggs could have been saved. Either way, the things that happened to create the flood is a very explainable reason for the end of the dinosaurs.

So many scientists are stuck thinking that what they see today has always been slowly changing and you need millions of years to explain it away, so they throw out any scientific evidence that doesn't fit their preconceived beliefs. The history of the Earth is not the result of millions of years of slow change, it is the result of a series of cataclysmic events. When you realize that, the history of the Bible makes a lot more sense.

I don't know much and I admit I know a lot less than I used to think I did. But there are a small number of these cornerstones I am totally convinced of.

There are many different possibilities that could fit within the framework of Divine creation. Genesis describes who (God), what and where (the universe), and when (in the beginning). It doesn't describe why or how, those two items are not necessary for the particular subject matter.

Any attempt to ascribe firm dates and timing is foolish.

The young earth theory began with Bishop Usher in 1625. He said the earth was created on the evening before October 23, 4004 B.C..
That will make the earth 6028 years old this coming October; ridiculous.

It's no wonder that many people mock Christians who believe this. This subject has been co-opted by a small group of closely aligned, and imo, divisive book-writers. I've read these guys books and gone to their seminars, their use of science is very selective, and often times grossly incorrect.

These are the relevant subject matters of the first three chapters of Genesis;
1) God created everything.
2) Mankind was a special creation of God.
3) Mankind chose to rebel against God.
4) God planned a way to restore rebellious men back to Himself.

Bernie, in general, advancements in scientific methodology over the last 30-40 years are strengthening the argument for a very old world. Way too many different aging methods that all roughly concur with each other for it to be scientific error. But like you said, your mind is closed on the subject so there you be. Makes me no never mind.

Is there a creator / intelligent design I think there is.

Did that need a name till man needed to give it a name , not really.

every culture has an origin story , I take Genesis as the Judeo-Christian origin story technically that includes Muslims even if they don't all want to believe it.

all of your cultures of major religion or philosophy generally have an origin story with basic rules on how to get along with each other.

people know how to be bad , people know how to be animals , these histories are largely how to be decent to each other and continue as a people.
could call them simple instructions on how to be a human not an animal.

we have the ones we have because largely those are the peoples that survived

you want an example of a philosophy that wasn't bad but there are basically none of them left Shakers sort of an offshoot of Quakers , but they segregated by sex into dormitories and didn't have any so they have all or nearly all passed now. They relied on recruitment to keep numbers up , that isn't bad just no longer exists.

the basis of most lasting religions is , don't be awful to each other , not every one practices that so well but it is at the basis of most all of them.

some people have to look for the words they can use to justify their reason for disliking another person or group of people.

I sort of figure if the message is get along , don't be awful to each other , then looking for those words in text isn't really the point but , thats me not wanting to look for reasons to fight, just leave me alone and I will leave you alone type of thinking.
and maybe that is to small of thinking.