Six days or 14 billion years? How about both :D

a reply to: Dcopymope

You are missing the point. It is only a billion years from earth's space-time coordinates. A billion years is also an extremely short amount of time for a being who exists outside of space-time. God can see the whole timeline if we put it into linear terms like our minds are used to.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: Dcopymope

You are missing the point. It is only a billion years from earth's space-time coordinates. A billion years is also an extremely short amount of time for a being who exists outside of space-time. God can see the whole timeline if we put it into linear terms like our minds are used to.

I realize this, yes. Else where, its only 6,000 years old. We all know that time is relative to where you are, even on earth itself. Its a very fluid product that can change, if you are in different time zones. I'll leave it up to you to figure out why this concept of a timezone isn't realized at the cosmic level.

Not both

I created everything in 6 days. Rested on the seventh day.
13.6 billion years. 6000 since Adam
Your welcome

Nothing is impossible with God

No the universe and God is not bound to our solar systems way of measuring time.
There are theories that the universe might even be double the age it is thought to be so like 28 billion years old, and that still works because Gen 1:1 is outside and beyond the six creative days which are probably unequal epochs of unkown millenniums.
I think very few people believe that the whole universe and our planet and everything on it was created in 6 24 hour days.

The light just hitting us now from a star 10 million light years away, didn't leave 6000 years ago, think about that.

Genesis 1:1-5 (First Day)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In verse one, it describes God creating the heaven and the earth in the beginning. This indicates that reality as we know it didn't exist. In the very next verse, it says the earth was without form or void and darkness was on the face of the deep. So God created light, with just His voice. This would indicate that God set time in motion; the day and night cycle. Keep in mind, the sun isn't created until day four!

Genesis 1:14-18 (Fourth Day)
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

The Bible is chock full of language with deep meaning. It's no different in Genesis. God created the day and night cycle (i.e. time started) and worked within the framework of that day and night cycle from day one. Note also that God created the sun, moon and stars, again, with His voice.

What this tells us is that God is capable of bringing things into existence with just His voice (et al). Given the context, we can come to the logical conclusion that God did indeed create everything within a literal six days and did so during the light cycle, not the dark cycle. That narrows the time of work every day to about 9.5 to 15 hours, depending on where time started to begin with.

The other thing you're missing is that God deliberately took His time with creation. In other words, a God that can speak things into existence could've made everything in the blink of an eye. He chose to stretch it out for six days. Why? The answer is in...

Genesis 2:1-3
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

God set aside six days to work and one day to rest. This was intentional, because He sanctified it.

Exodus 20:11 (From the Ten Commandments, commandment four)
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Here we see that the Ten Commandments, as given to Moses, written on stone by the hand of God, states that God (the Lord) blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.

Sabbath is a day of rest for mankind and a day for worship, so that men can commune with God and keep a close relationship with Him. As we see, it was there at creation and it remained even to the time of Moses. It remains to this day.

God created Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. The key word here are breath, which is a gift of life from God that returns to God at death. Soul in this context means an individual human being.

Genesis 2:7-8
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

This act shows the awesomeness of God's power, having formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. We know the complexity of man. DNA alone is insanely complex.

God saw that Adam was alone and needed a companion and helper (for his work). He put Adam to sleep and used one of his ribs to create Eve.

Genesis 2:21-25
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

God created our reality with design and purpose, for man, so that he could be close to his creator. We know that Adam and Eve literally walked and talked with God before they sinned. After sin and being expelled from Eden, God no longer came to them in person, because the presence of God is enough to kill a sinful person (Exodus 33:20). Imagine having that kind of righteousness. This gives us an important insight into the ramifications of the corruption called sin in this world. How much things changed when sin took hold.

Adam and Eve also worked in the garden of Eden, but it wasn't toil. It was leisure in a garden of paradise.

Genesis 2:15
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

We know the work Adam and Eve did wasn't considered work, because man didn't find struggle in work until after sin.

Genesis 3:17-19
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

And so sin cursed mankind to have to work the land for food and sweat and toil to eek out a living. Not only that, man would return to the dust from which He came. The curse of sin is powerful (The wages of sin is death).

In the act of creation, we see God put importance on obedience (sabbath, don't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil). After sin, the Ten Commandments were necessary to guide men back to righteousness.

Sin has been a constant struggle and man continues to be disobedient, despite the amount of love and care God put into His creation. God set up the perfect world, but gave man free will and the rest is history. Still, God gives us a way back to Eden and you can see it even in Genesis, before reading anything else in the Bible. It's about accepting Him as your God and obeying His commandments.

I had a few more thoughts to round out the previous post. A summary, if you will.

God created man with love and compassion and set him up in a garden paradise, which was a small part of the whole earth. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve before sin. At the outset of creation, God made this reality, then sanctified the seventh day sabbath.

Sanctify
-set apart as or declare holy; consecrate
-make legitimate or binding by religious sanction
-free from sin; purify

synonyms: consecrate, bless, make holy, hallow, make sacred, dedicate to God, approve, sanction, condone, vindicate, endorse, support, back, permit, allow, authorize, legitimize, purify, cleanse, free from sin, absolve, unburden, redeem

In other words, it was an example for man to live by. The seven day week still exists today.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. In the Bible, we see creation, perfection, paradise. In the middle we see sin take over and crescendo. The first time was the flood of Noah, where God told us that men could only think of evil continually. In other words, they were irredeemable and had to be destroyed.

The reason this is important is because in Matthew 24, Jesus tells us that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the end of time.

Matthew 24:37-39
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Chiastic structures exist throughout the Bible. Even Genesis is chiastic in nature. Search Google Images for "chiasm bible" and you'll see countless examples. Layer upon layer of depth that sets the Bible apart as a masterpiece of divine origin.

So here we have an abbreviated chiasm:

Creation/Paradise - We are created and enter Eden and earth.
-Man's fall - We are fallen because of disobedience and sin. God leaves man.
--Hardship starts - The curse of sin, disobedience, sweat and toil.
---Sinful world - Long history of sin and consequences.
--Hardship ends - God helps us endure as Christians, if we obey.
-Man's salvation - We are saved because of obedience and overcoming sin. God returns to man.
Creation/Paradise - We are made anew (recreated) and enter New Jerusalem and new earth.

Evidence that God is deliberate and exact in everything He does. Even down to a single word in Genesis--sanctified. Each phrase has depth of meaning most overlook.

The use of chiastic structures throughout the Bible, layered on top of each other, tends to negate coincidence and point toward divine inspiration. Modern scholars believe that the 66 books of the Bible were written by at least 39 authors over a period of 1,500 years, on three different continents. Yet it maintains a perfect consistency of message. If you look at the chiastic structures, it makes it even more unlikely to have come together as it did. Especially when the overarching chiastic structure(s) of the Bible, in its entirety, come out perfect.

Chiastic examples:

Genesis 44-45 Chiasm
Luke 18-19 Chiasm
John 1:1-18 Chiasm
Noah's Flood Chiasm
A Chiasm of the History of Redemption
Daniel Double Chiasm
Revelation Chiasm
Matthew 21:1-25:46 Chiasm
Another Revelation Chiasm
Haggai 1:1-15 Chiasm

The mistake some people make is putting science first (man's knowledge of the universe) and try to apply it to a divinely inspired book (God's Word). Basically, you're putting man before God, when it should be God before man. Trying to explain creation with scientific theory is like putting oil and water together; they don't mix.

I think there's enough evidence in the Bible itself that speaks to its truth, as I have laid out in these two posts. God didn't have to create our reality in six days, He chose to for our benefit. It shows that He had a plan for us all along, which didn't include sin. The way the Bible is written shows that God fashioned a plan of salvation for us, a way out--so that we might overcome sin and come back to paradise. He came and died in the flesh to secure our path of victory.

I've only scratched the surface of the layers in the Bible. Look at what I extracted from a few verses in Genesis. The Bible is a compressed archive, much like a ZIP file. You need God's "app" (Holy Spirit) to decompress it and dig into its depths. This is why man always looks to man and science for the answers, because they aren't centered in faith in Jesus and the Word of God.

Matthew 7:7-8
7 Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."

Proverbs 18:13
13 He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

1 Corinthians 2:14
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.