The Old Earth Creation Theory argue that the seven days comprise a biblical chronology, and each day represents a prophetic picture of the distant past, a factual, but unclear flicker of divine truth wherein a “day” parallels an age of vast activity. Just as prophetic depictions of the distant future horizon use figurative chronological markers, Genesis chapter one employs a “prophetic” history summarizing the primeval past. When comparing Genesis chapter one to the fossil record, Old Earth Theorists argue that God’s purpose was to teach Moses creation history in six days without revealing the long ages necessary for the creation of the universe and formation of life upon the Earth. They believe that God passed before Moses’ eyes creation images, representing the most characteristic phases of the entire creation work during six days. Moses later preserved for future readers a memorial of these phases, but without having himself penetrated into their scientific meanings in detail. Thus, Moses was unable to understand the complete scientific history woven within the prophetic visions because modern science did not exists during his generation. For many Old Earth Creation Theorists, the narration in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 is similar to the zoom lens of a camera where each day highlights general information before showing the finer details in days 5 and 6. Genesis chapter 2 continues the zoom-lens description and the history of humanity’s place in creation.
Therefore, the Old Earth Creation Theory is very similar to the Revelation Theory because it argues for six literal days while allowing for long creation ages. The Old Earth Creation Theory embraces many of the modern scientific explanations and evolution’s deep time for the origination of the universe, Earth, and life, while rejecting the purely philosophical naturalism of Evolutionism and modern Scientism. The Old Earth Creation Theory rejects Young Earth Creationism, Gap Theory Re-Creationism, and the Genesis Creation Renovation Theory. Many academically trained Christian philosophers and theologians as Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. J.P. Moreland, and scientists as Dr. Gerald Schroeder and Dr. Hugh Ross embrace elements of the Old Earth Creation Theory. For many of these celebrated Christian philosophers and scientists, the following discussion of the Genesis Creation days reflects elements of their views on the subject of origins.
CREATION DAY ONE
On the First Creation Day, God made the universe. Genesis 1:1 describes God’s creation of the universe through the “big bang” event, by which God created all space, time, energy, and matter and eventually all heavenly bodies including the Earth, Sun, Moon and stars. According to this view, the narrative shifts forward in time and changes from a cosmic panoramic perspective to an earthly surface view in Genesis 1:2 (waste and darkness). During this period, God caused sunlight to penetrate the darkness and illuminate the Earth. The sun was not visible because the atmosphere was overcast and still very cloudy. The darkness was likely due to a heavy and thick envelope of water vapor (or frozen ice), but it is also possible that hydro-carboniferous vapors released from the Earth’s interior during its formation was also responsible. For many astronomers and astrophysicists, this first day was roughly four billion years long (from 16,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years ago).
CREATION DAY TWO
On the Second Creation Day, God established a stable atmosphere and water cycle. In order to create land on the third day, God had to remove the waters surrounding the land mass. Old Earth creationists assume geological activities released much heat, causing the waters to boil and evaporate, creating the ‘waters above the firmament’. God formed a primitive sky with much rain clouds hanging from it. The second day was another four billion years long (from 8,000,000,000 to 4,000,000,000 years ago).
CREATION DAY THREE
On the Third Creation Day, God caused dry land to emerge from the water-covered Earth over eons of time through plate tectonics and other geological processes. Then, once the conditions were right, God caused plants to sprout, grow, and develop “after their kinds.” According to the Old Earth Creation view, different generations of plants appeared over time according to God’s timetable each perfectly matched to the environment and the increasing sunlight as the atmosphere continued to gradually clear. The third creation day lasted for 2 billion years (from 4,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 years ago)
CREATION DAY FOUR
On the Fourth Creation Day, God made the Sun, Moon, and stars appear. God caused the atmosphere to clear, and these heavenly bodies became visible for the first time from the surface of the Earth to mark signs, seasons, days and years. God did not create them on the Fourth Day. ‘Made to appear’ is the correct rendering, but not ‘created’. Old-earth creationists contend the Sun, Moon, and stars were created “in the beginning” as part of the “heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). During this period, God caused the atmosphere to clear so these heavenly bodies became visible for the first time from the surface of the Earth to mark signs, seasons, days and years. Before the Fourth Day, the sky was very overcast, but the continuing action of the wind cleared the sky and distant stars became visible. God made these stars there many years ago because light speed is a constant, it should take millions and even billions of years for light to reach the Earth from the distant stars. This period lasted for over 1 billion years (from 2,000,000,000 to 800,000,000 years ago).
CREATION DAY FIVE
On the Fifth Creation Day, God made oceanic life and aerial life forms. While many Old Earth Creationists believe that God created sea creatures and flying creatures on the fifth day, they argue that God created these creatures progressively over long ages of time, but not within a single 24-hour solar day. When these creatures died and went extinct, God created new creatures to replace them. This creation history lasted for about 500 million years (from 800,000,000 to 300,000,000 years ago)
CREATION DAY SIX
On the Sixth Creation Day, God made land animals and humankind. Old-Earth creationists contend God created land animals on the sixth day. God created these animals progressively, over long ages, beginning several hundred million years ago. God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, sometime around 100 thousand years ago. Old-Earth creationists believe that only Homo Sapiens are true descendants of Adam and Eve. Many Old-Earth creationists believe that God created Adam and Eve somewhere in Southern Africa before Adam’s descendants migrated into North Africa, and they began spreading throughout the globe. Old-Earth creationists believe that Homo Sapiens eventually replaced the Homo Erectus and Homo Neanderthal populations. Furthermore, in their view, Homo Erectus and Homo-Neanderthals are not real human beings and they preceded God’s creation of Adam and Eve for many generations. Many old Earth Creationists believe in a great regional flood rather than a worldwide global flood, which they assess to have occurred sometime around 40,000 BCE. For many Old-Earth creationists, this creation history began around 300 million years ago and it ended about 100 thousand years ago.
CREATION DAY SEVEN
On the Seventh Creation Day, God concluded His work on creation; and He RESTED, not because God was tired, but because the seventh day of the creation week was a type of the Sabbath. This appears clear from Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17 because Moses wrote that “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.” According to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint version of the bible, this passage says that God CEASE from working, which indicates that God was never tired, but that God only stopped working on the seventh day. According to Old-Earth creationists, God stopped working because the seventh day is an ongoing period. Although God continues His providential work of preserving and governing His creation, He is at rest in the sense that He is no longer creating. Because the seventh day is a period of indeterminate length, Old-Earth creationists argue this is evidence the other creation days are not 24-hour periods.
ANALYSIS OF THE OLD EARTH CREATION THEORY
The Old Earth Creation Theory fits like a glove with modern scientific explanations about the subject of origins. The primary reason for its agreement with modern science is that many of its promoters fail to conduct critical analysis on the philosophical naturalism decorating modern scientific explanations. Old Earth Creationism is inconsistent because it rejects evolutionism, but it embraces the deep time associated with evolution. While the Holy Scriptures do not offer any date for the origin of the universe, planet Earth, and life, the language of Scripture appear to show a recent history for the creation week. For example, the chronologies in Genesis 5 and 11 and elsewhere in Scripture show a creation date of 4,001 BCE (Hebrew Masoretic Text), or 5554 BCE (Greek Septuagint LXX). Even if the biblical chronologies in Genesis 5 and 11 contain time gaps between the pre-flood patriarchs, then the biblical history could only realistically go back to 8,000 BCE.
Furthermore, Old Earth Creationism ignores the plethora of evidences destroying evolution’s deep time requirements. First, scientists have found DNA in ‘ancient’ fossils. When scientists extract DNA from bacteria, which is supposed to be 425 million years old, then this extraction brings into question that age, because DNA cannot last longer than 1,000,000 years. Second, the Lazarus bacteria is bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, which suggests the salt is not millions of years old. Third, the decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly harmful mutations supports a recent creation history for humanity. Each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Fourth, the data for ‘mitochondrial Eve’ are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago. Likewise, very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin for humanity, which is thousands and not millions of years. Fifth, the finding of pliable blood vessels, blood cells, animal proteins, and even DNA in dinosaur bone is consistent with an age of thousands of years for the fossils, but not the 65 plus million years, which paleontologists often claim.
In addition, Old-Earth Creationists argue that Homo-Erectus and Homo-Neanderthals populations are not human, but the weight of scientific evidence indicates these people are just as human as Homo-Sapeins. Anthropologists have found no significant differences in the anatomy of Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthals, and Homo Sapiens. Homo Erectus had a human body, but evolutionist like to point out that he had a different skull from modern humans. However, the Journal of Science back in October of 2013 reported that scientists found Homo Erectus skulls in Georgia, which is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The skulls show how different the Homo Erectus people can look. Some modern Human skulls are very similar in appearance to Homo Erectus. In 2002, when scientists did a study on modern day Aborigines living in Australia, they found that the shape of some Aborigines’ skulls had 14 of the 17 traits very similar to Homo Erectus skulls. Thus, it looks like Homo Erectus people are clearly fully human. Homo Erectus people invented the tools for making fire, while Neanderthals are famous for burying their dead.
Ever since the discovery of the first Neanderthal remains in 1856, scientists have debated how to classify these mysterious, quite human-like creatures. Until recently, many evolutionists were confident that Neanderthals were not fully human and they regarded them as a sub-human species called Homo Neanderthals. However, recent genetic research shows that modern humans and Neandertals interbred, suggesting that Neandertals and people living today should be classified as the same species. After sequencing the Neanderthal genome, the world’s leading authority on ‘ancient’ DNA, Svante Paäbo, concluded: “Many would say that a species is a group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring with each other and cannot do so with members of other groups. From that perspective we had shown that Neanderthals and modern humans were the same species.” Neanderthals were humans, not ape-men, contrary to many years of evolutionary mythology. The human remains of Homo Erectus, and Homo Neanderthals belong to human beings who were living during the early post-flood era.
Finally, the Old-Earth Creationism is simply a non-literal interpretation of God’s work in creation history because this view argues that each creation day represents long periods or ages. The major problem with this theory is that Old-Earth creation involves millions of years of death and destruction before God declares each day in His creation week as GOOD. Old-Earth creation appears inconsistent with God’s nature and power because God declared that His creation was good during the seven creation days and He is omniscient and omnipotent. In other words, God does not call millions of years of death and destruction as GOOD, He does not need to learn over time, and He does many creation acts rapidly wit
CREATION SCIENCE SOURCES: Creation; Dr. Grant R. Jeffrey; 2003. Genesis One; Dr. Gerald Schroeder with Zola Levitt; 1998. Genesis and The Big Bang; Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D.;1992. Starlight and Time; D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.; 1990. Rethinking Genesis; Duane Garrett; 2000. The English Septuagint Version, Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton; 1851. The New King James Version; Thomas Nelson; 1982. The Signature of God; Grant R. Jeffrey; 2010. Three Views on Creation and Evolution; J.P. Morland & John Mark Reynolds; 1999. Unveiling Mysteries of the Bible; Grant. R. Jeffrey; 2002. The Genesis Account of Creation; Lee Warren, B.A., D.D.; 1997. Creation Revealed in Six Days; P.J. Wiseman; 1946. Halley’s Bible Handbook; Henry Halley; 1965. Making Sense of the Six Day Creation; Dr. T.V. Oommen; 2005. Creation; Dr. Grant R. Jeffrey; 2003.Genesis One; Dr. Gerald Schroeder With Zola Levitt; 1998.Genesis and The Big Bang; Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D.;1992.Inspired Evidence; Bruce Malone;2011.Starlight and Time; D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D.; 1990.Rethinking Genesis; Duane Garrett; 2000.The English Septuagint Version, Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton; 1851.The Genesis Conflict; Dr. Walter Veith; 2002.The New Answers Book1; Ken Ham; 2006.The New Answers Book2; Ken Ham; 2008.The New Answers Book3; Ken Ham; 2010.The New Answers Book4; Ken Ham; 2014.The New King James Version; Thomas Nelson; 1982.The Speed of Light Commentary; Barry Setterfield; 1998.The Signature of God; Grant R. Jeffrey; 2010.Three Views on Creation and Evolution; J.P. Morland & John Mark Reynolds; 1999.Unveiling Mysteries of the Bible; Grant. R. Jeffrey; 2002; Halley’s Bible Handbook; Henry H, Halley; 1965. Starlight & Time; Dr. Russell Humphreys; 2010. All About Creation. Tri-Universe; Dr. Henry Morris; 2000. Dr. Lee Warren; PLIM; 1997. John W. Greene article on Genesis. Dr. Rich Deem articles on Genesis. CMI Creation Videos on the Age of the Earth.