How old is the universe?

Question

I don't get it my Bible says that the Earth at best is 10,000 years old, and yet they can see stars from 13 billion light years away, meaning the light took 13 billion years to get to earth, meaning the universe must be at least 13 billion years old.

Could the Bible really not be the truth, I don't get it. Oh wait maybe when God created the universe 7 days meant 2 billion years each, that's it. Even though it talks about evening then day meaning one day, but it must have been 2 billion year cycles, and not literal days. Phew I feel better, go Jesus!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1997/25

You think with 2 billion years to create man, we could have got seperate pipes for air and food.

Answer 1

The "1 creation day = many years" idea still doesn't hold up, when you look at the order of things being created in Genesis (plants and the ocean before the sun, etc.). So either God wants to deceive people by making the word look inconsistant with the book, or the Genesis stories in the Bible are not to be taken as literal historical accounts.

Most Christians have no problem with accepting the Bible as a "communications" book rather than a history book. Some go so far as to say that to read the creation story and treat it literally is to miss the point of the lesson.

Answer 2

This argument is simple, if we know the distance of a star, and we know the speed of light, then we can figure the year that light left that star to travel to the earth. This is called a 'calculated time', and it can reach into the hundreds of millions of years. Thus the question, doesn't that prove that the universe is older then the Bible states?

The problem here is that they are using a 'calculated time' and not an 'observed time'. They were not around millions of years ago to observe any such thing, they are throwing out a calculation and hoping that it's correct. However there are assumptions in this. That light has been traveling the same speed, and that God could not create light en route to earth.

How old did Adam look on the day he was created? 20 years old, 30 years old?? He was created with an appearance of age, just as all of creation was created with an appearance of age. Sorry you are wrong - and under estimate the power of God. The earth was created in 4,004 B.C. in October.

Hebrews 11:3
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Answer 3

Is this a question...it sounds like you already decided what you are going to believe about this. Where 'in' the Bible does it say anything about the age of the Universe? Some people tried drawing conclusions from the genealogies in the Bible to find the age of the Earth and Universe. They come to the conclusion that the Gen. 1 occurred on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o'clock or beginning at sunset of the 22nd (that the James Ussher and John Lightfoot). That was sometimes written on the margin of Bibles as notes, but there is no reference to a date in the Bible itself. Some people have tried to 'stretch' the 'days' of the Bible to mean non-literal days, but most fundamentalists completely reject that idea ("if it says it was a day, it was a 24 hour day"). Stretching the days out to billions of years doesn't solve many problems, it makes more that you then have to use more apologetics for. The best thing is to not try to play games making things fit. If you want to believe the Universe is 6011 years old than that's being theologically honest... if on the other hand, you understand how the age of the Universe, 13.7 billion years, was arrived at and accept the evidence for it than you are being intellectually honest.

Answer 4

Gen.1:1 In the beginning(beginning of what/) Creation, In the beginning, God created the heaven & earth. 2: And the earth was Void & without form, & darkness was upon the the face of the deep. So this earth & all stars, & other planets was there in the beginning of all creation, Which very well can take you back to Billions of years, Does this sounds strange from a Christian, It is All in the bible & hid from people that don't know how to see God's creation. They look right over it all, When Adam & Eve was created God told Adam to REPLINISH the earth, why would God tell Adam to fill it up again if there was not other life form at one time. Now some says God did not make the stars, Read Gen. 1:16 He made the stars also.

Answer 5

Dear trucking,

You have brought up an interesting point. If we follow the Biblical creation found in Genesis, God created all vegetation on the 3rd day. On the 4th day He created the sun and the moon. If we go by your theory, then all the vegetation created on the 3rd day would have died due to lack of sunlight (photosynthesis).

Stay with me for a moment here now.... God is God and has infinite wisdom and power. He knows everything .... even the questions people would be asking thousands of years later like yours. When God created man, did He make a little baby that had to be nursed, taught how to speak, how to eat, etc? No. He created a fully mature man that had great intelligence so that he named all the animals that God had created and remembered the names.

The reality is God created a fully functional, mature, universe in the beginning. May I also say to you that the world is 13,018 years old at this point in time. When you ead the Bible, youneed to read it carefully. Ask God to give you a desire to read His word and give you some understanding.

I hope this will help you.

Answer 6

The debate over the age of the earth has been building since geologists first started dating rock strata and Darwin introduced us to the concept of evolution. Whether it's billions of years old or only a few thousand is a topic that seems to be impossible to come to an agreement on. Most people believe one or the other, completely ignoring all evidence contrary to their beliefs. A few attempts have been made to reconcile the two but rebuttals to the arguments seem to come faster than the theories themselves. I believe the answer to this question lies right there in the first chapter of Genesis and one need only look to the original Hebrew scriptures. "Old earthers" rely on science while ignoring the Bible and "young earthers" blindly stick to the King James Version of the bible while ignoring science. The keys to unlocking this mystery require first, an open mind, and second, a look at what was originally written about creation. I am vehemently opposed to allowing one's personal bias to get in the way of the truth. We must start from the scriptures and learn from them, not bring our own preconceived notions to the scriptures. Every English version of the Bible that I've found has shown signs of personal bias in the translation. No two translations completely agree with each other and even the KJV has been revised several times. If you have ever sat in church trying to follow along with what the pastor is reading and found all the words don't match up it's because you're reading from different "editions" of the KJV. In this essay, I will use the most common edition of the KJV as a reference only. It's the version that is most widely read in the English speaking world and it's also the version that Dr. James Strong used as a reference for his "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible". Strong's Concordance is considered to be the most accurate resource for Biblical study and is certainly the most widely read. These are the only two references I use in my work unless otherwise noted.

Now, let us start "In the beginning".

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

"In the beginning" comes from the Hebrew word "reshiyth" meaning "first" and the word heaven comes from shamayim meaning "sky", so the first verse should read "First, God created the earth and sky."

Gen 1:2 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.

In the first sentence, the translations for the words "was", "without form" and "void" are not completely accurate. The Hebrew meanings of these words are:

"was"
hayah meaning become or come to pass

"without form"
tohu meaning to lie waste; a desolation (of surface)

"void"
bohu meaning to be empty; a vacuity, i.e. (superficially) an undistinguishable ruin

In the second sentence, the "Spirit" of God comes from ruach meaning wind and "face" is from paniym meaning "surface.
There are a couple of ways to interpret this verse so I will give both possible translations.
1. The earth became desolate and empty, darkness was over the face of the deep. The wind of God moved over the surface of the waters.
2. It came to pass that the earth was laid waste and ruined, darkness was over the face of the deep. The wind of God moved over the surface of the waters.
As you can see, both versions say the same thing. We'll come back to this after looking at verse 3.


Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

This verse is actually translated pretty accurately, at least close enough that nothing is really lost in the translation. The only reason I even mentioned this verse is because it's important to subject at hand.

Let's put all three verses together and see what the scriptures tell us. I will take the liberty to paraphrase:

First, God created the earth and sky. The earth became a wasteland, desolate, empty and ruined. Darkness covered the surface of the oceans. God caused a wind to blow over the waters.

As we can see, the Hebrew Scriptures paint a different picture than the one we've been taught. If the scientists are right about their old earth theory, then millions (or billions) of years could have passed between the original creation and destruction of the earth. The scriptures do not tell us how much time passed nor the reason for the destruction. Since the details were not given to us, we can only speculate.

Because of the fossil record and the study of rock strata, scientists believe that the earth is billions of years old and dinosaurs have been extinct for at least millions of years. They very well could be right without compromising the inerrancy of scripture.

The leading scientific theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs is a meteor impact in the Yucatan Peninsula:
"The shock wave from the impact would indeed have triggered massive earthquakes in the region and indirectly triggered other earthquakes around the globe. A tsunami would have formed from the impact, which occurred in a shallow sea. The giant waves would also have been generated by the earthquakes and undersea landslides triggered by the shock wave."
"The dust thrown up by the impact, the soot generated by the firestorms and the smog formed from the oxides of nitrogen and sulfur particles would have blocked sunlight for many months. The surface of the Earth would have plunged to freezing conditions -- typically 70 degrees Fahrenheit below normal -- and photosynthesis would not have been possible, even if plants had survived the fires and acid rain." 1
This scenario certainly fits the description of the wasteland as depicted in the Hebrew Scriptures. The earth would certainly have become desolate, empty of life and ruined. Darkness would have covered most of the earth. In Genesis 1:2, God caused a wind to blow ridding the planet of the soot and dust particles that caused the darkness giving the earth light once again as seen in Gen 1:3. Once there was light again, the rest of the new creation process could begin.
As you can see, this is an issue that can be laid to rest. Billions of years ago, God created the earth and sky (probably at about the same time as the rest of the cosmos), it was populated with the plants and animals that we now see only as fossils. At some point the earth was destroyed in a great catastrophe, not only causing the extinction of plants and animals but also altering the topography of the earth. Somewhere around 6 to 10 thousand years ago (according to theologians) God "re-terraformed" the planet, created the new plants and animals and, of course, man.

Answer 7

It is 15 billion years give or take a couple of billion. You are right, the only way that we could see something 13 billion light-years away is if the light has been traveling for 13 billion years. That means that the Universe has to be at least that old.

Answer 8

The universe is 13.7 billion years old, with a margin of error of about 200 million years (seems large, but compared to 13.7 billion, 200 million is a pretty tiny margin of error, less than 1.5%).

P.S. When the Bible says a "day" in Genesis, it means a literal day. Arguing otherwise is only wishful thinking, once one takes a look at the original language it was written in: http://www.evilbible.com/a_day_is_a_day.htm

Answer 9

First off, the Bible is not a scientific text book. It is not its purpose to give us the accurate, intricate work of God and the way he created the Earth. It is merely a summery.
Second, who was God giving this information to? Try and explain a computer to someone who has never even heard about one with out metaphors, or common references, and see if they don't give you that look that says "What the .... are you talking about."
God is informing a lowly human in the only way he can comprehend it. And to help him out, it is from a point of view of someone being on Earth while creation is happening.
Now forget the semantics, and see if this fits.

1 In [the] beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

(Now of course this will include quasars, super clusters, clusters, galaxies, solar systems [stars], planets in orbit. For our friend Moses, just twinkling little lights in the sky. This can be an undetermined amount of time. What ever science says)

2 Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of [the] watery deep; and God’s active force was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters.

(Now if the Sun must exist [according to science] and there is no light on the Earth, what is the only possible explanation for this? Dense cloud cover of course. Ash, volcanic vapor, what ever. It let nothing in.)

3 And God proceeded to say: “Let light come to be.” Then there came to be light. (Obviously, that dense cloud cover was starting to dissipate. But it does not mean that Ether the Sun or any other luminous object was clearly visible. It just was not pitch black any more.)
4 After that God saw that the light was good, and God brought about a division between the light and the darkness. 5 And God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a first day.
(look this up in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-age_creationism for a more balance view of Hebrew word 'yoma' [day])

6 And God went on to say: “Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters.” 7 Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so. 8 And God began to call the expanse Heaven. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a second day.
(I don't think this need any help, another LONG day)

9 And God went on to say: “Let the waters under the heavens be brought together into one place and let the dry land appear.” And it came to be so. (Plate Tectonics) 10 And God began calling the dry land Earth, but the bringing together of the waters he called Seas. Further, God saw that [it was] good. 11 And God went on to say: “Let the earth cause grass to shoot forth, vegetation bearing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds, the seed of which is in it, upon the earth.” And it came to be so. 12 And the earth began to put forth grass, vegetation bearing seed according to its kind and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in it according to its kind. Then God saw that [it was] good. 13 And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a third day.


14 And God went on to say: “Let luminaries come to be in the expanse of the heavens to make a division between the day and the night; and they must serve as signs and for seasons and for days and years. 15 And they must serve as luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth.” And it came to be so. 16 And God proceeded to make the two great luminaries, the greater luminary for dominating the day and the lesser luminary for dominating the night, and also the stars. 17 Thus God put them in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth, 18 and to dominate by day and by night and to make a division between the light and the darkness. Then God saw that [it was] good. 19 And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a fourth day.
(Ok this is the kicker! Why now? Well if you have been reading, this is the point the dense cloud cover dissipated entirely, and for the first time, the sky appeared as it is. But this is the fist impression, much as a newborn gets. From its point of view, everything comes into existence when it becomes aware of it, not before. God was just giving the account in a way Moses could understand.)

Answer 10

It's like writing a biography on Cleo Lemon in a half an hour. Not many people know who Cleo Lemon is, so what do you do? You BS to the best of your intellectual ability.