What is the difference between old earth creationists and new earth creationists?

Question

Also how does each group draw their logic? i.e. do they interpret the bible differently?

Answer 1

I was just researching this tonight! How convenient :-) This is my first time researching the various ideas of Creationism, so bare with me, I'm still learning too.

Both Old Earth and New Earth are umbrella terms for a variety of views on creation.

Old Earth Creationists may believe in Gap Creationism or Progressive Creationism.

Gap Creationism says that God created the world we know today on an already-existing "old Earth." This idea comes from Genesis 1:1-2 "In the beginning ... [when] the earth became formless and void." (It is argued that the word 'was', hayah, can also be correctly translated as 'became'.)

Progressive Creationism is the idea that God allows certain natural processes (gene mutation, evolution, etc) to shape the development of life, but has also directly intervened to guide those processes, for example, to create or wipe out a certain species.

Interpretation of Genesis 1 is also a big part of it. The idea of "Day Age Creation" falls under Old Earth. It is the idea that the word "day" when used in Genesis 1 did not literally mean a period of 24 hours, but perhaps billions of years.

For Old Earth Creationists the Biblical Flood was merely a flood and not the giant earth resurfacer as required by Young Earth Creationists.

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Young Earth Creationists take a very literal interpretation of Genesis; they believe Creation to have been completed within 6 days, by the hand of God, and they do not believe in evolution.

They believe the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old, rather than the age of 4.5 billion years estimated by a variety of scientific methods. Additionally, they believe that the biblical account of Noah's flood is historically true, maintaining that there was a worldwide flood (circa 2349 BC) that destroyed all terrestrial life except that which was saved on Noah's Ark.

YECs are fundamentally opposed to any explanation for the origins of anything which replaces God as the universal creator as reported in the Bible, whether it be the origins of biological diversity, the origins of life or the origins of the universe itself.

I hope that was helpful!

Answer 2

Well, the difference is pretty self-explanatory. Both groups believe that God created the Earth, but old Earth creationists (which I am) believe that the Genesis account, especially regarding time, is not to be taken literally.

If one goes back to the original Hebrew, the word that was translated as "day" is yôm, which can be any period of time. Literally translated, yôm is from an unused root word meaning to be hot. That might not necessarily be one day.

Now, I DO believe that God could have created the Earth in six days, and that He could have made everything appear older than it is...He's GOD! But I don't think it was done that way.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Both beleive in creationism rather than evolution. Both take the BIble literally.

Those that beleive in an old earth quote, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth , and the earth was without form or void." Since God creates everything perfect in its orgional condition, they feel there must have been a cause for the earth to be in such condition.

Using the scripture that describes Lucifer and 1/3 of angels being cast from heaven, old earth people feel that evil brought about the chaos. They feel that demons are the spirits that used to inhabit the bodies of such creatures and that life as we know it today, occured in 6 literal days. (Benny Hinn talks something about the old earth.. He calls it a preadamic race or something like that.)

There is some debate about the actural length of a day in God's eyes using a scripture about a day to God is as a thousand years to us. (The fact that we share a large percentages of DNA with other species proves rather than disproves creation. It shows what we were made from the same materials and chemicals. Theerefore, we must have had a common creator. A clay pot would not say to a clay figurine, "We are both made from clay,so a potter could not have created us." God spoke and and formed various living species came from dirt. Where as, he took time to physically create mankind from the same kind of material/dirt he used in the rest of his creation. )

The new earth people beleif that both the earth and the life on the earth was created in six days.

Answer 4

old earth creationists have made some concessions to scientific evidence. they tend not to see the age of the earth as a 'salvation issue', but do deny things like common descent. Young earth creationists heavily emphasise the 'lie of millions of years' and literal interpretation (meaning their idiosyncratic interpretation) of the scriptures.

their logic is actually not very different in my experience - OEC may seem more 'reasonable' at first but relies on the same sort of adherence to dogma and misrepresentation of science - it's just that their dogma conflicts less with established science. for example if you're familiar only with geology you may not even notice OEC's little quirks, whereas YEC would probably seem pretty out there.

Answer 5

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is as old as the heavens. The old earth creationists are right. The earth is billions of years old, as old as the heavens as the Bible says.

Answer 6

Old earth creationists believe the 7-day creation described in the bible is a metaphor. They rely on their own knowledge and understanding (which the bible warns us not to do) and believe fallible human science which tells them that the earth is ancient.

Young earth creationists believe God and take His word literally. They believe God created the world in the order He says He did over the course of six days (He rested on the 7th) and that the earth is about 6000 years old. They choose to trust God and take him at His word despite any evidence to the contrary, as He says we should.

Answer 7

Well, if I really must take on a label, I'd say I am an "old earth" theist. The rationale for this is in Genesis 2:4 where it states that "this is the *history* of the earth....". That word *history* is translated as "toledoth" which means *generations*. It can be applied to a man's "generations" when recognizing his geneaology, and it can be used in the sense of explaining "vast periods of time" as well. It is in this latter sense that the text must be referring to, because there were, obviously, no human generations yet to speak of concerning generations.
An old Jewish friend of mine from Israel assures me that in the ancient language of Aramaic, *histories* as used in the sense of time, means time without reference or reckoning.
I personally believe the construction of the earth when God was creating it spans billions of years in terms of our understanding or reckoning of time.
The idea that the earth was created 6,000 years ago when fossils are being dated at over 100,000 years old simply defies all logic. The earth must be at least 12 billion years in existence and time.

Answer 8

properly, i'm a Theistic Evolutionist, and that i've got faith the Universe took hundreds of thousands (billions?) of years to create, and slowly, yet easily, the international became into greater and we developed into present day-day homo sapien, all part of the grand plan with the aid of God. Creationists have faith God created the Universe in 7 days and created guy from no longer something, and created the female 0.5 from a rib-bone.

Answer 9

They do interpret it differently. I'm reading a good book called Reading the bible again for the first time by Marcus J. Borg. It is very good, the tag line is taking the bible seriously; not literally. I'm not religious but am reading it for a uni paper I am taking, it's really good.

Answer 10

Some people believe the literal truth of the Bible and some people do not. Some people think that this earth is thousands of years old and some people believe millions of years etc.

I believe God can make things look old when He created them as "aged".