Happy Birthday to U!
How old is the universe?

In today's installment, the SAB provide us with the following quotations:

When was the universe created?

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." -- Genesis 1:1

Archbishop James Ussher: 22 October 4004 BCE
The universes birthday party
The full chronology

Young-Earth Creationists: 6000 - 10,000 years ago
"...the Biblical chronology is about a million times shorter than the evolutionary chronology. A million-fold mistake is no small matter, and Biblical scholars surely need to give primary attention to resolving this tremendous discrepancy right at the very foundation of our entire Biblical cosmology. This is not a peripheral issue that can be dismissed with some exegetical twist, but is central to the very integrity of scriptural theology." -- Henry Morris, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, Baker,(1984), Page 115.

Jehovah's Witnesses: 46,026 BCE
The JW book "Let God Be True" (1946) says that each of the seven days of creation was 7,000 years long. And that since Adam was "created toward the close of the sixth day, he was put on earth toward the end of 42,000 years of earth's preparation." (p. 155) And since "[a]ccording to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation" (April 1, 1968, Watchtower), we know that the universe was created in 46,026 BCE.

Old-Earth Creationists: Somewhere between 10,000 and 20 billion years
It's hard to pin these folks down, but they generally accept some form of day-age interpretation for the creation days of Genesis 1.

Catholic Church: The date cannot be determined from the bible
"At least 200 dates have been suggested, varying from 3483 to 6934 years B.C., all based on the supposition that the Bible enables us to settle the point. But it does nothing of the sort. ... The literal interpretation has now been entirely abandoned; and the world is admitted to be of immense antiquity. ... On such questions we have no Biblical evidence, and the Catholic is quite free to follow the teaching of science." -- Catholic Encyclopedia: Biblical Chronology

The SAB's motivation for these quotations is that they all disagree with what is according to them the correct age of the earth, as given by secular evolutionist scientists. I spoke in the last post about the degree to which secular science can be sure about its theories, and its theory about the age of the earth is no exception.

Taking each quotation in turn:

• The 'The Full Chronology' link above is not Bishop Ussher's work, but the work of whoever the link is referencing. Bishop Ussher's work only gives the chronology up until 70 A.D. There is some reliable Bishop Ussher information here.
• The quotation from Henry M Morris has been ripped out of context; it was not meant as a way to encourage compromise with secular theories.
• The Watchtower organisation (Jehovahs Witnesses) are notorious for making false predictions about various events, and this is no exception. See here for a catalogue of Watchtower false prophecies and erroneous dating information.
• The old age creationists are a group who seek to reconcile the age of the earth given by secular science with the Biblical record. They do this by some kind of re-interpretation of the Biblical data, thereby compromising the Biblical record and undermining the authority of Scripture. What they are doing here is regarding the word of men as more authoritative than the Word of God; we think they should get their priorities straight. The following are some links to articles covering various aspects of the age of the earth controversy from a young earth perspective:
  

  Helium Evidence for a young earth

  The moon Evidence for a young earth

  Geology and the young earth

  The truth about the dating methods

  Radiometric dating questions and answers

• Historically, the Roman Catholic church is an example of the wholesale abandonment of the authority of Scripture (in fact, it sets itself in authority over Scripture), and it is therefore no surprise that they disagree with the scriptural account of creation. For more information on the multitude of non Biblical Roman Catholic doctrines see here.

The common factor in all the above quotations (except for the Bishop Ussher and Henry M Morris quotations, which have been misused), is that they have all compromised the Biblical position in favour of secular evolutionistic theory. This is not surprising for the Jehovahs Witness and Roman Catholic cases, as these are non Christian, unbiblical cult movements.

It seems that the purpose of the SAB authors in using these quotations was to show the disagreement between Christians as to the age of the earth; however, as mentioned above, the majority of the quotations used come from either non Christian cult movements, or those who have compromised Biblical authority. This issue aside, the SAB speak as though the whole of secular science is in complete harmony regarding the age of the earth. This is certainly not the case, as some of the links above illustrate.

The bottom line in all this is this, secular science has no more 'evidence' and is no more 'sure' about the age of the earth than are Biblical creationists, and so the SAB have again failed to prove the unreliability of the Bible or discredit it in any way.

Well, that's all for this episode, join me next time for the Sun and Stars controversy. Bye for now.