Some understand these days as six consecutive 24-hour periods, a view known as young-earth creationism. Others read the same text and conclude that the word “day” (the Hebrew word yôm) represents longer periods of God’s creative activity. This approach is often called old-earth creationism.

Both perspectives begin with Scripture and seek to honor its authority. The difference lies in how each interprets the language and structure of the creation account, not in their commitment to God or his Word.

For Christians who wonder how scientific evidence for an ancient universe fits with a faithful reading of Genesis, old-earth creationism represents a historical understanding of God’s two revelations. It holds that God is both the Author of Scripture and the Creator of the natural world. Therefore, the two won’t ultimately contradict each other. God’s “two books”—the Bible and the created world—work together to reveal the same Creator.

Old-earth creationists recognize that while God’s two books are wholly reliable, human interpretations of both are not. Theology is our attempt to interpret Scripture; science is our attempt to interpret the natural world. No one has complete knowledge of either, and our assumptions can lead us astray. So when our theology and our science seem to conflict, old-earth creationists see that tension not as a reason to dismiss one or the other, but as a call from God to study both more carefully.

In the following sections, we’ll explore what old-earth creationists believe, how they interpret the creation days in Genesis, how their view compares to other creation perspectives, and why this discussion matters for Christians who want to take both the Bible and the evidence of nature seriously.

What Is Old-Earth Creationism?

Old-earth creationism is the view that God created the universe, Earth, and all life over long periods of time—billions rather than thousands of years.

Where it differs from young-earth creationism (YEC) is in timing. The old-earth creation view asserts that the “days” of Genesis are not 24 hours each, but rather long spans of God’s creative activity.

From an old-earth creationism perspective, scientific evidence for an ancient universe and Earth—including radiometric dating, geological records, expansion of the universe, and the light from distant stars and galaxies—is consistent with God’s creative work and with Scripture.

Current scientific measurements place the age of the universe at roughly 13.8 billion years and the age of the Earth at about 4.6 billion years.

This idea that the six creation days may not be six 24-hour periods has deep historical roots. Early Jewish and Christian thinkers, including Philo, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, and Augustine, allowed for creation time periods other than 144 hours. This means the idea of long creation days is not a modern compromise with science. It predates modern science by more than a thousand years

What Do Old-Earth Creationists Believe?

Old-earth creationists like those at Reasons to Believe see the universe as ancient—billions of years old—yet shaped and designed by a personal, purposeful God. Their core convictions include that God reveals himself through both Scripture and the natural world (dual revelation); that the “days” of Genesis represent long, consecutive time periods (the day-age view); that God directly created new forms of life at key moments in Earth’s history; and that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals from whom all humanity descends. We explore these more fully below.

Is Old-Earth Creationism Biblical?

How can we assess if old-earth creationism is biblical? For many, this is less a question of “Could God create in six days?” but “What does Genesis mean by ‘day’?”

This matters because our answer shapes whether Christians see science as a threat to their faith or as a witness to the same God who inspired Scripture.

The Hebrew word translated as day, yôm, has four literal definitions: part of the daylight hours, all the daylight hours, a 24-hour calendar day, or a long, finite time period. Old-earth creationists hold that the context of Genesis 1 supports the fourth meaning. (For a deeper look at what the Bible says about Earth’s age, see this blog post.)

Core Tenets of Old-Earth Creationism

If Scripture and creation truly speak in harmony, what does that look like in practice? Old-earth creationists ground their view in several core convictions:

Dual Revelation

Old-earth creationists hold to the historic Christian teaching, often called dual revelation, that God reveals himself through both Scripture and the natural world. Because both come from a God for whom it is impossible to lie (Hebrews 6:18), they work together in harmony. This is not a modern idea—the Belgic Confession (1561) describes creation as “a beautiful book” through which God makes himself known, alongside his written Word (drawn from Psalm 19:1–9 and Romans 1:20). Reasons to Believe (RTB), founded in 1986 by astrophysicist Hugh Ross, has been a leading voice for this view, showing how science and Scripture function as two independent witnesses that corroborate one another where they overlap.

A Universe Both Ancient and Faithful

Multiple independent lines of evidence, from astronomy to geology to nuclear physics, converge on the same picture: an ancient cosmos, roughly 13.8 billion years old, on an Earth about 4.6 billion years old. The prophet Jeremiah reminds us why we can trust these measurements: God made the laws that govern heaven and earth fixed and unchanging (Jeremiah 33:25). The constancy of natural laws over billions of years reflects the faithfulness of the God who set them in place.

Day-Age View

Why do we interpret the Genesis 1 creation days as consecutive long time periods?

One of the literal definitions for yôm (day) is a long, finite time period. The Hebrew words for evening (‘ereb) and morning (boqer) can likewise mean ending and beginning. The first six creation days all conclude with an “evening was, morning was” phrase—but the seventh day has no such marker. This implies God’s seventh day has not yet ended, a reading confirmed by both Psalm 95:11 and Hebrews 4:1–11, which state that we are still in God’s seventh day.

If the seventh day has lasted thousands of years at minimum, it is not a 24-hour day. The scientific evidence confirms this pattern. The fossil record documents the appearance of new species throughout Earth’s pre-human history, but no new species have appeared since humans arrived on the scene. This is exactly what we’d expect if God ceased his creation work on the seventh day, as Genesis 2 describes.

Genesis 1:27 says God created humans, male and female, during the sixth day. Genesis 2 details what happened within that day: God created Adam, placed him in Eden, had him tend the garden, observe all the animals, and name each one. Only after all this did God create Eve. When Adam first saw her, the word he spoke—happa’am—means “at long last.” Both the number of events and Adam’s own response suggest the sixth day, like the seventh, was far longer than 24 hours.

Some assert that the fourth of the ten commandments implies 24-hour creation days. However, the Bible addresses Sabbath periods of different durations.

Direct Creation

Old-earth creationists accept that species adapt within their kind—what scientists call microevolution. But they hold that natural processes alone cannot explain the sudden appearance of new, complex life-forms in the fossil record or the unique capacities of human beings. These transitions in the fossil record reflect moments of direct divine action, with God introducing new forms of life at different points in Earth’s history, consistent with the pattern presented in Genesis 1.

This view rejects macroevolution—the idea that all life descends from a single common ancestor through undirected processes. Instead, the complexity of living organisms, the fine-tuning of their systems, and the gaps in the fossil record point to a God who actively and purposefully created life throughout Earth’s long history.

Historical Adam and Eve

Old-earth creationists affirm that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals specially created by God, from whom all human beings are descended. Adam was formed from the dust of the ground and given life when God breathed into him; Eve was created directly by God from Adam’s side.

This sets humanity apart from all other creatures and establishes humans as bearers of God’s image. Because Adam and Eve are historical, the doctrines that depend on them—the fall, original sin, and Christ’s redemption of a fallen humanity—stand on historical ground, not metaphor.

The Flood That Swept Humanity

According to the old-earth creationism view, the Genesis flood destroyed all humans outside the ark and their domesticated animals—but not the entire planet. It was worldwide in the sense that the whole world of ungodly people was wiped out (2 Peter 2:5). Noah and his family were the only survivors.

Regions not occupied by humans were not flooded. The Hebrew supports this reading. The word used throughout the flood account, eretz, often translated “earth,” can also mean “land” or “region.” The second most common word, ‘adama, refers to land inhabited or tilled by humans—which makes sense, since only land inhabited by humans can be damaged by human sin. In Genesis 8, haraba is used for the flooded land, a Hebrew word that never refers to the entirety of Earth’s land surface. The purpose of the flood was to rid the world of human wickedness and prevent humanity’s self-destruction. This reading affirms the authority of Scripture and the historicity of the flood while remaining consistent with evidence from geology, genetics, and archaeology.

Death Before the Fall

How could death exist before the rebellion in Eden? Paul tells us, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people” (Romans 5:12). Of all Earth’s creatures, only humans sin. By saying death came to all people, rather than all life, Paul implies that microbial, plant, and animal death occurred before Adam and Eve.

Scripture reinforces this picture. Job describes a world where lions hunt and feed by God’s design (Job 38:39), and the psalmist says lions “seek their food from God” (Psalm 104:21). Animal death is not a punishment for human sin but part of the ecosystem God established. The scientific evidence agrees. The fossil record shows that animal death and extinction occurred long before modern humans appeared. The enormous abundance of biodeposits—coal, oil, natural gas, limestone, marble, gypsum—testifies to ages of life and death before humans were created.

A common concern is that death before the fall undermines the gospel. But this view preserves the doctrines that matter most: the uniqueness of humanity as God’s image-bearers, the reality of Adam’s fall, and the necessity of Christ’s redemptive work. Human death—spiritual separation from God—entered through Adam’s sin. That is the death Christ came to conquer.

Animal death before the fall does not undermine that promise. In this view, human spiritual death and separation from God are the direct results of Adam’s sin, while nonhuman death reflects the normal functioning of the natural world God made.

How Does Old-Earth Creationism Compare to Other Creation Views?

Other Creation Perspectives

The table below compares four widely discussed creation views. Two points of detail worth noting: Evolutionary creationism is sometimes called theistic evolution, but there is a distinction. Unlike some theistic evolutionists, evolutionary creationists hold that God directly intervened in miraculous ways to shape the universe, solar system, and Earth so it could support a great abundance and diversity of life.

Where evolutionary creationism parts company with old-earth creationism is on the question of life’s development: evolutionary creationism accepts macroevolution and common descent, while old-earth creationism holds that God directly created new forms of life at key points in history.

Intelligent design (ID) is not a creation model based on a particular reading of Genesis but an apologetic framework. It argues that features of the natural world—such as biological complexity and the fine-tuning of the universe—are best explained by an intelligent cause. Because ID does not specify the age of the earth or identify the Designer in biblical terms, Christians, Jews, Muslims, or even nontheists may affirm it. Many old-earth creationists draw on ID arguments as scientific support for the claim that life shows marks of purposeful design.

Popular Creation Views

What Unites Us in the Creation Conversation

Christians hold different views on creation, but old-earth creationism offers something distinctive: a reading of Genesis that takes the Hebrew text seriously and seeks alignment with what God has revealed through the natural world. It affirms that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) and that “through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3)—while also embracing the full weight of the evidence he left for us to find.

Thoughtful Christians reach different conclusions on these questions, and the conversation is worth having. But if the same God who authored Scripture also made the heavens and the earth, we should expect his two works to tell a consistent story. Old-earth creationism says they do.

The post Old-<em class="algolia-search-highlight">Earth</em> Creationism: Is It Biblical? appeared first on Reasons to Believe.

For decades, scientists have wrestled with these questions. Many who look for purely natural explanations believe every living thing can be traced back to a single-celled organism, often called the “Last Universal Common Ancestor,” or LUCA. But this just creates another question: how did that first living cell even come into existence?

Figuring out how life on Earth began—specifically, how a barren planet became filled with microscopic life—isn’t just a point of scientific concern; it has huge implications for each person’s belief system. The evidence points in one of two directions. Either:

1. Life is the result of an unguided, natural process, 
2. Or, it was designed by a Creator.

Many people assume that science and the biblical account in Genesis are at odds. But are they? And do they have to be? Can Christian Scripture and origin-of-life research fit together?

At Reasons to Believe, we hold that both science and Scripture affirm that the origin of life on earth was the result of God’s creative work. To lay out the evidence for this view, we first need to clarify a few key questions:

• What exactly is life?
• What kind of life was first present on Earth?
• What does the latest origin-of-life research tell us?

A thoughtful Christian approach will seriously consider the viewpoints of non-Christian scientists and all relevant scientific facts. While much of the scientific community leans toward a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life on Earth, we’ll see that the evidence presents some major problems for this view. Instead, the history of life points powerfully toward purposeful design and, therefore, a Designer.

How Did Life Begin?

To understand how life began, we first need to agree on what life actually is. While that might sound simple, when we look at the details, it becomes a complex issue.

What Is Life?

Scientists have identified several key characteristics that all life on Earth shares. Life is:

• Organized: It has a defined structure.
• Chemically distinct: It’s different from its nonliving surroundings.
• Homeostatic: It maintains a stable internal balance.

In addition to these traits, living things also:

• Take in and use energy from their environment.
• Respond and adapt to their surroundings.
• Reproduce and experience small-scale changes, or microevolution.

Every living thing reproduces and evolves. Even if you don’t believe that all life evolved from a single common ancestor (macroevolution), it’s clear that all life changes in small ways in response to its environment (microevolution)..

What Does Life Need to Get Started?

For life to exist, it needs the right ingredients and environment. Think of it like building a house—you can’t just dump lumber, nails, and bricks on a lot and expect a home to appear. You need specific materials, a solid foundation, and a carefully ordered plan to bring it all together. In the same way, three of the most critical ingredients for most life on Earth are:

1. water
2. carbon dioxide
3. oxygen

More Than Just Water and Air

While water, CO₂, and oxygen are vital, they’re not the whole story. To build the complex organic compounds found in most or all living organisms, you need other essential elements. These include hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur–and, of course, carbon. Other elements like potassium, sodium, and calcium are also important, even if they’re not as abundant.

Abiogenesis: Can Life Arise from Non-Life?

For the first living cells to form, all these elements had to be present in the right amounts and under the right conditions. Many origin-of-life scientists believe that the presence of these key chemical elements provides all the means for the natural development of the first life on Earth. This theory—that life can evolve from nonliving, inorganic matter—is called abiogenesis.

But is it really that simple? Let’s look at what the fossil record tells us about the history of life on our planet.

When Did Life Begin on Earth?

Understanding the timeline of life’s origin can help us appreciate the complexity of Earth’s history. Scientists have uncovered remarkable evidence that reveals just how early—and suddenly—life appeared.

Timeline of Major Life Events

• ~4.566 billion years ago: Earth forms.
• ~4.5 billion years ago: The Moon forms.
• ~3.85 billion years ago: Isotopic evidence for life appears.
• ~3.8 billion years ago: Oceans become permanent, and a stable water cycle is established.
• ~3.5 billion years ago: Stromatolites and microfossils provide evidence of early microbial life.
• ~2.5 billion years ago: Cyanobacteria and other phototrophs contribute to the oxidation of Earth’s atmosphere.
• ~1.9 billion years ago: Microscopic eukaryotes (complex cells) appear.
• ~650 million years ago: Some scientists believe the first land plants arrive.
• ~543 million years ago: The Cambrian explosion occurs, introducing fish and shell-like invertebrates.
• ~444 million years ago: End-Ordovician extinction event occurs, eliminating an estimated 85% of marine species.
• ~372–359 million years ago: Late Devonian extinction events take place in multiple pulses, reshaping marine ecosystems.
• ~520 million years ago: Fossil land plant spores are discovered.
• ~425 million years ago: Vascular plant fossils appear.
• ~346 million years ago: The earliest terrestrial animal fossils are found.
• ~252 million years ago: End-Permian extinction event (“The Great Dying”), the most severe extinction in Earth’s history.
• ~230 million years ago: Dinosaurs emerge.
• ~201 million years ago: End-Triassic extinction event clears ecological space for dinosaur dominance.
• ~155 million years ago: The earliest winged birds appear.
• ~66 million years ago: End-Cretaceous extinction event occurs, most famously wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs.
• ~125 million years ago: The earliest mammal fossils are discovered.
• ~130,000 years ago: Modern humans emerge.

Findings highlight how the discovery of ancient fossils has perplexed origin-of-life researchers and cast doubt on classic evolutionary timelines. While 3.85 billion years of life history might sound like ample time for gradual evolution, the evidence tells a different story: life appears rapidly, stabilizes for long periods, and then new waves of life arise suddenly—often immediately following catastrophic extinction events.

From an old-earth creation perspective, this pattern reflects purposeful stages in Earth’s history, with ecosystems being reset and prepared for increasingly complex life, ultimately culminating in humanity. This progression aligns far more naturally with a biblical explanation of life’s origins than with older naturalistic models that require long, uninterrupted stretches of slow evolutionary change.

Where Did Life Begin?

Where life began on Earth is just as fascinating as when it began. The fossil record points to two especially significant locations: shorelines  and hydrothermal vents.

• Shorelines: Some of the oldest fossils on Earth are found along shorelines and shallow seas in the form of stromatolites.These layered bacterial mats show that microbial communities thrived in the planet’s primeval days and their global distribution reveals that early life was already surprisingly diverse.
• Hydrothermal Vents: Deep-sea vents provided a unique sanctuary for life sheltered from harsh surface conditions and asteroid bombardment. Microfossils in these environments show that complex biological activity was present around the same time as stromatolites.

Recent research highlights just how quickly and widely microbial communities spread, even in Earth’s most inhospitable conditions. As discussed in “What Does the Discovery of Earth’s Oldest Fossils Mean for Evolutionary Models?,” these findings challenge the timeline and expectations of naturalistic evolution, suggesting that the abrupt appearance and variety of early life on Earth isn’t easily explained by the classic models.

With so much evidence pointing to a rapid and global emergence of life, the question remains: how did such complex life begin so early?

How Scientists Study the Origin of Life

Beyond the puzzle of when life appeared, scientists are also trying to figure out how it appeared. A major focus of origin-of-life research is understanding how nonliving (prebiotic) compounds could have assembled  to form the first living cells.

To do this, researchers have developed a three-step experimental approach.

1. Proof of Principle: These experiments aim to demonstrate that a particular chemical or physical process could contribute to one of the steps needed to create life. It’s about showing what’s possible in a lab setting.
2. Mechanism Studies: Once a process is shown to be possible, researchers dive deeper. They study the specific mechanisms behind these chemical changes to understand exactly how they work.
3. Geochemical Relevance: This is the most critical step. Here, scientists try to determine if the processes they’ve demonstrated in the lab could have actually happened on early Earth. In effect, seeing if the processes still work when the lab conditions match the real-world conditions from billions of years ago.

So far, scientists have had success with the first two steps. They’ve identified reliable processes that could, in principle, generate the building blocks of life. They’ve also explored the mechanisms behind these processes.

But here’s the big question: Could any of these carefully controlled lab experiments have occurred naturally on the chaotic, early earth? While we can show that certain chemical reactions are possible, demonstrating that they are relevant to the origin of life on Earth is a much greater challenge.

The Primordial Soup Theory

You’ve probably heard the classic “primordial soup” explanation for how life began. It’s the story many of us learned in school. The idea is that life didn’t just appear all at once but developed through a step-by-step process.

According to this theory, the oceans of early Earth were like a warm, chemical-rich soup. In this primordial soup, simple organic compounds randomly bumped into each other, forming more and more complex molecules. Over vast stretches of time, these nonliving but organic compounds combined in just the right way to create the very first, simple, single-celled organism.

From this initial spark of life, the theory goes, LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor) eventually evolved. This is the single-celled organism from which all other life is thought to have descended.

Does the “Primordial Soup” Theory Hold Up to Science?

While the primordial soup idea is popular, scientists have run into major problems with it. These issues challenge whether this well-known story for how life began could have actually happened.

For example, the classic model assumes Earth’s early atmosphere was “reducing”—meaning rich in hydrogen-based gases that would have helped prebiotic compounds form. However, we now have strong evidence that the early atmosphere was neutral, full of water vapor, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. This type of atmosphere would have prevented many of the necessary organic compounds from ever forming.

The soup theory itself has other issues. Many of the chemical reactions needed to create the building blocks of life also produce byproducts. These extra chemicals could have stopped later reactions in their tracks or even destroyed the very compounds that had just been made.

Searching for Alternative Routes

Because of these challenges, scientists have proposed alternative theories for the origin of life on Earth.

• Extraterrestrial Delivery: Some suggest that comets or asteroids crashed into Earth, seeding it with the necessary compounds for life—a theory known as panspermia.
• Unique Environments: Others propose that life began in specific locations with unique energy sources, like volcanoes or deep-sea hydrothermal vents. These scenarios aim to find a plausible natural mechanism for creating prebiotic compounds.

The Problem of the Scientist in the Lab

A major hurdle for all origin-of-life experiments is researcher intervention. For a naturalistic origin of life to be plausible, the process must have happened in an unguided way , without any intelligent interference. Scientists trying to recreate these conditions have to prove their experiments could work on the chaotic, messy early earth.

However, researchers often don’t account for their own role. Simple things, like using purified chemicals, temperature control, or removing contaminating byproducts, are standard lab practice. But these actions represent a level of control and foresight that wouldn’t have existed in nature. This kind of tinkering couldn’t happen on early Earth without an intelligent designer.

In their quest to show how life could arise naturally, researchers guide the process toward a desired outcome and unwittingly play the role of a creator.

This leads us to an intriguing question: If creating even the simplest building blocks of a cell requires careful lab conditions and intelligent intervention, is it reasonable to think life began on Earth without a designer?

Why Is There Life on Earth?

After exploring all these scientific puzzles, what are we left with? How did life begin on Earth? While researchers have shown that certain chemical steps toward life are possible in a lab, they haven’t been able to show how these steps could happen in the real world without a scientist’s help. The gap between nonliving chemicals and a living cell remains huge.

The incredible complexity of even the simplest cell, the stunning diversity of the first fossils, and what we know about the hostile early earth all point toward a different conclusion. Both theistic and atheistic scientists acknowledge that complex life appeared suddenly and early in our planet’s history. This sudden arrival demands an explanation that goes beyond simple, unguided processes.

Science and Scripture in Harmony

At Reasons to Believe (RTB), we see overwhelming evidence for design in the history of life. The unexplained complexity and sudden diversity of the first living things point powerfully to God as the Creator. The answer to how life on Earth began seems to require an intentional, intelligent agent—much like origin-of-life experiments require an intelligent scientist.

We hold that the creation accounts in Genesis are historical and can be tested against the record of nature. Part of our testable creation model is to show Christians how the creation account fits with research on the early Earth and origins of life.

Far from contradicting the Bible, modern science gives us more reason to see the evidence for design all around us. Studying how life began actually gives us more reason to believe that God is the Creator and Sustainer of everything that lives.

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As Christians, we can expect that what we see in nature (God’s creation) will be in harmony with what we read in Scripture (God’s Word; Psalm 19:1–4, Psalm 19:7, Romans 1:20). So why is there such a vast difference in beliefs about the age of the earth? Let’s explore what the Bible and science have to say on the topic.

Is the Bible a Reliable Source for the Age of the Earth?

While Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” it doesn’t say when this monumental event took place. Fortunately, to help us understand his creation, God has revealed himself to us in two significant ways:

1. Special Revelation: The Bible

The Bible is God’s Word, given through the Holy Spirit—guiding human authors so that Scripture reflects both divine truth and human style. Inerrant in its original writings, it is authoritative in all it affirms and, when rightly interpreted, never contradicts the truths revealed in nature. Scripture reveals God’s character, creation, and saving will in Christ, and provides wise guidance for the issues we face in daily life.

2. General Revelation: Nature

In addition to God’s Word, we have the privilege of witnessing his amazing power, creativity, and meticulous order revealed to us in nature. The natural world reflects God’s glory and allows us to understand more about him, including his character attributes (Romans 1:20). Nature stands as evidence of a creator, similar to how a painting in an art gallery is evidence of an artist.

When we consider the age of the earth from a Christian perspective, it’s important to take both of these revelations seriously. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:4 says of the heavens, “Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:4 says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul.”

These verses, among others, remind us that we can trust both Scripture and nature to discover more about God and his creation, including the earth’s age.

These two forms of revelation—the Bible and creation—can be understood through the “two-books” metaphor. God is the author of both the book of Scripture and the “book” of nature. Through these two sources, we can learn about the power, character, and works of God.

What If the Physical Universe Seems in Conflict with the Bible?

The Christian worldview holds that all truth comes from God. However, conflicts and confusion can arise when there seems to be a disconnect between God’s two books (Scripture and nature). It’s especially common for Christians to sense this disconnect when thinking about the age of the earth.

It’s important to keep in mind that neither of these “books” singularly addresses every detail of life. For example, we can’t observe the human soul scientifically, but we can read about it in Scripture.

Similarly, the Bible doesn’t explicitly say how old the earth is, mention bacteria, or describe galaxies—but we can learn of these things through science.

Each book—Scripture and nature—should encourage and inspire us to explore the other more deeply. It’s through proper examination of both sources that we come to a right understanding of God’s creation. Both books speak the truth because they come from the Source of all truth.

While holding Scripture as our ultimate authority, we can trust that studying the created realm will help us to make sense of our world. Though human interpretation may err, we can know that God’s Word and world are consistently reliable.

Let’s keep this in mind as we dig deeper into how old the earth is according to the Bible. First, let’s explore two prominent viewpoints—young earth and old earth.

Defining Young-Earth vs. Old-Earth Views

Two common creation viewpoints among Christians are young-earth creationism (YEC) and old earth-creationism (OEC). (Evolutionary creationism is another viewpoint that we explore in other articles.)

In general, YEC believes the earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old and OEC believes the earth is 4.6 billion years old.

This major difference often leads to a lot of confusion and important questions. You might wonder if Christians have always held a young-earth perspective. It’s a common assumption, and it’s understandable to be concerned that an old-earth view might just be a modern attempt to make the Bible fit with science, particularly with evolutionary theories that exclude a creator.

However, Jewish and Christian leaders have been wrestling with the details of the Genesis 1 creation account for centuries.. Prominent figures like Philo (BC 13–AD 50), Clement of Alexandria (AD 150–215), Origen (185–254), and Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) noted how difficult it was to determine the true nature of the creation “days” in Genesis.

This long history of discussion brings us to the key questions that Christians are still asking today. These questions deserve careful thought as we seek to understand how old the earth is according to the Bible.

• Does the Bible actually demand a young-earth interpretation?
• How much time transpired between God creating the universe (Genesis 1:1) and God permitting visible light to reach Earth’s surface (Genesis 1:3).
• Why does Genesis use the words “day,” “evening,” and “morning” if the creation periods were longer than 24 hours?
• Why is there no closure of God’s seventh day?
• How much time transpired between God creating Adam and God creating Eve?
• Can’t we just add up the years in the biblical genealogies to figure out the age of the earth?
• If the earth is billions of years old, then does an old-earth view mean that biological evolution must have happened?
• Is the old-earth perspective simply a case of allowing science to trump the Bible?
• And what about death? Doesn’t an old-earth view mean God is responsible for animals dying years ago, long before humanity’s fall into sin?

These are the very questions we need to explore. As we dig into the details in the next section, we’ll unpack what Scripture says and see how the two books of God’s revelation—Scripture and nature—can help us find the answers.

How Old Is the Earth According to the Bible?

The Bible doesn’t give us an exact age for either the universe or Earth. It is important to recognize that God inspired the Bible authors to communicate to all generations of readers. Only during the last century or two have the actual ages of the universe and Earth become issues of interest for Bible readers, just like only during the past 180 years have Bible readers known or cared about dinosaurs, Neanderthals, or molecules. The Bible naturally is silent on issues for which only modern-day readers would have any knowledge. 

As a thought to consider, perhaps God didn’t specify details about atoms, molecules, or the ages of the universe and Earth in Scripture to encourage us to study his creation so that we might know him more.

Case for Old Earth Creationism

Does the Bible Demand a Young-Earth Interpretation?

Not at all. Not only does the Bible not demand we embrace young-earth creationism, a careful, literal reading of all the Bible’s creation texts refutes young-earth creationism. Here are three reasons that explain why a young-earth interpretation is inconsistent with a literal reading of all the Bible’s creation texts.

1. Original Language: Meaning of “Day,” “Evening,” “Morning”

One of the most helpful ways to understand Scripture is to consider the original context and language in which it was written. Let’s consider the word “day” in the Genesis 1 creation account in its original Hebrew.

The Hebrew word for day is yôm. It’s important to understand that nearly all biblical Hebrew nouns have literal definitions. Yôm has four distinct literal definitions:

1. The daylight hours (from sunrise to sundown)
2. Part of the daylight hours 
3. A 24-hour calendar day
4. A long stretch of time finite in duration

Three of these definitions are used in Genesis 1:3–2:4. In Genesis 1:3–5, yôm refers to the daylight hours. In Genesis 1:14, yôm refers to 24-hour calendar days. In Genesis 2:4, yôm refers to the duration of all God’s works of creation, clearly a time period much longer than 24 hours. So, yôm does not inherently imply only 24-hour time windows.

Genesis 1 appends the terms “evening was, morning was” to each of the first six creation days. The Hebrew words for evening and morning are ‘ereb and boqer, which can also be translated as “ending” and “beginning,” respectively. So, no matter which literal definitions of ‘ereb and boqer one chooses, the repeated use of the “evening was, morning was” phrase implies that each of the first six creation days are completed time periods. When it comes to God’s seventh creation day (Genesis 2:1-4), the “evening was, morning was” phrase is missing. This absence implies that God’s seventh day is not yet completed. Both Psalm 95:10–11 and Hebrews 4:1–11 explicitly state that we are still in God’s seventh day, a day that is continuing into the future.

What is God doing during his seventh day? He is resting/ceasing from his work of creation (Genesis 2:2–3) and bringing about his work of redemption (John 5:16–47). God’s time of resting/ceasing from his work of creation explains the fossil record enigma: why we see so much evidence for the appearance of new phyla, classes, orders, and families of life before the creation of the first humans (the six creation days) and no such evidence during the human era (the seventh day). God’s ongoing rest also explains why, unlike astronomers and geologists, field biologists and sociologists see no evidence for creation miracles in their research. Since their research is limited to when God has ceased from his creation work, evidence for creation miracles will be absent from their research findings. The ongoing nature of God’s seventh day establishes that the Genesis creation days must be much longer than 168 hours. An old-earth perspective definitely fits a literal interpretation of the days in Genesis.

2. Contextual Clues

We can also consider the contextual clues we see in Genesis 1 and 2, which describe the creation of Adam and Eve. Genesis 1:27 states that God created man, male and female, during the sixth creation day.

Genesis 2 states that God created Adam first, then later he created Eve and that Adam and Eve were the first humans. Genesis 2 further states that God created Adam outside the Garden of Eden, later placed him in Eden where Adam watched the trees in Eden grow. God then assigned to Adam the task of tending the garden. Anyone familiar with gardening knows that it takes considerable labor and time. Later, God assigned Adam the task of examining the different species of nephesh (soulish) animals in Eden and assigning appropriate names to the different species. Later, God observed that Adam was alone. Though Adam was experiencing diverse relationships with the soulish animals he had named, none were able to relate to him in a completely satisfying and fulfilling way. Then God put Adam into a deep sleep, took part of the man’s side, and made Eve from it. God brought Eve to Adam and Adam exclaimed happa ‘am. This Hebrew word’s most frequent translation is “at long last.” The sequence of events alone — Adam’s placement in Eden, the growth of the trees, the tending of the garden, the naming of the animals, and finally the creation of Eve — points to a sixth day far longer than 24 hours. Adam’s exclamation, best translated ‘at long last,’ fits that reading.

3. Events Before the First Creation Day

In biblical Hebrew verbs by themselves do not specify the duration of actions or the time ordering of actions. However, the verb order relative to the subject of the verb does. The verb order in Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 imply the completed nature of the creation of the universe and the completed nature of the formation of the primordial Earth. Thus, Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 imply an unspecified duration of time transpired between the creation of the universe and the formation of Earth and another unspecified duration of time transpired between the formation of Earth and the events of the first creation day. Thus, Genesis 1:1–3 allow for a lot of time, even billions of years, to transpire between God creating the universe (Genesis 1:1) and God transforming Earth’s atmosphere/clouds to permit visible light to reach Earth’s surface (Genesis 1:3, Job 38:8–9).

4. God Is Constant (and So Are the Laws of Nature)

One of God’s most beautiful promises is his constancy. He is always faithful, always all-knowing, always loving, and always just. He is not fickle like we humans are; we can rely on him to be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

God blessed us by designing his creation to reflect his constant character. In Jeremiah 33, God specifically addresses his faithfulness and the constant continuity he set forth in creation.

He compares his covenant with his people to his covenant with day and night and the fixed laws that govern heaven and earth:

“If I have not made my covenant with day and night and established the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant.”

The beauty of this passage is that we know that God’s covenants cannot and will not be broken. His promises to his people stand true.

This promise gives us confidence that we can study the creation around us and know it to be a reliable source of information about God. We don’t have to worry that the laws of nature that exist one day will be different the next.

We can trust that the processes and rules in place at the creation of the earth hold true today. This confidence allows us to use scientific means to understand the world around us and discover answers to questions like “How old is the earth?” As both young-earth and old-earth creationists acknowledge, if the laws of physics indeed are immutable (unchanging) then the ages of the universe and earth must be 13.8 and 4.6 billion years respectively.

Animal Death: Not a Problem Biblically or Scientifically

In Romans 5:12, Paul explains, “Sin entered the world through one man . . . and in this way death came to all people.” Some Christians take this to mean that no death of any kind existed on Earth until after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit.

However, a closer look at this passage reveals that Adam’s sin brought death to all humans—not to all life. Only one species on Earth can experience sin, namely humans. Paul explicitly stated that Adam’s sin brought death to all people. In 1 Corinthians 15:20–22, Paul again clarifies that Adam’s sin brought death to all humans. 

And when we look at Job 38–41 and Psalm 104, we can see God’s relationship with animal death. These passages show that animal death does not ascribe evil or cruelty to God—it’s simply a part of his creation plan for which Job and the psalmist praise God. These passages declare that God provides prey for lions and ravens so that their young lack not for food. Field biology shows that removing carnivores from an ecosystem ultimately leads to more herbivore death, not less.

Can We Use Genealogies to Determine the Age of the Earth?

Genealogies provide us with details about biblical family lines and make important theological points, especially about whom God will bless and whom God will judge. They can help us understand the connections between multiple biblical characters, and they reveal God’s faithfulness as he fulfills his promises across generations.

Genealogies were primarily intended to relay important family relationships and don’t necessarily outline every generation in the family line.

For example, 1 Chronicles 24 and Ezra 7 outline the genealogy of Aaron. Though each account ends at a different point in the family line, you can see that a middle portion of the Chronicles genealogy is missing from the Ezra account.

Some people might be concerned about this apparent inconsistency, but we have to remember the intention behind the genealogy. Again, it wasn’t to show every single generation that existed in someone’s bloodline. A genealogy highlights prominent figures so that we, as readers of the Scripture, can gain a fuller understanding of God’s work in history and salvation.

Let’s take another Hebrew term into consideration: yalad. Yalad is typically translated as “begat” in our modern English Bibles. Most readers are quick to assume that begat means “bore this child” (i.e., “the parent begat/bore a child”).

However, yalad can be used in multiple ways. It sometimes outlines a direct parent-child relationship, but it also sometimes spans multiple generations—think a great-grandmother and her many great-grandchildren.

Ultimately, there are significant gaps in the genealogies that prevent us from outlining a complete family line. For these reasons, relying on biblical genealogies to determine when God created Adam and Eve or the age of the earth proves unreliable.

What About Biological  Evolution?

While old-earth creationism does hold that Earth is billions of years old, this view doesn’t necessarily imply that humans or animals originated via macroevolution. In fact, the topics of evolution and the age of the earth are separate issues entirely. A 4.6-billion-year-old Earth is far too young for any conceivable natural-process scenario to yield even the simplest living organism.

We at Reasons to Believe do not endorse macroevolution and are skeptical that it can account for either the origin or the history of life on Earth. Our creation view holds that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve who were specially created by God—Adam formed from the dust and given life through God’s breath (Genesis 2:7), and Eve fashioned from Adam’s side (Genesis 2:21–22). Through this unique creative act, humanity was endowed with the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). In this way, RTB affirms the ex nihilo (out-of-nothing) creation of Adam and Eve. (If you’re curious how we can affirm an ancient earth that’s billions of years old while rejecting macroevolution, you might enjoy our scholars’ thorough explanation in Thinking About Evolution.)

Young-earth creationists believe there were no carnivores previous to Adam’s first sin. They also believe all land animals are descended from the several hundred animal pairs on board Noah’s ark. In each case, they invoke extremely rapid and aggressive “diversification” to explain all the carnivores and land animals existing today. The diversification rates their model requires are orders of magnitude faster than standard evolutionary theory proposes — a striking irony for a framework built on rejecting evolution.

Doesn’t Old-Earth Creationism Place Science as a Higher Authority Than Scripture?

Not at all—the role of science should be to support God’s Word and try to understand his creation. Scripture is, and must be, the ultimate authority in all that it addresses for all Christians. And as we’ve discussed throughout this post, there are many biblical reasons to believe the earth is old.

Scripture doesn’t give us a clear and simple answer to every question that life brings. When it doesn’t, we must examine the full message of the Bible as well as the creation around us to help make sense of what we’re trying to understand. It’s through the lens of the two books (the book of Scripture and the book of nature), both of which are perfectly inerrant, that we can come to a more thorough view and appreciation of God.

Charity in All Things

No matter what, we’ll always have brothers and sisters in Christ who have different views. This is true when it comes to the age of the earth, as well as other biblical teachings and beliefs. Despite holding differing views, we must always remember to prioritize charity in such discussions. Here, for example, is a charitable debate on the age of the earth between a young-earth creationist and an old-earth creationist.

Let’s not forget what we’re called to do in James 1:19b:

Everyone should be quick to listen, 
slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

Too often, discussions on the age of the earth become argumentative and unloving. But Christ has called us to listen attentively and respond with love—even to those we might strongly disagree with.

Continue Learning

As followers of Christ, let’s continue learning about God and loving one another well. May any conversation we have on the age of the earth according to the Bible remind us, ultimately, that God is the Creator of all things and is worthy of our praise and devotion.

To explore this topic in more depth, be sure to check out A Matter of Days, 2nd edition; Navigating Genesis; Rescuing Inerrancy by Hugh Ross.

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Research has revealed, for example, that a strategically designed and strategically timed encounter with a smaller planet dispersed proto-Earth’s thick atmosphere and thousands-of-kilometers-deep ocean, increased the mass and density of proto-Earth, and resulted in the formation of Earth’s large moon.² The collision between (and consequent merger of) the two planets resulted in Earth’s possessing a large, hot, and dynamic core. This unique core gave rise to Earth’s Goldilocks crust. Earth’s crust is not too thick, nor is it too thin. It is just the right thickness to make possible a long history of life on its uppermost surface and, eventually, global human civilization.³ Now a team of geophysicists has discovered that Earth’s crust is just right for life in several other marvelous ways. 

A Clever Analytical Approach
While several mysteries concerning Earth’s crust remain, just days before Christmas 2023, a team of geophysicists led by Zhen-Jie Zhang published a breakthrough paper unveiling what researchers had previously considered undecipherable details about Earth’s outer shell of rock.⁴ Their work brought to light fresh insights that are already yielding dramatic new evidence for design.

Igneous rocks are the product of the cooling and solidification of magma, or lava. Igneous rocks comprise about 15% of Earth’s continents and nearly all of Earth’s oceanic crust. Basalts are the most widespread and abundant of Earth’s igneous rocks. Basalts come from Earth’s asthenosphere.

The asthenosphere is the layer that lies between Earth’s crust and mantle. It is thicker than Earth’s crust but much thinner than Earth’s mantle. Earth’s asthenosphere has an exceptionally low viscosity. Viscosity refers to resistance to stirring. For example, peanut butter is more viscous than syrup and syrup is more viscous than water. The low viscosity of Earth’s asthenosphere lowers the melting point of minerals, explaining why basalts in the asthenosphere are in liquid form and why basaltic rocks are so abundant in Earth’s crust.

Zhang’s team noted that data from various petrologists’ experiments revealed that oxides in basalt primary melts (basalts that have suffered little or no chemical alteration since cooling and solidifying from their molten form) are sensitive to the pressure of melting but show little or no sensitivity to the chemical compositions in either the asthenosphere or the upper mantle. They then explained how this property of basalt primary melts combined with measurements of oxides in the basalt primary melts could be used to determine the thickness of Earth’s lithosphere at the location and age of the basalt sample. (The lithosphere constitutes Earth’s crust plus that part of Earth’s upper mantle that does not move, relative to the crust.) 

So, Zhang and his colleagues then supervised a machine-learning algorithm to analyze global geo-databases (e.g., EarthChem and GEOROC) of basalts. By this means they were able to determine ongoing, cyclical variations in the thickness of Earth’s crust throughout the past 3.8 billion years. 

Three Discoveries Come to Light
First, Zhang’s team’s analysis revealed that a supercontinent forms as Earth’s crust thickens, and it breaks apart when Earth’s crust thins. At its thickest, Earth’s crust averages a depth of 140 kilometers, while at its thinnest, a depth of about 70 kilometers, on average. Zhang’s team also observed a slight trend: the minimum thickness becomes thinner with each succeeding supercontinent cycle. During the most recent cycle, the average crust thickness declined to 60 kilometers. At present, the average thickness is 72 kilometers. 

Second, the team’s study revealed that five supercontinent cycles have occurred during the past 3 billion years, with a periodicity that averages about 0.6 billion years, and that the duration of each supercontinent decreases with each progressive cycle, shortening from 0.50 billion years to 0.12 billion years (see figure). 

Figure: Supercontinents in Earth’s Past History
The bars indicate the varying durations of Earth’s supercontinents.
Data credit: Zhang et al.; Figure credit: Hugh Ross

Third, and most importantly, Zhang’s team established that there has never been a “stagnant lid” regime in Earth’s history—a time when the crust was a single stationary plate. Zhang and his colleagues determined that Earth’s crust has always consisted of multiple plates constantly moving relative to one another. In other words, during the entire time in which stable solid rock features have existed on Earth’s surface, plate tectonic activity has been ongoing. Plate tectonics has endured throughout the past 3.8 billion years. This research result thereby confirms the conclusions of a study, published in 2020, based on the buildup of argon isotopes in Earth’s atmosphere.⁵   

How Plate Tectonics Impact Life, and Vice Versa
What particularly caught my attention as I read the paper published by Zhang’s team is that the duration of plate tectonics on Earth appears identical to the duration of life on Earth. Both began at the same time and have continually persisted throughout the past 3.8 billion years.

This simultaneity is unsurprising when we recognize that life’s persistence on Earth requires sustained plate tectonic activity to recycle the nutrients life requires. At the same time, however, the persistence of plate tectonics at the level this recycling demands depends upon the existence of an abundance of iron- and sulfur-based anoxygenic photosynthetic life. These microbes play a crucial role in producing the black shales that facilitate the tectonic motion. 

Black shales are more buoyant than seafloor basalts. Black shales also contain high concentrations of heavy radioisotopes, especially uranium-235 and uranium-238. Radioisotope decay in the black shales generates heat. This heat combined with the shales’ greater buoyancy destabilizes the adjacent crust. This weakening facilitates the sliding of one tectonic plate past an adjacent plate or the sliding of one tectonic plate underneath an adjacent plate.

For advanced life to be possible, a long history of microbial life must precede it. For Earth’s surface environment to become chemically ready to support the flourishing of plants and animals requires at least 3 billion years of preparation by a huge abundance and diversity of microbial life. Even more time is required to permit the existence of human beings.⁶   

Thus, for humans to exist on Earth, life’s origin must have occurred no later than 3.8 billion years ago. Likewise, plate tectonics must have begun no later than 3.8 billion years ago, which means Earth must have cooled sufficiently from its merger with the rocky planet Theia⁷ no more recently than 3.8 billion years ago. This simultaneity and precise timing and design testifies of exquisite orchestration.

One More “Aha!”
Zhang and his colleagues add in the concluding paragraphs of their paper that “Earth was eventually primed for the arrival of a colorful Phanerozoic with the Cambrian explosion of metazoans.”⁸ In other words, the team noted that the sudden explosion of multiple animal phyla with intestinal tracts, circulatory systems, and complex internal and external organs—an event known as the Cambrian explosion—depended on a dramatic acceleration of the crustal thinning that initiated a supercontinent breakup. How so? 

The breakup of Gondwana generated massive landslides into the seas (the Great Unconformity), producing vast continental shelves that brought about the chemical transformation and oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere and seas. This relatively rapid sequence of events created for the first time in Earth’s history an environment fit for advanced life. Thus, it made possible the Avalon and Cambrian bursts of life just early enough to make way for the future existence of human beings. A more thorough explanation of these events and their meticulous orchestration can be found in Improbable Planet,⁹ Designed to the Core,¹⁰ and Rescuing Inerrancy.¹¹ Each new discovery points to the work of a supernatural, super-intelligent Creator who intended for us to be here and to recognize his handiwork.

Endnotes

1. Hugh Ross, Designed to the Core (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2022), 207–220.
2. Hugh Ross, Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity’s Home (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2016), 43–61.
3. Ross, Designed to the Core, 207–220.
4. Zhen-Jie Zhang et al., “Lithospheric Thickness Records Tectonic Evolution by Controlling Metamorphic Conditions,” Science Advances 9, no. 50 (December 15, 2023): id. eadi2134, doi:10.1126/sciadv.adi2134.
5. Meng Guo and Jun Korenaga, “Argon Constraints on the Early Growth of Felsic Continental Crust,” Science Advances 6, no. 21 (May 20, 2020): id. eaaqz6234, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz6234.
6. Ross, Improbable Planet, 119–142.
7. For details and documentation on the collision between proto-Earth and Theia, see Ross, Improbable Planet, chapter 5, pages 43–61.
8. Zhang et al., “Lithospheric Thickness Records,” page 8 of 13.
9. Ross, Improbable Planet, 143–197.
10. Ross, Designed to the Core, 183–223.
11. Hugh Ross, Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2023), 161–172.

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I was with my family for a vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii. We happened upon an out-of-the-way swimming spot that was a natural pool free from waves because of the sand bars. We later learned from locals that sea turtles were attracted to this spot to feed due to the calm waters. As my family enjoyed a swim in the pool, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a large group of green sea turtles. We were of no concern to them as they munched algae off the rocks. They fed for well over an hour before swimming back to the open ocean. 

We could hardly believe what had happened.

Sea Turtles
The sea turtles found in Hawaii are green sea turtles. They are among seven species of sea turtles alive today that include: green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, olive ridley, leatherback, loggerhead, and the flatback, which is found only in Australia.  

Sadly, all sea turtle species are endangered. If these animals are lost, not only would their absence result in the loss of beautiful and majestic creatures, but it would also harm ecosystems in the ocean organized around seagrass beds—part of the sea turtle diet.

Life scientists want to understand sea turtles to help them flourish. Part of this understanding involves learning about their natural history. Unfortunately, the fossil record is scant and offers little help. 

For this reason, the recent recovery of a fossilized carapace (shell) from the Chagres Formation of Panama by a research team from Colombia has generated excitement.¹ This formation dates to the Upper Miocene (11.5 to 5.3 million years ago). The newly discovered specimen is a member of the genus Leipochelys, which includes the Kemp’s ridley and olive ridley species. The carapace displays differences compared to extant members of Leipochelys, and may well represent an ancient species of sea turtle that no longer exists. 

Soft Tissue Finds
The Chagres Formation has also yielded fossil fish and cetaceans. These fossils are extremely well preserved. For this reason, the researchers decided to examine the carapace fossil for micro-anatomical features such as cells and blood vessels. 

Using EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) treatment, the researchers were able to remove the mineral component from a small piece of the fossil carapace.  

They could hardly believe what happened next.

They discovered preserved blood vessels, osteocytes, and collagen fibers. Some of the osteocytes have a small oval structure in their interiors that resembles the cell’s nucleus. And some of these oval structures stained when treated with a compound that detects DNA. 

Though not a first—the discovery of remnants of osteocytes and blood vessels, along with the possible preservation of DNA fragments, has been reported for only two dinosaur fossils—this find is still exciting. This turtle specimen gives researchers a window into the biodiversity that existed when the Isthmus of Panama formed about 3 million years ago. And it adds to the growing excitement about the potential of fossils to yield soft tissue remnants. 

Most paleontologists are thrilled at the prospects of retrieving soft tissue materials from fossil remains. These discoveries add another dimension to their understanding of the biology of Earth’s past life and the natural history of extant organisms. 

Soft Tissues in Fossils and Implications for the Age of the Earth
Most young-earth creationists (YECs) are also excited about the recovery of soft tissue remnants from fossil remains, but for a different reason. They argue that these discoveries are evidence that the fossil record can only be a few thousand years old—not millions of years. There’s no way that soft tissues and the biomolecules that comprise them could survive that long, they reason. If so, then it means the results of radiometric measurements must be flawed if they return an age date for fossils on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of years. They conclude that the best way to interpret the fossil record is that it’s the result of a global deluge that occurred a few thousand years ago. 

On the surface, this argument carries a bit of a punch. How can soft tissue materials survive for millions of years?

Means of Soft Tissue Preservation
As an old-earth creationist (OEC) who is persuaded that Earth is 4.5 billion years old and life has been present on Earth for nearly 4 billion years, this provocative question prompted me to write the book Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth. It should be of no surprise that I demonstrate in the book that radiometric dating is reliable. The fossils yielding soft tissues are truly tens to hundreds of million years in age. Thus, there must be some means for soft tissue materials to endure. And there is. Before I describe the general mechanism for survival of these materials, it’s important to understand what’s been recovered from fossil remains. 

YECs give the impression that the soft tissue materials are not only original but intact and unaltered. This misrepresentation is unfortunate. Paleontologists have recovered remnants of soft tissue materials that have experienced diagenesis (physical and chemical changes that occur during the conversion of sediment to sedimentary rock) during the fossilization process. The remnants of cells and blood vessels discovered by paleontologists in the turtle carapace have retained their original physical shape, but during diagenesis they’ve been chemically altered—with the breakdown products of the original biomolecules still harbored in the cell-like and blood-vessel-like structures. 

YECs rightly argue that biomolecules (and the soft tissues that they form) readily undergo degradation by several distinct mechanisms. But life scientists have discovered several previously unrecognized protective mechanisms. These mechanisms extend the time that the diagenetically altered biomolecules survive. (For details of both types of mechanisms, see Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth and the articles listed in the Resources section.) It’s a competition between degradation and preservation.

These protective mechanisms delay the complete disappearance of the biomolecules that form soft tissue structures long enough for them to be entombed by the mineralization process that occurs during fossilization. This entombment entraps any remaining organic materials. And, once entombed, the breakdown of these materials significantly slows down. In some instances, the degradation process might be altogether arrested. 

For this fossil, the race between disappearance and entombment appears to have been won by entombment for the biomolecules and microanatomical structures that made up the soft tissues of the fossil carapace. The researchers foresaw this victory because the carapace, along with other fossils from the Chagres Formation, are so well preserved. 

More Soft Tissue Protection from the Shell
The mineral components (hydroxyapatite) of the bone that contributes to the turtle’s shell structures offer protection from degradation. The mineral matrix surrounds osteocytes. These cells reside in spaces inside the bone called lacunae. These openings in the bone form when cells become trapped within the bone matrix that they help produce. (It is sort of like the person who paints themselves into a corner.) The blood vessels (which are remarkably durable structures designed to withstand high pressures as the heart pumps blood through them) that permeate the turtle shell bone are also protected by the mineral matrix during fossilization. In addition to hydroxyapatite, bone also contains the protein collagen. Collagen is a highly durable fibrous material. Like osteocytes and blood vessels, these tough protein fibers are protected from breakdown by their interactions with the hydroxyapatite of the matrix. 

The bottom line: There are good explanations for how collagen fragments, and the remnants of osteocytes, and blood vessels could endure for 5 to 10 million years in the fossil carapace. And with these explanations, no good reasons remain to think that soft tissue remnants evince a young Earth. It may be hard to believe what happened, but it looks like these majestic creatures were endowed with preservation properties that allow us to appreciate their design. 

Resources

Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth by Fazale Rana (book)

Responding to Young-Earth Critics

“Does Dinosaur Tissue Challenge Evolutionary Timescales? A Response to Kevin Anderson, Part 1” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Does Dinosaur Tissue Challenge Evolutionary Timescales? A Response to Kevin Anderson, Part 2” by Fazale Rana (article)

Mechanism of Soft Tissue Preservation

“Soft Tissue Preservation Mechanism Stabilizes the Case for Earth’s Antiquity” by Fazale Rana (article)

“How Can DNA Survive for 75 Million Years? Implications for the Age of the Earth” by Fazale Rana (article)

Recovery of a Wide Range of Soft Tissue Materials in Fossils

“What Dinosaur Soft Tissue Says about the Earth’s Age” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Does the Recovery of Oils from a Fossilized Bird Evince a Young Earth?” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Ancient Mouse Fur Discovery with Mighty Implications” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Is Fossil-Associated Cholesterol a Biomarker for a Young Earth?” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Can Keratin in Feathers Survive for Millions of Years?” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Do Fossilized Ink Sacs Discolor the Case for an Old Earth?” by Fazale Rana (article)

“Science News Flash: An Old-Earth Perspective on Dinosaur Feathers Preserved in Amber” by Fazale Rana (article)

Detection of Carbon-14 in Fossils

“Does Radiocarbon Dating Prove a Young Earth? A Response to Vernon R. Cupps” by Fazale Rana (article)

Endnotes

1. Edwin-Alberto Cadena, Carlos De Gracia, and Diego A. Combita-Romero, “An Upper Miocene Marine Turtle from Panama that Preserves Osteocytes with Potential DNA,” Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23, no.1 (September 28, 2023): e2254356, doi:10.1080/02724634.2023.2254356.

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For several decades, geologists have used seismometers to determine the structure and composition of Earth’s core. On November 26, 2018, the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) robotic lander touched down on the Martian surface (see figure 1). For four years, InSight’s seismometer, Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), measured seismic activity on Mars with the goal of developing an accurate 3-dimensional model of Mars’s interior (see figure 2).

Figure 1: Artist’s Rendition of InSight on Mars
InSight’s seismometer is to the lower left. Credit: NASA

Figure 2: One of the Last Images Taken by InSight
The image, taken on December 11, 2022, shows the SEIS instrument tethered to InSight and the Martian horizon. Credit: NASA 

In late 2022, a Martian dust storm rendered InSight’s solar panels inoperable, leading to the lander’s decommissioning. Just before this happened, the SEIS instrument detected seismic waves from a distant marsquake and from a meteoritic impact on the other side of Mars. These detections were the first time that SEIS had successfully measured deep-traveling seismic waves from Mars’s far side traveling through its core (see figure 3).

Figure 3: Seismic Waves Detected by InSight’s SEIS Traveling through Mars’s Core
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Bristol/University of Maryland

Properties of Mars’s Core
A team of 34 planetary astronomers, led by University of Bristol’s Jessica Irving, published their analysis of the Martian seismic waves in a recent issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.¹ Their analysis allowed them “to construct the first seismically constrained models for the elastic properties of Mars’ core.”² Determining the elastic properties enabled the researchers to determine the size, density, and composition of the Martian core.

Irving’s team discovered that Mars’s core is different from Earth’s core in several respects. The seismic waves traveling through Mars’s core revealed that the Martian core has a radius of 1,780–1,810 kilometers (1,106–1,125 miles), or 53% of Mars’s radius, and a density of 6.2–6.3 grams/cubic centimeter. For comparison, Earth’s core radius is 55% of the planet’s radius and its density ranges from 9.5 to 14.5 grams/cubic centimeter. The low density of Mars’s core implies that 20–22% of its core by weight is composed of sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, with sulfur making up the bulk of these light elements. Light elements make up just 5% of Earth’s core and include silicon, sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen where none of these light elements predominate. Mars’s core is mostly, if not entirely, liquid. Earth has an inner solid core and an outer liquid core. Earth’s inner solid core, has a radius of 1,221 kilometers (760 miles). The outer liquid core extends out to 3,480 kilometers (2,162 miles) from Earth’s center.

Why Such a Different Core?
Irving’s team identified two explanations for why Mars’s core is different from Earth’s. The first is that the two bodies had different accretion histories and hence formed from different materials and had different initial core temperatures. The second is that the two cores are subject to different physical conditions­—for example, different pressures, temperatures, and oxygen fugacity (partial pressure of oxygen). 

Both explanations are in play. Mars formed through the accretion of planetesimals; so did the proto-Earth. However, a few tens of millions of years later, the proto-Earth collided with Theia, another rocky planet about twice the mass of Mars. Earth is nine times more massive than Mars and its density is 40% greater. Therefore, Earth’s core pressures are much greater than Mars’s.

Planetary astronomers eagerly seek more detailed data on Mars’ core, especially more accurate determinations of the Martian core’s elemental composition. Irving’s team showed that such a detailed model of the Martian core will be forthcoming once a multilocation network of seismometers is set up on the Martian surface. Meanwhile, the team intends to continue their analysis of InSight seismic data to further refine their present model of Mars’s interior structure. 

Why No Martian Magnetosphere?
The different size, density, structure, and composition of Mars’s core compared to Earth’s explains why Mars has lacked a magnetosphere (see figure 3) for the past 4 billion years. For a planet to possess a magnetosphere sufficiently strong, stable, and enduring enough to protect surface life from deadly stellar and cosmic radiation, it must have a large liquid iron core where that liquid iron is circulated to establish a dynamo.

Figure 4: Diagram of Earth’s Magnetosphere
Credit: NASA

The total volume of liquid iron in Earth’s core is seven times greater than the total volume of liquid iron in Mars’s core. Since the Moon-forming event 4.47 billion years ago, Earth has had strong circulation mechanisms operating within its liquid core.³ For Mars, these circulation mechanisms shut down 4.0 billion years ago, perhaps even earlier.  

Earth’s Remarkable Core
I dedicate three chapters of my book Designed to the Core to describing the many design features of the Moon’s and Earth’s interiors that together explain how Earth—for the past 4.5 billion years—has possessed a magnetosphere sufficiently powerful and enduring to protect life from deadly solar and cosmic radiation. Briefly, both Earth and the Moon started off with a large, hot liquid iron core thanks to the collision between the proto-Earth and Theia. The early rapid cooling of their cores circulated the liquid iron. When this cooling rate began to subside, the tidal forces that Earth and the Moon exerted on one another sustained the circulation of liquid iron in their cores. 

As the Moon spiraled away from Earth, tidal circulation of Earth’s liquid iron began to subside. Just before the Moon’s increasing distance threatened to shut down circulation of Earth’s liquid iron, a solid iron core began to form at Earth’s center. The combination of a solid inner core and a liquid outer core sped up the circulation of liquid iron. What drove the new circulation was (1) the huge temperature difference between the top of the solid core and the top of the liquid core, and (2) the squeezing out of light elements from the inner core into the outer core and the rise of these light elements toward the top of the liquid core.

As Earth’s interior continues to cool, the solid core’s diameter is increasing in size by about a millimeter per year. Right now, the relative sizes of Earth’s inner and outer cores are optimal for advanced life. The degree of multiple fine-tuned features required to explain Earth’s magnetosphere is so extraordinary that Earth may well be the only rocky planet that has sustained a strong magnetic field and life-protecting magnetosphere for 4.5 billion years. As Psalm 24:1 declares, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

Endnotes

1. Jessica C. E. Irving et al., “First Observations of Core-Transiting Seismic Phases on Mars,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 120, no. 18 (April 24, 2023): id. e2217090120, doi:10.1073/pnas.2217090120.
2. Irving et al., “First Observations,” p. 1.
3. Hugh Ross, Designed to the Core (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2022), 177–206.

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My Answer: God had multiple purposes in creating the universe, Earth, and humans. One of those purposes was to grant humans free will so that an exchange of love would be possible between him and humans. God also wanted to eradicate the possibility of evil and suffering while enhancing the free-will capability of those humans who desire a personal relationship with him so that they could experience exponentially greater love. This quest to eradicate evil and suffering in an efficient and rapid manner required that the universe be endowed with certain laws of physics and space-time dimensions. One consequence of these physical laws and dimensions is that 4.56 billion years, minimum, is needed to prepare Earth, physically, chemically, and biologically, for the existence of humans and to make possible the global high-technology civilization that is necessary for the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to be propagated rapidly to all the world’s people groups (Matthew 28:18-20). I describe the reasons why in my books Why the Universe Is the Way It Is and Improbable Planet. So, yes, Earth is 4.5662 billion years old, life has been producing the biodeposits needed for global human civilization for 3.8 billion years, and according to Genesis 2, God created Adam and Eve sometime during the last ice age, 13,000–130,000 years ago, when the Garden of Eden site would have been above sea level. To read more about what the Bible and the scientific record say about the timing of the creation of different forms of life on Earth, see Navigating Genesis.

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Ongoing research has revealed many features of Earth’s magnetosphere, including its size, strength, and longevity, that exhibit extraordinary fine-tuning. I’ll explain the details so you can appreciate the forethought and care that went into our home’s design. 

A magnetosphere is a region of space that surrounds an astronomical body in which magnetic field lines generated by the body’s magnetic field guide charged particles. It takes an active interior dynamo in the astronomical body to produce the magnetic field. 

Planets and moons possessing magnetospheres can mitigate or block out, at least to some degree, stellar or cosmic radiation that would otherwise exterminate life and prevent life from forming. For surface life to be possible on a planet or a moon, that planet or moon must possess a magnetosphere. Figure 1 shows a diagram of Earth’s magnetosphere.

Figure 1: Earth’s Magnetosphere
Circulating liquid iron in Earth’s core generates strong magnetic field lines (red lines) that shield Earth from deadly solar and cosmic radiation. In this diagram, solar particle radiation streaming in from the left as it engages Earth’s magnetosphere generates a bow shock that guides deadly radiation away from Earth. Credit: NASA 

Magnetosphere Origin
For a magnetosphere to form around a planet, the planet must possess a magnetic field. For a planet to possess a magnetic field, it must have an active interior dynamo. An interior dynamo requires the circulation of liquid ferrous metals in the planet’s core (see figure 2), akin to the rotor in an electric motor. The ferrous metals most easily magnetized are iron, nickel, and cobalt. All three are present in Earth’s core, but iron is by far the most abundant.

Figure 2: Planet Interior Structure Requirement for a Magnetosphere
Ferrous metals in a liquid state must be circulated in the planet’s interior for the planet to possess a strong enough magnetic field to generate a magnetosphere. Diagram credit: Hugh Ross

It takes a lot of interior heat for iron, nickel, and cobalt in a planet’s core to be liquefied. The core temperature must be at least 1,540°C (2,800°F). It is not enough for the iron, nickel, and cobalt to be liquefied. The liquid iron, nickel, and cobalt must also be circulated and the circulation must be continually sustained.

Geophysicists have identified four sources of convection currents in the liquid core sufficient to drive liquid core circulation:

1. temperature difference between the liquid core bottom and the liquid core top
2. tidal forces exerted by a nearby massive moon
3. release of latent heat from the cooling and growth of a solid inner core
4. squeezing of light elements out from a solid inner core and their rise upward through a liquid outer core 

Earth’s Marvelous Magnetosphere
For life to survive on the surface of a planet, the magnetic field generated by circulation of iron, nickel, and cobalt in the planet’s liquid core must be strong enough and sufficiently stable. A rare feature of Earth is that all four of these sources of liquid core convection currents currently operate. 

Not until 1.3 billion years ago did Earth’s interior cool sufficiently for a solid inner core to begin to form. However, before that time the Moon was close enough that the tidal forces it exerted on Earth made a substantial contribution to driving convection currents in Earth’s liquid core.

Previous to 4.0 billion years ago, the Moon’s interior was above the melting point of iron. Its distance from Earth was less than a third of what it is now. This proximity to Earth resulted in powerful tidal forces exerted by Earth, which generated strong convection currents in the Moon’s liquid iron core. Thus, previous to 4.0 billion years ago the Moon had a strong magnetic field and a magnetosphere. Its proximity to Earth at that time caused its magnetosphere to couple with Earth’s magnetosphere.¹ Nothing less than this coupled magnetosphere would have prevented the Sun’s intense particle and radiation intensity from sputtering away all Earth’s atmosphere and surface water and making Earth permanently lifeless.²

Figure 3 shows the Sun’s particle, radiation, and flaring activity throughout its history. Thanks to the Moon and Earth’s hot origin that resulted from the proto-Earth’s collision and merger with the planet Theia, the Moon’s early proximity to Earth, and the timing and growth of Earth’s solid inner core, Earth has always had a strong and big enough magnetosphere to prevent the Sun from sputtering away most or all its atmosphere and surface water.

Figure 3: Sun’s Historical Particle, X- and UV-Radiation, and Flaring Intensity Levels
The y-axis is logarithmic. The intensity levels during the first half-billion years of the Sun’s history were more than 10,000 times higher than its present levels. Furthermore, during the Sun’s first half-billion years it was rotating at least five times faster, which means Earth’s surface was nearly always directly exposed to the Sun’s coronal mass ejections.³ Diagram credit: Hugh Ross     

Earth’s magnetic field and magnetosphere have been sufficiently strong and stable to ensure that life could be abundant and diverse throughout the past 3.8 billion years. Previous to 4 billion years ago, the Earth-Moon coupled magnetosphere prevented the Sun from sputtering away into interplanetary space all Earth’s atmosphere and surface water, but it did not block out the Sun’s deadly x-ray and ultraviolet radiation. Consequently, life could not survive on Earth during Earth’s first 700 million years. Thereafter, however, as the Moon’s contribution to convection currents in Earth’s liquid core declined as the Moon slowly migrated away from Earth, the cooling of Earth’s core and especially the formation and subsequent growth of Earth’s solid inner core were perfectly timed to ensure that Earth always had a strong and big enough magnetosphere to prevent the loss of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere and to protect Earth’s life from deadly radiation. 

Exoplanet Magnetospheres
Clearly, for a planet to be habitable it must possess a magnetosphere. Furthermore, the planet’s magnetosphere must be big, strong, and stable. Astrobiologists have considered the probability that another planet in our galaxy or in nearby galaxies would possess a magnetosphere that would enable life to exist on that planet. Consequently, a number of research efforts have focused on the characteristics of known exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than the Sun) to determine how many of them might possess such a magnetosphere. 

Currently, astronomers have detected and measured the characteristics of 5,333 exoplanets.⁴ Several teams of astronomers and astrobiologists have determined the planetary features that are most critical for assuring that a planet possesses a magnetosphere permitting the planet to host life.

metallic core size: First, both astronomers and astrobiologists agree that for a planet to possess other than a remote possibility of hosting ephemeral primitive microbes it must be a rocky planet. For the rocky planet to have a magnetosphere it must possess a sizeable core predominantly composed of iron, nickel, and cobalt. For rocky planets, the planet’s density and the mass fraction of its metallic core decreases with the distance from the host star.⁵ For example, Mercury’s metallic core comprises about 3/4 of Mercury’s total mass. For Venus and Earth the fraction is 1/3 and for Mars it is 1/5. 

More than the core mass fraction, what determines the potential strength of a planet’s magnetic field is the actual size of its metallic core. By this measure, Earth has the largest metallic core of the Sun’s rocky planets. Its metallic core is 5.14 times larger than Mercury’s.

Given its distance from the Sun, Earth has an anomalously high density and large metallic core. These anomalies are explained by its unique origin. The primordial Earth formed like the Sun’s other rocky planets—from condensation and accretion within the Sun’s protoplanetary disk. Some 50­–95 million years later, primordial Earth collided and merged with Theia, a rocky planet about twice the mass of Mars. This collision/merger increased Earth’s mass, density, and size of its metallic core and resulted in the formation of the Moon.⁶

plate tectonics: The strength of a planet’s interior dynamo strongly depends on the heat transport and temperature contrast across the planet’s core-mantle boundary.⁷ The more pervasive and stronger a planet’s plate tectonic activity the greater the cooling of the planet’s mantle and core.⁸ The absence of an interior dynamo in Venus can be attributed largely to its lack of plate tectonic activity. 

In the solar system the only planet known to have strong, pervasive, enduring plate tectonic activity is Earth. Earth’s plate tectonic level is mostly due to the heat it possesses—owing to the radioactive decay from its superabundance of uranium and thorium and to its high accretional heat that it gained from its collision and merger with Theia. A team of geophysicists led by Francis Nimmo concluded that in spite of Earth’s extraordinarily high abundance of uranium and thorium (340 and 610 times the average for the Milky Way Galaxy), “Earth had just enough radiogenic heating to maintain a persistent dynamo.”⁹ Earth indeed may be alone among rocky planets in possessing both strong, pervasive, enduring plate tectonics and a strong, enduring magnetosphere. 

planet mass: The more massive a planet the lesser the cooling rate of its metallic core and, consequently, the more anemic its dynamo and the weaker its magnetic field.¹⁰ For planets more massive than Earth the dynamo lifetime becomes shorter with increasing planet mass. Also, the larger a planet’s diameter the lower its tectonic-driving forces.¹¹

For planets less massive than Earth the mantle cools more rapidly. As the mantle cools, it becomes more viscous. Eventually, the viscosity reaches a level where it shuts down plate tectonics. Thus, for multiple reasons any planet that possesses a sufficiently strong and enduring magnetosphere so that diverse life can persist on its surface must have a mass equivalent to Earth’s.

rotation rate: Astronomers Sarah McIntyre, Charles Lineweaver, and Michael Ireland determined that the slower a planet rotates the weaker the planet’s magnetic field.¹² In particular, they calculated that a tidally locked planet (a planet orbiting its host star at a close enough distance where the star’s tidal forces exerted on the planet result in the planet’s rotation rate being slowed to a large fraction of its revolution rate), at best, will have a magnetic field strength only 1/3 of that of a nontidally locked planet. Their calculations, in part, explain why tidally locked Mercury’s magnetic field is only 1% as strong as Earth’s.  

The problem that the correlation of a planet’s rotation rate with the strength of its magnetic field poses for rocky exoplanets is that at least 99% of known rocky planets are tidally locked. Only 4 of the more than 457 known rocky exoplanets orbit their host stars more distantly than Mercury orbits the Sun. These 4 are Kepler 442b with an orbital distance of 0.409 AU (1 Astronomical Unit or AU = Earth’s average orbital distance from the Sun: 149,597,871 kilometers or 92,955,807 miles); Kepler 186f with an orbital distance of 0.432 AU; KOI-4878b with an orbital distance of 1.125 AU; and KIC 5522786b with an orbital distance of 1.98 AU.¹³ For comparison, Mercury orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.387 AU. 

Neither KOI 4878b or KIC 5522786b are considered potentially habitable planets since both orbit stars brighter, faster burning, more metal-poor, and more luminosity unstable than the Sun. In neither case is the planet’s mass or atmospheric composition known.

The tidal interaction between Kepler 186f and its host star is about 14 times stronger than it is between Earth and the Sun. For Kepler 442b the tidal interaction is about 22 times stronger. Consequently, both planets will have rotation periods longer than five Earth days. Such long rotation periods not only ensure that the magnetic fields of both planets will be much weaker than Earth’s, they also imply a day-night temperature difference far too high for life to survive on the planet.

That all or nearly all known rocky exoplanets orbit their host stars at less than half the distance Earth orbits the Sun means that they are exposed to much more intense particle, x-ray, and short ultraviolet radiation and flaring activity from their host stars. Surprisingly, stars less massive than the Sun exhibit much more frequent and intense flaring activity and greater emission of x-rays and short ultraviolet radiation.¹⁴ Consequently, planets orbiting their host stars at less than half the distance Earth orbits the Sun will require magnetic field strengths at least twice as strong as Earth’s. 

Could it be that astronomers simply have not yet discovered rocky planets orbiting their host stars at greater than half the distance Earth orbits the Sun? Astronomers certainly have the telescope power to discover such planets, as evidenced by KOI 4878b or KIC 5522786b. As I explained in a previous article and in my book Designed to the Core, the Sun possesses an elemental abundance that astronomers have yet to detect in any other star.¹⁵

The only possible explanation for the Sun’s unique elemental abundance is that early in its history it transferred an anomalously large amount of its mass, refractory elements, and angular momentum to its rocky planets. Such a transfer explains why the solar system stands alone among the 3,932 known planetary systems in that its rocky planets are so massive, dense, and orbitally distant. Such a transfer, in part, explains why Earth alone—among known rocky planets—possesses a magnetosphere capable of shielding surface life from the particles, radiation, and flares of its host star.        

Design and Habitability Implications
For a planet to be habitable it is not enough that it simultaneously resides in all eleven of the known circumstellar planetary habitable zones.¹⁶ It must also possess an Earth-like electromagnetic shield of sufficient size, strength, and longevity to protect its surface life from the particles, radiation, and flares of its host star and from cosmic radiation. Numerous features of the planet must be exquisitely fine-tuned for such a magnetosphere to possibly envelop the planet. In addition, the planet must experience a collision/merger event early in its history virtually identical to the collision/merger that occurred between the primordial Earth and Theia. Furthermore, it must possess a moon with the same physical and orbital characteristics and the same origin as the Moon.

Such an extraordinary level of fine-tuning testifies of the existence and operation of a Fine-Tuner. That Fine-Tuner must be orders of magnitude more intelligent, knowledgeable, capable, powerful, and caring than we humans. It must be the God of the Bible.  

Endnotes

1. James Green et al., “When the Moon Had a Magnetosphere,” Science Advances 6, no. 42 (October 14, 2020): id. eabc0865, doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc0865.
2. Hugh Ross, “Moon’s Early Magnetic Field Made Human Existence Possible,” Today’s New Reason to Believe (blog), Reasons to Believe, November 16, 2020; Hugh Ross, Designed to the Core (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2020), 178–181.
3. J. Varela et al., “MHD Study of the Planetary Magnetospheric Response during Extreme Solar Wind Conditions: Earth and Exoplanet Magnetospheres Applications,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 659 (March 2022): id. A10, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202141181.
4. Exoplanet TEAM, Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia: Exoplanet Catalog (March 16, 2023), exoplanet.eu/catalog/.
5. William F. McDonough and Takashi Yoshizaki, “Terrestrial Planet Compositions Controlled by Accretion Disk Magnetic Field,” Progress in Earth and Planetary Science 8 (July 2, 2021): id. 39, doi:10.1186/s40645-021-00429-4.
6. Robin M. Canup, “Forming a Moon with an Earth-Like Composition via a Giant Impact,” Science 338, no. 6110 (October 17, 2012): 1052–1055, doi:10.1126/science.1226073; Hugh Ross, Improbable Planet: How Earth Became Humanity’s Home (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2016), 48–58.
7. Eric Gaidos et al., “Thermodynamic Limits on Magnetodynamos in Rocky Exoplanets,” Astrophysical Journal 718, no. 2 (July 2, 2010): 596–609, doi:10.1088/0004-637X/718/2/596.
8. Francis Nimmo, “Why Does Venus Lack a Magnetic Field?,” Geology 30, no. 11 (November 1, 2002): 987–990, doi:10.1130/0091-7613(2002)030<0987:WDVLAM>2.0.CO;2.
9. Francis Nimmo et al., “Radiogenic Heating and Its Influence on Rocky Planet Dynamos and Habitability,” Astrophysical Journal Letters 903, no. 2 (November 10, 2020): id. L37, page 1, doi:10.3847/2041-8213/abc251.
10. Gaidos et al., “Thermodynamic Limits.”
11. C. O’Neill and A. Lenardic, “Geological Consequences of Super-Sized Earths,” Geophysical Research Letters 34, no. 19 (October 11, 2007): id. L19204, doi:10.1029/2007GL030598.
12. Sarah R. N. McIntyre, Charles H. Lineweaver, and Michael J. Ireland, “Planetary Magnetism as a Parameter in Exoplanet Habitability,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 485, no. 3 (May 2019): 3999–4012, doi:10.1093/mnras/stz667.
13. Exoplanet TEAM, “Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia: Exoplanet Catalog.”
14. Allison Youngblood et al., “The MUSCLES Treasury Survey. IV. Scaling Relations for Ultraviolet, Ca II K, and Energetic Particle Fluxes from M Dwarfs.” Astrophysical Journal 843, no. 1 (June 28, 2017): id. 31, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa76dd.
15. Hugh Ross, “How Did the Sun End Up with Its Unique Rocky Planets?” Today’s New Reason to Believe (blog), Reasons to Believe, May 17, 2021; Ross, Designed to the Core, 225–228.
16. Hugh Ross, “Tiny Habitable Zones for Complex Life,” Today’s New Reason to Believe (blog), Reasons to Believe, March 4, 2019.

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Ever since the well-publicized Scopes Trial in 1925, evangelical Christians have engaged in vigorous, often heated debates over the age of the universe and Earth. On one side are Christians who are convinced that there is overwhelming, consistent, accurate scientific evidence that the universe is 13.79 billion years old and that Earth is 4.5662 billion years old. On the other side are Christians who are convinced that a literal interpretation of the Bible constrains both the age of the universe and Earth to be less than 10,000 years.

The four most significant factors persuading many Christians that the universe and Earth must be younger than 10,000 years old are:

1. concern that conceding a 4.5662-billion-year age for Earth will enable naturalistic evolutionary processes alone to explain the origin and history of all life;

2. certainty that the only possible literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is that in which the creation days are six consecutive 24-hour periods;

3. belief that there was no animal or human death until after Adam had sinned in the Garden of Eden; and

4. belief that an atheistic bias explains the scientific community’s united-front conclusion that Earth and the universe are billions of years old.

Dual Revelation
Both young-earth and old-earth creationist Christians uphold the biblical doctrine of dual revelation but they apply the doctrine in different ways. I’ve written a full-length book on dual revelation that will be released later this year.¹ In that book I define dual revelation as the doctrine that God has revealed himself and his personal attributes through two wholly reliable and trustworthy expressions: the book of Scripture (the Bible) and the book of nature. I know of no young-earth creationist scholar or leader who would disagree with this definition. The disagreement is over the application of a corollary doctrine—sola Scriptura.

The doctrine of sola Scriptura, codified during the Protestant Reformation, states that the Bible is the supreme authoritative source of information on all the subjects it addresses. The framers of this doctrine understood that for God’s revelation to be clearly authoritative, direct (verbal, propositional) rather than indirect communication is required.

Young-earth creationists interpret sola Scriptura as implying that the Bible is the only completely trustworthy, reliable, inerrant revelation from God. They acknowledge that the book of nature can be a reliable, trustworthy, inerrant revelation but only if it is interpreted through the lens of Scripture. Theologian John Whitcomb and physicist Donald DeYoung wrote that scientists “must grope in darkness apart from God’s special revelation in Scripture.”² Henry Morris II, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, argued that no tool of science can ever yield any reliable information on Earth’s age. He asserted, “The compelling Biblical …direct testimony from the Creator is the only way to know the age of the earth” (italics in original).³

There is a widespread distrust of science and of scientists in the young-earth creationist community. It has been my experience that attempting to persuade young-earth creationists to adopt an old-earth perspective on creation based on overwhelming and consistent scientific evidence that establishes Earth and the universe are billions of years old is a fruitless endeavor. However, while young-earth creationists give little credence to scientific evidence, they have high regard for the trustworthiness of the Bible. They put their faith and trust in the complete reliability of a literally interpreted Bible. Therefore, biblical arguments for the age of the universe and Earth based on literal interpretations of the Bible’s creation texts carry weight and will be considered.

What Does the Bible Say about the Universe’s and Earth’s Age?
1. Unchanging physical laws: According to the Bible, the laws of physics are unchanging. In Jeremiah 33, God, speaking through the prophet, contrasts human wavering with his own immutability by referring to the “laws governing the heavens and Earth” (verse 25). Just as they remain “fixed,” as in constant and unchanging, so does God. Likewise, Ecclesiastes speaks of the monotonous operation of the natural laws, in particular the thermodynamic laws. Paul writes in Romans 8:19–23 that the entire universe is subject to the law of decay, also known as the law of entropy or the second law of thermodynamics, a law that will remain in effect until God’s redemptive purposes for humanity in this physical realm have been fulfilled.

Everything from human digestion to the shining of the Sun, Moon, and stars is extremely sensitive to even the tiniest change in the laws of physics. Young-earth creationism faces an insurmountable challenge for the simple reason that young-earth models critically depend on radically altered laws of physics—laws altered not by a factor of 5 or 10 times, but by a factor of millions to billions at the fall of Adam and/or the flood of Noah. Young-earth creationists need such appeals to explain all the past geological and astrophysical activity that has occurred within a time frame of only 10,000 years or less. However, the Bible and the book of nature⁴ explicitly affirm that the laws of physics have remained unchanged throughout the universe’s history.

To their credit, some young-earth creationists, especially those with science and engineering backgrounds, have acknowledged this problem. The authors of Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth have written that if the laws and constants of physics have not changed in any significant way over the universe’s and Earth’s past, then both the universe and Earth must be billions of years old.⁵ They concede, “Either accelerated radioactive decay accounts for the large daughter isotope residues in a short period of time, or a large amount of decay occurred at conventional rates and the earth is old.”⁶ For this reason, they appeal to vastly accelerated nuclear decay. For example, they assert, “All these products of nuclear decay were indeed produced by nuclear decay! But the amounts of those products we observe are much greater than thousands of years could produce—at today’s rates.”⁷ They add, “A change in the decay constant of the order of 10⁹ may be required, if the accelerated decay is restricted to the one year period of the Genesis Flood. …A one year episode of accelerated decay at the time of the Flood may not be enough. Other episodes during Creation week or during the Fall may also be necessary.”⁸ Again, the dilemma for these concessions is that both the Bible and the book of nature explicitly affirm that there have been no changes in the laws of physics.

2. Animal death before Adam: The New Testament sheds decisive light on what resulted from Adam’s sin. In Romans 5:12, Paul writes, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (emphasis added). An exhaustive search of Scripture further clarifies that only humans are capable of sin. Only humans make moral and spiritual choices. The death Adam experienced is carefully qualified in the text as being visited on people—with no reference to Earth’s plants or animals (Romans 5:12, 18–19).

According to 1 Corinthians 15:21, the death that “came through a man” came to humans, not to humans and animals. 1 Corinthians 15:22–23 explains, “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” According to Genesis 1, God gave Earth’s plants and animals to humans. The only creatures who belong to Christ through acceptance of his redeeming love are the ones made expressly for eternal relationship with him: humans. Only spiritual beings are “made alive” in Christ. Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 are the only passages in the Bible that explicitly address the death brought by Adam’s sin. Neither provides a compelling reason to suggest that physical death of plants and animals could not have occurred prior to Adam’s sin—or that the physical death of plants and animals necessarily impugns God’s character.

3. Duration of Genesis 1 creation days: In Genesis 1:1–2:4, the Hebrew word yôm, translated “day,” is used with three distinct definitions. Yôm refers to all of the daylight hours in Genesis 1:3–5, to a calendar day of 24 hours in Genesis 1:14, and to the entire time span of God’s creative activity in Genesis 2:4.

Each of the first six creation days is accompanied by the statement “and there was evening, and there was morning” and an ordinal number. This pattern leads to anticipation of an “evening-morning” tag to go along with the seventh day, but it does not appear there. Its omission must be intentional, and it certainly piques the curiosity of a first-time reader. Those familiar with the entire Bible would recognize the seventh day, the day of “rest” or cessation, from references to it in other passages of Scripture, such as Psalm 95:10-11 and Hebrews 4:1-11. In these texts, God’s rest from his “work” of creation still continues, and we’re invited to enter into his rest from working and obey God’s good news. In fact, Hebrews mentions that “today,” the time to repent and turn to the Lord, continues to this day.

Many young-earth creationists assert that Exodus 20:11‘s statement about obeying the Sabbath implies that the creation days in Genesis 1 must be calendar days. However, this claim is based on the assumption that a “Sabbath” can only and will always mean 24 hours. However, Leviticus 25:2–5 declares a year-long Sabbath for agricultural land. In each case, the Sabbath rest for humans and agricultural land serves biological needs and limitations—things not applicable to God.

Hosea 6:1–3 and Zechariah 14:7 show that even a numbered day can refer to a time span longer than 24 hours. Perhaps the clearest indication of this point comes from biblical elaboration in Genesis 2 on the events of the sixth creation day. That was a very full day of activity for Adam—so full it is highly unlikely Adam could have accomplished it all in a single 24-hour day.

Genesis 1 says that God created humans, male and female, on creation day six. According to the details provided in Genesis 2, God created Adam outside the garden and then placed him in the garden, where he introduced Adam to its beauty. Adam observed the trees of Eden growing. God had Adam tend the garden and “watch over it.” Then God noted that Adam was alone and that it was “not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Next, God brought Adam various species of birds and mammals to observe and name. Finally, God put Adam into a sound sleep and created Eve (from a tissue biopsy taken from Adam’s side). During this sequence of events, Adam had time to observe the difference between the world outside of Eden and the world within. He had time to learn the wonderful yet limited satisfaction that comes from gardening. He also had time and opportunity to learn about animal life and how soulish creatures (nephesh, in Hebrew) related to one another as well as to him. Finally, he had time to realize his own aloneness, his lack of a “like” partner.

According to the text, the exclamation that came from Adam’s lips when he first saw Eve was, in Hebrew, “happa‘am.” This expression is translated in Genesis 30:20 as “now at last” and in Genesis 46:30 as “now finally.” The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament translates this term in Genesis 2:23 as “at last.”⁹ The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon translates it in the same passage as “now at length.”¹⁰

Theologian C. John Collins has explained that the wording and structure of Genesis 1:1–3 allow for a significant gap in time between the creation of the universe (Genesis 1:1) and the development of the conditions on Earth described in Genesis 1:2.¹¹ Another time period of unspecified duration is possible between the state of Earth in Genesis 1:2 and the appearance of light on Earth’s surface, described in Genesis 1:3.¹² On this basis, Genesis 1:1–3 would permit, if taken as history, the passage of some billions of years between the creation of the universe and the creation events thereafter. Therefore, Christians who interpret the Genesis 1 creation days as a 144-hour time span could still accept the scientifically established ages of the universe and Earth. They need not reject the astronomical evidence for an ancient universe, nor do they need to accuse astronomers of deceit.

4. Scientists’ atheistic bias: There are more than 12,000 professional research astronomers in the world and about ten times as many professional research geologists. Trying to get this many scientists to unite together to foster a conspiracy about the age of the universe and Earth that they all know is not true defies credulity. To attribute such a conspiracy to a united atheistic bias overlooks the fact that a large percentage of research astronomers and geologists are Bible-believing Christians. The vast majority of these Bible-believing research astronomers and geologists, who publicly identify as born-again Christians, adhere to an old-earth interpretation of Scripture and the book of nature.

The claim that professional research astronomers and geologists have conspired to deceive the public about the ages of the universe and Earth also overlooks the fact that these scientific communities are tolerant of aberrant hypotheses that challenge mainstream scientific theories and thinking. Such tolerance is evident in their peer-reviewed scientific journals. Some of these journals specialize in publishing aberrant hypotheses to challenge scientists adhering to mainstream theories to strengthen and widen the evidence for their theories.

Considering Multiple Creation Texts
The Bible is unique among the books undergirding the world’s major religions in the number and extent of its creation passages. There are over two dozen chapter-length and near-chapter-length creation texts in the Bible. They appear in over 10 of the 66 books that comprise the Old and New Testaments.

The dispute among Christians over creation’s timing results not from interpreting the Bible as truthful, but from failing to integrate all the truth it reveals. Each biblical creation passage must be understood in a way that is both literal and consistent, both internally and externally.

This brief summary presents some of the more significant biblical refutations that the universe and Earth are less than 10,000 years old. For readers desiring to pursue greater depth on what the entire Bible teaches about the age of the universe and Earth, I have written a full-length book, A Matter of Days, 2nd edition.¹³

Christians can be confident that God created a world he intends for us to discover. I would add that he wants us to learn everything we can about the natural realm. Part of that learning involves a constructive integration of all relevant creation texts with the record of nature to gain insight into his timing and purposes for the creation.

Endnotes

1. Hugh Ross, Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2023).
2. John C. Whitcomb and Donald B. DeYoung, The Moon: Its Creation, Form, and Significance (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1978), 69.
3. Henry M. Morris, “Morris Debates for Young Earth at Wheaton,” Acts and Facts 15, no. 8 (1986): 5.
4. I explain and document the scientific evidence for unchanging laws of physics in Hugh Ross, “New Evidence Further Affirms Biblical Prediction of Unchanging Physics,” Today’s New Reason to Believe (blog), Reasons to Believe, August 9, 2021; and in Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days, 2nd ed. (Covina, CA: RTB Press, 2015), 100–104, 164–166.
5. Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling, and Eugene F. Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, vol. 1 (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research; St. Joseph, MO: Creation Research Society, 2000): 42–44, 306–307, 312–313, 316–318, 334–337, 374, vol. 2 (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research; St. Joseph, MO: Creation Research Society, 2005): 736–738.
6. Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, vol. 2:738.
7. Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, vol. 1:337.
8. Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, vol. 1:307.
9. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 730.
10. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, 1906 repr. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 822.
11. C. John Collins, Genesis 1–4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 51; Rodney Whitefield, Reading Genesis One: Comparing Biblical Hebrew with English Translation (San Jose, CA: R. Whitefield Publisher, 2011), 10–11.
12. Collins, Genesis 1–4, 10–11.
13. Ross, A Matter of Days.

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My Answer: Not all Unitarians believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. For those that do I would offer the following brief response:

According to Colossians 2:9 all the fullness of the Deity dwells in Christ in bodily form. God the Father is spirit. God the Holy Spirit is spirit. The only member of the triune godhead who has a body is God the Son. Hence, when God appeared in bodily form in the Old Testament, it was God the Son. The New Testament declares that God the Son created the universe and that he existed before anything at all was created. These biblical texts imply that Jesus is an uncreated being. Therefore, he is eternal, one who has always existed.

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