One of the debates between Creationists and Evolutionists is the age of the earth. Those who take the Bible literally believe the earth to be 6,000-10,000 years old, while evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old. My intent here is not to debate whether God literally created the earth in 7 days, but to address the discrepancy between the Biblical timeline and the claims of science.

Orginally posted 8/13/04 at bibleforums.org:

First, let me assume that we all believe in some form of Creation, and God created Adam and Eve as fully developed humans.

If Adam and Eve were created as fully developed humans, then they would have appeared to be 20-30 years old, when in reality they were only 1 day old. I think the same is true of the stars, various rock formations, etc. When God created the stars, they were immediately visible, despite the fact that they are many light years away. So scientists today may look at a star and say, “that star is a billion light years away, so it must have existed for billions of years in order for us to see the light.” Or they may look at a rock formation and say, “it takes billions of years for this sort of thing to form; therefore the earth must be billions of year old.” However, if God created the earth with “built-in” age, I see no problem accepting a young earth despite the fact that it may look older than it really is.