Science & Archaeologyage-of-earthcreationkolobdeep-time

The Age of the Earth

Does Restoration scripture require a 6,000-year-old planet, or may Latter-day Saints accept deep time?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · 2 Peter 3:8

KJV + NRSVUE

One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.

King James Version
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

NRSVUE
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

Bible · Psalm 90:4

KJV + NRSVUE

A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday. The Bible is not a stopwatch.

King James Version
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

NRSVUE
For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.

Book of Mormon

Also restored

Abraham 3:4
Kolob’s time is not cubits. Restoration scripture is not allergic to deep time.
And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

Doctrine and Covenants 101:32–34
Yea, verily I say unto you, in that day when the Lord shall come, he shall reveal all things— Things which have passed, and hidden things which no man knew, things of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof— Things most precious, things that are above, and things that are beneath, things that are in the earth, and upon the earth, and in heaven.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

Genesis “days” as ordered phases; Second Temple cosmic time

Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and other Second Temple works already play with world-weeks, jubilee cycles, and heavens whose time is not our time. Genesis 1’s seven days are a temple week, an ordering of sacred time.

If the Lord still has to reveal “things of the earth, by which it was made,” then we do not already possess a revealed geochronology. D&C 77’s seven thousand years names the temporal/human economy of this world in a revelatory outline. It is a poor club to swing at radiometric dating.

Faithful answers

FAIR

Mormonism and Science

FAIR Latter-day Saints

Latter-day Saints may accept an old earth. Many faithful Saints and some Church educators have. Young-earth readings exist and are permitted. They are not required. The gospel’s load-bearing beams are Creator, Fall, Atonement—not a 4004 B.C. birthday for the planet.

The Church has no official position on the age of the earth. Scripture emphasizes God’s role as Creator and the purpose of creation. It does not bind members to a particular scientific chronology.

Abraham 4’s creation “times” are not forced into 24-hour solar days. Kolob already teaches that the Lord’s day is not ours.
Moses 1:33–38: worlds have passed away. Deep time is native Restoration cosmology.
D&C 101:32–34 is an admission of present ignorance about how the earth was made. That verse should chasten both dogmatic young-earthism and dogmatic materialism.
Geology as a description of God’s long creative work is compatible with worship. Geology as a replacement for God is not.

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