As I am pondering the creation of the world, I often suspect that there is much missing from
our current Old Testament that would help synchronize archaeology and the scriptures.
The "accepted" Biblical timeline for the creation of the world puts the "In the beginning" at about 4000 BC. The archaeology seems to age the earth as a whole lot older. What's the deal?
When it says in Gen. 1:1 "In the beginning", what exactly is it the beginning of? Most Christians believe that it is the beginning of life, the universe and everything. We as Mormons believe that the Bible pertains only to this Earth and thus, the "beginning" pertains only to the creation of this world.
Did the creation happen in only 7 days? I don't think we can take days literally, since at the beginning, time as we know it had not yet come into being. I look at it more as phases of a project. In the project of creating this world, phase one was the actual creation of the Sun, the Earth and the rest of the Solar System, set the planets in motion and their rotations and thus, set their days and their times. Once the earth was organized and set in motion so there was a day and night, phase 1 was done. Phase 2 brought forth waters and separated the water from the land, and so forth. How long each phase take? I don't believe that each phase took the same amount of "time".
What about when Adam and Eve were created? How long did they spend in the Garden of Eden? The Bible does not tell us this. We are told that Adam named all the plants and animals. How long did that take? How long did it take to create Eve? How long was it before the serpent came and tempted Adam and Eve?
Let’s move on to the genealogies put forth in Genesis. The ages, births and deaths of many of the descendants of Adam and later Noah are used to come up with the Biblical timeline. When the Bible says that Joe was the son of Bob or that Bob “begat” Joe, we interpret that this means that Joe was Bob’s son. However, we find that it could have meant that Joe was Bob’s grandson, great grandson or was even further down the family tree. In fact, even if the Bible says that Bob was Joe’s father, he could have been his grandfather or great grandfather. An example of this is in Gen 28:13, where the Lord tells Jacob “I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father” even though Abraham was Jacob’s grandfather. This has to do with the meaning of the words “son” and “father” in Hebrew. Son and mean son, grandson, great-grandson and descendant. Father can mean father, grandfather, great-grandfather and ancestor. (See http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-genesis-genealogies by Dr. John Millam)
Throughout the Old Testament, many genealogies are telescoped. This means that a lot of the genealogies show the many names along the family tree but not all the names. Mainly, they hit just the high points for brevity’s sake. If you want more details, please go to the article at http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-genesis-genealogies by Dr. John Millam. Depending on the level of telescoping there is, this would put the approximate date of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden at about 10,000 to 30,000 years ago or perhaps even as early as 60,000 years ago.
My main point is that the Bible does not explicitly say that the creation happened at 4,000 B.C. or that the age of the earth is 6,000 years. Therefore we should keep an open mind about dating the creation and not pigeon-hole ourselves on a specific date.
