How long in the Garden?

[Jbs2763]

I was involved in a discussion the other day, talking about the 6 "days" of Creation, if it was 6 literal 24 hour periods, or if the "days" were just to give us a timeframe in our minds...each "day" could have been 1000 years for all we know, and this is where a bapstist friend and I differ.

However, another point that came up, does anyone have any idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden? In my opinion, they time they were in the Garden could explain all of the geological hisotry stuff...dino bones, etc Do you think that they could have been in the garden for 100,000,000 years? Was time to Adam liek time is to God? where one day in God's eyes is 1000 years to us (psalms 90:4)

Somthing to think about, this is more of an opionion thing, since i dont think anyone has a solid answer

[ConstitutionMan]

"Call your labors...day". I think 'day' is just the name given to reference a period of time I don't think it was an actual 24hr period/1000years per day thing. Doesn't God have to follow the same laws of science that we do? Not sure but I am just asking. Anyway, if He does have to follow these laws then think of how long it would have taken for the earths creatures and such to form.

[Traveler]

It is impossible to come up with the correct answers if one insist on asking the wrong questions. Many years ago I was lost in the wilderness for several days. I survived because I was willing to eat what ever I could find. The scripture about hunger and thrust for righteousness means something different to me - I know what it means to be hungry and trusty. I know what it means to be thankful.

When I explain some of the things I would eat some have said that they would never eat what I did. Sometimes I feel this way about truth. Some people are too proud to believe a truth. There is no reason to search for truth that you will never accept.

I am sure that truth will never be found by those that feel they must make excuses for it. Something happened 6000 years ago but I am not sure the scriptures have the complete story and if one cannot understand that G-d did not lie in creation or scripture they will live with superstition rather than truth.

The Traveler

[ruthiechan]

Modern day revelation says that a day to God is 1000 years to us.

See figure 1 in Facsimile No. 2

I believe the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were cast out was eventually taken up unto God the way the City of Enoch was. (see Moses)

However, you are correct in that the Bible does NOT tell you one whit how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden. Clearly at first it was a place on earth. Therefore, all sorts of things must have been going on outside the Garden.

People tell me the flaw in that logic is that it rules out humans coming from apes. Well, you know, the theory of evolution is still a theory. A very good one, and a useful one, but not everything it presents is fact.

I also find myself wondering that if matter can not be created or destroyed and if space and matter are infinite, then mayhaps the testing methods to determine the age of fossils and rocks are fairly accurate for the inorganic compounds. That the pieces of matter God used to create a rock are in fact very old, like millions or billions of years old, but that the matter has only been in the shape of a rock for a mere thousand years. So therefore in a temporal perspective on earth the rock is relatively young but from an eternal perspective the matter that makes up the rock is actually very very old. . .

[puf_the_majic_dragon]

Well it'd take more than 100 million years in the garden to explain 4.5 billion years of geology...

Personally I'm a proponent of evolution. Thus the "6 days" of creation would be entirely metaphorical - even if God revealed to Moses the age of the Earth, it would have been quite difficult for Moses to explain it to a people whose math never went beyond the thousands, much less into the millions or billions.

I believe that God created a universe with a set of rules, and then "set it loose" so to speak. The rules by which this universe is governed were designed to lead to our existence - quite the planning effort if you ask me. The Earth formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, life emerged roughly 3.7 billion years ago, human ancestors diverged from monkeys about 6 or 7 million years ago, and homo sapiens emerged about 200,000 years ago. This would put the "garden period" about 200,000 years ago, and based on paleontological evidence I'd guess that it didn't last that long - perhaps only days.

Biblically, the "garden period" would be about 4,000 BC, or ~6,000 years ago, following the geneological record and ages given in Genesis. However many of the original texts from which our Bible was translated are inconsistent in their numbering of said ages, and of course the original record which Moses wrote is lost. We have the Book of Moses, which follows the KJV when citing ages.

As far as reconciling these two very different datings, I would lean towards the arheological and paleontological evidence. This doesn't mean I disbelieve the Bible, only that I don't interpret everything in scripture literally.

:edit:

ConstitutionMan: The word "day" has many alternate meanings in the Bible, anything from a roughly 16 hour period (sunrise to sunset) to a human lifespan to entire epochs.

Traveler: You are absolutely right, finding the real answer to any doctrinal or scriptural question requires personal revelation, which means having the Spirit with you. Otherwise we're just babbling about useless theories.

ruthiechan: Calling evolution "theory" is like calling gravity "theory". Technically both evolution and gravity are "theory" by the scientific definition of the word, but just as the lay man would call gravity a "fact" because of his observation of it, evolution is also a "fact" because of our observations of it. I don't want to go too far off topic, so I'll just point you in the direction of this thread. It's relatively benign and there's some good information there. I just stopped participating in the discussion because it was just getting repetitive. Your idea about the "reuse" of matter in the creation of this earth as an explanation for fossils is an idea that Hemidakota would support, but which I think is stretching Abraham 3:24 a bit far. Occam's Razor :)

[Justice]

That's definately one valid theory, puf. I have considered that as well.

Another valid theory is that much of what man has drawn conclusions on is wrong or misleading. We can gather opinions based on our time and project "things as they are" backwards. It is possible that the earth did take far less time to create, but the manner in which the creation happened made things look older to us that they really are.

The important thing is that we understand that no matter how the creation happened Jesus is the Son of God. I have heard people say if it happened this way or that way I'd stop believing in God. That's utter nonsense... as if we can really know the things of God until they are revealed.

[puf_the_majic_dragon]

The important thing is that we understand that no matter how the creation happened Jesus is the Son of God. I have heard people say if it happened this way or that way I'd stop believing in God. That's utter nonsense... as if we can really know the things of God until they are revealed.

Bingo :)

It's great to discuss and study different ideas, but if it's not pertinent to your eternal salvation, there's no point getting your knickers in a knot over it.

[tubaloth]

I was involved in a discussion the other day, talking about the 6 "days" of Creation, if it was 6 literal 24 hour periods, or if the "days" were just to give us a timeframe in our minds...each "day" could have been 1000 years for all we know, and this is where a bapstist friend and I differ.

Simple answer is we just don’t know. Speculative answer is that it probably was a 1000 years for us and 1 day to God. But that also leads us to believe we weren’t at this location in the universe, we were at another location where a day is really that long, and a “Sun” is really that big. Here is the Instatute manual says on it.

President Brigham Young, discussing the six days of creation, said that six days “is a mere term, but it matters not whether it took six days, six months, six years, or six thousand years. The creation occupied certain periods of time. We are not authorized to say what the duration of these days was, whether Moses penned these words as we have them, or whether the translators of the Bible have given the words their intended meaning. However, God created the world. God brought forth material out of which he formed this little terra firma upon which we roam. How long had this material been in existence? Forever and forever, in some shape, in some condition” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1971], 100; see also Alma 40:8)

Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that a day, in the Creation accounts, “is a specified time period; it is an age, an eon, a division of eternity; it is the time between two identifiable events. And each day, of whatever length, has the duration needed for its purposes. . . .

“There is no revealed recitation specifying that each of the ‘six days’ involved in the Creation was of the same duration” (“Christ and the Creation,” Ensign, June 1982, 11). http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/pgp/manualindex.asp

I really don’t see how the connection between evolution and two basic (LDS) doctrines are brought together.

1. The book of mormon teachings (2 Nephi 2) that there was no death, and no birth until after the fall. This assumes just Humans were this way, but we also learn that the earth (and the garden of Eden) would have stayed in the same state (I assume that means no change). Yes, that would mean, Dinosaurs don’t die until after the fall. That doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s all that has been revealed.

2. We believe in a pre-mortal life. That my spirit was created in the pre-mortal life. Unless there is some type of Evolution in pre-mortal life to “fit” all the different stages of man? That doesn’t make sense that God needed evolution for man to come to the state he needed them to be in. So my spirit was created millions of years ago, but I had to Wait for my body to “evolve” to the point where it could house? That doesn’t make sense.

Also just some intereting reading

When this earth was created, it was not according to our present time, but it was created according to Kolob's time, for the Lord has said it was created on celestial time which is Kolob's time. Then he revealed to Abraham that Adam was subject to Kolob's time before his transgression. "Now I, Abraham, saw that it was after the Lord's time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning."fn

We have evidence beyond dispute that Adam was driven out of the Garden of Eden about 6,000 years ago, or perhaps a short time less. It is possible for us, by using the Bible chronology and that given by the Lord in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants to figure this almost accurately.

In section 77:6-15, we have more information in relation to the opening of these seals, with the following significant detail:

Verse 6: "Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?

"A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence."

Here is a definite statement by revelation to us that this earth will go through 7,000 years of temporal existence. Temporal, by all interpretations, means passing, temporary or mortal. This, then, has reference to the earth in its fallen state, for the earth was cursed when Adam, who was given dominion over it, transgressed the law. Before that time this earth was not mortal any more than Adam was. This we learn from other scriptures; for instance, see 2 Nephi 2:22.

In verse 12, section 77 the Prophet by inspiration from the Lord, sets days of a thousand years off against years of our measurement, in these words:

"We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years-the preparing of the way before the time of his coming."

(Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols., edited by Bruce R. McConkie [salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-1956], 1: 80.)

[ConstitutionMan]

Here is a link to a pretty interesting read by Hugh Nibley titled "Before Adam".

Before Adam - Maxwell Institute Papers