There were two trees:
Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and God was scared they’d eat from the other tree, and become immortal:
So is it accurate to say, though the concept of an old(deep time) earth didn’t exist at the time, that early church fathers like Augustine would probably not be opposed to the concept?
On what did Herodotus base his earth age estimate?
They ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the tree of life.
Herodotus had been told by Egyptian priests that Egypt was made up of Nile silt, and he suggested that the whole of Egypt above Memphis was originally a gulf of the Mediterranean. So, he said, what if the Nile originally flowed into it? It could carry enough silt within 20,000 years, or even 10,000 or less to build up Egypt as we know it today. Besides, he said, the fact that some rock cliffs show fossil shells, and the fact that their are big salt deposits in Egypt show that it once was underwater.
Bold mine
We don’t know that. The tree of life was theirs to eat freely in the garden (I have given you every seed bearing plant for food…), it may even have been required for their immortality to continually eat of that tree. It is clear that eating was part of God’s plan in paradise.
What we do know is once they ate of the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil - and entered a state of death (you will surely die), that God stopped them from being able to eat of the tree of life, so their period of separation from God (aka death) will not be eternal.
It was a act of mercy IMHO that God prevented them from eating of the tree of life, because that would allow them to live forever in this world, instead of the paradise that God intended.
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As a result God removed A&E, not the other way around.
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Just as well. Their flagship show in recent years has been Dog the Bounty Hunter; it’s a long time gone since they used to broadcast live theater.
No it didn’t. Hindu Cosmology includes conceptions of a universe billions of years old and did more than 2000 years ago. Further we know that trade and pilgrimage occurred between the Roman Empire and what is now India more than 2000 years ago.
So the concept of an “old deep universe” would have been at least heard of by Greek Philosophers and Roman Scholars in early christian times.
Probably yes, if it had been considered fairly well established scientific fact at the time, rather than speculation or the doctrine of some other religion. I doubt that Augustine would have given much credence to anything he might (conceivably) have heard about Hindu cosmology, for example. I don’t know how much general credence was given to Herodotus’ view at the time.
Of course, much of what was considered science in Augustine’s time is now known to have been quite wrong. Nevertheless, they did have a conception of scientific knowledge (or philosophy as they would have called it: beliefs supported by reason and empirical evidence rather than by revelation and faith) as opposed to religious doctrine and myth.
Also, we ought to restrict this to Augustine himself. He was easily the most scientifically oriented of the major church fathers. However, he is also generally considered to be the last and greatest of them, so it was his opinions on the matter that most influenced subsequent generations of Christians.
It should be understood though that the Hindu calculations of the age of the universe were not based on any scientific reasoning. They were simply mythological speculations that didn’t come (as far as can be determined) from any sort of rational basis. On the other hand, Bishop Ussher’s chronology was actually based partly on studying historical records. He combed through the chronologies of various historical civilizations. He combined this with the then generally accepted ideas about the historical claims of the Old Testament.
So the fact that the Hindu cosmology says that the universe is now 158.7 trillion years old and the Ussher chronology says that it’s 6014 years old doesn’t mean that the Hindu chronology is that much better. Neither is exactly close to the now generally accepted age of 13.7 billion years. The Ussher chronology is at least based on something, although it’s something that few people today would accept as an accurate historical source. The Hindu chronology is apparently based on pure speculation.
Yes, I hate it when people are right for the wrong reason. I also hate having to make a decision without good information. Ussher made good use of what he had at the time.
When did the concept of geological features being the result of ongoing processes first arise?
Ussher’s estimate actually isn’t that far off for the rise of civilization.
there was a pope who concluded that the earth was formed around 6,000 years ago, on a thursday. not sure which millenia that was. it was just mentioned in one geology textbook.
A hindu “day of brahma” is 4.32 billion years. And at the end of every day of brahma, the world is destroyed by fire or water. The total “mulitverse” is regarded as trillions of years old as you mention.
4.32 billion years is pretty damn close to the estimate of length of life on earth, 4.5 billion years.
As for not being based on any thing other than “pure speculation”, it comes from primarily the Upanishads which are philosophical dialogs. I’m not really sure why you would give a pass to Usher’s use of the Old testament as a source but disallow Vedic use of the Upanishads. Neither is regarded as historical records today, but they were by their respective cultures at the time.
Explain to me the exact method by which it’s possible to get from some historical records to the calculation that the universe is 158.7 trillion years old. Ussher based his calculations on not just the Old Testament but on the historical records of other civilizations. Those historical records had some truth mixed up with a lot of nonsense. On the other hand, what historical records did the inventors of the Hindu cosmology use? I don’t know of any such records that they used at all. Do you? If so, tell us about it.
The Rig Veda contains references to events referred to in sidereal time, eg by the procession of the equinoxes and refers to events that occurred more than 5000 years ago as does the Mahabharata, so thats how they know the world is older than 5000 years.
I’m not an expert on exactly how Vedic philosophy dated the universe, but astronomical cycles were known in vedic times and the lengths of them were calculated to some accuracy using naked eye astronomy. The Upanishads are philosophical enquiry in some ways similar to methods used by some of the ancient greek philosophers. It’s not science as well know it, but saying they just made the figure up is doing a huge disservice to the huge body of vedic philosophy and cosmology. I’m sure there is a justification for those figures in their own value system, but I’m not familiar enough with which specific part of the Rig Veda or Upanishads explains the reasoning behind the figure.
Interestingly enough the start of the Age of Kali Yuga is 5111 years ago, which is close to Usher’s figure and pretty good as the start of the rise of civilization. So Vedic timescales are surprisingly accurate for both age of life on earth (one Kalpa, Brahma day, 4.32 billion years) and historical era (Kali Yuga 5111 years)
The fact of the precession of the axis of rotation (also known as the precession of the equinoxes) does not in any way show how old the Earth is. What it allows you to do is to take all the records that you have of previous times and show that the north and south poles of the axis of rotation of the Earth move around in a circle at a steady pace within the times for which you have records. You can say where the poles pointed to in the sky in any given year before or after your records (if you assume that the uniform movement continued or will continue throughout past or future times), but you can’t say anything about whether these times existed or will exist. Again, I’d like to know the exact method by which they calculated that the Earth is 158.7 trillion years old.
Also, the fact that the Hindus made estimates that were too big doesn’t by itself make them more scientific than Ussher who made estimates that were too small. Large numbers are no more scientific than small numbers. Furthermore, it’s been known in the Western world how to name and work with large numbers since before 200 B.C., so there’s nothing particularly new about the Hindus using large numbers. Archimedes was able to name numbers up to one which would be (in modern terms) 1 followed by 80 quadrillion 0’s. He did calculations with these numbers in which he claimed that the number of grains of sand which would fill up the universe is 10^63:
There are Mesopotamian legends of demigods who lived for thousands of years and had lifespans that made Methuselah look like a teenager. I’ve wondered if the Hebrews recalling a time when lifespans were many times longer is coincidental development or borrowed from an older tradition.
Some tales of Genesis are easy to believe as oral traditions that were tweaked. I don’t think anybody but Fundamentalists really believe God zapped the Tower of Babel and screwed with people’s Brocas’ areas because they violated his zoning laws, but there are ruins of ziggurats and of proto-pyramids in Egypt that collapsed during construction and it’s easy to see how an oral culture could keep this alive as a major building project that collapsed due to divine wrath (especially if it happened from a natural disaster). What I think is interesting is the “asides” in Genesis (and other texts) that clearly meant something at sometime. Example from Genesis 4:
All kinds of oddity in this. Jabal was the ancestor of tent dwellers and Jubal of harpists/floutists- but both lived before The Flood when either
1- all of their tent dwelling harp playing descendants got wiped out anyway
or
2- they were ancestors of tent dwellers, harp players, and… well, everybody else- engineers, musicians, hair stylists, Trekkies, firedancers and butterfly collectors. Either way, why bring them up?
And the thing with Lamech- he’s never mentioned again (assuming he’s not Noah’s dad Lamech, which apparently he isn’t as that Lamech has a different genealogy). Who is this man- or these men- that he killed? And how is he so certain he’ll be avenged 77fold? There’s some missing info here. Was there once a Story of Lamech that dovetaild into this one and this was their way of saying “Here’s where the story of Lamech and the Hobbits goes?”, or… what exactly?
And the names do not repeat but they do rhyme:
then the next chapter the descendants of Seth, whose great-grandson was Jared.
So Enoch/Irad/Mehujael/Methusael/Lamech then never mentioned again, and then the Jared/Enoch/Methuselah/Lamech lineage which isn’t the same names but they are awful close (Jared and Irad for example, though in one it was the father of Enoch and another the son). Are these two different traditions coming together and being merged, or was the manuscript due the next day or what exactly to have such odd similarities? And why mention the descendants of Cain’s son Enoch to begin with if they were going to be wiped out before the Flood and only their similarly named cousins were going to be on the Ark?
And it makes it harder for us to pretend the universe revolves around us if we admit that we haven’t been here for almost all of its history.
In Vedic cosmology the earth is not 158 trillion years old, the universe is an infinite cycle. One cycle of Brahma’s lifetime is 158 trillion years, but the entire universe is created and destroyed many many times in one Brahma lifetime.
As I’ve repeatedly stated, one Kalpa (one brahma day = 4.32 billion years) is the Vedic estimate for the length of habitability of THIS particular world. Brahma days are followed by Brahma nights in which the world is uninhabitable, and it cycles. So for this specific universe, we’d have 4.32 billion years of Brahma night (uninhabitable) and then 4.32 Billion years of Brahma day, giving the age of the universe at 8.64 billion years.
There are huge volumes of literature on how these dates were arrived at, many of it never translated into english, and as I said I’m not familiar with where they are described, but it’s out there if you wanted to take the effort and learn some sanskrit 
It wasBishop Ussher and he’s been mentioned several times in this thread, including the three posts right above yours.