How old is the world and the universe around it? According to Bishop Usher God created it around 6006 years ago on October 23rd at 11:30 in the morning. He reached this conclusion by adding up all of the genealogies in the Bible down to the birth of Jesus in 1 BC. Fundamentalist like Ken Ham of the creationist museum in Kentucky accept this as fact from the inerrant word of God in the Bible. The Bible presents a genealogy for Jesus dating back to the creation in Mathew as follows:
Matthew 1The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah
1 This is the genealogy[a] of Jesus the Messiah[b] the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4 Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12 After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13 Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14 Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Elihud,
15 Elihud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah
However in Luke we have an entirely different geneology going back to Adam:
23And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
24Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph,
25Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge,
26Which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda,
27Which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri,
28Which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er,
29Which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi,
30Which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim,
31Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David,
32Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson,
33Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda,
34Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor,
35Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala,
36Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech,
37Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan,
38Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
Both of the genealogies are different and not only that but one is shorter than the other. There is a second problem in that supposedly Jesus is supposedly descended through the House of David and it is linked through his father Joseph. Wait a minute Joseph has nothing to do with this since Mary is supposed to have been impregnated by GOD! Now remember in the fundamentalist belief system every word in the Bible is written by God! God couldn’t get the genealogy right? Fundamentalists are dogmatic that every word in the Bible has been dictated by God. Which words? The ones written in Hebrew or those in Aramaic or Greek or Latin or those we read in the King James version in 17th century English?
Of course it was that God who created all those languages to stop the building of the Tower of Babel that he was worried would reach up to heaven. God must have relocated since men have now reached outer space and the moon and we have sent probes to different planets. There are some theories that the Tower of Babel one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that was seen by the Jews when they were captives in Babylon and were amazed at all of the languages being spoken there. There are also theories that the Torah or books of the law were actually written there and then there is the Gilgamesh epic found written on clay tablets from there which details the same story as recorded in the Book of Noah.
In the movie “Inherit the Wind” about the Scopes Monkey Trial the opening music states “Give me that old time religion” and cites “It was good for the Hebrew Children and it’s good enough for me.” Well no. They are Hebrews and their old time religion was not Christian they were Jewish. What about Jesus? Jewish! His mother? Again Jewish. So where does the belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God come from? Has this been recognized as the truth since the early days of the church? No! To quote from Wikepedia on its origins we get:
Fundamentalist Christianity
Fundamentalist Christianity, also known as Christian fundamentalism, is defined by historian George M. Marsden as "militantly anti-modernist Protestant evangelicalism." Marsden explains that fundamentalists were evangelical Christians who in the 20th century "militantly opposed both modernism in theology and the cultural changes that modernism endorsed. Militant opposition to modernism was what most clearly set off fundamentalism. The name is taken from the title of a series of essays published by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, The Fundamental: A Testimony to the Truth.
As an organized movement it began within Protestant churches—especially Baptist and Presbyterian—in the United States in the early 20th century. Many such churches adopted a "fighting style" and certain theological elements, such as Dispensationalism, but it is not an organized movement and has no national body or official statement.
Fundamentalism arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians. The founders reacted against liberal theology, actively asserted that the following ideas were fundamental to the Christian faith: the inerrancy of the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the virgin birh of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent personal return of Jesus Christ.
The term "fundamentalist" is controversial into the 21st century; it is often used to attack or ridicule adherents (label of "fundy"), although it was coined by movement leaders. Some who hold these beliefs reject the label of "fundamentalism", seeing it as too pejorative[ while to others it has become a banner of pride. Such Christians prefer to use the term fundamental as opposed to fundamentalist (e.g., Independent Fundamental Baptist and Independent Fundamental Churches of America This term is sometimes confused with Christian legalism
Fundamentalist Movement in the U.S.
The term "fundamentalism" was coined by Baptist editor Curtis Lee Laws in 1920 to designate Christians who were ready "to do battle royal for the Fundamentals"; the term quickly was adopted by all sides.
Fundamentalism had multiple roots in British and American theology of the 19th century One root was Dispensationalism, a rediscovery of early Christian premillenialism in the 1830s in England as an outgrowth of applying the historical-grammatical method of hermeneutics to all of the Bible. It was a millenarian theory that divided all of time into different stages, called "dispensations," which were seen as stages of God's revelation. In this theory, the world is on the verge of the last stage in which Christ would return. An important sign is the rebirth of Israel, support for which is the centerpiece of Fundamentalist foreign policy.
A second stream came from Princeton Theology in the mid-19th century, which developed the doctrine of inerrancy in response to higher criticism of the Bible.
A third strand—and the name itself—came from a 12-volume study The Fundamentals, published 1910-1915. Sponsors subsidize the free distribution of over three million individual volumes to clergy, laymen and libraries. This version stressed several core beliefs, including:
- The inerrancy of the Bible
- The literal nature of the Biblical accounts, especially regarding Christ's miracles, and the Creation account in Genesis.
- The Virgin Birth of Christ
- The bodily resurrection of Christ
- The substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross
By the late 1920s the first two points had become central to Fundamentalism.
A fourth strand was the growing concern among many evangelical Christians with the fruits of modernism and the higher criticism of the Bible. This strand concentrated on opposition to Darwinism.
A fifth strand was the strong sense of the need for public revivals, a common theme among many Evangelicals who did not become Fundamentalists.
Numerous efforts to form coordinating bodies failed, and the most influential treatise came much later, in Systematic Theology (1947) by Lewis S. Chafer, who founded the Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924.
Much of the enthusiasm for mobilizing Fundamentalism came from "Bible Colleges", especially those modeled after the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. The Bible colleges prepared ministers who lacked college or seminary experience with intense study of the Bible, often using the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909, which was the King James version with detailed notes explaining how to interpret Dispensationalist passages.
Organizing the Fundamentalists
Fundamentalist movements were found in most North American Protestant denominations by 1919, with the debate between fundamentalists and modernists especially strong in Presbyterian and Baptist churches.
The most important leader in organizing a movement was William Bell Riley, a Northern Baptist based in Minneapolis, where his Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (1902), Northwestern Evangelical Seminary (1935), and Northwestern College (1944) produced thousands of graduates.
Riley became the leading organizer of the movement for Fundamentalism. He created, at a large conference in Philadelphia in 1919, the World's Christian Fundamentals Association (WCFA). It became the chief interdenominational fundamentalist organization in the 1920s, and Riley was president until 1929, after which the WFCA faded in importance.
Although the fundamentalist drive of the 1920s to take control of the major Protestant denominations failed at the national level, the network of churches and missions developed and controlled by Riley indicates that fundamentalism was growing in strength, especially in The South. Both rural and urban in character, the flourishing movement acted as a denominational surrogate and aimed at a militant orthodoxy of evangelical Christianity.[
Fighting evolution
Fundamentalists in the 1920s devoted themselves to fighting the teaching of evolution in the nation's schools and colleges, both public and private.
Riley took the initiative in the Scopes Trial of 1925 to bring in famed orator William Jennings Bryan as an assistant to the local prosecutor. The trial revealed a growing chasm in American Christianity and two ways of finding truth, one "biblical" and one "scientific." Liberals saw a division between educated, tolerant Christians and narrow-minded, tribal, obscurantist Christians.
Gatewood (1969) analyzes the transition from the anti-evolution crusade of the 1920s to the creation science movement of the 1960s. Despite some similarities between these two causes, the creation science movement represented a shift from religious to scientific objections to Darwin's theory. Creation science also differed in terms of popular leadership, rhetorical tone, and sectional focus. It lacked a prestigious leader like Bryan, utilized scientific rather than religious rhetoric, and was a product of California and Michigan instead of the South.]
Edwards (2000) contradicts the conventional view that in the wake of the Scopes trial a humiliated fundamentalism retreated into the political and cultural background, a viewpoint evidenced in the movie "Inherit the Wind" and the majority of contemporary historical accounts. Rather, the cause of fundamentalism's retreat was the death of its leader, Bryan. Most fundamentalists saw the trial as a victory and not a defeat, but Bryan's death soon after created a leadership void that no other fundamentalist leader could fill. Bryan, unlike the other leaders, brought name recognition, respectability, and the ability to forge a broad-based coalition of fundamentalist religious groups to argue for the anti-evolutionist position The Mainline Protestant denominations refused to join the attacks on evolution, and welcomed modern ideas.
The American Civil Liberties Union at first had no objection to a general Christian outlook in the public schools, as long as it was that of no particular sect. By the time of the Scopes Trial, however, the ACLU and other advocates of the constitutional separation of church and state insisted that public education must not assume any religious outlook.
Other states
Webb (1991) traces the political and legal struggles between strict creationists and Darwinists to influence the extent to which evolution would be taught as science in Arizona and California schools. After Scopes was convicted, creationists throughout the United States sought similar antievolution laws for their states. These included Reverends R. S. Beal and Aubrey L. Moore in Arizona and members of the Creation Research Society in California, all supported by distinguished laymen. They sought to ban evolution as a topic for study or, at least, relegate it to the status of unproven theory perhaps taught alongside the biblical version of creation. Educators, scientists, and other distinguished laymen favored evolution. This struggle occurred later in the Southwest than in other US areas and persisted through the Sputnik era, which inspired increased faith in evolutionism.
Variations
The original 20th century Fundamentalist Movement divided along clearly defined lines within conservative Evangelical Protestantism as issues progressed. Many groupings, large and small, were produced by this schism. Neo-evangelicalism, Reformed and Lutheran Confessionalism, the Heritage movement, and Paleo-Orthodoxy have all developed distinct identities, but none of them acknowledge any more than an historical overlap with the Fundamentalist Movement, and the term is seldom used of them.
For example, American evangelist Billy Graham came from a fundamentalist background, but parted company with the movement because of his choice, early in his ministry (1950s), to cooperate with other Christians. He represents a movement that arose within fundamentalism, but has increasingly become distinct from it, known as neo-evangelicalism or New Evangelicalism (a term coined by Harold J. Ockenga, the "Father of New Evangelicalism").
So it is an American invention in the 20th Century which really has no historical precedent. Well actually there is some precedent but of a different nature. For centuries the church taught and people believe because people in authority told them it was true that the Earth was the center of everything because the Greek philosopher Aristotle said it was. Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for claiming the earth revolved around the sun because it refuted the church taught beliefs. Galileo scandalized the authorities who maintained that the planets were perfect sphere and when he pointed his telescope at the moon he saw mountains and craters. One cardinal refused to look because he knew this could not be true and was obviously a trick. Finally it was announced that what the telescope could not show was that the moon was covered by a perfect and invisible globe of glass. How do I view charlatans like Ken Ham? Well his $27 million magazine paid itself off the first year so he is probably doing quite nicely showing men and dinosaurs playing together and how does he explain how Noah got dinosaurs onto the ark? They were put on there while they were still young and so small.
I am not saying there is not a supreme something out there are all around us I am saying if he is responsible for the Bible he should looked for a good fact checker among the angels. Remember reality is that the earth and universe are not 6,000 years old. That those who tell you otherwise need to be patted on the head and told to go away.
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