Biblical Creation and the Geological Record in Juxtaposition

[JuliaL]

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Christians often try to intellectualize the Bible in an effort to justify their beliefs. People may reap certain benefits from mythology when it is seen as mythology.  However, it is not only my right but my responsibility to address faulty appeals to science. The purity of science is that it ferrets out truth not beliefs. Recently, a Christian claimed that the biblical creation story conforms to the geological eras or eons of Earth history. Could this be true? I wondered. If so, then I wanted to know. Research, not intellectual hubris, will reveal the truth whether that truth supports belief or unbelief in the biblical record. So I went to work reading about these eons to see for myself if the Bible conformed to them. Here, I will share with you what I found.


Hadean Eon

This eon is supposed to coincide to the first day of creation. Let’s see if it does. God creates the Earth and his spirit moves over the deep (ocean). In truth, there were no oceans in the beginning. It is commonly held that life began in the ocean.

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But life did not appear for billions of years after the Hadean eon.

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During this first eon there were only molten rocks and the Earth was extremely hot. The name Hadean comes from the Greek word we know as Hades to describe the hellish (very hot) conditions at that time.
 
The sun is the center of our solar system. The Earth is just one of many planets orbiting the sun and the sun itself orbit’s the center of the Milky Way galaxy. In the Bible, however, God creates the Earth and land before he creates the sun. Not only that, but he creates night and day before he creates the sun. So we start out doing things totally backwards on day one. Still, I will keep an open mind and see what day two looks like.

Archean Eon

The proponent of the Bible-geology concurrence tells us that on day two of creation Earth’s atmosphere became oxygenated. This is untrue on two accounts. Number one, the Earth’s atmosphere did not become oxygenated until 1.7 billion years ago, long after the Archean eon. Yes, there were always traces of oxygen, but not in sufficient enough amounts to justify calling the atmosphere oxygenated. Number two, the Bible says nothing about an atmosphere. On day two of creation, God creates the firmament. This firmament (Hebrew raqiya or raqia) refers to a dome, canopy or vault that the ancient Hebrews believed encircled the Earth. They believed this raqiya to be a solid object held up by pillars (Job 26:11). So on day two we see the creation of something that in the real world, does not exist.

Proterozoic Eon

On day three of creation, the waters are gathered together and the dry land appears. In truth, continents arise from a process called continental accretion—a gradual addition of substances such as sediment or volcanic arcs to tectonic plates. The first super continents, Ur and Vaalbara, appeared some 3.6-3.1 billion years ago, placing them in the Archean eon
 
What the Proterozoic eon is known for is the oxygenation of the Earth’s atmosphere. So again, the biblical record does not coincide with the geological record.

Paleozoic Eon

This is where things fall apart (if they haven‘t already). On the fourth day of creation, God finally gets around to creating the sun and the moon. He places them in the firmament of the Earth. Excuse me, but isn’t that kinda close? Which was created first, the sun or the Earth? You be the judge.
 
The Paleozoic eon actually saw an explosion of complex life forms. Everything from fish to reptiles appeared during that time, as well as forests of various plants.

Mesozoic Eon

God first creates life on Earth on the fifth day of creation. Yet, as we have seen, life was already here. In fact, Mesozoic means middle life. During this period the dinosaurs become the dominant vertebrae. This period also saw their extinction. We do see birds for the first time, as well as mammals. Funny that God should do his great creation of life during the geologic age of the two greatest mass extinctions on Earth. But this isn't mentioned.  I wonder why.

Cenozoic Eon

In what seems like the eleventh hour, we finally see some concurrence between the biblical account and the geological record on the sixth day of creation.  On this day, God creates all the big game animals and his masterpiece, humanity.  . Cenozoic means new life and it is known as the Age of Mammals. After the demise of dinosaurs, mammals began to proliferate at exponential rates. This grand proliferation enabled them to diversify into zillions of different species.
 
The biblical creation story gives no hint that divine knowledge of the structure of our universe or the history of our planet was involved in its writing.  Christians may try to redeem this dichotomy between the Bible and reality by saying there were six eons and six days. Playing the numbers game is not enough to make up for the differences in the order of events.

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I'm mostly with you
except for the use of the plural as bolded by me. 

Abiogenesis

The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years. The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates at least from 3.5 billion years ago, during the Eoarchean Era after a geological crust started to solidify following the earlier molten Hadean Eon.

Trying to get the bible to agree with itself, never mind reality, gives you brain cramps that really hurt. Ouch.