Philologos
Bible Prophecy Research
Title: "...a day is as a thousand years..."
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: November 3, 1999
URL: philologos.org/bpr/files/t008.htm
"...a day is as a thousand years..."
...a day is as a thousand years...
Heshvan 16, 5760
October 26, 1999
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.--Psalm 90:4
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.--2 Peter 3:8
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Every 88 of our days, Mercury orbits the Sun once. Therefore, Mercury's year equals 88 Earth days.
Mercury spins 1 1/2 turns per orbit of the Sun. If you were to stand at point X on Mercury with the Sun overhead at noon, wait for it to set and night to pass and then have it appear again overhead at noon, this would constitute one day and would take two orbits around the sun--two years. Therefore, one Mercury day lasts two Mercury years. One of Mercury's days lasts 176 (88 x 2) of our days.
Is there some point out there in the Universe where one day equals 1,000 years? I guess it's pretty close to heaven.
> Is there some point out there in the
Universe where one day equals 1,000 years?
> I guess it's pretty close to heaven.
Interesting timing on this subject. I just finished a small book titled "Starlight and Time" that had me thinking the same thing.
The author's purpose in writing the book was to present a theory that deals with the problem that young-earth creationists have in explaining the age of the universe in relation to that of the earth. If, as they believe, the universe is less than 10,000 years old, how can one explain that stars are millions of light years away? If the created universe is "young," then even the light from the closest star would have only traveled a fraction towards earth. When we look up, all we would see would be blackness. Since this isn't the case, and since I believe in a "young earth" creation, this relatively new theory presented by this book is quite interesting and very plausible (from my layman's point of view <g>).
According to General Relativity, we know that gravity affects time. A clock at a higher altitude ticks faster than a clock at a lower altitude.* Although both clocks will show different times, both will be showing the correct time according to their own frame of reference. The author writes:
What this new cosmology shows is that gravitational time distortion in the early universe would have meant that while a few days were passing on earth, billions of years would have been available for light to travel to earth. It still means that God made the heavens and earth (i.e., the whole universe) in six ordinary days, only a few thousands years ago. But with the reality revealed by GR [General Relativity], we now know that we have to ask--six days as measured by which clock? In which frame of reference?
The author goes into much more detail, such as a bounded vs non-bounded universe, black holes, event horizons, etc. The book, as I said earlier, is quite small and is actually a couple of chapters extracted from a larger book. There are two scientific papers in the appendices written by the author that were presented to the Third International Conference on Creationism that received positive review.
* Some have taken objection to this statement, but Dr. Humphreys refers to this effect as "gravitational time dilation" which is "not to be confused with the better-known 'velocity' time dilation in Einstein's special relativity theory."
Book info:
D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D, Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe, Master Books, © 1994. ISBN: 0-89051-202-7