[jonesy]

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I am a Christian and I believe God created life on this earth. I also believe dinosaurs once roamed the earth and the earth is >>>6000 years old. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see any contradictions there.

As I understand it, the story goes
1. God created the earth and filled it with creatures and stuff
2. Life goes on for untold eons in this state. (Millions of years, who knows)
3. Lucifer rebelled with 1/3 of the angels
4. Angels (now demons) cast to earth, wreak havoc on the inhabitants. Including sons of God mingling with sons of Man (source of giants, Time of Atlantis?)
5. God destroys the earth in pre Adamic flood. (This was global wipeout)
6. Starts over with Adam (6000 years ago)
7. Things go on.....as recounted in OT (sort of bibilcal history from here)
8. Much more localized flood in Noahs time, earth naturally repopulates.
9. God says, I can't keep smiting the earth, I won't do it anymore.

So this allows for:
-age of earth
-God still creative force
-repopulation of species after Noah
-dinosaurs
-common story in ALL cultures of flooding


I admit much of this is taken from looking at peoples studies of some of the root meanings of words from original Greek/Hebrew versions of Torah.
For example, the word for create is used after creating the earth, the words after that are more like, made new, or re-create.
Hence, there is a gap between day 1 of creation and day 2. This could be for untold millennia.
Similar word use for global preAdamic flood being separate from localized Noahic flood.