New Light -
Page 7-8 paragraph 9,10:
Jehovah has, however, revealed essential details about his works. For instance, the Scriptures inform us that God's spirit was active on the earth aeons ago. (Read Genesis 1:2) At that time, there was no dry land, no light, and apparently no breathable air at the earth's surface. The Bible goes on to describe what God did during a series of creative days. These are not 24-hour days but are epochs.
Page 9 paragraph 13:
After aeons had passed and God had produced innumerable animate and in-animate works, the earth was no longer "formless and waste". Yet, Jehovah had not finiished using his spirit for creative purposes. He was about to produce his highest earthly creation. Toward the end of the sixth creative day, God created man...
According to these two paragraphs the earth had existed for aeons...which the WTS has allluded to before. Now, though, they're implying that the entire creative process took aeons, not just 7,000 years a day.
What's an aeon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon
Although the term aeon may be used in reference to a period of a billion years (especially in geology or astronomy), its more common usage is for any long, indefinite, period of time.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/aeon
1. an immeasurably long period of time; age
2. (Astronomy) a period of one thousand million years
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aeon
1: an immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time :age
2: a very large division of geologic time usually longer than an era b : a unit of geologic time equal to one billion years
I think we get the point...
The WTS has taken to subscribing the time period of aeons to the creative days...an immeasurable amount of time. The 7,000 year creative day is now defunct.
3 comments:
Its a shame that the flock don't stop to reason these things out with themselves. So happy to be spoonfed slop.
'aeon' is applied for genesis 1:2, not for creative days. So it's not a 'new light', as we can read in w83 3/22 12-15:
The first verse of Genesis simply says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If we take this to mean the creation of the starry heavens, the galaxies, and the solar system of which the earth is a part, we are talking about events that preceded the first creative day. The description of the earth’s condition in verse 2 also precedes the first day. Not until verses 3 to 5 do we enter upon the activity of the first day of creation.
So no matter how long the days might prove to be, verses 1 and 2 describe things already accomplished, and they fall outside any time frame encompassing the creative days. If geologists want to say that the earth is 4 billion years old, or astronomers want to make the universe 20 billion years old, the Bible student has no quarrel with them. The Bible simply does not indicate the time of those events.
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