One of several controversies that broke out between the scientific community and the Roman church concerned the age of the earth. The church had taught through the centuries that the earth was only a few thousand years old. The Reformers also shared that view. An English bishop, James Ussher (1581-1656), announced that he had pinpointed the creation of Adam as not only in 4004 B.C., but, to be more precise, at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, Oct. 22.

None of this, of course, was spelled out in the Scriptures. To regard the creation of the earth and Adam to be at virtually the same time is erroneous, as we shall see in a future installment.

Consequently, it came as a great surprise in the 19th century when the emerging science of geology began to discover and analyze many deep, fossil-laden strata. In 1799 William Smith, known as the father of English geology, established what was called the geologic column. Two centuries of subsequent geologic work all over the globe have largely vindicated his basic conclusions.

Even today geologists, having drilled as far as seven miles into the earth's crust, can find oil by comparing the rock layers to this geologic column. The same basic pattern has been confirmed by thousands of geologic and oil explorations. The essentials of this geologic column were established before Charles Darwin came onto the scene.

The earliest geologists, many of whom were studious Christians, believed that an ancient earth did not contradict the biblical account. After all, they had seen that the Bible did not give a date for the original creation. Genesis 1 could be seen as an original creation, and later, after an indeterminate period, came the formation in seven days of the present human, animal and plant life as we know it. Up to that time in the Western world, no one had questioned the biblical account of the creation of living things. Evolution was not generally accepted.