I remember this coming up the first time the old blue creation book (early 1980's?) was studied at the Group and also when reading the old green Daniel book (published in the 1950's?) for private study. It was a very dishonest book, and I remember one guy saying so. He left the JW's... why didn;t I listen to him closer??? There's a 'critical analysis' of that book at http://www.aetheronline.com/mario/Heretic/critical.htm and it mentions this issue citing a 1/1 1986 QFR...
This is the whole section on the 7000 year thing....
p27, par 7 - when you say "millenniums", you mean each creative day was only 7000 years long
Today there is overwhelming evidence that the creative "days" must have been far longer than "millenniums" - they were undoubtedly millions of years long at least.
Why then is our "official" viewpoint still that each day was only 7000 years long? ( w87 1/1 30 Questions From Readers).
Ironically, from time to time our publications indirectly admit that each creative day must have been millions of years long, yet, the "official" figure is repeatedly set at 7000 years.
For example, in the Awake!, September 22, 1986, on page 18, paragraph 4, (prepared by, as is stated in big lettering, "a nuclear physicist of many years experience in both research and industry in the field of radioactivity"); it clearly says that from radioactive dating "WE LEARN THAT THE EARTH ITSELF HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR A FEW BILLION YEARS".
Fine, so the earth is billions of years old.
Now, if rocks that are reliably dated to be about 3 billion years old CONTAIN CLEAR SIGNS OF EARLY BACTERIAL LIFE, DOES THIS NOT MEAN THAT THE CREATIVE DAYS HAD ALREADY BEGUN BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO?!
Why do we adamantly adhere to a viewpoint that flies in the face of fact?
Also, why in par 14 does the separation of the waters from the land have to ?no doubt involve tremendous earth movements (catastrophism)?? Would not a slow, natural process taking millions of years also be in agreement with Genesis 1:9,10?
Clearly it would.
Why then the need to resort to fantastic events like catastrophism, a term seldom used in science, and which only applies to uncommon things like mass extinctions caused by meteorite impacts?
In this day and age, the 7000-year creative day argument stands out in stark contrast to the other reasonable and sound views that we hold as Jehovah?s Witnesses. This causes many informed people (like the ones I work with) to dismiss us without giving us as much as a second thought.
And it all seems so unnecessary, since modern scientific facts can very easily be reconciled with Genesis.
