Genesis 1, the Bible's version of the Babylonian cosmos, is loaded with nuggets of Bronze-age wonder!  Take Genesis 1:16-19 for example.  The passage plainly states that God created the stars on the fourth day.  (They are a final touch, mere specks of light attached to the sky-dome, and they followed the creation of the sun--number 1--and the moon--number 2.  Forget about galaxies. They don't even rate in biblical astronomy!) Days were measured by periods of light and darkness, the day and night cycle having been established by God earlier. (Daylight--sky brightness--was probably viewed as independent of the sun! From an ancient viewpoint that actually makes sense.) The Jews measured their days from evening to morning, which is reflected in the expression "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." (New Oxford Annotated Bible.) 

A sane interpretation of this passage (and of the others in Genesis 1) leaves us with an ordinary, 24-hour day--not some period of millions of years as favored by some Christians.  We have this sequence of an evening and the next morning.  If the author had intended a period of millions of days or years he would not have worded it that way. The flow of time goes from evening to morning, taking in one, Jewish day even as the passage states, and that's how an intelligent reader would have interpreted it.  To read in vast periods of time is to take liberties with the text. 

The translators of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (and many other Bible translations) use the words "the stars," meaning that all of them were created on Day 4. As if there could be any doubt, Genesis 2:1 declares that the earth and heavens were finished--and all the host (stars included) of them.  Anyone acquainted with modern astronomy will see an enormous problem here.  Today there is no doubt whatsoever that the stars we can see, unaided and by instrument, come in all ages. 

We may begin with collapsing gas clouds that haven't even reached stardom yet.  Somewhat older  proto stars have also been documented, those being hot spots deep within collapsing gas clouds.  It takes an infrared telescope to penetrate the gas cocoon, to even see them.  The heat for these proto stars is from gravitational collapse only. They are not even full-fledged stars. Once enough gas has collapsed, the heat and pressure will ignite the nuclear process which kicks up a tremendous stellar 'wind' that begins to blow away the surrounding gas clouds.  We can see small groups of stars, now nuclear, still buried deeply in their fading, gaseous cocoon.  Not enough time has passed for them to blow away their surrounding gas clouds.  Let more time pass and we see small groups of stars, such as the Pleiades, that lack the gravity to remain bound to each other.  They were all born out of the same great nursery of gas and dust, hence they were born as a group. The brilliant light of powerful, young stars in the Pleiades lights up traces of the gas cloud that still clings to the group.  But the group is still there; not enough time has passed for the stars to disperse.

Allow more time to pass and you can find groups of stars that are spread out to the point that identifying them as a group is not so easy.  Our own sun, based on serious calculations, was probably born as part of a group of stars. But after 4.5 billion years its sister stars are scattered around the galaxy.  At the old end of the stellar age chart, a good understanding of nuclear processes within stars allows us to identify stars billions of years old!  Note also that white dwarfs are cores of stars that have blown off their outer layers at the end of their normal lives.  Their white-hot heat ever so slowly radiates away.  It takes billions of years to get down to ordinary temperatures.  These brown dwarfs, as they become, are very hard to find for the simple fact that they virtually radiate no light at all! Yet, a few of them have been detected.  Thus, we have a range of ages from stars that haven't even formed to stars (or remnants thereof ) many billions of years old.  Radiometric dating pegs our sun at about 4.5 billion years old.

Even if we allowed the absurd claim that those creation "days" were geological periods, that would not save the Bible.  That stars are in the process of forming today (think collapsing gas clouds) gives the lie to the biblical account of a completed creation. 

I actually had a Sunday School teacher who took us bowling!  My poor sister had one that screamed at the class (but later apologized)!

- Dave Matson