I keep hearing about a 6000 year old earth. How did they come up with that number?

Question

I mean why not 3000 or 10000? Why do most of the Young Earth creationists settle on the 6000 year old model?
What evidence do they have to support this?
I'd really like to know.

Answer 1

It is based on the extrapolation of genealogies and ages claimed in the bible.

Similarly, one can extrapolate how far hansel and grettel walked into the woods based on how many crumbs they dropped and the average leg span of a child around the age of 12.

Answer 2

Basically, some preacher or other religious person added up the events and generations as listed in the bible and made an estimate as to how long everything would have taken. Apparently, he came up with about 6000 years. I'm not sure when he did this, but as I understand it it was relatively recent.

The problem here is that how do you know every event and generation was included? There may have been a lot of stuff (time) that wasn't interesting enough to put in. Also, I don't think that this adding events up was divinely inspired as the books in the Bible are supposed to be. This divine inspiration is the excuse for the Bible being the word of God and that what is there is accurate. But it doesn't say that nothing is left out that I am aware of. This seems lacking in the earth age issue, but religious people want to believe it.

Answer 3

Math used in the geneaology of Adam to Jesus adding together the ages of the people in that geneaology - being about 4,000 years, plus 2,000 from Jesus to now.

Good thing that people in Adam's day lived for hundreds of years, or they might say the earth was even younger than that.

Even most that DON'T try to say the earth is 6,000 years old WILL say that the human race is 6,000 years old. These types claim that there are "ages" wrapped up in the creation story, and that the creation was not 7 literal days, but 4.6 billion years (minus the 6,000 humans have been here)- a commonly accepted age for the earth scientifically.

However, the interesting aspect about that particular argument is that though they concede the age of the earth, they will not concede the age of the universe... The Bible says that the earth is older than the stars, as it was created before the stars... and that is just not true - by billions of years it's not true.

Very very few Christians will reconcile a good portion of science with their belief system. They will normally either deny the science or deny the religion.

Here's some more interesting answers about this question in a Q I asked some time ago...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArhLPOEJKh5yS6ncRb.peMjsy6IX?qid=1006052807792

Answer 4

I guess Mainworry has the most complete debatable answer out there but, there is always a but. Agreed, Our scientist using carbon test and other means say our world is Millions & millions years old. OK, by using what as a reference point. Dont get me wrong, I believe it is older than 6000 years, The bible says In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I don't think it has a definitave answer as to when He created the earth and when he put life on it was. I do believe Man was created by God about 6000 + years ago and put him on this earth but I still think the earth is older. OK, Thats one point, the next point is How come we still have tectonic activity and interior heat generated core in the earth. We are not close enough to the Sun to generate anywhere near that heat and although heat is also generated by pressure we are still a relitively young planet. Scientist say the moon moves about 1 inch per year away from the earth. Over a period of Millions & millions of years they say the earth has been here, the moon would be somewhere around Jupiter if that was so. Older than 6ooo yes, but still in my mind the moon is to close, there is to much plate movement withing the earth , to much volcanic activity to have been here millions and millions of years. Well Forest, that is my common sense approach.
Good Luck

Answer 5

The 6000 year old earth came from one comment. A day to God is a 1000 years. They was trying to show that time had no meaning in the eyes of God but somewhere it was taken literally. God made all in 6 days and rested on the 7th. It does not say that God made all in 6000 years and rested. Just like today the questions ran rampant. The questions are still the same. To God there is no such thing as time. Time is one of those things that was invented by man by watching the days, nights and seasons. Time was never created by God. So when hearing the earth was created in 6 days try to expand your mind to know that God didn't put the measure on time but man did.

Answer 6

There was a Bishop Usher (sp?) who tried to count the generations from Adam in the Bible, and he figured 4004 BCE as the creation date of Genesis.

He was probably influenced greatly by the Hebrew chronology "Year of the World" which placed the year one in approximately 3761 BCE ... of course no such dates are given in any scriptures and are essentially fantasy built on fantasy. Hinduism regarded the Cosmos as vastly ancient, far older than the 13.6 - 13.7 billion years calculated scientifically from the "Big Bang" event. Of course, other universes may have preceded the "Big Bang" endlessly, but we don't have evidence of them directly, of course.

The neolithic city of Catal Hoyuk was settled, built up, and abandoned, all well before 6000 years ago --- and several Near Eastern sites are of great antiquity --- consider Aleppo in Syria and early settlements in the Nile Valley. Some have suggested that we simply tack on a 10000's digit to the common year, and call it "year 12006" of the Holocene Era... this gives such a better feel for the duration since the "dawn of civilization", and maybe we'd be less likely to blow it after considering such a long heritage. Who knows?

Answer 7

The most famous, of a number of different dates given for Creation, is the year 4004 BC.

This was simply calculated by theologians in the past by mathematically calculating the geneologies given in the Old Testament.

The age given of the Earth and the time of creation is really the result of rather simple math.

Given the 4004 BC start date, added to our present 2006 AD (or for more "enlightened" people; C.E.) gives us the approximated age of 6000 years.

It may not be the actual and correct age of the earth, but thats how we got it.

Answer 8

Young Earth creationism is a religious doctrine which teaches that the Earth and life on Earth were created by a direct action of God relatively recently (about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago). It is generally held by those Christians, and Jews who believe that the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis is a literal account of historical events, and believe that evidence for a strictly factual interpretation of the text is present in the world today.

Answer 9

The date of 6000 years (6010, if you want to be really accurate) was arrived at by painstakingly working through the geneologies of the Old Testament.

Archbishop James Ussher (Church of Ireland) was the best known scholar to take on this task. He arrived at a date of October 23, 4004 BC as being the day on which God separated the waters and the earth.

Answer 10

It took almost 1986 years for the Church to accept earth is spherical. I guess it will take another 100 years for it to accept earth is older than 6000 years and nearly as old as some 6 billion years.

Answer 11

The Bible covers earths history. We can tell by the begats how long people lived and then we can mesh this with other recorded history. 6000 is an approximate number based on people who have taken the time to actually study the Bible.