Is it true that christians and jews believe the world is only a couple thousand years old?

Question

hmm ive heard that the belief is around 5000 yrs, so i was just trying to get an exact #.

Answer 1

If they believe strictly in the Bible's account of creation and do not take into account any actual scientific evidence, they generally believe it to be about 7000

Answer 2

Two things, firstly I must correct fourmorebeers who says below, that the majority of Jews do not live in America and that this is an American religious thing. Actually you are wrong, there are more Jews in New York than the whole population of Israel. There are far more Jews in the whole of the USA than in Israel or the rest of the world put together.

Okay now to the question.

Many Orthodox Jews will readily acknowledge that the first six "days" of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days (indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the fourth "day"). For a fascinating (albeit somewhat defensive) article by a nuclear physicist showing how Einstein's Theory of Relativity sheds light on the correspondence between the Torah's age of the universe and the age ascertained by science, see The Age of the Universe.

How long ago did the "beginning" occur? Was it, as the Bible might imply, 5700-plus years, or was it the 15 billions of years that's accepted by the scientific community?

The first thing we have to understand is the origin of the Biblical calendar. The Jewish year is figured by adding up the generations since Adam. Additionally, there are six days leading up to the creation to Adam. These six days are significant as well.

In trying to understand the flow of time here, you have to remember that the entire Six Days is described in 31 sentences. The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches in trying to understand science vis-a-vis the Bible, are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high-energy physics of creation. At Harvard, at the Weidner library, they probably have 200,000 books on these same topics. Don't expect that by a simple reading of those sentences you'll know every detail that is held within the text. It's obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.

Answer 3

Many of them do.Yes, they believe it was magically created in 7 days and that took place a few thousand years ago.Actually I have heard several religious "theories" of when God made the Earth.Some say 3500 and others say 4500 and others say 6000.They also say, the ones that believe in a young Earth, that all evidence to the contrary was placed on Earth by the devil.Boy, this devil character sure knows how to wow the people.I'm impressed.He left bones, fossils, soil, and various germs and bacteria that predate God's creation.I guess God must have missed the meeting on leaving proof of a young Earth.Well, speculation and belief is proof, right?

Yes, there are some who believe that.Don't ask me why.The only answer they provide that makes any sense is "It's in the Bible".Right along with the story of how Noah took two beasts of every kind into an Ark and for 40 days and 40 nights he lived on that ark with billions of every form of life floating on a boat that he and his family hand made.

Answer 4

Christians believe the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Jews don't recoginze the New Testament.
The New Testament was written about 2,000 years ago, beginning with the birth of Christ. The Old Testament was written appoximately 4,000 years prior to the New Testament beginning with the creation story. That makes the earth about 6,000 years old, not 2,000.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..

Answer 5

Hmm, that's a good question. While I personally am a Science believer, there is the fact that Jesus was born, and this signified the start of our calendar... 2006 years ago.
But, when God supposedly made the world, he started with only Adam and Eve and there is a huge list of names of who begat who, and also apparently then, people lived for 400 years until Noah's Ark, I think...

Answer 6

Some Christians say about 6000 years. The current Jewish year is 5767 and is calculated by adding up lifespans of people beginning at the creation of Adam.
Remember, the first 6 days were not necessarily 24 hours long.

Answer 7

there is going to be a HUGE range of differences in the answers given by "christians and jews". some who believe in evolution will say millions of years and others who believe in a literal six-day creation will say it's between 6 and 10 thousand years.

Answer 8

Absolutely not. The "couple of thousand years old" that you are mentioning begins the counting of years in our modern time after the death of Jesus Christ. You'll see if you visit a museum or read archeaological studies that they'll put B.C. or A.D. as a reference point for dates...that stands for B.C. - Before Christ and A.D. - After Christ.

Therefore, the world is much older...how old? No one really knows, not even scietists, I have heard that they've guessed that it's over 1 million years old.

Answer 9

Unlike Muslims, they believe that. Actually they believe the world was created 5,000 years ago, which is not right according to established scientific facts. We Muslims, however, don't have such information in Qur'an. Qur'an doesn't mention a date of when the world was created.

Answer 10

a couple thousand no. Between 6-10 thousand Yes