Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe that this earth is 6,000 years old?

Question

I was raised one but left at age 19. I was taught that the bible said the earth was 6,000 years old. Has their stance changed on this?

Answer 1

Dear Laura:

No. Because the facts disagree with such a conclusion: (1) Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth, indicating that the universe must be at least millions of years old. (2) End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years.

Genesis 1:3-31 is not discussing the original creation of matter or of the heavenly bodies. It describes the preparation of the already existing earth for human habitation. This included creation of the basic kinds of vegetation, marine life, flying creatures, land animals, and the first human pair. All of this is said to have been done within a period of six “days.” However, the Hebrew word translated “day” has a variety of meanings, including ‘a long time; the time covering an extraordinary event.’ (Old Testament Word Studies, Grand Rapids, Mich.; 1978, W. Wilson, p. 109) The term used allows for the thought that each “day” could have been thousands of years in length.

I hope you will return to Jehovah.

Please get in touch with Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall.

Answer 2

The planet’s coming into existence is recounted in the Bible with the simple statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ge 1:1)

Just how long ago the starry heavens and the earth were created is not stated in the Bible. Therefore, there is no basis for Bible scholars to take issue with scientific calculations of the age of the planet. Scientists estimate the age of some rocks as being three and a half billion years, and the earth itself as being about four to four and a half billion or more years.

As to time, the Scriptures are more definite about the six creative days of the Genesis account. These days have to do, not with the creation of earth’s matter or material, but with the arranging and preparing of it for man’s habitation.

Answer 3

JW's will often , over time change their opinions about things. I think at one point they did think the earth was 6000 years old. Now it seems ridiculous to argue such a point. The next thing is a world flood and Noah. When the time comes they will conveniently change their minds about that too. And this non-sense that man is 6000 years old and that's what they meant all along is ridiculous too. Just replaced one ludicrous statement with another. How does saying.. oh we meant man is 6000 yrs. old... somehow make it all better and correct the record? Forget about debating is this fossil or that one man or not that's 1-2 million yrs. old. We know that Mayans we around 20,000 BC. I mean come on. All of these 3 bible stories defy logic.

I will get JW's credit for at least changing their minds about things over time. They stopped trying to predict the date of the end of the world long time ago too even though the bible says to not do this. But see how Catholics or some other religions change their minds. JW's are definitely more open to changing if not just to be different. Muslims... we're just trying to get them to just us in the 21st century regarding human rights. Forget about talking about Noah. They still kill people for dropping Koran on the ground. BUT... they're just behind us. Nobody is any better than them. We've been there. We use to kill people for questioning religion. We burned people we thought were witches. Some parts of the world are just 100-200 years behind the western world.

Answer 4

The 6,000 year time period is extremely important to JWs (which is why you've remembered it) but it's not connected to the age of the earth. As some JWs have already pointed out, they believe Adam was created virtually 6,000 years ago (and he was the first man).

The age of the earth has never even been guessed at by JWs, as far as I know. You'll read statements like, 'Long before mankind was created, our loving God prepared this earth to become our home...' (Watchtower 1 April 1986 p16). Three articles, also in 1986, tackled the problems of scientific dating methods. They were written by a nuclear physicist of many years' experience in both research and industry in the field of radioactivity. This un-named person (likely a JW, I suppose) wrote very good articles. He concluded 'that the days of Genesis were long periods of thousands of years, with billions of years prior thereto for planet Earth's formation'. But he states that 'mankind has been on the earth only about 6,000 years' and that 'the radiocarbon clock, which works fairly well for just a few thousand years back, gets hopelessly entangled in difficulties beyond that. Even so, the overwhelming majority of radiocarbon measurements fall within the Biblical 6,000-year range.' I hope this information helps clarify matters for you.

Answer 5

jehovah's witnesses definitely used to believe it was 6,000 years old, I was told that repeatedly. It's good they changed their belief. It would be even better if they didn't need to pretend it had ALWAYS been their current belief. It was common, until about 20 years ago, for lots of people to believe the universe and Earth could only be thousands of years old, so they don't need to be embarrassed.

Answer 6

No.

Jehovah's Witnesses have never taught this.

We know by the Bible's account that the creation of man happened roughly 6,000 years ago. But the Earth is much, much older.

Answer 7

The earth hasn't been made yet.this where your at right now is a part of heaven where your at .this is the place where God makes us imagine that were on earth so to prepare us to go and be on an earth later on. .when he does get around to making everything including earth in about 4 billion years. he will make earth and then we souls will be prepared to actually go there.I know you will not believe this but it is totally the truth.May the great spirit be with you always.

Answer 8

How Old Is Jehovah

Answer 9

i do not know their stance.. I am a southern Baptist. I believe the genealogies would give credence to this however. about 4000 years from Adam to Christ. About 2000 years from Christ to today. = 6000 years. One Day (1000) years left to go in the week....the sabbath day or day of rest...........that would be the millennial reign..


Believe the rapture and second coming are imminent?

Answer 10

No.
I do not think they ever taght this. But I could be wrong.
I studied with the JW's for many years, and I have only seen in their publications the stand that the earth is very old (even suggesting millions of years or more), but it is the history of humans that is less than that.