How did people calculate from the Bible that the Earth is 6000 years old?

Question

...or does it actually say specifically that it is 6000 years old?

Please note; I am not asking IF the Earth is 6000 years old...I am asking how it has been calculated as that.

Lisa S, that's quite interesting. And of course, back then they were unaware of the existence of the 10 thousand year old civilisation of China, so they couldn't possibility have brought that into their calculations.
Could this mean their age of the earth should be revised?

Answer 1

Simple answer:
There is no single verse which says 6,000 years ago, the world was created. However there are numerous simple, straight forward verses which if you add them up, come to 6,010 years.

Long Answer:
In the book of Genesis (chapter 5, verses 3-5) we are told that Adam lived 130 years and had a son named Seth. That Seth lived 235 years and had a son named Enosh. Enosh had a son named.... (and so on). What we do is add these years from Adam all the way to the birth of Abraham - which give us 2008 years.

Abraham was the beginning of the nation of Israel, thus we use other Bible references dealing with the nation of Israel (i.e. Gen. 12:4, 1 Kings 6:1, 1 Kings 11:42, Ezekiel 4:5), which would bring us to the destruction of Jerusalem which sources record it to have occurred in 565 BC.

Adam to Abraham: 2008
Abraham Enters Canaan (Gen. 12:4) 430
Start of the Temple (1 Kings 6:1) 480 (479 + days)
To the Division of Israel (1 Kings 11:42) 36 (36 + days)
To the Destruction of Jeruselum (Ezekiel 4:5) 389 (389 + days)
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TOTAL (From creation to the destruction of the temple) 3,418 years

Taking the 565 (the year that the temple was destroyed) and adding 3,418 years would mean that creation occurred 4004 BC. This would make the earth 6,010 years old - this October.

Answer 2

As the Bible does not give dates for the events (the calendar as we think of it today was not yet invented), the only way to calculate dates is by genelogy.

If you look in the book of Gensis (see chapter 5 for a good example), you will see that it list the names of different fathers and their ages when they had a child. If you can find an even for which the date is know, you can then follow the births backwards to find the date of earlier events.

There are several events from near the end of the Old Testament whose date is known, (such as the year in which the Babylonian Exile ended). Using the genelogies, scholars have traced the dates backs.

But realize that you have to read about 90% of the Bible, and track hundreds of names and ages to get back to the early events of Gensis, such as the Creation.

There is no verse which gives the "6000" year date, nor any simple way of showing it from the Bible. It is something that takes houndreds of hours of research to show.

Answer 3

'technology' is often 're-writing the e book' - why is that? How is the bible abusing you? My adventure is that bullies are in simple terms proud and arrogant adult men - those are the persons who God places down[1Sam2:3]. God isn't a respecter of persons, it rather is the reason there is not any one righteous, No, no longer one! for this reason Jesus says 'choose no longer, lest ye be judged'. Who has no longer broken the commandments? Of all adult men?(in spite of the reality that Enoch ascended into heaven and Elijah additionally, and Noah improve into righteous; nonetheless he died) - Christ on my own, no different guy. yet, as to the age of the earth - human beings say 'the bible does not say while the earth improve into created' - Bullchit! Genesis1 starts off with "interior the beginning up", all time is measured from that factor, and were till the start of Jesus - now, all time is measured from His start, for this reason 2011AD. in accordance to arch-bishop Ussher, the year 2011AD, is 6015 years from "interior the beginning up". Gen1,2:a million-3 x 2P3:8 = Dt11:21[Ps89:29-Job24:a million] - for this reason; after 6000 years of sin and tribulation, Rev20:2-7[Gen2:a million-3] The Jews have faith that's the year 5771[?](from "interior the beginning up"), yet they have been employing a lunar calendar for all those years, while the year is a photograph voltaic year. Ussher improve into spot on along with his assigning of B.C - A.D. regardless of in case you choose to have faith it or no longer, the bible is likewise spot on - and the autumn of amazing Babylon[united states of america] is decrease than a decade away - that's what "dying to u.s.!", 9/11 and, 7 years [to the day] later, the 'monetary meltdown' is all approximately. 'in this existence you will possibly have tribulation, yet concern no longer, I even have triumph over the international' - J.C.

Answer 4

I don't know why they do! When we read the account of creation it is noted that the word "was" (in the world was without form and void") actually reads "became" in the Greek which means that the Lord renewed the earth and would suggest to me that the earth could have been at one time as we know it now today. The important thing is that the lord Himself knows and therefore nothing else matters.

Answer 5

I've seen the calculation from the genealogies in the bible. Technically, it's about 6000 years from the time Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. The weird thing is is that man used to live really long lives and have their first child in the 100's, then his life span dropped to 30 to 40 years and is now slowly climbing.

Answer 6

It is based entirely on adding up the number of years for each generation listed in Genesis. There is some dispute, because the Bible does not list the number of years between generations after the time of Joseph - the date of the Exodus and the period of the Judges is pure speculation.

But it is kind of ironic. Originally, Genesis chapter 1 (the creation of the earth) and Genesis chapter 2 (Adam and Eve) were two completely separate books. But people use the dates in chapter 2 to date the events in chapter 1. There is no evidence that either chapter was intended to relate actual history. The author of chapter 2, in particular, utilized satire throughout his work, and made up stories to parody the political and religious structure of 9th century BC Judaism. 9th century readers would have got the joke - modern readers take it as literal history.

But the civilization of China is, at most, 4000 years old, not 10,000. The first Chinese dynasty (Xia) is still considered mythological by most scholars, and is hypothetically dated to 2070 BC.

Answer 7

The calculations are not true Biblically speaking. The Bible says simply and clearly that God created the earth and the heavens in the beginning.

This permits any age that today's scientists may prefer at the moment. (until we are told differently)

Answer 8

Calculations were made starting with the list of ages men lived before the flood till the son was born who lived till the son was born who live... From there adding the dates of historical facts of ancient civilizations that are recorded. They say you get around 4000 years up to Christ(I haven't done it myself and it's been a while since I looked at the data) and then add 2000 years since Christ.

Answer 9

some catholics believe that god made the earth 6000 years ago. but if thats true then why do we have rocks that are proven to be dated back hundreds of millions of years ago. why because they were around then. and that disproves all this bs

Answer 10

I think some one looked at the names, and ages and generations recorded in the bible and counted it up that way, weird stuff...

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Here, a cut and paste job from wikipedia that explains all!

Age of the Earth
Young Earth creationists believe that the Earth is "young", on the order of 6,000 to 10,000 years old,[16] rather than the age of 4.5 billion years calculated by modern geology using scientific methods including radiometric dating. YECs typically derive their range of figures using the ages given in the genealogies and other dates in the Bible, similar to the process used by James Ussher (1581–1656), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, when he dated creation at 4004 BC. Ussher's chronology, published in 1650, has been subsequently revised many times, most recently in 2003 by Larry and Marion Pierce.[17]

YECs believe that life was created by God 'each after their kind' in the universe's first six normal-length (24-hour) days. Additionally, they believe that the biblical account of Noah's flood is historically true, maintaining that there was a worldwide flood (circa 2349 BC) that destroyed all terrestrial life except that which was saved on Noah's Ark. (Barry Setterfield proposed in 1999 that the flood occurred much earlier around 3536 BC.) They assert that this global flood caused a multitude of geological features that scientists