Where do creationists get the idea that the world is only 10,000 years old?

Question

Many creationists claim the world is only 10,000 years old, yet there is solid evidence showing it is far older. So, where does the Bible say this?


If it doesn't, can someone explain where this idea came from?

Answer 1

The most famous source of this idea is Bishop James Ussher, who lived in Ireland from 1581 to 1656. See the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

Ussher studied the chronology of the Bible and concluded that God created the universe on October 23, 4004 BC (or the "nightfall" before this). Some people say that Ussher claimed the creation occurred at 9 in the morning, but this came from another writer.

I don't know the exact details, but think it was something like this: Starting from Adam and Eve, you look at the various people in the Bible, at how long they lived, at all the "begats", and add up the numbers. With this information, you know the interval from the creation to various events in the Bible. The later histories in the Bible mention people for whom we have historical records. Since we know how long ago those people lived, one can now create a complete chronology from the creation in Genesis to the present.

The idea that the earth was about 6000 years old was taken seriously for quite a long time, but eventually scientific studies of geology, evolution, and astronomy showed that the earth must be much older. What was at first a great achievement for Ussher eventually became, long after he lived, an embarrassment. I once saw an early-twentieth-century article from the Encyclopedia Britannica stating that it is unfortunate that Ussher is remembered primarily for this work.

By the twentieth century, Ussher's view had been completely discredited by science. As you know, however, many religious fundamentalists still accept Ussher's views (or something similar) and reject science.

By the way, I'm not saying that Ussher was the originator of this view, but that his work became the definitive Biblical analysis of the age of the earth.

-- added later:
McKinley recently added a mention of Ussher and John Lightfoot (a younger contemporary of Ussher) to his answer, but his history is a little off. They were not monks. Ussher was an Irish Bishop and Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Lightfoot was a English curate (similar to a minister) in the Church of England. Both were religious scholars who held academic as well as religious positions.

There is obviously more to the story of Biblical chronology, and there were monks who contributed to this topic; but Ussher and Lightfoot were not monks.

Answer 2

I love these types of questions. Has anyone, besides myself, that responded to the question, actually read the bible. Probably not.
That is like giving a book review without even reading the book.
It clearly states in the bible the generation lineage from one family to the next. It stops shortly before the time of Jesus. That is where it gets tricky because there are references to previous people, in a time sense, which leads most Christians including myself to believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Of course If you don't believe in god, then you probably would believe in evolution. So although there are some "Christians" who interpret the bible as a metaphor which in that case it can mean what ever you want it to mean.
What solid evidence exists that says the world is a million years old.
When doing a scientific experiment and you know the answer you want to achieve can you not justify the results to achieve original answer you were testing for? Just a thought.
If dinosaurs are millions of years old, and humans are relatively new to the earth? Then where are the half-monkey men fossils on display? I would love to see one of those.
Also the biological mathematical probability that evolution took place on the scale it supposedly did is impossible, it points to intelligent design.

Point of note, most scientists don't repute the chronological sequences in the bible, they mainly focus on the 6 days of creation and the 7th day of rest and say that it really wasn't a day.

http://www.purifiedbyfaith.com/CreationEvolution/Genesis2/Gen2%20-%20Did%20Man%20Descend%20from%20Adam%20or%20Apes.htm

Answer 3

By making a literal interpretation of the Bible. The Bible often makes reference to the number of years that passed between certain events or the age or livespans of important characters or the number of generations between events. By adding these up, the traditional Jewish calendar considers this to be the year 5768, counted from the day of creation. Given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, some orthodox scholars now acknowledge that even though this number is accurate, the first 6 days of creation were not "normal" days but rather stages in the creation process that did in fact take longer than a standard 24 hour period.

Answer 4

The bible does not say this. Someone a long time ago, added up all of the bible history and decided that the world began at about 4000 BC.

Answer 5

monks abut 500 years ago.

Let me elabotate. Monks, using generations in the bible attempted to calculate the age of the earth. One irish monk (James Ussher) even managed to declare its time of creation down to the day (October 23, 4004 BC). Not to long later Sir James Lightfoot intensifies that calculation to 9 AM Oct 3, 4004 BC, establishing the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 BC.

Many people have taken this to be fact, when in reality, the bible says nothing of the age directly, everything has been implied through study.

So thats it in nutshell

Hope that helps

Answer 6

Some people take a literal view that a day to God is a day to us. That I feel is fallacious reasoning, and many of us (Christians) take the viewpoint that God created the universe as outlined in Genesis but that this took millions or billions of years.

Answer 7

I think they think it's only 6,000 years old. I think you're giving them 4,000 too many years. Look under "Natural Theology" here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist

Answer 8

The world is a billion years old.

Answer 9

I suppose they mean as far as humans go. humans that look somewhat similar to us have only existed for the last 20,000 years at most. the world its self is billions of years old. the oldest organisms fossil is 3.6 billion years old back when the only organisms were bacteria and swam in the ocean

Answer 10

Maybe it was an old tale passed down, or something like that?