[_ Old Earth _] The beginning of the world.

[Everyday Person]

Just a question to the Creationists when it comes to the beginning of the world.


According to the Bible, how long as the Earth existed? Or in other words, how long ago did God create it?

 

[Chupacabra]

I'm not a creationist, but I can probably answer your question. Most young earth creationists date the creation of Earth to about 10,000 years ago, though more conservative groups use 6,000 instead.

 

[Everyday Person]

6,000 to 10,000 years?

What about the dinosaurs...

 

[reznwerks]

what

6,000 to 10,000 years?

What about the dinosaurs...

Some believe they walked side by side.

 

[Everyday Person]

With carbon aging putting them at millions of years old?

 

[ThinkerMan]

Carbon Dating is only accurate back ~50,000 years, so it is useless for dating materials from the dinosaur age (about 65 million years ago). Other elemental decay rates are used to determine dates for items older than the effective range of carbon-dating.

As to where creationists get their 6-10,000 year old number, that comes from two main sources.

1. The ages of people in Genesis, which states how old each generation was from Adam to Noah.

2. The geneologies of Luke and Matthew, which state every generation from Adam to Jesus.

From these two they work backwards to figure our the date of the flood, then backwards to Adam.

Generally, they arrive at 6,000 years ago, though through some wiggle room they can push that back as far as 10,000 years.

Far shorter than the 4.5 billion years old as the generally accepted age of the earth.

 

[Free]

Just a note: not all creationists are YEC.

 

[ThinkerMan]

Just a note: not all creationists are YEC.

Agreed Free...I apologize for not making the distinction.

 

[Free]

No apology needed ThinkerMan. It was addressed more to the first couple of posters, from whom I demand an apology! ;-)

I'm glad that you stated the inaccuracy of carbon dating and I agree with your approximation (I have a brother-in-law who is a chemistry professor and have discussed this at length with him). I think it is unfortunate that some creationists jump on it and say, "carbon dating is always inaccurate," ignoring the fact that it is good for about 50,000 years. And, of course, some believe that everything is dated using carbon (ha ha) so the earth really is young and the carbon date of 4.5 billion is wrong.

 

[Adams son]

Carbon Dating is only accurate back ~50,000 years, so it is useless for dating materials from the dinosaur age (about 65 million years ago). Other elemental decay rates are used to determine dates for items older than the effective range of carbon-dating.

As to where creationists get their 6-10,000 year old number, that comes from two main sources.

1. The ages of people in Genesis, which states how old each generation was from Adam to Noah.

2. The geneologies of Luke and Matthew, which state every generation from Adam to Jesus.

From these two they work backwards to figure our the date of the flood, then backwards to Adam.

Generally, they arrive at 6,000 years ago, though through some wiggle room they can push that back as far as 10,000 years.

Far shorter than the 4.5 billion years old as the generally accepted age of the earth.

There is far more to draw from than Carbon dating. The geological data for example indicates an extremely old earth. And no, the flood not only cannot account for this genelogical strata, the geological data does not (as so many falsely believe) support a worldwide flood.

There are also the records of the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Chinese, and others, who write of human existence long before 4000 B.C.

As a Christian who does believe in the Bible, and also someone who is intelligent enough to see the other data at hand, there is absolutely no way I can sanely accept a 6000 year old earth. But I don't need to either unless I adopt some rather popular notions about the genre and nature of Scripture (that are perpetuated by so many today) that is not asked by God of me to adopt.

To believe in the Bible is not to necessarily believe that the earth is 6000 years old. This is the farce so many think is a necessary tenet of their faith

 

[JohnR7]

According to the Bible, how long as the Earth existed? Or in other words, how long ago did God create it?

The earth as it is now was created about 12,975 years ago. God created it from the seeds of the old earth that was here before. There is no direct referance to how long the old earth had been here. A study of remenant theology will show how God preserves a remenant to repopulate the earth. Noah is an example of this.

 

[JohnR7]

Generally, they arrive at 6,000 years ago, though through some wiggle room they can push that back as far as 10,000 years.

God created Adam and Eve about 5975 years ago and put them in the Garden in Eden. If you add the 7000 years of creation that we read about in Gen Ch 1 this adds up to 12,975 years in length.

I believe the Age of Grace or the Church age began in about 30 Ad at Pentacost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church. Many people believe that the church age will last around 2000 years or two days. So it took God 7000 years to create the earth as we now know it and when Adam fell in to sin, then God began a 7000 year program of restoration, to return the earth to His plan and purpose.