Categories
Age of the Earth Creation/evolution hermeneutics History

Does the age of the Earth really matter?

From the following list, based on the biblical genealogies contained mostly in Genesis chapters 5 and 11, we can calculate the age of the Earth. Thus the Earth is only of the order of 6000 years old, not 4.6 billion years old as long-age-of-the-Earth deep-time evolution believers would have you also believe.Genealogies
The date of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt is the key to getting this connected to our modern-day calendar. It is like an anchor point. However there are many conflicting theories on that date,1 but Scripture tells us that Solomon started to build his temple to God in the fourth year of his reign.

“And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.” (I Kings 6:1)

This is the key that unlocks a door. The verse also tells us that this was 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt. The dates for Solomon’s reign are generally assigned to 971-931 BC. From the date of Solomon’s fourth year of his reign (966 BC), one can add 480 years to 966 BC and get 1446 BC (the year of the Exodus).

You see, really this is all about the authority of Scripture. So, the age of the Earth does matter.  The date for Creation then by my reckoning is 4174 BC, giving us a total of 6188 years for the age of the Earth and the whole Universe, measured by Earth clocks. WHY IS A 6000-YEAR-OLD UNIVERSE SO HARD TO BELIEVE? (I recommend a detailed analysis of the date of Creation from the Old Testament by Dr Floyd Nolen Jones. He lists a range of Creation dates that others get and offers his reasoning for his own determination.2)

From my table above the year of the Flood in Noah’s time is 2518 BC, but others like Hales has the Flood at 3155 BC, Josephus at 3146 BC, the Samaritan Pentateuch at 2998 BC  and Ussher at 2348 BC.2 None of those dates are anything like the 40,000-80,000 years for the date of the Flood based on the opinions of some unnamed geologists that Hugh Ross relies on for his distorted timescale.3   

Based on the Masoretic Hebrew text an age of the Earth of about 6000 years only is possible. How can so-called Bible scholars like Gleason Archer and Walter Kaiser claim to interpret holy scriptures as indicating that the period of time in Genesis 1 for the Hebrew word ‘yom’, translated ‘day’, means some long indefinite period—i.e. eons of time, ‘deep time’?4  6000 years is a far cry short of the 4.6 billion years claimed by the secular geologists, that these guys rely on.

It is the Bible which translates the Bible, not some man with a degree from some divinity school influenced by so-called modern science.  Ross and his ‘Reasons to Believe’ team accepts the big bang’s 13.8 billion year history of the Universe, but Ross’ compromise on scripture has not won him any friends from the atheist camp.5

Our God is the one,

That frustrates the tokens of the liars, and makes diviners mad; that turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;  Isaiah 44:25

This post is really all about the authority of Scripture. Can you accept it as ‘God breathed’ words? (The meaning of the Greek text in 2 Timothy 3:16.) Most importantly Jesus said,

If you love Me, keep My commandments.  John 14:15

God wants you to obey his Word but how can you obey, that is, keep His commandments, if you don’t believe what He wrote and that includes what He through the prophets?

Christ said,

If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?  John 3:12

When did Christ tell us of earthly things? Right from the first verses in Genesis. Jesus is YHWH THE CREATOR GOD. He is THE FAITHFUL AND TRUE WITNESS OF THE CREATION OF GOD.

This is the problem, isn’t it? Where does the literal truth start and the supposed allegory end? Or vice versa? It makes man the judge of what God has written in His Words. I would rather taken the plain reading of what is the straightforward-at-face-value meaning and not try to read into it what God has not said.

References

  1. Date of  the Exodus from Egypt, freedominchrist.net
  2. F.N. Jones, Chronology of the Old Testament: A Return to the Basics, 2002.
  3. H. Ross, Exploring the Extent of the Flood: What the Bible Says: Part Two, Reasons to Believe, April 1, 2009.
  4. J. P. Moreland, The Age of Earth, Reasons to Believe, February 2, 2002.
  5. S. Carroll, Reasons to Believe (that Creationists are Crazy), October 9, 2008.

Recommended Reading

  1. THE WORLD IS NOT YET EVEN 6000 YEARS OLD
  2. THE DELUSION OF EVOLUTION
  3. WHY IS A 6000-YEAR-OLD UNIVERSE SO HARD TO BELIEVE?
  4. THE BIG BANG IS NOT A REASON TO BELIEVE!
  5. HEY, NOT SO FAST WITH THE NOBEL PRIZE!
  6. 6-DAY CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE
  7. HE LAYETH UP THE DEPTH IN STOREHOUSES
  8. SAVED BY A FALSE GOSPEL?
  9. THE FOUNDATION OF GOD STANDS SURE
  10. ONE SERIOUS SCIENTIST

By John Gideon Hartnett

Dr John G. Hartnett is an Australian physicist and cosmologist, and a Christian with a biblical creationist worldview. He received a B.Sc. (Hons) and Ph.D. (with distinction) in Physics from The University of Western Australia, W.A., Australia. He was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award (DORA) fellow at the University of Adelaide, with rank of Associate Professor. Now he is retired. He has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, book chapters and conference proceedings.