Two years ago I wrote a post with a Table derived mostly from biblical texts showing that the world was a little over 6000 years old, or in 2014 precisely 6188 years old. Since then I have learned that one of those biblical periods I used was incorrect and as a result the age of the earth and the whole Universe, in fact, as of 2016, is only 5975 years. That is less than 6000 years and gives us only 25 years to the 6000th birthday for the whole creation. That would be worth celebrating! It would be so nice if that is when our Father in heaven has decided to send back His beloved Son in the Day of the Lord, when judgment comes upon the whole world (Revelation 20:11). But watch and pray!
In this new calculation, only the period of time, derived from Exodus 12:40, for the children of Israel entering Egypt to their exodus has been changed, based on new information. Then I derive a new creation date where I get 3959 B.C. for the year of the beginning.
The difference with the old date (4174 B.C.) has come about because of a problem with the reading of Exodus 12:40. That verse states that the children of Israel were in Egypt 430 years in most English Bible translations but actually it should read:
Exodus 12:40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt [and in Canaan] was four hundred and thirty years. (KJVER)
Bold text is not found in modern English Bibles. I believe this was inadvertently lost. This is evidenced by the fact that the Septuagint (LXX), which is the Hebrew OT translated into Greek about 250 BC, but quoted here as it reads from its English translation (LXXE), renders it as follows:
Exodus 12:40 And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Chanaan, was four hundred and thirty years.
This is further supported by the following arguments.
Moses was 80 years old when he left Egypt (Exodus 7:7). Moses father Amram lived to 137 years (Exodus 6:20) and his father Kohath lived to 133 years (Exodus 6:18). And we know Kohath was one of the 66 children of Israel (i.e of Jacob, Genesis 46:26) — specifically of Levi (Genesis 46:11) — who went with Israel into Egypt to live their after the famine had begun. Even if you assume Kohath was a newborn baby when he went into Egypt and his child Amram was born in the year of his father’s death and Moses was also born in the year of his father’s death, adding their ages to Moses’ age when he left Egypt we get: 133 + 137 + 80 = 350 years, which is much less than 430 years. That makes it mathematically impossible for the children of Israel to have been in Egypt 430 years, and the assumptions there were unrealistic anyway, so it is unlikely it could have been more than 250 years.
How do we explain it? The Apostle Paul wrote:
Galatians 3:16,17 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ. 17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul [cancel], that it should make the promise of none [no] effect.
Thus from the time that Abraham received the promise to the time Moses received the law was a period of 430 years. In addition it can be shown from the biblical texts that from the time Abraham received the promise to the time Jacob and his children entered Egypt was 215 years. See graphic below.
Start with Abram getting the blessing from God and departing from Haran when he was 75 years old (Genesis 12:1-4). Abram (or Abraham) was 100 years old when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5) and Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born (Genesis 25:26) and Jacob’s pilgrimage ended with his arrival in Egypt with his children which was 130 years (Genesis 47:9). Add these to get 215 years.
So how did this error occur in most OT Bibles? It was probably a copyist error, which was passed on through the Masoretic text. The older Septuagint does not have this error, and even though the Septuagint may have other errors, the fact that the Apostle Paul supports the fact that the 430 year period was not the total time in Egypt but a longer period from the time of the promise to Abraham to Moses leaving Egypt and obtaining the law in Sinai, means that this argument is well supported.
The following video explains the period of sojourn in the lands of Canaan and Egypt in detail.
Update 25/8/2016
Please note I am not seriously stating anything about Christ’s return in the coming year of 6000! There are a few dates there that are not exactly agreed upon and scholars are still arguing over. One of them is the historical date of the construction of Solomon’s Temple. I have found that the above analysis (in the video) of the period of sojourn in Egypt particularly compelling and have no alternative but to accept that. Here is another good analysis that supports it. My timeline is also in quite good agreement (within 9 years) of this one, though there are a few differences.
Related Reading
- DOES THE AGE OF THE EARTH REALLY MATTER?
- DEVELOPMENT OF AN “OLD” UNIVERSE IN SCIENCE
- WHY IS A 6000-YEAR-OLD UNIVERSE SO HARD TO BELIEVE?
- BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY I
- BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY II
- THE BIG BANG IS NOT A REASON TO BELIEVE!
- 6-DAY CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE
- THE FOUNDATION OF GOD STANDS SURE
- AGE AS A QUALITY FACTOR OF HUMAN LIFE AFTER THE FLOOD
Recommended Reading
- Book: Apocalypse Now: On the Revelation of Jesus Christ
- Book: Merchants of Death: Global Oligarchs and Their War On Humanity
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Bible Science Forum 
12 responses to “The World is Not Yet Even 6000 Years Old”
I hope to make it to my 91st birthday in good health to witness the anniversary of 6000 years of creation!
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Me too! I’ll be 89 so it is possible. And if He comes the following year, a Jubilee year, I’ll be a even 90 years old.
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OK!….so still got at least 25 years left…cool!!
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Hi John. Just got really excited when I got your blog. The dates 5975 years ago for the Creation and 2303 BC for the flood exactly match my Genealogy of Jesus Christ chart which I did in 1998. And you’ve picked up the ‘Israel dwelt in Egypt AND IN CANAAN 430 years. Great. It was the flood year of 2303 BC that I used in the paper I gave at the 2013 ICC conference on a wave of ice bodies coming through the solar system to bring water to earth, and impacting every terrestrial body on its way in leaving the craters and icy satellites of the major planets, because the planets were in the ‘right’ positions over the years prior to and after 2303. The creationscience.com.au is not completed yet, so don’t take much notice of it yet, to busy doing more research on Biblical Creation topics.
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The total years from Creation to today turns out to be less than the 5975 years. This is because we should not bank on the 966 years from Solomon. That number is based on Ptolemaic dates, which, when we become aware that the Bible is to be our standard, become suspect. Two fabulous books, by the Lord’s grace, to get our date bearings correct is Philip Mauro’s Wonders of Bible Chronology and J.A. Moorman’s Biblical Chronology.
{Side note: Once we’ve grasped this (i.e. getting time from the Bible, not from Ptolemy), the next major issue about the Decree of Artaxerxes being equivalent to “the decree” in Daniel 9 gets providentially and inevitably thrown out of the window. That is, Cyrus’ decree happened not around 538 BC, but around 450 BC (round numbers). In other words, the time from Cyrus’ decree in Dan. 9 to the great God Jesus’ baptism IS 483 years!}
This difference of around 88 years (say 90 years, round numbers) thus reduces 966 to 886 BC. Or the number of years since creation to 5975-88= 5887 years.
I still have some niggling issues that are not jiving right to get Biblically satisfying number of years to creation. I am not trying to give credence to the number of years since creation based upon the Hebrew calendar of 5776 as they do not consider Paul’s 480 years in their computations.
Plan is to continue studying this more from the Bible for myself; not doing any PhD work. However for general discussion 6000 years seems a nice round ballpark number we (YUCs, that is) all agree.
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I am aware of the range of dates on Solomon’s temple. I know we cannot be dogmatic about these things, but it certainly seems we are below 6000 years.
As for the 70 weeks (shabuwa) prophecy of Daniel 9:24, according to Sir Isaac Newton “Now the years of this Artaxerxes began about two or three months after the summer solstice, and his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eightieth Olympiad; and the latter part thereof, wherein Ezra went up to Jerusalem” and that was in the year Julian 4257 which is 456 BC. Therefore 70 weeks or 490 years from 456 BC takes you to 33 AD (as there was no year zero) which is the year of Christ’s death and resurrection. Read Daniel 9 study.
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Agreed; for the most part. Only thing I wanted to indicate in the side note is that the 69 weeks (483 years) ends at the Lord’s baptism. Then 3.5 years to His death, burial and resurrection. The remaining 3.5 years is as Newton indicated ending at 70 AD with the fulfillment of Dan 9:27. I am not convinced that the 490 years ends in 33AD with the Lord’s death and subsequent resurrection.
My niggling concern is mainly with the date of the Lord’s incarnation; I have not found any material that satisfies me on that date. The nearest I have come, so far, is that His birth was about 6BC (I could be wrong in the research I’ve done so far). This means that the Lord’s baptism was in 25 AD. 483 years (69 weeks) back from this will be 458BC. Mauro is excellent on this. That is when Cyrus made his decree, and Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Ezra go back to Judea. Ezra returns back to Babylon and later returns on the second trip when the temple is complete (a ready scribe; he wasn’t ready earlier because the temple was not complete). Moorman is excellent on this point.
There is no doubt that Alexander’s date of 331 BC is valid. Because Cyrus’ decree in ~450 BC is biblically correct based on Daniel’s prophecy, this makes the Persian period much shorter than Ptolemaic dates, which we must therefore give second priority.
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In regards to
This seems to be saying there are two periods preceding the arrival of the Messiah, not his death, like in the previous verse. The two periods are 7 weeks = 7 × 7 years = 49 years and 62 weeks = 62 × 7 years = 434 years. Note, this verse does not say until his death or until ‘reconciliation for iniquity’ or ‘to bring in everlasting righteousness’ like the verse 9:24 says. No it is quite specific and yet worded differently.
Isaac Newton commented as follows (my emphasis added):
The Julian year 4712 is the year Christ was born, that is 1 B.C.. Add 34 years and you get 33 A.D. for the crucifixion (since there was no year zero). Newton used Daniel 9:25 as new (separate) information and did not try to force it to align with Daniel 9:24 and the 70 shabuwa’s there. The year of Christ’s birth is thus 455 years after Julian 4257, when the 490 year prophecy started (Daniel 9:24) but that was “to make reconciliation for iniquity“, hence that period should end at the crucifixion. Though I see why you say Christ’s baptism, because it has the expression “anoint the Most Holy“.
More on this in Daniel 9 prophecy.
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Noah was 600 years old when the Flood started. Then Genesis 11:10 Arphaxad was born 2 years after the Flood.
Therefore you should add one year for the Flood?
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Noah was 500 years old when he started having children (Genesis 5:32). Noah was 600 years old “when the flood of waters was upon the earth” (Genesis 7:6). Therefore his first son was 100 years old “when the flood waters were upon the earth”. But from Genesis 11:10 when Shem was 100 years old he fathered Arphaxad which was “2 years after the flood”. So Shem could not have been the first son. Noah was 602 years old “2 years after the flood”. He had only one son before Shem at age 500 years. Genesis 10:21 tells this was Japheth, the oldest, and Genesis 9:24 tells us that Ham was the youngest. Now Genesis 7:6 states that “And Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” The meaning is that the waters were covering the earth or had deluged the earth. So the timing of this event seems to already allow for some period that has passed for the flood waters to cover the earth. The best we can do is take it as straightforward reading that Genesis 11:10 means that we count the years after “the flood waters were upon the earth”.
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In my chart any year after 966 BC are standard solar years. There is some debate is over when Solomon’s Temple was constructed, but there is not much wiggle room. The dates before that are determined from the Bible and I see no reason to believe that they were anything but solar years. Read below.
There is this concept of 360 day years but I believe it has its roots in long age ‘science’. To believe that the earth slowed its rotation speed in only a matter of a few thousand years–i.e. originally the rotation period was 360 days, but increased to 365.25 days, is physically very difficult understand. Our planet has a near perfect circular orbit around the sun, which indicates it has been undisturbed for a very long time, since creation. But it is more plausible to believe that due to gravitational braking, by mostly the sun and the moon, that the earth’s rotation period could have been extended by several days over billions of years. Therefore the idea comes from evolutionary ages of billions of years and naturalistic solar system formation. See Planetary system formation: Exposing naturalistic storytelling and How did the solar system form?
We humans are using 365.25 days per year and have been ever since Creation. Calendars have been developed and corrected, that is true. Humans once used the Julian calendar (named after the Roman caesar) but it had slippage as it was not correctly solar. Then later the Roman Catholic scholar and theologian Dionysius Exiguus (c. 465 A.D.-c. 530 A.D.) modified the calendar which then led to the modern Gregorian calendar (named after pope Gregory, 590–604 A.D.). From his calendar stem the designations “B.C.” and “A.D.”. Dionysius championed the system that is still used to determine the date of Easter. Some of us, I include myself, time standard scientists still use Julian dates and they were used long past Dionysius.
The Jews used a year based on the moon (12 months usually) but occasionally added a month (Veadar) or extended the last month, which corrected for the solar year. It is called the luni-solar year. The feast days would move backwards to correct for the solar year. See Biblical Chronology II. The luni-solar biblical year in which the feasts and months were regulated by the revolutions of the moon was adjusted to the solar year, not by astronomical or mathematical calculation, but by direct observation of the state of the crops and the physical appearance of the moon.
So there is no reason at all to use the fictitious 360 day year. Besides it was very important that the feast days remain in the same physical time in relation to harvest etc, else the Jews would have had a real problem with growing and harvesting their crops.
My timeline is in quite good agreement (within 9 years) of this one, though there are a few differences. Though the author explains in details a few of the more complex calculations one needs to do to determine a few of the relevant dates.
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John,
See the video below. It has to do with a different date of creation IF we use the Septuagint, as the source of dates.
Please look at the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1yRTC6kGE. The person does put his points across quite convincingly. If we take the Septuagint, and Josephus’ date of the Hebrew text, rather than what the Masoretic text says then the date of creation is more than 6000 years ago. THAT is what I ask if you can please address. I’m not too concerned about the date of the pyramids themselves.
Now, I too follow the KJV and use other versions only to crosscheck or references. I know you too stay with the KJV. What light then would you share on what the video states? Note of course that ASC, radiometric dating etc is not affected, even if we were to add a few thousand years to the current date of creation, but still, it will be good to get your response.
Vincent
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