Exact Earth Age

[jbal7]

Does anyone know via the Bible or another resource the "exact" earth age?

Of course I know we probably can't figure the exact age, but close. Most of my research shows people saying roughly 6000 yrs. I know this, but is there anything closer like 6025 or 6457? I'd like to figure it from the Bible myself but don't even know where to start. 

 

I watched this sermon by Doug Batchelor and it got me pumped!

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

the date I've always seen bandied about is 4004 BC, first proferred in the 1600's.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

 

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/the-world-born-in-4004-bc/

 

Personally, I've never attempted a chronological-dating-of-the-world project... but it might be interesting..

[Gregory Matthews]

There are a couple of issues here:

 

1)  Are we talking about Creation Week or what the Earth was like prior to Creation Week:  See Genesis 1:1.  There are many who believe that this passage is telling us that the Earth existed in some sort of unorganized form prior to Creation Week (CE).  If so, the Bible only deals with the Earth from CE on.  All it says about the Earth and the Universe prior to that is that God created everything.

 

2)  Is it appropriate for us to use the geanological tables of Genesis to formulate an age for the Earth since Creation?   Many believe that this should not be done.  In ancient Hebrew thought such tables were not to be used to determine time periods.  Rather they were to be used to establish relationships.  IOW  Jesus Christ was a relative of King David, who was a relative of Abraham  (see Matthews 1:1.  But, there is no idea that Jesus Christ was an actual biological son of King David, or that King David was a biological son of Abraham.

 

The bottom line is that many believe that the4 Bible cannot be used to establish any kind of an age for the Earth, let alone an exact age.

[jbal7]

thanks for the links rudywoofs, I think there what I'm looking for. Matthews, what I meant was how old is the earth now. Not prior to creation week, though I have wondered what It may have been like then. I wondering because in the video Doug speculates that God works in 7's, 7 being the number of completion. So, I know we have passed the 6000 yr mark but are we only at yr 6500 (from creation) or 6990. He gives the idea that maybe Christ will return in the 7000's. All my life I've been told Jesus is coming soon, and I believe so. They even strongly believed within my lifetime. (i'm 23) I'm just trying find whether or not this is reasonably assumption. I know we can't know the day and hour, but can't we have a general idea? I just really want Him to come back! That's probably selfish of me though. 

[Kevin H]

The 7,000 year idea came from a Rabbi living a little bit before Jesus.

 

The passages of the Bible with the chronologies are so old and have been translated and updated so often that it is difficult to translate the exact numbers, our translations are only approximate guesses as to what the number in the text actually reads. The different possibilities appear to equal from about 6,000 years to 10,000 years.

 

In the Bible that was used in Judea from the exile up to soon after the time of Jesus, they had the Bible passing the 7,000 year about the time of Jesus. As I mentioned, a Rabbi living a little bit before Jesus added up the ages in the chronologies and realized that according to his Bible that the world was about to turn 7000 years old. He took the text about a day being like a thousand years to the Lord out of context. And he said that the thousands of years since creation was like the 7 days of creation and in the 7,000 year the Messiah would come.

 

When Jesus came and was rejected by many of the Jewish leaders,  and as Judaism and Christianity became two different religions with not always the best relationship between them, the Jews did not like it that according to their Bible Jesus came when the world was 7,000 years. Wanting to separate Jesus from the 7,000 years they gave up their Bible for the Bible used by the Jews who remained in Babylon. According to their Bible the world was only 4,000, not 7,000 when Jesus came. This is why we say that the world is 6,000 years old now. Since according to this possible translation of the text we are now approaching the 7,000 year and did not pass it when Jesus was here as the Rabbi thought, people are latching on to this Rabbi's teaching and looking for the second coming to come at the 7,000 year.

 

So according to the Bible Jesus used the world is now 9,000 years old. According to the Greek translations, the Bible Paul used the world is now 7,000 to 10,000. according to the Bible those who stayed in Babylon used, which became our Bible the world is 6,000 years old.

 

Now these Biblical families are nearly word for word, with only minor differences, especially in the prophetic books. And there are no major theological differences between them. But one of the major differences are in how they understood those numbers. And we get the numbers from the one that Jews who rejected Jesus latched on to because they did not like how their Bible had Jesus coming when the world was 7,000 years old. 

 

As for the Day=Year; that is NOT what the text says. It is in a context of talking about the greatness of God being eternal and us being finite. And also the word "Thousand" was not always a number. It originally meant either a family unit or a military unit that would consist of approximately 10 men. It could also be applied to towns (the text about Bethlehem calls it the smallest thousand in Israel). It was also an educational term. A teacher could either give a "Stand on one leg" answer, meaning a very quick answer. Or the teacher could give a thousand year answer, which meant what ever time was needed for the student to really have a comprehensive knowledge of the topic.  But then there was a king who had his fighting units 100 times larger than the traditional unit. That is when Thousand became a number and became the large number of 100 times 10. Thus the Rabbi's speculation of the 7 days of creation corresponding to the 7,000 years of creation is taking the text out of context. 

 

Leviticus 23 and the Book of Deuteronomy tells the interchangeable cycle. It is days, half years, full years and in Leviticus Sabbatical years (this was down played in Deuteronomy). They day=thousand years does NOT show up in these sections that actually discuss the topic, Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy. And I do not see a text connected with the Day to the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day, that reads "Oh, Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy are wrong, they forgot to include day=thousand years and this verse is going to correct their mistake."

I hope you find this useful. And I am sorry if this is attacking any speculation that you heard from people who are looking for Jesus to come in the 7,000 year. We need to be fair to the Bible and all it's possible translations. We see the signs of his coming. We have gone through Babylon, Medio-Persia, Greece, Rome, the Holy Roman Empire (with Papal Supremacy), we are living in the deadly wound (no one great world empire controlling most of God's people) but we are rapidly seeing one forming based on economic cooperation and corporations. (the first to mourn at the fall of Babylon are the merchants of the earth or the corporations.)

 

Did you know that the Old Testament predicted that the Exile would be the end of the world? The idea of the exile to an Israelite gave the same idea as Sunday Laws bring to the typical Adventist. But while God is giving these signs, he is not bound by these. What he wants is "When the Gospel is preached in all the world, then shall the end come!"

 

While the 7,000 year is speculation from taking a verse out of context and based on possible ways to translate the numbers in the text, we have a more sure word of prophecy that is far superior to the 7,000 year theory.  We are seeing the movement from the 6th head to the7th head. But instead of sitting back waiting for God to twiddle his thumbs wanting on some time line, he is giving us responsibility of spreading the Gospel. When we are faithful here THEN shall the end come.

[Kevin H]

A related topic but which I decided to place separately is that an additional problem to the issues in translation is that ancient genealogy do not include everyone. When we read "Kenan was seventy years old when he begat Mahalalel" we think of it as a modern Greek, western genealogy where everyone is included. But that is not how ancient genealogies worked. How this text would have been understood was that when Kenan was seventy years old he had a child. That child was the direct link between Kenan who is an important person and Mahalalel who was an important person. That child could have been Mahalael himself, or it could have been Mahalalel's biological father, or grandfather or maybe even a couple of greats between them. But that Kenan and Mahalalel were both real people and Kenan was a direct ancestor of Mahalalel.

 

Also, at different times in history generations alternate names of the first born, naming after the grandfather. So we could have a period of time where there was a man who had a child he named Mahalalel. When Mahalalel had a child he named it after his father Kenan. Then when this new Kenan had a child he named his first born after his father Mahalalel, and thus the two names keep repeating over a number of generations. But in ancient genealogies they would not list each generation but just the two names once.
 

[Kevin H]

Thus in conclusion: Between the difficulty translators have in translating the numbers from the ancient texts, the fact that ancient genealogies tend to leave generations out or have a one time mention of repeating names it makes it very difficult to figure out more than a ball park guess on the age of the earth from these genealogies. I'm sorry. But let's look at the more sure world of prophecy that we are seeing being fulfilled!!!

[Gregory Matthews]

From post # 5:

 And also the word "Thousand" was not always a number. It originally meant either a family unit or a military unit that would consist of approximately 10 men. It could also be applied to towns (the text about Bethlehem calls it the smallest thousand in Israel).

 

The above is an important point which should be remembered in other contexts, such as the number of the Children of Israel who left Egypt.

 

Post # 6, is also important.

[jbal7]

Kevin H, thanks so much for the reply. This explains a lot