The age of the Earth, and the universe, is a topic that not only fascinates most people, but it also is one of the most important things to the religion of Evolution. As I show in my book Another Inconvenient Truth, the theory of Evolution violates our most fundamental scientific laws, and ultimately goes against all observations of the real world and universe. In my observation of history, I have noticed that as more and more observational evidence supporting the biblical accounts has piled up, the atheists and humanists controlling academia have placed Evolution further and further back in time. It’s almost like they think that if they put their theory further back into an unobservable past, it will become more plausible. Sadly, a lot of Christians have fallen for this lie.
To set the record straight once and for all, I will show you how “young earth” creationists came to the conclusion that the universe and the Earth were created 6,000 years ago.
As we all know, God created Adam on the sixth day of creation. When Adam was 130, he had a son named Seth (Genesis 5:3). When Seth was 105, he had a son named Enosh (Genesis 5:6). When Enosh was 90, he had a son named Kenan (Genesis 5:9). When Kenan was 70, he had a son named Mahalalel (Genesis 5:12). When Mahalalel was 65, he had a son named Jared (Genesis 5:15). When Jared was 162, he had a son named Enoch (Genesis 5:18). When Enoch was 65, he had a son named Methuselah (Genesis 5:21). When Methuselah was 187, he had a son named Lamech (Genesis 5:25). When Lamech was 182, he had Noah (Genesis 5:28). When Noah was 500, he had sons named Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32).
Noah was 600 years old when the Flood happened (Genesis 6:6), which means that 100 years had passed between when God warned him about it, and when it actually happened. According to Genesis 8:13, Noah was 601 when the water from the flood had completely receeded. According to Genesis 11:10, Shem became the father of Arphaxad two years after the flood. When Arphaxad was 35, he became the father of Shelah (Genesis 11:12). When Shelah was 30, he had a son named Eber (Genesis 11:14). When Eber was 34, he had a son named Peleg (Genesis 11:16). When Peleg was 30, he had a son named Reu (Genesis 11:18). When Reu was 32, he had a son named Serug (Genesis 11:20). When Serug was 30, he had a son named Nahor (Genesis 11:22). When Nahor was 29, he had a son named Terah (Genesis 11:24). When Terah was 70, he had Abram, Nahor (a different one), and Haran. When Abram was 75, he set out from Harran (Genesis 12:4).
In Genesis 15:13-16, God made the following promise to to Abram:
“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.'”
In Exodus 12:40, we read the following:
“Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.”
In other words, 430 years passed between God’s promise to Abram and the actual Exodus from Egypt.
In 1 Kings 6:1, we read the following:
“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord.”
In other words, the Exodus to the fourth year of King Solomon’s reign was 480 years.
The fourth year of King Solomon’s reign was 966 BC, and the book of Malachi was written shortly after 433 BC, so that’s a span of 533 years.
The time between the book of Malachi and the birth of Jesus was from 433-5 BC, a span of 428 years.
Jesus was put to death in the early 30s AD. For the sake of this post, we’ll assume that his death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven was in 33 AD. We’ll say that Jesus lived for 33 years on this Earth.
Since this is the year 2015, that would mean that 1,982 years have passed since Jesus ascended to heaven.
When you add all that up, we find that the universe and the Earth are both 5,909 years old. Most creationists round it up to 6,000 years in order to make it simple for the sake of argumentation.
Why is this topic so important? Contrary to what our society tells us, the issue of the age of the Earth and universe is NOT a question of science. You can make all kinds of assumptions and guesses using flawed dating methods, but unless you have someone who was there at the beginning to verify that your theory was true, science can NEVER give us the age of the Earth and universe.
Thankfully, we have the eyewitness testimony of the one who was there at the beginning to observe the creation of the universe; namely, the creator himself: God. Not only that, the writers of the Old Testament wrote down enough genealogies and time spans that by looking at them along with the rest of the historical record, we can figure out roughly how old the Earth and Universe is.
Not only that, but we know historically exactly where the idea of the Earth being millions (and eventually Billions) of years old comes from. Before 1795, most people believed that the Earth was as old as the Bible says it is. Then James Hutton came along and asserted that the Earth was millions of years old without providing any real evidence to show how it was more correct than what the bible teaches. Hutton made this assertion based on his Uniformitarianism, which is the belief that the way things in the world and universe operate now is the way that they’ve always operated in the past. Hutton’s assertion caused many people to doubt the Bible, and caused many to walk away from their faith.
In an amazing display of prophecy, the apostle Peter saw people like Hutton coming in the future:
2 Peter 3:3-7: “Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.‘ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
Take special notice of verse 4; notice how it perfectly sums up the idea of Uniformitarianism. Isn’t it amazing how someone writing a letter in the early 60s AD could perfectly describe a secular belief that didn’t come into existence until over 1,700 years later? Just another piece of evidence that shows that nothing takes God by surprise.
In conclusion, you don’t have to be scared or nervous when the scientific and academic community insist that the universe and the Earth is billions of years old. You know what the Bible says about that, and the bible has never been proven wrong in historical or scientific matters. You can trust it when it says that the universe and Earth is 5,909 years old.
You can also trust Creationists when they say that that Bible teaches that the universe and Earth is 6,000 years old.
