Ken Ham@aigkenham
Does the Bible give us an age of the earth?
Over the years, I’ve heard the objection over and over again that the Bible doesn’t give us an age for the earth—that’s what science is for! I usually respond a bit tongue in cheek by saying I’m glad it doesn’t, or it would have been outdated the very next year!
But then I go on to explain that the Bible doesn’t give us an age for the universe—it gives us something better: a birth certificate and a detailed chronological history.
You see, Genesis 1 is clear that God created everything in six, literal 24-hour days. That means the universe was six days old when Adam was created. We then have detailed genealogies in Genesis 5 and 10 that don’t merely provide the names of the fathers from Adam to Abraham but also their ages when they had their sons. This means anyone can easily add up the time that elapsed from Adam to Abraham (about 2,000 years). Since the Bible gives us the details to figure out Abraham lived about 2,000 years before Christ and we know Christ walked on this earth 2,000 years before us, we can determine that there’s been about 6,000 years of history.
So, no, the Bible doesn’t say, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Earth wasn’t that old when the Bible was written anyway! But it gives us a “birth certificate” we can use to figure out how much time has passed since the beginning.
(And, just as an aside, this birth certificate is why most people in the West believed the earth was just a few thousand years old until relatively modern times!)
