Young Earth - 6,000 or 10,000 Years?

Artimaeus,

I know Ive been guilty of rounding up.....I usually say less than 10,000 although I also believe its about 6,000.

Sorry about that.

 

I would agree it seems to be much closer to 6,000 years than 10,000 years.

 

If you use the numbers from the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew bible, they come out closer to 10,000.

 

Does the bible cover the entirity of human history? If not how do you come up with any time frame at all?

 

I see that James Ussher's book is once again in publication

CLICK HERE: "The Annals of the World"

Although Ussher studiously tabulated the biblical data, a contemporary of his time, Bishop Lightfoot, actually refined the date and found that Adam was created on October 23, at nine A.M. forty-fifth meridian time! (This led one critic to quip, "Closer than this, as a cautious scholar, the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University did not venture to commit himself.")

Seriously, differences between the genealogies of Luke, Genesis and Chronicles show that a simple compiling of years of each person written may not lead to a correct number.

Rob

 

The Scriptures give us ample evidence that abridgments in genealogical recitations were a common practice of the Hebrew writers.

The Hebrew word translated, as “son of” does not always mean what it does in the English and should not always be translated literally.
Matthew 1:1 is classic example; “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (NAS)

Compare the two genealogies found in 1 Chronicles 6:3-14 and Ezra 7:1-5.
Ezra leaves out 6 generations. Would you classify this as an error? Or an acceptable abridgment of an otherwise lengthy record.

Comparing Scripture to Scripture lets us understand that this was acceptable.
Understanding that the dates can not be added up leaves us with a wide divergence of acceptable dates. Six thousand, ten thousand….do I hear 20 thousand and more???

Rob

 

Deacon, like he said, it doesn't matter if it was the son, or the grandson, or the great-grandson.....because the AGE of the person was recorded when the next one cited was born. So, you CAN count with certain genealogies. Obviously you wouldn't count David and Jesus as two generations, but the Bible never says "David was 2,346 years old when Jesus was born."

Thus, if the Bible says that Adam was 130 when Seth was born, whether Seth was his son or his grandson makes no difference in determining timeline. The whole genealogy in the Genesis chapters is like this. My husband has also added up the years in this way, and he has also come up with a date around 4,000.

I think we probably tend to go for the slightly higher estimations in order to "meet halfway?" with those who we know will disagree with YEC.

I cannot say that this is a good thing, Artimaeus. You are probably right in that it is a concession we make just shy of actually compromising.

 

We cannot please the "old earth" creationists by allowing for gaps in the genealogical records.

When the number moves from 6,000 to 10,000 or 15,000, it's kinda like arguing that one of us is closer to Pluto right now than any of the rest of us. Even though it's true, we are all very, very, very far from Pluto.

And YEC'm is very far from the "old earth" position.

 

Seems to me that you are missing the point. What does it change if the earth is 1,000, 20,000 or 1 billion years old?

 

I think that the difference is a matter of rounding up.

It is like after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier (mach 1), every new speed record didn't get press until it was a round number. Mach 1.2, was ignored, mach 1.6 was ignored, it wasn't until someone went mach 2 did it get publicized.

People like nice round numbers. When dealing with people who believe millions, or billions of years, even 10,000 years seems like a little bit of time.

 

I think that the difference is a matter of rounding up.

It is like after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier (mach 1), every new speed record didn't get press until it was a round number. Mach 1.2, was ignored, mach 1.6 was ignored, it wasn't until someone went mach 2 did it get publicized.

People like nice round numbers. When dealing with people who believe millions, or billions of years, even 10,000 years seems like a little bit of time.

 

Dendrochronology of Pinus logaeva goes back almost 9,000 years. In 1964, one of these trees was cut down and proven to be 4,950 years old. By comparing the tree rings of this tree with those of old logs of trees of the same species, we know for certain that these logs were from trees living almost 9,000 years ago. If you believe in a very simple and literal interpretation of Genesis, those trees began growing sometime after the flood in 2348 B.C. Hint: If the trees were living before the flood, they would have died during the flood (They cannot tolerate wet conditions).

 

4004 B.C. – 2348 B.C. = 1656 years from Gen. 1:3 to the flood.

1656 + >9,000 = >10,656 years after Gen. 1:3.