The antiquity of man

The question of the antiquity of man, of course, asks how long ago did God create Adam from the dust of the earth?

Genesis 2:7 (KJV) And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Everyone has heard of that Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) calculated that the world was created in 4004 BC.

The World: Born in 4004 BC?

But does The Holy Bible, which is perfect and inerrant, really tell us how long it has been since Adam?

B.B. Warfield (1851-1921) was Professor of Theology at Princeton University. In his book Studies in Theology (1932) on page 244, he wrote:

"...for aught we know instead of twenty generations and some two thousand years measuring the interval betwen the creation and the birth of Abraham, two hundred generations and something like twenty thousand years, or even two thousand generations and something like two hunder thousand years may have intervened. In a word, the scriptural data leave us wholly without guidance in estimating time which elaspsed between the cration of the world and the deluge, and between the deluge and the call of Abraham. So far as the Scripture assertions are concerned, we may suppose any length of time to have intervened between these events which may otherwise appear reasonable."

(Quoted by James O. Buswell in A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, 1962)

So there are two things that we do not know: 1. How long between Adam and Noah? and 2. How long between Noah and Abraham?

We do not know if scriptural genaalogies have been shortened. Matthew 1:1 (KJV) The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Personally, I still believe in a young earth, but I am not sure that the earth is as young as six thousand years because I don't think that we know but I appreciate Archbishop Ussher for his work.