I don’t recall—seemed like there were several dating means used.
I don’t believe in a 6000 year old earth. There are Chinese writings from 7,000 years ago. And the civilization in current India that evidenced atomic warfare was many thousands of years older than that, IIRC.
I’m not saying God COULD NOT have done it the 6000 year way.
I’m just totally convinced that HE DID NOT. AND, that it doesn’t make any difference. Scripture, to me, does NOT AT ALL indicate that the world is only 6000 years old. I think those are assumptions and postulations layered onto Scripture.
I’ve often wondered . . . is earth a boot camp for those to rule and reign with Christ—only from a brief slice of our history—or does God periodically mush it all over and start over with a new process to raise up very well tested and trained folks to rule and reign with Him over the multiverses?
At our present space/time coordinates, the universe is observed to be about 15 billion years old. However, when we consider the inflationary model and general relativity (warping of space/time) - we can also see that the universe is about a week old (equiv earth time) at the inception space/time coordinates (Schroeder et al.)
I perceive a change in the "observer" perspective in Scripture.
More specifically, Genesis chapters 1 to 3 are from the inception perspective. The Creator is the only observer of Creation ex nihilo and He speaks to both the physical and the spiritual as the Creation, the earthly and the heavenly. To presuppose an earthly space/time perspective would result in needless contradiction (emphasis mine:)
These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground. Genesis 2:4-5
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:9
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. Revelation 2:7
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. - Hebrews 11:3
And then at the top of Genesis 4, after Adam is banished to mortality, the perspective changes to Adamic man who, by Jewish and early Christian beliefs, was appointed a week or seven thousand years the last of which is Christ's thousand year reign on earth, the Lord's Sabbath (Revelation.)
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. - 2 Pet 3:8