Look, I believe the Sacred Scriptures are completely infallible, but how do you know that *your* calculations are correct? The Bible nowhere gives an exact age of the earth. We can arrive at one only by inferring a figure by tallying up lifespans and generations, and that's not an exact science. It's not clear whether the descendants are all strictly "offspring of" or merely "descendants of"--and some of the geneologies may be incomplete. Plus the Septuagint, Masoretic text, and Peshitta all give different figures, so we come up with widely varying ages of the earth.
I don't think that many people fully appreciate the difficulties of exegesis here.
Exact? No. Close to 6,000 years? Yes.
"I don't think that many people fully appreciate the difficulties of exegesis here."
I don't think that people fully appreciate the impact of the assumptions involved in a 'scientific' age estimate for either the universe or the earth.
Very true, and that's why I believe it's not important. What is important is that we are here right now, and have a life to live. Studying different cultures from the past, different events in the past, and things like that are informative and good to know. Worrying about how old the earth is has no benefit whatsoever. In my opinion anyway.