[Karsus]

What, in the Bible, leads you to believe the Earth is just a few thousand of years old?

Please understand, this is a serious question and I am not trying to start a flamewar, just have a discussion.

[BillT]

The Bible gives genealogies going all the way back to Adam and Eve up to Jesus. That was about four thousand years. According to most scalars Jesus was born around 4 BC. </p> Now if you add these up you get around 6,000 years. </p>
Incidentally, modern Science has determined that the average temperature is 4 degrees Kelvin; everywhere. They also give sizes for the universe as xx big and that there are yy number of stars in it of an average magnitude of zz. Science tells us that took billions of years to expand that far and the temperature slowed down to 4 degrees Kelvin.</p> If you take Science’s numbers and ask yourself how long would it take that much heat, from the yy suns, to heat xx amount of space to 4 degrees Kelvin. The answer is approximately 6,600 years. If GOD spoke the universe into existence, Science’s figures would seem pretty close.
</p>
Science is correct some times

[DannyTN]

There are a few things that favor that interpretation, but I'm not at all certain that the Bible says that.

First, my understanding is that the Hebrew word used in the creation story referring to the 7 days of creation is more consistent with a 24 hour time period. However it is by no means certain that a 24 hour day is what was referred to. Certainly the Lord is on record as saying a day is like a 1000 years and 1000 years is like a day to Him. I don't think he is contrained by time at all.

I suspect that the Lord could cause 1 billion years of evolution, if that is the tool he chose to create the earth, to occur in a 24 hour time period. I also suspect that he could just dispense with the evolution and create things from nothing without a history.

Another possible explanation that I'm not willing to rule out is that it was Moses recording the creation story, and it may have been that God took 7 days for God to show Moses the creation.

If you then go from Abraham forward the Bible seems to imply that there are about 6000 years of history. The begats (Adam begat Abel who begat...) have some ages associated with them (Between Adam and Whoever was 800 years...). So that it seems you can construct relative time frames. But not having gone through it myself, I'm not certain how strong an implication that is.

One of the criticisms opponents of the Bible have used is that in one place the begats record A begat B begat C, but in another place it records A begat C and leaves out B. Well it turns out that it was common practice amoung Jewish genealogies to only recount the important ancestors. So it would in fact be appropriate to say Adam begat Noah, Noah begat David, even though there were many people inbetween.
I'm not sure if you can rule out the possibility that generations were skipped. But then again you may. Moses recorded the number of years between generations and thus it seems God wanted us to know how long.

On the flip side, I'm not at all confident in the so called modern scientific explanations. Modern science is only a couple of hundred years old. And man makes a lot of assumptions when he begins to talk about how things were before recorded history. The assumptions range from sediment rates, to the amount of radiation at that time, to some things like the speed of light is constant. They are effectly extrapolating their experience of 100 years backwards. And if they discount records of a global flood, they may very well make some huge calculation mistakes.

I threw in the speed of light because some scientists have produced evidence recently that the speed of light is not constant but slowing down.

The number of forgeries in the field of anthropology certainly casts doubts on the field. It seems unless you publish exciting and controversial finds, you don't get funding. Everyone is trying to find the oldest fossil, because no one gets much publicity for a 5000 year old fossil. It makes the whole field subject to doubt and scrutiny.

[RaceBannon]

What, in the Bible, leads you to believe the Earth is just a few thousand of years old?

The Geneologies of the Patriarchs. We have a record from Adam to Christ.

Not all geneologies contain every son and father, though, some skip the wicked sons or fathers.

But, if the geneologies are complete from Adam to Jesus, we can 'prove' the Earth is only 6000 years old, give or take a few hundred years.

[glorgau]

What, in the Bible, leads you to believe the Earth is just a few thousand of years old?

Please understand, this is a serious question and I am not trying to start a flamewar, just have a discussion.

No, it was the Lamanites beating the Nephites with the help of the three whats-thier-names.
It's obvious that most don't understand the teachings and meaning of the one true God!
This is sarcastic of course. :-)

[saint]

Serious answer:

Actually, I can accept 6000 years since the first created day. But that starts at the separation of light and dark which is in verse 4 of Genesis 1. So the first day started at verse 4.

Now we have to say how much time transpired in verses 1-3. In verse 1 God created the heavens and the earth. How much time then passes until verse 4 when the first day is created? For all we know verse 2 could have transpired over eons. We don't have a clue. Everybody assumes that the first day was at the beginning of time. I don't understand this assumption nor do I see any support for it.