How Old Is The Earth?

How Old is The Earth? Evolutionary Creationism: Part 11 

Introduction 

Young Earth Creationism (YEC) contends the earth is only 6 to 10 thousand years old. They arrive at this conclusion, biblically, for a couple of reasons. Hodge (2019) argues that the events that occurred since the creation of Adam through the death of Abraham are believed to equate to 2,000 years. Abraham’s life is usually dated around 2000 BC which is 4000 years ago. Adding up the numbers, we get 6000 years (Hodge, 2019). 

Others still will argue that Jesus believed the earth was young. Dr. Mortenson (2007) uses three verses he calls “Jesus AGE verses”: Mark 10:6 (parrel in Matt 19), Mark 13:19-20, and Luke 11:50-51 (Section 3). He understands all three to be Jesus’ way of referring to the creation week in Gen. 1:1-2:4 Dr. Morris comments on Mark 10:6 and Luke 11:50-51, noting that "The beginning" clearly refers to Genesis 1:1 and asserting that "Abel was the first prophet, martyred in the very first generation—not 4.6 billion years after the formation of the earth" (Section 3). The argument is that Jesus’ comments on creation do not allow for billions of years. 

When I was a YEC, I truly believed that the earth was young. I thought the dating methods scientists used were wrong because they disagreed with the Bible. However, I have since recanted this position In this article, I will argue that the Bible does not help us date the earth and that if my biblical arguments stand, they will not disprove a young earth. Alternatively, it would move the question out of the realm of special revelation (Bible) into the realm of general revelation (science). That being the case, I will argue that science does not support a Young Earth model. 

Special Revelation

I will start by discussing Genesis 5 as an example of a passage used to date the earth that does not. I will then discuss Jesus’ comments. Many scholars will note that there are gaps in ancient Israelite genealogies. Dr. Alexander comments on Genesis 5 stating, “Since the word “fathered” in a genealogy can mean “fathered an ancestor of”, it is possible that this genealogy skips any number of generations” (p. 59). Further evidence is shown when looking at the genealogy of Moses in Ex 6:16-20. There are only four generations between Levi and Moses, despite 400 years between the two (Ex 12:40-41, Acts 7:6). Matthew's genealogy is notorious in part because he neatly puts people in 3 sets of 14 generations (Matt 1:1-17). To do this, he has to skip people (Steinman, 2023). Dr. Steinman, a Young Earth biblical scholar, has spent most of his scholarly career studying this issue, arguing that gaps exist in Gen. 5. Walton et al (2000) argue, “Comparing biblical genealogies to one another shows that there are often several generations skipped in any particular presentation. This type of telescoping also occurs in Assyrian genealogical records” (p. 36).

This reason alone should be sufficient to stop using genealogies to calculate the ages of the earth. Given the data discussed above, whether or not the patriarch's ages are literal does not add evidence to the Young Earth view. Dr. Hart (2024) says that God could have given supernaturally long lives to certain people in the past, and the earth is still old. That said, there is a crucial question one must ask as an interpreter: did ancient biblical authors believe the numbers in Gen. 5 are literal? I will not dive deep into this question in this article, but I would encourage you to see these resources for the symbolic use of numbers in the ancient world and the Bible (Friberg, 1984; Olson 2017a; Olson, 2017b; Stump, 2017). 

Jesus’ Perspective

Now I will transition to Jesus’ statements. It is written, “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female” (Mk 10:6, NIV). Dr. Mortenson’s interpretation is an overreading of the text. It makes Jesus a liar, the same thing YECs sometimes accuse Evolutionary Creationists (EC) of. As Davis (2017) notes for example, 

"If Jesus was indeed commenting on the timeline of creation, it would be problematic for the young-earth view, since the creation of humankind happens at the end of the creation week, not the beginning"

Regarding the “Jesus AGE verses, Jesus was not trying to say something about the age of the earth (Davis, 2017). Jesus was referring to Genesis in a way that makes sense to the ancient reader. He did not differentiate the parts of creation, and there was no need to (Hart, 2024). The age of the earth is irrelevant in the context of all these passages. 

The interpreter must remember that context determines the meaning of phrases. What does Jesus mean by “from the foundation of the world” in Luke 11:50-51 (ESV)? Jesus explains in the next verse by starting with Abel, the first prophet of the Hebrew scriptures. The scholarly New English Translation (NET) footnote states that the foundation “does not suggest a time to the modern reader” (NETBible, n.d.). Instead, Jesus discloses, “The comprehensiveness of the pattern of killing those who sided with God” (Green, 1997, chapter 5). Christ is noting his opponent's participation in the pattern of killing God's messengers. The age of the earth is, once again, irrelevant to his point. Since the age of the earth is a question in the realm of science, one must ask if science supports the YEC view. Unfortunately, it does not. 

General revelation 

The amount of evidence for an Old Earth is overwhelming. The North Greenland Ice Core Project members (2004) revealed, “a hitherto unrecognized warm period initiated by an abrupt climate warming about 115,000 years ago, before glacial conditions were fully developed” (North Greenland Ice Core Project members, para. 1) in the northern hemisphere. White (2022), a professor of geophysics, shows evidence in his paper for an Old Earth as well. Radiometric dating is also a good method used to find the age of Earth. According to the UCMP (2024), 

"The universe is full of naturally occurring radioactive elements. Radioactive atoms are inherently unstable; over time, radioactive “parent atoms” decay into stable “daughter atoms.” When molten rock cools, forming what are called igneous rocks, radioactive atoms are trapped inside. Afterwards, they decay at a predictable rate. By measuring the quantity of unstable atoms left in

a rock and comparing it to the quantity of stable daughter atoms in the rock, scientists can estimate the amount of time that has passed since that rock formed" (para. 1-2).

Using this dating method, scientists can successfully argue for a date of the earth much older than 6000 years. Many YECs say these methods are inaccurate ways to date things as Answers in Genesis does (Japplew1, 2020). These arguments often fail to deal with the multiple, separately attesting data all confirming the same hypothesis, such as “... tree ring counting, thermoluminescence, electron spin resonance, and many other different types of radiometric techniques” (Japplew1, 2020, para. 2). 

Objections

History 

One objection to what I have presented is the idea that God made the universe with a history. God made Adam an adult (thus having an appearance of age despite not developing like an adult,) so God created the universe to appear billions of years despite it being young. There are several objections to raise to this. 

1: Giving the entire cosmos a false history is simply deceptive. God lied about the age of the cosmos by making it look older. For example, we have tools, bones and more showing millions of years (Timeline, 2022). Did God make tools look old when they were young? That is deceptive. You could argue that God does/can lie in some contexts when appropriate (1 Kings 22:23, 2 Thess. 2:11). However, it's difficult to see what virtuous reason God has for being deceptive about this. The grandness and scale of this false history make God a liar and for no justifiable reason. 

2: This makes the vast majority of all scientific disciplines impotent and unable to approximate reality. You could make a philosophical argument that our scientific models do not approximate reality. If science cannot tell us the age of the earth, and the Bible says nothing about it, then you have no reason to be a Young Earther. 

3: This is an ad hoc rationalization. Ad hoc rationalization is a logical fallacy whereby “an explanatory factor, condition, or reason is set forth without validity to counter a specific objection or argument in order to defend one's original assertion, hypothesis, findings, or conclusion” (Pope et al, 2016, Section: AD Hoc Rationalization). 

This is precisely what young earthers are doing at this point. YECs make a claim, evidence is shown against the claim (Ball, 2003), and then they throw out this Ad Hoc response that cannot be proven. All the data supports an older universe, so an excuse comes in the attempt to continue holding a young earth. They may respond by saying God could do that (and maybe some things are made mature), but what God could and what God does often differ. Just because this post hoc view is possible doesn't mean it's true and given the little evidence for it, it's probably not. 

Sin

Another idea is that “The universe looks old because it bears the effects of sin” (Challies, 2016, para. 5). The thought is that the effects of the fall, introducing sin and death, and the catastrophic nature of the universal flood, caused the universe to look old when it is young in reality. This explanation includes some of the issues previously discussed. Firstly, it assumes that the flood was a global not local

event, which is not self-evident from scripture (Ortlund, 2024; Collins, 2009). Second, while sin and death may explain some things, it's hard to suggest it explains ALL data about the age of the earth. Why and how would sin cause abrupt climate warming more than 100,000 years ago? How do sin and a global flood explain the age of billion-year-old bones? Sin and the global flood have nothing to do with the fact that starlight takes billions of years to reach us (Baird, 2017). 

Conclusion 

The biblical data is silent about the age of the earth. When one looks at science, our globe is very clearly old. Therefore, Young Earth Creationism has no leg to stand on. We should have a view that is compatible with science. In the final article in this series, I will respond to objections I have received and move toward an evolutionary theology.

Sources:

Alexander, C. (2008). Notes on Genesis 5. In The ESV study Bible. Crossway. 

Baird, S. C. (2017). Since a star’s light takes so long to reach us, how do we know that the star is still there? Science Questions with Surprising Answers. 

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2017/04/02/since-a-stars-light-takes-so-long-to-reach-us-how-do -we-know-that-the-star-is-still-there/ 

Ball, S. (2003). A Christian physicist examines the age of the Earth. https://www.letu.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences/files/age-of-earth.pdf 

Challies, T. (2016). Why does the universe look so old? Tim Challies. https://www.challies.com/articles/why-does-the-universe-look-so-old-2/ 

Collins, L. (2009). Yes, Noah's flood may have happened, but not over the whole earth Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 29(5). 

https://ncse.ngo/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth 

Davis, T. (2017). Does modern science make Jesus a liar? BioLogos. https://biologos.org/articles/does-modern-science-make-jesus-a-liar 

Friberg, J. (1984). Numbers and measures in the earliest written records. Scientific American, 250, 110-118. 

Green, B. J. (1997). The Gospel of Luke. Eerdmans. 

Hart, S. (2024). In defense of evolutionary creationism: The nerdvision 17. That Christian Nerd. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7qunf04TdU 

Hodge, B. (2019). How old is the earth? Answers in 

Genesis.https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/how-old-is-the-earth/

Japplew1. (2020). Age of our earth: 6,000 or 4. 5 billion years old? Answers in Genesis: What young earth creationism gets wrong. 

https://sites.nd.edu/james-applewhite/2020/03/22/age-of-our-earth/ 

Mortensen, T. (2007). Jesus, evangelical scholars, and the age of the earth. Answers in Genesis. https://answersingenesis.org/age-of-the-earth/jesus-evangelical-scholars-and-the-age-of-the-ea rth/ 

Morris, M. H. (2016). Did Jesus teach recent creation? https://www.icr.org/article/did-jesus-teach-recent-creation 

NETBible. (n.d.). Luke 11. Retrieved from https://netbible.org/bible/Luke+11 

North Greenland Ice Core Project members. (2004). High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period. Nature, doi:10.1038/nature02805. Olson, C. (2017a). How old was Father Abraham? Re-examining the patriarchal lifespans in light of archaeology. Evangelical Theological Society. 

Olson, C. (2017b). How old was Father Abraham? Part 2 a symbolic interpretation of the patriarchal lifespans. Trinity Southwest University. 

Ortlund, G. (2024). Was Noah’s flood local? Truth Unites [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5tUg4SWzs 

Pope et al. (2016). Logical fallacies in psychology. 

https://kspope.com/fallacies/fallacies.php#:~:text=Ad%20Hoc%20Rationalization,hypothesis%2C %20findings%2C%20or%20conclusion 

Steinman, A. (2023). This young-earth creationist shows gaps in genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 ft. What your pastor didn't tell you. https://www.youtube.com/watch/etc.

Stump, J. (2017). Long life spans in Genesis: Literal or symbolic? BioLogos. 

https://biologos.org/articles/long-life-spans-in-genesis-literal-or-symbolic

Timeline - World History Documentaries. (2022, August 23). The mystery of the 2,000,000-year-old human remains | mystery of our ancestors | timeline [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyAM4wFHR08 

UCMP. (2024). Radiometric dating. University of California. 

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/radiometric-dating/ 

Walton et al. (2000). Genesis. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. IVP Academic. White, S. R. (2022). The age of the Earth. The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

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