Question: Concerning the age of the earth, you state:

"We understand that there is no necessary connection between the date of the creation of humanity and the age of the earth."

I would like to point out in Genesis that the creation of the earth took six days, and on the sixth day, man was made. Also – why would the author of Genesis (Moses) skip generations in his genealogy writings yet include the ages of the individuals? What was the point of giving the genealogy with ages? Why don’t you accept the Bible as is?

I do believe that the earth is around 6K years old – as one can easily add the numbers together in Genesis – and attempt to put a date on Abraham using more historical records.

Tim

Answer: Dear Tim,

We do not believe that a young earth theory, such as you propose, is necessarily unbiblical or unchristian. We understand the reasons for holding such a view. That view was the one I was taught early in life. But the young earth theory does not hold up under scrutiny. Nonetheless, we do not believe that the age of the earth – or the date of the creation of humanity on the earth are core doctrines of the Christian faith. Plain Truth Ministries believes that Christians can differ on such topics without dividing, or causing division. Plain Truth Ministries believes that God inspired the Bible, but that we humans must be careful as we interpret it – avoiding the temptation of imposing artificial or cultural views upon the text as we understand it.

We support the old earth view – as is evident from many of the answers to questions we have posted about this topic. We cannot discount what we feel is incontrovertible scientific evidence that the earth is older than 6,000 years. Neither can we find God revealing to us that 6,000 years is the age of the earth – or the length of humanity’s sojourn on it, before the Second Coming. Neither do we see the historic Christian church being united on this position, or elevating it to the level of a core doctrine.

As for your proposal of using genealogies to date the earth – or to give us accurate dates for historical benchmarks – this idea has long ago been discarded, as the ages of individuals given in biblical genealogies are not sufficient for reconstructing a chronological timeline – too many variables, and too many places in the Bible where such a methodology does not work. We must conclude that God did not inspire genealogies for the express purpose of providing a chronological framework of history – for if this was the purpose the genealogies would always allow us to construct accurate chronologies – and they do not.

Further, it would be helpful to note that those who have posited the 6,000 year view of either the age of the earth or of man’s tenure on it have been recently forced to re-set their calculations. The dispensational view (taught in the Scofield Reference Bible, among other places) proclaimed an exact date, for well over a century, for the creation of humanity (and of the creation of the earth) – a date that roughly corresponded with the date set by Ussher – you will find this in the marginal notes of many older Bibles.

This date was 4004 B.C. But we are now living in the year 2000 A.D. Two possibilities: 1) The 6,000 year idea is wrong. 21) The 6,000 year idea remains correct, but the date of creation needs to be modified to "give us more time" so that one day the 6,000 year theory will be correct. How long will such a methodology be used before adherents realize that something is wrong with the 6,000 year hypothesis?

The problem is not with the Bible – which God has inspired for us. Let us not place blame upon the Bible – or say that we are defending the Bible when in fact, we are defending the interpretations and theories of imperfect humans, as they have, with sincere motives, tried to understand and interpret the message of the Bible. "Let God be true and every man a liar" (Romans 3:4).

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht