Readers of the King James Version (aka Authorized Version) will be familiar with the date of creation given as 4004 BC in some editions of it. So, was the earth created some 6000 years ago? And how did we arrive at the figure?
The date derives from James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland. Ussher was one of the most learned and respected intellectual in Britain in his time. His effort involved a great deal more than just adding up the ages and dates found in the Old Testament, for he took into account the latest findings of biblical scholarship and extra-biblical historical research in his days. While today his book, Annales, is remembered almost only for the date of creation he proposed, it in fact represented "a comprehensive chronological synthesis of all known historical knowledge, biblical and classical . . . Of its volume only perhaps one sixth or less is biblical material."1
Today we have developed tools for studying the Bible that quickly reveal the mistaken assumptions and methods that Ussher had to work with, chief of which is that there are gaps in the biblical chronology (particularly those found in Gen 1-11) that make any calculation of the ages involved meaningless. (See article by Green below.)
Recent developments in archaeology show that many ancient cultures and cities were already going strong six thousand years ago. German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who has been excavating Göbelki Tepe (about 10km east of Urfa - ancient Edessa - in Eastern Turkey) since 1995, has uncovered monumental stone circles that he dates confidently to 10000 to 8000 BC. The purpose of these monumental structures remain a mystery; one suggestion, based on the absence of residential buildings and the presence of tens of thousands of animal bones, is that Göbelki Tepe was "a religion-specific site—a place of animal sacrifice and ritual, not of domestic or agricultural activity."2 The city of Jericho, for example, already occupied a settled area of some six acres and was fortified by a wall with massive round towers made of stone by 7000 BC. Astronomical and geological studies also demonstrate the age of the earth to be much much older.
Bishop Ussher was wrong because his assumptions, given the state of biblical studies then, were false. But many Christians continue to affirm the good Bishop's date. Why? One of the most sophisticated theories put forward to explain why the Earth is only a few thousands years old comes from Drs Larry Vardiman and D. Russell Humphreys and first published in 2011 the fiat creationist magazine Acts & Facts.
Cosmologists tell us that the light from some of the furthest stars we can see in the night sky has taken billions of years to get to reach us on Earth. How to square such findings with an Earth that is just a few thousand years old? Vardiman and Humphreys begins by making a distinction between what they call 'cosmic time' (the time computable by astronomers through such principles as speed of light, red shift, etc, i.e., billion of years) from 'Earth time' (how it is perceived on Earth). While it has actually taken the light from the distant stars billions of years, God had caused, they say, the "earth-time scale [to be] compressed compared to the cosmic-time scale and has periods of timelessness in it."3. As a result, 'earth-time' effectively stayed put at 4000 years even though 'cosmic time' had already run into the billions. Vardiman and Humphreys could even cite biblical support for their theory: Psm 18:9 asserts that "He [i.e., God] had bowed the heavens also" (emphasis from the article). This is repeated in 2 Sam 22:10, which they take to be "quite important." What amazes me about the three-part article is not that the authors were so clever, but the great lengths they would go in order not to admit the plain facts staring them in the face.4
Resources:
☰ W. H. Green, "Primeval Chronology," Bibliotheca Sacra 47 (1890): 285-303. Reprinted from Robert Newman & Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr., Genesis One & the Origin of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977): 105-123.
☰ Mark A. Snoeberger, "Why a Commitment to Inerrancy Does Not Demand a Strictly 6000-Year-Old Earth: One Young Earther’s Plea for Realism," Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 18 (Fall 2013): 3-17.
☰ Robert S. White, "The Age of the Earth," Faraday Paper No 8 (Apr 2007). 4pp. pdf
Mark A. Snoeberger, "Why a Commitment to Inerrancy Does Not Demand a Strictly 6000-Year-Old Earth: One Young Earther's Plea for Realism," Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 18 (2013): .
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Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2016