In our world today, almost everyone is taught that the universe and the earth are billions of years old.  The Big Bang Theory puts the origin of the universe at 15 to 20 billion years.  Matter was originally compressed into a singularity – a small dot!  From this explosion (or rapid expansion), all the stars planets and other celestial bodies evolved.  About 4 ½ billion years ago the earth and the solar system evolved.  About one billion years ago, life somehow originated on earth in a primordial ocean and through time and chance evolved from molecules to man.  The alternative is that “God created the heavens and the earth” about 6,000 years ago.  If you believe the latter, I guarantee you will be mocked.  But keep in mind, “…God has made foolish the wisdom of this world” (1 Cor 1:20).

Everyone then either believes that somehow matter created itself or eternally existed and evolved over billions of years or they believe the Bible and that the universe was created by God.  Science requires evidence that is observable, testable and repeatable.  Therefore the origin of the universe is not science, it is a belief system.  Christians know this.  “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb 11:3).  The honest evolutionist knows this too:

“Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.”

– (evolutionist) D.M.S. Watson, Nature

It boils down to whether our authority for truth is the Word of God (the Bible) or the word of man (his theories).  Attempts have been made to combine the Bible and the theory of evolution or to make the Bible accommodate millions and billions of years.  As discussed in previous blogs, this is biblically untenable.

God is very clear in His revelation to man concerning the age of the universe and earth.  Adam and Eve were the first humans created on the sixth day of creation (Genesis 1:27-31).  Jesus confirmed this when He said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’…” (Matthew 19:4).  Again, when we believe the Bible, we read of our early earthly ancestors living a very long time and having children when they were over one hundred years old.  Adam had a son named Seth when he was 130 and Seth had a son named Enos when he was 105 (Genesis 5:3-6).  We can follow chapter 5 of Genesis down seven more generations to the birth of Noah, 1056 years after the Creation of Adam.  Noah was 600 years old when the great flood of his day occurred (Genesis 7:11) and his son Shem had a son named Arphaxad 2 years after the flood (Genesis 11:10).  If we follow chapter 11 of Genesis down eight more generations, we reach Abraham, or Abram as he was called at the time.  Abram’s father Terah sired several sons starting when he was 70 years old.  However, Abram was not the oldest because he wasn’t born until Terah was 130.  We know this  because Terah died at age 205 when Abraham was 75 years old (Genesis 11:32-12:4, Acts 7:4).  This gives us 352 years from the flood to Abram’s birth.  All scholars place Abram’s (Abraham’s) birth around 2000 BC.

In summary, this brings us to a total of about 6,000 years for the age of the earth (1656 years from Adam (Creation) to Noah’s Flood, 352 years from the Flood to Abraham’s birth, and about 4000 years from Abraham’s birth to today). Although, the Bible is clear on this, people question it because of archaeological finds and radiocarbon dating.  We must keep in mind that archaeology is not an exact science and there are unverifiable assumptions made with radiocarbon dating (a subject for another blog).  It is still very reasonable that ancient civilizations were established after the flood in the 23rd century BC.  If we stand on the Word of God as our ultimate authority for truth, we accept the fact that the universe and world history started about 6,000 years ago.