The Bible and the Age of the Earth

The Bible was not meant to be a science book, a geography book, or a math book. Yet, since God is the Author, when it refers to science, geography, or math, it is absolutely true. It has no mistakes or blunders like books written by humans. One of the amazing aspects of the Bible is the way it gives us the outline of human history with a general timeframe for when things happened. In doing so, it reveals the approximate age of the Earth.

Evolutionists say that the Earth is billions of years old. But that is not true. The Bible clearly teaches that the Earth has only been here a few thousand years. In Genesis 1 the word "day" is used several times to refer to an ordinary, 24-hour day. Each has an "evening and morning" just like days today. The words "year" and "night" are also used in their ordinary sense (vs. 14). Moses and the Israelites understood that the days of the Creation week were regular days, since God said to them: "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day" (Exodus 20:11). The Israelites worked six days of every week (Sunday to Friday), and then did not work on Saturday. So they understood that the entire Universe was created in six literal days.

If evolutionists are correct, the Earth was here billions of years before humans. But Jesus disagreed. He said: "[F]rom the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female'" (Mark 10:6), which means that Adam and Eve were created very near the beginning of Creation. Matthew's wording of Jesus' comment is that God made the first human beings "at the beginning" (Matthew 19:4).

Jesus also said that the blood of righteous people has been shed "from the foundation of the world" (Luke 11:50). But what righteous person was on Earth near the beginning of the world that was killed? Jesus named Abel (vs. 51)—the son of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:2). Paul agreed with Jesus. In Romans 1:20, he said human beings have "clearly seen" and "understood" who God is "since the creation of the world." So the Earth is only five days older than man—and even evolutionists would admit that man has not been on Earth for billions of years. The Bible is right!

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