Where does the Bible say how old the earth is?

Answer 1

If The Bible did give us the age of the earth in thousands of years like this, it would of course be completely wrong. As it is, only the time that humans and other living creatures have been on earth is wrong, because there is no literal information in the Bible about the age of the earth.

Answer 2

Physically here:

Luke 3:23New King James Version (NKJV)

The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

23 Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli,

Answer 3

1) The universe was created by God, from nothing (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Rashi commentary to Genesis 1:14; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30; Nachmanides on Gen. 1:1). 2) The answer can be derived from two sources. One is by calculation, via such chapters as Genesis ch.5, ch.11, Exodus 6, etc.

The other source is by direct tradition, which was handed down through the generations alongside the text. Israelite tradition states that God created the universe in 3760 BCE.

See also:

Is there evidence for recent Creation?

Can you show that God exists?

Seeing God's wisdom

Answer 4

There are two creation stories in Genesis, the first at Genesis 1:1-2:4a and the second at Genesis 2:4b-25, but neither of them literally provides an age for the earth. The second story continues through the descendants of Adam and Eve, such that theologians realised they could tally up the succeeding generations and arrive at a good estimate of the biblical time since Adam was created. Bishop Ussher's estimate is most well-known and he estimated creation at 4004 BCE, but this is not based on any one verse or episode, but from studying almost the entire Old Testament.

Because it is generally assumed that the biblical story begins with the creation of the world - "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" - this then leads to the assumption that if the Bible is literally true, the world was also created around 4004 BCE. But as long ago as the eleventh century CE, the influential Jewish scholar, Rashi, said that Genesis 1:1 should be read, "When God began to create" or "In the beginning of God's creation ". E.A. Speiser (Genesis in the Anchor Bibleseries) goes further and translates the sentence as: "When God set about to create heaven and earth - the world being a formless waste, with darkness over the seas... God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4) says there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together. In any case, the first creation story should be read independently of the second creation story.