How old is the Earth? We all know it's pretty old, surely older than your Ancestors. But just how old is Our little planet? This is quite difficult to figure out since the Earth doesn't have a birth Certificate to record its formation. Scientist, Bible and Non Bible scholars and philosophers has most times gone to the extreme to determine the age of our dear planet.
While several Christian Ministries promote the idea that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old( a figure which is ridiculously small to geologists and scientist alike), they often make the claim that it was calculated from the Bible. While according to science, the Earth is generally believed to be 4.5 billion years old, plus or minus 100 million years due to error. The gap between the two Hypothetical ages ( 10,000 vs 4.5bn) is quite immense We are going to have a little history on how the two basic calculations came about and you may need to chose which is more reasonable.
ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE
The Bible, which is all coherent, all containing, most supreme and the Ultimate Book in the world has most times given guide on how to view the Earth. In Ancient times when people viewed the Earth as a "flat planet", the Bible stated in Job that it is round.
But the problem is that the Bible never stated the at any given point the age of the Earth. Some scholars developed some formula by calculating the ages of people using Chronological Dating. The calculation is quite simple. We simply take away the first five(5) days of creation( from Earth's creation to Adam) which is from day 1 to day 5. Then from Adam to Abraham ( in Genesis 5-11), thereafter we add up the years from Abraham era till date. If we add up the dates from Adam till Abraham, we arrive at 2000years. According to scholars who used the " Masoretic Hebrew" text, most of them agreed that Abraham lived about 2000 BC, which is 4000 years ago.
so the simple calculation is:
5 days
+ ~2,000 years
+ ~4,000 years
__________________
~6,000 years
__________________
It's quite simple right?? Don't think so. The real issue is how old is " one day" during creation? These particular days are our major concern " Day 3 and Day 6". On third day, God created plants, according to Genesis1:11, the bible says " Then God said let the Earth " sprout" vegetation, plants yielding "seed", and trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the Earth"
Two key words " sprout" and "seed" may require us to reconsider how we define " Day 3". The plants may have been created in a different manner than we think. God actually said seeds, and the word " sprouts" means the seed had to germinate. If that is the case, a day could had been several years to make up vegetation. Yes, God is Omnipotent and Omniscience and He can definitely speed up time, but was there any need for Him to do so? I don't think God was in a hurry during creation.
Day 6 is another issue, and a very busy day. According to the Bible, God created the Animals and He also created Adam. Adam was charged with maintaining the Garden of Eden and "Naming" the animals. But lets be realistic, how many days would it take Adam to name thousands of Animals? certainly not a day. Even Adam's response (when he saw Eve) was " at last", this suggested that Adam had lived lonely for quite a long time. The bible mentioned that Adam died about 800 years, but did his age count from his creation or after he was chased out of the Garden of Eden? God originally designed Adam to be " perfect" and " Immortal", so were the years counted during his " Immortality period" or " mortality period"? And don't forget, According to the Bible, " A day in God's Eyes is a thousand years to a man's view".. Talk about Time relativity.
Judging by that, we may agree that 6 days of creation to God could have been 6,000 years to Man. Who knows??
ACCORDING TO SCIENCE
The age of the Earth has been measured with different techniques, but the most accurate of them all is " carbon-Dating". According to science, the earth is 4.5billion years old. By using the oldest rock in Australia to measure the earth's age through radioactive decay of the rock, scientist has arrived on this conclusion that the Earth is 4.5bn years old, give or take 100million years due to error. But this is complicated due to plate tectonics that is ever changing and Evolving. Other Mineral that may concur to this theory is "Zicron" which is the one of the hardest minerals on Earth and must have survived all geologic events through geologic time.
Our closest neighbour, the moon has also helped to verify this belief since the moon is generally believed to be of some age with the Earth. The moon has been dated to be 4.4billion years, these samples were gotten from the " Apollo and Luna" space missions when being launched to the moon.
Another compelling evidence is the samples gotten from smaller rocky visitor that fell to Earth, the Meteorites. This Meteorites has been dated to be 4.53 billion years old and the list just keeps up piling.It may also interest you to know that the Universe has been dated to be 13.8 billion years old and our Milky Way Galaxy is 13.2 billion years old.
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| Meteorite hitting Earth |
Just for clarification, the two opposing theories does not in anyway diminish God's standing on creation, it only Magnifies our Creator on How long He has been in Existence.
So a question for you, which do you believe, science or Creationism?
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