I have a rather simple question to ask, and feel sort of silly asking it. I always hear YEC believe the earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. How exactly do they come up with this number?
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YEC dates
- Thread starter Mandevar
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Prince Lucianus
Old Goth
Genealogies which are written in the bible.
They go back to Adam and most people have their age documented as well.
Somewhere in the 18th century (give or take a century) someone calculated the exact date the world was created using the complete family tree.
Lucy
They go back to Adam and most people have their age documented as well.
Somewhere in the 18th century (give or take a century) someone calculated the exact date the world was created using the complete family tree.
Lucy
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The 6000 or so years comes from adding up the genealogies. However, some YECs go further by interpreting the "days" in Genesis as 1000 years each. This is because of some other verse--Peter something-or-other I believe--in which it talks about a day being a thousand years to God and vise-versa. This is where you get some YECs claiming 12000 years.
And still other YECs interpret things a little different. I've seen oddball ages, like 20000 years, suggested.
Since it all comes down to a Biblical interpretation, there's no real consensus. And there's no way to independently verify the ages, either.
And still other YECs interpret things a little different. I've seen oddball ages, like 20000 years, suggested.
Since it all comes down to a Biblical interpretation, there's no real consensus. And there's no way to independently verify the ages, either.
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I just read a really cool book on the subject that not only talked about Ussher's methodology, but also about his predecessors and the cultural forces that made his work important in his time. It goes on from there to discuss later dating schemes and finally how modern dates for the Earth and the universe were made. Unfortunately, I just moved and cannot seem to lay my hands upon it much to my grumpiness. 
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The young earth notion was started in the 1650s (AD). James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh added together the "ages" of people in biblical geneologies. His methodology and estimate has become treated like it was scriptural- which it is not.
There are two or three critical features that are ignored by the geneological method. First, the geneologies themselves are structured in highly stylized and formal ways and are neither presented or attested to be complete. The formalism is the same as that used in the Babylonian Kings Lists that were popular at about when the early parts of the Bible (the Torah) were written. Second, the ancient use of number was not at all the same as as modern usage. This takes two forms- the literal difference was the shifts in counting bases. The early Sumerian and Babylonian counting systems used a varity of bases- not just the base 10 system nearly universally employed today. The most common mesopotamian counting system used in ancient times was base 6, and base 60. We still use it! This is why the hour is 60 minutes made of sixty seconds, and the circle is arbitrarily devided into 360 degrees (6X60) which are devided into 60 minutes of 60 seconds. The circle was used by ancicent astrologers to calculate various "holy" days.
The late Babylonians (and the Asserians, Hittites etc...) also used a base 10 system for economic transactions- mainly measuring the amount of labor that was taken as a tax. This resulted in the (then) popular 10 day week and 10 month year. This 10 day week was replaced between 4 and 5 thousand years ago by the 7 day week invented by the Egyptians. The Egyptian astrologer priests assigned a god to each "planet" visable by the naked eye. These "planets" included the Sun and the Moon which we know now are not planets at all (or gods).
The names of the weekdays still reflect this association of gods=planets=days. And the names of the months still reflect the 10 month year. December means "tenth Month" and "October" is the "eighth month" for example. The rest of the month names are based on various gods which were belived to be particularly powerful durring those time spans, Mars in March, Juno in June, Augustus after he was deified, etc...
This association of geneology with astrology and various gods scattered about leads to the next reason that biblical geneologies are not reliable sources for the age of the Earth- their function was to "fix" the position of various patriarchs relative to the differing covenants between Yahweh and the Jews. It is when there was a significant new covenant that we see a spate of geneologies. These covenants being; Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, and Yeshua. Short geneological lists generally less stylized and usually lacking associated numberings of as few as 2 or 3 "generations," were sometimes used to relate individuals (particularly Priestly sources) to Moses or David, or tribes/nations for tax purposes. In those examples the geneology might just as well reflect the result of a legal procedure as any real descent along biological lineages. (The same can be said for the formalized geneologies as well).
It is interesting also to compare the "ages" of various individuals in the biblical geneologies and the Babylonian king lists. The shift from huge "ages" to more or less normal life spans in both types of texts matches quite well with the change from base 6 to base 10 counting systems and the elimination of an esoteric, or secret religious numbering system. Alternately, the nearer the "generation" was to the time that the list was formalized the more realistic the "ages" became.
There are two or three critical features that are ignored by the geneological method. First, the geneologies themselves are structured in highly stylized and formal ways and are neither presented or attested to be complete. The formalism is the same as that used in the Babylonian Kings Lists that were popular at about when the early parts of the Bible (the Torah) were written. Second, the ancient use of number was not at all the same as as modern usage. This takes two forms- the literal difference was the shifts in counting bases. The early Sumerian and Babylonian counting systems used a varity of bases- not just the base 10 system nearly universally employed today. The most common mesopotamian counting system used in ancient times was base 6, and base 60. We still use it! This is why the hour is 60 minutes made of sixty seconds, and the circle is arbitrarily devided into 360 degrees (6X60) which are devided into 60 minutes of 60 seconds. The circle was used by ancicent astrologers to calculate various "holy" days.
The late Babylonians (and the Asserians, Hittites etc...) also used a base 10 system for economic transactions- mainly measuring the amount of labor that was taken as a tax. This resulted in the (then) popular 10 day week and 10 month year. This 10 day week was replaced between 4 and 5 thousand years ago by the 7 day week invented by the Egyptians. The Egyptian astrologer priests assigned a god to each "planet" visable by the naked eye. These "planets" included the Sun and the Moon which we know now are not planets at all (or gods).
The names of the weekdays still reflect this association of gods=planets=days. And the names of the months still reflect the 10 month year. December means "tenth Month" and "October" is the "eighth month" for example. The rest of the month names are based on various gods which were belived to be particularly powerful durring those time spans, Mars in March, Juno in June, Augustus after he was deified, etc...
This association of geneology with astrology and various gods scattered about leads to the next reason that biblical geneologies are not reliable sources for the age of the Earth- their function was to "fix" the position of various patriarchs relative to the differing covenants between Yahweh and the Jews. It is when there was a significant new covenant that we see a spate of geneologies. These covenants being; Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, and Yeshua. Short geneological lists generally less stylized and usually lacking associated numberings of as few as 2 or 3 "generations," were sometimes used to relate individuals (particularly Priestly sources) to Moses or David, or tribes/nations for tax purposes. In those examples the geneology might just as well reflect the result of a legal procedure as any real descent along biological lineages. (The same can be said for the formalized geneologies as well).
It is interesting also to compare the "ages" of various individuals in the biblical geneologies and the Babylonian king lists. The shift from huge "ages" to more or less normal life spans in both types of texts matches quite well with the change from base 6 to base 10 counting systems and the elimination of an esoteric, or secret religious numbering system. Alternately, the nearer the "generation" was to the time that the list was formalized the more realistic the "ages" became.
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madarab said:I just read a really cool book on the subject that not only talked about Ussher's methodology, but also about his predecessors and the cultural forces that made his work important in his time. It goes on from there to discuss later dating schemes and finally how modern dates for the Earth and the universe were made. Unfortunately, I just moved and cannot seem to lay my hands upon it much to my grumpiness.
You might be referring to
Dalrymple, G. Brent,
1991 The Age of the Earth Stanford University Press
If you are not, you should check it out. It is a really excellent presentation of the evidence used to determine the age of the Earth and Solar Syatem.
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Split Rock
Conflation of Blathers
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Dr.GH again.Dr.GH said:
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