Not Another 6000 Year Thread! (genesis, Islam, Jerusalem, Baptist)

[GCSTroop]

This just kind of hit me out of nowhere. I don't think this will turn into a very long thread, but I have a question for a 6000 year literalist...

From what I understand, the premise of the 6000 year theory is to count up all the names and ages of the people, add them together, and then come to Jesus' time where we continue on. Is that a safe assumption to make? So, really, before Christ we are talking about the Earth being only 4000 years old.
What I'm getting at is this: Does the Bible say at which age Noah, Adam, Eve, etc.. had their children? It's my understanding that the people like Noah in the Old Testament lived for hundreds of years, but does it say anything about when his kids were born? For example, if Noah lived for 900 years and had his kids at the standard age of 30 than that would mean you could only count 30 years in your math, right? You can't count 900 PLUS 900. So, how old were the "old" people in the Bible when they had kids? I honestly don't know the answer, I just never recall having heard that. But, if you are assuming that Noah is procreating in his 400's than that means his kids were 400 when he died, right? So, I'm just asking how does this add up with the "4000 year age before Christ" theory?

[MontanaGuy]

Good question. I've never heard a good explanation but a few have even come up with the exact year the world was created by using their own calculations. I guess they've looked at Genesis and broken out a calculator when it starts talking about this person begat that person who begat so and so. There's alot of begating in Genesis.

[Padgett2]

They never mention how long the women lived. Can you imagine having pregnancies for a couple hundred years? Or if they only lived only what we consider a normal life span, did the old codgers get new fertile ones? A 400 year old man could father a lot of children. No wonder they needed a flood to thin out the populance.

[HGONZ001]

This is very funny....none of the Christians are jumping to this thread to try to proof this wrong.......maybe because the Book of Fiction is full of lies!!?? Vampires presumably live for ever, or at least, for hundreds of years. Maybe Noah and his family were vampires!

[spike1611]

In response to HGONZ001...

Oh, please.

Christians (like me) aren't jumping to debate this because we know how to pick our battles. Some are useless to fight, and some just aren't that...interesting. Furthermore, what's the use of arguing?

Sheesh.

[GCSTroop]

I'm not trying to start a fight. That's why I said I expected the thread to be short. I'm just curious, it makes no mention of when so and so "begat" so and so, as far as I know. So, how can we add all those ages up and come to a determination if we don't know the age at which the parents begat a child?

My mom was 27 when she begat me, and now she is 52, but that does not mean that because she begat me you add 27 AND 52 to come up with my certain age. I'm just curious as to how they figured that out if there was no mention as to the begatting age

[irishmom]

Metaphor, metaphor, metaphor. Genesis was never meant to be taken literally, and personally I do not understand how anyone can do so with all the evidence of the earth being much older than 6000 years. Also how many 900 year old men have there ever been in history? The human body is not designed to last that long...and geesh would you want to be the wife of a 900year old man...talk about scary!

[jeffncandace]

Originally Posted by GCSTroop

I'm not trying to start a fight. That's why I said I expected the thread to be short. I'm just curious, it makes no mention of when so and so "begat" so and so, as far as I know. So, how can we add all those ages up and come to a determination if we don't know the age at which the parents begat a child?

My mom was 27 when she begat me, and now she is 52, but that does not mean that because she begat me you add 27 AND 52 to come up with my certain age. I'm just curious as to how they figured that out if there was no mention as to the begatting age

Well maybe I'm missing something...but then again I'm not a young earth creationist. I am a Christian however, and it seems to me you make a valid point.

[mams1559]

I'm not jumping to defend because I was away and indisposed. Now I'm back and I have an answer (I hope) for you.

First I'd like to say 6,000 is not just a nice round number some YEC's like to use. And BTW, some YEC's are not dogmatic about the number 6,000 as some will say ~6,000 to 10,000. And for a more accurate depiction, it should be stated as ~6000 yrs old, but I am guiltly of dropping the approximate part.

Now, getting to where the ages add up. The geneologies in Genesis are what are counted up to give us a relative age of the earth. Archbishop James Ussher is the one credited with dating creation to 4004 BC. I got the following table from AiG. I don't think you guys should have a problem with this as it is a "Biblical" question of how creationists arrive at an ~6,000 year old earth. The full article is here: Appendix B-The Forgotten Archbishop

"Answer: He (Ussher) took the chronologies in Genesis 5 and 11, together with some other Bible passages which we will look at. To simplify the calculations, we will tie the chronology to the fall of Jerusalem in 588 BC. The detailed calculations cover over 100 pages in the original document! From Genesis 5 we get the following:

First Genealogy-Genesis 5

Verse Event Age of the Earth

1:1-31 Creation = 0
5:3 Seth born when Adam, 130 = 130
5:6 Enos born when Seth, 105 = 235
5:9 Cainan born when Enos, 90 = 325
5:12 Mahalaleel born when Cainan, 70 = 395
5:15 Jared born when Mahalaleel, 65 = 460
5:18 Enoch born when Jared, 162 = 622
5:21 Methuselah born when Enoch, 65 = 687
5:25 Lamech born when Methuselah, 187 = 874
5:28 Noah born when Lamech, 182 = 1056
11:10 Shem born when Noah, 502 = 1558
7:6 Flood when Noah, 600 = 1656

From Genesis 11 we get:

11:10 Arphaxad born when Shem, 100 = 1658
11:12 Salah born when Arphad, 35 = 1693
11:14 Eber born when Salah, 30 = 1723
11:16 Peleg born when Eber, 34 = 1757
11:18 Reu born when Peleg, 30 = 1787
11:20 Serug born when Reu, 32 = 1819
11:22 Nahor born when Serug, 30 = 1849
11:24 Terah born when Nahor, 29 = 1878
11:32, 12:4 Abraham born when Terah, 130 = 2008
12:4 Abraham enters Canaan, 75 = 2083

In the Bible there are some large time periods given. These enable us to do the same calculations as Ussher, without going into all the intermediate details as he did.

Golden Arches of Time

Abraham left Haran until the Exodus exactly 430 years to the day.
-( Ge 12:10, Ex 12:40, Gal 3:17) = 2513

Exodus to start of Temple, 479 years
-( 1 Ki 6:1, in the 480th year or after 479 years) = 2992

Start of Temple to division of the Kingdom, 37
-( Solomon reigned 40 years, 1Ki 11:42, temple started in his 4th year) = 3029

Division of the Kingdom to final deportation about four years after Jerusalem fell,
390 whole years plus part of one year
(Eze 4:4-6) = 3421

Final deportation in 584 BC

Hence date creation = 584 + 3421-1 = 4004 BC

Now you have a rough idea of how Ussher did his calculations."



Edit- The graph is not coming out lined up properly. I would say go to the link to read the article on how creationists arrive at an ~6,000 yr old earth.

[HGONZ001]

Originally Posted by spike1611

In response to HGONZ001...

Oh, please.

Christians (like me) aren't jumping to debate this because we know how to pick our battles. Some are useless to fight, and some just aren't that...interesting. Furthermore, what's the use of arguing?

Sheesh.

Catholics like me gave up on the idea that the Earth was only 6000 years old. We also gave up on picking up our wars, they were called the Crusades...and we lost the Holy Land and destroyed the Byzantium Empire because of it. So we leave the rest of the infedels, Protestant Christians included, to fight our battles. Thanks P. Bush for sending your Baptist Crusaders to fight our old enemies in the Middle East. Don't forget that we lost the battle 1000 years ago and that ended in the decline of Christiandom in Europe, the rise of Islam in the Middle East and 700 years of their rule in Spain....a lesson to learn.