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Feedback 2012
How precise is the Bible about the date of creation?
Published: 15 January 2012(GMT+10)
TFE Graphics
Ussher’s historical work was a great achievement. However, the Bible doesn’t
provide a to-the-year precision for the date of creation.
These feedback emails talk about the age of the creation according to the Bible
(and ‘science’). Can we discern from the Bible the exact year or day
for the date of creation? CMI’s Lita
Cosner replies.
Dear Hayden,
Dear CMI,
Thank you so much for your fantastic, solid resources that have given me a much
greater ability and passion to defend God’s word.
Thanks for these comments; they’re very encouraging to us.
I have a couple of questions that I have been wondering about for a while.
Clearly the Bible describes a timeline of the world that extends approximately 6000
years back. I know that some creationist groups and Christian publications give
the creation an exact date of 4004 BC (based on Ussher’s
chronologies?). Does The Bible provide such precision? If so, why then is CMI reluctant
to use this date, instead saying the world is ‘around’ 6000 years old?
We think that Ussher’s chronology is top-quality research using the finest
historical resources of his day (some of which have since been lost, making his
work that much more important). We’ve written defending Ussher against slander
by compromising ‘progressive creationist’ Hugh Ross. (See
Archbishop James Ussher—blundered or brilliant?)
That being said, we don’t think that the Bible allows for to-the-year accuracy
regarding the date of creation. This is because the Bible tells us that Adam was
930 when he died, but depending on how age was reckoned, Adam’s precise age
could been quite some months different from exactly ‘930 years’.
E.g. today on official documents in Western countries, citizens are frequently required
to indicate their age in years as being that achieved at their last birthday, even
if it was 11 months ago. The same goes for all other ages and date measurements
in Scripture. This does not allow for long gaps; notice that it is only months that
are uncertain, not long periods of time. Whether the creation year was 4004 BC or 4050 BC does not
really affect any of our arguments.
We don’t think that the Bible allows for to-the-year accuracy regarding the
date of creation.
Notice that when to-the-day accuracy was important, the Bible was more than capable
of providing that record, for instance, in the Flood account we have the exact day
when it started, when the rains stopped, when the Ark first rested on the mountain,
and the day they disembarked (Genesis 7). The year is given as the 600th year
of Noah’s life, so since we don’t know what exact date that was, we
can’t know exactly which year the Flood events took place, but we can know
how long they took to occur.
Surely this would contradict your views of upholding the Word of God as inerrant
and accurate. On the other hand, if The Bible does not give us an exact year, how
was this date first arrived at, and why do some Christians still hold this idea
so tightly?
This does not affect the inerrancy of the Bible because the Bible is exactly as
accurate as it intended to be—and when we’re talking on the scale of
thousands of years, a chronology that allows us to arrive probably within decades
of the creation year is incredibly accurate. Similarly, some people accuse the Bible
of giving an incorrect figure for pi, but again, it’s a matter of where one
chooses to round off (see
Does the Bible say pi equals 3.0?).
Some Christians may hold to the 4004 BC date “so
tightly”, but we don’t, so we really can’t comment as to their
motives. Perhaps they think that a specific date for creation helps to prove the
Bible more than a range of dates. However, in general
we do endorse Ussher’s timeline. It’s notable that many scholars
calculated a creation date very similar to Ussher’s based on the biblical
data, so there is definitely a constraint on the range of allowable dates (see Old-earth or young-earth
belief: Which belief is the recent aberration?)
Also, for an organisation which claims to defend the word of God as inspired and
trustworthy (which you do a fantastic job at), why do you not promote the various
other proofs within the biblical text that prove its supernatural origin? They are
commonly referred to as Microcodes, and include the Equidistant Letter Sequences,
the messages within genealogies, and the astonishing underlying grammatical heptatic
structures.
Simply put, we’re not certain that these Bible codes are valid (What
about the ‘Bible Codes’?). Also, we think that even if they
were codes, they would require the text to survive without any copying errors whatsoever.
We know this is not the case. Plus ancient scholars and commentators don’t
record any awareness of such codes, so this would imply that God put things in Scripture
that His people for most of history couldn’t benefit from, until people with
sophisticated computer programs came along. Also, belief in such Bible codes can
lead one to look for hidden messages in Scripture (like Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination)
and these can sometimes even overshadow the plain message in Scripture.
As a ministry that is dedicated to promoting the authority and the importance of
the Bible’s plain interpretation, I hope you can see the problems
we would have with encouraging the use of Bible codes. (See
Hidden messages in Scripture?).
Obviously there are a lot of fakes out there, but the genuine ones, often promoted
by commentators, are incredible, and really confirm that an intelligence beyond
the human authors is responsible for The Bible.
You can find commentators to promote about any view you want, so that argument really
doesn’t convince me. And there are many aspects of the Bible that confirm
its divine origin without appealing to Bible codes.
Obviously this is outside the scope of scientific creation research, but surely
such supernatural confirmations of the authenticity of The Bible should be a major
part of promoting the authority of The Bible?
I don’t mean to be flippant, but if someone isn’t convinced that the
Bible is divinely inspired from its message, they won’t be convinced by a
Bible code. The Bible codes are interesting, but many times Bible code enthusiasts
promote the codes almost at the expense of the plain meaning. That we can find phrases
‘encoded’ in the text doesn’t necessarily mean that the text was
written with the intention of placing codes in there to start with. With any language,
which is in itself a code, it’s easy to find what one wants to look for.
Even if the Bible codes were authentic in our view, they wouldn’t be a major
focus of our ministry because again, we promote the plain interpretation
of Scripture. And once you have to introduce a whole decoding mechanism, you’re
not engaging in plain interpretation.
Thanks again for all the amazing work you do-you are a great encouragement.
Thanks for your kind comments.
Thanks,
Hayden F.
Sincerely,
Lita Cosner
Jacqueline P. from Australia writes:
Dear Sir,
I think evolution magnifies God. A seven day creation does not. The universe started
14–15 billion years ago. The flat earth thinkers today have no credit, thank
goodness. However, I go along with Adventist thinkers regarding much of what I believe,
including the seventh day sabbath.
Adam came after the sixth day, and after the seventh day of rest. Maybe about seven
thousand years ago (?) Why? Because he became “a son of God” and started
the line of God’s chosen people. Since Christ came to die for the world, everyone
can choose turn to God and accept salvation and eternal life.
[Web references removed as per our Feedback rules—Ed.]
CMI’s Lita Cosner and
Jonathan Sarfati reply:
Dear Jacqueline,
Evolutionists don’t think a loving God is presented by a cruel, wasteful process
involving death of billions of unfit creatures
Thanks for writing in. However, there is not much for me to respond to, as you have
only made assertions, not arguments. You don’t say how a billions-of-years
old creation would glorify God, much less how you would get around
the problem of death before the Fall. We also note that evolutionists don’t
think a loving God is presented by a cruel, wasteful process involving death of
billions of unfit creatures (see
here for some examples). You apparently have little idea about what evolutionists
teach.
You also don’t say how God is glorified when we ignore what He said He did
in Genesis, preferring the fallible theories of God-haters.
If Adam was created after Creation Week, what happens to the Sabbath command you
claim to believe in? This was based on the fact that God made everything in Creation
Week (Exodus 20:8–11). Furthermore, who were the male and
female humans created in God’s image on Day 6 (Genesis 1:26–28)? If we didn’t come from them,
then how could we be made in God’s image? Jesus, unlike you, equates them
to Adam and Eve (Matthew 19:3–6 and Mark 10:6–9 cite Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as the same man and woman).
You fail to reason from Scripture, and since we come from such different starting
points, further discussion is unlikely to be productive. But if you do wish to continue,
perhaps answer this:
Some questions for theistic evolutionists.
By the way,
the leader of the Flat Earth Society believes in evolution, so evidently
he has more in common with you than with us! The article states:
“The Flat Earth Society is an active organization currently led by a Virginian
man named Daniel Shenton. Though Shenton believes in evolution and global warming,
he and his hundreds, if not thousands, of followers worldwide also believe that
the Earth is a disc that you can fall off of.”
Sincerely,
Lita Cosner and Jonathan Sarfati
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