So how old is the earth? How long has man been on it? Why do some say Jesus was born 4000 years after Adam?

Using the Bible as our only source as much as possible, I tried to trace a time line of the earth's history, from Adam to today. Here's the results;

We'll see that Jesus was born no earlier than 3,930 years after Adam was created, and probably no more than about 4031 years, or within about a decade or two of 4000 years.

1. Patriarchical Dating

First lets look at the partriarchs. The Bible tells us Seth was born when Adam was 130 years, but it doesn't tell us whether it was 130 years, 1 month, or 130 years, 11 months, etc. Also, maybe the writers of the Bible were rounding; maybe it was 129 years, 10 months. Nobody does that in our modern society, but it is a possibility. The Bible is accurate to the degree of significant digits it reports, but some degree of rounding is needed for brevity, and this rounding off eaves some holes in our ability to construct a timeline. So we see, there could have been up to a year's worth of rounding accuracy lost in the Biblical records as we try to piece this together. So for each partriarch whose age we try to trace, we lost as much as a year's worth of ability to trace the age of the earth. Another problem is we don't know how age is being imputed to some degree. For example, when someone is born are they considered 0 years old at that moment or 9 months old? Some societies celebrate a person's first birthday 3 months after they are born.

To remind us of the possibility of how rounding error could be affecting our calculations, a +/-1 is added to each year count so this is not lost sight of.

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When Abraham was 75 in Gen 12:4, God gave him a promise and he went to Egypt. This would have been no earlier than 2008 years after Adam, maybe later, depending on how much truncation error has accumulated and how far after Terah's 130th birthday Abraham was born. We have rounding error from 19 patriarchs, which probably averages out to about 5-6 months each or about 9 years total. So the most probably date would be about 2008+9 = 2017 plus some lag time between Terah and when Abraham was born. We'll represent the amount of time between Terah's 70th birthday and when Abraham was born as ?A?, where A is a number probably a short period of time and definitely less than about 60 years.

When it comes to dating Patriarchs, some have tried to argue that maybe the time period was longer than I've calculated on the basis that it sometimes skips generations or the geneology isn't completely accurate or some other silly reason. Often people have come to wrong conclusions about that ignoring the fact that on some occasions, people were named after their grandfather, confusing readers who think each individual had a distinct name. I've just taken the Genesis accounts at face value and tried not to read anything special into it or make any human "corrections" or anything of such a nature.

The 430 Years

Galatians 3:17 gives us a chance to fast forward 430 years almost EXACTLY without losing any more accuracy to the day when God gave the Law to Moses at Mt Sinai and Moses was 80 years old in Exodus chapter 20. Josephus says it was 430 years EXACTLY, being 215 years TO THE DAY from Abrahams departure until the Jews became slaves, and 215 years TO THE DAY from the time they became slaves until they left Egypt.

Some have attempted to say there were 400 years from some post-Joseph period until the Exodus based on Gen 15:13, which says Isael would be slaves for 400, but this seems to disagrees with Galatians 3:17, Josephus, and other Scriptures. Also, Exodus 12:40 reads differently in different translations. The Masoret Torah says, "the length of time the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years". But the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Torah, and the Septuagint read, "the length of time the Israelites lived in Egypt and Canaan was 430 years." So the Masoret text does not include the time spent in Canaan but most other texts do. Galatians 3:17 seems to agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls, Samaritan Torah, and Septuagint over the Masoret reading.

Also, if we trace geneology from Abraham to Moses, which is also given, it only fits about a 430 year time frame from Gen 12 to Exodus 20. The geneology is given all the way down to Moses and just doesn't see to allow for enough time for Israel to have been enslaved for 400 years under the Egyptians during this time period (click here to get more detail on that issue).

The "400 years" God spoke of in Gen 15:13 was probably not a 400 year contiguous period, but the sum of all periods of slavery Israel underwent to Egypt, Babylon, the Phonecians, etc. Because when you add all those periods up, it comes out to right at 400 years as shown in the following chart:

As we can see, this total agrees with Gen 15:13 and says the Israelites were slaves for about 400 years to other nations, not 430 years.

Dating by the Kings

So we have the Law given 2,083-2164 + 430 years or 2513-2594 years after Adam. Then the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years before enterring the promised land. 1 Kings 6:1 tells us Solomon became King 476 years after Israel had come up out of Egypt. Does this mean leaving Egypt or enterring Israel? Big difference since that means 40 years. But that puts Solomon's reign begining at 2929 to 3070 if it means leaving Egypt, 2959 to 3110 if it means entering Israel. Josephus favored the earlier interpretation and so do I, but I mention this as a possible source of a 40 year shift in our calculations.

We're told Solomon reigned for 40 years, then Rehoboam for 40 years, then more and more kings are listed in Kings and Chronicles. Israel split into two Kingdoms; Israel and Judah, which complicated things. In The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings by Edwin Thiele, he talks why some of the reigns listed may have been co-regents and resolves some other problems with dating of the kings between the two books. But I've ignored a lot of issues he raised and just took the Bible at face value, dating things from the reign of the kings of Judah only. He may have some valid points, but it's easy to use his research and simply figure out the right correction to make if you agree with his conclusions, some of which may be valid and some may not be. I may need to revise these dates later after I do more research into it, but it stands as is for now.

But if you try to date the time line strictly by the kings of Judah, it's a little easier. You come up with 419 years from Solomon to the Babylonian captivity spanning about 18 kings from Solomon to Jehoiakim. We don't know for sure if these numbers are rounded to the nearest year or truncated, but Jer 25:3 suggests they are truncated. But allowing for all possibilities, we'll say this sum of 419 years COULD be as little as 402 calendar years if the first year of a king's reign is counted as a year whether he completes it or not, and that happened with nearly every kings, or as much as 435 years if nearly every king JUST FELL SHORT of one more countable year, but it was truncated. Since the most likely answer is truncation, we'll call it 428 probably years.

Also, when you ignore the kings of Israel and just use the timeline produced by the reigns of the kings of Judah, there's little issue with co-regencies. There's less than a year's worth of co-regency between any king of Judah and his successor. If you make a list of the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel and try to reconcile them, they basically balance each other. Basic truncation, rounding, etc., is the issue for what some people have attributed "Co-regency". When a list of Israeli kings is used to check the included list of the kings of Judah, it basically helps the list balance and concludes that less than a year's worth of coregency for each king is in this list.

This puts the probably date of the Babylonian captivity at about 428 years from Solomon (allowing 6 months for each king to be added for probably rounding error), bringing us up to a possible range of 3331 to 3540 years since Adam, with a more probably date range of 3348 to 3424 years since Adam. (allowing 6 months for each king and each patriarch as an average amount of truncation error, since the fractions of years are not recorded).

Here's a full list of the Kings and what source we got this from. You can skip this table if you trust us, or check our math if you don't.

Two other kings succeeded Jehoiakim, but their reigns are not needed to fix when the Babylonian captivity started and stopped. Two other kings (Saul and David) preceeded Solomon, but again, their reigns are not needed to fix the time lines.

The Babylonian Period Onward

The Bible puts the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple in the 12th year of Babylonian captivity. 2 Kings dates the initial invasion 3 years before Jehoiakim lost power and in the 9th year of Zedekiah, putting this event at about 3343 to 3552 years after Adam. This would put the end of the 70 years at 3401 to 3610.

The records of Josephus suggest the destruction of the temple circa 587 BC, but Josephus was sometimes off in his calculations and reconciliation of calendars. I've seen other purely secular historical accounts that date the rebuilding of the temple at 536 BC. Secular history is not completely in agreement and historians have had a lot of difficulty reconciling dates and events as a result of the fact that so many different societies were using so many different versions of a calendar that were hard to reconcile with each other, and almost any BC date you run across is a "best estimation".

As far as Biblical records of reconciling this period goes, we have ony a few pieces of information that basically only establish a minimum time frame, no maximum. Ezra and Nehemiah discuss the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the 70 year Babylonian captivity. We know that took 46 years of work (John 2:20) plus some untold amount of calendar years passed without any work being performed. the last 4 of these years were under the 2nd through 6th year of Darius, son of Artaxerxes (not Darius the Mede or Darius I, father of Artaxerxes).

Dan 9:25-26 records 69 seven (7) year periods from the order to rebuild the temple to the Messiah's death. That's 483 years. But which order was it talking about? Was it the original order on the 1st of Cyrus, or the order to re-start given on the 2nd of Darius? Secular history unquestionable favors this dating as the 2nd of Darius, since secular history records about that much time between Darius' order and the death of Jesus. Way too much time would have elapsed from the order of Cyrus until the death of Jesus according to secular history.

Bible records leave some ambiguity as to how much time passed form the 1st of Cyrus to the 2nd of Darius. We know that work on the temple stopped during the reign of Artaxerxes (Ezra chapter 4), which lasted at least 32 years (Nehemiah 5:14). Secular history says 83 years passed between the 1st of Cyrus to the 2nd of Darius. The Bible tells us it was something in excess of 76 years, but we're not sure how much.

So all of this puts 558 years or more between the end of Babylonian captivity and the death of Jesus in 29-30 AD or 528 or more years from the end of captivity to 1AD.

This puts Jesus' death at no less than 3963 years after Adam, but makes it tougher for us to find an upper limit of when the latest date could have been.

4000 years from Adam to Jesus

Jesus was born sometime close to 4000 years after the creation of Adam. Most probably date of Jesus' birth was somewhere between 3 and 7 BC. 1AD was suppose to be the year He was born, but someone errored in calcuating the years and His actual birth year was several years before it was first calculated to be. It was probably close to 3-5BC, since best records put His death at either 29 or 30 AD, and He died at the age of 33 and a half.

Reconciling Bible numbers with secular history, we conclude Jesus' birth was likely within 100 years of 4000 years, but a precise calculation just isn't possible.

The 7 "days" theory says that just as the world was created in 7 days and a "Day to the Lord is as a thousand years", then the world has 7000 years, the last 1000 being the reign of Jesus on earth. The Talmud supports this theory, and many people believe it. But it's just a theory - there's no smoking gun and the world could go on several million years more and the Bible would still be true. The Talmud, however, would be proven to be at least partly uninspired. And reading too much into the "day as a thousand years" passage is something that the Bible even seems to discourage in the way it is written, for the scripture says,

A "watch" usually lasted about 3-4 hours. This passage equate a thousand years with both one day and a few hours of the night, but this often gets overlooked even though it is widely quoted by prophetic "date setters". So even if God has a 6/7 "day" plan for the world, maybe the last 6000 years are less than 6 days in God's timeline. Equating each thousand years with a "watch" would only amount to about a day going by. Thus, Christians should avoid using this information for any kind of prophetic "date setting". Even if you found a way to fill all the holes the above calculations leave open, you still won't know the day, hour, month or other close approximation of when Jesus will return from an accurate historical timeline alone.

The concept that Jesus was born EXACTLY 4000 years after Adam is a reasoning based on the idea He would fit EXACTLY into one of these days. These calculations suggest it's possible that happened, but it could have been slightly outside the borders as well. It's both possible and highly probably that His birth was very close to this number.

But even if it is true, bear in mind that the same Talmud that records this theory said the Torah would come after the first 2000 years, but it wasn't exactly 2000 years. And even if it is true, each 1000 year "day" may not be EXACTLY 1000 years. Very few Biblical days are exactly 24 hours. Abiblical day is from sunset to sunset, which is a little less than 24 hours for 6 months fo each year, a little more than 24 hours for 6 months of each year. It's AT MOST exactly 24 hours twice, but not even exactly 24 hours twice very often. So why expect 7 consecutive 1000 year "days" to be exactly 1000 years? Since the first 6 "days" or one-thousand year periods are being ruled by man maybe God would represent this by making those first 6 "days" not a perfect 1000 years to symbolize man's perfection, while making the final 1000 years perfect to symbolize God's perfection. Or again, maybe each 1000 year period only corresponds to a "watch" or 3-4 hours in God's timeline. Attempts to use a theory like that to set dates or try to figure out when Jesus will return is a great mistake. We should never try to set dates, but instead be ready at all times.

What About those who say the earth is 6 Billion years old?

Around the 19th century, many secular scientists tried to disprove the Bible by saying the Bible records about a 6,000 year history and science suggests the earth isn't that old. After archeologists began unearthing more and more ancient discoveries, they began to shift gears and try to argue that the Bible is wrong because it is a scientific fact that the earth is much older than 6,000 years. Truth is scientists really don't know how old the earth or animals have been around, because it happened too long ago and there's no way to construct the right evidence.

For starters, there could have been many millions/billions/trillions of years that passed from Genesis 1:1 until God decided to create man, so the idea of a very old earth is not alarming to Biblical accuracy. The idea of man or animals being around longer than the Biblical record of about 6,000 years is not valid.

Many scientists have tried to figure out how old discovered artifacts are through a method called "carbon dating", which is not reliable, because it presumes that a constant ratio of Carbon 14 to Carbon 12 has already existed. More recently, scientists have admitted that the ratio has not been constant and have tried to create some "correction curves" for it, but the truth is they don't really know what the correction curve was for a time period many thousands of years ago.

Since the flood, few people have lived as long as 135-140 years. Before the flood, people regularly lived as long as 900 years. Does this sound like the earths atmosphere after the flood was the same as before God "opened the floodgates" and allowed the water canopy that encircled the earth to rain down on the earth? (See Gen 1:6 about he waters that used to be ABOVE the earth before the flood.) Certainly not. It was a drastically different atmosphere and the presumptions behind carbon dating are so far off from where reality was during that period, we can't even begin to think of how to correct for it, thus the results obtained are completely unreliable. Today we breath air that is about 20% oxygen, but they may have been breathing something much purer. The Bible can be believed, but the only scientific theories that can be believed are those that agree with the Bible.

If you have any comments, suggestions or corrections to this page, please e-mail me about it. Did I leave a king out, or miss a patriarch or something? Let me know. Was this page too hard to understand? Any feedback is appreciated.

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