Does the Bible say that the Earth is 6,000 years old?

No it does not say that and most Christians know that it does not say that. That is why I can not understand where these "creationist" 6,000 years crap came from.

It does not give ANY age of the earth in the Bible.

One man calculated this number using the ages of the descendants of Adam. A lot of well-meaning Christians accepted this as gospel truth, and a lot of atheists accepted it as a real Biblical claim as an excuse to ridicule everyone and justify their rejection of the Bible.

But in fact, the number isn't there. Never was. There's simply no age given.

One expert, MIT astrophysicist Gerald Schroeder, has argued that the Bible tells time on a universal scale until man is created. That makes the first six days equal to very long epochs. Many Bible literalists hate this idea. But then Schroeder takes Einstein's relativity and shows how the universe ages at different rates, based upon the expansion of space. A lot of scientific literalists don't understand this and hate the idea. Schroeder shows that the universe may actually be only SIX DAYS old, showing that the time scales are reversed, in a way.

He argues for a young universe and an old earth, instead of the other way around. It's an interesting idea, that always gets a lot of thumbs down here.

Read about Schroeder's explanation in "The Science of God," an excellent book that I recommend here often.

it just says the earth was created with the rest of the world in 6 days with the first humans being Adam and Eve. A bishop traced people named from Jesus time back to Abraham back to Adam and calculated that the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC.

People who believe the Bible blindly accept that figure despite evidence of earlier civilizations, let alone modern physics showing the universe is about 14 billions years. To them it's not symbolic, its the word of god.

No... but Bishop Ussher added all the generations...

"James Ussher (sometimes spelled Usher, 4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to establish the time and date of the creation as the night preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC, according to the proleptic Julian calendar."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher

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In the book of Genesis after the seven days of creation the Bible says;

Genesis 2

1. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

Nowhere in scripture does it ever say or imply that the earth was formed by some progression of naturally occurring geological events throughout fantastic periods of time.

God always takes full credit for all of creation and nowhere is God constrained by ANY law of the physical universe or nature. The Bible more or less says that God 'spoke' the universe into existence.

The 6,000 year figure often referenced as the age of the earth isnt literally Biblical but is extrapolated from linages given in scripture which is Adam through Jesus.

Although this in itself relies on various assumptions it really is a moot point.

It doesn't really matter if Christians claim that the earth is 6,000, 60,000 or 6 million years old. As any age still assumes that God spoke the universe into existence substantially as we see it today which is inconsistent with science. From the secular unbelieving point of view it is no less ridiculous that the earth is 500,000 years old than 6,000. The very same argument applies to any age other than what science demonstrates.

In the end you either believe or you don't. The Christian and Bible claims that God made the earth as we see it. God made Adam a full grown man yet if a modern doctor were to have examined Adam the day that he was made the doctor would clearly claim that Adam had been around for 20 years(or whatever age that he appeared). The same thing holds true with the earth itself. God made the Grand Canyon with its appearance of being aged and formed over millions of years. Either you believe that God formed it as we see it or you believe it formed itself through millions of actual years.

Is it really a bigger miracle to do this than for Jesus to make water into wine just by thinking about it from across the room? Either you believe or you don't.

Thank you for your interest in the bible. Feel free to ask anything you want in your quest for truth. God bless you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfEdJNn15E

God bless you.

No, actually it doesn't . The six thousand year figure comes from the record of births, deaths etc of one particular bloodline. The Bible also speaks of people being alive at the same time as are Adam and Eve...grown people, not sisters or brothers etc.

It says nothing about the age of the earth and, in fact there is substantial counter-evidence against the idea of "young earth creationism". They use that number, in my opinion, to try to compete with actual science. Not to mention, the older the earth is, the more likely evolution is true which disproves their delusion.

The calculation is based on the generations that are listed as following Adam in Genesis.

The fruit was the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, not merely knowledge.

No. Some people looked at The Bible, figured out some dates (figured out meaning they took a stab in the dark and didn't look at it twice), threw the scientific evidence out the window and said 6000 years because why not?

No but fundamentalist Christians have used the "information" that does exist in the bible to infer an age that is around about that age.

It's utter crap of course but that just illustrates why the bible is wrong & fundamentalists are morons.

MUCH SPECULATION TO AGE OF EARTH. WHEN GOD CREATED THE EARTH EACH STEP WAS 1 DAY. GOD IS ETERNAL SO ONE DAY TO HIM COULD BE A THOUSAND YEARS. NO ONE CAN KNOW BUT HIM HOW LONG HIS DAYS ARE. GENERALLY TAKE THE BIBLE AS LITERAL AS POSSIBLE. BUT NO EXACT NUMBER TO MY KNOWLEDGE JUST LARGE NUMBERS USED TO REPRESENT A LONG TIME. I WOULD TAKE THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE AS LITERAL. NO REASON NOT TO.