By Gary Ray Branscome
The delusion that grips our present age is so virulent
that instead of answering the skeptics with a resounding “Thus saith the Lord,” many turn on Scripture in a vain attempt
to make its words agree with the ignorance of man. They act as if God did not
know what He was doing when He caused the words of Genesis to be written, and
try to make the Bible say what it clearly does not say, and never was intended
to say. Nevertheless, God knew from the beginning what the skeptics would be
saying. He knew they would claim that the earth is millions of years old. And
because of His love for us, because He did not want us to be deceived, He
designed the book of Genesis to exclude any possibility of “millions of years”.
Furthermore, He wants us to believe and teach exactly what His Word says, not
what men think. As it is written, “If
they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in
them” (Isaiah
The
words, “In six days the LORD made heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything that is in them, and rested on the seventh day: for
that reason the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and
made it holy,” tell us
that the seven days of Genesis were one
week in length (Exodus 20:11). However, God did not
stop with just telling how long it took to make the heavens and earth. He
included a detailed linage of each generation from Adam to Abraham. And, that
linage gives us a record of the age of the earth that brings us right up to the
era of recorded history.
Genesis
Chapter 5:1-32
1 ¶
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created
man, he made him in the likeness of God;
2
Male and female He created them; and blessed them, and called their name
Adam, on the day when they were created.
3
And Adam lived an hundred and
thirty years, and fathered a son in his own likeness, after his
image; and called his name Seth:
4
And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred
years: and he begat sons and daughters:
5
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and
he died.
6 ¶
And Seth lived one hundred and
five years, and begat Enos:
7
And Seth lived after he fathered Enos eight
hundred and seven years, and fathered sons and daughters:
8
And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he
died.
9
And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
10
And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and
daughters:
11
And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and
five years: and he died.
12
And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:
13
And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and
daughters:
14
And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred
and ten years: and he died.
15 And Mahalaleel lived sixty-five years, and begat Jared:
16
And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared
eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:
17
And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight
hundred and ninety-five years: and he died.
18
And Jared lived an hundred and
sixty-two years, and he begat Enoch:
19
And Jared lived after he fathered Enoch eight hundred years, and begat
sons and daughters:
20
And all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years: and he
died.
21 And Enoch lived sixty and five
years, and begat Methuselah:
22
And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years,
and begat sons and daughters:
23
And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
24
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
25 And
Methuselah lived one hundred and
eighty-seven years, and begat Lamech:
26
And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech
seven hundred and eighty-two years, and begat sons and daughters:
27
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years:
and he died.
28 And Lamech lived one hundred eighty and two years,
and begat a son:
29 And he called his name Noah, saying, This one will bring us
relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, because of the
ground which the LORD has cursed.
30
And after he begat Noah Lamech lived five
hundred and ninety-five years, and begat sons and daughters:
31
And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred
and seventy-seven years: and he died.
32
And Noah was five hundred years
old: and Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
[Comment: You will notice that this linage is carefully
worded to preclude any claim that some generations may have been omitted. The
key factor in determining the amount of time which transpired is the number of
years that passed between the birth of each patriarch and the birth of his son.
Therefore, we have an exact record of the time, and when we add up the years,
these verses tell us that Noah was
born one thousand and fifty six years after the creation of Adam, and his sons
were born five hundred years after that.]
Genesis Chapter 11:10-26
10 These are the
generations of Shem: Shem was one
hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years
after the flood:
11
And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five
hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
12
And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begat Salah:
13
And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and
daughters.
14
And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
15
And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and
daughters.
16
And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:
17
And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and
daughters.
18
And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
19
And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
20
And Reu lived thirty-two years, and begat Serug:
21
And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and
daughters.
22
And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:
23
And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
24
And Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and begat Terah:
25
And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and
daughters.
26
And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and
[Comment: A comparison of Genesis 5:32, 7:6 and
Genesis Chapter
32
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Depart from your country, and from
your kindred, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you:
2
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make
your name great; and you will be a blessing:
3
And I will bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you: and
in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had told him; and
[Comment: Since Terah was two hundred
and five years old when he died, and Abram (Abraham) was seventy five years old
at that time, we know that Terah was about one
hundred and thirty years old when Abram was born. Therefore, Abraham was born approximately two
thousand and eight years after the world was created.]
Genesis 21:5 And Abraham
was one hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.
Genesis 25:26 And after that his brother came out, and his hand took
hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
[Comment: These verses tell us that Isaac was born when Abraham
was one hundred years old, and Jacob (
Genesis 47:28 And Jacob
lived in the
[Comment: Thus Jacob died
in
The words,
“Now the time the children of
The words,
“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came
out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over
Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, Solomon
began to build the house of the LORD,” tell us that Solomon began to build
the temple 480 years after the children of Israel left Egypt (1Kings 6:1). Now
some other dates given in Scripture may indicate that this
480 years does not include the forty years wandering in the wilderness, or the
years under Joshua. However, if we just add the 480 years to what we have, that
would mean that Solomon began to build the temple three thousand two
hundred and eight years after the world was created.
The words,
“And the temple was finished throughout in all its parts according to all its
specifications in the eleventh year [of Solomon’s reign], in the month Bul, which is the eighth month. So he [Solomon] was
seven years in building it,” (1Kings
Now as to recorded history, the
dedication of Solomon’s
Some Other
Dates
As I mentioned, because of some other
dates given in Scripture, and those contained in some ancient translations, we
cannot be absolutely certain of the exact age of the earth. However, there
is no room in Scripture for millions of years. The Septuagint translation
adds one hundred years to the ages of some of the Patriarchs, but that would
not make the world much older. Here are a few other dates.
Genesis 15:13 And the Lord said to
Abram, Know with certainty that for four hundred years your descendants
will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them; and they
will afflict them.
Acts 7:6 And
God told him this, That his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land;
and that they would enslave them, and mistreat them for four hundred years.
Acts 13:19-21 After He had destroyed seven nations in the
2Samuel 5:4
David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned
forty years.
Galatians 3:17 The covenant concerning faith in Christ, that was
confirmed by God at the time of Abraham, cannot be nullified by the law, which
came four hundred and thirty years later, so as to make the promise of
no effect.
In his
massive work, “THE ANNALS OF THE WORLD” James Ussher
correlates the Biblical timeline with recorded history, and in so doing has
calculated the year of Jacob’s death at 1689 BC. and
the date of creation as 4004 BC. That differs a little from the dates given
above, which calculate the year of Jacob’s death at 1863 BC. which
is at least 174 years earlier. And, if the 480 years mentioned in the words, “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of
“The question is not: Is this or that doctrine clearly
stated in the Confessions? But: Is this or that doctrine set forth in God’s
Word? If it is set forth in Holy Writ, it is for this reason a church dogma,
even though not a word is said about it in the Confessions of the church. The
reason for this is not difficult to perceive. The Christian Church is not the
lord of God’s doctrine, but only its servant. Its paramount purpose is not to
create new doctrines but to preach the doctrines which its Lord has revealed.
The dogmatician who draws his teachings from any
other source than Holy Scriptures perpetrates an inexcusable fraud upon the
Church… Christian ministers, teachers, and missionaries must proclaim to their
hearers God’s Word, not their own, so that… not one doctrine is taught that is
not in agreement with Holy Scripture.” (Christian Dogmatics, by John Theodore Mueller, pages 62, 63.)
Christians should not be
troubled by claims that the earth is millions of years old. Careful
measurements of earth's magnetic field reveal that it is growing weaker. Since
there is a limit to how strong a magnetic field can be, if the earth was
millions of years old its magnetic field would have disappeared ages ago. The
earth's rotation speed is also slowing down, and the moon is moving away from
the earth. This cannot have been going on for more that a few thousand years.
And, the presence of vertical tree trunks in the sedimentary
layers of the earth's crust show that those layers were formed rapidly.
More could be said, but no matter how ardently the opinions of men disagree
with what the Bible says, the facts never do.