How old is the earth according to the Bible?

The Bible does not give a direct, explicit statement about the age of the earth — but it gives us data that different interpreters use to arrive at very different conclusions.

The young earth calculation comes primarily from Bishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century, who worked backward through the biblical genealogies and arrived at a creation date of 4004 BC — making the earth approximately 6,000 years old. This approach takes the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as complete, consecutive lists. Many young earth creationists still hold to an earth in the range of 6,000-10,000 years old.

However, there are good reasons to question whether the genealogies were intended as complete chronological records. In ancient Hebrew genealogies, it was common to skip generations — Matthew 1 does this explicitly, omitting several kings from the Davidic line while still presenting a sequential list. If the Genesis genealogies work the same way, they cannot be used to calculate a precise date.

Old earth creationists accept the scientific consensus — cosmology, geology, radiometric dating — that places the universe at approximately 13.8 billion years old and the earth at approximately 4.5 billion years old. They argue that God's creation week in Genesis may span vast ages, or that the literary framework of Genesis 1 does not intend to give a chronological timetable.

What the Bible does clearly affirm: God created the universe. It had a beginning. It did not always exist. Human beings were created by a direct act of God, not as the end product of a blind process. These truths are not affected by whether the earth is 6,000 or 4.5 billion years old.

The age of the earth is a question where Christians should hold their position with conviction but without making it a test of orthodoxy. The gospel does not stand or fall on this question.