Paranormal
In humanity's quest to discover itself, one of the questions we've often asked ourselves in the past is, "Who made all this? When did all this happen?" And this has led to several creation stories, each culture harboring a myth distinct from the other. It is one of the first things that can distinguish two cultures in historical or religious terms.
This article is not concerned with the scientific age of the Earth, but rather focuses upon what was (or still is) the religious opinion on this issue.
Biblical Date of Creation
The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, in which God creates the world, including the first human, a man named Adam, in six days. Genesis goes on to list many of Adam's descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. If these events and ages are interpreted literally throughout, it is possible to build up a chronology in which many of the events of the Old Testament are dated to an estimated number of years after the Creation. This is the method that was adopted by several scholars in order to come up with this figure.
Some scholars have gone further, and have attempted to tie in this Biblical chronology with that of recorded history, thus establishing a date for the Creation in a modern calendar. Since there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given, the chronology has been subject to interpretation in many different ways, resulting in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation.
There are two dominating dates for Biblical Creation as a result of this: 5470BC, and 4004BC. These were calculated from the genealogies in two different versions of the Bible with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The oldest was translated into Greek from the Hebrew Torah during the third century BC as the first book of the Septuagint. The newest was due to a revision of the Torah by Jews in about 100AD, which was slightly modified in about 900AD (though not affecting this genealogy), and is still used by all Jews - the Vulgate. The difference, basically was that the patriarchs from Adam to the father of Abraham were often 100 years older when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Vulgate. The net difference between the two genealogies was 1466 years (ignoring the "second year after the flood" ambiguity), which is virtually all of the 1500-year difference between the two years of creation.
Today, the more accepted one among young earth creationists is one of the most well known estimates in modern times, that of Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656), who proposed a date of Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC, in the Julian calendar. He placed the beginning of this first day of Creation, and hence the exact time of Creation, at the previous nightfall.
According to the Eastern Orthodox Church calendar, the world was created on September 1, 5509 BC.
Hebrew Date of Creation
The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar, the actual zero point of the creation, is 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM = anno mundi = in the year of the world), which in the proleptic Julian calendar is Monday, October 7, 3761 BCE, the equivalent tabular date (same daylight period). This date is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1.
It is to be noted that Jewish scholars subscribing to similar interpretations as those adopted by the Biblical scholars also give two dates for Creation according to the Talmud. They state that the first day of Creation week was either Elul 25, AM 1 (the traditionally accepted date mentioned above) or Adar 25, AM 1, almost twelve or six months, respectively, after the modern epoch of the Hebrew calendar. These place the sixth day of Creation week, when Adam was created, on the first day of the following month, either Tishri or Nisan, the first month of either the civil or biblical year, respectively. In both cases, the epoch of the modern calendar was called the molad tohu or mean new moon of chaos, because it occurred before Creation.
From Adam & Eve...
How is the age of the Earth computed from the Bible?
Young Earth Creationists comprise mainly Orthodox Jews and Christians who interpret the creation account of Genesis as historically accurate, factually correct, and in most cases, strictly inerrant. Analogously, those Muslims who might be described as Young Earth Creationists regard the account of creation in the Qur'an in the same way.
The text of Genesis relates that God created the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. God also planted the Garden of Eden for the habitation of Adam and Eve. As a result of the subsequent Fall of Man (Eating the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge), Genesis reports that humanity was forced to work hard to provide food, childbirth became painful, and physical death entered the world.
The Genealogies of Genesis record the line of descent from Adam to Noah to Abraham, with the ages at which they had the next in line and the ages at which they died. According to the account, God sent a global flood 1656 years after Adam. Young Earth Creationists assert that the Flood was a combination of radical geological activity (the opening of the "fountains of the great deep") and extreme rainfall (from "windows in the firmament of heaven"). They claim that the land before the flood lay much lower than it does now, but that extreme geological action during the Flood raised mountains to new heights and dropped the sea-bed, so that the water that had covered the land flowed into the sea. Young Earth Creationists sometimes refer to a loosely codified idea called "Flood geology" to argue that the vast majority of present-day geological features are the result of the Great Flood. Young Earth Creationists further argue that anthropological evidence has shown that every culture studied has, in its history, a story similar to that of Noah in two aspects: the existence of a catastrophic flood and human and animal life saved by a man who built a large boat and placed all life on it for the duration of the flood.
After the flood, Genesis reports increasingly short lifespans dropping quickly from an average of 900 years at the time of Noah to an average of 100 by the time of Abraham. Young Earth Creationists have suggested that this is due to effects associated with inbreeding that took place after the flood, as only eight people remained. Young Earth Creationists also assert that all modern species of land vertebrates are descended from those original animals on the ark. Most Young Earth Creationists believe that the Ark kinds diversified as they subsequently adapted to their environments by the process of variation and natural selection. Many Young Earth Creationists assert that the process of variation and natural selection resulted in a net loss of genetic information.
Subsequent genealogies in the text identify individuals named Egypt, Gomer, Sheba, Canaan, and Sidon, who are said to have founded the cities and civilizations that were later to bear their names.
There is a further complexity introduced by the creation story in Genesis itself. Even if one were to accept the biblical genealogies as truth, this only traces the creation of Adam back to perhaps 4000 to 8000 BCE. But the time interval from the creation of the universe to the creation of Adam is a matter of intense debate among bible-believing creationists. That is because of the ambiguity associated with the Hebrew word "yom" which appears frequently in the Genesis creation stories. It is translated as "day" in all of the English versions of the Bible of which we are aware. But it can also mean an indeterminate interval of time.
Most young earth creationists believe that "yom" means a day of 24 hours. In the specific context of Genesis 1, since the days are both numbered and are referred to as "evening and morning", this can mean only normal-length days. This puts the date of creation of the universe according to a literal interpretation of the Bible at 4000 to 8000 BCE. However, old earth creationists suggest that each of the six "days" of creation might have taken many hundreds of millions of years. Further, there might have been one or more long intervals of time between some of the "days." This is argued by mentioning the Day of the Sabbath as commanded by God, in favor of "yom" being a single 24-hour period.
Hindu Date of Creation
In Hindu philosophy the cycle of creation is divided into four yugas (ages or eras):
1. Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga
2. Treta Yuga
3. Dwapara Yuga
4. Kali Yuga
In Hindu tradition, the world goes through a continuous cycle of these ages. Each ascending phase of the cycle from Kali Yuga to Satya Yuga is followed by a descending phase back to Kali Yuga, then another ascending phase and so on. The length of the Kali-Yuga, our current time period, is 2 x 603 years, or 432 thousand years.
The current universe is believed to have been created about 3,893,100 years ago and is expected to dissolve about 426,900 years from now.
The traditional timescale of the yugas is as follows:
1. Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga - 1,728,000 years
2. Treta Yuga - 1,296,000 years
3. Dwapar Yuga - 864,000 years
4. Kali Yuga - 432,000 years
Even further, upon conclusion of seventy-one (or sometimes seven) circuits of this cycle, there is a period equally long during which the world is inundated; then the cycle begins again.
Mayan Date of Creation
Like the Hebrew Calendar, the Mayan Calendar too is based upon the date of creation of the world, and like the Hindu Scriptures, the creation phase is going through a cycle.
The calendar begins on a Long Count of 13.0.0.0.0, proceeds to 0.0.0.0.0, and finally ends at 13.0.0.0.0. The significance of these counts is called the Turning of the Great Cycle. The turn of the great cycle is conjectured to have been of great significance to the Maya. According to the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the Maya, they were living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three worlds that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. The Maya believed that the fourth world would end in catastrophe and the fifth and final world would be created that would signal the end of mankind.
The Mayan calendar dates the creation of the Earth to August 11 or August 13, 3114 BC (establishing that date as the zeroth day of the Long Count 13.0.0.0.0). The last creation ended on a long count of 13.0.0.0.0, as mentioned earlier, and another 13.0.0.0.0 will occur on December 21, 2012, and it has been discussed in many New Age articles and books that this will be the end of this creation or something else entirely.
Other Estimates
Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher, surmised that the Earth has always existed and thus its age is infinity.
Chinese scientists of the Han Dynasty once believed that the earth is repeatedly created, exists and is destroyed over a 23 billion year cycle. So, the current age of the Earth is some fraction of 23 billion years.
Dr. Hugh Ross and Kathy Ross of Reasons to Believe are old-earth creationists, placing Earth's creation date at 58000 BC. They also estimate the date of creation of the universe on the order of ten billion years ago.
Harold Camping of Family Radio computed that God created humanity during 11013 BC. The remaining five days of creation would have probably occurred during the same year. This number conflicts by over 2,000 years with the estimates of almost all young-earth creation scientists; they believe the world is less than 10,000 years old. He also believes that the great flood happened on 4990-4989 BC, and that the Exodus happened on 1447 BC. His other main prediction, that the end of the world would happen in 1994, did not materialize.
Alfonso X, of Spain estimated that the year of the creation of the Earth was 6984 BC.
Estimates for the date of the Creation of Earth, that have come out of India are 6204 BC, 5369 BC and 6174 BC.
The Bablyonians tried their hands at this and came up with a date that corresponds to 6158 BC.
The Greek Philosopher Laertius computed, in 3BC, a date of 6138 BC.
The year of creation adopted in the 7th century AD in "Constantinople and used by the Eastern Orthodox church until the 18th century CE," was 5508 BC.
Pope Gregory XIII and later Pope Urban VIII asserted the date 5199 BC.
There is one interesting estimate which is based upon both the Biblical account and modern archeology. This uses the date of 2800 BC for a massive flood which covered the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. All of the towns in the area were buried under thick layers of mud. If we assume that this is the Noahic flood which is recorded in the Bible as occurring when Noah was 600 years old, then the earlier date can be calculated, and it comes out to 4456 BC.
The Baha'i World Faith dates Adam and the Garden of Eden to 4122 BC.
The Jehovah's Witnesses estimates that Adam was created in 4026 BC.
