"Although Young Earth Creationism is widely despised, its hermeneutical claim is eminently plausible and deserves to be taken seriously by the biblical scholar." -- William Lane Craig
According to this Medium article, Elon Musk was once asked in an interview whether science and religion can co-exist. His answer? "Probably not." I didn't listen to the interview, but similarly to Musk, I believe that an accurate interpretation of the Bible cannot be reconciled with the findings of modern science (although I would not go as far as to say that religion and science cannot coexist -- I mean, they obviously have). Modern science is right, and the Bible is simply wrong.
I believe that the Bible is wrong in its implication that humans are merely around a few thousand years old (around 6,000 years old). Modern science teaches that humans are around 200,000 years old (and certainly no earlier than 100,000 years old). Furthermore, I strongly suspect that Christians and Jews only began to deny that humans are a mere few thousand years old when science began dismantling this Biblical worldview around the nineteenth century. That is, I believe that the change in worldview of the religious intelligentsia here was simply an ad hoc maneuver to reconcile their religious beliefs with modern science. In other words, I believe that so-called sophisticated religious people, in modifying their view regarding the age of humans to accommodate the findings of modern science -- rather than just admitting the Bible is wrong here and adopting a more down-to-earth view of Biblical composition -- are engaging in textbook cognitive dissonance. They are just rationalizing their priorly held religious beliefs.
Indeed, I suspect that prior to around the nineteenth century, there was no Jewish or Christian author in all the annals of history who explicitly affirmed that the age of humans numbers more than a few thousand years. (If you think my suspicion is wrong, then I would very much welcome citations.) By contrast, there are many many many Jewish and Christian authors who explicitly affirmed that the age of humans, or earth and by extension humans, is no more than a few thousand years. Indeed, even Augustine and Origen, two early highly influential ecclesiastical figures who are often cited as taking the Genesis account to be figurative, explicitly affirm this. If there are indeed no Jewish or Christian writers who explicitly affirm that humans are older than a mere few thousand years, then this is damning evidence that the proper interpretation of the Bible is that humans are merely a few thousand years old, and that so-called sophisticated religious individuals merely changed their view in an ad hoc manner in modern times. It's simply not plausible that everyone understood the Biblical genealogies to be implying a young age for humans for centuries and centuries and centuries, but that only around Darwin's time (or some fifty years prior) Christians uncovered the true meaning of the ancient texts. That strikes me as a more than convenient coincidence: Just when modern science dismantles the worldview that was implied by the Bible, Christians do a complete 360 and say, "well, the Bible doesn't really teach that, everyone before us just thought it did!" Yeah...no. I'm not buying it.
I should note that the issue of the history of Jewish and Christian belief vis-a-vis the age of humans is distinct from the the issue of the history of Jewish and Christian belief vis-a-vis the age of the universe. If one believes the universe is young, then one a fortiori believes that humans are young. But the inverse of this conditional proposition doesn't hold: it's not true that if you believe that the universe is old, then you believe that humans are old. You can believe that the universe is old without simultaneously believing that humans are old. So it will not be sufficient for my critic to cite me an example of a Christian or Jewish author prior to around the nineteenth century explicitly stating that the universe is old, as that is not sufficient evidence that the relevant author believed humans are old. Some medieval Jewish kabbalist thinkers, for example, believed that the universe is old -- but they also affirmed that humans are just a few thousand years old. Even if one can find an early Church father who believed
in an old universe -- and I'm not convinced there is even a single one -- that's not
good evidence he believed that humans are similarly old. I would like to underscore this because some Christian apologists believe that by merely showing some early Christian writers interpreted some things in Genesis figuratively, like the word yom or day in Genesis 1, then they have thereby shown that some early Church fathers believed in an old Earth and even an old age for humans. That doesn't follow at all. Showing that an early Christian or Jewish writer interpreted Genesis and the word yom figuratively is not sufficient to show that said writer believed in an old Earth or universe, much less an old age of humans. As we will see shortly, many early church writers interpreted yom figuratively, but they still held that the world and humans are young. Moreover, even showing that a writer believed in the old age of the Earth doesn't imply showing that the writer believed in an old age for humans.
If historically there really was a diversity of opinions on this issue, as so-called sophisticated Christian apologists like to point out, then there should be at least one Christian or Jewish author who explicitly affirms an old age for humans (i.e., more 6,000 - 10,000 years). If there is no such citation in all the annals of history, then that is extremely strong evidence that the recent "sophisticated" Christian view of attributing an old age to humans is simply an ad hoc maneuver and an example of irrational eisagesis.
In what follows I will list a series of quotes from Jewish and Christian thinkers where they explicitly teach that humans, or the world and by extension humans, are a mere few thousand years old (like I implied above, if one shows that an author believes that the universe or world is young, then one has thereby shown that the author believes that humans are also young). I intend this to be an ever growing list, one which I will add to as time goes on.
And again, if Bible apologists have citations where people are explicitly affirming an old age for humans before around the nineteenth century, then I would very much welcome them! I suspect that they don't exist, but I may well be wrong.
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The following are some Christian authors from all over the Christian world who explicitly affirmed the youngness of humans: the author of the Epistle of Barnabas (written c. 70 - 132 AD), Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130 – 202 AD), Theophilus of Antioch (d. 183-5), Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – 215 AD), Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170 – 235 AD), Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 - 253), Julius Africanus (c. 160 - 240), Hilary of Pontiers (c. 310 – 367), Lactantius (c. 250 – 325), Frimicus Maternus [not added yet], Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 - 339), Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 - 373), Sulipicus Severus (c. 363 – 425), Gaudentitus of Brescia (d. 410) [not added yet], Tyconius (4th century)[not added yet], Augustine of Hippo (c. 354 - 430), Martin Luther, John Calvin, James Ussher, Hilary Bullinger, and Zacharias Ursinus. Citations are listed in an ad hoc manner.
Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifyeth a thousand years;
and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end.
- The Epistle of Barnabas 15:4
For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. Genesis 2:2 This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; 2 Peter 3:8 and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.
- Iraneaus of Lyon - Against Heresies 5.28.3
For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, was December 25th,Wednesday, while Augustus was in his forty-second year, but from Adam, five thousand and five hundred years.
- Hippolytus of Rome Commentary on Daniel 4 (23.3.)
Plato and many others of the philosophers, since they were ignorant of the origin of all things, and of that primal period at which the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had passed since this beautiful arrangement of the world was completed; and in this they perhaps followed the Chaldeans, who, as Cicero has related in his first book respecting divination, foolishly say that they possess comprised in their memorials four hundred and seventy thousand years; in which matter, because they thought that they could not be convicted, they believed that they were at liberty to speak falsely. But we, whom the Holy Scriptures instruct to the knowledge of the truth, know the beginning and the end of the world, respecting which we will now speak in the end of our work, since we have explained respecting the beginning in the second book. Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed, and that when this number is completed the consummation must take place, and the condition of human affairs be remodelled for the better, the proof of which must first be related, that the matter itself may be plain.
-Lactantius
- Divine Institutes 7.14
The world was created by God nearly six thousand years ago.
- Sulpitius Severus Sacred History 1.2.1
For why should I speak of the three myriad years of the Phoenicians, or of the follies of the Chaldeans, their forty-eight myriads? For the Jews, deriving their origin from them as descendants of Abraham, having been taught a modest mind, and one such as becomes men, together with the truth by the spirit of Moses, have handed down to us, by their extant Hebrew histories, the number of 5500 years as the period up to the advent of the Word of salvation, that was announced to the world in the time of the sway of the Caesars.
- Julius Africanus; Fragment 1.
It is an ancient adversary and an old enemy with whom we wage our battle: six thousand years are now nearly completed since the devil first attacked man... As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years, as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house l so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren has borne seven.
- Cyprian of Carthage Exhortation to Martyrdom
After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that the world is uncreated.
- Origen of Alexandria - Contra Celsus 1.19
From Adam to the deluge are comprised two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years, four days. From Shem to Abraham, a thousand two hundred and fifty years. From Isaac to the division of the land, six hundred and sixteen years. Then from the judges to Samuel, four hundred and sixty-three years, seven months. And after the judges there were five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, ten days of kings....Philo himself set down the kings differently from Demetrius. Besides, Eupolemus, in a similar work, says that all the years from Adam to the fifth year of Ptolemy Demetrius, who reigned twelve years in Egypt, when added, amount to five thousand a hundred and forty-nine; and from the time that Moses brought out the Jews from Egypt to the above-mentioned date, there are, in all, two thousand five hundred and eighty years. And from this time till the consulship in Rome of Caius Domitian and Casian, a hundred and twenty years are computed.
- Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 1.?
Two thousand two hundred and forty-two years elapsed from Adam to the flood. Thus the grand total, from Adam to the second year of Darius and the second building of [the temple in] Jerusalem, is 4680 years [g189]. From the second year of Darius which was the first year of the 65th Olympiad [520 B.C.] [until the time of Christ], is 137 Olympiads and 548 years.
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronicon. Eusebeius wrote the earliest history of Christianity.
Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousand years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not 6,000 years have passed since the creation of man.
- Augustine. The City of God, translated by G. G. Walsh and G. Monahan (1952), Book 12, Chapter 11, p. 263. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. See another translation here.
- For some, maintaining that the world was uncreated, went into infinity; and others, asserting that it was created, said that already 153,075 years had passed . . . For if even a chronological error has been committed by us, of, e.g., 50 or 100, or even 200 years, yet not of thousands and tens of thousands, as Plato and Apollonius and other mendacious authors have hitherto written..All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5698 years, and the odd months and days.
- Theophilus of Antioch To Autolycus, 3:16,28
For since in six days God made the heaven and the earth, and finished the whole world, and rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, Genesis 2:1 so by a figure in the seventh month, when the fruits of the earth have been gathered in, we are commanded to keep the feast to the Lord, which signifies that, when this world shall be terminated at the seventh thousand years, when God shall have completed the world, He shall rejoice in us.
- Victorinus - On the Creation of the World, Book ?
Man, O Death, despise it not, that image of Adam: which like a seed is committed to earth, till the Resurrection. — 2. R., To you be glory Who descended and plunge, after Adam: and draw him out from the depths of Sheol, and bring him into Eden!— 3. Death, I marvel at this seed, and at your words: for lo! After five thousand years, it springs not yet.— 4. M., Its present state passes away, as winter does: and as a handful of grain it comes in the resurrection, to the garner of life.— 5.
- Ephrem the Syrian (The Nisibine Hymns, Hymn 65)
We know from Moses that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago.
- Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, in Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 1:ix, 3.
“The duration of the world . . . has not yet attained six thousand years."
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), 1.14.1.
And from the beginning of the world to the birth of Moses are fully complete two thousand three hundred and sixty-eight years of the world.
- Henry Bullinger, The Decades of Henry Bullinger, 1:42.
According
to the common reckoning, it is now, counting from this 1616 of
Christ, 5534 years since
the creation of the world...These
calculations harmonize sufficiently with each other in the larger
numbers, although some years are either added or wanting in the
smaller numbers. According to these four calculations, made by the
most learned men of our times, it will appear, by comparing them
together, that the world was created by God at least not much over
5,559 or 5,579 years. The world, therefore, was not created from
everlasting, but had a beginning.
- Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. Ursinus was the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism.
But setting these two or three instances aside, who has been able in the course of near 6,000 years to the evade the execution of this sentence passed on Adam and all his posterity?
- John Wesley, Sermon on the Fall of Man, ~15:00
"On crioria peut-etre , qu' il y -a de I exageration en ela; mais
j'ai recuilli moi-meme, plus de 200, calculs differens, dont le plus
court ne conte, que 3483. Ans, depuis la creation du monde jufque'a
jefus-christ. & le plus long en conte 6984." -
- The theologian, mathematician and historian Alphonse de Vignoles. Chronologie
De L'Histoire Sainte Et Des Histoires Etrangeres Qui La Concernent
Depuis La Sortie D'Egypte Jusqu'A La Captivite De Babylone (1738).
- The Jewish Virtual Library states the following: "The vast majority of classical Rabbis hold that God created the world close to 6,000 years ago, and created Adam and Eve from clay." Note that this doesn't imply that there were some Rabbis who held that Adam and Eve weren't created around 6,000 years ago. It just implies that some Rabbis didn't believe that the world was created some 6,000 years ago. Indeed, there were esoteric medieval Jewish kabbalists who believed that the world extended back some 974 generation-times prior to the creation of Adam. But, as far as I know, there is no evidence they denied the recieved view concerning the age of humans. Indeed, the Jewish Virtual Library's section on evolution continues: "A literal interpretation of the biblical Creation story among classic rabbinic commentators is uncommon (yet there is universal agreement regarding the literal understanding of the time of the creation of Adam)." [Ibid., emphasis is mine]
- The second-century Hebrew chronology Seder Olam Rabbah calculates the creation of the world to only a few thousand years. So does Maimonedes' calendar.
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Extra Notes:
I still need the translated text for Tyconius, the Book of Rules, 56.7-20; 61.25-33. Current citation is found in Tyconius’ Book of Rules: An Ancient Invitation to Ecclesial Hermeneutics by Matthew R. Lynskey. I surmise he uses the translation found in the dissertation of Douglas Leslie Anderson. If someone has access to that dissertation, please send it my way.
"The significance of Tyconius’ reading of Revelations comes into sharper focus when we consider the established tradition of apocalyptic commentary, particularly in the West. In earlier commentaries, two features had figured prominently : millenarianism, and persecution. Christian millenarianism focused on the cosmic week, an eschatological concept drawing on Genesis 1, Psalm 90, and Revelations. As God created the world in six days, and a day to him is like a thousand years, so the world would exist 6,000 years after which, at the end of the sixth age in the year 6,000 from the Creation, Christ would return to inaugurate the millenarian Sabbath rest and the thousand-year reign of the saints."
- Paula Fredriksen, New Testament Scholar; source: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.REA.5.10444; This should help give some of the doxastic context for some of the quotes cited above.
