The question of the age of the earth is a huge point of disagreement between Creationists and Evolutionists and between Young Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists. The battle is easy to describe. Young earth creationists believe the earth is thousands of years old. Evolutionists and Old Earth Creationists believe the earth is billions of years old.

The differences about the age of the earth are so large no possible compromise can be reached. For example, neither side would be willing to admit the earth is 1 million years old.

The young earth creationist view believes Genesis is an accurate historical record. As a result the description of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is a correct account of the beginning of all things. God created the earth, the universe and everything that exists in six days (also called six solar days, six 24 hour days and six literal days).

Because Genesis is a real history of the world the age of the earth can be estimated by a simple process of addition. Adam was created in year 0, lived 130 years and had a son named Seth. Seth lived 105 years and had a son named Enos. Enos had a son and so forth. The generations after Adam are recorded in Genesis 5 up to the time of Noah. By adding up the ages of the men when they had a son and then adding in the age of Noah at the time of the flood the reader discovers there was a span of 1,656 years between creation and Noah’s flood.

After the flood the same process of addition can be followed. Based upon Genesis 11 the reader discovers that Abraham was born about 390 years after the flood. A definite year for Abraham’s birth cannot be determined because the Bible does not say exactly how old Abraham’s father was when Abraham was born.

The same process of addition can be applied throughout the Old Testament. By piecing together various genealogies the length of time between creation and the birth of Jesus is determined to be approximately four thousand years. Since this is the year 2016 the age of the earth can be estimated to be a little over 6,000 years.

Some legitimate questions have been raised about the genealogies. Some of the genealogies possibly have gaps of several generations between one name and the next. Instead of them being all father-son, some maybe grandfather -grandson. If there are gaps in the genealogies then the age of the earth would be increased possibly by as much as several thousand years.

Because the Old Testament is an accurate account of the history of humanity, most young earth creationists accept the age of the earth to be between six and ten thousand years old.