Dating creation facts for kids

Creation of the Earth. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677)

Dating creation is about trying to figure out how old our Earth or the whole universe is. People have done this by looking at the creation myths from different religious traditions. Many traditional beliefs say that the Earth or the universe was made in a huge event by one or more gods. Once people started using calendars, they began to wonder: Exactly how long ago did this amazing creation event happen?

Ancient Ideas: How Old is the World?

People from ancient civilizations around the world had different ideas about when the universe began. They used their own stories and records to guess its age.

Sumerian and Babylonian Beliefs

The ancient Sumerians and Babylonians had long lists of kings. Some of these lists, like the Sumerian King List, talked about mythical kings who ruled for thousands of years before a great flood. For example, the first king, Alulim, was said to rule for 28,800 years! In total, these early kings ruled for 241,200 years. This was from the time "kingship was lowered from heaven" until "the flood" came.

However, most modern experts think these numbers weren't meant to be taken literally. They might have been made up, or perhaps they referred to lunar months instead of full years. Even ancient Roman writers like Cicero and Diodorus Siculus thought the Babylonians were exaggerating their timelines. They couldn't believe claims of kings ruling for hundreds of thousands of years.

Egyptian Timelines

Ancient Egyptians also had long timelines for their history. The Turin King List mentions a mythical "reign of the gods" that happened about 36,620 years before the first human king, Menes (around 3050 BC). This would place creation around 39,670 BC.

Other Egyptian records, like those from Manetho, gave different numbers. One calculation based on his writings suggests creation was around 28,000 BC. Another set of figures points to 17,680 BC. The Book of Sothis even suggests a date around 39,575 BC for the first Egyptian god, Ptah.

Greek writers like Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus also wrote about Egyptian timelines. Herodotus mentioned gods ruling before human kings, and he calculated some periods to be over 11,000 years long. Diodorus Siculus said the Egyptians dated creation to "a little less than eighteen thousand years" before his time.

Hinduism and Cosmic Cycles

In Hinduism, the Rig Veda asks deep questions about how the universe began. It wonders who truly knows where creation came from.

Interestingly, Hindu beliefs about time are very vast. They describe the universe going through huge cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. These cycles are called "days and nights of Brahma." Each "day of Brahma" is incredibly long, about 8.64 billion years. This is much longer than the age of Earth or the Sun.

Scientists like Carl Sagan have noted that these Hindu time scales are similar to what modern science suggests for the age of the universe. This idea of an ongoing cycle of creation and destruction is unique among many world religions.

Greek and Roman Views

Most ancient Greek and Roman scholars divided history into three parts:

• Ádelon (obscure): The very beginning, from creation to a great flood.
• Mythikón (mythical): From the flood to the first Olympic Games (776 BC). This period was full of myths.
• Historikón (historical): From the first Olympic Games to their own time. This period had true historical records.

The ádelon period was said to end with the flood of Ogyges, which was dated around 2376 BC to 2050 BC. However, most Greeks and Romans didn't try to pinpoint the exact date of creation itself. They often admitted they didn't know when the world truly began. Some philosophers even believed the universe was eternal and had no beginning at all.

Zoroastrianism: A 12,000-Year Plan

Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion, has a 12,000-year plan for the universe. This plan is divided into four ages.

• The first 3,000 years involved a spiritual creation by the good god Ahura Mazda.
• The next 3,000 years saw the physical creation, and then evil entered the world.
• The prophet Zoroaster was born near the end of the 9th millennium.
• The 9,000th year marked the start of the fourth and final age.

Modern Zoroastrians believe they are living in this final age. They think the world is a battleground between good and evil, which will end in the 12,000th year. To find the creation date, they count back about 8,900-9,000 years from Zoroaster's birth. Since Zoroaster is often dated around 600 BC, this places creation around 9600-9500 BC.

Chinese Creation Story

The ancient Chinese historian Xu Zheng (around 220-265 AD) wrote about the creation of the world by Pangu. He said it happened 36,000 years before the time of the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Since the Three Sovereigns are dated around 3000-2700 BC, this would mean creation happened about 39,000 BC.

Maya Calendar and Deep Time

The ancient Maya civilization used a special calendar called the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. This calendar dates the creation of the current world of human beings to August 11, 3114 BC.

However, some Maya records hint at even older times. One stone carving from Quiriguá mentions a date that could be trillions of years in the past, suggesting they had a concept of incredibly deep time before our current world began.

Abrahamic Religions: Biblical Timelines

The Abrahamic religions (like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) share stories from the Bible, especially the Book of Genesis. This book describes God creating the Earth and everything in it in six days. It also lists the family lines of early humans, like Adam and Eve, and how old they were when they had children and died.

By carefully adding up these ages and events, some scholars have tried to create a timeline for the entire history of the world, starting from creation.

Different Bible Versions, Different Dates

When people tried to calculate the creation date using the Bible, they got different answers. This is mainly because there are different versions of the Bible, especially for the book of Genesis.

• The Greek Septuagint version often leads to older dates, around 5500 BC.
• The Hebrew Masoretic Text version usually results in younger dates, around 4000 BC.

The main difference comes from how old some early people (called patriarchs) were when they had their children. In the Septuagint, they were often 100 years older than in the Hebrew text. This small difference adds up to about 1,500 years over many generations.

Early Jewish Estimates

The earliest Jewish historical record, the Seder Olam Rabbah (written around 160 AD), dates the creation of the world to 3761 BC. The modern Hebrew calendar still uses this date for the start of the world.

Christian Calculations: Old and New Dates

Many early Christians who used the Septuagint Bible calculated creation to be around 5500 BC. Famous Christian thinkers like Clement of Alexandria and Theophilus of Antioch gave dates very close to this. The Byzantine calendar, used in some Eastern Christian churches, traditionally dates creation to September 1, 5509 BC.

Later, after the Masoretic Text became more widely used, calculations around 4000 BC became common. One of the most famous of these was by Archbishop James Ussher, who calculated creation to be on October 23, 4004 BC. This date became very popular, especially because it was included in some versions of the King James Bible. Other scholars, like Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler, also made calculations close to 4000 BC.

In the 18th century, one scholar noted that there were over 200 different estimates for the date of creation, ranging from about 3483 BC to 6984 BC! More recently, some modern scholars have proposed even earlier dates based on their interpretations, such as 12,500 BC or 11,013 BC.

Images for kids

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  Creation of the Earth. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677)

See also

• Chronology of the Bible
• Old Earth creationism
• Relationship between religion and science
• Young Earth creationism