Expert: Ralph Salier - 1/3/2012

Question
4026BCE is the date that witnesses claim Adam was created. I am a bible student and appreciate that the bible does not give this specific date, but that it has been deduced by man from his interpretation of bible chronology. Can there be some mistake, as more and more evidence is being uncovered that suggests mankind was on this Earth prior to this date. If you wish me to forward examples of such evidence I am more than willing to do so. I am not meaning the claims from evolutionists that man has existed for 1.5 million years or whatever. I mean evidence relating to between 8000BCE and 4026BCE       Best regards

Answer
Hi Mervyn,  

I understand your confusion.  The Bible was written by Moses who was acting on behalf of the Almighty in  the writing of the Bible. At the time, man was rather ignorant and the vastness of time and space would have been totally overwhelming.  So, for the sake of our understanding, things were written in such a way as to help us understand.  Thus the Creation was done in 7 days.  A day is easy for us to understand as is a week (7 days).  But we are speaking of the Almighty where time, space and all things are essentially irrelevant.  Why irrelevant? because HE is eternal and time and space have little meaning to HIM.  So a day for HIM may be millions if not billions of years.  

So, let us say that the Universe is 14 billion years old.  Then the Almighty took the first 2 billion years to create the light and the dark, then next two billion years to separate the "earth" and "heavens" and so on.  In the last two billion years, all the life on Earth along with Man in the last bit of that process.  

The Bible tries to help us understand something so vast and complex that in reality it is beyond understanding and in the realm of the Lord's understanding. We are not meant to fully comprehend the awesome nature of the Almighty or HIS works.  So trying to "fix" a date for Adam is an absurdity that HE had no intention for us to do.  It is a matter of faith that during creation, HE created us in HIS image and then rested.  So, if Adam was created 5 million years ago, 2 million years ago, 250,000 years ago or 15,000 years ago, it does not matter, time is irrelevant to HIM and it is for us to accept that we are here by HIS grace and not to question the creation when ever it was.