When was the earth created according to the Bible?

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There is little indication in scripture as to when the earth was created, but there are clues. As one thousand years in our time is but a day in Gods time, and as God took seven days or seven thousand years in our time to organize the earth.If you add to that the seven thousand years that man has been in existence then the earth has been in existence fourteen thousand years.

Oh I know that you might say well what about this carbon dating which says that the earth has been in existence millions of years, well one thing that you have to remember is that the material which goes up to make the earth has indeed been in existence for much longer than the earth in its present form. You cannot create matter, for it has always been in existence, but the earth has not.

Answer

There are 3 sources of information in the Bible, on the creation of the world: 2 in Genesis and a fragmentary one in Psalms. However, he Psalms version is too fragmentary to provide any real clues about when the people believed the world to have been created.
What the two, quite different, creation accounts in Genesis do have in common is that they do not say that God created the earth itself.
If we took the biblical genealogies absolutely literally, as Archbishop James Ussher did, we could say that the Bible says that God's creation was in October 4004. But, if we read the Bible, that answer must exclude the earth itself.
In the first creation account, Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4), there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together.
In the second creation account, Genesis 2:4b to 2:15, there was pre-existing dry land, but God had yet to make it rain for plants to grow. A spring arose and God took some moist clay and made Adam.
In both creation stories, the basics were already there - the waters, the dry land, the wind and therefore the air. Many experts in Hebrew have carefully examined the texts and confirm that this is what they say. The biblical creations were not ex nihilo.
Detailed explanations of the biblical creation stories can be found in Anchor Bible Series: Genesis (Speiser) and Middle Eastern Mythology (Hooke).

First answer by R Harrison. Last edit by Dick Harfield. Contributor trust: 1097 [recommend contributorrecommended]. Question popularity: 8 [recommend question].