Is the Bible’s Dating of the Start of Humanity Accurate?

I/W: 2024          General

Introduction

The Bible provides data, which along with other data, can be used to calculate the year in time when the first human Adam began to age.  This post will examine if that year is accurate based on archaeological discoveries and modern world population statistics.

Before evaluating if the date is accurate, there are groundworks that have to be established first to aid in making the evaluation.

My calculation of when Adam’s age started from zero to one is approximately 5600 years ago from the time of this writing in the 21^st century. Approximately 3600 BC. I go over my methodology for calculating this number in the next section.

Dating Methodology

To calculate the date, I looked at the chronology from Adam to Moses, father to son, adding up the recorded ages of fathers at their sons’ births. From there I used a believed dating of the Exodus happening around 1300 BC. From there, I added an additional 2000 years to get close to the present year.

There are varying believed dates for the Exodus but they all appear to typically range between 1200-1500 BC, so they’re all fairly close to each other.

Below are the ages at son’s birth and their Bible verse reference from Adam to Noah. 1056 years passed From Adam to Noah’s birth. I calculated the approximate passage of years from Noah to Moses in a different post so I used that number to add to the previous one. That approximate number is 1250. That post is available here:

How Long It Takes for God’s Spirit to Leave People and Enter People

Rounding, 1050 years from Adam to Noah’s birth. 1250 years from Noah to Moses’ birth. Attributing the exodus to 1300 BC. About two thousand years have passed since year 0 after those 1300 years. 1050=1250=1300-2000=5600. 3600 BC.

My calculation is a simple and rough one with a margin of error. The data available isn’t sufficient to calculate an exact number. Some problems were the missing age of a few parents at their sons’ births, and Noah’s age listed is how old he was when he had all three of his children. From Moses’ birth to the Exodus I think would have been approximately 80 years which I didn’t add. The number of 5600 is rough with what appears to be a small margin of error.

My number is pretty close to the Hebrew calendar number of 5784 at the start of 2024. That number is essentially trying to calculate the same thing I am. I calculated the date as I figured it’s a good idea to show how the date can be calculated for the purpose of this post, and will use my date to keep it uniform.  The Hebrew calendar date also has a margin of error, but it’s the date Judaism decided to go with. It works out to 3761 BC. An article on the topic can be read here.

When Did Adam’s Age Start Counting

This is semi-relevant so I’m going to hit on it briefly. Reading Ge 2:4-7 carefully alongside Genesis chapter 1, it appears the origin of humanity’s creation started right after the formation of the earth on the third day. Understanding the days of creation aren’t literal days, this suggests humanity’s origin reaches very far back beyond the 3600 BC calculation when his age started counting from zero to one.

The Days of Creation in Genesis Are Phases and Light

My understanding is when he was in the garden of Eden he was existing in a higher dimension which is beyond the 4D concept of time. I’ve written other posts on the subject of the four realms, and my understanding is in the garden of Eden they were existing in the 4^th realm, the highest dimension, where they weren’t bounded to linear movement (spacetime) like people in 3D moving through 4D are.

The Four Rivers in Genesis Are the Four Realms

God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and he became a living creature (Ge 2:7). That appears to be the moment he became a human that distinguishes him from the other creatures, or animals. The point in all this is there’s a time when his creation starts, a time he becomes human officially, and a time his age starts counting. I think the last of those three times is likely when he’s kicked out of the garden of Eden.

What Makes a Human

It’s this action of God breathing into Adam’s nostrils (Ge 2:7) that appears to be a main component in distinguishing humans from other species on the planet. Additionally, he says they’re made in his image and gives an explanation of what makes humans different than other species on the planet:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26

Here God is declaring for humans to be the superior species of the planet. The way to distinguish what makes humans different from other species on the planet is their superior qualities. The Bible aside, it’s obvious humans are the superior species on the planet. That said, it’s important to know this distinction between humans and other species when deciding what artifacts to look at.

Which Artifacts To Look At

I’m going to look at artifacts that match the uniqueness of human intelligence to try and validate the claimed date. Any artifact dug up and dated can’t be attributed to humans because the planet has a history with other species with intelligence. This is why artifacts that appear as something only human intelligence specifically could have created have to be looked at. Chimpanzees and orangutans are believed to have approximately the equivalent intelligence of a 3 year old human child. Apes have the closest DNA to humans of present living species. Archaeologists have found fossil evidence of species with DNA even closer to humans that have gone extinct. That said, it’s very reasonable for there to be artifacts dug up that date back further than 5600 years, which are greater than any current living animal could create. Hence, this is why artifacts matching the uniqueness of human intelligence have to be looked at. These extinct species would fall under the description of “living creatures” which God created on the same day as humans, the sixth day (Ge 1:24).

To credit the creation of an ancient artifact to humans, I think the artifact would have to have a fair degree of complexity. Humans could have made less complex creations, but for the sake of this post, they’d have to have a degree of complexity to be attributed to them over another species. What is or isn’t complex enough is debatable. But what I’d consider complex enough is the creation of a communicative written language. Things like pots or statues I think don’t have enough complexity as they can be attributed to extinct species. Ancient discovered writings, which by necessity require the creation of a written language, are the simplest to look at for verification, so the next section will look at that.

Archaeological Discoveries

Ancient artifacts are dated through carbon dating and other methods. There are margins of errors to the dating which can vary based on different factors.

I looked up the oldest dated communicative writing artifacts in history, which by necessity would need to accompany the creation of a language by an intelligent being. It dates to 3500 BC (source) and I think it’s debatable if it is communicative or not enough to be an established language. The next oldest one is dated to 3400 BC (source), and that appears to be more convincing of a communicative language. Both these dates are shortly after the Bible’s attributed date of when Adam started to age.

World Population Statistics

Seeing how long it takes the world population to double in modern statistics can give a rough idea of how far back humanity began. The United Nations recorded the world population as reaching 8 billion in 2022. They say it reached 4 billion in 1974, 2 billion in 1927, and through they’re methodology they say it reached 1 billion in 1804 (source).

The third column indicates how long it took the world population to double based on their statistics. The average of that stat is 72.67 years (123+47+48=72.67), rounded to 73, meaning it takes an average of 73 years for the world’s population to double based on their stats.

The world’s population would have to double 32 times from 2 people to reach over 8 billion people. I’m going to calculate how many years it would take for the world population to double each of those 32 times for humanity to start at the time the Bible claims it did. Then I’ll compare that number to the UN’s.

But first, something has to be addressed. The Bible says there was a flood that killed all humanity except for Noah, his wife, his children, their wives, and 2 of every animal. So to assess this more accurately, I’m going to start the dating of humanity from Noah. 1050 years passed from Adam to Noah’s birth, so that will be subtracted. I’m also going to subtract an additional 450 years to eliminate the anomaly of Noah’s age being 500 when he had his three sons. Not doing this would skew the stats as people after Noah’s time stopped having children at 500 years old. Humanity restarted approximately 2550 BC, which is at the birth of Noah. For the sake of this experiment, it restarted approximately 2100 BC (5600-1050-450=4100).

If the human population started at 2 people, Noah and his wife, approximately 2100 BC, then the world population would have to double every 128.125 years (4100/32=128.125), 128 rounded, to reach over 8 billion people by year 2000, doubling 32 times.

I put together this chart for this data. I set each column for every time the world population quadruples so it wouldn’t be too big. Every 256.25 years the world population quadruples, in this estimation.

When you compare it to the UN numbers, it’s not that far off. It’s just 5 years more of the doubling in 123 years from 1804 to 1927. The UN’s average of 73 years for every time the world population doubles equates to humanity starting in approximately 300 BC (73×32=2336), which is wrong of course. Arguably, the UN population stat from 1804-1927 is more accurate for comparison, as living conditions in that time would have been more similar to human history before that time.

Of course, this isn’t an exact science. It’s meant to give a rough idea which I think it’s done.

Is the Bible’s Dating of the Start of Humanity Accurate?

After looking all this over, it definitely strikes me as very accurate. There are an infinite amount of different dates the Bible could have attributed the start of humanity to. That in mind, to say the accuracy of its dating is a coincidence would be difficult to believe.

I think too this is an ongoing topic as there are new discoveries and developments always being made. But from the looks of it at the time being, it appears to be right.

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