In Defense of the Word: Reconciling the Oldest Writings with the Biblical Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is a focal point of biblical authority, centering on the conviction that the chronology found in the Scriptures provides the true framework for history. From this perspective, known as Young Earth Creationism (YEC), the entire history of the world is compressed into a timeline of approximately 6,000 to 10,000 years, with the most common date for Creation being 4004 BC, based on the detailed work of figures like Archbishop James Ussher.
This biblical chronology requires a re-interpretation of the dating of ancient civilizations and the oldest writings, especially Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian Hieroglyphs, which secular sources date to the late 4th millennium BC (c. 3400–3200 BC).
I. The Anchor of Biblical Chronology
The foundation of the Young Earth view is the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, specifically the genealogies in Genesis Chapters 5 and 11, which provide a continuous, unbroken chain of generations and life spans from Adam to Abraham.
- Creation: Approximately 4004 BC (Ussher’s date). The world was created in six literal, 24-hour days.
- The Global Flood: According to this timeline, the Great Deluge, which destroyed all land-dwelling, air-breathing life not on the Ark, occurred around 2348 BC.
- The Tower of Babel and Dispersion: The subsequent scattering of humanity, and the fracturing of the original language, is placed approximately 100 to 300 years after the Flood.
In this divinely revealed timeline, no human civilization or written document could possibly predate the Flood, and all post-Flood civilizations must have sprung up very rapidly from the single family of Noah.
II. Re-Dating Civilization: The Post-Flood World
The core of the Young Earth response to the oldest written documents—Sumerian cuneiform (Mesopotamia) and Egyptian hieroglyphs (Egypt)—involves two major points: Challenging Secular Dates and The Unity of Human History.
1. The Challenge to Secular Chronology
From a biblical framework, the dates applied to the earliest civilizations by secular archaeology must be incorrect.
- Inflated Timelines: Many YEC researchers argue that secular chronologies, particularly for the Egyptian dynasties, are often inflated due to reliance on unverified or fragmented king lists, the assumption of strictly sequential dynasties that may have been contemporaneous (co-reigning), and the use of questionable dating methods.
- Radiometric Doubt: The absolute dates of c. 3400 BC for the earliest writings are often established using radiometric dating on associated organic material, methods that Young Earth Creationists universally reject as unreliable due to their assumption of uniformitarian processes over deep time. In a catastrophic model, the Flood event would have radically altered the isotopic balances used for dating.
- Rapid Civilization: The biblical model predicts the rapid re-establishment of complex society after the Flood, particularly in Mesopotamia (where the Ark landed). The development of sophisticated writing, administration, and city-states, such as Sumer, is seen not as evidence of vast antiquity, but of the advanced intellect inherited from the pre-Flood world and concentrated in the few survivors.
2. The Flood as a Unifying Event in the Written Record
Instead of seeing the Sumerian and Egyptian texts as contradictory, the Young Earth view sees them as powerful, albeit corrupted, historical confirmation of the biblical account.
- Echoes of the True Account: The Sumerian flood narratives, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Sumerian King List, which describe a great, world-destroying deluge, are considered pagan distortions of the original, true event recorded accurately in Genesis.
- The fact that a devastating global flood is central to the earliest written accounts found in the same geographical region (Mesopotamia) is seen as compelling evidence for the reality and recency of the Genesis Flood.
- The Tower of Babel’s Influence: The earliest writing systems, appearing suddenly in Egypt and Sumer around the same general period, are interpreted as an immediate result of the post-Babel dispersion. The separated family groups, taking the memory of the one true God and a sophisticated knowledge of the arts and sciences with them, rapidly formed the major centers of civilization. Writing was necessary for organization, commerce, and record-keeping in these nascent, rapidly expanding nations.
Conclusion: Trusting the Inspired Word
Ultimately, the Young Earth perspective asserts that the Bible, the only entirely inspired and inerrant record of history, provides the true chronological framework for the cosmos. As it is written in the King James Version:
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” —2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)
The time of the oldest found human writings, therefore, are not markers for an Earth millions of years old, but rather are historical markers that testify to the rapid rise of civilization from Noah’s family shortly after the Flood, at a time entirely consistent with a planetary age of approximately 6,000 years.