When did the creation take place?

[Lethe]

It is a widely held belief that the Bible teaches that God created the entire universe about 6,000 years ago. But is this really what it teaches?

Most theological scholars put the supposed date in accordance with the Bible from between 6,000 and 12,000 years ago.

There are a lot of common misconceptions about the Bible's teaching because few people study the Bible carefully to see what it does say.

I wholeheartedly disagree. The Bible is an international best seller, it's been analyzed to bits.

The first two chapters of Genesis describe God's work of creation. It can be divided into three parts. The first verse simply contains a statement that God created the heavens and the earth. It gives no details about the steps involved or how long it took.

Convenient, eh?

The six days do not describe the actual creation of our earth but its transformation from a chaotic condition into one which supports life.

Disagreed, the Hebrew word "yom" translates to a 24 hour period.

It sounds as if this is when God created the sun, moon, and stars. But since the sun already existed this couldn't be the case.

Exactly, it couldn't be. Yet that was what was written.

Since the six days involve only the earth and not the rest of the universe the Bible tells us nothing about how old the entire universe is.

Three hundred sextillion some stars doesn't amass much on a universal scale, that's true (in fact atoms make up only 4.6% of the universe's makeup). But it would seem to me that would lessen the Bible's credibility even more. Why would the creator of the universe fail to mention that roughly 95% of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy? Especially if, being omniscient, he knew humans would one day discover this by their own means?

There is no way we can determine from the Bible how old the universe is.

Tell that to Statler.