Not with certainty. Genesis 5 and 11 list the ages of the men from Adam to Abraham, and adding them up seems to produce a creation date about 6,000 years ago. But biblical genealogies often skip generations to highlight key names, so the totals may not form a complete timeline. Faithful Christians land in different places on the age of the earth while agreeing that God created everything.
Adding Up the Lifespans
Genesis 5 traces the family line from Adam to Noah, and Genesis 11 continues it from Noah’s son Shem down to Abram. What makes these lists stand out is their precision. Each entry gives a father’s age when his son was born and how many years he lived afterward, which makes it tempting to pull out a calculator and start adding.
Genesis 5:3-5 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.
If you total the ages at which each father had his son, then connect that number to Abraham, whose life can be roughly placed in history, you arrive at a creation date of around 4000 BC. The best-known version of this calculation came from Archbishop James Ussher in the 1600s, who dated creation to 4004 BC. Many Christians still find this approach persuasive, and it grows out of a sincere desire to take every word of Scripture seriously.
Biblical Genealogies Often Skip Generations
The real question is whether these lists were meant to be complete. Modern family trees try to record every generation, but ancient genealogies often worked differently. Writers sometimes “telescoped” a family line, leaving out names in order to highlight the most important people. In Hebrew, the word for “father” can also mean ancestor, and “son” can mean descendant.
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus gives a clear example. Matthew arranges Jesus’ family tree into three groups of fourteen generations, and to keep that structure, he leaves some names out.
Matthew 1:8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
The Old Testament records of Judah’s kings show three kings between Jehoram and Uzziah: Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah. Uzziah was actually Jehoram’s great-great-grandson. Matthew wasn’t making a mistake. He was using “father” in the broader sense of ancestor, a common and accepted practice in the ancient world.
A Missing Name in the Genesis List
Some argue that Genesis is different because it gives exact numbers for each generation. That’s a fair point to consider. Even so, those numbers tell us how old a man was when a particular descendant was born, which could still allow for gaps if “became the father of” points to an ancestor rather than a direct son.
Genesis 11:12-13 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
Here’s where Luke adds an interesting detail. When Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Adam, he lists a man named Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah (Luke 3:35-36), a name that doesn’t appear in the Hebrew text of Genesis 11. Luke’s list follows the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. Either way, it suggests that at least one of these genealogies is not an exhaustive, generation-by-generation record.
Holding the Question With Humility
So where does that leave us? Many faithful theologians believe the genealogies should be read as a continuous timeline that points to a young earth. Many other conservative scholars, who hold an equally high view of Scripture, believe the gaps allow for an older earth. This is a friendly debate among Christians who agree that Genesis is true and that God’s Word is completely trustworthy.
What the Bible makes unmistakably clear is who created the universe and why it exists.
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Your view on the age of the earth isn’t what saves you. Trusting the risen Jesus is. That frees us to study this question with curiosity, discuss it with gentleness, and keep the focus where Scripture puts it: on the Creator who made us and the Savior who rescues us.
The Takeaway
Can you calculate the age of the earth from Genesis 5? Not with certainty, because biblical genealogies weren’t always meant to record every generation. Christians can discuss the age of the earth with grace, while standing together on the truth that God created everything and that Jesus rose from the dead.
