Where Did the 6,000 Year Existence of Man Idea Come From?

Well, it is a curious story.

There's this guy....Henry M. Morris, who went off to college (Rice University, Texas), and graduated in 1939 with a degree in Civil Engineering.

It's safe to say that he was a moderately religious guy at this point in his life.  It's also safe to say that men of science around this period (1900 to 1940) generally believed the Earth was a minimum of a couple million years old.

Morris at this point, around 1942....became an instructor at Rice for a short period (up to 1946), and tried his hand at writing.  The topic?  He wanted to take science (at the 1940s point) and try to validate the Bible, or perhaps use the Bible to validate science.  Take your pick.

The work was called 'That You Might Believe'.  It's not exactly a book that you would read today, and I have doubts that it sold more than a couple hundred copies.

After this period at Rice....he went to Minnesota and studied for both a Master's degree and a PhD.  He drifted around for the next decade....with at least three colleges.

In 1959, he arrives at Virginia Tech to teach hydraulics.  In this period, he goes back to his hobby of combining science and the Bible, and that ends up with him as a co-author on the book 'The Genesis Flood'.

One could say that the time and continuing suggestion of new information and theories met up, and public interest in proving Genesis was at some peak point.  So the two writing this book (Morris and John Witcomb) piece together a narrative (best way of describing this).  In doing so, they had to have a date in mind to get people to the conclusion of the book, and their number was 6,000 years (more or less) since the dawn of mankind.

If you go out and question folks, especially in the geology field....in this period of the 1960s....NO one seemed to agree with the 6,000 year estimate.  That was problem number one.  Was either Morris or Witcomb a geology expert?  No.  Witcomb was mostly a minister-type guy and Morris was a civil engineer by trade.

So they were pretending to be experts in something that they really didn't know much about?  Yes, that's the simple side of this story.  But the 'Genesis Flood' was a story told in such a way, that Christian enthusiasts felt that it answered the whole question and attached science to discussion.  Naturally, it pushed out evolution and just pretended that it wasn't part of the discussion.

Within the Christian communities....the book sold.  Beyond that?  No, most scientists were amused by the story, and the lack of evidence.  You had to take the Bible as the absolute source of information and build around it.

Where we stand today (2019)?  Well, most science folks will be on the agreeable side that the Earth by itself is 4 to 4.5 billion years old.  If you go to DNA experts (especially from the past two years)....they will argue that Mom and Dad (version 1.0)....came from 250,000 to 450,000 years ago.  That call by the DNA folks upsets a fair number of the evolution crowd because it really doesn't help them tell their story.

So the 6,000 year thing?  Well, the 'Genesis Flood' business has formed out and created a group often called 'Old Earth Creationists'.  Some folks will go and suggest that forty-percent of Americans are in this belief.  The polling done is suspect and probably not that accurate.  I won't say it's in the thousands or even tens of thousands, but it's a group that generally believes that the flood business is told via the Bible, and that science can back up the flood.

But there is this odd piece of science standing there which might help but disturb the Creationist crowd.  There is no doubt that a glacier stood over North America (mostly over NY state and over to mid-section of the US) around 12,900 years ago.  Among the geology folks, this is a 99.9-percent proven fact.  It's hard not to find someone who isn't on the glacier situation.

But something happened around 12,900 years ago....with the glacier greatly affected, and in a matter of days....a great portion melted (remember, this was between a mile and two miles thick).   We aren't talking of a thousand-year melt....there is enough evidence to say this occurred over days and weeks.  The melted water affecting the Gulf Stream?  More than likely.  The melting water raising water levels across the globe by 300 feet?  Yes, readily proven.  In fact, that water still remains at the flood stage of today.....where it's accepted as 'normal'.

Villages and cities flooded in a matter of hours?  Yes.  So this Genesis story could connect to that flood of 12,900 years ago....with the melt of this North American glacier?  Yep.

What triggered the rapid melt?  Unknown.  This is the part of the story where geologists sit and argue for hours while sipping Jack Daniels.  The solar science guys like to argue this as well....stating that some massive solar flare could have started this. The comet guys will argue that something struck the glacier area and melted a heck of a lot of it.

So that's where the 6,000 idea started up.  It was simply a guy trying to get the Bible and science of the 1940s to agree on something, but limited with facts.

You have to admit....it's a decent story.  But it's like talking over Bigfoot, or the Nessie creature.