Jesus AGE Verses Series: 5
What does Jesus have to say about the age of the earth?
"For decades, young-earth creationist writers have cited these verses in articles and books in defense of the earth being only thousands of years old, emphasizing that the statements of Jesus show that Adam could not have been created billions of years after the beginning, as all old-earth views maintain.
It would appear that either old-earthers are not reading the young-earth literature, as they tell the church that young-earth creationists are wrong about the age of the earth and about the importance of the subject, or the old-earther proponents are simply overlooking the point being made by young-earthers from the teaching of Jesus on this matter.
Some of the early 19th century defenders of young-earth creationism (called “Scriptural geologists”) also used these statements of Jesus as they resisted the idea of millions of years that was engulfing geology at that time.
In 1834 the Anglican minister, Henry Cole, argued this way from Mark 13:19:
Now, is there a geologizing mortal upon Earth who will assert, that the Redeemer is here speaking of “afflictions” experienced by a world of creatures, who lived in a mighty space between “the beginning,” and the present race of mankind? Will any geological sceptic, we repeat, dare aver, that our Lord is here referring to a race of beings of whom his disciples had never heard, and whose existence was never known to men or saints, till discovered by wondrous Geologians in the nineteenth century! Must not every scientific, unless he violate every remnant of natural understanding, honesty, and conscience, confess that the Saviour is here speaking to sons of men of the “afflictions” of the same sons of men which have been from the beginning of the Creation of this world? Then, here is the creation of man immediately, manifestly, and undeniably, connected with “the beginning”!
But the early 19th century Christian old-earth proponents largely ignored the Genesis text and all of them overlooked the Jesus AGE verses, as they told the church to accept millions of years and to regard the age of the earth as unimportant. As will be seen, old-earth proponents continue to do this."
AIG