Did Jesus and the New Testament writers believe in millions of years of earth history?

Joel Kontinen


Mark 10:6 is a verse that causes a headache for those who believe the earth is millions of years old. The Greek text of Mark 10:6 says (transliterated as)"apo de arkhes ktiseos", literally "from the beginning (of) creation". It would be interesting to compare this with another beginning, that in John 1:1: "En arkhe en ho logos" , "In the beginning was the Word". If "beginning" is not "beginning" in the New Testament, what is it? A few million years after the beginning, perhaps?

Only an utter ignorance of Greek - or English or logic - could make Mark 10:6 say "billions of years after the beginning of creation". Jesus was using plain language; He was not speaking figuratively as He taught people the truth about marriage in this context. Of course, Jesus originally probably used Aramaic but Greek was the language God chose to convey His revelation to us.

The text clearly says that Jesus believed in a relatively recent creation, not in a gradual process lasting millions of years.