Genesis 1:1 - 31
ESV - 1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
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If one accepts the timeframe calculated by Bishop Ussher, in which the days of creation as mentioned in the Bible refer to literal 24-hour days, and the passage of time since then corresponds to the lifespans of individuals as given in Genesis and elsewhere in the Bible, humans have been on earth just over 6,000 years. Secular estimates of human existence (based upon such evidence as the discovery and dating of tools, the fossil record, and analysis of geologic strata) commonly indicate that humans have been on earth considerably longer, with a figure of 200,000 years often being used. However, as I understand it, even those estimates speak of "civilization" as having first appeared approximately 6,000 years ago.
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