Bible Timeline · The beginning

Creation: In the Beginning, God

God made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. He made Adam and Eve in His own image and placed them in the Garden of Eden. The Bible gives no calendar year, but the traditional count from the genealogies puts it at 4004 BC.

Read it in the Bible: Genesis 1:1-31 Genesis 2:1-25 John 1:1-3 Hebrews 11:3 Exodus 20:11

The Bible opens with God making everything. In six days He made light, sky, sea, land, plants, stars, animals and people, and on the seventh day He rested. He made the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, in His own image and gave them a garden called Eden. Genesis never gives a calendar year for this. The traditional count from the genealogies lands on 4004 BC, while many other Christians believe the earth is far older. Either way, the point of Genesis 1 is not mainly when. It is who.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

What Happened on Each Day of Creation?

Genesis 1 moves in a clear pattern. Each day starts with God speaking, and then it happens. Each day ends with the same line: there was evening, and there was morning.

Day 1: Light, and the separating of light from darkness.
Day 2: The sky, separating the waters above from the waters below.
Day 3: Dry land, seas and plants.
Day 4: The sun, moon and stars.
Day 5: Fish and birds.
Day 6: Land animals, and then people.
Day 7: God rests.

Many readers notice that days 1 to 3 build the rooms, and days 4 to 6 fill them. Light on day 1 gets the sun and stars on day 4. The sky and sea on day 2 get birds and fish on day 5. The land on day 3 gets animals and people on day 6. It is like God built a house and then moved everybody in.

At the end of day six, God looks at the whole thing and gives His verdict.

And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. Genesis 1:31

Why Did God Rest on the Seventh Day?

God was not tired. The Hebrew word for rest is close to the word Sabbath, and it means to stop or cease. God finished His work and then set the day apart as holy.

And by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished. Genesis 2:2 to 3

Later, God used this as the reason for the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:11. The week we all live by, seven days with a day of rest, goes all the way back to the first page of the Bible.

How Were Adam and Eve Created?

Genesis 1 gives the wide angle view. Genesis 2 zooms in on day six. God forms the man from the dust of the ground and breathes life into him.

Then Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

The name Adam is related to the Hebrew word for ground, adamah. So Adam is basically "dirt guy," which keeps all of us humble. God then makes the woman from the man's side, and Adam names her Eve, which sounds like the Hebrew word for living, because she would be the mother of all the living.

Most important of all, people are made in God's image.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27

Being made in God's image means every person has worth. It also means we were made to reflect God and care for His world. That is why God placed Adam in the garden "to cultivate and keep it" in Genesis 2:15. Work was part of paradise before anything went wrong.

Where Was the Garden of Eden?

Genesis 2 names four rivers flowing out of Eden, including the Tigris and the Euphrates. Those two rivers run through modern Iraq, so many people place Eden somewhere in Mesopotamia. The other two rivers, the Pishon and the Gihon, have never been firmly identified. The honest answer is that we don't know exactly where it was, and a flood and thousands of years have changed the map a lot since then.

When Did Creation Happen?

The Bible gives no calendar year for creation. What it does give are family lists with ages, in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. In 1650, an Irish archbishop named James Ussher added those numbers up, matched them with later history and published a date of 4004 BC. He even named the day, in late October. That is called the traditional count, and this timeline uses it for events before Abraham so you can see how the story fits together.

Christians read the days of Genesis in a few main ways:

Young earth view: The days are normal 24 hour days, and the genealogies give a fairly complete count. The earth is around 6,000 years old, or not much more. This is the oldest and most traditional reading, and many Christians hold it today.
Old earth views: Many other Christians believe the earth is billions of years old. Some read each day as a long age. Others see the days as a literary frame, a way of telling the story in seven parts. Still others see gaps in the genealogies.

Faithful believers who love the Bible land in different places here. What every one of them agrees on is the big thing: God made it, and He made it on purpose.

Who Created the World, According to the New Testament?

The New Testament adds something amazing. John starts his Gospel with the same words as Genesis, on purpose.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1 to 3

The Word is Jesus, as John 1:14 makes clear. So the One who later walked the roads of Galilee is the One who spoke the stars into place. Hebrews adds that creation is something we understand by faith.

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. Hebrews 11:3

Why Creation Matters for You Today

Creation tells you that you are not an accident. You were made on purpose by a God who calls His work very good. It tells you that rest is holy, that work matters, and that every person you meet carries God's image. And it tells you that the One who made everything did not stay far away. The Word who made the world became flesh to save it. The story that starts with "In the beginning" is headed somewhere, and the rest of this timeline shows you where.

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Questions People Ask

How old is the earth according to the Bible?

The Bible does not give an age for the earth. Adding up the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, as James Ussher did in 1650, gives a creation date of about 4004 BC. Many Christians accept a young earth from those lists, while many others believe the earth is billions of years old and read the days of Genesis differently.

Were the days of creation literal 24 hour days?

The traditional reading is that they were normal days, and many Christians hold that view today. Others read them as long ages or as a literary frame for telling the story. Christians on all sides agree that God is the Creator and that the account is true.

What does it mean that people are made in God's image?

It means every human being has real worth and was made to reflect God's character. It also means people were made to care for God's world as His representatives, starting with Adam's job to cultivate and keep the garden.

Did Jesus create the world?

The New Testament says yes. John 1:1 to 3 says all things were made through the Word, and John 1:14 says the Word became flesh, meaning Jesus. Colossians 1:16 and Hebrews 1:2 say the same thing.

Sources

The date of the world's beginning, Cambridge University Library

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