I guess you might call me a YEC. A young earth creationist. I tend to favor the idea that God created the world in 6 twenty-four hour days and rested. This is opposed to the DAC (Day Age Creationists)concept.
However, I am told that China has had a documented existence extending well beyond 5000 years. If this were true the argument is made that a world-wide flood and other “miraculous” events surely would have been recorded in their history.
Does this hold water?
There’s so much controversy over this issue, and the truth is, no one was there to observe it except God. He said He created the Earth as we know it including the plants animals and man in six literal days, and He has never lied to us. So I’m content in believing Him even though I can’t possibly know all the details.
People have tried to figure out how long ago the creation occurred, but nobody knows for sure. And in the interim, the Earth has gone through some major changes that have changed the length of a year by 5.25 days. Man’s calendars have been wrong for a lot of that time because they’ve kept track of time differently through the ages, and our current calendar was only agreed to a few hundred years ago.
This year on the Jewish calendar, which Jews believe dates from the creation, is 5768. But some scholars believe that as many as 200 years may be missing because in ancient times they didn’t count the years they were under some sort of judgment from God.
According to Genesis 5-6 the Flood occurred 1656 years after the Creation, but there’s no one alive on Earth today who can tell you exactly how long ago that was on our current calendar. Your best bet is to stick with the only eyewitness account and leave it at that.