Peregrinations: Church Fathers and Age of Creation

Here is a great blog post that I think gives a great answer to the charge that the Bible tells us the earth is only 6000 years old. I agree with the author. I don't think you can prove that the Bible says earth is 6000 years old without making a few untenable presuppositions.
1. "Yom" means six 24-hr days in Genesis 1
2. The geneologies completely list every single human from Adam to Abraham when we know that ancient Genealogies did not do that.
He makes the point that it really wasn't until the 17th century that people started saying the Bible teaches that the earth was 6000 yrs old. I have to ask "Why?" My Answer: People knew that was not what Bible was saying. So why then? I think many heresies and misinterpretations come from people desiring to have a new revelation that no one has had before and they'll even take ideas that can't be Biblically supported or outright contradict the Bible. The Blogger quotes Augustine and I think it's a great quote. It's a warning against holding a view of facts that can be shown not to line up with reality. I think in these cases we must take the opinion that the Bible is true, but we are wrong in how we understood what it affirms.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world... and his knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? (from The Literal Meaning of Genesis)

Peregrinations: Church Fathers and Age of Creation