Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dean Anderson · 09-10-2007, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roland

The Flood is generally pegged at around 2400 B.C.

But you can work it out for yourself using the ages in the begats sections of Genesis.

Creation week occurs at around 4000 BC, give or take a few years, then work your way up.

Check out this nutcase timeline here:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/study...ine/index.html

Their timeline is fairly poor and inaccurate.

For example, they show Arphaxad being born about 40 years before the flood - whilst the Bible explicitly says in Genesis 11:10 that he was born 2 years after the flood.

Similarly - they give both genealogies of Jesus, but insert "Mary" into the one from the Gospel of Luke in order to avoid the contradictions in them.

They probably deviate from what the Bible says in other places too, but I haven't checked that closely...

Edited To Add: I notice they also give the founding of Egypt as being in the 21st Century BCE - almost a thousand years later than when conventional archaeology (which places it before their flood date) places it. I guess they don't care about either Biblical accuracy or historical accuracy, as long as they can make the numbers fit their theology...

Dean Anderson · 09-10-2007, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David B

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dean Anderson

If you are interested in exactly where the numbers come from to support those dates, here is a table I put together showing how each event is specifically related to another event in the Biblical text.

The reason I end up with a slightly different start date to the "classic" Bishop Ussher date of 4004 BCE (I end up with 4150 BCE) is that Ussher did some stretching and squeezing in order to fit the later dates in with known archaeology at that time - whereas I have completely ignored archaeology (and geology and cosmology!) and treated the Bible as being simply true instead.

I thought Ussher did some bending and stretching to give a thousand year days in the mind of god, biblical reasons for thinking Jesus couldn't have been born after 4 BC.

No?

David B

He manipulated the numbers for both reasons, as far as I can tell. His adjusted-to-fit-known-history figures gave him a date of approximately 4,000 BCE. He then fixed it to 4,004 BCE for the theological reason that you give.

VoxRat · 09-10-2007, 08:02 AM

I note that Wednesday marks Rosh HaShanah, the beginning of Jewish year 5768.

This is about 242 years off of the Ussher number.

Does anyone know the details of how this was arrived at?

How long have the Jews been assigning year #'s to the years?

Back then, did Ezra, say, pop open a bottle of Manishewitz and say "Happy 3225!" ?

Toto · 09-10-2007, 01:41 PM

Hebrew_calendar

Quote:

Epoch

The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar is 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM = anno mundi = in the year of the world), which in the proleptic Julian calendar is Monday, October 7, 3761 BCE, the equivalent tabular date (same daylight period). This date is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1, based upon the Seder Olam of Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta, a second century CE sage. (A minority opinion places Creation on 25 Adar AM 1, six months earlier, or six months after the modern epoch.) Thus, adding 3760 to any Julian/Gregorian year number after 1 CE will yield the Hebrew year which roughly coincides with that English year, ending that autumn. (Add 3761 for the year beginning in autumn). Due to the slow drift of the modern Jewish calendar relative to the Gregorian calendar, this will be true for about another 20,000 years

Dating_Creation

Quote:

Some scholars have gone further, and have attempted to tie in this Biblical chronology with that of recorded history, thus establishing a date for the Creation in a modern calendar. Since there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given, the chronology has been subject to interpretation in many different ways, resulting in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation.

Two dominant dates for Biblical Creation using such models exist, about 5500 BCE and about 4000 BCE. These were calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates are based on the Greek Septuagint. The later dates are based on the Hebrew Masoretic text. The patriarchs from Adam to Terach, the father of Abraham, were often 100 years older when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Hebrew or the Vulgate (Genesis 5, 11). The net difference between the two genealogies of Genesis was 1466 years (ignoring the "second year after the flood" ambiguity), which is virtually all of the 1500-year difference between 5500 BCE and 4000 BCE.

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09-10-2007, 08:02 AM	#13
VoxRat Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: New Jersey Posts: 1,768	I note that Wednesday marks Rosh HaShanah, the beginning of Jewish year 5768. This is about 242 years off of the Ussher number. Does anyone know the details of how this was arrived at? How long have the Jews been assigning year #'s to the years? Back then, did Ezra, say, pop open a bottle of Manishewitz and say "Happy 3225!" ?

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