4004 B.C.E. October 22

Let There Be Light

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The Bishop of Armagh examines the Bible to pinpoint the date of creation.

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“ “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” “

“The opening words of the Book of Genesis indicated the beginning of history for millions of Christians and Jews over the millennia — but when was that beginning? Before the eighteenth century when geological research began to suggest that the Earth was many millions of years old, the best information people had to go on were the many generations (or “begats”) mentioned in the Bible itself. Using these, and the (often extraordinarily extended) life spans of some of the patriarchs, and cross-checking against astronomical cycles and what was known of Middle Eastern and Egyptian history, James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh in Ireland, estimated in 1658 that “the beginning” occurred at nightfall on Saturday, October 22, some 4,004 years before the Nativity of Jesus.

Ussher assured that when night and day were created, they would have been equal in length, which pinpointed the date as being near the equinox. He also assumed that, in order to allow Adam and Eve food to eat, it would have been harvesttime in the Garden of Eden. Ussher’s chosen date was included in the margins of many printed Bibles from the early eighteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, and became notorious.

Ussher was not the only scholar of his day to make such a calculation. A few years earlier the vice chancellor of Cambridge University, John Lightfoot, had estimated that heaven and earth came into being in September 3929 B.C.E. Previous scholars, including the Venerable Bede, Martin Luther, and Johannes Kepler, had also worked out complicated sums arriving at similar conclusions, but none of their calculations achieved the same universal acceptance as Usser’s date of creation.”(PF)

#1transcribedtext #wikimedia #1001beforeyoudiecollections #1001beforeyoudiecollection

⬆️(Image is the painting by Francisco de Holanda named, The First Day of Creation).

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Artwork: The First day of Creation

Artist: Francisco de Holanda

Created: 1545

Important notice: this painting was not a part of the 1001 Before You Die Collection, at the time when I wrote this article.