Published work
This used to be available online among the recommended reading for an economics Masters course at one of the London colleges. God knows why. Rescued while I can still find it.
On its birthday too! (The world is 6,000 today)
Independent, The (London), Oct 23, 1997 by Henry Braun
The dome is still a building site, the lottery budget is unspent and the millennium bug is still pupating in our PCs, but the new millennium is upon us. The world is precisely 6,000 years old today. "In the beginning God created the Heavens and Earth, which beginning of time was in that night preceding the XXIII day of October . . . in the year 4004 before the first of our Era, commonly called Christian."
Those authoritative words were written by James Ussher (pictured below), Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, in his Annals of the Old Testament published in 1650. To this day, no one has given a more precise date for the beginning of the world, which may explain why Ussher's date of 4004 BC was printed in every King James Bible until Victorian times.
That date was the fruit of the best learning of the 17th century. Ussher had studied all the Greek and Hebrew sources known at the time. He compared historical, biblical and astronomical records, as far back as Nebuchadnezzar; for still earlier times, he relied on the Hebrew bible. But counting backwards is not as easy as it looks. Egyptians, Babylonians, Jews, and Romans all used years of different length, starting at different seasons. The Latin way of counting confused things further. Not only was there no year AD zero, but when Julius Caesar introduced his calendar in the Roman Empire the officials thought a leap year "every fourth year" meant every three years. Ussher relied on the numbering system of the Frenchman Joseph Scaliger to sort out "these pertinacious difficulties". Unfortunately, France was already using the Gregorian calendar, while Britain deferred entry into the single European calendar and kept to the old Julian system. Despite this, once the year 4004 is known, the precise date of 23 October follows at once. God, of course, kept to the Jewish festival calendar (He had commanded it, after all) and the first day of the Feast of Weeks, calculated from the Equinox and the Moon in 4004 BC, was on Sunday 23 October.
James Ussher was a devoted millenarian. His calculations showed that Solomon completed his Temple 3000 years after the Creation; and he thought that Jesus was born in 4 BC. The 5000-year mark was when the Antichrist began his rule, corrupting the Popes. Sadly, Ussher made no predictions for what should happen today, at the start of the seventh millennium. Cosmology has taken over from Bible study for purposes of dating the world. So, give or take a couple of solar quirks, let's Ussher in the millennium. Happy Birthday World - You're 6,000 today. - Henry Braun
On its birthday too! (The world is 6,000 today)
Independent, The (London), Oct 23, 1997 by Henry Braun
The dome is still a building site, the lottery budget is unspent and the millennium bug is still pupating in our PCs, but the new millennium is upon us. The world is precisely 6,000 years old today. "In the beginning God created the Heavens and Earth, which beginning of time was in that night preceding the XXIII day of October . . . in the year 4004 before the first of our Era, commonly called Christian."
Those authoritative words were written by James Ussher (pictured below), Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, in his Annals of the Old Testament published in 1650. To this day, no one has given a more precise date for the beginning of the world, which may explain why Ussher's date of 4004 BC was printed in every King James Bible until Victorian times.
That date was the fruit of the best learning of the 17th century. Ussher had studied all the Greek and Hebrew sources known at the time. He compared historical, biblical and astronomical records, as far back as Nebuchadnezzar; for still earlier times, he relied on the Hebrew bible. But counting backwards is not as easy as it looks. Egyptians, Babylonians, Jews, and Romans all used years of different length, starting at different seasons. The Latin way of counting confused things further. Not only was there no year AD zero, but when Julius Caesar introduced his calendar in the Roman Empire the officials thought a leap year "every fourth year" meant every three years. Ussher relied on the numbering system of the Frenchman Joseph Scaliger to sort out "these pertinacious difficulties". Unfortunately, France was already using the Gregorian calendar, while Britain deferred entry into the single European calendar and kept to the old Julian system. Despite this, once the year 4004 is known, the precise date of 23 October follows at once. God, of course, kept to the Jewish festival calendar (He had commanded it, after all) and the first day of the Feast of Weeks, calculated from the Equinox and the Moon in 4004 BC, was on Sunday 23 October.
James Ussher was a devoted millenarian. His calculations showed that Solomon completed his Temple 3000 years after the Creation; and he thought that Jesus was born in 4 BC. The 5000-year mark was when the Antichrist began his rule, corrupting the Popes. Sadly, Ussher made no predictions for what should happen today, at the start of the seventh millennium. Cosmology has taken over from Bible study for purposes of dating the world. So, give or take a couple of solar quirks, let's Ussher in the millennium. Happy Birthday World - You're 6,000 today. - Henry Braun