On this day, 1st September, 5509 BC the world was created. At least, if you are a member of one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, today is definitely the day. On the other hand, in the western churches, Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC was the big day. For Jews, a certain ambiguity is acceptable and either Elul 25, AM 1 or Adar 25, AM 1 could be correct. It all comes down to how you decide to interpret the Book of Genesis in which a description is given of how God created the world - in six days. In this account, God also is supposed to have created the first human, a man named Adam. Genesis goes on to list a number of Adam's descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. If these events and ages are interpreted literally, it is possible to build up a chronology in which many of the events of the Old Testament are dated to an estimated number of years after the Creation. Over the years people have matched this Biblical chronology with recorded history and established a date for the Creation in a modern calendar. Unfortunately, there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given which has, not surprisingly, resulted in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation.
The two dominant dates for Biblical Creation using these estimates place the dates in about 5500 BC or about 4000 BC. Why the two dates? Well, astonishingly, there are two versions of the Word of God and most of the difference arise from two different versions of the Book of Genesis. The oldest version was translated into Greek from the Hebrew Torah during the third century BC and is known as the first book of the Septuagint. It was used by Jews until about 100AD, then by all Christians until 405AD, then by the Byzantines until 1453. This version is still used by the Orthodox churches.
The newer was a revision of the Torah by Jews in about 100AD, and is still used by all Jews today. Jerome translated this book into Latin and it is known as the first book of the Vulgate. From then it has been used by all Western Christians, who split into Roman Catholics and Protestants beginning in 1517.
Basically, the differences are down to the ages of various patriarchs from Adam to the father of Abraham. (For those who are interested in this stuff see Genesis 5, 11). The resulting difference between the two genealogies was 1466 years which is, for the bright sparks among you, almost all of the difference between 5500 BC and 4000 BC.
So there you have it. Just a couple of other slight difficulties with this idea, for a start off, according to Hindus, the universe undergoes endless cycles of creation each lasting exactly 4,320,000 years. The current universe is believed to have been created 3,893,100 years ago (and the earth with it) and is expected to dissolve in 426,900 years from now. What is more, the Mayan calendar dates the Earth to August 11 or August 13, 3114 BC.
Some of us, tend to need a slightly more scientific approach to figuring all of this out - dodgy translations of old fables being a tad to 'open to interpretation' and for those, the age of the Earth is considered to be 4.55 billion years - based upon dating of mineral crystal deposits and meteorites.
Of course, if you are of a different persuasion altogether, you might remember September 1st as the day Cetshwayo ascended to the throne as king of the Zulu nation following the death of his father Mpande in 1873 - or some such other momentous event.
7 comments:
the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago in a "big bang". That's pretty much the accepted theory.
Steve, great site I find the data most interesting. Personaly I believe in a young earth. I am not one to put my faith in the "accepted theory". Some have suggested that the big bang means God said it and BANG it happened. I disagree, I'm sure God took a full six days and rested on the seventh just as He said in the Genisis record. The evidence of the global flood is too stagering to ignor even former evolutionist have changed thier minds about this.
The Bible does predict a big bang (see 2Pet.3)! My question to Adam, yourself and your readers is, are you ready?
To J.Wendell - does the phrase 'Mad as a Box of Frogs' mean anything to you?
BLASPHEMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve, I don't really give it much thought. The earth pretty much took care of creating itself. What really concerns me is how I can fully enjoy the planet. Methinks the world was created when I was born. Harharhar!
My, my, no need to be confused over our earthly view of time as we measure it here according to the planets movements as fixed by God. God's six days of creation are not to be confused with our physically restricted measurement of time. 2nd Peter 3:8 states: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." There is a beginning and end to us mortals, but to God, the Creator and Master of time, there is no beginning and no end. God has always existed at all times in the here and now.
Anonymous, old fruit, try, if you can, not to be such a complete plonker - I mean, honestly, get real. Just becouse some middle-eastern bloke in a blanket and daft headgear was trying to sound like a smartarse doesn't mean we all have to. Next you'll be telling me that the earth is flat and doesn't go round the sun - and anybody who says so should be burnt at the stake.
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