Tag Archives: James Ussher

08/5/16

The Fall of the Chronology of Ussher

© Oleksandr Solonenko | 123rf.com

© Oleksandr Solonenko | 123rf.com

According to Bishop James Ussher, the world was created at nightfall on Saturday, October 22, 4,004 BCE. This amazingly precise declaration was just one of the important dates, both biblical and historical, that appeared in his seminal work, The Annals of the World. The “cosmological age” for creation occurring around 4,000 BCE was a widely accepted date in the 17th century. Its acceptance was partly based on 2 Peter 3:8, which says: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The application of the passage for the date of creation is that the six days of creation meant the earth would exist for 6,000 years—4,000 years until the time of Christ, and 2,000 years afterwards. If Ussher was correct, we are now living on borrowed time.

Ussher’s chronology was not the first to calculate that the creation of the world was around 4,000 BCE, but today it is the most well known. Others who had proposed similar biblically based estimates include: Bede (3952 BCE), the astronomer Johannes Kepler (3992 BCE), Sir Isaac Newton (4000 BCE), and Rabbi Jose ben Halafta (3761 BCE). Ussher’s very specific date was based on a desire “to get it right.” He used astronomical and religious sources to estimate the season of the year, day of the week and time of day he thought creation had to be. He believed the time was in the autumn, since that was the beginning of the Jewish calendar year, and on a Saturday evening, because of the Sabbath.

The Annals full title in English is a mouthful: “Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, the chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian matters together produced from the beginning of historical time up to the beginnings of Maccabees.” It was 1300 pages, with 14,000 footnotes. Ussher worked on it for 20 years before it was published. The original printing sold well. What gave Ussher’s chronology staying power was its use in the margins of an edition of the Bible published by London bookseller Thomas Guy in 1675. Beginning in 1701 several editions of the King James translation included Ussher’s dates in its marginal notes and cross-references. The widely circulated Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909 and revised in 1917, used Ussher’s dates and would become the main conduit of the chronology into modern times.

Ussher (1581-1656) was a careful and thoughtful man, well schooled in his faith and history. He was ordained in 1601 and was a professor at Trinity College in Dublin from 1607-1621. As early as 1624, he was invited to preach before King James I. He was made archbishop of Armagh in 1621 and primate of Ireland in 1634. When civil war broke out in 1642, he was in England. He never returned to Ireland. Ussher declined an invitation to join the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-49), who incidentally produced the Westminster Confession of Faith. He later preached against the legality of the Assembly.

He wrote on a wide variety of topics, mostly theological and historical, and was an expert in Semitic languages. “He was widely acknowledged for his thorough and impartial scholarship.” Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist and paleontologist, said Ussher’s chronology was “an honorable effort for its time.” You can find more information about Ussher and his chronology here on Wikipedia, or in “James Ussher” in the Encyclopedia Britannica online. You can also listen to a 10-minute podcast on Ussher and his book, “Annals of the World, 1650,” for Documents that Changed the World.

Ussher’s chronology is the cornerstone for determining the age of the earth by young earth creationist organizations like Creation Magazine, the Institute for Creation Research, which was founded by Henry Morris, and Answers in Genesis, founded by Ken Ham. Here is a link to a timeline that appeared in Creation Magazine. It was based upon the details provided by Archbishop Ussher in his Annals of the World. Both the Institute for Creation Research (here) and Answers in Genesis (here) explicitly draw their declarations for the age of the earth from Ussher’s calculations. If you want, you can verify this claim by comparing their discussion of dates for creation to the timeline of Ussher’s chronology found in Creation Magazine. The organization Answers in Genesis also has a table listing 32 different individuals who calculated the date of the creation of the earth to be between 5501 and 3836 BCE.

But what if the assumptions made by Ussher and others about the biblical genealogies used to calculate the age of the earth were wrong?  William Henry Green, an Old Testament professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in the late 1800s, addressed this question in his 1890 article in the journal Bibliotheca Sacra, “Primeval Chronology.” Green said the accepted chronology of his time (Ussher’s chronology) was based upon an assumption that there were no gaps in the biblical genealogies, most notably those of Genesis 5 and 11. However, he examined the biblical genealogies and found: “There is an element of uncertainty in a computation of time which rests upon genealogies, as the sacred chronology so largely does.”

I here repeat, the discussion of the biblical genealogies above referred to, and add some further considerations which seem to me to justify the belief that the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 were not intended to be used, and cannot properly be used, for the construction of a chronology.

Green then went through an extensive examination of several different genealogies in the Bible to support his point that they regularly had gaps. He commented they are frequently abbreviated by omitting unimportant names. “In fact, abridgement is the general rule.” He thought the occurrence of an abridgement should not create surprise “and we are at liberty to suppose it whenever anything in the circumstances of the case favors that belief.” The analogy of Scriptural genealogies opposes the supposition that “the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are necessarily to be considered as complete, and embracing all the links in the line of descent from Adam to Noah and from Shem to Abraham.”

On these various grounds we conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.

Biblical evidence is then available to indicate Ussher’s chronology was based on faulty assumptions regarding the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. They were not intended to construct a chronology and are improperly utilized by individuals and organizations that do so.

For more articles on creation in the Bible, see the link “Genesis & Creation.”

07/5/16

Digging Deeper

© bowie 15 | 123rf.com

© bowie 15 | 123rf.com

The trial of Galileo has been used to illustrate the assumed conflict between science and religion for the last four hundred years. But there is a false dichotomy here. It’s really not about science versus religion. Francis Bacon, an early scientist and Christian said: “Let no woman or man, out of conceit or laziness, think or believe that anyone can search too far or be too well informed in the Book of God’s Works or the Book of God’s Words.” Galileo himself said: “The glory and greatness of Almighty God are marvelously discerned in all His works and divinely read in the open book of Heaven.” God reveals His glory and greatness in the Book of His Works just as He does within the Book of His Word.

For many years, Galileo pointed his telescope at the heavens and demonstrated that Jupiter had moons, Venus had phases, and the moon had mountains, among other astronomical discoveries. He became convinced from his observations that the sun-centered theory of Nicholaus Copernicus was correct. But in 1616, the Inquisition declared heliocentrism to be heretical, and Galileo was ordered to refrain from holding, teaching or defending such ideas. He was able to hold his tongue until 1632, when he published Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems. He almost got away with it, as he had cleverly woven his arguments into a fictional dialogue between three individuals. This hypothetical discussion had been permitted by the Inquisition. His mistake was putting a concluding argument used by the pope in the mouth of the character named Simplico. You don’t need to know Italian to guess what that name means.

Galileo’s enemies were able to convince Pope Urban that if the statement came from Simplicio, Galileo had intended to make fun of it and Urban himself. Ironically, church censors had directed Galileo to include the argument in the book as a standard papal argument against heliocentrism. This led to Galileo’s trial for heresy on June 22, 1633. Under the threat of torture, imprisonment and even being burned at the stake, he was forced to renounce his belief “that the sun, not Earth, was the center of the universe and that Earth moved around the sun and not vice versa, as ecclesiastical teaching dictated.” It wasn’t until October 31, 2009 that the Vatican formally corrected the record with a “not guilty” finding.

To be fair, it seems Galileo could be arrogant at times, and it might be that enemies he made from his sharp tongue were responsible for his coming before the Inquisition. Here is one example of his acerbicness from a letter he wrote to the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1610, six years before heliocentrism was first declared to be heresy. He complained to Kepler, that some philosophers had refused to even look through his telescope to see for themselves what he had discovered about the heavens.

My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth.

Today, among Christians that false dichotomy is not between astronomy and the Bible, but with evolution and the Bible. Some Christians affirm what is called a “creation science” understanding of the Bible. They hold that God “created the world quickly and completely through dramatic, miraculous interventions.” According to Denis Lamoureux, an evolutionary creationist (yes there can be bible-believing Christians who believe in evolution):

The greatest problem with young earth creation is that it completely contradicts every modern scientific discipline that investigates the origins of the universe and life. There are very few scientists working in the disciplines of cosmology, geology, and biology who accept this anti-evolutionary position. (Lamoureux, I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution, p. 22).

Creation science holds to a hermeneutic for determining the age of the earth that was influenced by Anglican bishop James Ussher. He based his chronological calculations on the questionable assumption that the genealogical lists in Genesis (5:1-4; 11:10-32) and other passages of Scripture described a literal, unbroken succession. Assuming there to be no gaps in the generations, he calculated the exact date of creation to be Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. Deborah and Loren Haarsema noted that even if the genealogies had gaps, the date of creation wouldn’t be more than 8 or 10 thousand years ago.

In order to explain the acceptance of evolution by modern science, creation scientists like Henry Morris say Satan blinds the minds of hundreds of thousands of scientists. This would include many Christians who accept evolution as God’s method of creation, setting the stage for uncharitable exchanges and even division in the church. In an article titled “Strong Delusion,” Henry Morris marveled that the pseudo-scientific evolutionary worldview, which he said was not based on any real scientific evidence, could be believed so passionately. He wondered how those who believe in evolution can be won to Christ “when their minds have been blinded by Satan and are under such strong delusion that they have become sincerely committed to the false worldview of evolution?”

The Two Books idea, the Book of God’s work in nature, and the Book of God’s Words in Scripture is where Christians can go for help in resolving this dilemma. Deborah and Loren Haarsma, the authors of the book Origins, have put together a series of short videos on topics discussed at length in their book. Session 2, “Origins: It’s Not About Science versus Scripture,” tackles this issue and even includes Galileo in their discussion. Since God is the Author of revelation in nature and Scripture, there is no conflict. “We trust that God would not tell one story in nature, and a contradictory story in Scripture.”

Even in the midst of difficult conflict, we trust that God is telling us one story. There is a harmony. And it gives us a strategy. When the two sides seem to conflict, we don’t simply throw out one and hold on to the other. Instead, we hold onto both sides and dig deeper to test our human interpretations. . . . By listening to both nature and Scripture, we gain a fuller understanding of God’s story in creation.

Extracting the story of Galileo and his trial from history as “proof” of the war between science and religion is akin to proof texting with Biblical passages isolated from the whole of Scripture. The full story shows how science was able to clearly demonstrate the universe was not earth-centered. And we see that what occurred with Galileo was a misinterpretation of Scripture by the church. When Psalm 93:1 says: “The world is established; it shall never be moved”, it was using phenomenological language, and not affirming an earth-centered universe. “The conflict arises when we get one or both interpretations wrong.”

God tells us one story. He would not contradict himself by saying one thing in Scripture and another in nature. Creation science seems to hold on so tight to Scripture, that they willingly deny well-received scientific findings like the age of the earth and universe.

When there is apparent conflict, as seems to be occurring with Scripture and science over evolution, we need to hold onto both. We can’t jettison Scripture or its hard won doctrines for a dystelological version of evolution. And we can’t shoe horn scientific truth into—or between—the passages of Scripture. We have to hold on to and dig deeper into both.

In a post script, NASA’s Juno mission entered orbit around the planet Jupiter on July 4th and began a two year study of the planet. On board are three specially constructed LEGO figurines including one of Galileo, who discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter. When its mission is complete, Juno will take a suicide plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere. NASA doesn’t want to take a chance of any rogue microbes on the spacecraft unintentionally contaminating Jupiter’s moons, especially Europa and Ganymede, which are believed to have oceans and the possibility of life.