The World was created in 5508 B.C.

I’m sure many of you will have seen this claim in online discussions with Creationists. Estimates on the age of the universe based on biblical sources were prevant during the heyday of the Atheist-Creationist conflict. Of course, this is no new thing, but old as Christianity itself.

From early on some Church Father realized that the Bible contained dates and clues that oculd be used to estimate the age of the world. It was the Byzantine Empire that enshrined one of these estimates by law and used the Creation in September 1st of 5509 B.C. as a basis for its calendar. It sounds funny, but this Anno Mundi Calendar was used for many centuries. It first appeared in the 7th century and started getting replaced in the Orthodox World by “A.D.” and “B.C.” just in the 16th century (in Russia it was changed by Peter the Great in the 1700s).

This is also the source of the well-known image from the website of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which has been amply mocked by the greek atheist community.

A few examples of proposed chronologies in the Orthodox Church:

• 5537 B.C. – Julius Africanus (3rd c.)
• 5529 B.C. – Theophilus of Antioch (2nd c.)
• 5509 B.C. – Chronology adopted by the Byzantine State – Constantinopolitan Calendar
• 5507 B.C. – Chronicon Paschale (7th c. unknown authorship)
• 5493 B.C. – Alexandrian Calendar
• 5199 B.C. – Eusebius of Caesarea (4th c.)

In the West, things are a bit different, since the KJV uses the masoretic texts of the Old Testament, which means the dates differ:

• 5199 B.C. – From “Roman Martyrology” published during the times of Pope Gregory XIII (16th c.)
• 4963 B.C. – Benedictine Chronology (based on the Septuagint, 18th c.)
• 3952 B.C. – Rev. Bede (British Benedictine monk, 8th c.)
• 3761 B.C. – Hebrew Calendar (3rd c.)

So, if a Young-Earth Creationist is proposing a creation of the Earth around 5000 B.C., he is using the Septuagint; around 4000 B.C. he is using the masoretic texts and most probably the KJV.

In any case, why are there these small discrepancies? Well, it sure isn’t due to math errors (though this must have happened). The thing goes like this:

• In the beginning the Bible does not record absolute dates, but uses a ladder system. “This guy lives for this many years and then he had a kid and then lived another number of years”. At certain parts the author is kind enough to add the years up as well, adding “and he lived for this many years in total and then he died”. But this is not done in every case. You mainly see it in Genesis up to Jacob. Going all the way to Joseph is a bit trickier and requires careful reading (though one may still lose a couple of years here).
• Here comes the first leap. With a single verse we skip 4 centuries. Depending on the version the starting point is either Abraham settling in Canaan or Jacob settling in Egypt.
• The second leap connects Moses to Solomin. The intermediate parts are filled in with uncertainty.
• After this, there are descriptions of the reigns of kings in the divided hebrew state. From this point on the text is largely historically accurate and the dates line up with very small discrepancies…
• …but… and this is a big but… biblical dates can bring you up to the Babylonian Captivity. After that all major events are linked to extra-biblical events; the first one the Capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great, which marks the end of the Babylonian Captivity (this is the event I used for my diagrams). And that’s it. A final mention appears in Macabbees (where it is mentioned that the events of the books start around 175 B.C.)

Basically the Bible does not count years all the way to Jesus, since the main narrative stops around 500 B.C.(Macabbees are not canonical in all western churches and even then not all 4 of them). Which explains the discrepancies, since reaching Jesus requires creative solutions based on the various Jesus genealogies, so the dates changed with how each author calculates generations. The New Testament genealogies have their own issues, of course.

In my own attempt, the world appears to have been created in 5387 B.C. (according to the Greek Bible) and in 4164 B.C. (according to the KJV). It’s a pity I wasn’t born a couple of centuries sooner; I might have become quite the celebrity 😛 In any case, the main point in both chronologies is that they reach up to 539 B.C., an important historical event, when Cyrus the Great became king of Babylon and send the Hebrews back home. Both chronologies are dependent on this historical event.

You can click here to see the entire diagram, but be patient, since it’s around 7.5ΜΒ. If your browser crashes due to the size, right click > Save link As and you’ll be able to download it and open the image locally. Alternatively you can view online the two chronologies separately (the files are quit smaller).

You can find the greek version of this article here. As usual, if you spot serious mistakes, leave a comment.