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Many cultures have held traditional beliefs that the Earth, or indeed the entire Universe, was brought into being in a grand Creation event by one or more gods. Once these cultures developed calendars, many began to ponder the question of precisely how long ago it was that this event happened. This article discusses several ways of dating Creation.
Dating the Biblical CreationThe Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, in which God creates the world, including the first human, a man named Adam, in a period of six days. Genesis goes on to list many of Adam's descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. By interpreting these ages literally, and adding them up, 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. Some scholars have gone further, and have attempted to tie in this Biblical chronology with that of recorded history, thus establishing a date for the Creation in a modern calendar. Since there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given, the chronology has been subject to interpretation in many different ways, resulting in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation. Two dominant dates for Biblical Creation exist, about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These were calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The oldest was translated into Greek from the Hebrew Torah during the third century BC as the first book of the Septuagint. It was used by Jews until about 100, then by all Christians until 405, then by the Byzantines until 1453, and is still used by the various Orthodox churches. The newest was due to a revision of the Torah by Jews about 100, which was slightly modified about 900 (though not affecting this genealogy), and is still used by all Jews. Jerome translated it into Latin as the first book of the Vulgate in 405, then it was used by all Western Christians, who split into Roman Catholics and Protestants beginning in 1517. Basically, the patriarchs from Adam to the father of Abraham were often 100 years older when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Vulgate (Genesis 5, 11). The net difference between the two genealogies was 1466 years (ignoring the "second year after the flood" ambiguity), which is virtually all of the 1500-year difference between 5500 BC and 4000 BC. Jewish scholars give two dates for Creation according to the Talmud. They state that the first day of Creation week was either Elul 25, AM 1 or Adar 25, AM 1, almost twelve or six months, respectively, after the modern epoch of the Hebrew calendar. Most prefer Elul 25 whereas a few prefer Adar 25. These place the sixth day of Creation week, when Adam was created, on the first day of the following month, either Tishri or Nisan, the first month of either the civil or biblical year, respectively. In both cases, the epoch of the modern calendar was called the molad tohu or mean new moon of chaos, because it occurred before Creation. This epoch was Tishri 1, AM 1 or October 7, 3761 BC, the latter being the corresponding tabular date (same daylight period) in the proleptic Julian calendar. Thus the majority place the first day of Creation week on September 25, 3760 BC, while a minority place it on March 29, 3760 BC, both in the proleptic Julian calendar. According to the Byzantine calendar, the world was created on September 1, 5509 BC. One of the most well known estimates in modern times is that of Bishop James Ussher (1581–1656), who proposed a date of Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC, in the Julian calendar. It is a common belief that he also gave an exact time of Creation, but this is not found in Ussher's work [1] (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ussher.htm). Andrew D. White, in his book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, attributes the following statement to Dr. John Lightfoot (1602–1675), Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who was a contemporary of Ussher, but who published his own calculations before Ussher's were completed:
Further reading
Date of Creation according to Hindu scriptureAccording to Hindu scripture, the universe undergoes endless cycles of creation, existence in four yugas (ages) totalling exactly 4,320,000 years, and dissolution. The current universe is believed to have been created around the 3889th millennium BC and is expected to dissolve during the 431st millennium AD. Date of Creation according to the Mayan calendarThe Mayan calendar dates the creation of the Earth to August 11 or August 13, 3114 BC (establishing that date as first day of the Long Count 0.0.0.0.0). Date of Creation according to modern astrophysicsAccording to the Big Bang theory, the universe as we know it began 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years ago. Those who hold to the hybrid theory of creative evolution view this as the beginning of the Creation event. Atheists see this as the moment when the universe originated. In the atheistic view this is not a creation event since the word creation implies the existence of a creator, but merely a point in time after which the present laws of physics describe the history of the universe. See also
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