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Why 6,000 years and not Septuagint chronology?

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Daniel B. wrote to the editors of Creation magazine about Dr  article Evolution’s long age contradicts Genesis order of creation, Creation 37(3):52–54. He took exception to the claim “God created in six 24-hour days a little over 6,000 years ago”, because evidently he is a fan of the Septuagint (LXX) chronology although he didn’t say so explicitly. His letter is pasted below in its entirety, followed by Dr Sarfati’s point-by-point response.

Dear Editor,

Dr Sarfati states that the church has understood the earth to have been created a little before 3986 BC “for most of the church’s history, and the way Hebrew Scholars have always understood it.” 

While he is right that both Christian scholars and Hebrew scholars have for many centuries been able to date the current year in terms of Anno Mundi, he is wrong that either of those reckonings point to a creation date “a little over 6000 years ago.”

Surely Dr. Sarfati knows that the official Jewish reckoning of AM was designed to give Shimon Bar Kochba, rather than Yehoshua bar Yosef, the chance at fulfilling Daniel’s Vision of Seventy Weeks. Because this creative cooking of the history books has endured to this day, Rabbinic Jews are still over 200 years short of hitting that 6000-year target. This dating scheme dates back at least to Maimonides, and apparently originated with Yose ben Halafta. No, Hebrew scholars have not ‘always’ followed this scheme. We can’t prove what dating scheme they followed before ben Halafta, because there are no extant Hebrew writings dating back before then. But if the united testimony of historians Flavius Josphus (Anitiquites) and Julius Aficanus (Chronographai) is to be trusted, the Hebrew scholars of the first two centuries dated creation to around 5500 before Christ.
“For why should I speak of the three myriad years of the Phoenicians, or of the follies of the Chaldeans, their forty-eight myriads? For the Jews, deriving their origin from them as descendants of Abraham, having been taught a modest mind, and one such as becomes men, together with the truth by the spirit of Moses, have handed down to us, by their extant Hebrew histories, the number of 5500 years as the period up to the advent of the Word of salvation, that was announced to the world in the time of the sway of the Caesars.” –Africanus

As for Christian scholars, there appear to have been none prior to the eight century who dismissed this ancient belief of the church that creation had preceded Christ by 5500 years. Bede was no doubt aware that his Latin Bible, which followed Jerome’s adoption of yet another Hebrew chronology, was incompatible with the history of the Britons, which aligned with the aforementioned 5500 BC date. His attempts to push a creation date of 3952 BC met with stiff resistance from the Bible scholars of his day, who were aware that he was overturning centuries of Christian scholarship. It would appear that eschatological excitement was the main reason for finally adopting Bede’s approach, which postponed the inevitable millennium from AD 500 to 2000. Well, that excitement has come and gone again as that cycle likewise ended in disappointment, yet through it all, the Eastern Church has held fast to the 5500 BC creation date, as it has been transmitted for at least 2000 years in their own copies of the Old Testament. I say it’s time to stop pretending that the Church has always been agreed on something tied to strongly to idiosyncratic eschatological doctrine, and take a fresh look at evidence that has been suppressed for half a millennium, since the canonization of the Christ-denying Hebrew chronology by the Reformers.

I have written an journal essay giving my opinion as to how the present wide divergence of biblical chronology emerged, using the principles of textual criticism to identify the Masoretic scheme as a late recension. It’s not been accepted for peer review until I adequately demonstrate that I have interacted with everything previously published on the subject, which task I am presently working through. Some of it is pretty nutty, despite having been written by Ph.D’s.

Daniel B.


Dear Editor,
Dr. Sarfati states that the church has understood the earth to have been created a little before 3986 BC “for most of the church’s history, and the way Hebrew Scholars have always understood it.”

First, note what I was trying to do. In this mag article, I was contrasting the main views: is the earth thousands or billions of years (“long ages”) old. This was not the place to perform a historical or textual analysis of the Genesis chronogenealogies. We just can’t cover everything in one article! Elsewhere in my own writings and those of my colleagues, this is fine-tuned.

While he is right that both Christian scholars and Hebrew scholars have for many centuries been able to date the current year in terms of Anno Mundi, he is wrong that either of those reckonings point to a creation date “a little over 6000 years ago.”
wikipedia.org james-ussher
James Ussher (1641) by Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen

First, this was a general summary of our position, and providing the right ball park. See the compilation in Old-earth or young-earth belief: Which belief is the recent aberration? which provides the range of estimated dates, all in the thousands. Our position favours ~6,000 years as the age of the earth, as explained in How does the Bible teach 6,000 years? But we are not committed to an exact year, because we don’t think the Bible provides such precision, as explained in How precise is the Bible about the date of creation?

Surely Dr. Sarfati knows that the official Jewish reckoning of AM was designed to give Shimon Bar Kochba, rather than Yehoshua bar Yosef, the chance at fulfilling Daniel’s Vision of Seventy Weeks. Because this creative cooking of the history books has endured to this day, Rabbinic Jews are still over 200 years short of hitting that 6000-year target. This dating scheme dates back at least to Maimonides, and apparently originated with Yose ben Halafta. No, Hebrew scholars have not ‘always’ followed this scheme. We can’t prove what dating scheme they followed before ben Halafta, because there are no extant Hebrew writings dating back before then.

Of course I know. I explain this in a response to criticisms and questions of the previous article, 6,000 years of biblical history: Questions and answers, answer to Victor M., New Zealand, 14 December 2012.

But if the united testimony of historians Flavius Josphus (Antiquities) and [Sextus] Julius Africanus (Chronographiai) is to be trusted, the Hebrew scholars of the first two centuries dated creation to around 5500 before Christ.
“For why should I speak of the three myriad years of the Phoenicians, or of the follies of the Chaldeans, their forty-eight myriads? For the Jews, deriving their origin from them as descendants of Abraham, having been taught a modest mind, and one such as becomes men, together with the truth by the spirit of Moses, have handed down to us, by their extant Hebrew histories, the number of 5500 years as the period up to the advent of the Word of salvation, that was announced to the world in the time of the sway of the Caesars.”—Africanus

Yes, we know. They used the LXX, which was again outside the scope of the article. I defend the primacy of the Masoretic Text (which gives ~6,000 without the distortions of Yose ben Halafta) against the demonstrably inflated LXX in Biblical chronogenealogies. Far more detail is found in my new commentary on Genesis 1–11, The Genesis Account. The above authors were not making any claims of the LXX over the Hebrew text, but were just calculating a chronology from the text currently available to them. But note that both accepted Genesis 5 and 11 as strict chronogenealogies, with no missing names or time.

As for Christian scholars, there appear to have been none prior to the eight century who dismissed this ancient belief of the church that creation had preceded Christ by 5500 years. Bede was no doubt aware that his Latin Bible, which followed Jerome’s adoption of yet another Hebrew chronology, was incompatible with the history of the Britons, which aligned with the aforementioned 5500 BC date. His attempts to push a creation date of 3952 BC met with stiff resistance from the Bible scholars of his day, who were aware that he was overturning centuries of Christian scholarship.

You mean, Jerome and Bede thought that we should go directly to the Hebrew rather than to a Greek translation, which the LXX was.

It would appear that eschatological excitement was the main reason for finally adopting Bede’s approach, which postponed the inevitable millennium from AD 500 to 2000. Well, that excitement has come and gone again as that cycle likewise ended in disappointment, yet through it all, the Eastern Church has held fast to the 5500 BC creation date, as it has been transmitted for at least 2000 years in their own copies of the Old Testament.

In their Greek translation of a Hebrew text, a translation that shows systematic evidence of time inflation.

I say it’s time to stop pretending that the Church has always been agreed on something tied to strongly to idiosyncratic eschatological doctrine, and take a fresh look at evidence that has been suppressed for half a millennium,

Our chronology has nothing to do with eschatology, but with protology. For CMI’s (non-)position on this doctrine, see End-times and Early-times.

since the canonization of the Christ-denying Hebrew chronology by the Reformers.

Christ-denying? It’s hard to take you seriously when you make nonsensical attacks like that.

I have written an journal essay giving my opinion as to how the present wide divergence of biblical chronology emerged, using the principles of textual criticism to identify the Masoretic scheme as a late recension. It’s not been accepted for peer review until I adequately demonstrate that I have interacted with everything previously published on the subject, which task I am presently working through.

This is important. So far, you have not dealt with the ample published creationist work defending the ‘Masoretic scheme’.

Some of it is pretty nutty, despite having been written by Ph.D’s.

Two of my colleagues have recently written an in-depth analysis of the textual history of Genesis 5 and 11 and find that the Masoretic is closest to the original. They use the normal principles of textual criticism, which properly used is akin to genetics. That is, what original could have given rise to the extant variant manuscripts given normal scribal practices. Since their paper has passed peer review by Hebrew/OT scholars, this should be published in a forthcoming Journal of Creation. [Update: see Lita Sanders and Robert Carter, Textual traditions and biblical chronology, Journal of Creation 29(2):99–105, 2015.]

Published: 29 August 2015

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