Wednesday, October 23, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 23rd of October 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Yesterday, the 22nd of October, was, for many, the last day on earth in 1844… until it wasn’t. But they trusted the math—not of a “crack pot” in William Miller but rather an earnest Christian trying to discern the signs. It didn’t go well—in part because of the medium of high-speed printing and publicity.

A key part of this calculation was from another earnest, if not zealous, Christian trying to discern not the end of time but its beginning. He was James Ussher, the Bishop of Armagh—the head of the Church of Ireland (that is, the English church—or Anglican Church in Ireland). He graduated from the newly established Trinity College Dublin in 1600, so his context will be the reign of King James and his son and into the English Civil Wars.

He was a polymath- knew more languages than most, produced learned works in theology and history- he was a vice-provost of his alma mater and a member of the Privy Council, was invited to join the Westminster divines who authored the famous confession and was preacher at Lincolns Inn, London. But James Ussher will forever be linked to today, the 23rd of October, as it was in his 1650 publication of his “Annals of the Old Testament,” which placed the date and time of creation on what we might consider the 22nd evening before dawn and the day of the 23rd (remember in Judaism the day starts with sundown… “it was evening, and morning, the first day” and all that).

While Ussher’s particularity might be scoffed at today, it is important to remember that he was a scholar’s scholar using the tools of his day to try and work backward using biblical and other chronologies. Dating the world back about 4000 years before Christ had been standard. St. Jerome placed the date around 4000, and even Early Modern/Enlightenment natural philosophers like Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler placed the date of the creation to around 4000 BC.

Ussher has since become something of a “patron saint” of “Young Earth Creationism” and something of a whipping boy for the “Old Earth” folk. The fact is, neither caricature gives us a fair picture of the man and his system for dating.

Ussher, who was a scholars scholar wanted to use every available tool and technique, calendar and counting system he could. He utilized the biblical chronologies (especially Genesis 5 and 11) as well as events like the death of Nebuchadnezzar and the Mede-Persian calendar to fill out supposed gaps.

His “Annals” are full of footnotes and sources- he was trying to show that this was anything but ‘medieval speculation.” As for the October 23rd date- ok, hear him out:

On the Julian Calendar (which he supposed to be parallel to the ancient calendars with 12 months of 30 Days) the Autumnal equinox is in September. Autumn is important as generations of bible scholars suggested that creation and the harvest came simultaneously. So, the first day would be the first day of fall. On the old calendar, that would be in September, but because the old calendar was used, Ussher adjusted for the “slippage” of 32 days over the years, and thus, October 23rd would be the first day of Fall in 4004 BC, and the day would start with the evening the previous day. His colleague, John Lightfoot, agreed with 4004 but thought the day would start, as it did in Fall with some things already in motion, so too would the first day begin “in media res”- or “in the middle of the things.” 

Modern criticisms of dating can be anachronistic as geological studies, fossils, and astronomy point to an old earth that was not assumed in the 1600s. Some- no enemies of Scripture or Christianity would suggest that the problems lay not in his assumptions of the age of the earth but in the idea that Genesis 5 and 11 aren’t meant to give a straight chronology in the same way that the chronologies of Jesus are intended to prove something besides straight historical lineage. There were also “Uniformitarians” who saw the geological evidence of their day as suggesting an old universe, but this was another theory along with “catastrophism” that saw the universe as developing out of the process of global catastrophe.

Nonetheless, James Ussher may have come to different conclusions if he had worked on a different day, but he attempted to be faithful to the information he had and that which was passed down to him. Is dating the “beginning” on the “evening” of the 23rd day of October in 4004 BC a little precise and maybe presumptuous? Perhaps, but it was put in so many study Bibles from the 18th century that it would become gospel truth to some- but, if it is the case- happy 6,028th birthday, planet Earth!

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and John 13, after Jesus washed the feet of his disciples:

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 23rd of October 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man wondering if he has time to run out and get a present… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by who confesses  “God the Father, creator of heaven and earth” and might be ok going just that far…. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.