Happy 6010th birthday, world! Technically, God created the world (or possibly the entire universe?) the night before Sunday, October 23rd, 4004 BCE, but the 23rd is the day that some Young Earth Creationists still hold to be the Earth's birthday. Anglican Archbishop James Ussher arrived at this date in his 1650 magnum opus, Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti, and while many other dates have been interpolated from the Pentateuch, Ussher's has become the best known, probably because (starting in 1701, at the behest of Anglican Bishop William Lloyd) his chronology was included in copies of the King James Bible (and, centuries later, in editions of the Scofield Reference Bible). [more inside]
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam on Oct 23, 2007 - 81 comments