Genesis: God"s Got the Whole World in His Hands

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Genesis: God’s got the whole world in His hands

Dr. Clovis Chapelle died more than eighty years ago, but he left some of the greatest writings on the Bible that exist today. Ray says “Everything he wrote was rich with revelation and thought provoking mindgrabbers to the max. Any study of Genesis would be incomplete without it.” Join Ray now.

Genesis: God’s got the whole world in His hands

 

 

Genesis: God"s Got the Whole World in His Hands

Wycliffe translators – Genesis 2 with Ray

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Wycliffe translators – Genesis 2 with Ray

Chapter 2

v1 So God had created the skies and the earth. And he had created the many *creatures in them. He had completed his *creation.

v2 By the seventh day, God had finished his *creation. He had finished that work that he had done. He rested on the seventh day. He rested from all the work that he had done. v3 So God *blessed the seventh day. He considered it different from the other days. He rested then from his work that he had done. He rested from his *creation. That was why he considered it different.

v4 This is the true story about how God created the earth and skies. v5 The *Lord God made the earth and the skies. There were no green plants on the earth, because the *Lord God had not yet sent rain to the earth. There were not yet any people, so nobody could work with the soil. v6 Then a mist came up from the earth, and the mist watered all the soil. v7 Then the *Lord God formed a man from dust that was on the earth. God breathed into the man’s nostrils (the holes in the nose). The breath that God breathed into him made the man live. So the man became a person, who was alive.

v8 The *Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. God put the man that he had formed into that garden. v9 God made all the trees grow there that are pleasant to look at. And their fruit is good to eat. Also, in the middle of the garden, there were these two trees. There was the tree that makes people live. And there was the tree that makes people know right things and wrong things.

v10 A river flowed out of Eden and it watered the garden. The river divided there into four rivers. v11 The first river is called Pishon. It flows all through the region called Havilah. v12There is good gold in Havilah. There is also bdellium (a kind of sticky stuff that smells good). And there is onyx (a valuable kind of stone). v13 The second river is called Gihon. It flows all through the region called Cush. v14 The third river is called the Tigris. It flows along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

v15 The *Lord God took the man. And he put the man in the garden that was in Eden. God told the man to work with the soil in the garden. God told him to take care of the garden. v16The *Lord God gave these orders to Adam. ‘You can eat from all the other trees in the garden. You can eat from them as much fruit as you want. v17 But you must not eat fruit from the tree that makes you know right things and wrong things. You will die on the day when you eat that fruit. That is why you must not eat it.’

v18 Then the *Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper as a partner for him.’

v19 So the *Lord God had formed from dust all the animals on land. And he had formed all the birds that fly in the air. God brought the animals and birds to Adam. God wanted to see what names Adam would give to them. That was why he brought them to him. Whatever name Adam gave, that was the name for each *creature. v20 Adam gave names to all *cattle. He gave names to all the birds that fly in the air. And he gave names to all the wild animals on the earth. But none among them was a good helper that could be Adam’s partner. v21 So the *Lord God made Adam sleep deeply. While Adam slept, God took one rib out of Adam. (A rib is a bone in the top part of someone’s body.) Then God closed up the place where that bone had been. v22 The *Lord God made a woman from the rib (bone) that he had taken out of the man. Then God brought her to the man.

v23 Then the man said, ‘This, at last, is my bone and *flesh. I shall call her “woman”, because she came out of man.’ v24 Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and he joins his wife. Then the two people become one person.

v25 And the man and his wife were both naked. And they did not think that it was wrong.

Everything that God created was perfect. And everything was wonderful. But men and women had a special place in God’s plan. Firstly, God created a perfect world for the first man to live in. Then God prepared a special home for the man. This home was in a beautiful garden (or farm) that God had planted. God made the man (called Adam) from dust that was on the earth. Then God breathed his Spirit into the man, so that the man was alive (verse 7). Afterwards, God provided a wife (called Eve) for the man.

Notes on the verses

Verse 1 God completed his *creation. However, he is still working. He has not stopped. But it is different work. He now looks after all that he created.

Verse 2 God repeated that he finished his work. This means the work that he did in *creation. It must be very important for us to know this.

Verse 3 God made the seventh (7^th) day special. God made us like himself. After we work for six (6) days, we need one different day. *Jews keep Saturday (the seventh day in the week) special, because of this verse. And it is also because of God’s command in Exodus 20:10. Christians keep Sunday (the first day in the week) special, because Jesus rose from death on the first day. It does not matter whether our special day is the first or seventh day in our week. It is important that we keep one day in a week different. We *worship God together on that day, if we can. We need to have a rest for one day each week to keep our bodies healthy. When we have God’s *blessings, we have duties as well. He has provided a day when we should rest. But we must make it special for God. This is like a description or picture for us. It shows to us something about Jesus. He was dying for us on the cross. That was his work. Then he said, ‘It is finished.’ He had finished that work. But now he lives in heaven to pray for us. God has promised a ‘rest’ for Christians in heaven. That rest will last always. But it does not mean that we shall do nothing there. We shall praise God and we shall serve him.

The garden in Eden, 2:4-25

Verse 4 This story seems similar to the one in chapter 1. This story in chapter 2, however, is the story about man. It is about how God made everything ready for man. The *Hebrew word for ‘true story’ means family or children. It refers back to the many *creatures in verse 1. It can mean past history. Or it can mean future history. Writers use that same word in other places in the Bible. And in those places it means future history.

Verse 7 God made the first man from dust. But God made him special. God breathed into him. God’s breath made the man alive. The same *Hebrew word for ‘breath’ means ‘spirit’ also. So God gave his Spirit to the man, so that his Spirit would live in the man. God also made the man able to breathe air. That was so that the man could live on the earth. Man’s spirit lives as well as his body. But that is not true for animals. God did not breathe his Spirit into animals. The writer says that God formed man. So, God made man as a potter forms a pot. (A potter makes pots skilfully from *clay.) That shows to us how clever God is. It shows to us that we must serve him. And we must obey him as our master. We must obey him because he created us.

Verse 8 Eden seems to be the name of a region.

Verse 12 Bdellium may be a particular kind of tree. The tree produces a sticky stuff (also called bdellium). People use that sticky stuff to make perfume. (Perfume is a liquid that smells nice.) Or the word might mean pearls. (Pearls are shiny white little balls of hard material. They are valuable. People use them to make things beautiful.) Onyx is a kind of valuable stone. We are not certain exactly what these two things are.

Verses 11-14. We do not know the Pishon River today. Nor do we know the Gihon River. However, it is important to know this. Eden was an actual place. This is all true. The rivers flowed out of the garden. They came to places outside it. And so they helped things to live there too. Water is very important in a hot area. Look at Ezekiel chapter 47.

Verse 15 God took care of Adam. And God took Adam to the garden that God had prepared for him. God gave work for Adam to do. Adam’s work was to look after the garden. A better word than ‘garden’ here might be ‘farm’ (like an African farm called a ‘shamba’). The garden was not just a pretty place with flowers and trees. But it was important for food also.

Verse 17 God gave Adam an important command. So Adam was responsible to God. As we shall see in chapter 3, Adam did not obey God’s command. In the garden, Adam had the freedom to be a friend of God. But Adam did not want this freedom. Instead, he wanted the freedom to do whatever things he wanted to do. He wanted to live his own life, without God’s friendship. So Adam chose to do evil things, although God had warned him about the results of such a decision.

‘You will die.’ Death was not part of God’s original plan for men and women. God wanted them to live always and to be his friends. But when men and women began to do evil things, the result was death. Their bodies did not die immediately. But their spirits were dead, because they were not still friends of God. And so they could not go to be with God in heaven when their bodies died.

Adam’s decision to do evil things causes death for everyone. But Christ brings life to everyone who trusts him (1 Corinthians 15:21). Our spirits become alive immediately when we trust Christ. We must confess our *sins to God and we must invite him into our lives. Then we become friends of God. And we shall have a place in heaven. Christ has defeated death, but our bodies still die (1 Corinthians 15:26). But when Christ returns, God will change us (1 Corinthians 15:51). Then Christians who have died will become alive again. And we shall always live with God.

Verse 20 God gave Adam control over everything in the garden. So, Adam chose the name for each animal and bird that was there.

God was very careful that Adam should have a good partner to be his wife.

Verse 21 God made Adam from the dust. But God made Eve from Adam’s own body. This is also like a description or picture of Christ and the church (all the real Christians everywhere). See Ephesians 5:31-32. The Bible also describes the church as ‘the bride of Christ’ and ‘the body of Christ’ (Ephesians 5:23-27). So the church is united with Christ. And the church serves Christ. But the church is also separate from Christ. Christ does not control Christians. Christians have the freedom to make their own decisions.

Verse 23 Adam was very pleased with the woman that God gave him.

Verse 24 Marriage is God’s plan for a man and a woman. Marriage should last for life. A man and his wife become a new family. They live together and they work together, under God’s rules.

Wycliffe translators – Genesis 2 with Ray

Wycliffe translators – Genesis 2 with Ray

Wycliffe Translation & Commentary - Genesis 1 with Ray

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Wycliffe Translation & Commentary – Genesis 1 with Ray

 

 

God makes Adam and Eve and everything

An EasyEnglish Bible Version and Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on Genesis chapters 1-11

www.easyenglish.info

Marie Wetherill and Keith Simons

This commentary has been through Advanced Checking.

Words in boxes are from the Bible.

A word list at the end explains words with a *star by them.

 About the Book of Genesis

We do not know who wrote the Book of Genesis. And we do not know when that person wrote the book. There is an ancient tradition that Moses was the author. Modern Bible students have many other ideas. But we can see that Genesis is a very old book. Even the oldest books in the Bible refer to it (for example, Exodus 3:15; Job 28:25-29).

The author was not merely collecting ancient stories. And he was not merely recording ancient history. In fact, Genesis is a very careful account, which teaches the main principles in the Bible. The author describes the nature of God. The author explains God’s plan for a perfect world. The author describes *sin and *sacrifice. He speaks about God’s promise to forgive. And, he speaks about God’s promise to send Jesus. The Bible teaches that the author was not merely setting out his own ideas. Instead, the author wrote by the Holy Spirit of God.

Chapter 1

v1 In the beginning, God created the skies and the earth. v2 The earth had no shape and it was empty. Everything was dark, and God’s Spirit moved gently over the waters.

v3 And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And then there was light. v4 And God saw that the light was good. God separated light from darkness. v5 He named the light ‘day’ and he named the darkness ‘night’. There was evening and there was morning. That was the first day.

v6 And God said, ‘Let there be a *dome to divide the waters into two parts.’ v7 So then there was water above the *dome and there was water underneath it. It was exactly as God said. v8 God called the *dome ‘the sky’. And there was evening and there was morning. That was the second day.

v9 And God said, ‘Let the waters underneath the sky come together into one place. Let dry land appear.’ And it was so. v10 God called the dry land ‘earth’. And he called the waters that came together ‘seas’. And God saw that all those things were good. v11 And God said, ‘Let grass grow on the earth. Let plants grow there that have grain and seeds. And let trees grow there. They will be trees with fruits that have seeds. So then more grass and plants and trees will grow. Each one will be the same kind as the first one that it came from.’ And it was so.v12 Grass grew on the earth. Plants grew there that had grain and seeds. And trees grew there. They had fruits with seeds in them. Then more grass, plants and trees would grow like the first ones. And God saw that all those things were good. v13 And there was evening and there was morning. That was the third day.

v14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the sky in order to separate day from night. They will show clearly the seasons in the year. And they will show clearly when there must be special meetings. v15 And let them be lights in the *dome that is called the sky. They will be there to give light to earth.’ And it was so. v16 And God made two great lights. The larger light ruled the day, and the smaller light ruled the night. God made the stars too. v17 God put them in the sky in order to give light to the earth. v18 He put them there to rule over the day and night. He put them there to separate light from darkness. God saw that all those things were good. v19 And there was evening and there was morning. That was the fourth day.

v20 And God said, ‘Let very big groups of *creatures live everywhere in the waters. And let birds fly in the sky above the earth.’ v21 So God created large *creatures that live in the sea. And he created all the different *creatures that move everywhere in the seas. He also created all the birds that fly in the sky. God saw that all those things were good. v22 God *blessed them. And he said, ‘Have big families and grow in number. So then you will live everywhere in the seas. And you will fly everywhere in the skies.’ v23 There was evening and there was morning. That was the fifth day.

v24 And God said, ‘Let every kind of *creature grow upon the earth. That is, every kind that lives. That includes *cattle. It includes *creatures that crawl. And it includes all kinds of wild animals.’ And it was so. v25 God made all kinds of wild animals on the earth. He made all kinds of *cattle. And he made all kinds of *creatures that crawl. And God saw that all those things were good.

v26 Then God said, ‘Let us make people as an image that is like ourselves. Let people rule over the fish that are in the sea. Let them rule over the birds that fly in the air. Let them rule over the *cattle and wild animals on the earth. And let them rule over the *creatures that crawl.’

v27 So God created people so that they were like himself. He created people as his image. He created them as man and woman.

v28 God *blessed the people. And he said, ‘Have a large family and produce many *descendants. Live everywhere on the earth and rule over it. Rule over the fish that are in the sea. Rule over the birds that fly in the air. And rule over all *creatures that live on the earth.’

v29 God said, ‘Look! I have given to you every plant that has seeds. And I have given to you every tree that has seeds in its fruit. They are your food. v30 I have given all the green plants as food for the earth’s animals. They are also for the birds that fly in the air. And they are for every *creature that lives on the earth.’ And it was so.

v31 God saw everything that he had made. And it was really very good. There was evening and there was morning. That was the sixth day.

Chapter 1 describes how God created a perfect world. Everything that God made was perfect. God examined his own work. And he saw that it was good.

God made things that are both beautiful and complex. The body of an animal or man has a very complex structure. Even today, people cannot make machines that are so complex as an animal’s body.

But God did not merely make these things from nothing. He caused them to live. This is very wonderful.

God did not work by accident or chance. He had complete control over everything. We can see this because of his control over time. God created the sun so that it would appear at the right time each day. He created the seasons of the year. He arranged the movements of the moon and stars in the sky at night. These things do not happen by chance. They all happen at the right time because this is God’s plan.

God still has a perfect time for things to happen. Jesus was born at the right time (Matthew 1:17; Galatians 4:4). And Jesus will return at the right time (Matthew 24:36). God, our Father, has decided these things. And he still has a perfect plan (Ephesians 1:9-12).

God is perfect. God did not create the world so that there would be wars, cruelty or evil behaviour. He wanted men and women to be his friends. So, he gave them a perfect world. And he provided plants as their food. God was generous and kind. And God’s attitudes have never changed (Hebrews 13:8). But, as we shall see in chapter 3, men and women were not loyal to God. This is the reason for the troubles in this world. God never wanted people to suffer.

Notes on the verses

Verse 1 ‘In the beginning’. The *Hebrew word for ‘beginning’ here is also the *Hebrew title of this book. The usual English title, Genesis, is from a Greek word for ‘beginning’. (Greek is the language that the people in Greece speak. And the New Testament writers wrote in Greek.)

‘God’. God has always existed. And he will exist always. There has never been a time before God. And there will never be a time after God. The *Hebrew word here for God is ‘Elohim’, which is plural. But the *Hebrew word for ‘created’ means that only one person did it. This is because there is one God. The Bible says that he is God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. So Christians sometimes call him ‘the Trinity’ – in other words, ‘three in one’. God plans things and he speaks. But he is not an ordinary person like us. He is the only real God. This entire book called Genesis is about God. (Look at John 1:1-10.)

God ‘created’. The *Hebrew word here for ‘create’ means to make something from nothing. Only God makes something from nothing. The writer uses that word in verse 1, and he uses it in verses 21 and 27 also.

‘The skies and the earth’. That means everything. The writer reminds us about it in Genesis 2:1, 4.

Verse 2 The earth had ‘no shape’ and it was ‘empty’. Until God works, there is only confusion. There is no plan and so there is no system.

‘Everything was dark’. This is like a description or picture for us. It shows what it is like to live without God.

God’s Spirit ‘moved gently’ over the waters. Some birds can hover. It means that they are staying in the same place in the air. But still they are moving their wings. God’s Spirit also did this, like a bird that is looking after its young birds. That was because God cares about his *creation. And so he wants to protect it.

‘The waters’. We are not sure what that means. It might also mean dark gases. It might mean a ‘cloud that consists of darkness’. Or it might mean darkness and waters. The older English texts say ‘the face of the deep’, which means the surface of the sea.

Verse 3 ‘God said’. The words that God speaks are powerful. So when God ordered something to happen, that thing happened immediately.

Let there be ‘light’. We need light in order to live. And when we have light, we can see. We can see what God creates. Light is also like a description or picture for us. It shows what real life with God is like. And it shows what God’s *blessing is like. Also, what it is like when someone is good and holy. God made the light in order to show us his character. Darkness is also like a description or picture. It shows what *sin and death are like.

Verse 4 ‘Good’. Everything that God does is good. That includes every part of his work. It does not only mean the complete work.

Verse 5 ‘The first day’. We do not know how long a day was. The *Jews’ day started at sunset. And the first day consisted of evening and morning. So probably it was like our day. But in the Bible, the word ‘day’ can also mean something special that happens. It means that in the phrase: ‘the day of the *Lord’. It also means that in the phrase: ‘the day of judgement’. (Judgement means when God will punish people for their *sin.)

He ‘named’ the light. When a person gave a name to something, that action often had this special meaning. It meant that the person ruled over that thing.

Verse 8 ‘Sky’. Many Bibles say ‘*heaven’ here. But it does not mean the place where God and the *angels are.

Verse 11 ‘Plants’. These are the first things in *creation that are alive. They are the first things that grow.

Verse 14 ‘Lights’. God was forming the calendar. It included night and day. It included the moon’s movements. (That is, where it was at different times.) And it included the seasons in the year. In the *Old Testament, *religious festivals had to be at the right time each year. (Festivals are happy events that people organize because of some special reason.) Those special times in the year included the time when people harvested their crops.

The sun and moon are just parts of God’s *creation. They are not gods. The one real God rules over them. But some people used the names ‘sun’ and ‘moon’ as the names of false gods. So the writer does not use those names here, otherwise people might have been confused. People might have thought that he meant those false gods.

‘Special meetings’. The *Jews watched the sun’s and moon’s movements. From those, the *Jews worked out each year’s calendar. And from the calendar, they could see when special *religious meetings would be.

Verse 20 Very many ‘*creatures’. When God gives something, he often gives plenty of it. He is generous.

Verse 21 God ‘created’. This was a special phase in *creation. So here the writer uses the special word for ‘created’, as he did in verse 1.

Verse 22 ‘Have big families and grow in number.’ In many English Bibles, this is ‘be *fruitful and multiply’. God gives that command many times to people. It means much more than ‘have large families’. It also means ‘live at peace’. So then the families do not kill each other. They are able to farm and they can produce good harvests. It also means ‘live in a way that pleases God’. We read about that in the *New Testament too. In Galatians 5:22, the writer describes it as the ‘fruit that the Spirit produces’. That ‘fruit’ means good things that please God in our lives. God wanted his people to obey him. He promised that they would be peaceful then. They would not be ill, and they would get rich. That was very important when God’s people were very few. Today, God does not always make his people rich. When they can serve him, that is a reward in itself. And they will have a reward in *heaven too. Look at verse 28 below.

Verse 24 ‘*Creatures that crawl’. Some *creatures live both on land and in the sea. The writer may include those here. He may include insects too. And he may also include reptiles. (A reptile is an animal with hard skin and cold blood. One example is a snake.)

Verse 26 God created people to live in nature. Also, he created them to rule over nature. People are like animals in many ways. However, people are also different from animals. God made them special. God created people to be like himself. God said, ‘Let every kind of animal grow on the earth.’ But he specially ‘created’ people. People can love and they can think. They can know whether their behaviour is right or wrong. People wanted to know God and they wanted to obey him. God made people rulers over everything else that God had made. God said, ‘Let us make people’ because God consists of three persons. Those are the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is three persons in one God.

People as a ‘true image like ourselves’. People (the man and the woman) were the only parts of God’s *creation that were like God himself. God did not create anything else that was like himself.

Let people ‘rule’. God gave work to man. Also, God gave responsibility to him.

Verse 27 God ‘created’ people. Here the writer uses that special word again. God was kind to people. People are special to God.

Verse 29 In the beginning, it seems that people and animals did not eat meat. But later Abel (Adam’s son) looked after animals (Genesis 4:2). God did not tell people to kill animals for food until Genesis 9:2-3.

God gave the command that people should have families. He made plants and trees that have seeds. That was so that more plants and trees would grow for food. They would produce food for people and animals.

Verse 31 It was really ‘very good’. God is perfect. And everything that God made was perfect. It was exactly as he had planned.

Wycliffe Translation & Commentary – Genesis 1 with Ray

Wycliffe Translation & Commentary - Genesis 1 with Ray

James Ussher and His Chronology: Reasonable or Ridiculous?

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James Ussher and His Chronology: Reasonable or Ridiculous?

This is Ray Mossholder with an article from Acts and Facts Magazine by Jerry Bergman PhD. Dr. Bergman is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Toledo Medical College in Ohio.

Learned professors, nearly all of their students, and everyone else who is steeped in the evolutionary theory, scoff at the timeline believed to be true by Archbishop Ussher in the 17th century. While evolutionists are quick to skip over or avoid any conflicts with their theories – and there are multitudes of conflicts that both logically and scientifically contradict them on point after point – most of them choose to be evolutionists in order to do away with any thought that God created the heavens and the Earth. Not to mention, they want nothing to do with Jesus Christ.

Archbishop Ussher did used that the age of Earth is something close to 6000 years, certainly not the millions or billions of years the evolutionists proclaim as necessary to agree with their theories.

So, what is the truth? In weeks to come I will continue sharing nothing but facts that the evolutionists are basically ignoring. Most of the articles, but not all, will come from the scientific results of scholarly study by the Institute For Creation Research. This organization is not trying to debate scientific evidence. Their scholarship proves their points.

From Acts and Facts Magazine

Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) was one of the most important biblical scholars of the 17th century. His research and scholarly work have even earned high praise from some who are opposed to his conclusions. Called “the greatest luminary of the church of Ireland” and “one of the greatest scholars of his day in the Christian Church,” his work has influenced generations of Christian thinkers with a force still felt today.¹

An expert on the writings of the early church fathers, Ussher majorly impacted Reformation theology. The 18-volume set titled The Whole Works of James Ussher contains his most important writings.² Today, he is best known for his chronology research that concluded Adam was created in 4004 B.C. Consequently, anti-creationists heavily criticize him, often picturing him as naive, ignorant, anti-science, and someone whose research was superficial and based solely on the biblical record.³ Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that Ussher “is known to us today almost entirely in ridicule—as the man who fixed the time of creation at 4004 B.C.”⁴

In reality, Ussher was a first-class scholar very involved in scholarly research. He regularly interacted with “the most learned men of the day” to intellectually savor their ideas.⁵He was also “a real connoisseur of books,” and there was scarcely a book in any British library that he was unfamiliar with.⁶

History and Scholarship

In the West, our knowledge of the ancient world has historically been determined largely “by a straightforward reading of the Old Testament” plus a study of history.⁷ This practice conflicted with many “Eastern religions [that] allowed for a far older universe than was common in Judaism. And the Greeks, Aristotle for example, thought that the world was eternal. Early Christian theologians like Augustine dismissed pagan estimates that ran into the hundreds of thousands of years as myths.”⁸

According to the Jewish calendar, the creation event occurred in 3761 B.C. The Greek translation of the Old Testament, known today as the Septuagint, put the date at 5500 B.C., and “by the time of the Renaissance, an age of the Earth somewhere around 5000 to 6000 years appeared perfectly reasonable.”⁹ Furthermore, it was widely accepted that the narrative “given in the book of Genesis, which parallels to some extent creation narratives from other cultures of the Middle East, accounts for the origin of the physical world as the deliberate act of an almighty Creator.”⁸

In the 17th century, “Archbishop James Ussher turned his outstanding scholarly expertise” to the problem of the date of creation.⁹ This project meshed very well with his strong interest in history, astronomy, math, and geometry.¹⁰

Background

Ordained as a priest at the young age of 20, James Ussher became a professor at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1607 when he was only 26. In 1625, he was appointed as Archbishop of Armagh, which made him “head of the Anglo-Irish church, the Protestant leader in a predominantly Catholic land.”⁹

Ussher wrote his famous Annals of the Old Testament, Deduced from the First Origins of the World, in which he arrived at the 4004 B.C. date, during the latter period of his life. The monumental work contains over 12,000 footnotes from secular sources and another 2,000 references from the Bible and the Apocrypha.^11,12

Building the Dates

The common claim is that “Ussher reached his famous date of 4004 B.C.E. by simply calculating back from the time of Jesus by adding up years involved in the lineages of Christ given in the Bible and going all the way back to Adam.”¹³One problem was that the Old Testament contains the required information to achieve an accurate chronology only up to Solomon’s time. After that, ambiguities exist and no straightforward data were available. And for about 400 years before the birth of Jesus, the Bible’s book of Matthew gives the genealogy leading up to Christ, but not the chronology.¹³

To arrive at the date of creation, Ussher replicated the methods that others had used before him; namely, he attempted to correlate information from around 400 B.C. to Jesus’ birth “with known dates from the histories of other cultures, specifically the Chaldeans and Persians. This all required…an incredible expertise in biblical knowledge, in secular history, and in language abilities.”¹³ In fact, the majority of the evidence Ussher used to arrive at the 4004 B.C. date was non-biblical. Historians acknowledge that “Ussher had one of the best minds of his time and he applied it unrelentingly to synthesize information from disparate sources” to achieve as accurate a chronology as possible.¹³

To deal with the many major contradictions in secular records, Ussher’s calculation required an intensive study of both history and languages. For example, King Herod, who attempted to kill Christ, died in 4 B.C., and the Julian calendar had undergone major revisions at the end of the 16th century. In order to produce his chronology, Ussher was forced to deal with these and other problems.¹³ After many years of labor, in 1640 he published the first part of hisAnnals of the Old Testament. Four years later, the second part of the work was available to the public. He then began a third part, carrying on the chronology to the beginning of the fourth century A.D., but did not live long enough to complete it.¹⁴

“Light of Reason”

Many skeptics have dismissed Ussher’s work, claiming he merely used dogma to solve a scientific problem. The late Stephen Jay Gould disagreed. Seeking to understand how Ussher arrived at his deductions, after detailed investigation Gould concluded that the archbishop’s critics were not only ignorant but that they also entirely misunderstood his work.¹⁵Gould addressed this with an entreaty: “I close with a final plea for judging people by their own criteria, not by later standards that they couldn’t possibly know or assess.”¹⁵ He was delighted with Ussher’s declaration that his (Ussher’s) results were determined “not only by the plain and manifold testimonies of Holy Scripture, but also by light of reason well directed.”¹⁵

For these reasons, Gould determined that Ussher’s chronology was an “honorable effort for its time” and argued that the common ridicule only reflects a “lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past.”¹⁶

The reality is that the relevance of Ussher’s work “may be seen in the fact that his Chronology has been accepted by nearly all the Reformed Churches.”¹⁴ Ussher’s research merits our highest respect and serves as a solid foundation for us to build upon today.

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References

1. 
   

   Carr, J. A. 1895. The Life and Times of James Ussher: Archbishop of Armagh. London: Wells, Gardener, Darton and Co., 1-2.
   

   
   


2. 
   

   Ussher, J. 1864. The Whole Works of James Ussher. Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co.
   

   
   


3. 
   

   Lawson, K. 2003. Darwin and Evolution for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities.Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 89.
   

   
   


4. 
   

   Gould, S. J. 1993. Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 181.
   

   
   


5. 
   

   Carr, The Life and Times of James Ussher, 96.
   

   
   


6. 
   

   Ibid, 343.
   

   
   


7. 
   

   Gregory, F. 2008. The Darwinian Revolution. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 22-23.
   

   
   


8. 
   

   Ibid, 23
   

   
   


9. 
   

   Ibid, 24.
   

   
   


10. 
    

    Carr, The Life and Times of James Ussher, 322.
    

    
    


11. 
    

    The 2003 reprint of The Annals of the World by Master Books (referenced below) is 960 pages long.
    

    
    


12. 
    

    Pierce, L. Editor’s Preface. In Ussher, J. 2003. The Annals of the World. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 5.
    

    
    


13. 
    

    Gregory, The Darwinian Revolution, 26.
    

    
    


14. 
    

    Carr, The Life and Times of James Ussher, 363.
    

    
    


15. 
    

    Gould, Eight Little Piggies, 193.
    

    
    


16. 
    

    Ibid, 183.
    

    
    

Image credit: National Portrait Gallery, London

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James Ussher and His Chronology: Reasonable or Ridiculous?

GOD OF WONDERS – JOHN 1:3 JOHN 14:6 COLOSSIANS 1:16

GOD OF WONDERS – JOHN 1:3 JOHN 14:6 COLOSSIANS 1:16