Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.
It’s the 70th birthday of my little brother Bill, born just 22 months after myself. My parents tell me that up to then I had been a happy, outgoing child. Bill’s birth turned me into a fratricidal psycopath. I got over it eventually, though I don't regret putting that Good&Plenty up his nose.
Happy Birthday, Bill!
It's also the birthday of Bishop James Ussher in Dublin in 1581. He is famous for being wrong with exquisite precision. After much study of all the available sources of his time, Ussher stated that God had created the earth at 6 pm on Sunday, October 22, 4004 BC.
Over the centuries, Ussher has become a laughing stock among the scientifically minded, though Young Earth creationists still take him at face value while rejecting the latest scientific and biblical scholarship which Ussher himself had made full use of.
Ussher was born into a well-to-do family and entered Trinity College, Dublin at the age of 13 (a typical age at the time) and had his MA by age 19. He was especially good at languages. Two years later he was ordained a priest in the Protestant Church of Ireland. King Henry VIII had declared himself King of Ireland 50 years previously, but most of the Irish remained Catholic. It wasn't till Oliver Cromwell arrived a generation after Ussher that the English boot was firmly established on the Irish neck.
Ussher worked his way up in the church and was also a professor at Trinity College. In 1625, he was appointed Primate of All Ireland, making him the senior Protestant churchman in the country. About this time, there was fear of war with Spain. The English always dreaded that the Spanish would use Ireland as a back door to attack England. The Catholics at this time basically had no rights in their own country. To secure their allegiance against Spain, the king of England was willing to grant the Irish Catholics some concessions.
Ussher, being a good Calvinist, would have none of it. He said the Catholic religion was superstitious and idolatrous, their doctrines erroneous and heretical, and to allow them to practice their religion would be a grievous sin. The Spanish threat fizzled and the Catholics got nothing.
Ussher wanted to go further and make the Catholics pay to maintain the Protestant church. He also wanted to ban the theatre. The lord lieutenant of Ireland however was a theatre lover and blocked Ussher's more radical schemes.
Calvinism is very strict about who gets into heaven. It's supposedly all been preordained who's in and who's out. Ussher must have been worried about his own fate because privately he was a hypothetical universalist which gave him some wiggle room.
In 1640, Ussher moved to England where he remained until his death in 1656. The 1640s were a time of struggle between King Charles and Parliament. As a moderate, Ussher was able to remain friends with both sides when heads (the king's included) began to roll.
In England, Ussher devoted himself to his chronology tracing events back to the creation. It was a work of great scholarship, and modern experts say it's accurate as long as he's working with historical records. Once he starts using the Jewish bible as his only source he's on shaky ground.
He calculated the number of years from Adam to Abraham, then added the number of years from Abraham to the building of the temple and then on to the Babylonian captivity. We know the captivity ended 588 years before Jesus' birth. Ussher understood that Jesus was actually born in 4 BC, not 0 AD. Once he had all the figures locked down, he simply subtracted his total, which amazingly added up to 4,000, from 4 BC, and voila! he arrived at the year 4004 BC.
Ussher also determined that things had to have started on the autumnal equinox, since that's the beginning of the Jewish year. This was calculated, using Kepler's Tables, to have occurred at 6 pm on October 22. The actual time of the equinox was midnight on October 23, but Usher threw in a pre-creation event which backed things up to 6 PM on the 22nd. He never says exactly what was going on during those six hours.
If you're wondering why the equinox was off by 30 days, it's because the Julian calendar was still in use and there had been slippage since Caesar's day. There's always a bit of slippage to make everything come out right.
It’s the 70th birthday of my little brother Bill, born just 22 months after myself. My parents tell me that up to then I had been a happy, outgoing child. Bill’s birth turned me into a fratricidal psycopath. I got over it eventually, though I don't regret putting that Good&Plenty up his nose.
Happy Birthday, Bill!
It's also the birthday of Bishop James Ussher in Dublin in 1581. He is famous for being wrong with exquisite precision. After much study of all the available sources of his time, Ussher stated that God had created the earth at 6 pm on Sunday, October 22, 4004 BC.
Over the centuries, Ussher has become a laughing stock among the scientifically minded, though Young Earth creationists still take him at face value while rejecting the latest scientific and biblical scholarship which Ussher himself had made full use of.
Ussher was born into a well-to-do family and entered Trinity College, Dublin at the age of 13 (a typical age at the time) and had his MA by age 19. He was especially good at languages. Two years later he was ordained a priest in the Protestant Church of Ireland. King Henry VIII had declared himself King of Ireland 50 years previously, but most of the Irish remained Catholic. It wasn't till Oliver Cromwell arrived a generation after Ussher that the English boot was firmly established on the Irish neck.
Ussher worked his way up in the church and was also a professor at Trinity College. In 1625, he was appointed Primate of All Ireland, making him the senior Protestant churchman in the country. About this time, there was fear of war with Spain. The English always dreaded that the Spanish would use Ireland as a back door to attack England. The Catholics at this time basically had no rights in their own country. To secure their allegiance against Spain, the king of England was willing to grant the Irish Catholics some concessions.
Ussher, being a good Calvinist, would have none of it. He said the Catholic religion was superstitious and idolatrous, their doctrines erroneous and heretical, and to allow them to practice their religion would be a grievous sin. The Spanish threat fizzled and the Catholics got nothing.
Ussher wanted to go further and make the Catholics pay to maintain the Protestant church. He also wanted to ban the theatre. The lord lieutenant of Ireland however was a theatre lover and blocked Ussher's more radical schemes.
Calvinism is very strict about who gets into heaven. It's supposedly all been preordained who's in and who's out. Ussher must have been worried about his own fate because privately he was a hypothetical universalist which gave him some wiggle room.
In 1640, Ussher moved to England where he remained until his death in 1656. The 1640s were a time of struggle between King Charles and Parliament. As a moderate, Ussher was able to remain friends with both sides when heads (the king's included) began to roll.
In England, Ussher devoted himself to his chronology tracing events back to the creation. It was a work of great scholarship, and modern experts say it's accurate as long as he's working with historical records. Once he starts using the Jewish bible as his only source he's on shaky ground.
He calculated the number of years from Adam to Abraham, then added the number of years from Abraham to the building of the temple and then on to the Babylonian captivity. We know the captivity ended 588 years before Jesus' birth. Ussher understood that Jesus was actually born in 4 BC, not 0 AD. Once he had all the figures locked down, he simply subtracted his total, which amazingly added up to 4,000, from 4 BC, and voila! he arrived at the year 4004 BC.
Ussher also determined that things had to have started on the autumnal equinox, since that's the beginning of the Jewish year. This was calculated, using Kepler's Tables, to have occurred at 6 pm on October 22. The actual time of the equinox was midnight on October 23, but Usher threw in a pre-creation event which backed things up to 6 PM on the 22nd. He never says exactly what was going on during those six hours.
If you're wondering why the equinox was off by 30 days, it's because the Julian calendar was still in use and there had been slippage since Caesar's day. There's always a bit of slippage to make everything come out right.
 |
| Will the Big Bang one day join Ussher in Science's Hall of Shame? |
Primate of All Ireland.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Anglican Church was on shaky ground favoring the Latin derivation of the word primate (the chief bishop or archbishop of a province) over the English derivation (a mammal of an order that includes the lemurs, bushbabies, tarsiers, marmosets, monkeys, apes, and humans. They are distinguished by having hands, handlike feet, and forward-facing eyes, and, with the exception of humans, are typically agile tree-dwellers); but the British at the time (and maybe, still) seem to live on their own special world, Planet of the Brits.