“Dark Ages”

Many have made fun of Archbishop James Ussher for publishing in 1654 his calculation that the earth was created 4004 BC. He based the year on archeological discovery and historical record of his day, including the record of generations in Genesis. This was not some off-the-wall idea. Apparently the general date was accepted by others long before Ussher. In Canto XXVI of “Paradiso,” Dante asks Adam, the first man, how long he has been in heaven. Adam’s response is, “still was I debarr’d this council, till the sun had made complete, four thousand and three hundred rounds and twice, his annual journey,” which means 4,302 years. He further clarifies that he lived, “through every light in his broad pathway, saw I him return, thousand save seventy times, the whilst I dwelt upon the earth,” which means 930 years. Since Dante wrote Divine Comedy between 1308 and 1321, Dante must have been confident that the earth was created around 3924-3911 BC (AD 1308-4302-930=-3924; AD 1321-4302-930=-3911). This epoch poem was published over 300 before Archbishop Ussher published his computation, yet they are within a few decades of each other in results. Both must have accepted the Biblical record as history, and both must have had similar access to historical record reaching back thousands of years through other sources. With historical consistency like that, I’d say the “Dark Ages” were not as dark as some would have us believe.

This entry was posted on October 31, 2006 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Culture & society, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.