Dating creation is the attempt to provide an estimate of the age of Earth or the age of the universe as understood through the creation myths of various religious traditions. Various traditional beliefs hold that the Earth, or the entire universe, was brought into being in a grand creation event by one or more deities. After these cultures develop calendars, a question arises: Precisely how long ago did this creation event happen?
Sumerian and Babylonian One of the Old Babylonian versions of the ancient Sumerian King List (WB 444) lists various mythical antediluvian kings and gives them reigns of several tens of thousands of years. The first Sumerian king Alulim, at Eridu, is described as reigning for 28,800 years, followed by several later kings of similar periods. In total these antediluvian kings ruled for 241,200 years from the time when "the kingship was lowered from heaven" to the time when "the flood" swept over the land.The Sumerian King List, Thorkild Jacobsen, 1939, pp. 71, 77). However, most modern scholars do not believe the ancient Sumerians or Babylonians believed in a chronology of their own this old. Instead they believed that these figures were either fabrications, or were based on not literal solar years (365.2425 days) but instead lunar months (29.53059 days)."Science Deified & Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture, Part 1640", p. 45, by Richard Olson, publisher = University of California Press
Cicero, reacting to the chronologies of such authors as Berossos (who composed a Greek-language history of Babylonia, known as the Babyloniaca, during the 3rd century BC), strongly criticised the claim that the Babylonians had kings going back hundreds of thousands of years:
Diodorus Siculus also wrote something similar about how he believed the Babylonians fabricated their chronology:
Despite these criticisms, some ancient Greeks, including most notably Alexander Polyhistor and Proclus, believed the Babylonian kings were hundreds of thousands of years old, and that the Babylonians dated their creation 400,000–200,000 years before their own time.Proclus,In Timaeum, i.
Egyptian The ancient Turin King List lists a mythical predynastic "reign of the gods" which first occurred 36,620 years before Menes (3050 BC), therefore dating the creation to around 39,670 BC.The Turin Papyrus (in the register listing the Reign of the Gods) the final two lines of the column sums up: "Venerables Shemsu-Hor, 13,420 years; Reigns before the Shemsu-Hor, 23,200 years; Total 36,620 years." Scholars such as Wilkinson (1851), Bunsen (1845) and Meyer (1904) all came to the same conclusion independently. This finding was later popularized by several non-scholarly books.
Fragments from Manetho (Eusebius, George Syncellus and preserved in Felix Jacoby's FGrH), however, list different dates.Manetho, (trans. W. G. Waddell), William Heinemann, London, 1940, Introduction pp. xvi-xvii Eusebius, regarding Aegyptiaca, in his Chronicle recorded that:
Using these times, 13,900 + 1,255 + 1,817 + 1,790 + 350 + 5,813 = 24,950 years, which counting back from Menes (3050 BC) fixes the creation at 28,000 BC.Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated, Gerald Verbrugghe, 2001, p. 126, 130, 176. George Syncellus preserved yet another set of figures for the predynastic "reign of the gods", 11,984 years for Gods and 2,646 for demigods producing 14,630 years, thus dating the creation to 17,680 BC.Egypt before the Pharaohs, Michael Hoffman, Michael O’Mara Books, 1991, pp. 12-13, pp. 24-36.
The Book of Sothis, considered as Pseudo-Manetho by many scholars, provides different figures. One fragment from Pseudo-Manetho dates the reign of the first Egyptian God (Ptah) 36,525 years before Menes (FGrH, #610 F2) and so dates the creation to about 39,575 BC.
The ancient Greeks reported similar figures on ancient Egyptian chronology. Diogenes Laërtius recorded that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation to their first god Hephaestus, who by interpretatio graeca was Ptah.Verbrugghe, 2001, p. 126. According to Laertius, Hephaestus (Ptah) lived 48,863 years before Alexander the Great (b. 356 BC), dating the creation to 49,219 BC.Prologue to Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Herodotus wrote that the ancient Egyptians had gods who ruled over them before the first dynasty of Egypt, but did not attempt to precisely date their creation by using their chronology:
According to Herodotus the ancient Egyptian demigods began 11,340 years before the reign of Seti I (1290 BC), so 11,340 + 1290 = 12,630 BC, while he listed earlier figures, 15,000 and 17,000, for the reign of the gods.
The ancient Greek writer Diodorus Siculus wrote that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation (or start of their reign of Gods) "a little less than eighteen thousand years" from Ptolemy XII Auletes (117–51 BC).
Apollonius, an Egyptian pagan priest in the 2nd century AD, calculated the cosmos to be 153,075 years old as reported by Theophilus of Antioch.Notes on the Text of Theophilus, Ad Autolycum III, Robert M. Grant, Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep., 1958) pp. 136-144.
Martianus Capella, a pagan writer, wrote in his De nuptiis in the 5th century AD that the ancient Egyptians had archives of astronomy which started 40,000 years before his own era.
Herodotus' figures were discussed by Isaac Newton in his The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) but were dismissed by Newton because they did not fit Christian cosmology.
The mathematician and esotericist R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, in his work Sacred Science, reconstructed Herodotus' dates to conclude that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation to an astronomical (stellar) event some 30,000 years before Herodotus' own time.
Hinduism
The Rig Veda questions the origin of the cosmos in the Nasadiya Sukta (the 129th hymn of Rigveda 10th mandala):
Dick Teresi in his book Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science, reviewing Vedas writes that:
Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe and the Hindu concept of a "day and night of Brahma", which is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation views. The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created, and is not strictly evolutionary, but an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the universe. According to Sagan:
Also, as per Hinduism, Kaliyuga, the last part of the current cycle (yuga cycle) of time traditionally starts in 3102 BC.
Greek and Roman Most ancient Greek and Roman chroniclers, poets, grammarians, and scholars (Eratosthenes, Varro, Apollodorus of Athens, Ovid, Censorinus, Catullus, and Castor of Rhodes) believed in a threefold division of history: ádelon (obscure), mythikón (mythical) and historikón (historical) periods.Ovid, Varro, and Castor of Rhodes: The Chronological Architecture of the "Metamorphoses", Thomas Cole, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 102, (2004), pp. 355-422. According to the Roman grammarian Censorinus, the first period of ádelon (obscure), was calculated by Varro as follows:
The primordial ádelon (obscure) period ended with the flood of Ogyges and what followed was the beginning of the mythikón (mythical) period. Varro dated this flood to 2137 BCVarro (Rust. 3.1.2–3) roughly 2100 years before himself writing in 37 BC. but Censorinus wrote in his De Die Natali ch. xxi that the Ogyges’ diluvium occurred 1600 years before the first Olympiad (776 BC) meaning 2376 BC.H. Peter, Die Epochen in Varros Werk De Gente Populi Romani, RhM 57 (1902) 231–251. Castor of Rhodes also provided another date for the start of the mythikón (mythical) period, 2123 BC. Censorinus recorded that the second period, the mythikón, stretched from the flood of Ogyges to the first Olympiad:
Censorinus quoted Varro in saying the second period (mythikón) lasted from 2137 to 776 BC, or if Censorinus' own dates are used: 2376 BC to 776 BC, or finally if Castor's: 2123 BC to 776 BC. Ovid, however, dated the start of the mythikón period to the reign of Inachus, whom he dated 400 or so years after the flood of Ogyges, meaning around 1900–1700 BC, but agreed with Varro that the mythikón ended during the first Olympiad (776 BC).H. Peter, Die Epochen in Varros Werk De Gente Populi Romani, RhM 57 (1902) 231–251; James Ussher dated Inachus to 1825 BC. See Ages of Man for more details about Ovid's chronology. Another ancient date for the start of the mythikón (mythical) period is found preserved in Augustine's City of God xviii.3, which dates it to 2050 BC.. Peter, Die Epochen in Varros Werk De Gente Populi Romani, RhM 57 (1902) 231–251. The final period according to Censorinus and Varro, the historikón (historical) era, began from 776 BC (the first Olympiad) to their own time:
Eratosthenes and Apollodorus of Athens, however, pushed back the start of the historical period to the Trojan War, which they fixed at 1184 BC.
Very few ancient Greeks or Romans attempted to date the creation, or beginning of the ádelon (obscure) period. While all ancient sources (excluding Ovid) dated the end of this period and start of the mythical (mythikón) period to 2376–2050 BC, most did not claim to know when the creation (ádelon period) exactly began. As Censorinus admitted:
Varro and Castor of Rhodes also wrote something very similar; however, some ancient Greeks and Romans attempted to calculate the date for the creation by using ancient sources or records of mythological figures.Bibliotheca Classica, John Lemprière, 1788. Since Inachus was dated 400 years after the flood of Ogyges and that Ogyges himself was considered a TitanTheophilus, in the 4th century (ad Autol.), says he was one of the Titans, an earlier fragment from Thallus also makes this identification. or a primordial Autochthon "from earliest ages",The Greek word Ogygios (Ωγύγιος), meaning Ogygian, came to be synonymous with "primeval," "primal," or "from earliest ages". some ancient Greeks or Romans dated the creation (beginning with Chaos or Gaia) only a few hundred years before Ogyges (2376–2050 BC).A. Grafton, Tradition and Technique in Historical Chronology, in M. H. Crawford and C. R. Ligota (eds.), Ancient History and the Antiquarian: Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano (London 1995). Most ancient Greeks, however, did not subscribe to such a literalist view of using mythology to attempt to date the creation; Hecataeus of Miletus was an early ancient Greek logographer who strongly criticised this method, while Ptolemy wrote of such an "immense period" of time before the historical period (776 BC), and thus believed in a much greater age for the creation.Great Syntaxis, i. 3.
Among the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers there were different opinions and traditions pertaining to the date of the creation. Some philosophers believed the Universe was eternal and actually had no date of creation.
Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism involves a 12,000-year cosmogony and chronology, often divided into four ages as outlined in the Bundahishn. The first age lasted for 3,000 years and included the spiritual creation by Ahura Mazda, followed by the physical creation of 3,000 years when evil entered the world (see Angra Mainyu). During the 6,000th year, Zoroaster's Fravashi was created, followed by the prophet Zoroaster himself at the end of the 9th millennium. The 9,000th year marked the start of the fourth and last age. Modern Zoroastrians believe they are living currently in the final age. Since evil first entered the physical creation after the spiritual creation was complete, Zoroastrians maintain that for 9,000 years the world continues to be a battlefield between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu, which will end during the 12,000th year, when the Saoshyants brings about the final renovation of the world to defeat evil.