Editing James Ussher (section)

==Chronology==
[[File:Annals of the World - title page.jpg|thumb|Title page of his ''Annals of the World'']]
{{main|Ussher chronology}}
Ussher now concentrated on his research and writing and returned to the study of chronology and the [[Church Fathers]]. After a 1647 work on the origin of the [[Creed]]s, Ussher published a treatise on the calendar in 1648. This was a warm-up for his most famous work, the ''[[Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti]]'' ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650, and its continuation, ''Annalium pars posterior'', published in 1654. In this work, he calculated the date of the [[Genesis creation myth|Creation]] to have been nightfall on 22 October 4004 BC. (Other scholars, such as the [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] academic [[John Lightfoot]], calculated their own dates for the Creation.) The time of the [[Ussher chronology]] is frequently misquoted as being 9 a.m., noon or 9 p.m. on 23 October. See the [[Ussher chronology|related article on the chronology]] for a discussion of its claims and methodology.

While calculating the date of the Creation is today considered a fringe activity, in Ussher's time such a calculation was still regarded as an important task, one also attempted by many Post-Reformation scholars, such as [[Joseph Justus Scaliger]] and [[Isaac Newton]]. Ussher's work is now used to support [[Young Earth Creationism]], which holds that the universe was created thousands of years ago (rather than billions). 

Ussher's chronology represented a considerable feat of scholarship: it demanded great depth of learning in what was then known of ancient history, including the rise of the Persians, Greeks and Romans, as well as expertise in the Bible, biblical languages, astronomy, ancient calendars and chronology. Ussher's account of historical events for which he had multiple sources other than the Bible is usually in close agreement with modern accounts{{snd}}for example, he placed the death of [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]] in 323 BC and that of [[Julius Caesar]] in 44 BC. Ussher's last biblical co-ordinate was the Babylonian king [[Nebuchadnezzar II]], and beyond this point, he had to rely on other considerations. Faced with inconsistent texts of the [[Torah]], each with a different number of years between the [[Genesis flood narrative]] and Creation, Ussher chose the [[Masoretic]] version, which claims an unbroken history of careful transcription stretching back centuries{{snd}}but his choice was confirmed for him by the fact that it placed Creation exactly four thousand years before 4 BC, the generally accepted date for the [[Nativity of Jesus]]; moreover, he calculated that [[Solomon's Temple]] was completed in the year 3000 from creation, so that there were exactly 1,000 years from the temple to Jesus, who was thought to be the 'fulfilment' of the Temple.<ref>Barr, James. ''Biblical Chronology: Legend Or Science?'' The Ethel M. Wood Lecture 1987. Delivered at the Senate House, University of London on 4 March 1987. London: University of London, 1987, p. 19 {{OCLC|19643211}}</ref>