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Let me start the article with an apology. I was wrong because the temporal power of the Popes did not come to an end in the year 2023, as I had predicted in my blog and books for more than five years. The apology is in itself quite unnecessary, because I recognised from the start that my calculation could be wrong. For example, in my September 2020 blog article, I concluded with the cautious statement: ‘Only time will tell whether or not 2023 will see something historically revolutionary. I’ve been wrong before, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m wrong again. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if my interpretations come true this time either.”

In the title of the same article, I stated in brackets in an equally cautious tone What will happen in 2023 (or will anything happen)? At least two biblical prophecies would attest to the significance of this year. It is one thing to make cautious speculations about future events and their dates, but it is another thing to present something as the Word of the Lord and set expectations for your readers which, if they go wrong, will make them doubt the very foundations of Christianity. For example, I have never put dates on when I think the rapture should have taken place, because I have never believed that it could even be known in advance.¹  Some teach that Matthew 24:36 is taken out of context because verse 50 says that to the wicked servant who does not watch, the coming of the Lord will take place “at a time when he does not expect and at a time when he does not guess”.

It is true that the Bible says that the coming of the Lord should not surprise those who watch in the night for the signs of the times ahead of Jesus’ second coming.² But this does not negate the fact that “of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” For this reason, I myself have never set a date for the rapture or the second coming of Jesus. I have given various years, and sometimes even exact dates, but I have also made it clear that these dates or years have not been about the rapture or Jesus’ return to the Mount of Olives. I have mainly put forward time frames for Rome and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and in January last year, the internationally sensational visit to the Temple Mount by Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir seemed to coincide quite well with my years-old prophecy interpretation (whether my interpretation of Daniel 12 is justified or not is open to debate) .

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Content

1. Can we know the year and month?
2. Seven millennia of world history
3. Luther and the Talmud
4. LXX versus Masoretic Bible
5. Definitions of the exact year
6. Luther and the year 2040
7. Old or young earth?
8. Thiele’s chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah
9. Two different interpretations of the timing of the Exodus
10. Two different interpretations of the year of Abraham’s birth
11. Creation date revealed?
12. 70th Jubilee Year
13. Why did Newton predict the end of the world in 2060?
14. Conclusion
15. Post Script:
16. Footnotes

Can we know the year and month?

In the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9, the time of Jesus’ death on Calvary was accurately predicted with a month precision. Throughout the history of the Christian Church, many prominent theologians and scholars have believed that the moment of Jesus’ second coming could also be dated from Scripture at least to the year, even if the exact date and time could not be known in advance. This idea does not contradict Matthew 24:36, which does not deny our possibility of knowing the year, season or even month of that event in advance.

Many people know the father of Protestant Reformation Martin Luther from statements like, “If I knew the end of the world was coming tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree .” This statement reflects the fact that even the knowledge of an impending apocalypse should not discourage us from continuing our efforts to preserve and perpetuate life here on earth. This is very practical advice, especially when we take into account that the Bible does not even teach the end of the world, but the end of an old corrupt and evil age and the beginning of a new and better age.³  Few people know, however, that Luther was more interested than is thought in the eschatological questions and made precise calculations from the Bible to determine the date of Jesus’ second coming. He arrived at his calculations in 2040. Nevertheless, he believed that Jesus would also come in his own lifetime, in the 1500s. I will return to this curious contradiction a little later.

Many who are more cynical about eschatology may now think that almost all generations of the Christian era have expected the coming of Jesus to occur in their generation, and “signs of the times” have been found to support their ideas at all times. Likewise, these dates for the second coming of Jesus have been made since the beginning of church history, and when the old calculations have not held true, the goalposts have simply been moved forward. The list of dates and years that have gone wrong could fill a whole book. And I could add to this list my own predictions that have gone wrong.

This criticism would be somewhat justified in ridiculing all eschatological research if there had not also been consistent views in church history about when the second coming of Jesus should take place. In other words, if all scholars had only set their own arbitrary criteria to try to fit the signs and timing of Jesus’ second coming to the days of their particular generation, then prophetic research would be very uncertain, speculative and open to interpretation indeed.

On the other hand, if many of the most prominent scholars in church history have believed in a method for timing the “end of the world” that is more scientifically determined, then that method should be taken more seriously than the more subjective interpretations of how this or that earthquake, war, plague, or eclipse has been a sign of an impending apocalypse (as if earthquakes, wars, plagues, or eclipses have not existed since the dawn of history). That kind of “scientific method” on of which different scholars in the church history were unanimous in their view has been that the second coming of Jesus should occur when 6,000 years have passed since the creation of Adam. This was the belief of the church father Irenaeus, a disciple of the Apostle John’s disciple, who lived in the 100s A.D., and it was also the belief of Martin Luther and the Reformers who followed him, including some of the fathers of the scientific revolution of the 1500s and 1600s.

Seven millennia of world history

While all generations of Christian history may have expected and hoped that the return of Jesus would take place in their generation, they have also been aware that it could not happen until 6000 years after the creation of the world. Irenaeus wrote in his book Against Heresies:

For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: “Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works.” This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8); and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.

The letter of Barnabas, written during John’s lifetime in the first Century, says the same thing:

Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end. And He rested on the seventh day. this He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day.

This interpretation is a very consistent conclusion from the New Testament writings where Paul often taught the exemplary importance of the Old Testament as a shadow of things to come. In Hebrews, Paul said that “the Sabbath rest for the people of God will surely come “⁴, while Peter taught in connection with the second coming of Jesus that “the Lord will not delay to fulfil his promise” because “one day is as a thousand years before the Lord, and a thousand years as one day”.⁵ John, in the Book of Revelation, adds that the coming Sabbath rest for the people of God would last for a thousand years, until God creates new heavens and a new earth.⁶ Thus, Christ’s millennial kingdom must follow the six thousand years of humanity, reflecting the time when God will complete His work of salvation following the Fall, and in the seventh millennium God, the earth and humanity will rejoice in that time of paradisiacal rest and peace and plenty.

Luther and the Talmud

Martin Luther also subscribed to this view. In his 1540 chronology, which he originally intended for his own use only, but which his friends encouraged him to publish, and which has just been translated into English, Luther began with the following quote:

Those who say they are disciples of the prophet Elijah claim: The world will stand for six thousand years. Two thousand years of nothing. Two thousand years of law. Two thousand years of the Messiah. These are the six days of the week with God. The seventh day is the eternal Sabbath.

This quote itself was derived from the Babylonian Talmud of the 400s AD. Since the Jews do not believe that Jesus was their prophesied Messiah, it is strange that the Talmud refers to the Christian era following the Torah era as the era of the Messiah. The quotation is found in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 97b, and reads literally as follows: “The school of Eliyahu taught: Six thousand years is the duration of the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos; two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of the coming of the Messiah.“The preceding Talmudic text states:

Just as the Sabbatical Year abrogates debts once in seven years, so too, the world abrogates its typical existence for one thousand years in every seven thousand years, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day,” and it states: “A psalm, a song for the Shabbat day” (Psalms 92:1), meaning a day, i.e., one thousand years, that is entirely Shabbat. And it says in explanation of the equation between one day and one thousand years: “For a thousand years in Your eyes are but like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night” (Psalms 90:4).

Since the Talmud was compiled during the time of the Church Fathers of the Christian Church, it is possible that these teachings of “the school of Eliyahu” were influenced by the texts of early Church Fathers such as Irenaeus. Indeed, in the same context, the Talmud also seeks to refute the idea that the Messiah should have come 4,000 years after creation: “That is the course that history was to take, but due to our sins that time frame increased. The Messiah did not come after four thousand years passed, and furthermore, the years that elapsed since then, which were to have been the messianic era, have elapsed.“ The Talmud then states that the Messiah would come 85 Jubilee cycles or 4250 years after creation and the end of the world would come 4291 years after creation.

In the Jewish chronology based on the second century chronology of the Seder Olam Rabbah, the world was created in 3761 BC and the Talmud was completed in the 400s CE, just before 4250 . Thus, the Talmudic authors have tried to time the expected coming of the Messiah very close to their own time, between 400 and 500 BC. The Talmud therefore does not teach that the Messiah came into the world at the same time as the beginning of the Christian Era. However, the Talmud does teach in two different passages that the world would last for 6,000 years and that the seventh millennium would be a time of Messianic peace, when “the mountain of the house of the Lord Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it… they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not lift up a sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.“ This prophecy of a universal time of peace in Isaiah 2 is taught by the Talmud to be fulfilled after those 6,000 years from the creation have come to an end.⁷

LXX versus Masoretic Bible

So when will 6000 years be up? This is a question that both Jewish and Christian scholars have been trying to answer, always to the exact year (sometimes even to the exact day and hour), for 2000 years. If you were to put that question to the Greek-speaking Christians of the early church who read the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they would answer around 500 AD. While Luther and all the biblical chronologists who followed him would say it was it would not happen until the 21st century AD. This 1500 year disparancy in the chronology of the Septuagint and modern Bible translations is largely explained by the differences between the Septuagint, or LXX, and the Masoretic texts as to the number of years the early patriarchs had to sire a new generation.

Modern Bible translations are based on the Masoretic manuscripts of the original Hebrew texts, which were recorded by the Masoretic school of Jewish scholars in the 800s and 1000s. The Masoretic manuscripts are generally considered more reliable than the LXX. Luther himself wrote the following about this:

I admit that the Chronicon of Charion and Philip is the first and is a very good example of a reckoning in which the whole course of years is very nicely divided into six millennia, which I also followed… For [the father of church history] Eusebius’ chronology, which is from the Septuagint, constantly translates “two hundred” instead of “one hundred” in Genesis 5.

That chronology is responsible for the same error in all chronologies before our time, which have 1249 years too many in that chapter. Indeed, they have already gone beyond the sixth millennium, which they call the sixth aeon, and count the years [now in progress] as the seventh millennium, their “seventh aeon“.

Here Luther was referring to the belief, already shared by the early church fathers, that the seventh millennium was to represent the millennial Sabbath rest of the earth, following the second coming of Christ. Thus, mankind could not have entered that seventh millennium in the 1500s. Although the longer chronology of the Septuagint has its adherents among today’s young-earth creationists, who even speak of a Talmudic conspiracy to reduce the patriarchal years, there is very little evidence for this from academic scholars.

Let me give you one example of why the dates given by the LXX should not be taken as reliable. In the Masoretic texts, the years of life of none of the pre-Noah patriarchs exceed the timing of the Flood that revealed in the same context. Noah’s father Lamech died a few years before the year of the Flood, i.e. 1656 AM. Noah’s grandfather Methuselah died in the same year that the Flood drowned all people of the world except Noah and his family. Methuselah was an impressive 969 years old when he died and is not said to have gone to the Ark with Noah and seven other members of Noah’s family. Perhaps he was too frail to go up in the Ark and preferred to die in an epic flood, knowing that death was knocking at the door anyway. Or maybe he died some weeks or months before the flood.

This would not be a problematic interpretation at all. The Septuagint dates are rather problematic, however, as they allow Methuselah to be counted as having died 14 years after the Flood. However, apart from Noah, only his wife, his three sons and Noah’s three daughters-in-law were saved in the ark.⁸ So either the Septuagint’s year figures are incorrect, or the Bible is lying when it claims that only eight people were saved in the ark. I would prefer the former answer. So if we accept the Masoretic Manuscripts’ dates for the early patriarchs, then the creation of the world can be calculated to have taken place around 4000 BC.

Definitions of the exact year

However, estimates to determine the exact year have fluctuated by decades. The most famous calculation is, of course, the chronology Annales Veteris Testamenti, written by Bishop James Ussher in the 1600s, which dated creation to 4004 BC, the date 23 October, and the time 9.00 am. Darwinian opponents of creationism in Ussher’s young earth have often asked sarcastically, “Is this the Eastern or the Western Coast time?” What is often overlooked by jokers is that similar calculations of the young age of the earth and humanity were also made by many of the most important fathers of the scientific revolution of the time, such as Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton.⁹ These men are also still held in high esteem by Darwinists. I quote from Wikipedia:

Early Jewish estimations: The earliest post-exilic Jewish chronicle preserved in the Hebrew language, the Seder Olam Rabbah, compiled by Jose ben Halafta in 160 AD, dates the creation of the world to 3761 BC while the later Seder Olam Zutta to 4339 BC. The Hebrew calendar has traditionally, since the 4th century AD by Hillel II, dated the creation to 3761 BC.

Septuagint: Many of the earliest Christians who used the Septuagint version of the Bible calculated creation as having occurred about 5500 BC, and Christians up to the Middle-Ages continued to use this rough estimate: Clement of Alexandria (5592 BC), Theophilus of Antioch (5529 BC), Sextus Julius Africanus (5501 BC), Hippolytus of Rome (5500 BC), Panodorus of Alexandria (5493 BC), Maximus the Confessor (5493 BC), George Syncellus (5492 BC), Sulpicius Severus (5469 BC), Isidore of Seville (5336 BC) and Gregory of Tours (5200 BC).The Byzantine calendar has traditionally dated the creation of the world to September 1, 5509 BC.

The Chronicon of Eusebius (early 4th century) dated creation to 5228 BC while Jerome (c. 380, Constantinople) dated creation to 5199 BC. In the Roman Martyrology, the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ formerly used this date, as did the Irish Annals of the Four Masters. Bede was one of the first to break away from the standard Septuagint date for the creation and in his work De Temporibus (“On Time”) (completed in 703 AD) dated the creation to 18 March 3952 BC but was accused of heresy at the table of Bishop Wilfrid, because his chronology was contrary to accepted calculations of around 5500 BC.

Masoretic: After the Masoretic Text was published, however, dating creation around 4000 BC became common, and was received with wide support.[70] Proposed calculations of the date of creation using the Masoretic from the 10th century to the 18th century include: Marianus Scotus (4192 BC), Henry Fynes Clinton (4138 BC), Henri Spondanus (4051 BC), Benedict Pereira (4021 BC), Louis Cappel (4005 BC), James Ussher (4004 BC), Augustin Calmet (4002 BC), Isaac Newton (3998 BC)[citation needed], Petavius (3984 BC), Theodore Bibliander (3980 BC), Johannes Kepler (April 27, 3977 BC) [based on his book Mysterium Cosmographicum], Heinrich Bünting (3967 BC), Christen Sørensen Longomontanus (3966 BC), Melanchthon (3964 BC), Martin Luther (3961 BC), Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide (3961 BC), John Lightfoot (3960 BC), Joseph Justus Scaliger (3949 BC), Christoph Helvig (3947 BC), Gerardus Mercator (3928 BC), Matthieu Brouard (3927 BC), Benito Arias Montano (3849 BC), Andreas Helwig (3836 BC).

Among the Masoretic creation estimates or calculations for the date of creation only Archbishop Ussher’s specific chronology dating the creation to 4004 BC became the most accepted and popular, mainly because this specific date was attached to the King James Bible.

From the Septuagint, the beginning of the seventh millennium can therefore be dated from the early 400s to the early 800s. On the basis of the Masoretic texts established in the modern Bibles, the beginning of the seventh millennium would be dated at the earliest to the beginning of the 1800s and at the latest to the 2100s-2200s. According to the Jewish calendar still in use today, it would not begin until 2240.

Luther and the year 2040

Luther’s chronology of the creation of the world, Luthers Chronikon oder Berechnung der Jahre der Welt, published in German in 1541, dated the creation to 3961 BC and thus the second coming of Christ to 2040. To be sure, in the same chronology Luther himself sought to justify his interpretation that the return of Jesus would be about 500 years early, because just as Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, i.e. in the middle of that third day, so also His second coming should take place in the middle of this ‘sixth day’, or sixth millennium. This was a rather artificial addition by which Luther sought to justify his expectation that already his generation would witness the second coming of our Lord. In his other writings, Luther expressed his belief in the imminence of the Day of Judgment and said he hoped it would not be centuries away. His own chronology, however, testified that it was much more likely to occur 500 years later, since Christ’s return was to be followed by a millennial kingdom (Revelation 20), which in the tradition of Christian writers corresponds to the seventh millennium of mankind.

If we start from the eschatological premise alone that the seventh millennium could not have begun yet, then all chronologies that place creation earlier than 3977 BC would be incorrect. Furthermore, if we consider that the 70th week of Daniel 9 had not yet begun, then the public return of Jesus Christ to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem cannot occur before 2031. Thus, the creation of the world could not have occurred before 3970 BC.

Old or young earth?

I will not comment on the age of the earth and the universe as defined by modern science. The literal timing of the biblical chronology to about 6000 years in the past, does not mean that the earth and the universe could not be older than that, because the first verse of Genesis chapter 1 begins with an indefinite “beginning”:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

It doesn’t say whether the “beginning” was billions of years, millions of years or thousands of years ago. Biblical chronology begins with the creation of Adam, which, as a Sola Scriptura Protestant believer in the authority of Scripture, I try to take literally and not in the light of a Darwinian model or the theistic evolution. Are attempts to pinpoint the exact date of creation a waste of time because estimates have varied so widely between different scholars? No. The Book of Daniel foretold that knowledge and understanding would increase towards the end. ¹⁰This was already understood by Luther as a sign of the end times.

[Luther]  was convinced that Daniel’s prophecy about the increase of knowledge before the time of the end, was applicable to his time. Never was there an age since the birth of Christ “like the present” when “men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew.”¹¹

This was also the thinking of the fathers of the scientific revolution, such as Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, based on Daniel’s prophecies. If Luther already considered the scientific knowledge of his time to be superior to that of previous generations, how much more so today in the age of the internet, artificial intelligence and space exploration. The increase in knowledge predicted by Daniel also means that our understanding of history and Scripture will grow and become more accurate. With the internet and artificial intelligence, non-academically educated simpletons like me will also be able to study ancient texts that in the old days could only be read by the highly educated in Latin and Greek. For the source data for this article, too, I have already asked the AI to help me, and it found Luther’s chronology for me on the Internet. And the AI is able to search through sources in a very wide range of languages.

Thiele’s chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah

This means that, thanks to the work of astronomers, archaeologists and various historians and chroniclers, we now have much more information about ancient events and their reliable timing in relation to the Western calendar. For example, the chronology of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah by the archaeologist Edwin R. Thiele, who lived in the 1900s, is today considered much more historically valid than chronologies from the 1600s, such as that of James Ussher. I asked ChatGPT 4 about this and it replied:

Here are five reasons why Edwin Thiele’s chronology is considered more reliable:

• Integrated cross-referencing: Thiele used synchronicity between the histories of Israel, Judah, Assyria and Babylonia.
• Astronomical data: he included astronomical data for accurate timing of events.
• Systematic methodology: Thiele applied a more systematic and critical approach to biblical and extra-biblical sources.
• Archaeological evidence: he made use of modern archaeological finds in his chronology.
• Rectifying chronological contradictions: Thiele addressed and reconciled the contradictions in the biblical narratives, leading to a more coherent and historically consistent timeline.

According to the Creationwiki website, Thiele’s chronology was also respectful of biblical texts, forcing Assyriologists to reconcile the chronology of pagan civilizations with the biblical chronology, demonstrating the superiority of biblical texts over pagan chronologies. Thiele’s chronology is today considered reliable by evangelical Christians as well as secular historians. As Wikipedia explains:

Thiele and his successors gained wider acceptance than any other similar chronology; as the assyriologist D. J. Wiseman (1993) wrote: “Today, the most widely accepted chronology is based on Thiele’s careful research.” More recently, in 2010, Leslie McFall argued that “Thiele’s chronology is rapidly becoming the consensus view among Old Testament scholars, if it has not already reached that point.”

So today we have information, confirmed by astronomical, archaeological and historical sources, about the exact dates or years of the events of the first millennium before the beginning of the calendar. For example, we know with certainty from several sources that the destruction of Babylon took place on 12 October 539 BC. Similarly, from the chronology of Thiele we can place the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in 586 BC and its foundation in 967 BC. As already noted, the dates in Thiele’s chronology are also consistent with those in the chronology of the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms, which is independent of the Bible. While it is more difficult to find confirmation from extra-biblical sources of the dates that are earlier than temple, the correct foundation year of the Solomon temple makes it easier for us to calculate the exact date of creation.

Two different interpretations of the timing of the Exodus

Chapter 6 of the First Book of Kings tells us that the foundations of the temple were laid 479 years after the Exodus, which in Thiele’s chronology would put the Exodus at 1446 BC. This, in turn, can be counted back 430 years to 1876 B.C., since Exodus 12:40 says: “Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.” Many would interpret this as referring to the time Jacob and his 12 sons’ descendants spent in Egypt until Moses. However, the LXX translates the verse thus: “And the children of Israel sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan four hundred and thirty years.” That is, 430 years should be counted from the time when Abraham, a grandfather of Jacob, moved to the land of Canaan at the age of 75 years.¹²

It is perhaps somewhat inconsistent to rely on a Septuagint translation at this point, when we previously rejected its translation in the patriarchal years indicated in Genesis 5. But if we accept the premise that the Bible as a whole is a truthful text inspired by the Holy Spirit, then this is how this passage should be interpreted. Why? Because the New Testament also teaches that 430 years was the time that elapsed from the promise to Abraham to the Exodus: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham… What I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.”¹³

Both Luther’s and James Ussher’s chronology counted 430 years from Abraham to Moses, and Paul himself seems to agree with this chronology. So far, we can confirm 1876 BC as the year Abraham moved into the land of Canaan when he was 75 years old, as Genesis 12 states.

Two different interpretations of the year of Abraham’s birth

From here, it’s easy to count back the years to the creation of Adam. From Adam to the Flood is 1656¹⁴ and from the Flood to Abraham’s birth is either 292 or 352 years.¹⁵ These two different options come from the fact that some interpret Abraham as being born when his father Terah was 70 years old and others interpret Abraham’s birth as occurring 60 years later. Genesis 11:26 tells us:

When Terah was seventy years old, Abram, Nahor and Haran were born to him.

But if we follow the chronological order of events, as James Ussher did in his chronology, only Nahor and Haran were born when Tarah was 70 years old and Abraham was born 60 years later. Immediately after this, we are told that Terah moved with his son Abraham and his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai to Haran, where Terah died at the age of 205. The next chapter continues the story by saying that Abraham moved away from Haran at the age of 75, when God made a covenant with him.

Although the chapter 12 does not say whether his father was still alive when Abraham moved with his wife Sarai and nephew Lot from Harran, this is the more likely scenario, as the chronological progression of the story suggests this (death of Terah is mentioned before that). It is also more plausible that righteous Abraham would have waited for his old father to die first, rather than leaving him to die alone in Haran. Moreover, Acts records Stephen’s testimony before the Jewish Sanhedrin: “Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living.” ¹⁶Thus, the New Testament also confirms the later date of Abraham’s birth.

Creation date revealed?

We can therefore divide the chronology of the Bible as follows:

• From the creation of Adam to the Flood: 1656 years
• From the Flood to the birth of Abraham: 352 years
• From Abraham’s birth to his departure from Haran: 75 years
• Abraham’s migration from Harran to Exodus: 430 years
• From Exodus to the foundations of Solomon’s temple: 479 years
• From the Solomon’s temple to the beginning of Common Era: 967 years.

1656+352+75+430+479+967 = 3959 BC. In the light of the most recent biblical and historical understanding, this would seem the most likely date of Adam’s creation. It is therefore interesting to note that it almost coincides with Luther’s dating of the creation to 3961 BCE.¹⁷ It is also not far off the 8th Century calculation by Bede, known as the “Father of English History”, who dated the creation to 3952 BCE, and who was one of the first biblical chronologies to challenge the established LXX calculation. The foundations of our Western civilisation were laid in the Western Europe during the 8th Century. Even then Christian writers seemed to have understood that the 6000 years of history, the “six days”, would run out by 2040s.

Counting from 3959 BC, 6000 years would be completed in 2042, when we take into account the absence of a zero year. I said earlier that Jesus’ public return to the Mount of Olives cannot happen before 2031 if we assume that the 70th week of Daniel has not yet begun. Does this mean that the 70th week will begin in 2035? I don’t know. It could start earlier. For example, will the millennial kingdom of peace immediately follow the fall of the Antichrist and the false prophet at Armageddon, or will there be years in between during which the kingdom will be established? The Talmud, completed by the 5th Century, tells us:

Rav Ketina says: Six thousand years is the duration of the world, and it is in ruins for one thousand years. The duration of the period during which the world is in ruins is derived from a verse, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day” (Isaiah 2:11), and the day of God lasts one thousand years. Abaye says: It is in ruins for two thousand years, as it is stated: “After two days He will revive us; in the third day He will revive us, and we shall live in His presence” (Hosea 6:2). ¹⁸

The prophecy of Hosea quoted by Talmud could also be applied to the “two days” of the Christian Church’s history, or the 2000 years that will be completed in the spring of 2033. Should the prophecy of “resurrection” be understood as a reference to the resurrection of the church, or the rapture of Christians, which will take place “two days” or 2000 years after the year 33 AD? Or will the rapture take place earlier? If you were born in 1930-40, you stand a good chance of being one of those who will not taste death but will be caught up alive to meet the Lord¹⁹ if the calculations here are correct.

70th Jubilee Year

In the light of the above chronology, many other interesting conclusions can be drawn. For example, if the Exodus took place in 1446 BC, then the 40-year wilderness journey ended in 1406 BC and the subsequent Joshua conquest lasted seven years. Thus, the Israelites had divided the land of Canaan among themselves by 1399 BC and then began counting the weeks and years of Jubilee (the 50th year) according to the Mosaic commandments.²⁰ The 70th Jubilee year from 1399 BC would coincide with the years 2032-33. Or if the counting of the Jubilee years began as early as the arrival of the Israelites after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, then the 70th Jubilee year would correspond to 2025-26.

70 Jubilee years is equal to 7 x 7 x 70 years because the 50th Jubilee year was also the first year of the new Jubilee cycle. ²¹In 2025 the present state of Israel will be 77 years old and in 2032-33 from the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the foundation of the Christian Church will be 2000 years. The Jubilee Year, like the millennial Sabbath, symbolizes the rest of the earth and the liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin.²² Should we therefore expect the liberation of creation from the slavery of the corruption of our sins²³ by 2032-33, or will it be extended to 2040-42?

Why did Newton predict the end of the world in 2060?

My article has been long, but I’m going to talk a bit more about the “elephant in the room”. So why did my earlier calculations about the destruction of Rome or the Vatican in 2023 fall flat? Am I just trying to move the goalposts forward to save face? First of all, my ‘apocalyptic’ predictions are open to criticism and even ridicule. It is precisely criticism of them that I would need, in order to give my ideas more intellectual counterbalance. But a such factual critique, which I could appreciate, would take into account the criteria through which I have arrived at my calculations. For it is easy to criticize and ridicule the fact that I predicted the demise of the papacy or the Vatican in 2023 (and 2016 before that) and then later find that neither of my predictions came true.

It is much more difficult to try to criticize the arguments that led me to those predictions. Secondly, similar predictions about the year of the end of the papacy and the coming of Jesus have been made by many people much more intelligent, learned and well-read than me for centuries. Isaac Newton, for example, made his own calculations and is today considered one of the most intelligent people in our history, along with Albert Einstein. We do not ridicule his astronomical or mathematical calculations, but we ignore his eschatological research and calculations because our secular culture believes it to be some kind of medieval religious nonsense.

Indeed, I still hold valid my interpretation of what Isaac Newton, Luther and many other highly learned people shared in the 1500s-1800s; that the papacy fulfilled Daniel 7’s prophecy of the “little horn” and that the reign of that horn of “time, times and a half time” should be applied to 1260 years on a “day is a year” principle (like in the vision of 70 weeks). I still hold valid my premise as to where those 1260 years should begin to be calculated. My starting point was the year 781, because historical sources indicate that this was the year in which the temporal power of the popes as monarchs of the Papal States was codified, i.e. legally established, and after which the popes also began to mint papal coins as a sign of heir temporal sovereignty.

The establishment of the papal states took place de facto as early as 756 (hence my earlier assessment of 2016), but de jure it was not until 781. This starting point best fits the criteria offered by both prophecy and history. My calculation of 2023 as the end of the popes’ temporal power was based on the fact that from 781 AD 1260 a 360-day prophetic years would have been completed in that year. Why did I calculate the years as 360 days when the actual length of the year is 365 days? Because both Genesis and Revelation mention 360 days as the length of the year according to the ancient Near Eastern lunasolar calendar.²⁴

The 1260 days are mentioned in Revelation in the same context as the 42 months and three and a half years (time, times and a half time). But 3.5 years and 42 months equals 1260 days only if each month consists of 30 days and a year of 360 days. Only this way, the 69 weeks of years, i.e. 7 x 69 years, predicted in Daniel 9, also coincide with the time of Jesus’ death on the cross in April 33 AD. On the other hand, if 1260 years or “time, times and a half time” are calculated using the usual 365-day solar years, then from 781 they will end in 2041. This would coincide with the date of the “end of the world” as calculated by Luther, and at the same time 6000 years can be considered to end in the light of our current historical and biblical understanding.

These are two completely independent ways of calculating the end of history, and both interestingly coincide in the same year. They are also the two ways in which biblical scholars have been trying to calculate the correct moment of Jesus’ coming for 2,000 years. The end of the 6,000 years or ‘six days’ has been attempted from biblical chronology since the days of Irenaeus, and the end of the papacy’s 1,260 years has been attempted since at least the days of Luther, even though some medieval Catholic churchmen and scholars such as Joachim of Fiore (a popular medieval eschatologist whose teachings were appreciated by Dante and European monarchs such as Richard the Lionheart of England) taught that the Pope was the Antichrist.

In the historicist teaching of theologians from the 1500s to the 1800s, 1260 years were usually counted in 365-day solar years. Newton also counted these years in solar years and dated them from 800 to 2060 (forming thus 1260 solar years). According to Newton, the year 800, when Pope Leo III crowned the Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, was the correct starting point for the rise of the Little Horn. I just re-examined Newton’s arguments for this timing in chapters 7 and 8 of his commentary on Daniel and Revelation. On pages 215-16 he writes:

By the conversion of the ten kingdoms [i.e. the 10 kingdoms that divided the Roman Empire between themselves in the 400-500s] to the ROMAN religion, the Pope only enlarged his spiritual dominion, but did not yet rise up as a horn of the Beast. It was his temporal dominion which made him one of the horns : and this dominion he acquired in the latter half of the eighth century, by subduing three of the former horns as above. And now being arrived at a temporal dominion, and a power above all human judicature, he reigned (DAN. vii. 20. ver. 25. ) with a look more stout than his fellows, and times and laws were henceforward given into his hands, for a time, times and half a time, or three times and an half ; that is, for 1260 solar years, reckoning a time for a Calendar year of 360 days, and a day for a solar year. After which (ver. 26.) the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, not at once but by degrees, to consume, and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall, by degrees, be given unto the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.²⁵

Newton was well-versed in history and knew that the beginning of the popes’ temporal power could not be dated to a point in history earlier than the mid-700s, when papal states was granted to Pope Stephen II by Charlemagne’s father, Pepin the Short. But instead of dating the rise of that horn to the donation of Pepin the Short in 756, or its codification in 781, he presented it as a process that took about half a century, culminating in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of Rome. He also arrived at this date in the context of the fall of the three earlier horns, where he associated them with the fall of the exarchate of Ravenna (the centre of Byzantine power in Italy) in 751, the fall of the Kingdom of the Lombards in Italy in 774 and finally the submission of the city of Rome itself to papal rule in 800.

This differs from my own interpretation to the extent that I associate the fall of the three earlier horns with the three kingdoms that alternately ruled Italy and Rome after the fall of Western Rome: the Kingdom of Odoacer from 476-93, the Kingdom of Ostrogoths from 493-536 and the Byzantine Empire (the exarchate of Ravenna) from 536-751. All of these were ruled from the city of Ravenna and all were included in the original ten kingdoms that divided the Roman Empire in 476, as predicted in Daniel 7:24. The kingdom of the Lombards was not included in the original ten, which is why I see Newton’s interpretation as erroneous.²⁶ Nor did I find any historical evidence that the city of Rome was not subjected to the popes until 800, since Rome was already included in the original donation of 756 and its codification in 781. ChatGPT 4 also agreed more with my own ideas than with Newton’s:

The mention in Volume 2 of The New Cambridge Medieval History²⁷ that the first purely papal coins were minted in Rome in 781 provides strong historical evidence for the legal and official establishment of papal temporal power in that year. It shows concretely that the popes now had sufficient autonomy and power to take such measures, a clear sign of the existence of sovereign power…

In the light of this historical information, it is reasonable to conclude that, although the temporal power of the popes began to be established in practice as early as 756 with the donation of Pepin the Short, the year 781 represents the time when this power was legally and officially established, including signs of economic and symbolic independence, such as the minting of their own coins…

Newton’s claim that the beginning of the popes’ secular power could be dated to 800 probably relates to the event of the coronation of the Frankish king Charlemagne as emperor in Rome on Christmas Day in 800. This event was significant for both Charlemagne and the Popes and marked an important milestone in medieval European history.

Charlemagne’s coronation made him Holy Roman Emperor and laid the foundations for the Holy Roman Empire, an important political entity in Europe in the Middle Ages. The role of the Pope in this ceremony was significant, as he crowned Charlemagne, demonstrating the authority and importance of the Pope. This act was a symbolic confirmation of the Popes’ status as both spiritual and temporal leaders, as it demonstrated their ability to confer legitimacy on imperial power.

Newton’s interpretation of 800 as the beginning of the popes’ secular power can therefore be based on this event and its significance. Historically, however, the popes’ secular power had already begun to take shape earlier, notably with the donations of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne in 756 and 781. The year 800 marks not so much the beginning of papal secular power as its consolidation and the growing role of the popes in European politics.

It is important to note that in Newton’s time, historical research and interpretation of sources were different from today. His work on prophecy and historical events was part of a wider interest in religious and historical issues, but his interpretations may be more his own reflections than those of the modern historical consensus. The historical evidence and current understanding of the popes’ temporal power is based on a wide range of sources and research covering many different aspects and events.

Newton, however, calculated the 1260 years of the papacy as 365-day solar years even though he recognised at the same time that the Jewish year of that time consisted of 360 days. This is peculiar because in the 70 weeks of Daniel chapter 9 he calculated 490 years in 360-day lunasolar years.²⁸ Whatever Newton’s reasoning for the two different calculations in the prophecies of Daniel chapters 7 and 9, the same calculation would lead to the year 2041, if only Newton’s wrong assumption about the beginning of the papal temporal power is corrected.

Conclusion

Secular newspapers have already predicted wild scenarios for the 2030-40s. The Daily Mail reported in January 2016: ultra-intelligent robots could declare war on humans by 2040, experts warn. A few years later, the same paper reported: an artificial intelligence death scenario like the Terminator movie is only ‘one to two decades’ away, claims former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In 2017, a headline painted: an artificial intelligence god will appear by 2042 and write his own bible. Will you worship it?

Similar statements have since been made by Yuval Noah Harari, an international Israeli best-selling author and atheist, although he is also critical of AI and warns how it can create new cults in the name of which people are prepared to kill . Personally, I see AI not only as a negative force but also recognise the potential it offers for creating a better world. (it has helped my writing and research already). But at the same time I recognize its many risks, as is case with all powerful new technologies, especially with AI. Elon Musk has revealed that the world’s leading technology companies are aiming to create a super-intelligent AI that would be a kind of “digital god”.

In a positive evolution of AI, it remains in people’s control and empowers individuals to take control of their own lives and decisions. In the negative evolution of AI, it will strengthen the power of governments and corporations over individuals, so that all our freedoms and privacy – even our most personal thoughts – will be history and humans will live under the most repressive and oppressive global dictatorship in history where all “those who do not worship the image of the beast will be killed”, as Revelation 13 foretold. Perhaps this is precisely the scenario that the development of artificial intelligence will enable in the near future.

I am not saying that AI itself is a beast or the image of a beast. But AI may enable the creation of such an image for the worship of the Antichrist. And if the calculations in this article are correct, such an image would be created by 2030s. I still think that King Charles III is the most likely candidate for the role of the Biblical Antichrist, based solely on the number of prophecies he can fulfill about this man more literally than any other person alive today.

Is he too old for this role in the 2030s? Nowhere in the Bible does it say how old Antichrist is, so in principle he is fit for the role²⁹ as long as he is alive and reigns on his throne. And if Charles lives to be as old as his father Prince Philip, who died at the age of 99, Charles III’s reign would last until the late 2040s. Whether Charles’ likelihood of fulfilling that role will increase or decrease is based not so much on the number of years he has, but on whether he will approach the position that the Bible predicts this person will take.

In other words, if the world leaders come to give him ever greater political influence, or if he is elevated to the position of, say, emperor of Europe, then the likelihood of his role as the Biblical Antichrist will increase, even if superficially diminished by his age. But if he just ages and does not rise to any significant global position or peacemaking role, then that probability decreases and it is time for us to move on to look at other Antichrist candidates.

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Post Script:

While I may have been wrong about 2023 being the year of the destruction of the Vatican, I was not wrong about its historical and prophetic significance, given that it was the year Charles III was anointed king. At the same time as Charles’ coronation, the United Kingdom, under His Majesty’s administration, also concluded a seven-year treaty with Israel, as I wrote about in my blog back in April. I wrote at the time that I did not believe that this agreement was yet the starting shot for the 70th week of Daniel 9. If that were the case, then its midpoint would have to fall in September 2026. If there is not a third temple in Jerusalem by that time for Charles to enter³⁰ or if there is not a global government and the mark of the beast³¹ in the world by that time, then we cannot yet be in the 70th week. Besides, I believe the rapture of the church will happen before the 70th week.³²

I believe the opening of the first six seals of Revelation 6 will take place before the rapture of the church and the 70th week of Daniel 9 (so-called Tribulation). Thus, even if the start of the seven-year tribulation period were only 10 years away, the events of the first six seals would take place within the next 10 years. Likewise, the appearance/revelation of the Antichrist mentioned by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 should precede the rapture of the church and the 70th week of the year. So, for example, the moment of Charles’ coronation in May 5th 2023 could already have been the moment of the opening of the first seal, when a crown was given to him [the Antichrist], and he went out conquering and to conquer.”³³ So from that moment onwards, Charles should begin his diplomatic conquests, until world’s rulers will “give their power and authority to the beast.”³⁴

Footnotes

1. Matthew 24:36  ↩︎
2. Matthew 24:43-44, 48-50, 1 Thess. 5:1-4  ↩︎
3. The term “end of the world” in Matthew 24:3 should be translated “end of the age” and not the end of the world. There have already been many “end of the worlds” in history. For example, the destruction of Herod’s temple and the exile of the Jews of Judea in 70 AD, which Jesus prophesied in that chapter, marked the end of an age for the Jewish society living in Judea at that time.  ↩︎
4. Hebrews 4:9  ↩︎
5. 2 Peter 3:8-9  ↩︎
6. Revelation 20:4-5  ↩︎
7. Sanhedrin 97a, 13:Rav Ketina says: Six thousand years is the duration of the world, and it is in ruins for one thousand years. The duration of the period during which the world is in ruins is derived from a verse, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day” (Isaiah 2:11), and the day of God lasts one thousand years. Abaye says: It is in ruins for two thousand years, as it is stated: “After two days He will revive us; in the third day He will revive us, and we shall live in His presence” (Hosea 6:2). ↩︎
8. Gen. 1. 7:13  ↩︎
9. I am not aware of a specific Newtonian chronology in which he calculated the date of creation, but in his book The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended sent to the Queen of England, he considered Abraham and Noah to be historical figures and wrote that “mankind cannot be much older than it is described in the Scriptures.” The book sought to disprove the boasts of pre-Christian civilizations about the antiquity of their origins and their “histories” that sometimes extended back hundreds of tens of thousands of years into the past. The earliest date Newton dated in his book was 1125 BC and the foundation of the Temple of Solomon is dated to 1015 BC. From this date, the date of creation could be calculated backwards from the Masoretic manuscripts of the Bible to 4007 BC.
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10. Daniel 12:4  ↩︎
11. RESEARCH: Martin Luther and the End of the World ↩︎
12. Gen. 1. 12:1-7  ↩︎
13. Galatians 3:16-17  ↩︎
14. Gen. 1. 5:3-29, 7:6  ↩︎
15. Gen. 1. 5:32, 11:10-26, 32, 12:1-4, Acts 7:4 ︎ ↩︎
16. Acts 7:4 ↩︎
17. This is mainly coincidental, because Luther’s timing was in many respects historically incorrect in the light of our current understanding of history. The reason it coincides so closely with my own timing is that Luther calculated Abraham’s birth to have occurred 60 years earlier, when his father Terah was 70 years old. Thus it should fall 60 later than 3961 BC, but because of Luther’s errors in the years of the reigns of the kings of Israel/Judah and in the timing of events in the first millennium (BC), the chronology coincides almost exactly with my own chronology.  ↩︎
18. Sanhedrin 97a, 13: ↩︎
19. 1. Tess. 4:17  ↩︎
20. Leviticus 25  ↩︎
21. A Dead Sea Scroll called 4Q319 confirms that six Jubilee cycles equaled 294 years.  ↩︎
22. Leviticus 25:10, 26:34  ↩︎
23. Romans. 8:19-22  ↩︎
24. Gen. 1. 7:11,24, 8:4, Rev. 11:2-3, 12:6,14 ︎ ↩︎
25. Sir Isaac Newton’s Daniel and the Apocalypse; with an introductory study of the nature and the cause of unbelief, of miracles and prophecy ↩︎
26. Daniel 7:8 says: “three of the previous horns were plucked out before it”. So the three kingdoms must also include the ten before.  ↩︎
27. Page 549, see source here. ︎ ↩︎
28. Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John, pages 231-232 (although I may have misunderstood that part of Newton’s reasoning)  ︎ ↩︎
29. Many, for example, consider now 85-year-old Klaus Schwab to be fit for the role of the Antichrist.  ↩︎
30. Daniel 9:27, 2 Thessalonians 2:4  ↩︎
31. Revelation 13:4-7, 15-18 ︎ ↩︎
32. More on my views on the rapture here. ︎ ↩︎
33. Revelation 6:2 ↩︎
34. Revelation 17:13 ↩︎