James
Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and
Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin was highly regarded in his day as
a churchman and as a scholar. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has
proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern
and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an
authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded
with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established
the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, by the arguments set
forth in the passage below, Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical
events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on
Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May
1491 BC `on a Wednesday'.
—
Craig, G. Y. and E. J. Jones. A Geological Miscellany. Princeton
University Press, 1982.