October 23: The First Day

In 1650, Archbishop James Ussher of the Church of Ireland used the Hebrew Bible to calculate that this date, in 4004 BCE, was the one on which God created the universe, as described in the book of Genesis. Ussher’s chronology became the best-known of several created by contemporaries, including Sir Isaac Newton. Probably the best-known Jewish Biblical chronology was created by Rabbi Yose ben Halafta in approximately 165 CE. Rabbi Yose was a student of Rabbi Akiva and wrote the Seder Olam Rabba, a chronicle from the creation to the time of Hadrian. He was a mentor to Rabbi Judah HaNasi (Judah the Prince), compiler of the Mishnah (ca 200 CE), which mentions Yose often and, in controversial cases, favors his teachings. Yose calculated the creation year to be 3761 BCE, but his Seder Olam Rabbah lagged by two years behind the calculation established by Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah in 1178, which has us today living in the year 5773. Yose and his son’s tombs are a site of veneration in the Galilee.
“Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology . . .” —Stephen Jay Gould