The earliest Christians with links to the Apostles were Millennialists (Chiliasts), claiming that Jesus would return to earth to establish His one-thousand-year Kingdom after six millennia had elapsed from creation. The Psalm of Moses (Psalm 90), 2 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation contain strong evidence that this was apostolic teaching. If so, all that is necessary to know the year of Christ’s return is to know what year we are currently in on the biblical calendar counting from creation. This makes biblical chronology an extremely important area of research that becomes more and more relevant as we near the end times.
Some of the earliest Christians took up the task of trying to unravel the chronology contained in the Bible. However, the erroneous dates in the Greek Septuagint (which was their Old Testament) greatly skewed their chronological calculations. The correct chronological data is found in the Hebrew text. Yet, more recent Christian chronologists who used the Hebrew text (such as Sir Isaac Newton, James Ussher, Martin Anstey, Phillip Mauro, Floyd Jones, etc.) have supplemented the biblical data with secular data in order to force the Bible to fit the secular chronology of Ptolemy’s canon, rather than establishing a chronology from the Bible alone.
This was thought to be necessary because of an alleged gap in the biblical chronological data for the Persian period (from Cyrus the Great to Artaxerxes). The information presented here will show that there is no gap in the Biblical data. The Bible contains all of the necessary data to construct a complete chronology from creation to the second coming of Christ, and that chronology confirms that it is indeed six-thousand years. There are two witnesses for the total number of years from creation to the second coming.
1. The Millennial-Week Calendar divides human history into a “week” of seven millennia (7,000 years). The first 6 “days” (6,000 years) man lives under the curse. The 7th millennium is the “Seventh Day” and “Sabbath Rest” (Hebrews 4:4-9) which is Christ’s reign over the nations from Jerusalem.
2. The Jubilee Calendar divides God’s struggle with the human race into 120 fifty-year cycles (these are luni-solar years, beginning in September). This also equals 6,000 years.
The Bible contains everything necessary to establish a complete chronology from creation until the second coming.
Tim Warner 4windsfellowships.net
Living as a Christian in this World 