Biblical calculations - The Chronologers Quest - page 18

Table 2.1 Thomas Allen's 1659 chronology from Creation to the death
of Christ.

Period Dates Duration

(1) Creation to the Flood AM 1-1656 1,656 years

(2) Flood to the Promise to Abraham in Ur AM 1656-2078 422 years

(3) Promise to the Law (Ten
Commandments)

AM 2078-2508 430 years

(4) Law to the building of Solomon's Temple AM 2508-2988 480 years

(5) Temple to the captivity in Babylon AM 2988-3276 288 years

(6) Captivity to the Return AM 3276-3478 202 years

(7) Return to the death of Christ AM 3478-3968 490 years

AM ¼ Anno Mundi or 'The Year of the World'

Roger Drake (1608-1669), a medic who changed career and became a
minister, published a Sacred Chronologie in 1648 which announced
on the title-page that the vast body of time 'From the Creation of the
WORLD, to the Passion of our Blessed SAVIOUR' was almost four
thousand years. Thomas Allen, whomwe have already met, produced
a 240-page chronology, which like many others of that time was
divided into seven periods and he tabulated the duration of these
periods as shown in Table 2.1 .
As we can see Christ died in AM 3968 according to Allen, who
additionally notes that Christ was born in AM 3934. Creation took
place in 3934 BC . Nesbit had produced a similar chronology four years
earlier than Allen, again with seven periods, and with an identical
time-span for the first period, but after the Flood the durations of
the various remaining periods are at variance with each other.
Approximately 4000 BC was the generally accepted date for Creation
in the mid 1600s. Even on throw-away publications such as the Dove
speculum anni, an annual almanac produced by Jonathan Dove in
London in the 1670s, we find acceptance of this timespan; printed on
the cover of the 1677 booklet is '5681', the number of years that had
elapsed since the Creation. Many people would have therefore been