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According to the Ussher-Lightfoot theory the universe was created today (23rd October) back in 4004 BC.

So happy birthday universe!

YAY!

I wonder what would happen to Sumerian, Egyptian, Indus Valley and Chinese civilisations if this were true?

It's them moles, I tell you! Them moles!

What's up with the four years? Couldn't we get an even 4000 BC?

What's up with the four years? Couldn't we get an even 4000 BC?

Hey you're lucky it's even based on Earth years and not Jupiter or Alpha Centauri 1.

The four-year discrepancy comes from a modern suspicion that Jesus was born four years earlier than previously thought. I think it has to do with the reign of one of the Herods.

Correct. Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Although his son was also named Herod; I'm not sure where they got the idea he couldn't have been the one Matthew was talking about. I'll have to ask my prof.

yay, happy birthday Universe!

Of course! And all the evidence to the contrary is just the result of stress affecting the aging process!

Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Although his son was also named Herod

I think they called him Herod the Marginally Acceptable.

It may be that but I remember reading that they got the age through the ages of an unbroken line of lineage listed in the Old Testament, measuring the ages of people like Solomon and Noah, their descendants and ancestors, all the way back to Adam. But it's been sometime since I read it, I might be wrong.

OK, I got the Herod thing figured out; it was in my text the whole time. Herod the Great had three sons: Herod Antipas, Herod Philip, and Archelaus. Each ruled over a part of their late father's domain, with present-day Palestine going to Archelaus, not one of the Herods. So that solves that.

Plus, apparently other historical documents reveal that slaughtering all the infants in a town is more or less the kind of thing Herod the Great would do: he killed two of his wives and at least three of his sons. Because he, in an attempt to look "politically correct" in front of his Jewish subjects, did not eat pork, Caesar Augustus once remarked that it was better to be Herod's pig than his son.

Yeah, I had read that mass infanticide went with Herod the Great's personality, which would explain why so few sources covered the one incident. I did not know the other details, so thanks, Octan.