One
must recall that in Usher’s time (the 17th century) in Western
Europe, Church and State were far from separate and in these islands especially,
the ‘religious wars’ raged unabated. A
little of Usher’s early career may help to illustrate the point.
After
his consecration as Bishop in 1626 he found himself in turbulent political
times. England
and Spain
were at loggerheads and to secure Ireland Charles I offered a series of
concessions, including religious toleration, known as the Graces, in exchange
for money for the upkeep of his army. Usher led a campaign against this and the Graces were not finally endorsed by the (Protestant)
Irish Parliament. Indeed in 1633 Usher
wrote to Archbishop Laud of Canterbury
in an effort to gain support for the imposition of recusancy fines on Irish
Catholics.
Later
in his career Usher concentrated on research in theology and the early Church
and began his study of the chronology of the Bible. He calculated the date of the Creation to
have been nightfall preceding Sunday 23 October 4004 BC.
Laughable
as the whole concept appears now it was seen as a very serious and important
task in his day. The Holy Bible was seen
as the only infallible source of early history of mankind. His work required a great depth of knowledge
of ancient history including the rise of the Persians, Greek and Romans, and a
facility with Biblical languages. He had
multiple sources other than the Bible and his account is in close agreement
with known historical milestones such as the deaths of Alexander (323 BC) and
Julius Caesar (44 BC).
So
august was Usher’s reputation as a scholar that the dates were often written
into the margins of personal Bibles until they acquired the legitimacy of the
printed Word itself. According to
Usher’s chronology the Lost Tribes left Israel in 721 BC. One line of research has all native Americans
descended from these Tribes. Presumably
then they began walking to the Americas
soon after. This would have the
Israelites arriving there about 500 BC. In this chronology the America
were settled for barely two thousand years when Columbus landed.
In
truth advanced societies existed in the Americas at least a thousand years
earlier.
Whilst
we know all of this now to be untenable (Earth was NOT created for man
alone: it is 4.6 billion years old and
the Universe a further 9 billion years) it is worthy of note that the earliest
known civilisations across the globe date from fairly close to Usher’s Creation
date. In Mesoamerica, by way of example
(an undiscovered part of the world which then harboured up to 25 million souls,
a substantial fraction of Earth’s total population) the Maya’s excellent
calendar begins from mid-August 3114 BC. Western societies were then too emerging in the Fertile Crescent area of
the Middle East, as were Eastern civilisations in China.
.......
The
youngest school child today would summarize it all with one simple question for
Archbishop Usher:
“What
about the dinosaurs?”
History 
