In the lead-up to the new millennium, Bob Johnson, Chair of the New Testament Department at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, published an article called 6,000 Plus l000. Here is a link to it: http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/end/MillenialFever.html
The main point of the article is that Prof Johnson thinks there is no scriptural basis for the idea that earth’s history of sin will last 6,000 followed by the millennium. He notes that Miller and some of the Adventist pioneers supported the idea. For example, after the disappointment he points out that JN Andrews was the foremost proponent of the idea. Andrews did not set a date, but he suggested that 6,000 years would end probably not later than the turn of the 19th century. We know now that he was out by at least 106 years but is the concept wrong as Johnson suggests? As far as I am aware, this idea is presented in the writings of Ellen White many times. Here is one of many quotes:

Quote:

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For six thousand years Satan has struggled to maintain possession of the earth. Now God's original purpose in its creation is accomplished. "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever." {AH 539.3}

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Are you saying that EGW was wrong?

My thinking is that JN Andrews, the pioneers, Miller and EGW were all correct but that their and our understanding of chronology is imperfect. The basic concept is Biblical IMO.

With that kind of reasoning everybody is correct. I like it . . . I think.

It begs the question, what is the correct chronology that fits within the 6000 year time frame? I spent a lot of my study time in the last few months reviewing Thiele's chronology and then I spent some time looking at Ussher's.

Ussher, a prelate from 17th century Ireland I think, is credited with giving the 6000 year idea a lot of it's popularity among us in modern times. He is out by 30 to 50 years during the reigns of the Kings according to many modern chronologists. Personally, I think he is out by less during that period. One of his interesting conclusions is that creation occurred October 23, 4004BC. I doubt that date is correct but recently I noted that if Adam was created in that year or somewhere near then and if sin will last 6000 years and if Adam fell sometime between creation and the birth of Seth 130 years later, that we have quite a few years to work with - about 100 if Seth was born after the death of Abel which seems to be the case - of when the 6000 will be ended.

This is probably a modification of Ussher's thinking which apparently held that the 6000 years starts with creation. If you read Ellen White, her thinking is that 6000 years is the time limit for sin rather than for creation. In other words the start of the 6000 years is at the fall of Adam.

I need to add one more comment. That is, I've concluded from my study of Bible chronology that it is not possible to date the fall of Adam because it is not given and also because there are gaps in the chronology of the Biblical record that no-one has been able to fill in so far. If those gaps could be settled conclusively we still would not know when Adam fell.

I can live with that. Now we can turn our attention to the important issue of ushering in the end of this age.

I recently read a paper on a biblical timeline written from a jewish perspective. It was based on the bible with a few cautious looks at external sources, both modern historical and talmud.

What did it say? I'm interest. I think on the Jewish calendar they're a few centuries away from 6000 isn't that right? I read something by a non-Jew on it a while ago that suggested it had been tampered with for some reason.

In my last comment, when I say there are gaps, the gaps are not big. I think the chronology now back to Adam's creation is known within a few dozen years maybe less. I think Thiele is fairly close on the kings and Ussher's chronology is quite close too. They differ by a few dozen years during the kings. Ussher's creation year may be a bit more off. It should be a little earlier maybe.

When I was at Andrews we were requred to look up different Ellen White quotes about the 6,000 years.

While Mrs. White uses the phrase "6,000 years" frequently, she uses words such as "About" "Almost" "For over" etc. and the context of all but one of her 6,000 year phrases are not the age of the world but just a sweeping artistic term for the Great Controversy.

However there is one time where she did use that phrase and yes indeed she was talking about the age of the world and yes she did support the 6,000 year theory. The quote was in one of her earliest books, but recently it appeared a couple of years ago in the Sabbath School Quarterly.

However, there is a problem with that quote. Years later, when she was expanding her earlier quotes into the book "Patriarchs and Prophets" she came across her old quote. Notes around it had paragraphes where she would edit or notes that she wanted the idea expanded, however when she got to this quote she crossed it out and signed her initials. She also took a break from her work she was doing and wrote an article about the age of the world. It is published in one of her books. Since the professor knew that we would not believe him if he read it to the class, he gave us the reference and required us to walk over to the James White Libarary and actually take the book off the shelf and turn to the page and read the quote. It was not in one of her best known books, my gut feeling wants to remember it as being in Sons and Daughter's of God, but I am not possitive (it was the summer of 1984 that we were sent over to read it).

Anyway, the trust of that article was that we do not know just how old the world is and thus should not tie ourselves down to a set age, just be sure that what ever age you lean towards be sure that it is fair to the text.

The fact that this correction stays hidden on our book shelves and that we like to pull out that earlier quote that she crossed out and replaced with this passage, is a sad commentary on how we use this wonderful gift from God.

Now looking at the text: In the ancient manuscripts the ages in these early geneologies are some of the hardest to translate and also where there is most dissagreement.

We get our 6,000 years from some of the more popular versions of the Masseritic text. Durring the time of Jesus there were three textual families and each family had versions. There was the Palistinian Family, best know being the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was the Bible for those living in Judiah and Galliee. This was the Bible that Jesus used. There was the Egyptian Family, best known being the Septuant, but also others in both Greek and Hebrew, from the Hebrew communities in Egypt and spread to the Despercis in Western Asia and Europe, yes, this is the Bible that Paul used. Third was the Babylonian text, from those who stayed in Babylon after the captivity which was favored by a famous Rabbi from soon after Jesus' day and kept when Jerusalem fell, and from which developed the Masseretic Text, the Bible that we use.

According the the Palistianian text the world was about 6,000 and almost 7,000 at the time of Jesus. Just before Jesus day a Rabbi counted up the ages and came to the conclusion that the 6,000 years corrisponded to the 6 days of creation with the Messiah coming in the 7th thousand year. Well when Jesus came and Christianity arose at the time of the 7th thousand year, the Jews decided to go for a text that did not end when Jesus came and where the world was younger. (Now this is not the only reason why the Babylon text became our Bible). Thus according to the Bible that Jesus used, the world would now be about 8,000 to 9,000 years old. How ever, the New Testament does not use this argument to prove that Jesus is the Messiah.

Getting to the Egyptain Family, specifically the Septuatant... The differences in the Manuscripts are from 1,000 to 3,000 years older than the Masseritic text, thus if you want to use the Bible that Paul used, the world is someplace between 7,000 to 10,000 years old.

Now all these manuscripts are THE Bible, and thus we need to be fair to all the manuscripts.

Ok, we looked at the Mrs. White, and we have looked at the Bible, now let's look at archaeology has to teach us about geneologies: Many Geneologies have been discovered, many overlaping geneologies have been discovered, both inside and outside of the Bible.

It has been noted that Geneologies may or may not be biological geneologies. Some are just a list of offices. For example if we lived in the ancient world but wanted to talk about the Presidents of the United States, we would say "George Washington begat John Adams. John Adams begat Thomas Jefferson etc."

A second thing is that the first few on a list tend to be consecutive, and the last few tend to be consecutive, but that they only have some key names in the middle. So if it's a geneology of decendents when it reads something like "When Kenan was 70 years old he begat Mahalalel" it could mean that at age 70 Kenan either had Mahalalel, or decendent that eventually lead directly to Mahalalel (Mahalalel's father or grandfather, or great-grandfather etc., probably not too many generations back.) I a geneology from Levi to Moses you have a period covering 200 to 400 years covered by just 4 generations. Getting back to the example of Pressidents, we could have something like "George Washington begat John Adams. John Adams begat Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson begat Andrew Jackson, Andrew Jackson begat Abraham Linclon, Abraham Linclon begat Teddy Roosevelt and Franklyn Roosevelt. Franklyn Roosevelt begat John Kennedy. John Kennedy began Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan begat Bill Clinton, and Bill Clinton begat George Bush." ok, from this date the age of the period covered.

The differences in the ancient manuscripts and textual families, and the knowlege of geneologies with them being either biological or some other connection with the jumps between generations are all things that we need to keep in mind when we consider the age of the world. No wonder Mrs. White crossed out her one quote that actually supported the 6,000 year old world and replaced it with one that downplays knowing just how old the world is but for us just to be fair to the Bible in our understanding of the age of the earth.

The Adventist Theological Society, in their statements, have one statement where they support the age of the world being "about" 6,000 years old. Since the leadership are aware of the Mrs. White quote, the interpatation for "about" varies from 7,000 years old (going to the earliest date in the Septuatant)to 21,000 years old. And this is the conservative branch of our church leadership. They see going beyond 21,000 as starting to get too far away from being "about 6,000" and going to an age younger than 7,000 they feel would not be fair to Mrs. White's article that indicates that the world is older than 6,000 years.

I hope this helps