Anno Mundi


Anno Mundi, abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras of notable use are:
While both eras reputedly begin with the creation of the world, their disparity in epoch lies in the biblical texts chosen to infer a year of creation. According to the Septuagint, the Earth seems to have been created roughly around 5500 BCE, and about 3760 BCE based on the Hebrew Masoretic text. Most of the 1,732-year difference resides in numerical discrepancies in the genealogies of the two versions of the Book of Genesis. Patriarchs from Adam to Terah, the father of Abraham, are said to be older by 100 years or more when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Latin Vulgate, or the Hebrew Tanakh. The net difference between the two major genealogies of Genesis is 1,466 years, 85% of the total difference.
There are also discrepancies between methods of dating based on the text of the Bible vs. modern academic dating of landmark events used to calibrate year counts, such as the destruction of the First Temple—see Missing years.

Jewish tradition

In Hebrew, Anno Mundi years are labeled "to the creation of the world", while in English they are abbreviated AM or A.M.. Occasionally, Anno Mundi is styled as Anno Hebraico, though this is subject to confusion with notation for the Islamic Hijri year. The Jewish Anno Mundi count is sometimes referred to as the "Hebrew era", to distinguish it from other systems such as the Byzantine calendar.File:Rotunda Yard Thessaloniki 05 Jew Tomb remains.JPG|thumb|A Jewish gravestone using the Year After Creation chronology, found just outside the Rotunda of Thessaloniki
File:Bevis Marks Synagogue P6110036.JPG|thumb|The inscription over the Bevis Marks Synagogue, City of London, gives a year in Anno Mundi and Julian calendar notations.

Before adoption: Seleucid and Destruction Eras, 3760 BCE alternative

During the Talmudic era, from the 1st to the 10th centuries CE, the center of the Jewish world was in the Middle East, primarily in the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia and Syria Palaestina. Jews in these regions used Seleucid Era dating as the primary method for calculating the calendar year. For example, the writings of Josephus and the Books of the Maccabees used Seleucid Era dating exclusively, and the Talmud tractate Avodah Zarah states:
Occasionally in Talmudic writings, reference was made to other starting points for eras, such as Destruction Era dating, being the number of years since the 70 CE destruction of the Second Temple, and the number of years since the Creation year based on the calculation in the Seder Olam Rabbah. By his calculation, based on the Masoretic Text, Adam and Eve were created on 1st of Tishrei in 3760 BCE, later confirmed by the Muslim chronologist al-Biruni as 3,448 years before the Seleucid era. An example is the Baraita of Samuel.

Adoption of 3761 BCE

In the 8th and 9th centuries CE the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia to Europe, so calculations from the Seleucid era "became meaningless". From the 11th century, anno mundi dating became dominant throughout most of the world's Jewish communities, replacing the Seleucid dating system. The new system reached its definitive form in 1178 when Maimonides completed the Mishneh Torah. In the section Sanctification of the Moon, he wrote of his choice of Epoch, from which calculations of all dates should be made, as "the third day of Nisan in this present year... which is the year 4938 of the creation of the world". He included all the rules for the calculated calendar epoch and their scriptural basis, including the modern epochal year in his work, and establishing the final formal usage of the Anno Mundi era.
The first year of the Jewish calendar, Anno Mundi 1, begins slightly less than one year before creation, so that year is also called the Year of Emptiness. The first five days of Jewish creation week occupy the last five days of AM 1, Elul 25–29. The sixth day of creation, when Adam and Eve were created, is the first day of AM 2, Rosh Hashanah. Its associated molad Adam occurred on Day 6 at 14 hours. A year earlier, the first day of AM 1, Rosh Hashanah, is associated with molad tohu, so named because it occurred before creation when everything was still chaotic—it is also translated as the new moon of nothing. This is also called molad BaHaRaD, because it occurred on Day 2, 5 hours, 204 parts. Because this is just before midnight when the Western day begins, but after 6 pm when the Jewish calendrical day begins, its Julian calendar date is 6–7 October 3761 BCE.

Greek tradition

The Septuagint was the most scholarly non-Hebrew version of the Old Testament available to early Christians. Many converts already spoke Greek, and it was readily adopted as the preferred vernacular-language rendering for the eastern Roman Empire. The later Latin translation called the Vulgate, an interpretative translation from Hebrew and other Greek sources, replaced it in the west after its completion by St. Jerome, Latin being the most common vernacular language in those regions.

Earliest Christian chronology

The earliest extant Christian writings on the age of the world according to the biblical chronology were therefore based on the Septuagint, due to its early availability. They can be found in the Apology to Autolycus by Theophilus, the sixth bishop of Antioch, and the Five Books of Chronology by Sextus Julius Africanus.
Theophilus presents a detailed chronology "from the foundation of the world" to emperor Marcus Aurelius. His chronology begins with the biblical first man Adam through to emperor Marcus Aurelius, in whose reign Theophilus lived. The chronology puts the creation of the world at about 5529 BCE: "All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5,698 years." No mention of Jesus is made in his chronology.
Ben Zion Wacholder points out that the writings of the Church Fathers on this subject are of vital significance in that through the Christian chronographers a window to the earlier Hellenistic biblical chronographers is preserved:
The Chronicon of Eusebius and Jerome dated creation to 5199 BCE. Earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day used this date, as did the Irish Annals of the Four Masters.

Alexandrian era

The Alexandrian era was conceived and calculated in AD 412. After the initial attempts of Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and others the Alexandrian computation of the date of creation was calculated to be 25 March 5493 BCE.
The Alexandrian monk Panodorus reckoned 5,904 years from Adam to AD 412. His years began on August 29, which corresponded to the First of Thoth, the first day of the Egyptian calendar. Annianus of Alexandria, however, preferred the Annunciation style for New Year's Day, i.e., March 25, and shifted Panodorus' era by circa six months to begin on March 25. This created the Alexandrian era, whose first day was the first day of the proleptic Alexandrian civil year in progress, 29 August 5493 BCE, with the ecclesiastical year beginning on 25 March 5493 BCE.
Dionysius of Alexandria had earlier emphatically quoted mystical justifications for the choice of March 25 as the beginning of the year:
Church fathers such as Maximus the Confessor and Theophanes the Confessor, and chroniclers such as George Syncellus adopted the Alexandrian Era of 25 March 5493 BCE. Its striking mysticism made it popular in Byzantium, especially in monasteries. However, this masterpiece of Christian symbolism had two grave problems, namely historical inaccuracy regarding the date of the Resurrection as determined by its Easter computus, and its incompatibility with the Gospel of Saint John regarding the date of the Crucifixion on the Friday after Passover.

''Chronicon Paschale''

A new variant of the World Era was suggested in the Chronicon Paschale, a valuable Byzantine universal chronicle of the world, composed by some representative of the Antiochian scholarly tradition. It dates the creation of Adam to 21 March 5507 BCE.
For its influence on Greek Christian chronology, and also because of its wide scope, the Chronicon Paschale takes its place beside Eusebius, and the chronicle of the monk Georgius Syncellus which was so important in the Middle Ages; but in respect of form it is inferior to these works.

Byzantine era

The Creation Era of Constantinople or Byzantine era of the world was the official era of the Eastern Orthodox Church from to 1728 in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. By the late 10th century the era, which had become fixed at 1 September 5509 BC since at least the mid-7th century, had become widely accepted by Chalcedonian Christianity. The Byzantine era was used as part of the civil calendar of the Byzantine Empire from AD 988 to 1453, and by Russia from c. AD 988 to 1699. Its computation was derived from the Septuagint Biblical translation and placed the date of creation at September 1, 5,509 years before the Christian Era. September 1 remains the first day of the Orthodox liturgical year. The "year of creation" was generally expressed in Greek as Etos Kosmou, literally "year of the universe."
It is now rarely used save for in Eastern Orthodox monasteries, for example, on Mount Athos in Greece and Mar Saba monastery in the West Bank. Ethiopia also uses this type of timing.