[QUOTE]
Why 4004 B.C.? Because, at the time Usher did his calculations, 4 B.C. had been agreed upon by Biblical scholars as the year that Jesus was born. And Usher really, really, really liked the idea of Jesus being born an exact multiple of 1000 years after the Creation.{/QUOTE]
I have pointed outt before that the date $ B.C. is derived from clonclusions made by historian and translator William Whiston, when he rendered the works of Josephus into English. Josephus is however often inconsistent and the date of 1 B .C.–or even A.D. 1–could be reckoned from Josephus’ works. I once wrote out on a blackboard, after class, at El. Camino College in Torrance, CA, a sequence of Scriptures that showed that Jesus was in fact born about October, 2 B. C. The instructor later told me that a colleague of hers–the redoubtable and revered Professor Julius Sumner Miller (she and he are both since deceased) was watching my disquisition–and he was, to my surprise, quite impressed. 
Excuse me–4 B. C. !! :o :o
doughie_monty…
I’m a little confused, how old do you believe the earth/universe is?
You said…
If X is, say, a million years, then the earth is ~6 million years old, right? In fact, if X is anything greater than ~10,000 years, then C14 dating shouldn’t pose a threat to your beliefs. I don’t think that anyone uses it to date anything older than 50K-60K years. So C14 might be useful and accurate for dating things since God zapped the whole universe into being. There seems to be a lot of evidence (see the multiple posts above) that it is.
Change to this perspective, and look at the evidence surrounding C14 dating again. If you still can’t trust C14…well…I don’t know what to say…
The biggest reason for supposing that Jesus was born circa 4 BC was that the scriptures clearly state that Herod was king of Judea at the time. Herod died in (I forget) either 3 or 4 BC from Roman sources. 1 AD was assigned by a monk who didn’t have that extra data, so the system was screwed up from the get-go.
But in any case, Jesus wasn’t born in 1 AD.
semihijack. The idea that the scriptures clearly state anything has me laughing right now.
Anyway, sorry to interupt.