Who was James Ussher?
James Ussher (sometimes spelled Usher) (4 January 1581–21 March 1656) was Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–1656. He was a prolific scholar, who most famously published a chronology that purported to time and date Creation to the night preceding October 23, 4004 BC.
Ussher was born in Dublin, Ireland, into a well-to-do Anglo-Irish family. His grandfather, James Stanihurst, had been speaker of the Irish parliament, and his father was a clerk in chancery. Ussher's younger, and only surviving, brother, Ambrose, became a distinguished scholar of Arabic and Hebrew. According to his chaplain and biographer, Nicholas Bernard, the elder brother was taught to read by two blind, spinster aunts.
Ussher was a gifted polyglot, entering Dublin Free School and then the newly-founded (1591) Trinity College, Dublin on 9 January 1594, at the age of thirteen (not an unusual age at the time). He had received his Bachelor of Arts degree by 1598, and was a fellow and MA by 1600 (though Bernard claims he did not gain his MA till 1601). In May of 1602, he was ordained in the Trinity College Chapel as a deacon in the Protestant, established, Church of Ireland (and possibly priest on the same day) by his uncle Henry Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.
Ussher went on to become Chancellor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin in 1605 and Prebend of Finglas. He became Professor of Theological Controversies at Trinity College and a Bachelor of Divinity in 1607, Doctor of Divinity in 1612, and then Vice-Chancellor in 1615 and vice-provost in 1616. In 1613, he married Phoebe, daughter of a previous Vice-Provost, Luke Challoner, and published his first work. In 1615, he was closely involved with the drawing up of the first confession of faith of the Church of Ireland.
In 1619, Ussher travelled to England, where he remained for two years. His only child, Elizabeth, was born in London in 1619. He became prominent after meeting James I. In 1621, James nominated him Bishop of Meath. He also became a national figure in Ireland, becoming Privy Councilor in 1623 and an increasingly substantial scholar. A noted collector of Irish manuscripts, he made them available for research to fellow-scholars such as his friend, Sir James Ware. From 1623 until 1626, he was again in England and was excused from his episcopal duties in order to study church history. He was nominated Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh in 1625 and succeeded Christopher Hampton.Ussher is the author of the The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Bible by James Ussher, the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh (in what is now Northern Ireland). The chronology is sometimes associated with Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created only a few millennia ago.
Ussher's work, more properly known as the Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world), was his contribution to the long-running theological debate on the age of the Earth. This was a major concern of many Christian scholars over the centuries.
The chronology is sometimes called the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology because John Lightfoot published a similar chronology in 1642–1644. This, however, is a misnomer, as the chronology is based on Ussher's work alone and not that of Lightfoot. Ussher deduced that the first day of Creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC, in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox. Lightfoot similarly deduced that Creation began at nightfall near the autumnal equinox, but in the year 3929 BC.
Ussher's proposed date of 4004 BC differed little from other Biblically-based estimates, such as those of Bede (3952 BC), Ussher's near-contemporary, Scaliger (3949 BC), Johannes Kepler (3992 BC) or Sir Isaac Newton (c. 4000 BC). Ussher's specific choice of starting year may have been influenced by the then-widely-held belief that the Earth's potential duration was 6,000 years (4,000 before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after), corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). This view had been almost completely abandoned by 1997,[citation needed] six thousand years after 4004 BC. Some biblical scholars, as well as a number of evangelical Christians declare their literal interpretation of the Bible and a 6000-year-old Earth.
Some modern theists now assert that the chronology is valid only back to the time of "a first day" when light was elaborated. They hold that an interminable amount of time may well have intervened between the instant at which the heavens and earth were originally created and the onset of this "first day". This theory allows for the existence of previous "bio-epochs" during which now-obsolete life forms existed and were destroyed prior to the creation of those now extant and that the Genesis narrative omitted mention of this period because it was not relevant to the purpose for which the account was intended.
Yes I have that ebook The annals of the World by Ussher on cd here