A Follow up on Dr. Egger’s Presentation

At Making the Case Conference. Someone asked if accepting the creation account as history entails accepting Bishop Usher’s dating schema. It struck me again how poor Usher gets the blame. Actually, if you go back in time to the Kalends read in the Office on Christmas Morning, you used to hear (I’ll just give the English):

In the year from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created heaven and earth, five thousand one hundred and ninety-nine:

From the flood, the year two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven:

From the birth of Abraham, two thousand and fifteen:

From Moses and the going out of the people of Israel from Egypt, one thousand five hundred and ten:

From the anointing of David as king, one thousand and thirty-two:

In the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel:

In the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad:

From the foundation of the city of Rome, the seven hundred and fifty-second year:

In the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus,

The whole world being in peace,

In the sixth age of the world,

Jesus Christ, the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

willing to consecrate the world by his most loving coming,

having been conceived of the Holy Spirit, and having passed nine months since his conception,

is born in Bethlehem of Judah of the Virgin Mary, being made man…

Would you care to take a guess at how it reads now in the Roman Communion? Hmm???

when ages beyond number had run their course

from the creation of the world,

when God in the beginning created heaven and earth,

and formed man in his own likeness;*

when century upon century had passed

since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood,

as a sign of covenant and peace;

in the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith,

came out of Ur of the Chaldees;

in the thirteenth century since the people of Israel were led by Moses

in the Exodus from Egypt;

around the thousandth year since David was anointed king;

in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel;

in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

in the year seven hundred and fifty-two since the foundation of the City of Rome;

in the forty-second year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus,

the whole world being at peace,

Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,

was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

and when nine months had passed since his conception,

was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man:

I hardly need to comment that Scripture hasn’t changed a whit. You tell me, please, who is representing the old faith in this current world better? Would someone like Pope St. Gregory the Great even understand how the Kalends of Christmas now read? What about Robert Bellarmine? 

After hearing Dr. Eggert lay out the Biblical case for reading six days as, well, six days, I was reminded of something written by St. Basil the Great: 

Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day—St. Basil the Great, Hexameron, Homily 2, par. 8. 

The modern Orthodox have tended to abandon Basil on this; Rome has certainly abandoned its old faith. And there we stubborn LCMS Lutherans sit. STILL holding to the faith of our fathers. May He keep us firm in it forevermore!