This is the forward for my Historical Calendars blog. After doing a ton of research, I quickly realized that this is going to be a difficult project, and have therefore decided to do it in installments. If you’ve been visiting my site, you can see that I placed several calendar dates in the left sidebar. Those are actual functioning calendars that I’ve either borrowed the code for, or programmed from scratch. PLEASE comment occasionally and let me know if you’re enjoying them, have corrections for me, or just plain disagree! Enjoy.
After reading this for a bit, you may begin to wonder why I am talking so much about God and religion. Some of you might also think that I am sprinkling anti-religious bigotry here and there. Although bigotry probably isn’t the best choice of words, it draws attention to the certain parts of religious doctrine that, in my opinion, need to be debunked. Specifically, because I think those parts are man-written without divine influence. You will never find anything in my writings, that says I doubt or deny the existence of [a] God.
Right from the onset, l would like to say that I DO believe in God. We didn’t arise from just nothing. Even if I were a devout evolutionist, or atheist for that matter, how would I be able to explain the Universe? Perhaps you subscribe to the Big Bang idea, that the Universe was just a ball that blew up one day and has been hurling ever-outwards since then…
Okay, that’s fine but what was that ball, and where did it come from? And the openness of space, or void if you prefer; where did that come from? In all of my 55 years, I can only resolve to one thing; God. Maybe that ball was God, and that’s how He manages to be everywhere at the same time. And if that’s true, and because we are beings that came from the stuff of that ball, then perhaps He is in all of us, and knows our thoughts, and intentions.
You might take a step of faith and say, “We are God; God is us.“ My belief of God is one thing. Religion is another. As several of the various theological documents say (for the bible, I think it’s in Matthew,) that “only God knows.” That refers to the end of time, but the same applies to the age-old question, “What’s it all about, Alfie!” This is beautiful, click to listen. It seemed appropriate for this.
Anyway, referring to Christianity in the beginning, is really necessary in order to lay the ground work towards understanding the calendars. By the way, any religious references I will make, are only as they pertain to this calendar work. Other than this forward, which I think is a fun read, we’re NOT going to talk about hell-fire and brimstone, saviors and prophets, or anything else about personal beliefs. I’m about to briefly run through what it was like for me, learning about God as a kid. It kind of ties things together for me, and maybe for you as well…
I remember as a child, looking at calendars and wondering what they meant. All those squares and numbers? At a fairly early age, or as soon as I understood the concept of mathematics and what addition was, I recognized that each page on the calendar had repeating patterns. I’m sure I also learned about the calendar somewhere in school. Of course I’m talking about the seven days of the week, and the twelve months of the year. I even understood that every January 1st, was the first day of the new year, which was one more than the last year was…
My Uncle Clois, was a farrier and saddle-maker in my home town. To this day, I remember the familiar smell of leather and always seeing the calendar hanging in his work shop. It usually had a very scantily-dressed woman, or the coupe of the period, over the top of the calendar’s month.
I was born on Friday, October 12th, 1956 at 7:33PM, or better known as Columbus Day. For a long time, I enjoyed the claim to fame of being born on the exact anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America (although that is sometimes disputed…) I accepted and understood that my birthday, always returned a year later, just as all the holidays I came to associate with, and love, did. Of course at that time, I never knew what aging meant; only that I looked forward to certain dates, or desperately hated others.
After awhile, I began to see that, if we added towards the future, and subtracted from the past, then the year one had started all this calendar business. So naturally I wondered about the world before year one. Did it exist?
That led towards more complex processing in my little brain like, well if I have birthdays, then so does my mom and dad, as did their mom and dad, etc., all the way back to the year one. So, at year one, did I have any ancestors? Where did this house, and ground (the earth) and the sun and moon come from?
- Me and my New Bible!
Yeah… Here it comes… According to my Grandma, all the answers were to be found in the bible. The concept of God and religion didn’t meet cognisance for me until a few years later when I received my first, very own copy of the King James Bible.
It was red and had a zipper and all those colorful ribbon-string thingies… It was the shiznit! I loved that book! Not for its literary content mind you, but because it was going to be my salvation and gateway to the kingdom of Heaven. Yup. Uh huh… Whatever that meant.
At first I noticed that it had really thin, almost “crackly” pages (if that’s a word.) They were so thin, that an easy flick of the finger would turn them; but not so much a flick as to break them. The NEXT thing I noticed was that the words were printed in mostly black letters, but some “paragraphs were written in red.” Why was that? My Grandma told me that the red letters, were words that were spoken directly from Jesus’ own mouth. I didn’t know much (nor care) about that at the time.
What I MOSTLY LOVED about my bible, were the colored pages, and those really kewl maps! And if that wasn’t enough, the back of the bible had a fold-out timeline of Christianity. It was something like four pages unfolded. You might say that this was the real beginning of my education, because it would later pique my interests in geography and cartography.
TIMELINE
Click on the TIMELINE to the left to see what it looked like. It should open in another window so you can scroll left and right. I recommend you maximize the window. It’s large, so give it a moment to load. Be sure to check out the most recent era (the last two columns on the farthest right.) I brought it up to date… Hilarious (IMHO)
After awhile of reading the scripture, (well, the fold-out) I noticed that there was nothing prior to 1 A.D. Well, there were a few words on the timeline, like Canaanites, troglodytes, and hermaphrodites or something, but no pictures for an eight-year old to try and understand. So I let my imagination paint the picture. It wasn’t until a bit later, that I saw similar timelines that went waaaaaay back as far as, well, according to today’s dating, thousands and thousands of years. If you look at Genesis, when the world was supposed to have been created, it says that it “was without form, and void.” Hmmm. Some unknown shape, and empty.
Going to church with my Grandma was pure torture. In case you didn’t know already, I was raised in the Baptist doctrine. I can still see my hometown church in my mind as if it were, well today. On the corner of 7th and Orange Avenues, in El Centro, California. At the time, it was held together by Pastor Lind. My Grandma adored him. I wish I could show you a then photo of the church, but the only one’s that I can find now are the gaudy (as in ugly, opulent, tithes could have been spent elsewhere…) photos of what it is now… He (pastor Lind) did a good job of keeping everyone in their seats, awake and farting, and wishing they were somewhere else in the world; anywhere else. My unofficial description of a Baptist Church, is somewhere you went once a week to be screamed at, while being made to feel miserable, i.e., Hell. When all those people in the pews were crying and raising their hands to the voice of God, ‘Be gone Devil be gone!‘, I was looking at that neat timeline… Really, it was the only thing that kept me sane in that damn church. By the way, I think I farted once or twice…
Even then, within my relatively inexperienced brain, something didn’t click for me. At the time, I didn’t realize that this particular timeline was only focused on the details of Christ’ life and beyond. I wasn’t much interested in anything else substantial beyond my love for science fiction, space ships, and the NASA Gemini (and later Apollo) missions. My Grandma wasn’t much help either, as she believed that the world was created, by God in seven days, a few years before 1 AD. That’s probably what she was taught in those days.
Here’s an oops moment: My Grandma was an intelligent woman. She raised six children, and ran a business, all on her own. So, I don’t think she was quite that ignorant. Whenever I asked her the why’s and where’s of it all, she always directed me back to the bible. I loved my Grandma, but I think she was too busy with the Eagles Club, the State Street Ladies Auxiliary, canning vegetables, and worrying too much about appearances, to be historically-accurate about the bible. At that time, it was about obligatory church participation. You went. You prayed, You screamed. You repented. Otherwise, well you know, folks whispered…
YES BROTHERS AND SISTERS! Uhhh… Say it like you mean it, Uhhh… Shout it louder, Uhhh… so the Father can hear you, Uhhh… cuz it’s a long way to Heaven. Uhhh… This is the only path, Uhhh… for the righteous, Uhhh… So come here to the pulpit, Uhhh… to get what you deserve, Uhhh…
Uhhh… Ah shit, gimme a freakin’ BREAK! I almost started speaking in tongues.
On THAT note, let’s take a break for a few paragraphs or so, because I don’t know about you, but THAT sermon wore me out! I didn’t run from the church; I was driven away.
Let’s switch to writing. After all, writing is just as important in understanding calendars, as are God and religion. How else would we know anything about anything, if someone didn’t put it on paper? …or papyrus, or the wall of a cave, or whatever the media of the time was. It IS very interesting that what is believed to be the oldest actual writing, was scribed on a on a turtle shell.
Cave Guy
Many people in modern times, especially evolutionists, have refused to believe that the bible is more than a collection of rhetoric, metaphors, and similes. I must admit that I also have some trouble with it. When you think about it though, it makes sense that God, and/or the prophets, would speak allegorically. At the time, there was no literacy; just symbols. No alphabetical letters or numbers. No grammar or rules. There was no system of writing, just drawing pictures.
Keep in mind now, that I’m talking about the time long prior to Christ’ birth. Unless you live in a cave (haha, I crack myself up!), everyone know’s that archeology has found loads of symbolic paintings, in caves that date many thousands of years back. In my mind, this actually was communication. Simple and crude as it may seem, it was still a form of communication. That poor Cave Guy or Cave Girl, really wanted somebody to know about the road trips they made to get bison, or about the bad winters, or those shiny green visitors from space, and so on…
For example, this is thought to be the oldest cave painting ever found. It was discovered in 1991 in a cave somewhere in France (Chauvet,) and has been carbon-dated to be about 32,000 years old.
Earliest cave painting ever found
Let’s move on to talk about the age-dating of things.
You can find lots of arguments about the age of things, but carbon-dating has been around a long time, and proven to be accurate on items that are up to about 60,000 years old. Beyond that, the carbon isotopes essentially decay beyond measurement. By knowing about half-lives, scientists can determine how quickly (or slowly) it takes for elements to decay.
So by observing the decay of isotopes that are trapped inside of things, such as the painting I showed you (above,) they can calculate how old those things are. I hope that this makes some sense? Since the original carbon-dating method came into use, scientists now know the half-life of argon, uranium, and strontium. Their isotopes don’t decay for well beyond a trillion years. After that, who cares?
Hmmm… Should we care? Well YES!!! Imagine the strontium-dating of asteroid bits that fall from outer space… Asteroids that came from where and when… What did they bring here embedded inside? Life? Bacteria? Death?
No matter which method they use to date an object, it shows that man has existed a lot longer than Christian timelines show. Even the most liberal of the creationists, used to put the age of the earth at only about 10,000 years. They based that age on their own calculations, progressing backwards in time, according to events described in the bible, such as Genesis, when Adam and Eve were created, Moses, Noah and the great flood, etc. If they were true, devout creationists, they had to believe the details about the earth that the bible laid out for them; which put the earth at about 10,000 years old.
Most people, whether they believe it or not, know that scientists have now placed the earth at about 4.5 Billion years old. Obviously, this has left creationists open to accusations about the infallibility of their scripture. Hey, I’m just saying…
So finally, it’s time to move into referencing some bible scripture. Remember, this is ONLY about setting the scene up for our coming calendar series, and I’ll only use a few books and lines from Genesis as they pertain to us.
In the paragraph above, I wrote used to, because when the scientists began dating the age of things, is about the same time that the the conservative creationists began to back-peddle. The book of Genesis from the bible, is very important in describing time (and thereby, calendars.) It’s an historical document that tells how and when the earth, and all of it’s inhabitants, were created. I’m not interested in reciting Genesis, and I only need to pull some important concepts from chapters 1, 2, 6, 7 and 11, because they are pertinent.
In Genesis 1:1 & 2, it is written:
“1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
“2. And the earth was without form, and void;”
So let’s examine those statements. “In the beginning” doesn’t say when the beginning was. If you wanted to argue about the disparity between the 10,000 years versus 4.5 Billion years, this would be a good place for a creationist to start. That creationist could argue that, yes, God made the heaven and earth, but then maybe he just let it hang there for several billion years, void and formless.
Hey, God was working on His own time; you know GMT (God’s Mean Time.) For all we know, He may have had Adam in the R & D department (research and development) under the hood working on the design and mechanics. After all, before He unveiled Adam at the Eden show, He wanted him to be perfect! And all those species of animal, trees, flowers, and so on, probably took a long time to think up and design. Then, it was about 10,000 years ago before He finally got around to Genesis 1:3. That’s when He plugged in the sun and lit the place up…
Okay, stop right here. I am NOT KIDDING nor being blasphemous. I believe in God, and the notion that he created everything, something like in the accounts of Genesis. I also know that God created humor somewhere in all that time. Damn! Can’t a guy catch a break?
So, let’s bypass the rest of Genesis 1 and jump to Genesis 2. See? Now that wasn’t so bad!
In 2:1 & 2:2, it is written that God had finished everything and then rested on the seventh day. So, here again, from that point in time (Gen. 2:1 & 2) until the event that occurred in Gen. 2:7, might have been thousands of years more. I don’t think so, but it could have been.
“7. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
NOAH'S ARK
The remainder of Genesis talks about the man he created here (Adam,) Eve, and all their generations, etc. If we again jump ahead, to Genesis 6 & 7, this is the time when God is really pissed off at the mess Man had become, and decides to drown all the rats. Except for Noah that is.
Genesis 6 mostly describes the building of the ark. Cubits and stuff…
In 7:12, God starts the rain that lasted 40 days and nights. In 7:22, all living things are proclaimed deader n’ a doornail. In 7:24, the waters that flooded the earth for 150 days, begin to recede.
The last biblical reference I want to make is from Genesis 11: 7, 8 & 9
7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
I only refer to Genesis 11:7 because it’s just interesting to me. He says “let US go down…” Presumably, he’s talking to His angels, or is He just speaking in the 3rd person? 11:7 has always intrigued me. He supposedly did this to stunt our growth and force us out of Babylon. Imagine how we might have turned out if he hadn’t done that…
In Genesis 11:8 & 9, He talks about scattering all men in different directions, speaking their own new languages. Twelve tribes, twelve directions (144,000.) That’s REALLY important because this will be the start of all the amazingly complex calendars that we now know and (mostly) understand.
SO, who wrote Genesis anyway? If you’re Christian or Jewish, then you probably know from reading, that it is generally accepted that Moses did, along with the remaining four first books that comprise the Law of Moses. According to Luke, even Jesus said that Moses wrote them, and that he was just the first of many prophets to come. Believing that or not, is up to you.
In case you never have, or want to refresh on Genesis, here’s a good link: KING JAMES. By the way, if you ever have trouble getting to sleep at night, just try reading Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Tylenol PM in book form… Well, actually Exodus is somewhat entertaining.
Believe it or not, the concept of zero, was a difficult thing for our early ancestors. In fact, it was that exact difficulty that would turn out to screw up the Christian (Gregorian) calendar later on. It would contribute to a lot of confusion about the actual date of Christ’ birth, and why he was born in the BC era (Before Christ,) as opposed to AD (Anno Domini, which translates to Year of our Lord.)
Okay. ALMOST done. To establish an understanding of a subject that is as complex as a calendar, we’ve got to have some common frames of reference. The only reference we need to make, for now, is to establish the difference between the words “Epoch” and “Epic.”
The only thing they have in common, is pronunciation. Phonetically, let’s pronounce them both ep-ik. Lately on the Internet, you may see something like, “Wow! That’s EPIC!” Or “EPIC fail.” Epic actually means some work of literature that is very lengthy, like War and Peace for example. When you see it used like that, it generally means that it is HUGE, major, or awesomely important. While the bible make seem epic, it’s not the word we want here. For calendar purposes, Epoch is the word we’re after. It means the beginning of an important event in history or time. You’ll see that I reference epoch quite a bit going forward into our series.
Well, I think that’s about it for this blog. Unless its really pertinent, I won’t make many scriptural references. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this opener and are looking forward to the next.
By the way, (in case you’re curious) this blog has about 3600 words in it (unless I make any edits later on) and took me about four days to write, because of all the other things I have on my plate.
I’d like to know what you think.
Les
