1st BOC show of the new century!

[Eric Siegerman]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2000 at 11:28:26PM +0000, Jill wrote:
> The world was created in the year 4004 BC at 4am in the morning.
> Leastways that was the conclusion of one very eminent Victorian scholar
> (though I admit I can't recall his name!)

Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656).  I thought he was Victorian
too, until I just now looked him up.  Go figure.  Turns out
Ussher influenced some of Newton's later and very dubious work --
creating a "historical" timeline based on the voyage of Jason and
the Argonauts, along with the Bible of course.

> The current Christian calendar lost 4 years due to a medieval calendar
> reorganisation (trying to sort out Easter and get the leap years right)

They seem to have spent an inordinate amount of energy on Easter
calculations.  Constantly rejiggering algorithms, often in an
attempt to keep Easter from coinciding with Passover -- which by
rights it should of course.

> and then another 8 months due to a later calendar reorganisation in the
> 18th century.

Kinda.  11 days were "lost", ie. written out of the calendar, to
correct for the error accumulated since Julius Caesar's time:

         September 1752
       S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
             1  2 14 15 16
      17 18 19 20 21 22 23
      24 25 26 27 28 29 30

In Britain anyway.  Pope Gregory XIII had instituted his
calendrical reforms back in 1582, but it took a while for
non-Catholic countries to come around.  Some places stayed on
Julian time even longer -- Russia's "October Revolution" took
place in November 1917...

When Britain went Gregorian, they also changed New Years from 25
March to 1 January, as stipulated by Pope Gregory.  Perhaps the 8
months are somehow (though not straightforwardly :-) related to
this shift.

> The various celestial events recorded in connection with
> the birth of Christ (if they are assumed to be a combination of
> planetary conjuctions and/or a comet) seem most likely to have occurred
> around 6BC or 8BC using current calendar reckonings

Yup.  Forgot about those.  That'd help explain why the earlier
date is favoured (over 6-7 AD, as the census story would
require).

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
Microsoft Lego would have square pips.