data from the Bible, has been carried on since before the beginning of the Christian era.
Perhaps the best-known of these chronologies, at least to the modern scholar, is that of
Archbishop James Ussher. This was originally published in Latin (1650-54), then in
English (1658), but in the modern period it had remained largely inaccessible until
Master Books brought out a revised and updated English version based on the original
Latin and compared with the older English version.
chronology was inserted into the margins of many editions of the KJV over the 350 years
since Ussher first published the work.
What is less well-known to the modern reader is the breadth and depth of Ussher's work
in studying out and arranging the chronology. The bibliography of sources cited by
Ussher, as listed in the 2003 edition, runs to some eight columns of small print, from
which works Ussher made a total of some fourteen thousand quotations. Some of these
works are either no longer available, or are so rare that even the modern scholar would
have great difficulty tracking them down to compare Ussher's use of the material. The
attitude of most moderns toward the work of Ussher seems to be that of a patronizing
amusement that anyone would attempt to create a chronology going back to the creation
of the world, and that he would do so on the basis of a slavish acquiescence to the
Masoretic text (MT) of the Old Testament. With regard to the latter idea, it should be
noted that Ussher was not, in fact, enslaved to the MT. For example, with regard to the
length of the time that Israel spent in Egypt, Ussher followed the shorter chronology of
the Septuagint (LXX) in Ex 12:40-41 which counted the 430 years from the time
Abraham entered Canaan to the release of Israel from Egypt rather than 430 years from
the e descent of Jacob and his sons into Egypt.
With regard to the former idea, that of creating a chronology going back to the creation of
the world, Ussher did nothing that dozens, if not hundreds, of authors had done before