The Calendar: When Did We Begin Counting from Creation?

While it may make intuitive sense to count our years starting from the creation of the world, as is Jewish practice today, this chronological system is relatively new.

The era of Creation—Anno Mundi (A.M.) in Christian terminologyis absent in the Bible, which uses other forms of dating. For instance, the inauguration of Solomon’s Temple is dated to the exodus from Egypt:

^{מלכים א ו:א} וַיְהִי בִשְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה לְצֵאת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בַּשָּׁנָה הָרְבִיעִית בְּחֹדֶשׁ זִו הוּא הַחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי לִמְלֹךְ שְׁלֹמֹה עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּבֶן הַבַּיִת לַי־הוָה.

^{1 Kgs 6:1} In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites left the land of Egypt, in the month of Ziv—that is, the second month—in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, Solomon began to build the House of YHWH.

Even this system is unusual, however, since in the book of Kings, years are not normally anchored in a fixed point in the past but follow the regnal years of the reigning king.

Regnal Years in the Bible

To choose one example out of many, Pharaoh Shishak’s attack on Jerusalem is dated to the regnal year of the Judean king Rehoboam:

^{מלכים א יד:כה} וַיְהִי בַּשָּׁנָה הַחֲמִישִׁית לַמֶּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם עָלָה (שושק) [שִׁישַׁק] מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם עַל יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם.

^{1 Kgs 14:25} In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem.

For the period when the Israelites were divided into two kingdoms, the book of Kings generally reckons each kingdom’s regnal years concurrently—in terms of the reign of the competing kingdom. For instance,

^{מלכים א טז:כג} בִּשְׁנַת שְׁלֹשִׁים וְאַחַת שָׁנָה לְאָסָא מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה מָלַךְ עָמְרִי עַל יִשְׂרָאֵל שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה...

^{1 Kgs 16:23} In the thirty-first year of King Asa of Judah, Omri became king over Israel—for twelve years….

Towards the end of the book of Kings and in (historically) later biblical books, when the great empires of the East begin to encroach on Judea, computing time according to the reigning Babylonian and later Persian kings become increasingly dominant. For example, the book of Haggai begins:

^{חגי א:א} בִּשְׁנַת שְׁתַּיִם לְדָרְיָוֶשׁ הַמֶּלֶךְ בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשִּׁשִּׁי בְּיוֹם אֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ הָיָה דְבַר יְ־הוָה בְּיַד חַגַּי הַנָּבִיא...

^{Hag 1:1} In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, this word of YHWH came through the prophet Haggai…

In the third century B.C.E., when Judea was ruled by the Hellenistic, Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, literary and documentary sources from Judea are dated by the regnal years of the Ptolemies.

The Seleucid Era or the Era for Contracts

After Judea changed hands and came under Seleucid rule (based in Syria), around 200 B.C.E.,^[1] the Seleucid era became the standard method for counting years. This era was counted from year 1 of the Hellenistic ruler Seleucus I in the autumn of 312 B.C.E. It started as a regnal year, but then developed into a continuous, unending era.^[2]

1 Maccabees, for instance, uses this dating system. Thus, when describing Antiochus IV desecrating the Temple altar, it says:

^{1 Macc 1:54} And on the fifteenth day of Kislev in the one hundred and forty–fifth year, he constructed an abomination of desolation on the altar…

The Seleucid era persisted long after the end of Hellenistic rule; it was used in the Near East by Jews and others until the early modern period. The Talmud refers to this as “the counting of the Greek kingdom,” for example:

^{בבלי עבודה זרה י.} אמר רב נחמן: "בגולה אין מונין אלא למלכי יונים בלבד."

^{b. Avodah Zarah 10a} Rav Nahman said: “In the diaspora, they only count according to the kings of the Greeks.”

Since the Talmud goes on to explain that this counting system is relevant specifically to dates on שטרות “documents/contracts,” from the Geonic period and on, this system is known as מניין השטרות “the counting/era for contracts.” For example, a Geonic responsum about a land dispute in Egypt states:

^{גאוני מזרח ומערב קעב} יעקב אביו של ראובן זה לקח חלק שתות משמעון מכלל אותו חצר ובתים שיש לו בכאן בפאצטאט מצרים במקום פלוני והיה זמנו שנת ר"פ למנין שטרות.

^{Geonim of East and West §172} Jacob, father of this man Reuben, took a sixth share from Simeon of the courtyard and accompanying houses that he owned here in Fustat, Egypt, in such-and-such a place, and it was dated to the year (1)280 of the era for contracts.

In Judea itself, after the withdrawal of the Seleucids in the mid second century B.C.E., the regnal years of the Hasmoneans, Herodians, and (later) Roman emperors were instead used.^[3]

Destruction of the Temple

In late Antiquity, the era of the Destruction of the (Second) Temple became widely used in Palestine. For example in the funerary inscriptions of Zoar, a town in the Transjordan near the Dead Sea, dating from the fourth to sixth centuries C.E, dating begins with 69/70 C.E. as year 1 of the destruction era.^[4]

^{צוער מצבה טז} הדה נפשה דיעקב בר עויד דמית יום ב יום בי יומין באבר^[5] מרחש(ון ב)שתה קדמתה דשבועה די שנת ארבע מא ושת שמין לחרבן בת מקדשה יהי מדמכה ל(ני)ח שלם שלם שלם.

^{Zoar Tombstone #16} Here is the tomb of Jacob son of Awid, who died on a Monday, on the tenth of the month of Marcheshvan, in the first year of the seven-year shemitah cycle, which is the four-hundred and sixth year from the destruction of the [Second] Temple. May his lying be restful. Peace, peace, peace.^[6]

This starting point (or epoch) is also assumed in the Babylonian Talmud, which provides a method for converting Seleucid into Destruction years (Avodah Zarah 9a).

The Jubilee Cycle: A Sectarian Alternative

In the Second Temple period, the book of Jubilees (2^nd cent. B.C.E.) developed a unique system based on the idea that the system of Jubilee years, described in Leviticus 25, was instituted along with creation of the world. According to this system, time is divided into 50-year cycles, and each subdivided into seven seven-year increments plus the jubilee year itself.

Thus, the book of Jubilees dates events to this cycle. For instance, in the story of Abraham sending off his other sons so that Isaac would inherit alone, we read:

^{Jub 20:1} During the forty-second jubilee, in the first year of the seventh week, Abraham summoned Ishmael and his twelve children…^[7]

This dating system never caught on, and it was centuries later when the first attempts to date events from creation emerged—and these emerged first in the Christian orbit.

Era of Creation

Long before the Jews, Christians created “cosmic eras,” whose years were later known as anno mundi. Julius Africanus, in the early third century C.E., counted the years from Adam as the basis for his historical chronology; in his system, the era started on 22 March 5501 B.C.E.

In the fifth century C.E., the era was redefined as starting in 5493 B.C.E., and became dominant in Christianity as the “Alexandrian era.” In the late seventh century, the Byzantine church changed the beginning of the era to 1 September 5509 B.C.E.; this system still used today in Ethiopia.[8]

Jewish Creation Era: How Was It Calculated?

The Torah describes the creation of the world but offers no calendrical details about it. The rabbis dispute what part of the year creation took place: Rabbi Joshua says it was in Nisan, the beginning of spring, and Rabbi Eliezer, in Tishri, the beginning of autumn—the two main New Year periods in the ancient Near East.^[9] R. Eliezer’s position prevailed in the naming of the festival which takes place on the first of Tishrei as Rosh Hashanah, “New Year.” Thus, the adopted counting among Jews, based on era of Creation, begins in Tishrei.

To calculate the era, later Jewish sages turned to the biblical chronology of a rabbinic work known as Seder Olam, which dates to the second century C.E. Although Seder Olam does not date biblical events according to an era of Creation, it measures the intervals between them. Thus, it begins:

^{סדר עולם פרק א} מאדם ועד המבול אלף ושש מאות וחמשים ושש שנים... מן המבול ועד הפלגה שלוש מאות וארביעם שנה.

^{Seder Olam ch. 1} From Adam to the Flood, 1656 years ... from the Flood to the Dispersion [at the tower of Babel], 340 years.[10]

Seder Olam provides a continuous run of such intervals through the biblical and post-biblical periods, up to the destruction of the Second Temple, and the sages simply added up all these intervals and determined the scope of the era. As the chronology of Seder Olam, which differs considerably from Christian biblical and world chronologies, was rarely contested in traditional Jewish sources, it provided a stable foundation for the Jewish era of Creation.

Judea/Palestine Adopts the Era of Creation First

The earliest Jewish evidence of an era of Creation^[11] appears in the mosaic pavement of the synagogue Susiya, in southern Judaea, whose dating is unknown; the mosaic is frustratingly broken, and all that remains of the date is ארבעת אלפי[ן] “four thousand.”^[12] The synagogue’s date ranges from the fourth to eighth centuries C.E. so the mosaic would be from some time in this period.

In Palestine and Egypt, the era of Creation began to pick up in the late eighth century. The Baraita de-Shemuel (chapter 5)—an apparently Palestinian work—dates an astronomical event to the year 4536 (of the Creation), which is equivalent to 776 C.E.

^{ברייתא דשמואל פרק ה} בשנת ארבעה אלפים וחמש מאות ושלשים ושש שנה שוו חמה ולבנה שמיטות ותקופות.

^{The Baraita of Samuel, ch. 5} In the year 4,536 the sun, moon, sabbatical years, and equinoxes coincided.^[13]

The year of Creation is then found in a letter written by an exilarch (the leader of the Jewish community in Babylon), presumably in Baghdad, in 835/6 C.E.^[14] The letter is in Aramaic and also provides the date in the era of contracts, but the Creation date is given in Hebrew፡

והי[א] שתא דהיה שנת אלפא ומאה וארבעין ושבע שנין ^[15]לשטרות והיא שנת ארבעת אלפים וחמש מאות ותשעים וחמש שנים לבראשית

And this year was the year 1147 of the Seleucid era, which is the year 4595 of the creation era.

I suspect the author took the latter date from the letter he received from Palestine, to which he refers and which was likely written in Hebrew.

The era of Creation is then found in a partnership contract from 875 or 876 CE, possibly from Egypt.^[16] There is little evidence for counting by the era of creation as standard in Babylonia before the eleventh century.

Multiple Calendars

None of these eras – Creation, Destruction, and Contracts (the Seleucid era) – were ever exclusive of one another. From the tenth century C.E. onwards, all three eras were used in the Near East and Egypt; legal documents and codices often bear multiple dates. For example, in the Leningrad Codex (completed in 1007/8 C.E)—the oldest extant complete Masoretic Text of the Bible—the scribe dates the work based on multiple calendars:

^{לנינגרד א:} ונשלם בחדש סיון של שנת ארבעת אלפים ושבע מאות ושבעים שנה לבריאת עולם,

^{Leningrad Codex 1r} It was completed in the month of Sivan, year 4770 from the creation of the world;

והיא שנת אלף וארבע מאות וארבעים וארבעה לגלות המלך יהויכין

Which is year 1444 from the exile of King Jehoiachin;^[17]

והיא שנת אלף ושלוש מאות ותשע עשרה שנה למלכות יונים שהיא למנין ולפסיקת הנבואה

Which is year 1319 of the contracts of the Greek Kingdom (Seleucid era), which is for counting and (the era of) the end of prophecy;

והיא שנת תשע אמות וארבעים לחרבן בית שני

Which is year 940 from the Destruction of the Second Temple,

והיא שנת שלוש מאות ותשעים ותשע למלכות קרן זעירה.

Which is year 399 of the kingdom of the small horn (=Islamic era).[18]

These dates are incompatible with one another – an error that betrays, if anything, the scribe’s lack of familiarity with the use of these multiple eras.

But some scribes enjoyed creating imaginative, new eras which were never used by anyone in daily life. A prayer book from Kurdistan, 1202/3 CE, is dated by the Creation, the Seleucid era, the Destruction, and the Islamic era, but also by eras from the Flood and from the Exodus.

נסכה הכרזה לסנתנא הדא והי סנה דתתקס"ב ללכליקה, וסנה גש"ו ללמבול, וסנה בתקי"ד ליציאת מצרים, ושנת אתקי"ד לחתום חזון ונביא והוא תאריך אלאסכנדר, ושנת אקל"ד לחרבן הבית, ואלסנה אלסאדסה [...] שמטה, ואלסנה אלי"ב פי אליובל... וללתאירך אלערבי תקצ"ט.

Formula of announcement of our year which is the year 4962 from the Creation, 3306 from the Flood, 2514 from the Exodus, 1514 from the conclusion of prophecy and revelation, that is the era of Alexander (i.e. the Seleucid era), year 1134 from the destruction of the Temple, and the 6^th year [of the] sabbatical cycle, and the 12^th year of the Jubilee… and in the Islamic era it is 599.^[19]

An Oriental calendar treatise from the mid-fifteenth century has extensive calendar tables with columns for the year numbers in:^[20]

• ליצירה, “creation,”
• יציאת מצרים, “the exodus from Egypt,”
• לשמטות, “sabbatical years,”
• לבית א, “the First Temple,”
• לחרבנו, “its destruction,”
• לבית ב “the Second Temple,”
• לשטרות, “contracts (the Seleucid era),”
• לחרבן ב, “the Second Temple’s destruction.”^[21]

In Europe, however, the era of Creation prevailed. It is first attested in Europe in two inscriptions from Venosa (Italy) dated 4582 and 4587 and 4589—thus, early ninth century C.E. These remarkably early texts also bear dates from the Destruction (of the Second Temple), but this era was rarely used in Europe in later centuries.^[22]

Addendum

Pushing Creation Back a Year?

According to the Jewish calculation, the world was created in 3760 B.C.E.,^[23] on a Friday at 14 hours (from sunset).^[24] This was the day of Adam’s creation, and on it, Adam sanctified the first lunar month.^[25] In the post-Talmudic era, an alternative count developed whereby the era of Creation started one year earlier, in Tishri 3761 B.C.E.

By the tenth century, the Babylonians or “those of the East” were using the era of the Babylonian Talmud; whereas the new era was associated with the Palestinians or “those of the West.”^[26] Both eras were in use through the Middle Ages, but it is the western era that prevailed in Europe and in the modern period. In Jewish tradition today, the current year (2024/5) is 5785; but the original reckoning, the eastern one, would have made it 5784.

The change to the western counting is strange for several reasons. First, no one disputes, in Jewish tradition, that Adam was created on Friday 1 Tishri of year 1 (eastern), which is year 2 (western) – as demanded by the chronology of Seder Olam. But this means that according to the western reckoning, which is followed today, the Creation era started one year before the world was created – which is illogical. Moreover, in this counting, the first new moon would have been on a Monday night – which does not comport with the Creation narrative. Geonic and later medieval authors were truly puzzled by all this.^[27]

R. Jacob ben Samson, a disciple of the school of Rashi, explains in a treatise on the Jewish calendar (completed 1123 C.E.), that year 1 from the Creation is actually the “year of tohu,”^[28] when the world was not yet created. Yet, the Creation actually started five days before Adam: as a midrash already stated, the seven days of Creation began on Sunday 25 Elul (Leviticus Rabbah 29:1). It was in order to allocate these five days to a numbered year that the era of Creation was made to start one whole year earlier.

Whether or not this explanation is convincing, R. Jacob ben Samson’s concluding comment brings out best the anomaly of the Jewish era of Creation. Referring to the year of tohu, he writes ועשו את שאינו כאילו ישנו “they made what did not exist as if it existed.”^[29]