I AM speaks to people through His Word, the Holy Bible. Historical, inspirational and supernatural, the Bible has been with us since calendar recording began. Readers of the Holy Bible can understand the records of ancient times. We discern what the numbered ages in the Old Testament actually mean by using three oldest calendars. Three calendar systems that help our study of Bible times are the Jewish, Mesoamerican and the Egyptian calendars. These three calendars allow us to trace back into remote prehistory. The word prehistory includes the “before time”, and the compound of “His” and “story.” Scientists who have worked with these very early cultures can provide the basic calendar methods that were once used to measure time. We need to review the Lord’s units of main time keeping to see the way ancient humanity dealt with time observation.
Early parts of the Old Testament mention days and years together. Time and the Biblical Creation include major fundamental concepts known to the ancient Jewish people. The Old Testament provides our first realistic ideas about time reckoning and recording. The Lord defines the day and night in the book of Genesis. The very first calendar of one day had begun. Description of the seven-day Creative Week further defines basic operation of the calendar. The sacred seven-day week is a fundamental religious idea. Four phases of the moon marked four weekly intervals during the month. Approximate lunar phases are attached to the origins of the calendar Sabbath week. Seven-day weeks and lunar months create the lunar-side of the lunar/solar calendars.
We are discovering ancient days when timekeepers watched the sun, moon and stars. The Jewish Calendar is simple when you understand the numbers used. The Jewish Calendar is based on the sun and moon together and measures chronology in numbered years from the Creation year 1. Modern recorded dates denote this era as B.C.E. for “Before Common Era”. Christianity dates according to the birth of Christ. The same B.C.E. initials mean “Before Christian Era” or simply B.C. for “Before Christ.” Time reckoning after Christ applies the A.D. marking of Anno Domini, which stems from the Latin meaning: “After Divinity” in the year of our Lord.
Calendar systems map world chronology according to different beginnings. Some follow Jewish tradition and put the Creation date at 5,767 years ago or about 3,761 years B.C.E. Others credit Archbishop Ussher with calculating in 1,701 A.D. that Creation took place in 4,004 B.C. The Egyptian Calendar begins between 4,236 B.C.E. and 4,241 B.C.E., along with Egyptian mythology explaining the world’s creation. Starting dates depend on star observation in Egypt, since that is the only way primal society had to mark calendar years. Another plan estimates the starting Mayan Calendar date to be 3,113 B.C.E. Shared calendar characteristics enable deeper inspection of prehistoric time reckoning. Sacred texts and current science provide clues needed to reconstruct the oldest Biblical history. Important traits gathered from past calendar time streams become woven together to obtain hybrid insight. Three ancient calendar systems form the world’s oldest trunk line of calendar science. God used a lunar/solar calendar to write listed ages for the Antediluvian Patriarchs. The family of Adam heralds new discovery from the earliest time.