Anno Mundi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Anno Mundi (Latin for "in the year of the world"; Hebrew: Template:Hebrew, "from the creation of the world"), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of the world and subsequent history. Two such calendar eras have seen notable use historically:
- The Byzantine calendar was used in the Byzantine Empire and many Christian Orthodox countries and Eastern Orthodox Churches and was based on the Septuagint text of the bible. That calendar is similar to the Julian calendar except that its epoch is equivalent to 1 September 5509 BC on the Julian proleptic calendar.
- The Hebrew calendar is based on rabbinic calculations of the year of creation from the Hebrew Masoretic text of the bible. This calendar is used within Jewish communities for religious and other purposes. On the Hebrew calendar, the day begins at sunset. The calendar's epoch, corresponding to the calculated date of the world's creation, is equivalent to sunset on the Julian proleptic calendar date 6 October 3761 BC. The new year begins at Rosh Hashanah, roughly in September. Year anno mundi {{#time:xjY}}, or AM {{#time:xjY}}, began at sunset on {{#time:j F Y|@Template:Hebrew year/rhdatum-1 day}} on the Gregorian calendar.
While differences in biblical interpretation or in calculation methodology can produce some differences in the creation date, most results fall relatively close to one of these two dominant models. The primary reason for the disparity seems to lie in which underlying Biblical text is chosen (roughly 5500 BC based on the Greek Septuagint text, about 3750 BC based on the Hebrew Masoretic text). Most of the 1,732-year difference resides in numerical discrepancies in the genealogies of the two versions of the Book of Genesis. Patriarchs from Adam to Terah, the father of Abraham, are said to be older by as much as 100 years or more when they begat their named son in the Greek Septuagint than they were in the Latin Vulgate (Template:Bibleref; Template:Bibleref) or the Hebrew Tanakh (Template:Bibleref; Template:Bibleref). The net difference between the two major genealogies of Genesis is 1466 years (ignoring the "second year after the flood" ambiguity), 85% of the total difference. (See Dating creation.)
See also
- Anno Lucis
- Byzantine calendar
- Chronology of the Bible
- Dating creation
- Epoch (reference date)
- Hebrew calendar
- Young Earth creationism
- James Ussher
