The Biblical Date of Creation & the Start of the Kali Yuga

[Glaurung]

I have just noticed something interesting.

Implied by a literal reading of Genesis the world was created about 6000 years ago. The exact year of creation varies depending on what source you accept. One says 4004 BC and another 3929 BC. (Ussher and Lightfoot). According to the Hebrew calendar the current year is AM 5781. (AM = Anno Mundi). That is, year 5781 of creation. In any case the exact date is not important only that the traditional sources agree that the events described in the early chapters of Genesis occurred roughly 6000 years ago, give or take a few centuries.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia anyway, the Kali Yuga commenced with the departure of Krishna in the year 3102 BC, a little over 5000 years ago. The Kali Yuga is said to be an era of inexorable moral decline and irreligion. Where, with the passage of time, the human creature decays and life on Earth becomes increasingly short-lived and hellish.

Now, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden they were cursed with various punishments. The main curse being enmity against the Earth. Man now having to win his bread with toil and suffering: against thorns and thistles. Sin grows exponentially, with the iniquity of the human race becoming so great that God wipes out everything save Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. Which only temporally fixes the problem as Noah's descendants seem just as prone to sin as the antediluvian population.

Another parallel is that according to Genesis those who lived before the flood had lifespans that stretched for centuries. The longest lived, Methuselah, lived just short of a millennium. 969 years. Noah died at the ripe old age of 950. I have been led to believe that according to Hindu belief, humans in the Dvapara Yuga (the previous yuga) lived about 1000 years on average. Just a little over the maximum stated to be lived by the antediluvian humans in the biblical account.

Finally, according to the New Testament, faith will decline as we approach the end times. As it was in the days of Noah the world will once again fall into complete iniquity which will culminate with the return of Christ. According to the Book of Revelation, Christ will descend to the Earth riding a white horse and wielding a sword. He will overthrow the forces of sin and then he will judge the world and redress all evils. According to Vaishnavism, at the end of the Kali Yuga, Vishnu will take the form of Kalki and descend to the Earth on a white horse wielding a flaming sword. He will put an end to iniquitous Kali Yuga and start the world anew with a new Satya Yuga. Where religion and virtue will infuse the world once again.

So we can now interpret Genesis as an account of the beginning of our current era. With the time between the exile from Eden and the flood being the tail end of the Dvapara Yuga.

Of course, I'm not entirely serious about any of this. It's just me playing around with parallels that I have noticed.

 

[Rival]

That is, year 5781 of creation.

Just a nitpick, but iirc this is from the creation of Adam, not of the world.

 

[Glaurung]

Just a nitpick, but iirc this is from the creation of Adam, not of the world.

That would make my case of Genesis being an account of the start of an era rather than that of the world stronger.

 

[exchemist]

I have just noticed something interesting.

Implied by a literal reading of Genesis the world was created about 6000 years ago. The exact year of creation varies depending on what source you accept. One says 4004 BC and another 3929 BC. (Ussher and Lightfoot). According to the Hebrew calendar the current year is AM 5781. (AM = Anno Mundi). That is, year 5781 of creation. In any case the exact date is not important only that the traditional sources agree that the events described in the early chapters of Genesis occurred roughly 6000 years ago, give or take a few centuries.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia anyway, the Kali Yuga commenced with the departure of Krishna in the year 3102 BC, a little over 5000 years ago. The Kali Yuga is said to be an era of inexorable moral decline and irreligion. Where, with the passage of time, the human creature decays and life on Earth becomes increasingly short-lived and hellish.

Now, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden they were cursed with various punishments. The main curse being enmity against the Earth. Man now having to win his bread with toil and suffering: against thorns and thistles. Sin grows exponentially, with the iniquity of the human race becoming so great that God wipes out everything save Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. Which only temporally fixes the problem as Noah's descendants seem just as prone to sin as the antediluvian population.

Another parallel is that according to Genesis those who lived before the flood had lifespans that stretched for centuries. The longest lived, Methuselah, lived just short of a millennium. 969 years. Noah died at the ripe old age of 950. I have been led to believe that according to Hindu belief, humans in the Dvapara Yuga (the previous yuga) lived about 1000 years on average. Just a little over the maximum stated to be lived by the antediluvian humans in the biblical account.

Finally, according to the New Testament, faith will decline as we approach the end times. As it was in the days of Noah the world will once again fall into complete iniquity which will culminate with the return of Christ. According to the Book of Revelation, Christ will descend to the Earth riding a white horse and wielding a sword. He will overthrow the forces of sin and then he will judge the world and redress all evils. According to Vaishnavism, at the end of the Kali Yuga, Vishnu will take the form of Kalki and descend to the Earth on a white horse wielding a flaming sword. He will put an end to iniquitous Kali Yuga and start the world anew with a new Satya Yuga. Where religion and virtue will infuse the world once again.

So we can now interpret Genesis as an account of the beginning of our current era. With the time between the exile from Eden and the flood being the tail end of the Dvapara Yuga.

Of course, I'm not entirely serious about any of this. It's just me playing around with parallels that I have noticed.

Very interesting parallels. Though Revelation seems to be the visions of one old man rather than a product of cultural osmosis.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

The story in Genesis is a REcreation of the earth. It says the earth was without form and void. And God was moving over the water. So there was already "something" in existence. Also everything that God makes is good so God did not create something that was shapeless and empty. The earth may have been originally created billions of years ago. And it was a place of beauty like everything God creates. But then Satan tried to overthrow God and was kicked out of heaven. Where did he go? Earth. And like everything he touches, Satan turned earth into a place of darkness and desolation. It was this earth that God was moving over in Genesis. The empty lifeless earth Satan had inhabited for millions of years. Then in six days God REcreated the earth back into a place of beauty filled with life. So the people who say the earth is millions of years old are right. The physical ball of rock is that old. And the people who say the earth is a few thousand years old are also correct. The earth as we know it today was REcreated out of the old earth a few thousand years ago. And the best news of all is there will be another new earth when Jesus returns to it to set up God's kingdom.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

Just a nitpick, but iirc this is from the creation of Adam, not of the world.

Please see post #5

 

[Windwalker]

The story in Genesis is a REcreation of the earth. It says the earth was without form and void. And God was moving over the water. So there was already "something" in existence. Also everything that God makes is good so God did not create something that was shapeless and empty. The earth may have been originally created billions of years ago. And it was a place of beauty like everything God creates. But then Satan tried to overthrow God and was kicked out of heaven. Where did he go? Earth. And like everything he touches, Satan turned earth into a place of darkness and desolation. It was this earth that God was moving over in Genesis. The empty lifeless earth Satan had inhabited for millions of years. Then in six days God REcreated the earth back into a place of beauty filled with life.

This is a really interesting interpretation. I like it. In a sense, God was an Extraterrestrial Terraformer, who took a burning hunk of rock created from an exploded star, or "Satan cast to earth", and after letting him "cool down" for awhile, until the surface of the earth was cool enough, then God sent space seeds of vegetation down, and then added biological lifeforms, and finally took some of his own heavenly DNA and mixed it with primates to create homo sapiens and self-awareness, and the fall of man into the pit of despair, stuck somewhere "between the beasts and the field and the gods", as Plotinus put it.

One could read scripture this way. I kind of like the implications of it. Considering we are burning the planet down through fossil fuels, it seems like we let Satan out of the earth and he's back to kill us all through global warming. Greed let the devil out. Maybe Satan was that asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

I have just noticed something interesting.

Implied by a literal reading of Genesis the world was created about 6000 years ago. The exact year of creation varies depending on what source you accept. One says 4004 BC and another 3929 BC. (Ussher and Lightfoot). According to the Hebrew calendar the current year is AM 5781. (AM = Anno Mundi). That is, year 5781 of creation. In any case the exact date is not important only that the traditional sources agree that the events described in the early chapters of Genesis occurred roughly 6000 years ago, give or take a few centuries.

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia anyway, the Kali Yuga commenced with the departure of Krishna in the year 3102 BC, a little over 5000 years ago. The Kali Yuga is said to be an era of inexorable moral decline and irreligion. Where, with the passage of time, the human creature decays and life on Earth becomes increasingly short-lived and hellish.

Now, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden they were cursed with various punishments. The main curse being enmity against the Earth. Man now having to win his bread with toil and suffering: against thorns and thistles. Sin grows exponentially, with the iniquity of the human race becoming so great that God wipes out everything save Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. Which only temporally fixes the problem as Noah's descendants seem just as prone to sin as the antediluvian population.

Another parallel is that according to Genesis those who lived before the flood had lifespans that stretched for centuries. The longest lived, Methuselah, lived just short of a millennium. 969 years. Noah died at the ripe old age of 950. I have been led to believe that according to Hindu belief, humans in the Dvapara Yuga (the previous yuga) lived about 1000 years on average. Just a little over the maximum stated to be lived by the antediluvian humans in the biblical account.

Finally, according to the New Testament, faith will decline as we approach the end times. As it was in the days of Noah the world will once again fall into complete iniquity which will culminate with the return of Christ. According to the Book of Revelation, Christ will descend to the Earth riding a white horse and wielding a sword. He will overthrow the forces of sin and then he will judge the world and redress all evils. According to Vaishnavism, at the end of the Kali Yuga, Vishnu will take the form of Kalki and descend to the Earth on a white horse wielding a flaming sword. He will put an end to iniquitous Kali Yuga and start the world anew with a new Satya Yuga. Where religion and virtue will infuse the world once again.

So we can now interpret Genesis as an account of the beginning of our current era. With the time between the exile from Eden and the flood being the tail end of the Dvapara Yuga.

Of course, I'm not entirely serious about any of this. It's just me playing around with parallels that I have noticed.

Well, I’m happy to hear you’re not serious.

 

[Glaurung]

The Garden of Eden represents the primeval memory better times before the decline that defines our current era. The antediluvian era represents the transitional period between the Dvapara Yuga and the Kali Yuga. That is, the hardships and sinfulness of life in the Kali Yuga are established but the physical decline of the human species has yet to set in. The flood represents the disappearance of the final remnants of the Dvapara Yuga and with the emergence of Noah and his family the transition to the Kali Yuga is compete and humans born after this point are now set to live a maximum of 120 years.

Well, I’m happy to hear you’re not serious.

I doubt there was ever some glorious primeval past where humans had lifespans thousands of years long, where sin and suffering were minimal, and the divine powers walked among man more openly. Human life has likely always been short and brutal. But I do think the parallels in these mythologies are interesting. And that it is interesting that the so-called Kali Yuga is said to have commenced at a roughly similar time as when the events of Genesis were traditionally believed to have taken place.

So I am somewhat serious about the possibility that something really strange happened in our early history. And that some of this mythology may stem from a primeval memory of that strange thing.

 

[Jeremiah Ames]

So I am somewhat serious about the possibility that something really strange happened in our early history. And that some of this mythology may stem from a primeval memory of that strange thing.

I, actually agree with you on this.