James Ussher
Who was James Ussher?
James Ussher or Usher lived from 4 January 1581 to 21 March 1656.
He was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656.
and he became a professor of theology in Dublin, in1621.
In speech and writing, he led a fierce battle against the Roman church and the pope, but this was also during the Reformation. 1517 - 1648.
He was a productive teacher and church leader who today is most famous for his chronology, seeking to establish the time and date of creation as around noon. 18.00 on October 22, 4004 BC.
He believed that Israel was in Egypt for only 215 years. Read here.
But while calculating the date of the Creation is today considered a controversial activity, in Ussher's time such a calculation was still regarded as an important task, one previously attempted by many Post-Reformation scholars, such as Joseph Justus Scaliger and physicist Isaac Newton.
There have been over 100 attempts to establish a chronology since Ussher, and each one is slightly different, but all are fairly close to his.
In 1654, Ussher published the second part of Annals.
In this book, he calculated the date of creation to be evening on October 22, 4004 BC. (Annals = an overview of events year by year)
James Ussher's Annals of the World is a historical chronology from the ancient world until AD 70. 960 pages.
Why was it James Ussher calculation we remember today?
4004 BC became the canonical date of creation when it was printed as a margin in all editions of the King James Bible after 1701.
This is why many Christians still say today that the earth was created for approx. 6000 years ago according to the Bible.
James Ussher's influence on the Westminster Assembly
James Ussher did have a great influence on the Westminster Assembly.
They were members of the English parish nominated from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. They changed, among other things, a Confession of Faith. Amended versions of the Confession were also adopted in Congregational and Baptist churches in England and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Confession became influential throughout the English-speaking world, but especially in American Protestant theology.
Maybe he was the author of some articles that had a great influence on them and that they have been the first to claim that, the Pope was Antichrist.
He was an excellent speaker and debater
in November 1625 in central England. Lord Mordant, a devout Catholic, and Lady Mordant, a zealous Protestant, arranged for a theological debate between Ussher and Beaumont, a Jesuit.
The debate took up four points: transubstantiation, invocation of the saints, images and the visibility of the Church.
After the completion of three days of debate, Beaumont conceded defeat and Lord Mordant was converted to Protestantism.
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