Devil's Stamp - 4004

Ussher's chronology overview

Satan is truly skillfull, the enemy of our souls, accuser, murderer and liar.

Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
John 8:43-45 KJV


Take this, for example:

At the very last verses of the Bible there is this terrible threat:

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."
Revelation 22:18-19 KJV


Devil has succeeded fabulously and achieved something quite amazing, fooling the chosen ones:

First, someone has added human created stuff to the Bible

Then we have so many pious Christians today who keep to this addition to the point that they are shocked and doubt the eternal salvation of anyone daring to challenge it!

Is that not something? Only the Master of Lies is capable of such fooling of the chosen ones.

Maybe you are one of the many so skillfully tricked?


Let us be very careful and accurate now in the presence of such a Big Lie

Let us pray that the Spirit of Truth would guide us to truth also in this matter as promised by our wonderful Shepherd Lord Jesus Christ.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
John 16:13-14 KJV


Is this a matter of salvation?

Of course not driectly. But there are souls that get the impression from creationists today that truth is not important. This can prevent them from coming to Christ.

But it is not nice that Christians keep opinions that are known to be utterly wrong and outdated information about the world God of Israel has created.

THE ADDITION
The fateful addition to the Bible was made in 1675 A.D.

In that year a Bible was printed in London that had on the margins the chronology of the world determined by Irish Archbishop James Ussher.

That Bible was printed by Thomas Guy, a British gentleman and God fearing Member of Parliament.

He was an important man and established Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals and the Foundation and financed the building of Guy's Hospital in 1721. Both are still operating today and are a great blessing to the citizens of London.

Thomas Guy (1644–1724)

Thomas Guy (1644–1724) was born in Southwark. His father was a lighterman and owned coal store. Our Thomas started working in book shops and as a 24 year old lad he established his own shop in Lombard Street (1668).

He concentrated on selling Bibles and since the English ones were quite bad quality he imported them from Netherlands. Later Oxford University Press allowed him to print Bibles there and so Thomas Guy became an important distributor of the Word of God in England.

Competitors accused Thomas for being stingy and that he pays way too low salaries to those working in his bookshops. Maybe the salaries were low but he donated huge amounts of money to good purposes. He made his fortune by investing wisely.

Guy bought shares in South Sea Company for 42.000 pounds. The ships of this company were involved in slave trade from Africa and human trafficking paid well. So when he later sold the shares their value had multiplied and he made quite a fortune. Thomas never married and left big part of his heritage to Guy's Hospital. (info from Wikipedia)

So Mister Thomas Guy printed beautiful Bibles in Oxford. But since 1675 he added to them Bishop Ussher's Chronology from his accurate dating of creation and historical events of the Biblical world. He used over twenty years and studied over 10.000 books in the process.

James Ussher (1581 – 1656)

Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland

“In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.”James Ussher "The Annals of the Old Testament" 1650. Second part 1654.

Very accurate, indeed!

In the right margin of the book Ussher calculates that this is the Christian year 4004 B.C.

And so the Devil added to the well-meaning printed Bible of Thomas Guy that little innocent and truthful looking thing

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” *4004 B.C.
Genesis 1:1 (+)

NOT NEW OLD CHRONOLOGY
People liked it. Guy's fine Bibles were best sellers in the entire country and so Ussher chronology printed in them gained the stamp of divine truth.
And it was top science of the day! The highly respected and clever James Ussher, later Archbishop of Ireland, had done his best and the academic world of the time was truly impressed.

Of course, this chronology is not Ussher's invention; he just made it very accurate. It is based on Biblical genealogies and the Jews had used such chronology since the Roman period. Today is Sivan 15. 5771 since the creation of the world.

Famous astronomer Johannes Kepler preferred the year 3996 B.C.

Martin Luther used the rounded number 4000 B.C..


SPREADING THE DEVIL'S STAMP
The sickness was spread from Guy Bibles to other English Bibles and then all over the world.

The wonderful Bible Society was established in 1804 in an old London tavern. Already during the first year they translated the Gospel of John to the language of Canadian Mohawk Indians and that was the beginning!

Sun never set in British Empire of Queen Victoria and Christian missionary work reached all corners of the world. Bible was translated to so many languages and it reached the furthest corners of our planet, may God be praised!

But many of them had the Stamp of Devil 4004.

Bible Society work has been blessed from heavens
"By 1904 we had supplied nearly 181 million copies of the Scriptures, spent nearly £14 million on the translation, production and distribution of Scriptures, and employed 1,000 colporteurs and Biblewomen – over half of them in India and China."
Bible Society

Still in the 1970'ies the Gideons - may God bless them - distributed to hotels Bibles with Ussher chronology.

Well, Thomas Guy was the first one to add to the Holy Bible something and others followed him.


Everybody agreed that the chronology is correct in those days, in the 18th century.


THE BIG BANG THAT ALMOST DESTROYED WESTERN CHRISTIANITY
Satan is very skillful.

The Stamp of the Devil 4004 B.C. almost destroyed Western Christianity in the 19th century.

See, eventually the truth wins.

John Thomas Scopes (1900 – 1970)

(In the Scopes Monkey Trial 1925 Ussher's chronology was used as important evidence against the accused High school biology teacher John Thomas Scopes (1900 – 1970). A good 2004 study of Ussher and the Scopes trial by Doug Linder can be found here.)