Christian dogma ascribes somewhere around a full 4,000 years to the era known as "B.C." The Jewish year count, however, says that AD 1 was the Jewish year 3,761. What accounts for this c.-240-year discrepency between the Church and the old Talmudic calculations?

zbeckabee

If you are familiar with the traditional Jewish calendar, however, you will immediately spot a problem. According to this calendar, 1999 is the year 5760 since Adam and Eve, rather than 5999. How can we account for this 240-year difference? The answer is that the traditional Jewish calendar, based on the rabbinic text called Seder Olam,* is rooted in rabbinic tradition and theology, not on literal numbers taken directly from the Hebrew Bible. The rabbinic chronology results in 163 fewer years and dates the Babylonian Exile to 423 B.C.E. (This is impossible, according to modern scholarship; we know with certainty that the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, when he destroyed Jerusalem, burned the Temple and exiled the Jews, was 587 or 586 B.C.E.) The rabbis also count Israel's time in Egypt, based on Exodus 12:40, differently from what I have done above, accounting for an additional difference of 77 years between the rabbinic and Christian systems—giving us a discrepancy of 240 years. http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/JDTABOR/why2k.html Jul 25 09, 8:44 PM