Why don't the ancient writers date their writings?

[Taws]

I find it unsettling that early christian/Jewish writers don't put dates on their letters. In fact to me when people like Josephus and other so called historians don't put dates on their documents; it makes me think that their "documenting history" is quite absurd.

[Roger Pearse]

I find it unsettling that early christian/Jewish writers don't put dates on their letters. In fact to me when people like Josephus and other so called historians don't put dates on their documents; it makes me think that their "documenting history" is quite absurd.

Ancient letter writers in general do not put dates on their letters. Neither Cicero nor Pliny the Younger did so; nor does Sidonius Apollinaris. It was not the custom, it would seem.

We live in a society which has an agreed and universal system of dates. This was not the case in antiquity. Instead each city had its own system of dating the years, often by the names of annual magistrates. The months varied from city to city; the date on which the year started varied. As Mosshammer has remarked in his "The Chronicle of Eusebius and the Greek Chronographic Tradition", by the 3rd century AD the whole system of Greek chronography was in a mess. What point, then, in putting some date on a letter which would probably be meaningless to the recipient?

It is little known that solving this problem was the achievement of Eusebius of Caesarea. He integrated the entire body of data into a single series of dates, in book 2 of his Chronicon. He made use of the new technology, the large parchment codex, and put the data into a table on each page, where each row was a year, and each column was some kingdom or other. You can see what he did here. Once he had done this, some kind of universal numbering of the years was inevitable. Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to; but as we all know it was Dionysius Exiguus two centuries later whose AD and BC stuck.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[dewitness]

Josephus did claim he completed Antiquities of the Jews in the 13th year of Domitian when he [Josephus] was 56 years old which was c 94 CE.

Antiquities of the Jews 20.11.3

......I shall put an end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses. And if God permit me, I will briefly run over this war (29), and to add what befell them further to that very day, the 13th of Domitian, or A.D. 03, is not, that I have observed, taken distinct notice of by any one; nor do we ever again, with what befell us therein to this very day, which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Caesar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life.

[dewitness]

... Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to; but as we all know it was Dionysius Exiguus two centuries later whose AD and BC stuck.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I have already pointed out that your claim is a known fallacy.

Eusebius dated the years from ADAM--Not Abraham.

Eusebius admitted that he used the Septuagint which he claimed is an accurate copy of Hebrew Scripture.

The Septuagint starts from Adam--not Abraham.

Eusebius' Chronicles From Adam to Moses

....Thus it is patently clear that the Septuagint was translated from old and accurate Hebrew copies [g149], and is the most appropriate text for us to use in our present Chronicle, especially [g150] since the church of Christ, which has spread throughout the world, supports only this version and since the apostles and disciples of Christ used and transmitted this version.

Eusebius dates from Adam is virtually a DIRECT copy of Theophilus of Antioch "To Autolycus III" composed at least 150 years before Eusebius.

Theophilus of Antioch To Autolycus III CHAP. XXIV.--CHRONOLOGY FROM ADAM.

Adam lived till he begat a son, 230 years. And his son Seth, 205. And his son Enos, 190............

The total number of years, therefore, till the flood, was 2242.[/quote]

Eusebius Chronicles The Septuagint

1. Adam, the first man, was 230 years of age when he fathered Seth. He lived an additional 700 years, until the 135th year of Mahalalel.
2. Seth fathered Enosh when he was 205 years of age. He lived an additional 707 years, until the 20th year of Enoch [g116].................

[Thus] according to the Septuagint, the full total is 2,242 years [for the period from Adam to the death of Noah].

[Peter Kirby]

... Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to; but as we all know it was Dionysius Exiguus two centuries later whose AD and BC stuck.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I have already pointed out that your claim is a known fallacy.

Eusebius dated the years from ADAM--Not Abraham.

This is why we have the "foe" feature (ignore list), if you want to take advantage of it.

http://www.attalus.org/translate/eusebius5.html

For anyone who wanted to read it for themselves.

[Peter Kirby]

Of course, Roger's already aware of the matter and has given us his account:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/euseb ... 2_text.htm
http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012 ... chronicle/

[dewitness]

I am dealing with a specific erroneous claim by Roger Pearse.

...Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to; but as we all know it was Dionysius Exiguus two centuries later whose AD and BC stuck.

In Eusebius' Chronicle it is specifically stated that Eusebius used the Septuagint to date the period from Adam to Noah.

Eusebius' Chronicle

...Thus it is patently clear that the Septuagint was translated from old and accurate Hebrew copies [g149], and is the most appropriate text for us to use in our present Chronicle, especially [g150] since the church of Christ, which has spread throughout the world, supports only this version and since the apostles and disciples of Christ used and transmitted this version.

In the Septuagint [version], 2,242 years transpired from Adam until the flood, and 942 years transpired from the flood until the first year of Abraham, making a total of 3,184 years..

About 150 years earlier Theophilus of Antioch gave the same total of 2242 years from Adam to Noah but disagreed with the years from Noah to Abraham.

Theophilus of Antioch CHAP. XXIV.--CHRONOLOGY FROM ADAM.

Adam lived till he begat a son, 230 years. And his son Seth, 205. And his son Enos, 190. And his son Cainan, 170. And his son Mahaleel, 165. And his son Jared, 162. And his son Enoch, 165. And his son Methuselah, 167. And his son Lamech, 188. And Lamech's son was Noah, of whom we have spoken above, who begat Shem when 500 years old. During Noah's life, in his 600th year, the flood came.

The total number of years, therefore, till the flood, was 2242.

[Roger Pearse]

... Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to; but as we all know it was Dionysius Exiguus two centuries later whose AD and BC stuck.

(snip)

This is why we have the "foe" feature (ignore list), if you want to take advantage of it.

For clarity, if you click on the name of a poster, you will get the chance to mark him as a "foe". If you do this, his posts will be hidden. In this way you can avoid seeing posts by people who have no object other than to annoy.

http://www.attalus.org/translate/eusebius5.html

For anyone who wanted to read it for themselves.

Actually I wouldn't start with that particular link; it has been overtaken by events. Perhaps a little explanation would help the general reader?

Eusebius composed his Chronicon in two books, neither of which survives in the original Greek other than as quotations in later writers like George Syncellus. Both books survive in a translation into classical Armenian, and indeed book 1 survives in no other way.

Book 1 is a compilation of materials from various sources on chronographic matters. It does not date the years, but contains various calculations of the number of years between events X and Y.

A modern Latin translation by Petermann exists from the Armenian of book 1. Andrew Smith of Attalus.org translated this into English, which was a great service; then armeniologist Robert Bedrosian translated book 1 directly from the Armenian text. This of course is preferable to Andrew's translation of a translation (above). Bedrosian's version of book 1 is here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/euseb ... 2_text.htm

or accessible on his website, http://rbedrosian.com.

Book 2 of Eusebius' Chronicon was translated into Latin by Jerome, who added passages. It was to this that I referred above (with link). This is a table of dates and events, and the years were numbered by the author, starting with years from Abraham (Anno Abrahae). In 2005 I led a team who translated the entirety of book 2 into English (and I hope it may be appreciated that in consequence I really do know what is in it). It may be found as follows:

• the prefaces of Eusebius and Jerome - http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerom ... efaces.htm
• the first half - http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerom ... _part1.htm
• the second half - http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerom ... _part2.htm

The body of the text of book 2 was divided into two halves purely for practical reasons; the pages are very long anyway.

If you look at the start of part 1 of book 2, you will discover that it begins with the birth of Abraham, in the 43rd year of Ninus, in the 22nd year of Europs, at the start of the 16th dynasty of Egypt. Each table is two facing pages.

The left-most column is the years from the birth of Abraham. The first numeral in that column is "10".

I hope people will forgive me if I do not engage with posts from the strange person who writes as if he wants to have a fight with me. In general I am more than happy to talk about the Chronicle; it consumed a year of my life, and it is a continuing interest. Ask me if you want to know something.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[Cheerful Charlie]

I find it unsettling that early christian/Jewish writers don't put dates on their letters. In fact to me when people like Josephus and other so called historians don't put dates on their documents; it makes me think that their "documenting history" is quite absurd.

They probably didn't think it mattered much. After all, for early Christians, the world would soon be ending with the second coming. Some writers tried but there were varying ways to do that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab_urbe_condita

Ab urbe condita (related to Anno Urbis Conditae: AUC or a.u.c. or a.u.)[1] is a Latin phrase meaning "from the founding of the City (Rome)",[2] traditionally dated to 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years. Renaissance editors sometimes added AUC to Roman manuscripts they published, giving the false impression that the Romans usually numbered their years using the AUC system. In fact, modern historians use AUC much more frequently than the Romans themselves did.[citation needed] The dominant method of identifying Roman years in Roman times was to name the two consuls who held office that year. The regnal year of the emperor was also used to identify years, especially in the Byzantine Empire after 537 when Justinian required its use. Examples of continuous numbering include counting by regnal year, principally found in the writings of German authors, for example Mommsen's History of Rome, and (most ubiquitously) in the Anno Domini year-numbering system.

This year is 2766 AUC,

Cheerful Charlie

[dewitness]

Eusebius composed his Chronicon in two books, neither of which survives in the original Greek other than as quotations in later writers like George Syncellus. Both books survive in a translation into classical Armenian, and indeed book 1 survives in no other way.

Book 1 is a compilation of materials from various sources on chronographic matters. It does not date the years, but contains various calculations of the number of years between events X and Y.

You knew in advance that Eusebius' Chronicle started in book 1.

Book 2 is actually attributed to Jerome composed AFTER Eusebius was dead.

Book 2 begins with Ninus--NOT Abraham

Ninus son of Belus was the first to reign over all Asia except for the Indies, for 52 years. In the 43rd year of the rule of this Ninus, Abraham was born.

Based on your own sources it is a fallacy that book 2 starts with Abraham.

:... Eusebius himself dated the years from Abraham, the earliest figure that he believed he could assign a date to..