Nowhere in Tanach is anyone counting the year from creation. What is the origin of this counting method? As further background, if one looks at how Jews dated events in the Amoraic and Geonic periods, we see a contrast between the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael and that of Babylonia. In Amoraic and Geonic Palestine, Jews counted mainly from the second churban—either 69 or 70 CE was year 1. We know this from many Jewish tombstones from the town of Zoar (south of the Dead Sea). For example, one reads: “May the soul rest of Shaul … who died on the first of the month of Marcheshvan of the first year of the shemitah, the year 364 after the churban Beit Hamikdash.” There are many more tombstones from this site—mostly from the fourth and fifth centuries CE—and all use a date on the churban Beit Hamikdash count. Another example of a churban Beit Hamikdash count in Eretz Yisrael is a sixth century inscription found at a synagogue in the Galilee: “Built 494 years after the churban Beit Hamikdash.”
In contrast, in Amoraic and Geonic Babylonia, the main dating system used by the Jews was minyan Yevanim—which later became known as minyan shetarot (literally: the era of contracts). This was a counting system used in much of the secular world at the time; its name in the secular world was “the Seleucid Era.” Its year one was 312 BCE, due to a military victory in Gaza by Seleucus I in that year. (In some regions, 311 BCE was year one on this system.) Seleucus I had been a general to Alexander.
We do have evidence from the Talmud that there was knowledge of the Jewish year from creation in the Amoraic period—in both Eretz Yisrael and Babylonia—but it seems not to have been the most commonly used method of dating in either region. (Also, Avodah Zara 9b refers to one source from the late Tannaitic period that reflects use of the date from creation).
How did the Jews in the late Tannaitic and Amoraic periods get their knowledge of what year it was from creation? The starting point is the work “Seder Olam,” a work by an unknown author composed (according to Chaim Milikowsky) shortly after the churban and then edited by Rabbi Yose bar Halafta, in the second century CE (with minor additions thereafter). Although Seder Olam does not give the total of the years from creation, it gives the length of time for each of the periods mentioned in Tanach, and it gives the length of the Second Temple period. From the data collected in this work, a Jew could easily calculate the year from creation. For example, Seder Olam starts with the following passage: “From Adam to Noach, 1656 years.” Here, the work has added up the data found in the beginning of Genesis.
Although the lengths of all the different periods from Adam to the second churban are listed in Seder Olam, neither its author nor its editor, Rabbi Yose, intended that people start using a count from creation. From a statement in chapter 30, it is evident that at the time of Rabbi Yose, the Jews in Eretz Yisrael were counting from the second churban. (There is also an addition to Seder Olam from a time after Rabbi Yose that remarks that people in Babylonia use the minyan Yevanim system.)
But over time, the count from creation—based on the data in Seder Olam—came to be used more and more. Eventually, in the period of the Rishonim, it became the main count used by most Jewish communities. (Interesting is Rambam, writing in Egypt in the late 12th century. At Hilchot Shemitah veYovel 10:4, he provides the count on each of the three systems.)
We do not have enough sources to understand why the Jews slowly began to favor the count from creation. It has been suggested that it was a response to the fact that the Christians began using a count from creation. (Note that they calculated a different count from creation than us, based on different numbers in Genesis.) The result of the spread of the use of the Jewish count from creation among world Jewry was that world Jewry began to slowly unite behind one counting system. Perhaps this was one of the motivating factors for the shift to this count. The Jews in Babylonia had no tradition of a count from the second churban and the Jews in Eretz Yisrael seem to have abandoned the Seleucid era count in the decades after the churban. The count from creation—in contrast—was something that both societies began to become familiar with, even though it had not been in wide use.
Interesting are tombstone inscriptions from a Jewish community in Verona, Italy, from the ninth century. (In general, the Jewish customs in Italy followed the customs of Eretz Yisrael.) All 23 surviving inscriptions bear a date from the second churban but three bear an additional date on the count from creation. These inscriptions show that the date from the second churban was still the dominant chronology in the ninth century CE, in the areas under the influence of Eretz Yisrael, but the count from creation was slowly making some headway.
It is unfortunate that—out of the three possible schemes—it was the count from creation scheme that became the most widely used one; it is the most problematic of the three. With regard to the other two, there is no dispute how long it is today from the second churban, and no dispute how long it is today from the beginning of the Seleucid era. (I am ignoring trivial issues of one to two years.) The count from the creation scheme—on the other hand—has difficulties with it.
I am here only going to discuss the major difficulty with it. (In 1997, I authored a book on this topic: “Jewish History in Conflict.”) When the original author of Seder Olam (post-70, but prior to Rabbi Yose) had to figure out the length of the Second Temple period, where did he get his data? The Tanach gives the data for the biblical period. But the biblical period—with regard to names of kings and years—only goes through the first few decades of the Second Temple period. To get the length of the entire Second Temple period, the author had to rely on a prediction in the ninth chapter of Daniel, which refers to a future 490 year period—the beginning and endpoints of which are unclear. The author chose to interpret this prediction as running from the first destruction to the second destruction.
Thus, he calculated a 70 year exilic period and a 420 year Second Temple period. (See the two important passages in Seder Olam, chapter 28, only one of which is in the name of Rabbi Yose.) In truth, however—according to modern chronology—the Second Temple period spanned 589 years, from 520 BCE (second year of Darius) until 70 CE. (There is no year zero.) This means that our count from creation lacks 169 years if we focus solely on the Second Temple period. (On the other hand, Seder Olam assigns 410 years to the First Temple period, and this is about 30 years too big.) A 16th century Italian Jewish scholar, Azariah de Rossi, wrote much about the error in the count from creation due to the 420 versus 589 year problem, causing much controversy. (Fortunately, in some contexts we use the phrase, “leminyan sheanu monin kan,” which would seem to cover ourselves for errors.)
I mentioned earlier that in the Amoraic and Geonic periods in Eretz Yisrael, the surviving sources mainly reflect a count from the second churban. There is one notable exception. A synagogue mosaic in the town of Susiya, in southern Judea, uses the count from creation. Unfortunately, the precise year inscribed has not survived. But a paleography expert has estimated the date of this particular mosaic inscription to be the sixth or seventh century.
(My comments on the dating and authorship of Seder Olam are based on Professor Chaim Milikowsky’s work from 2013: “Seder Olam: Mahadurah Maddait, Peirush UMavo.” He is a professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University.)
Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. Since the Jewish count from creation is significantly incorrect and the “2025” count has a Christian origin, perhaps we should consider going back to dating from the second churban!
