The Origin of The Christian Era: Fact or Fiction

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Vedveer Arya, an officer of the Indian Defence Accounts Service is a postgraduate in Sanskrit from Delhi University. He is presently Finance Manager (Maritime & Systems), Ministry of Defence, New Delhi. His deep interest in the ancient heritage and history of India propelled him to become a researcher with profound insights in the chronological history of India. He made an in-depth study of various ancient Indian epigraphs in original and critiqued the chronology of India put forth by colonial historians and their followers. He has also worked on the scientific contributions of ancient India.

He is the author of Indian Contributions to Mathematics and Astronomy (2014), The Chronology of Ancient India: Victim of Concoctions and Distortions (2015), The Chronology of India: From Manu to Mahabharata (2019). The Chronology of India: From Mahabharata War to Medieval Era, in two volumes (2019), The Origin of the Christian era: Fact or Fiction (2019).

Chronology is the undeniable underpinning in the chronicling of history, and it is axiomatic that an unshakeable, unquestionable baseline is the absolute bedrock of chronology. Establishing the true baseline is the principal prerequisite in the reconstruction of chronological history and the lack of one may lay us open to error. To illustrate, historians with absolute belief that the epoch of the Christian era ( 1 CE) is the firm baseline of world chronology have failed miserably in establishing the exact dates of the first dynasty of Babylon and the fall of Babylon. This is apparent from the fact that the reign of Hammurabi has been dated in five different chronologies: 1933-1890 BCE, 1848-1806 BCE, 1792-1750 BCE, 1728-1686 BCE or 1696-1654 BCE and similarly, the fall of Babylon has been variously dated as 1736 BCE, 1651 BCE, 1595 BCE, 1531 BCE or 1499 BCE.

This inconsistency in determining the exact chronology of the Hammurabi dynasty and other instances is a clear indicator that the epoch of the Christian era does not qualify to be the firm baseline of world chronology. The Venus Tablet of King Ammisaduqa found in Babylon offers independently verifiable astronomical evidence but unfortunately, world historians have markedly failed to fix the exact date of the Venus Tablet because of the blind assumption of 1 CE as the epoch of the birth of Jesus Christ without presenting any independently verifiable evidence.

Fixing the exact dates of ancient historical events with precision is indeed an arduous and herculean undertaking but my studies have now conclusively established the exact dates of the Venus Tablet based on archaeo-astronomical evidence. Thus, the reign of King Ammisaduqa can be exactly dated to 2473-2453 BCE, the reign of Hammurabi to 2619-2578 BCE and the fall of Babylon can also be fixed as 2418 BCE.

The archaeo-astronomical evidence of the Venus Tablet, which accurately and independently establishes the date of King Ammisaduqa, the fifth successor of Hammurabi, will qualify to be the true baseline of the chronology of ancient Western kingdoms. Accordingly, my book argues that there is a genuine need to reconstruct Western chronology up to Augustus without referring to the epoch of the Christian era. In fact, eminent historians of the Western world have incorrectly assumed the fictitious epoch of the Christian era (1 CE) as the unquestionable baseline and reconciled the chronology of world history in antithesis to the traditional chronology of ancient civilisations, resulting in numerous irresolvable chronological quandaries.

In this book, I present a rational inquiry into the genuine chronology of the world and a verifiable analysis to resolve the chronological inconsistency of -660 years which arose as an outcome of the unfounded assumption of the birth of Jesus Christ in 1 CE. Illustrating with documented evidence and verifiable facts, I have traced the complete chronology of Western kingdoms from ancient times to the fall of the Byzantine Roman Empire. If the date of the Venus Tablet as the baseline were to be unanimously accepted, all the chronic problems of the chronology of world history can be satisfactorily resolved. I hope the learned readers will critically examine the facts to evaluate my research in resolving the chronological mysteries and contribute further in establishing the authentic chronology of world history.

This book would not have been possible without the erudite inputs from numerous research papers, articles and books on this very significant subject. During the writing of this book, I have, quite often, borrowed and reproduced some of the relevant content from these sources. I acknowledge my deep indebtedness to the scholarly authors of these articles and books.

I express my profound gratitude to respected K.N. Govindacharya ji for his inspirational guidance. My sincere thanks to Dr G. Satheesh Reddy, Secretary, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman, DRDO for being a constant source of great motivation. My special thanks to Sh. Raj Vedam, Sh. Ravindranath Kaul, Sh. Sudhir Nathan, Sh. Vutukur Srinivas Rao, Sh. Sandeep Sarkar and Ms. Dipti Mohil Chawla for their valuable suggestions and sustained encouragement. I also thank Sh. Sanjay Sharma, Sh. Shamit Khemka and Sh. Paritosh Agrawal for extending all support in design of cover page and publication of this book. I thank my friend Sh. Braj Kishore Gupta for his efforts in editing the manuscript. I also thank Sh. Vinod Yadav for his creative contribution in the type-setting, design and printing of this book. Finally, I thank my wife Sandhya for her support, encouragement and patience during the time of writing of this book.

The historical traditions of western ancient kingdoms like Greece, Persia, Egypt, Assyria and Sumeria have arguably evolved over a long period from origins of great antiquity. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Homer's Illiad and Odyssey and the traditional historical records like the Zoroastrian Shahnamah, the genealogical lists of ancient Egyptian royal dynasties, the kings list of Sumeria and the Hebrew Bible of Jews undoubtedly provide a tantalizing glimpse of western historical traditions. Truly speaking, Homer was the first historian of the west, who narrated the historical events in verse, though eminent historians have had a biased view about his epics. Isaac Newton studied the Greek historical sources for the chronology and expressed his doubt that; "The Greek Antiquities are full of poetical fictions, because the Greeks wrote nothing in prose, before the conquest of Asia by Cyrus the Persian. Then Pherecydes Scyrius and Cadmus Milesius introduced the writing in Prose."' Apparently, Isaac Newton ridiculously argued that the Greek history written in poetry is fiction and the Greek history written in prose is trustworthy. In fact, the discovery of the archaeological site of Troy not only debunks the scepticism of Doubting Thomases (eminent historians) but also clearly establishes the historicity of the legends about the ancient city of Troy.

Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Ctesias were the earliest Greek historians after Homer. Though Herodotus mainly presented the historical account of the Greco-Persian wars but he also narrated the ancient traditions, politics and cultural conflicts in Greece, Persia and Egypt etc., in his book "The Histories". Thucydides criticized Herodotus for inserting some fables into his historical narrative and insisted on his writing only the factual narrative. Traditionally, ancient historians of the world inserted fables to make the historical narrative more interesting to the common people. Herodotus also followed the same tradition but this does not mean that Herodotus had concocted the historical narratives. Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Jews also had the tradition of recording their own chronological history. Starting from the time of Alexander, many historians like Ptolemy I, Berossus, Manetho, Polybius, Diodorus, Pliny, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian, Tacitus and Eucebius etc. had contributed a lot towards preserving the chronological history of ancient western kingdoms. Berossus wrote on the chronological history of Babylon, whereas Manetho presented the chronological history of Egypt.

Evidently, all ancient western kingdoms had a tradition of multigenerational recordkeeping of the chronological history. Seemingly, ancient Greeks referred to the epoch of Atlantis's submersion for the chronological records. Since the fall of Troy city was also an epochal historical event, the Greeks used that epoch also for recording the chronology. Thereafter, the epoch of Olympiad and the era of Alexandria came into popular use. Ancient Egyptians referred to the date of King Menes of the first dynasty as an epoch for recording the chronology. Later, they started using a calendar of Sothic cycle (1461 years) for recording the dates. The Sumerians traditionally preserved their chronological list of kings. Later, the epoch of Nabonassarian era had been popularly used in Babylon. The Jews used the epoch of Exodus, the first and second temple periods for recording their chronology. The Roman traditions referred to the epoch of the founding of Rome city, the Augustan era, the Diocletian era and the era of the Martyrs. Numerous ancient western historians had followed above mentioned epochs and presented the chronological history. None of these historians ever questioned or disputed the authenticity of the traditional chronology based on the well-established epochs of eras. Greece, Egypt, Babylon and Persia were following the traditional chronology till the 18th century.

Traditionally, the Christians followed the Easter computus. The Irish Christians prepared their Easter computus in the cycle of 84 (14) years in the astronomical epoch of 1 BCE which became an epoch for recording the history of Anglo-Saxons. Gradually, the Christians of England mistakenly started believing that the incarnation of Jesus Christ took place in 1 BCE-1 CE. Though the epoch of the Christian era (1 CE) came into regular use since the 9th and 10th centuries, the popular era of the Martyrs was still in vogue till the 15th century CE. The last reference of the era of the Martyrs is dated in the year 1132 (1415 CE). Thus, the epoch of the Christian era (1 CE) has replaced the era of the Martyrs in the 16th century CE. This is how an astronomical epoch of 1 CE had been transformed into a historical epoch.

There was no academic dispute about the traditional chronological history of western ancient kingdoms till the 16th century. When the Christian era had replaced the era of Martyrs in the 16th century, the historians of the 16th and 17th centuries were faced with the inconsistencies in the chronology for the first time. Thus, the modern research on the chronological history of the Western civilisations has commenced in the 17th century. James Ussher (1581-1656 CE), the Archbishop of Ireland, has proposed the Biblical chronology starting from the date of creation in 4004 BCE. He assumed the birth of Jesus in the year of death of the King Herod in 4 BCE and speculated based on the Biblical references that the date of creation to have been at midday on 23rd Oct 4004 BCE. He calculated the date of Alexander in 323 BCE and the date of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. John Lightfoot also presented the same chronology in 1642 CE.

In fact, Jesuit scholars had an obsession to present the timeline of human history based on the biblical book of Genesis. Many scholars like Venerable Bede, Joseph Scaliger and Johannes Kepler proposed the date of creation around 3952 BCE, 3949 BCE and 3992 BCE respectively. Issac Newton was the first who extensively worked on reconciliation of the chronologies of ancient western kingdoms and wrote a book titled "The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended - A Short Chronicle from the First Memory of Things in Europe to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great" which was published by John Conduitt in 1728 CE. Evidently, Issac Newton was under the hypnotic influence of the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology but he revised the date of creation from 4004 BCE to 4000 BCE and the date of Jesus Christ from 4 BCE to 1 CE. He drastically revised the traditional timelines of various ancient civilisations. He contracted the Greek chronology by five hundred years and the Egyptian chronology by thousand years because he found that the traditional chronology of Greece and Egypt is not consistent with reference to the Christian chronology i.e. Ussher-Lightfoot chronology. Though Issac Newton promoted the rational and radical approach in resolving the chronological complexities in history but unfortunately, he failed to apply the same approach in critical examination of the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology because he was born and brought up with the blind faith in the fictitious epoch of 1 CE.

**Contents and Sample Pages**