Anatolia has a ‘Stonehenge’. Except it’s ornately decorated unlike Stonehenge and, 𝗮𝗻𝗱… it’s 6000 years older.

Early civilizations are fascinating, perhaps we don’t think about them much. A fun game to play at museums is to research what else was happening on the planet in the same year.

For example, isn’t it interesting that John Knox was a uni student at St Andrews while the Aztec empire was in its prime. Or that, entertaining Bishop Ussher’s chronology; Skara Brae was built when Adam was an old man, the Calanais stones shortly after he passed, and the Great Pyramid of Giza at the same time at Noah’s ark.

What would Bishop Ussher have made of later finds like Göbekli Tepe, or the Löwenmensch figurine; human made objects, tens of thousands of years old?

Clearly there is no credible way to reconcile known human history with 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 ‘𝘣𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭’ chronology.

Perhaps we can forgive Ussher, the quantity, quality, and access to information we have now would have blown his mind. Thankfully we now have those tools to grasp control of our own education and recognise the flaws and blindness of our former interpretations. As the church did after the Heliocentrism debate.
We have nothing to fear from the truth.

Dr. Andrew Henry is a scholar of late antique Mediterranean religion. Dr Hendry holds a MA and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Boston University. He is a Lecturer and Scolar at George Washington University, where he specializes in early Christianity, the New Testament, and the historical context of biblical texts.