- Congratulations, you're already living
in the third millennium.
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- Though it may come as a shock to doomsday
cultists who believe the world will come to a catastrophic end at the start
of 2000, that date actually was passed years ago.
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- Biblical scholars and experts at the
U.S. Naval Observatory agree that Jesus of Nazareth was born between 4
B.C. and 7 B.C. The new millennium actually arrived at least two years
ago.
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- "All of this comes from a mistake
made by a Greek cleric named Dionysius Exiguus," said the Rev. Paige
Patterson, president of the 15-million member Southern Baptist Convention,
the nation's largest Protestant denomination. "We are living at least
in the year 2002. We already have made it into the next millennium."
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- Dionysius, a monk living in the ancient
province of Scythia around 532 A.D., is well-known to researchers at the
Naval Observatory. "We call him 'Dennis the Slight' because that's
what his name literally translates out to," said observatory spokesman
Geoff Chester.
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- Dionysius earned an important niche in
history when he produced a table of dates to tell Christians when to celebrate
Easter. He followed a precedent set by previous clerics and extended an
existing table covering the 19-year period for the years 228-247 as reckoned
from the start of Roman Emperor Diocletian's reign. (In those days, it
was common to set calendars according to the beginning of the rule of a
prominent king or emperor.)
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- But Dionysius said he did not want "to
perpetuate the memory of an impious persecutor of the Church, but prefer
to count and denote the years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ."
So Anno Diocletiani 248 became "Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 532."
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- Dionysius incorrectly calculated that
Christ was born 284 years before the beginning of Diocletian's reign.
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- "He made his best guess using the
historical reference materials available to him," Chester said. "When
you think of it, he only made a 1 percent error."
-
- But the date clearly was wrong, based
upon many clues contained in Biblical references and upon Roman and Greek
records.
-
- The famous order from Caesar Augustus
that "all the world shall be taxed" was issued in 7 B.C., Chester
said. St. Luke's gospel shows that Joseph took Mary from their home in
Nazareth to the tiny Jerusalem suburb of Bethlehem in obedience to that
decree.
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- Astronomers and mathematicians at the
Naval Observatory for years have cited a triple conjunction of Saturn and
Jupiter - an extremely rare event in which the two giant planets appear
to pass close to each other in the night sky three times in a year - which
occurred around 6 B.C.
-
- Persian astrologers - possible "wise
men from the East" - would certainly have noticed this as an extraordinary
event.
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- The New Testament records that Jesus
and his family fled their home and did not return until after the death
of Herod the Great, king of Judea and a friend of Roman leader Marc Antony.
Herod is known to have died in 4 B.C.
-
- Other clues recorded in the "Acts
of the Apostles" suggest that Jesus must have been born a few years
before the date that Dionysius set at 1 A.D.
-
- But none of this may matter to some members
of religious cults, Patterson said. "We may see some people do some
very strange things in 1999," he said.
-
- Texas author Jeff Brailey, an expert
on suicide cults, said he believes there may be two dozen groups who are
capable of acts of violence against themselves and others as 2000 approaches.
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- Brailey said the leader of one of the
most famous groups, the "Concerned Christians" of Denver, has
predicted he will die on the streets of Jerusalem on Dec. 31, 1999. Police
are looking for 60 or 70 members of the group who have disappeared.
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- "It's worldwide," Brailey said.
"There are at least 3,000 cults, not all of which are doomsday cults,
of course. But the number of doomsday predictions are increasing."
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- Brailey said members of these groups
may not heed intellectual arguments that the 21st century has already arrived.
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- Thomas Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps
Howard News Service.
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