Textbook: Mayan Calendar is Way Off
Fox News:
A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events.The Jewish calendar is also off by over 160 years. While their "apocalypse" has already past, the final date for the Geula is closer than we think.
posted by yaak @ 10/20/2010 06:00:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Awesome graphic. Thanks.
Aviva
Yup, great graphic. Love it.
No copyrights on it. It's kind of primitive. You can use it or improve on it if you want.
Oh copyright, I remember that ...
The 165 year discrepency between the dating in Seder Olam and secular dating can best be understood because of the dual nature of the rulerships of the kings of Media and Persia. They did not rule for 217 years but for 52 years. Check out the following article: http://messiahtruth.yuku.com/reply/32185/t/Confusion--dates-thread-quot-Ask--Rabbi-quot-forum.html The title of the article is called
Fixing the History Books
Dr. Chaim S. Heifetz's Revision of Persian History
It gives an excellent description of why secular dating records 12 Persian kings while dating in Tanakh and the Talmud record only four kings.
Or one can accept Rav Shimon Schwab's explanation that the 165 years are referred to in Sefer Daniel as a book that was sealed until the time of the End (Dan 12:4). He says it was hidden in order to obscure the time when Mashiach would come. See his writings on this matter.
I choose the dating in Seder Olam.
I'm confused. So are we really in 5936 or 5771? Were 165 years deliberately hidden or is it impossible to know for sure?
Better to go with Rav Schwab, though the Frum but Ugly might threaten you, as they did to Rav Schwab, and as they did to Rav Azaryah Di Rossi.
The Heifetz Chronology is very interesting, but I'm not sure how many historians take it seriously. Thanks for pointing that out.
I've heard Rav Schwab's opinion on this before.
It was published in an article that I read many years ago.
However, I had never heard that Rav Schwab "withdrew this suggestion, labeling it a mere thought experiment" as the Wikipedia article claims.
Just to be clear, the Mayan Calendar never said that the world will end when the calendar ends, any more that your car will explode when the odometer hits 999,999.
pretty much all of the other 2012 stuff is totally bogus.
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