Editing Dating creation (section)

==Egyptian==
The ancient [[Turin King List]] lists a mythical predynastic "reign of the gods" which first occurred 36,620 years before [[Menes]] (3050 BC), therefore dating the creation to around 39,670 BC.<ref>The Turin Papyrus (in the register listing the Reign of the Gods) the final two lines of the column sums up: "Venerables Shemsu-Hor, 13,420 years; Reigns before the Shemsu-Hor, 23,200 years; Total 36,620 years." Scholars such as Wilkinson (1851), Bunsen (1845) and Meyer (1904) all came to the same conclusion independently. This finding was later popularized by several non-scholarly books.</ref>

Fragments from Manetho ([[Eusebius]], [[George Syncellus]] and preserved in [[Felix Jacoby]]'s ''[[FGrH]]''), however, list different dates.<ref>''Manetho'', (trans. W. G. Waddell), William Heinemann, London, 1940, Introduction pp. xvi-xvii</ref> [[Eusebius]], regarding Aegyptiaca, in his ''Chronicle'' recorded that:

{{quote|...These were the first to hold sway in Egypt. Thereafter, the kingship passed from one to another in unbroken succession ... through 13,900 years — ... After the Gods, Demigods reigned for 1,255 years; and again another line of kings held sway for 1,817 years; then came thirty more kings, reigning for 1,790 years; and then again ten kings ruling for 350 years. There followed the rule of the Spirits of the Dead ... for 5,813 years ...<ref>{{cite web|url=http://rbedrosian.com/euseb9.htm |title=Eusebius' Chronicle, Egyptian Chronicle, Diodorus, Manetho, Josephus, Porphyrius |publisher=Rbedrosian.com |access-date=2012-11-30}}</ref>}}

Using these times, 13,900 + 1,255 + 1,817 + 1,790 + 350 + 5,813 = 24,950 years, which counting back from Menes (3050 BC) fixes the creation at 28,000 BC.<ref>''Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated'', Gerald Verbrugghe, 2001, p. 126, 130, 176.</ref> George Syncellus preserved yet another set of figures for the predynastic "reign of the gods", 11,984 years for Gods and 2,646 for demigods producing 14,630 years, thus dating the creation to 17,680 BC.<ref>''Egypt before the Pharaohs'', Michael Hoffman, Michael O’Mara Books, 1991, pp. 12-13, pp. 24-36.</ref>

The ''[[Book of Sothis]]'', considered as Pseudo-Manetho by many scholars, provides different figures. One fragment from Pseudo-[[Manetho]] dates the reign of the first Egyptian God ([[Ptah]]) 36,525 years before [[Menes]] ([[FGrH]], #610 F2) and so dates the creation to about 39,575 BC.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.masseiana.org/cory_fragments.htm#109 |title=Cory's Ancient Fragments |publisher=Masseiana.org |access-date=2012-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110119021606/http://www.masseiana.org/cory_fragments.htm#109 |archive-date=2011-01-19 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>

The ancient Greeks reported similar figures on ancient Egyptian chronology. [[Diogenes Laërtius]] recorded that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation to their first god [[Hephaestus]], who by ''[[interpretatio graeca]]'' was [[Ptah]].<ref>Verbrugghe, 2001, p. 126.</ref> According to Laertius, Hephaestus (Ptah) lived 48,863 years before [[Alexander the Great]] (b. 356 BC), dating the creation to 49,219 BC.<ref>Prologue to ''Lives of Eminent Philosophers''.</ref> [[Herodotus]] wrote that the ancient Egyptians had gods who ruled over them before the first dynasty of Egypt, but did not attempt to precisely date their creation by using their chronology:

{{quote|...Thus far went the record given by the Egyptians and their priests; and they showed me that the time from the first king to that priest of Hephaestus, who was the last, covered three hundred and forty-one generations, and that in this time this also had been the number of their kings, and of their high priests. Now three hundred generations are ten thousand years, three generations being equal to a hundred. And over and above the three hundred, the remaining forty-one cover thirteen hundred and forty years. Thus the whole period is eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; in all of which time (they said) they had had no king who was a god in human form, nor had there been any such either before or after those years among the rest of the kings of Egypt...Among the Greeks, Heracles, Dionysus, and Pan are held to be the youngest of the gods. But in Egypt, Pan is the most ancient of these and is one of the eight gods who are said to be the earliest of all; Heracles belongs to the second dynasty (that of the so-called twelve gods); and Dionysus to the third, which came after the twelve. How many years there were between Heracles and the reign of Amasis, I have already shown; Pan is said to be earlier still; the years between Dionysus and Amasis are the fewest, and they are reckoned by the Egyptians at fifteen thousand. The Egyptians claim to be sure of all this, since they have reckoned the years and chronicled them in writing.<ref>Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920. ''Histories'', II. 142 ff.</ref>}}

According to [[Herodotus]] the ancient Egyptian demigods began 11,340 years before the reign of [[Seti I]] (1290 BC), so 11,340 + 1290 = 12,630 BC, while he listed earlier figures, 15,000 and 17,000, for the reign of the gods.

The ancient Greek writer [[Diodorus Siculus]] wrote that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation (or start of their reign of Gods) "a little less than eighteen thousand years" from [[Ptolemy XII Auletes]] (117–51 BC).<ref>{{cite book|title=Bibliotheca historica Book 1|chapter = 44|author=Diodrus Siculus}}</ref>

Apollonius, an Egyptian pagan priest in the 2nd century AD, calculated the cosmos to be 153,075 years old as reported by [[Theophilus of Antioch]].<ref>''Notes on the Text of Theophilus, Ad Autolycum III'', Robert M. Grant, Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep., 1958) pp. 136-144.</ref>

[[Martianus Capella]], a pagan writer, wrote in his ''De nuptiis'' in the 5th century AD that the ancient Egyptians had archives of astronomy which started 40,000 years before his own era.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Westra |first1=Haijo Jan |last2=Vester |first2=Christina |title=De Nuptiis Philologiae Et Mercurii |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-3i_vS54aBIC |publisher=BRILL |language=en |date=1994|isbn=9004101705 }}</ref>

Herodotus' figures were discussed by [[Isaac Newton]] in his ''[[The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended]]'' (1728) but were dismissed by Newton because they did not fit Christian cosmology.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Texts/Newton/Chronology.html |title=A Short Chronicle, Isaac Newton |publisher=Mlahanas.de |access-date=2012-11-30}}</ref>

The mathematician and esotericist [[R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz]], in his work ''Sacred Science'', reconstructed Herodotus' dates to conclude that the ancient Egyptians dated their creation to an astronomical (stellar) event some 30,000 years before [[Herodotus]]' own time.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sacred Science: The King of Pharaonic Theocracy| page= 87|author=R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz|publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear}}</ref>