Widespread Notion the World Will Last Only 6,000 Years

1911

LIFE OF THE WORLD

That It Will Last Only Six Thousand Years

Then is a general and widespread notion, which the curious investigator will find scattered throughout both medieval and modern literature, that the world will last 6,000 years from the date of its creation. An inscription in one of Martin Luther's books reads as follows: "Elijah, the prophet, said that the world had existed 2,000 years before the law was given (from Adam to Moses), would exist 2,000 years under the Mosaic law (from Moses to Christ) and 2,000 years under the Christian dispensation, and then it would be burned."

In the Etrurian account of the creation (by Suidas) there is a similar tradition. "The Creator spent 6,000 years in creation, and 6,000 more are allotted to the earth."

In the black letter edition of Foxe's "Acts and Monuments" (1632) there is a whole sermon given with the 6,000 year limit of the earth's duration as a text.

Some writers contend that the "six days" referred to in Holy Writ really mean 6,000 years and that the "seventh day" is a type of the coming millennium, or "Sabbath of a thousand years." The psalmist says, "For a thousand years are in thy sight as yesterday" (Psalm xc, 4; See also II Peter iii, 8).

—Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, Pennsylvania, June 6, 1911, page 4.