Even though it was written in the seventeenth century, and aspects of its scholarship are obsolete, it remains influential today, particularly among Young Earth creationists in America who interpret the Bible literally. Because from the 1680s Ussher's chronology was published in the great many editions of the King James Bible, his chronology became enormously influential. He published dates in the margins of his work according to the year of the world, the Julian period, and the year before Christ. Ussher also provided exact dates for biblical and ancient history. Ussher's specific choice of starting year may have been influenced by the then-widely-held belief that the Earth's potential duration was 6,000 years (4,000 before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after), corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that 'one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day' ( 2 Peter 3:8)' (Wikipedia article on Ussher chronology, accessed 12-28-2012). 'Ussher's proposed date of 4004 BC differed little from other Biblically based estimates, such as those of Jose ben Halafta (3761 BC), Bede (3952 BC), Ussher's near-contemporary Scaliger (3949 BC), Johannes Kepler (3992 BC) or Sir Isaac Newton (c. The work was first translated into English in London in 1658 as The Annals of the World. Ussher published a continuation of this work, Annalium pars postierior, in 1654. ('Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, the chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian matters together produced from the beginning of historical time up to the beginnings of Maccabes') James Ussher, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, deduced that the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday, OctoBCE, in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox. In his Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti, una cum rerum Asiaticarum et Aegyptiacarum chronico, a temporis historici principio usque ad Maccabaicorum initia producto.

The Annals of the World by James Ussher