1 Thess 1:1-5 Dateline Meter

Latest master summary of Bible dateline meters, with links to all the related docs and videos: http://www.brainout.net/LukeDatelineMeters.pdf

Infra-doc Links   xxx   xxx   xxxx   xxxx   xxxx   xxxx   xxxx   xxxx   xxxx

 

 

CNTTS apparatus in Bibleworks 9: v.1's kai in ms #209, 999, 1505, Aland Categ III+;  hemon in Alexandrinus and #69, are excluded.  Categ I mss add apo theou patros hemon kai kuriou Iesou Christou; but UBS excludes the phrase; maybe a scribe added it since Paul used it in 2 Thess and later books?  V. 3's kai: while yes included in meaning, is poorly attested.  Inclusion also doesn't fit Paul's style. (Yes, each noun with its article is singular, refers to CHRIST's own Work, etc.,  can't refer to the Thessalonians: but Paul pairs the nouns, uses kai less often, for dramatic effect.)  Other variants don't seem worth mention.

	Verse	Syllable	Cumulative
1	Παῦλος καὶ Σιλουανὸς καὶ Τιμόθεος	12	12
	τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ Θεσσαλονικέων ἐν θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ ἡμῶν	16	28
	καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ,	7	35
	χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη.	7	42
	ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
2	Εὐχαριστοῦμεν τῷ θεῷ πάντοτε	11	53
	περὶ πάντων ὑμῶν μνείαν ποιούμενοι	12	65
	ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν ἡμῶν, ἀδιαλείπτως	13	78
3	μνημονεύοντες ὑμῶν τοῦ ἔργου τῆς πίστεως	14	92
	καὶ τοῦ κόπου καὶ τῆς ἀγάπης	8	100
	καὶ τῆς ὑπομονῆς καὶ τῆς ἐλπίδος	10	110
	τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ	9	119
	ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡμῶν,	11	130
4	εἰδότες, ἀδελφοὶ ἠγαπημένοι ὑπὸ [τοῦ] θεοῦ,	16	146
	τὴν ἐκλογὴν ὑμῶν,	6	152
5	ὅτι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὑμᾶς ἐν λόγῳ μόνον	23	175
	ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν δυνάμει καὶ ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ	15	190
	καὶ [ἐν] πληροφορίᾳ πολλῇ,	9	199
	καθὼς οἴδατε οἷοι ἐγενήθημεν [ἐν] ὑμῖν δι᾽ ὑμᾶς.	18	217

                                                                                                                                                           

 

 

A count of 1 to 10 = all of '1' through '10' inclusive, aka elapsed.  A year = 12 months; so when during a year, does a count begin and end?  If start of year, then it hasn't elapsed; so count from prior year, or add 1.  So Paul writes:

 

o         28^th year of the Lord's Ministry start 4133+27 = 4160 start Adamic = ad 53 (last 3 months).  Which year is also where Mary stopped her Magnificat (end 53 = start 54).  Paul ends his precis with her same 217.  [Paul also plays on the initial 4106 Birth schedule, to tally Abraham's maturation: 2046+2100=4146 Outer Limit of Time.  Jacob born 60 years later, 2106, so +2000 Outer Limit of His Birth = 4106. So use 4106 to adjust for our bc/ad, the first timeline; so 53 ad + 4106 = 4159 until autumnal equinox; 53 bc – 4106 = 4053.  Christ is born 3 years earlier, due to David being crowned late, so the 'end 4 bc' we use is valid, to fit Real Bible Doctrine that He had to be born early.  Magnificat reconciles it:  she knew, just as Haggai 2 claimed, He'd be born Chanukah 4103 Adamic 1^st quarter.  For the Annunciation was 4102 sacred, Adar.  Luke 1:26 Greek official month doubled articles used in LXX, compared with 1:36's article omission, pun fiscal differentials. Everyone knew the pun; so he writes it out: Psalm 90:15, God parallels prophecy, including its timing.]

 

How do we know which fiscal start, in 4133:  His Birthday, Adamic, or vernal?  NT writers all pun the fiscals;  so let's start with the earliest one, Adamic.  Thus '15^th year of Tiberius' can be when the Lord was not quite, age 30.  (Luke 3, but known earlier.  Augustus died August ad 14; but Tiberius began co-ruling, at the start of ad 13.)  So He goes into the wilderness, just after Booths, 22 Ethanim (aka Tishri);  for the Law, required its observance;  yet no later than say 1 Bul (aka Cheshevan aka Marcheshevan), as He'll fast 40 days, His birthday is on 25 Chislev,  plus allowance for Satan's testing and travel time home. (30-day months per 1Chron 24 etc., never any other standard per Bible.)

 

end 4132 Adamic +28 = end 4160 Adamic, so the 28^th year begins at start 4160.  Since He turns 30 in 3rd week of 3rd month after year begins, Paul could round down the Lord's own 'fiscal'.  Vernal starts six months later; so would still be 4132.  So Paul picks the lowest year NUMBER relative to when he writes = 4132 end = 4133 Adamic, Lord's Ministry start.  For it starts His Year, still newly 4133 Adamic (first quarter ends just before or on, His Birthday).

 

o         28 fore, start 4160 + 28 = start 4188, leaving another year before the Abrahamic 'credit' is repaid.  Calc:  start 4136 vernal when Christ died = Year 1, so use 4135 +53.5 = 4188.5 vernal = 4189 Adamic start = 'repaid' date. Same as 4160+28+1 counted to 'straddle' distance between fiscals, yet call the result, '28'.  To say, 'the year after I write, 28 years remain on the Abrahamic credit.'  For he wants to pun, '28'.

 

Same for US Social Security, valuations of annuities, life insurance premiums, defined benefit retirement plans.  The 'valuation year' is often excluded; only future years count.  Government laws use the same accounting style.  Example: US Internal Revenue Service writes a regulation, "effective for tax years beginning in x", to straddle all  entities' fiscal years that begin during a calendar year.  The 'straddle' can be 2 years apart: one entity's tax year begins on December 31, vs. one whose tax year began January 1.  Same, in Bible accounting:  the 490-year spread between Adam's son Seth and Jared's son Enoch, is really 492 years, as their birthdays are so far apart.

 

Paul's dateline plays to Mary's recon, by using original Abrahamic deadline (3 year setback);  for when Mary talked, Varro's auc version was not law;  Claudius made it law; Paul writes during Claudius' rule.  So Luke will later use these same meters (35, 42, 119, 175, 217) in Luke 1's repeat of Magnificat.  So they use 4106 not His actual birth of 4103, to reconcile to Roman time.  Convenient for us, as that yields the same result, as our 'ad'.

 

o         35 years or the 35^th year aft, is either 4160 or 4161 – 34 or 35.  4160-34=4126.  4161-34=4127.  4160-35=4125, 4161-35=4126.  Then, which fiscal?  Problem is, none of those potential years, means anything I can find: they correspond to 'our' ad 19-21.  Closest thing was Tiberius' expulsion of the Jews in ad 19.  Why would that matter? Was it really an expulsion, even?  Except, Mary benchmarked 4126/27 in her text (Luke 1:54), when the Lord would have been age 23/24, same year(s).  But Luke's later Gospel, though tracking to her meter throughout, doesn't track this benchmark. (His Gospel's textual outline is built on Magnificat and Zecharias meters, that's why you have oddities like Anna being age 84, play on God's Decree meter in Ps90:1-4).  The year(s) could have other meaning to the Thessalonians.

 

o         35/2, however, yields 4159.5+17.5=4177, when the 40 years is up on the Temple's Standing (4136+40, start count in 4137, reimburses the Land for initial 1440-1400 bc wandering-in-the-wilderness);  and, 4159.5 -17.5 = end 4142, when He should have died under Davidic schedule (=4143 Passover, vernal start): which was, 1000 years after David died.

 

o         35^th year fore (Mary's first dateline and ending ellipsis) = latest pre-Church Trib start date including 4160: so 4160 + 34= 4194 start +7 = 4201 start = Mill.  Or, 4159 + 35 = 4194, Trib start.  'Full 2100+2100 must play; latest fiscal is vernal, six months after Adamic begins. 

 

o         42 years fore (Mary's 2^nd dateline) to Millennium again including 4160 in the count, as shown above for 35.

o         42^nd year aft: start 4160 - 41 = start 4119, the Lord age 15 until final week, Roman age of manhood, ad 12.  The next week, Tiberius begins to (co-)rule the provinces, including Judaea (start ad 13, search on 'co-extensive' in the link).

 

o          So these variant dates alone balance, at '4160'.  Let's review:

o    The 28^th year aft, Lord's Ministry start end 4132 = start 4133 both Adamic + 28 = end 4160; so start 4160 = 28^th year, not elapsed.  When Paul writes, The Lord is still age 56: late or end summer, ad 53.

o    28 fore, Paul uses 4160+1, then + 28 = 4189 = Abraham's 'credit' fully 'repaid'. So he writes the year before the 28^th year.

o    35 aft, I can't prove.  Yet 35/2 works just fine fore and aft, using 4159.5, as shown above.

o    35^th year fore to Trib, works with 4159 = 35^th year at start.  So he writes in the year after the 35^th year.

o    42 fore, uses same formula +7, as 35.  So he writes in the year after the 42^nd year!

o    42^nd year aft, uses 4160 as a 'pun': the Lord reaches toga virilis; then Tiberius, the on-and-off  'son' for 29 years (!) finally begins co-ruling (hahaha historical 'tie').  So again, writes in the year after the 42^nd year!

 

o         So why this odd math?  that's how romans counted.  During a month, they had three key dates:  kalends, nones, and ides.  Respectively, these were the 1^st;  5^th or 7^th, depending on the month; and finally, 15^th or 17^th, depending on the month.  The Romans counted the dates in between, by convoluted formulas, like 'the third day before nones'= 2^nd or 4^th of the month, or 'the fifth day before ides', the 10^th or 12^th of the month;  or, 'the 10^th day before kalends' which, after Caesar's reform, was usually the 20^th of the month.  They named years by paired consul names, not numbers.  In short, even the lowest person in the Roman empire, needed a huge memory, proficiency with math, just to survive!

 

o    So Paul optimizes the cultural training, with meter.

 

o    Not only Romans, but all over the world people always dated from a cultural event (Paul does here, based on Christ).  Romans were very superstitious about numbers;  13 in particular, they avoided (as we do today).  The above formulae helped them avoid saying '13'.  (We still say 'baker's dozen'.)  So Paul relies on his fellows also under Roman suzerainty, to know the meter, since it was part of their daily calendar.  Using it, to teach doctrine.

 

o         Next meter: the Lord was supposed to be born in 4106, so should have been 53 years old when Paul writes.  Cute:  He's really age 56 nearly age 57; since He had to be born a king, no later than the 1000^th year of David's Kingship over all Israel, back in 3103.  Mary had plotted that, too, relating it to 1^st Chanukah.  Note the hahaha equidistance:  53.5 years owed the Gentiles, and now Christ nearly age 57, should have been also, 53.5 years old: which is also, 'our' ad.

 

Now comes the crux: He's born exactly between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes:  3^rd week Sept is autumnal, 3^rd week March is vernal.  So, 3^rd week Sept until 3^rd week December, is three months;  3^rd week December to 3^rd week March is also 3 months.  The Jewish months are, per Bible but not Judaism or Christianity, 30 days each, codified by David as such in 1 Chron 24 based on a solar year, also based on the equinoxes: 360 days until Adar, when you add the remaining 5.25 days.  So: 25 Chislev is in the last week, but solar drift is 4 days versus the year's beginning (from vernal, 5.25-day diff x .75), so the day number is 4 days too fast.  So falls in the third week, as if '21'.  Heh.  (Pope Gregory cut 10 days off our calendar to allegedly align it for solar drift.  The actual coincidence in Julian year between Saturnalia and Chanukah was on the 15^th or 17^th.  Even so, 3^rd week begins at sundown on the end of the 2^nd, so either way, He's born exactly in between both equinoxes.)

 

So if Paul uses the 53.5 credit in parallel with the Lord's shoulda-been age, also equidistant between both fiscals, then Paul likely writes end June (Dec. 25 – June 25 = six months) or first week July, 4159 vernal.  The equidistant 'pun' doesn't work, if later.  That's so close to start 4160 Adamic in 3^rd week September, Paul can 'claim' it as a 'year' of writing; especially, since you cannot split a syllable.

 

If you see something wrong with this accounting, please let me know?  I'll later edit this doc further, to show how else Paul plays on the Magnificat (which was so well known even before Luke reduced it to writing, that Paul could play on the meter, here.)