"Jubilee"

or

Exactly When Does the New Millennium Actually Arrive Anyway?

© 1996 by Michael Donner

Whether one favors and thinks already today in terms of a millennial year 2000 or a millennial year 2001, or both, or both-plus, would appear to depend more on one's mathematical perception and partying instincts than any religious scruple or other persuasion. Our common contemporary, zero-grounded Arabic style of numbering tends to make us imagine we are a year ahead of where we really are in the actually ongoing year count (begun with zero-free Roman numerals!) of what is still today the A.D. (Anno Domini) era, or in translation the C.E. (Christian or Common Era). In other words, there never was a Year of Our Lord Zero (Anno Domini 0), though we routinely count and reckon as if there had been. In fact the idea of zero wasn't even thought of until centuries later. This messy fact is for most practical purposes wisely overlooked or safely ignored because it is normally so inconsequential, but in the present case it is very consequential and indeed unavoidable. For since there was no year 0 in our calendar era, each of its new thousand year periods or millenniums must begin, very sensibly, not with a year ending in zeros, such as A.D. 1000, 2000, 3000, etc., these being the thousandth and concluding years of old millenniums, but rather, if somewhat counter-intuitively, with a year ending in (00)1, such as A.D. 1 in the case of the first millennium, 1001 in the case of the second millennium, and in the present (or imminent) case of the third millennium 2001. The same mathematical anomaly makes it take a full year, indeed one's entire first year, to reach age one, and it is also responsible for the confusing enumeration of the centuries, which seem forever to unfold a hundred years too early and arrive a year late. For just as the first century was conceived to begin with the year 1 and conclude with the year 100, and just as the twentieth century in the same uninterrupted succession began with 1901 and will conclude with 2000, so the new or twenty-first century and the new or third millennium -- of the Christian calendar and our common era -- will not definitively begin until the year 2001 does.

But all the foregoing easy observations and conclusions are still too narrow a response to our question, though they had to be recited, for they are almost purely abstractly arithmetical, referring in "concrete" reality only to the year count of our established era and its supposed significance, whatever that may be. Nominally it's the figurative and literal age of Christ. However:

In historical reality this calendar and era did not simply begin their long ascending year count with the birth of Christ in a year then denominated Year One or Anno Domini 1. Rather the A.D. year count was actually begun and put into use quite belatedly and retroactively (by a Christian monk named Dennis the Short), indeed not until at least (what then came to be called) A.D. 532. Only then was Christ's birth, already a matter of ancient history, assigned to the Christmas (already generally celebrated December 25) just preceding the first theoretical "year" of his life and age, "A.D. 1." And only then or afterward were all subsequent (A.D.) events up to the adoption of the new era, and all previous (B.C.) events for that matter too, assigned their revised, "Christian" year numbers.

The new era was confusing from the start not only owing to the often complex and sometimes erroneous date conversions but also because the beginning of the year was set at different days in different countries, and again because some countries reckoned the beginning of the era during the year of and others during the year after the birth of Christ.

In light of all these constant sources of confusion and others untold, it may come as no surprise that by the time the Christian era was finally adopted and instituted, Dennis and his successors in the Church had unwittingly lost the exact count of how many years had actually elapsed since the birth of Christ, had indeed lost track of it time and again, and it was not until the calendar was already in wide use that they realized they had made any error. (These were after all the Dark Ages.)

When more accurate and more nearly complete chronologies and histories than were originally available to Dennis did finally turn up, these new sources proved to obscure more than they clarified, for while they made it shockingly clear that Christ could not possibly have been born in A.D. 1, nor even close to it, they still did not give enough information to establish his true birth date. That is, they damaged the foundation and integrity of the era without providing the means for repairing them.

What the new sources did at least firmly establish, in any case, was the correct year, 4 B.C., for the end of the reign and life of Herod the Great (the Judean king in the Gospels). And though the correct year and day of Christ's birth were never revealed and so must remain unknown to this day (notwithstanding the worldwide traditions of Anno Domini and Christmas), he may still be assumed to have definitely been born no later than and possibly as much as a few years before the death of Herod -- which was reported by the nearly contemporary historian Flavius Josephus to have definitely occurred shortly after the lunar eclipse of March 12 and 13, 4 B.C. (Shortly in this case would seem to mean hours, days, perhaps weeks, but not likely so much as months.) Today, with the benefit of centuries of additional scholarship, the commonest and probably most reliable guesses for Christ's birth year range from 8 B.C. to 4 B.C. A less credible guess (mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia) places it as late as 3 B.C., while there is virtually universal agreement that it could not have occurred later than this, nor likely even this late.

So the actual birth of Christ and presumed starting point of our ongoing year count turn out to have occurred at least 3 years, most likely at least 3.8 years, and very possibly up to 8 years, "before Christ"!

The year count A.D. (or C.E.) has never been adjusted to take account of the subsequently learned, more reliable and exact, first-hand historical information. It would have been difficult to make such an adjustment when the discovery was first made. It would still be difficult today. And, since Christ's exact birth date remained and still remains unknown, why would anyone take all the trouble that would be necessary to get the era more nearly right but still not right, and why would anyone invite all the new disruptions that would surely and very concretely ensue from any such attempt to change the calendrical status quo? Clearly they wouldn't.

Yet, while there has never been motivation sufficient to make such an adjustment in the calendar, the question of marking when the new millennium arrives, if an exercise of such reasoning and arithmetic is not to be entirely vacuous and pointless and meaningless, does after all have to take account of what exactly is being marked. In the present instance the reality is that to celebrate the common year 2000 (and/or 2001) is to celebrate the bimillenary (and/or the start of a third millennium) not of the actual birth of Christ nor even of the actual birth of the existing nominally Christian calendar but only of the starting point -- not actually a birth at all -- of that calendar's and our era's erroneous retroactivity.

At the same time, even if we are not at all sure what or when we are celebrating, we think it is a good principle that more celebration is better than less, and it is ultimately quite exhilarating to reflect that, as with all major jubilees, one may expect there will be all manner of literal and figurative jubilations, spontaneous and calculated acts of celebration, dancing in the streets, forgiveness of debts, fireworks, emptying of prisons, remission of sins, etc.

But unless our purely numerical and quite insubstantial year count and millenary scheme can somehow be realistically or even mystically (re)joined to something true or meaningful -- like, say, a best guess at the birth of Christ after all for lack of anything better in the present case -- the arrival of the supposed new millennium will remain an actually pointless, unreasonable, vague, secular and slapdash occurrence, a glowing prospect perhaps yet in the event as obscure as, say, an Orwell-cluttered 1984 or a spectacularly forgettable 1000, year of . . . oh yes, the discovery of America! As 2000 pounds, it certainly seems the Year of the Ton. As it enters, however, just the latest in our long series of arithmetical misunderstandings, it has heavy prospects for being in reality only a semi-quasi-pseudo-millenary after all.

Such a totally unhinged determination of the arrival of the new millennium wouldn't likely be in sync, for example, with what the Book of Revelation prophesies in chapters 20 and 21 about a Christian millennium, nor would it fully harmonize with all the subsequent human thought and art and dreaming and aspiration that have accumulated around this the apocalyptic conception of the millennium, and it would be out of step, besides, with the Pope himself, who has been reported to be planning to celebrate the millennium, quite formally, in A.D. 2000 -- by, among other things, forgiving the Jews and cocreating a potentially lucrative Bimillenary Holy City & Holy Land Pilgrimage package tour with them.

But fortunately all is not lost. For among the many extravagant misapprehensions and false millenniums there does at least persist one undeniably clarifying and grace-saving point to fall back upon:

5. Beginning approximately or precisely March 13, 1997

We can celebrate the fact that by this coming March 1997 (or call it April Fool's at the latest) Herod will have been very definitively at least two millenniums or 2000 years dead and Christ will have been just as definitively at least two millenniums or 2000 years, as it were and if you will, alive. (The 2000 years must of course be reckoned nonalgebraically as follows: 4 years "B.C." plus 1997 years "A.D." minus 1 nonyear "Zero.") In still more precise terms, Christ's historical birth date, whenever it may actually have fallen, has already today very probably slipped more than 2000 years into the past, and the arrival of the new (the third Christ-based) millennium has very probably already occurred while no one was noticing, and it will certainly have occurred without any possible reservation no later than spring 1997, or if Catholic perhaps 1998. This understanding of the arrival of the millennium, apparently the most rational one available, almost seems to say, "Oops! Missed it?!" But no. The truth would appear rather to be: yes, we've probably missed the truest possible bimillenary moment point, but there is also still and there will remain until this coming spring (1997) a small and vanishing but real probability, nevertheless, of our not (yet) having missed it at all! And since the final truth of the matter will probably never be known in this world, and also since we still can, it seems we would be very well advised to begin celebrating effective immediately, if not sooner, and to do so continuously hereafter until spring 1997 at least (Catholics perhaps 1998), celebrating what is in fact the only probable entirely rational millenary arrival and jubilatory climax that we still have left to us.

6. Beginning approximately or precisely December 25, 1996

Moreover, since one can't really expect the world at large to think of Christ as having a birthday other than Christmas, we are pretty well cornered, again entirely rationally and sensibly, into expecting the celebration of the major remaining probability of the true arrival of the new millennium precisely upon this coming Christmas Day (and Season), December 25, 1996 (through January 6, 1997, or until January 18 in the East) -- while still celebrating its minor remaining probability and extending Christmas, as it were, clear through to spring 1997 (or even Christmas 1997, or if Catholic, perhaps even Christmas 1998) in the name and capacity of "last possible true beginning of the new millennium" (or at least of its absolutely-latest possibly-first Christmas).

7. All the years 1996 to 2003 (or as much as eight full years)

It is the fortunate persistence of this minor probability that allows us to extend the party again and again, first until March 13, 1997, or, generously, spring 1997, and then, by association as it were, until each of the following two Christmases in succession. And having thus helped us stretch all the way to Jaunary 1999, the same fortunate persistence reinforces and keeps reinforcing any intention we may have had and expressed earlier (as in answer 4) to run all together and continuously a full gamut of years of entirely conscientious and deliberate celebration, from 1996 to 2002 or 2003.

8. The years 1996-1997 most especially (palindromic corroboration)

Now, once jubilee expansion and intensification is seen to be the name of the game, and once all the foregoing facts, evaluations and considerations are acknowledged, we will find still more reason to embark immediately upon the most enthusiastic and full-blown of millenary celebrations here and now in 1996 and 1997. For by another relatively obscure but still real quirk of our numbering system, and a corresponding mostly subliminal but again real sensibility in people, the palindrome-framed millenary "period of balance" (1991-2002 inclusive) spanning a dozen years, and that period's similarly rationalized but palindrome-free interior decade (1992-2001 inclusive), spontaneously produce their own centers of balance and symmetry precisely within, and in between, the years 1996 and 1997. Such a midsection, inner sanctum and pivot, as it were, of the total 12-year palindromic millennial jubilee, such a most intrinsic, most mediated and most focussed segment "1996-1997" (whether thought of fully as "1996/1997 the climacteric biennial continuum" or only as "1996>1997 the ephemeral most pregnant moment") is by its own definition this jubilee's most defining, most ideally equilibrative, most culminating and finest happy hour and moment of truth. (It's worth adding that the arrival of this special moment varies with each millenary because the enclosing and center-defining pair of premillenary and postmillenary "palindrome posts" fall at different relative positions each time -- the closest examples being 999[mid-1000]1001 and 2992[2997-2998]3003 -- so our imminent occurrence of it at year-end 1996 is not only, in relation to the already proffered idea of a jubilee, the fortuitous corroborator but also very deliberately a corroboree in its own right.)

9. The years 1996-1997 most especially (traditional corroboration)

And as if that were not enough, a second independent corroboration that the year and biennium already in progress, 1996-1997, are the most probably correct and propitious ones for marking the arrival of the new millennium is based on a long and powerful tradition and accumulation of belief, dating back to at least the seventeenth century, that the world was created in 4004 B.C. -- which is to say exactly four thousand years before the most probable birth of Christ (thought even then to have been in 4 B.C.) and thus in perfect sync and harmony with both surmises of the millenary alignment points (or "bookends") at 4 B.C. and 1997 A.D. The 4004 B.C. date for the Creation is usually associated with the chronology of the Irish Archbishop and scholar James Ussher (d. 1656), who on biblical and other historical evidence developed a complete theoretical time table of all the major events in the Bible, and actually went so far as to place the start of Creation not merely in 4004 B.C. but actually on October 23 of that year, a Sunday. (John Lightfoot, also in the seventeenth century, adopted the same date for the Creation and then went so far as to give 9 A.M. as its exact hour.) Ussher's full chronology was incorporated into a 1701 authorized Bible, and into many Bibles since, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself -- until the impact of the scientific revolution in the nineteenth century. So we may reasonably mark, in 1997, besides the previously considered (a) latest probable beginning of the third actually Christian millennium, around March 13, and (b) moment of greatest truth of its palindromic period, at the stroke of midnight January 1, the now superadded (c) most or only probable beginning, per Ussher, Lightfoot and many fundamentalists even today, of the seventh Creation-based millennium, on the morning of October 23 -- all in an almost perfect harmony, and even smartly in step (when styled [0]1/[0]1, [0]3/13 and 10/23) down to their component ciphers of ought, 1, 2 and 3. Of course it would be nicer if we could get everything to line up absolutely perfectly, down to the month and the day and hour, though under the circumstances (spanning thousands and thousands of years) just getting everything from these three diverse sources to fit into a single extremely plausible year or two, no less the most conveniently present one(s), is very good indeed if not once again apparently the best we can do.

10. The third, seventh and first sabbatical Millennium all together

Yet that is not all. There is still one extra giant step that may be taken to produce the most extravagant enhancement yet in the name of jubilee expansion and intensification. This step follows another long and powerful tradition that has its roots in the previously mentioned chapters of the Book of Revelation and evidently follows also from the thinking of Ussher as well. In this tradition the progression of the millenniums is assimilated with the progression of the six days of Creation in Genesis, such that each divine day of Creation is explicitly equated to 1000 human years, and the expectation or prophecy is put forth that the third Christian (assimilated with the seventh Creational) millennium -- which is to say the one we have now before us beginning this year -- will naturally be a millennium of rest, a universal sabbatical ten centuries long of paradise on earth, of total party time. This heavenly millennium is the one which, once it arrives, and however and whenever it arrives, may be expected to continue arriving, pristine for its entire duration. (Revelation, 21.5: "And he who sat upon the throne said, 'Behold I make all things new.'" Similarly, the handy formula of "7 days of Genesis times 1000 years of Revelation equals 1 Cosmic Sabbatical Cycle" or New Era Epiphany, in relying on both the first and last books of the Bible, is neatly buttressed by Revelation, 21.6: "I am the Alpha and the Omega.")

Still, just as one does not have to believe in ghosts to enjoy Halloween, it should not be of any importance at all, for the purposes of our most extravagant jubilee and party, whether one actually believes in Ussher's chronology or even in Genesis, or the Gospels, or Revelation for that matter. What will make it all come to life is predominantly the vast accumulation of human thought that has subsequently been devoted to these various millennial ideas. Whatever the intrinsic truth or power or value of the ideas, these are the myths whose beneficiaries we are lucky enough to be just for happening along at the right time. What will make the actualization all so much fun is the realization now dawning that humanity is divinity, that our human thought and desire are what creates reality. For it will be only natural, given all the thought that has been directed toward these ideas, that this new epoch will be widely marked by the long-coming great maturation of human thought -- specifically, in the idea of Godman.

Yes, Christ had a good point there, but he was misunderstood and at least 2000 years ahead of his time. Today the truth can finally be told and understood: Jubilee! We're all God, man! This is Heaven!

Afterthoughts: