Do Freemasons really believe this is the year 6021 AL?

Some key questions.

Why are Freemasons dating documents 6021 AL (Anno Lucis)?  Do Freemasons really believe this is the year 6021 AL?  What does Anno Lucis mean?  How did  AL dating arise?  Is it still relevant in today’s world?  How do Freemasons view the Bible? Why is the book of Genesis important to Freemasonry?  

Join me in exploring the concept of Anno Lucis.  More importantly, the rather surprising reason I believe it is every bit as relevant today as when our ancient brethren first adopted it in the 1600s.  However, it is in marking the beginnings of  “Masonic” rather than “astronomical” light that it finds its most important meaning in the 21st century.

We start with a simplified overview of the current scientific thinking about the age of the visible universe.  A brief discussion of how the concept of Anno Lucis was developed follows.  Finally, why the concept still can have validity for you as the point at which “Masonic light” began.

Anno Lucis is more than a quaint, but irrelevant concept.

Do you view the concept of 6021 AL as quaint but irrelevant?  I did, but have changed my mind.  I have come to believe that the answer to the question: “Do Freemasons really believe this is the year 6021 AL?” should be yes.  Moreover, AL dating remains relevant. In using a date 4,000 years before the Common Era as the beginning of “light” our ancient brethren are acknowledging an important fact.  However, I believe that fact is quite different than the one they believed they were acknowledging.

The age of the visible universe

The Big Bang

Edwin Hubble, working in the late 1920s determined that the visible universe was expanding at a calculable rate.  Based on that observation, and knowing the distance of the oldest material in the universe from its center, the beginning could be placed at about 13.8 billion years.  The expanding universe concept had been postulated earlier by George Lemaitre, but his work was largely overlooked until after Dr. Hubble’s had been published. That, with some variations, remains the base theory today

In describing the singularity at the beginning of the visible universe, an astronomer by the name of Fred Hoyle referred to it as the Big Bang.  He did this in a1949 radio interview and eventually, that term took hold.

The Earth

The age of the earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years.  This is based largely on the dating of rocks by “radiometric” dating.  The concept of radiometric dating goes back to 1905 and the work of Ernest Rutherford.  This website has a section under astronomy dealing with geologic dating and a largely unknown scientist (Nicholas Steno) whose pioneering work in the 1600s was largely overlooked until much later.

In the late 1940s, Willard Libby developed the concept of carbon dating as a means of measuring the age of living matter. 

The oldest hominid fossils appear to date back over 4 million years and homo sapiens to around 300,000 years ago.

There are considerable differences of opinion and discoveries are changing these dates frequently, but the point is that nothing is remotely as young as 6,000 years.  Also, the techniques and discoveries that shape our current understanding of the age of the universe, earth, and mankind postdate our ancient brethren by at least two hundred years.

The view of the universe in 1650-1700

Freemasonry and the Bible.

In Freemasonry, the Bible is considered the “rule and guide to faith”.   The command in Genesis 1:1 “Let there be light” is commemorated by Freemasonry in the act of bringing “Masonic light”.    Seeking Masonic light is the driving force in all Masonic educational activities.   It encompasses not only our understanding of the universe but of ourselves.

Role of the Bible in dating the universe

The age of the universe has been a subject of conjecture and curiosity “since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.”

Before the development of the sciences of astronomy and geology, it was natural to look to the Bible in making this calculation. 

You have been taught in Freemasonry to use logic to direct your inquiries after truth.  The scientific discoveries that have brought us to our current understanding of the age of the universe are based on inductive reasoning. (One where you start with observations and look for patterns to arrive at a theory or hypothesis).  In deductive reasoning, Masons are taught that you “infer, deduce and conclude” according to certain “premises laid down, admitted or granted”.  Up through the 17^th century, one of those premises would have been that the Bible is not only a trustworthy “rule and guide to faith”, but an accurate accounting of the historical events it recites.  Therefore, you could deduce the age of the universe from the information it contains.

The Anno Mundi (Year of the World)

Based on that premise, the Rabbi Yose ben Halafta in the second century CE calculated the beginning of the universe at 3761 BCE and established that as year one in the Anno Mundi.  This was refined by the Jewish scholar Maimonides who authored the  Mishneh  Torah in 1170-1180 CE.  That work was widely known and admired throughout the Western World during the Middle-ages and that 3761 BCE date became widely accepted.

Archbishop James Ussher

Archbishop Ussher (1581-1656) was one of the most respected biblical scholars of the 17^th century.  In 1650 he published a 1,600-page treatise in Latin tracing the history of the universe back to October of 4004 BCE.  It was translated into English in 1658 and is available today.  His work was Biblically based but had some 12,000 footnotes to other sources.

This was published during the formative period of speculative Freemasonry.  This age for the earth was widely accepted and even Newton did a calculation arriving at essentially the same conclusion.  For it to be adopted by Masonic lodges is hardly surprising.

Masonic use of Anno Lucis

There does not seem to be any clear evidence for the first Masonic use of AL meaning Anno Lucis.  References to its use in the 1700s can be found.  Also, the use of AM, apparently meaning Anno Mundi (based on the dating used) but sometimes referred to as Anno Masonic can also be found in relatively early documents.

Why it may actually be relevant after all.

How the date 4004 BCE was determined

Bishop Ussher traced the history of the world back to the date that Seth was born as recorded in Genesis 5:3 when Adam was 130 years old.  At that point, he added 130 years to that date to determine the date that Adam was created and then backed up five 24 hour periods of time (since Adam was created on the sixth day) to set the moment when God said “Let there be light” (Fiat Lux).

Whether this assumption of each day being 24 hours is a necessary assumption or even the most reasonable one is a matter of your religious beliefs.  There are verses in 2 Peter and Psalms in which a day is likened unto a thousand years.  What I found most interesting, however, is where civilization is at 130 years after Adam is driven out of the Garden of Eden.

The three major themes of the story of Adam and Eve

The story of Adam and Eve has three primary themes.  First is how God created Adam and Eve.  Second, how they are led into sin.  Third, how they were forced to give up their idyllic lives as hunter-gathers and leave Eden to “till the ground”.

Where is Adam at the point Bishop Ussher’s timeline reaches him?

When Bishop Ussher reaches 3874 BCE, Adam is no longer in the Garden of Eden, living the life of a hunter-gatherer.  He is presumably doing, as he was commanded, tilling the ground.  We don’t know geographically where he was, but certainly one of the possible places is southern Mesopotamia.   For those who accept the Garden of Eden as an actual physical location, a position along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near the mouth of the Persian Gulf is one of the most frequently cited of the likely locations.

What do the archeologists tell us is occurring in 4,000 BCE.

The archeological records show that in 4,000 BCE the Ubadian people of southern Mesopotamia were forming settlements on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near the Persion Gulf.  These grew into towns, some of which became cities.  The cities of Ur and Urdek being two of the most prominent.  This was the very beginnings of the Chalcolithic or Copper Age and the arts of weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, stonework, and pottery making were being developed.  It is in Genesis 4:22 that we meet a descendent of Cain who is familiar to all Masons, Tubal-Cain.  He comes several generations after Cain and is a worker in brass and iron.

How does this fit with the dawn of Masonic light?

At this time, some of the earliest temples are being created.  The complexity of the agricultural efforts is increasing and a Priestly Class is forming to organize and govern the people.

In short, we see the dawning of what we refer to as “light” in Freemasonry.  Society is reaching a point where it can afford to have individuals study the stars and “fix the duration of times and seasons, years and cycles”.  Therefore this is an appropriate date from which to measure the beginning of light.

Within a few hundred years the Sumerians are setting up one of the first great civilizations and building great temples, such as the one at Ur, and are developing a written language, cuneiform.

While this is going on in Mesopotamia other cradles of civilization can be found in China, India, Egypt, and Turkey.  The ones in the far east being several hundred years ahead and still others are just starting to form elsewhere.

Conclusion: 

Our ancient brethren had no way to know what was occurring in 4,000 BCE.  They were certainly unaware of the discoveries that would come some 200 to 300 years later to change our view of the age of the Universe. Equally importantly, they had no way to know of the discoveries that would prove that 4,000 BCE marks the dawning of the light as we define light in Freemasonry.  The answer to the question: “Do Freemasons really believe this is the year 6021 AL?” can be answered in the affirmative.  However, it is not for the reasons our ancient brethren would have given.

Hopefully, this not only answers some questions, but raises others for you to pursue. If so, it will serve to kindle the fire that is your mind. That is its purpose. Stay safe and stay curious.

Please leave a comment.  Comments and questions are read, appreciated, and responded to.