James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh (1581-1666)

According to his careful calculations, the world was created on “the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October… the year before Christ 4004.” That would make Earth 4,259 years old. And, of course, it had to be true because one couldn’t question the Bible in any particular. It was just a matter of adding up the years of all the “begats” in Genesis, and adding to it the generations of men in the following books of the Old Testament.

I am reading a fascinating book by Loren Eiseley called The Firmament of Time about how the age of the Earth grew by leaps and bounds after discoveries by geologists, astronomers, and other scientists.

There are still people who believe in the literal truth of every word in the Good Book. The Scopes trial took place in Tennessee exactly a hundred years ago. In some corners of the United States, there has been little or no movement since then.