Some of you undoubtedly have heard of Joseph Campbell, author of such books as The Masks of God and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell was a world-famous scholar of mythology and comparative religions. I am currently reading his book, Myths To Live By, which I find fascinating.
Given the interest in the topic of chronology recently evidenced here, I thought that I might post some of Campbell's findings on chronology. I will quote Campbell, who states on page 74 of Myths To Live By, in achapter entitled The Separation of East and West, - "According to many of the mythologies still flourishing in the Orient, a world flood occurs inevitably at the termination of every aeon. In India the number of years of an aeon, known as a day of Brahma, is reckoned as 4,320,000,000; after which there follows a Night of Brahma, when all lies dissolved in the cosmic sea for another 4,320,000,000 years, the sum total of years of an entire cosmic round thus being 8,640,000,000."
Campbell then speaks of Valhall, as it is described in the Icelandic eddas - "In the Icelandia eddas it is told that in Valhall there are 540 doors and that through each of these there will go, at the end of the world, 800 battle-ready warriors to join combat with the anti-gods. But 800 times 540 is 432,000 [800 x 540 = 432,000]."
Of course, 432,000 is a percentage of 4,320,000,000, therefore Campbell concludes - "So it seems that there is a common mythological background theme, here shared by pagan Europe [Iceland] with the ancient East [India]. In fact, I note, with a glance at my watch, each hour with 60 minutes and each minute with 60 seconds, that in our present day of 24 hours there will be 86,400 seconds; and in the course of this day, night will automaticall follow light, and, next morning, dawn will follow darkness. There is no question of punishment or guilt in a mythology of cosmic days and nights of this kind. Eerything is completely automatic and in the sweet nature of things.
But now, to press on a few steps further: according to a learned Chaldean priest, Berossos, who rendered in the early third century B.C. an account of Babylonian mythology, there elapsed 432,000 years between the crowning of the first Sumerian king and the coming of the Deluge, and there reigned during this period ten very long-lived kings. Then we observe that in the Bible it is reckoned that between the creation of Adam and coming of Noah's Flood there elapsed 1656 years, during which there lived ten very long-lived patriarchs. And if I may trust the finding of a distinguished Jewish Assyriologist of the last century, Julius Oppert (1825 - 1906), the number of seven-day weeks in 1656 years is 86,400.
Thus the early Mesopotamian model of mathematically ordered recurrent cycles of world manifestation and disappearance, with each round terminated by a deluge, can be recognized even in the Bible."
Campbell concludes by contrasting the biblical myth, with its focus on transgression and punishment, with the earlier account, with its "now hidden idea of a wholly impersonal cycle as innocent of guilt as the rounds of day and night or of the year."