By means of biblical persons and biblical events, the second biblical chronology covers the period between the creation of the world and the birth of Jesus.

   According to the Epistle to Henry II, the second biblical chronology is based upon the Bible and (in the case of the period Temple - Jesus) on calculations by bible scientists. The chronology starts with the creation of the world and ends with the birth of Jesus. Because of “the diversity of sects”, the period after the birth of Jesus is not described.

   At the beginning of the second biblical chronology, it is discussed if solar years were applied, lunar years or a mixed type of year. This discussion is closed with the remark that it is assumed that in the Bible has been counted with solar years.

   The second biblical chronology closes with the remark that it covers a time span of about 4173 years and 8 months (rounded: 4174 years). The time span which results from the time data of this chronology, is smaller: 4092 years and 2 months.

   The time span of 1506 years is verified with time data in Genesis 5 regarding the age of the Patriarchs at the time they fathered their oldest son.

   According to Genesis 1,31, Adam was created at the sixth day of the creation process. In the second biblical chronology, these days are not included.

   …et à la fin d’iceux six cens ans Noë entra dans l’arche pour estre sauvé du deluge, & fut iceluy deluge universel sus la terre, & dura un an et deux mois…

   In the second biblical chronology, it reads that there were 600 years between Noah’s birth and the completion of the building of the Ark. In Genesis 7,6, a time span of 600 years is given. From the preceding and following verses, it can be derived that this time span can be related to the period between Noah’s birth and the completion of the building of the Ark.

   The time data in the Bible are not always suitable for the compilation of a precise chronology of persons and events. Sometimes, time data in one bible verse are in conflict with time data in another bible verse. Sometimes, a time date can be explained in several ways.

   The age of Noah at the time of the outbreak of the Deluge is an example of the confusion, caused by conflicting time data. According to Genesis 7,6, Noah was 600 years old at the time of the outbreak of the Deluge. According to Genesis 7,11, the Deluge began in Noah’s 600th year of life, which means that he was 599 years old at the time of the outbreak. In Genesis 8,13, it reads that the Deluge came to an end in the 601st year of. This points to an age of 600 years. In Genesis 9,28-29, it reads that after the Deluge, Noah lived 350 years more and died at the age of 950. The words “after the Deluge” mean: “after the end of the Deluge”. If these words are explained as “after the beginning of the Deluge”, there is an arithmetic correspondence with Genesis 7,6.

   The time span of the period End Deluge - Abraham which can be derived from Genesis 11, is 292 years, three years less than the time span of 295 years, mentioned in the second biblical chronology.

   The period Temple - Jesus is the only period in the second biblical chronology which contains a reference to scholars instead of to the Bible itself. This seems to be caused by a lack of time data regarding the period Completion rebuilding Temple - Birth of Jesus. The Bible books 1 Kings and 2 Kings contain time data regarding the length of the periods of reign of the Judean kings. In 2 Chronicles, time data can be found regarding the time span of the Babylonian exile. The book Ezra contains time data regarding the start of the rebuilding of the Temple after the end of the Babylonian exile and the number of years which were necessary to finish the rebuilding.

   In 1 Kings 11,42, it reads that the kingship of Salomo lasted 40 years. The period Exodus - Temple was calculated from the Exodus to the 4th year of reign of Salomo. Therefore, in the next table, the time span of Salomo’s kingship is 36 years, counting from the year in which the building of the Temple began.

   The kingship of Achazja lasted 1 year. After he was murdered, his wife Atalya took over the reign while Joas, his son, went into hiding. His kingship lasted 40 years. Therefore, the period of hiding should also be included.

   The kingship of Joachaz lasted 3 months.

   …et ainsi par ceste supputation que i’ay faicte colligee par les sacrees lettres sont environ quatre mille cent septante trois ans, & huict moys peu ou moins…

   The total time span of the time spans of the second biblical chronology, as listed in the Epistle to Henry II, is 4092 years and 2 months, which is 81 years and 6 months less than the time span, mentioned at the end of the second biblical chronology. The explanation for this difference has to be sought in the periods Creation - Noah and Temple - Jesus.

   According to the second biblical chronology, the time span of the period Creation - Noah is 1506 years, 450 years more than the time span of 1056 years, resulting from Genesis. This difference is caused by a printer’s error (cinq cens instead of cinquante). After correcting this difference, the time span in the second biblical chronology of the period Creation - Start building Temple is 3152 years and 2 months. According to the Epistle to Henry II, the time span of the period Creation - Jesus is about 4173 years and 8 months. This means that according to the second biblical chronology, the period Start building Tempel - Birth of Jesus has lasted about 1021 years and 6 months (4173 yr 8 mth- 3152 yr 2 mth).

   According to Wöllner, a time span of 490 years of the period Temple - Jesus is in conflict with biblical science.

   Wöllner supposed that the numeral vingts (from quatre-vingts) in the text of the period Exodus - Temple originates from the text of the period Temple - Jesus. He assumed that in the latter text, the numeral mil dropped out; the original numeral was, according to Wöllner, mil vingts, 1020. The numerals quatre cens nonante ans in the text of the period Temple - Jesus originate, according to him, from the text in which the period Exodus - Temple is described.

   According to Wöllner, the original text of the second biblical chronology contained a.o. the following time data:

   In the text which finally was printed, it looked like this:

   Houwens Post wrote that he had based his translation upon an edition of the Prophecies, published in Lyon in 1558. The publisher’s introductory notes emphasized this remark. It must be noted that the 1941-Vreede-translation does not contain a bibliography, neither does it contain a complete, parallel French source text.

   In 1982, I compared the 1941-Vreede-translation with the French text in Leoni’s book. I observed that in the 1941-Vreede-translation the period Jacob - Egypt - Exodus was phrased correctly, which was not the case in the French text in Leoni’s book. Next, I observerd that in the 1941-Vreede-translation, two time spans were mentioned regarding the period Exodus - Temple (480 and 490 years), whereas in the French text in Leoni’s book only one time span twice was mentioned (480 years) and that the time span of the period Temple - Jesus was 1020 years (Leoni: 490 years). On the other hand, the time span of the period Creation - Noah in the 1941-Vreede-translation was 1506 years, the same as in the French text in Leoni’s book. These observations brought me to the supposition that Houwens Post used an edition of the Prophecies which was different from the 1555-Bonhomme-edition (Bareste reprint), the Pierre Rigaud edition (Le Pelletier reprint) and the 1605-edition, which Leoni had consulted in order to compile a reliable French text. All differences seemed to be caused by the fact that the source text, used by Houwens Post, was a 1558-Lyon-edition, an edition of which up until today no copy has been found.

   In 1986-88, I started to verify the second biblical chronology with time data in the Old Testament. The printer’s error cinquante - cinq cens came to light. Because of this, I could revise the second biblical chronology without any problem regarding the time span of the period Temple - Jesus. In the 1941-Vreede-translation, it read that this time span was 1020 years and my point of view was that this time span originated from the 1558-Lyon-edition.

   Basing myself upon the data and literature which were at my disposal at that time, my assumption was that in the Epistle to Henry II which went into print, an inadequate attempt was made to create a correlation between the time spans, given in the second biblical chronology, and its total time span of 4173 years and 8 months. Since the figure 1020 (Temple - Jesus) could not be related to time data in the Old Testament, I supposed that this figure was replaced by the figure 490, which originated from the text regarding the period Exodus - Temple. Those who did this attempt, overlooked the printer’s error cinquante - cinq cens.

   At the end of November 2003, I bought a copy of Amadou’s L’astrologie de Nostradamus - dossier (1992 [1987]), which included a.o. Wöllner’s Das Mysterium des Nostradamus.

   At the beginning of 2004, my investigation of the 1941-Vreede-translation, during which mr. Robert Benazra gave much help and advice, showed that the French source text, used by Houwens Post, was not a 1558-Lyon-edition, but the 1927-Piobb-copy, a Xerox copy of the 1668-Amsterdam-edition, to which Piobb added a copy of the Preface to Cesar, which carried the year 1558 as the year of print. To my surprise, I also discovered that not the 1927-Piobb-copy, but the 1926-Wöllner-translation was the source text of a number of phrases in the Preface to Cesar and the Epistle to Henry II in the 1941-Vreede-translation. It turned out that Houwens Post translated the second biblical chronology from the German translation, made by Wöllner in 1926, with the peculiarity that in the 1941-Vreede-translation, the period Creation - Noah lasted 1506 years. The inevitable conclusion was that the 1941-Vreede-translation was not founded upon a 1558-Lyon-edition.⁷ My arithmetic findings regarding the second biblical chronology were not contested by these new discoveries, but I no longer could maintain my ideas about the origin of the figure 490.

   The only thing I can say about the time span of (rounded) 1022 years of the period Temple - Jesus is that it points to a calculation, the result of which is more or less the same as the results of other calculations. Eusebius for example calculated with 1060 years.⁸ In a chronology in Nostradamus’ Almanach pour l’an M.D.C.LXVI (1566), entitled Les eages du monde selon la computation des Hébrieux, it reads that the period Temple - Babylonian exile lasted 474 years and the period Babylonian exile - Jesus 613 years; an addition of these figures results in a total time span of the period Temple - Jesus of 1087 years. Joseph Juste Scaliger (the son of Jules-César Scaliger, with who Nostradamus was acquainted around 1533), calculated that the period Temple - Jesus lasted 1014 years.⁹ In the Netherlands, present-day editors of the Bible estimate the time span of the period Temple - Jesus to be about 966 years.¹⁰

   At the moment, I have no indication that the period Temple - Jesus was divided into several periods and I have no idea what is the source of the figure 490 in the text which finally went into print.

   Originally, according to Brind’Amour, in the second biblical chronology, the period Temple - Jesus was divided in two periods: a period First Temple - Second Temple (531 years) and a period Second Temple - Jesus (490 years). Counting with 4173 years, he concludes that the period between the start of the building of the first Temple under Salomo and the start of the building of the second Temple under Darius lasted 531 years (1021 - 490). Brind’Amour writes nothing about sources that might have been used to calculate the time span of 531 years.¹¹

   According to the second biblical chronology, the world was created around April 25, 4174 BC. In the predictions which come next to the second biblical chronology, there is an allusion to the end of the biblical Kingdom of 1000 years, but this end is not dated. The seventh millennium is mentioned in a series of predictions which run from 1792, but the beginning of this millennium is not dated.

   Counting from April 25, 4174 BC (the assumed date on which the world was created, according to the second biblical chronology), the seventh millennium begins around April 25, 1827 AD. This date comes next to the year 1792, which is mentioned in the Epistle to Henry II. Supposed that there have been calculations regarding the date on which the biblical Kingdom of 1000 years begins and the date on which it comes to an end, the questions are if these dates can be calculated and what function this Kingdom has in the time structure which covers the second biblical chronology.

   In the Bible, several expectations about the last days are described. St. Paul for instance writes that when the command is given, the voice of the Archangel sounds and Gods trumpet, God himself will come down from heaven. Then, first all the dead will rise who are in Christ. Next, on clouds, together with the first risen, the Christians will be carried away instantly to the Lord, in order to be with Him forever (1 Tess. 4,13-18). St. Paul also writes that this Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Tess. 5,1-2).

   Another kind of expectation is written in Revelations 19,11 - 21,1. The beast and the false prophet are burned alive in a fire pool, their followers are killed by the sword (Rev. 19,19-21). On Gods command, the dragon (Satan) is chained for one thousand years and thrown into the abyss, in order to be released for a short time when the thousand years have gone by (Rev. 20,1-3). The martyrs who died because of their testimony of Jesus, arise from the dead (the so-called “first resurrection”) and rule with Him for a thousand years; the others who died will not rise before the one thousand years have gone by (Rev. 20,4-6).

   After the expiration of the one thousand years, Satan is released. He gathers the people who live in the four corners of the earth (Gog and Magog) to fight the heavenly armies. His fighters will be consumed by heavenly fire. Satan is thrown into the fire pool and will remain there forever, together with the beast and the false prophet (Rev. 20,7-10).

   Next comes the Last Judgment. All dead people will arise; they will be judged according to their acts. Death and underworld are thrown into the fire pool as well as those whose name is not listed in the book of life (Rev. 20,11-15).

   Next to the vision of the Last Judgment, the author of Revelations beholds a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth are vanished, the sea exists no longer. The author also beholds the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21,1-2).

   In the Epistle to Henry II, some echoes of Rev. 20,1-7 are present:

   In quatrain 10-74, some echoes of Rev. 19,21-20,1-6 are present:

   The opinions about the meaning of this quatrain are quite diverge, as is shown in the next paragraphs, in which these opinions are arranged in order of their year of publication.

   According to Wöllner (1926), the fulfilment of this quatrain must be situated around the completion of the great seventh number. He refers to the Era of the hundred-fold sacrifice, which will not be far away from the great age of one thousand years in which the buried will rise from their tombs. Basing himself upon his time structures, he supposes that the words grand eage milliesme point towards the year 3797 AD.¹⁶ He does not describe general or specific correspondences with the book of Revelations.

   According to Leoni (1961), this quatrain must be situated at the end of the time span of all the Century quatrains. According to him, the clairvoyance which is attributed to Nostradamus, stretches out until the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgment. He does not describe correspondences with specific verses in the book of Revelations.¹⁷

   Brind’Amour has written that the resurrection of the dead will take place at the end of the seventh millennium, at the dawn of the eighth. Regarding the words Ieux Hacatombe in the second line, he referred to the Olympic Games which used to take place in the month Hecatombaion and concluded that the events, described in quatrain 10-74, are expected to take place in mid-summer. Brind’Amour has not described general or specific correspondences with verses in the book of Revelations. His mentioning of the "resurrection of the dead" does not make clear whether he refers to the first resurrection or the resurrection at the time of the Last Judgment.¹⁸

   According to my opinion, quatrain 10-74 can only be explained in a biblical sense: a paraphrase of the death of the followers of the beast and the false prophet with next the first resurrection and the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years.

   The seventh millennium and the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years are the only millennia which are discussed in the Epistle to Henry II. In this Epistle, not one allusion is made to an eighth millennium. In the continuation of the second biblical chronology (not in the continuation of the first biblical chronology), there are allusions to the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years. The same phenomenon occurs in quatrain 10-74. There, nothing is written about an eighth millennium, but there are allusions to both the seventh millennium and the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years.

   Basing myself upon these observations, I assume that the second biblical chronology and the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years are part of one and the same time structure, which counts 8000 years. Next to the seventh millennium comes the biblical Kingdom of one thousand years, as is implied in the third line of quatrain 10-73. In this time structure, April 25, 4174 vChr is the date on which the world was created.

   According to my version of the revised second biblical chronology, the time span of the period Creation - Noah is 1056 years. The time span of the period Noah - Jacob is also 1056 years (600 + 1 + 295 + 100 + 60). This is caused by the fact that in the second biblical chronology, the time span of the period End Deluge - Abraham is 295 years instead of 292 years as is shown in Genesis 11,10-26. The time span of the period Jacob - Temple is 1040 years (130 + 430 + 480). The time span of the period Temple - Jesus is about 1022 years (rounded). Does the second biblical chronology contain a hidden structure of about 1050 years? For the moment, I cannot answer this question.

T. W. M. van Berkel
De Meern, April 19, 2005