Article December 23, 1996 Issue

The end of the millennium: have we missed it?

by Kim Shippey

Many people have been so wrapped up in deciding whether they should be marking the end of the second millennium in the year 2000 or the year 2001 that they have overlooked the possibility that both may be wrong! Calendars have been unreliable at the best of times.

Scholars in several countries have estimated that the death of King Herod—which came after the birth of Jesus—was about five years before what is most widely assumed to be the year of Jesus' birth. That would place the two thousandth anniversary of Jesus' birth in about 1995. So, we may already have missed this millennial event. Or this column may be just in time to commemorate it!

We discussed some of these possibilities with Dr. Bradley Stock, who is currently serving at The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, as a special assistant for research in the office of The Christian Science Board of Directors.

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