By adopting historical timeframes from sources outside the Bible, and re-interpreting the Bible to make them fit.
The eighth century Greek historian Hesiod popularized the idea of the world divided into separate ages of time represented by metals; a golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age. [1] A similar concept is found in Daniel 2, though it is restricted to a certain number of empires, rather than the entire world.
During the Greek occupation of Israel after the conquests of Alexander the Great, many Jews became Hellenized and started mixing Greek myth and legend with their interpretation of the Bible. Some of the products of this were the immortal soul, a belief in demons, and the “7,000 year” history of the world.
The earliest Jewish precursor to the 7,000 year plan was the allegorical work of Aristobulus (second century BCE), a Hellenized Jewish philosopher who combined the Greek ideas of the ages of the world with the Jewish idea of the sabbath, to come up a kind of seven-fold plan for the earth.
“Fragment 5 of the work of Aristobulus (ca. middle of 2d century B.C.) explains the sabbath in relationship to cosmic orders, also linking the sabbath to wisdom (Frag. 5.9–10) and the sevenfold structures of all things (Frag. 5.12). This work is an attempt to bring the sabbath into relationship with Hellenistic thought similar to that of Philo.” [2]
This allegorical, non-literal interpretation of Genesis, was combined with other pagan Greek ideas, such as the calculations of the mathematician Pythagoras.
“Fragment 5 provides important evidence for Jewish use of Pythagorean ideas in the second century B.C. Both Aristobulus and Philo (SpecLeg 2.15(59)) seem to presuppose a traditional, allegorical interpretation of the biblical account of creation. This interpretation made use of Pythagorean reflections on the number seven as a prime number.” [3]
We finally see the 7,000 year plan emerging in its complete form in pseudepigraphal works such as the Book(s) of Enoch (a collection of fabricated literature written between 300 BCE and 100 BCE), which claims to be the writings of Enoch the patriarch. Yet even in this work the end of human history arrives in the year 8,000, rather than 7,000. [4]
Around the same time, the Book of Jubilees arrived at an age for the earth, as a byproduct of trying to fit biblical history into another symbolic number scheme. The author of Jubilees believed that God’s plan with creation was ordered according to a cycle of Jubilees; 50 year periods. This author believed that God’s plan involved a certain (unspecified), number of Jubilee periods, each of which was marked by a significant historical event.
The author of Jubilees started with creation, moved forward 50 years, arbitrarily selected a significant historical event as a marker, and then moved on another 50 years. Rinse and repeat, and we have Israel entering Canaan (a key historical event of course), at the fiftieth Jubilee, around 2,450 BCE, by which time the earth is already 2,500 years old. Of course Jubilees doesn’t mention this, because the author isn’t actually interested in the age of the earth at all; the entire aim of this exercise is to fit the history of the world into a pre-determined theologically significant schema.
Despite the popularity of the Book of Enoch, the 7,000 year plan remained only a fringe idea in pre-Christian Jewish literature. Significantly, it is not found in the New Testament at all, absent even from Hebrews (which uses the Sabbath as a major theme but never relates this to a 7,000 year plan), and from Revelation (which makes extensive symbolic use of the number seven but never relates this to a 7,000 year plan).
Its first appearance in the Christian era is in books such as 4 Ezra (written near the end of the first century CE, after the fall of Jerusalem). This book may have introduced the 7,000 year plan to early Christians. The Epistle of Barnabas, another influential work written around the same time, also presented the 7,000 year plan explicitly, based on a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1, in which the creation narrative is interpreted as an allegory.
“Observe, children, what “he finished in six days” means. It means this: that in six thousand years the Lord will bring everything to an end, for with him a day signifies a thousand years. And he himself bears me witness when he says, “Behold, the day of the Lord will be as a thousand years.” Therefore, children, in six days—that is, in six thousand years—everything will be brought to an end. “And he rested on the seventh day.” This means: when his Son comes, he will destroy the time of the lawless one and will judge the ungodly and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then he will truly rest on the seventh day.” [5]
However, although many Christian writers believed in a 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth following his return, the more specific belief that this would take place after 7,000 years of human history was much less widespread. Irenaeus (at the end of the second century), seems to have been one of the few significant early Christian writers to champion the 7,000 year plan. [6]
The Jewish Mishnah and Talmud provide collections of rabbinical writings and sayings dating from the second to the sixth century, some of which preserve the tradition of the 7,000 year plan, while others give different dates for the return of the messiah and the end of human history. [7] Nevertheless, it appears from this evidence that even among Jews the idea did not start becoming widespread until after the second century.
This is the history of the 7.000 year plan. It originates as a hazy combination of Jewish speculation and a non-literal interpretation of Genesis, mixed liberally with pagan Greek thought by apostate Jews during the inter-testamental era. It then becomes a fringe view in pre-Christian Jewish thought.
It is completely ignored by the New Testament writers, and appears in only two early Christian works around the end of the first century. It finds only one major Christian supporter in the second century, and does not enter mainstream Jewish thought until perhaps the third century.
[1] “Although Hesiod provides us with the earliest extant account of four ages (or, more precisely, of four human races) represented by metals of declining value, there is no way of telling whether this was his own invention, or (as seems more likely) he worked from a pre-existing model (A. Momigliano, ‘The Origins of Universal History’, in Friedman [ed.], The Poet and the Historian, pp. 133–55 [134]). M.L. West argues that this ‘Myth of Ages’ must be supposed to have come to Greece from the east. He finds partial parallels in Iranian (Denkard, Bahman Yasht), Indian (Laws of Manu, Mahâbhârata), and Mesopotamian (Sumerian King List) literature. While these Oriental texts do not combine all the elements found in Hesiod’s scheme of metallic ages, there are many striking similarities.", Paul Niskanen, The Human and the Divine in History: Herodotus and the Book of Daniel (London;New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 30.
[2] Gerhard F. Hasel, “Sabbath,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 854.
[3] A. Yarbro Collins, “Aristobulus: A New Translation and Introduction,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament: Expansions of the “Old Testament” and Legends, Wisdom, and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works (vol. 2; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985), 2834.
[4] “In the Apocalypse of Weeks, 1 En. 93 intimates the government of “his flock” or “all creation” (B and C) by the elect in the eighth week. No mention is made of the Messiah. 2 En. 32:1–33:1 has a similar chronology. The eighth day (i.e., the year 8000) begins a time “not reckoned and unending.””, J. Massyngbaerde Ford, “Millennium,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 832.
[5] Epistle of Barnabas 15.4–5, Michael William Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Updated ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 315.
[6] “Irenaeus (Haer. 5:32–36) elaborates the millenarian theory which he inherited through Papias and Justin. He inserts his eschatological (apocalyptic) beliefs into his recapitulation theory. He states that, as the world was made in six days, so it will end in 6,000 years. The Antichrist, symbolized by the number 666, will reign for three and a half years and will then be destroyed by Christ and sent into the lake of fire. The righteous, however, will be brought to the times of the kingdom, that is, “the rest, the hallowed seventh day.””, J. Massyngbaerde Ford, “Millennium,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 833.
[7] “Sanh. 97b states that the son of David will come after not less than 85 jubilees, he will come in the last one. R. Hanan b. Tahlifa says after 7000 years and R. Abba the son of Raba (Babylonian Amora) after 5000 years. R. Jahocachua predicted 2000 years; Barakhja and R. Dosa, 600 years; Jose the Galilean 60 years or three generations; R. Akiba 40 years and Rabbi three generations (also 365 years).”, J. Massyngbaerde Ford, “Millennium,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 832.
