Rabbi Allen S. Maller, drawing on Sacha Stern, argues Jewish dating was long political and local—kings’ years, Exodus, Temples, then the Seleucid era from 312 B.C.E.—and that counting from Creation became common only much later, not from the start of the Bible.

He notes several systems ran together (Creation, Temple destruction, “contracts”/Seleucid). The now-standard Jewish year-count is described as relatively recent and, in one medieval view, includes a “year of tohu” before Adam so the days of Creation fit a numbered year.

His thesis: starting the calendar with Adam and Eve, not Abraham or Sinai, was meant to mark written/urban history and one God of all nations. He treats “Adam” as the start of recorded civilization, not of biology, to ease tension with evolution. That is the author’s religious-historical reading.

Professor Sacha Stern, of Jewish Studies at University College London, points out that in the Bible, dates are generally by the rulers regnal years. Over time, several different counting systems developed, counting from: the exodus, the jubilee or sabbatical years, the building of the First Temple, its destruction, the building of the Second Temple, and its destruction. 

In post-biblical times, documents were dated according to the Seleucid era, and this remained standard for contracts well into the medieval period. Beginning in late antiquity, counting from creation emerged as one of many options, and only became a consensus in relatively recent times. While it may make intuitive sense to count our years starting from the creation of the world, as is Jewish practice today, this chronological system is relatively new.

In the third century B.C.E., when Judea was ruled by the Hellenistic, Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, literary and documentary sources from Judea are dated by the regnal years of the Ptolemies. After Judea changed hands and came under Seleucid rule (based in Syria), around 200 B.C.E., the Seleucid era became the standard method for counting years. This era was counted from year 1 of the Hellenistic ruler Seleucus I in the autumn of 312 B.C.E. It started as a regnal year, but then developed into a continuous, unending era.

1 Maccabees, for instance, uses this dating system. Thus, when describing Antiochus IV desecrating the Temple altar, it says: 1 Macc 1:54 “And on the fifteenth day of Kislev in the one........

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