Ask a Jew: Why is the Hebrew year 5776?

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By Neal Schindler

Ask a Jew: Why is the Hebrew year 5776? What happened 5776 years ago?

Just as Young Earth creationists tend to believe the universe is less than 10,000 years old, some Jews think God created the universe in 3760 B.C. (P.S. If there isn’t already a Christian rock band called the Young Earth Creationists, there really should be.) If you add 3760 and 2016, you get… 5776, the current Hebrew year.

Over the years, Jews have used other methods of determining the year, including the Era of the Destruction. This way of computing the current year uses the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 as its starting point. According to a footnoted version of the Talmudic tractate Avodah Zarah: “This Era was mainly employed by the Rabbis and was in use in Palestine for several centuries, and even in the later Middle Ages documents were dated by it.” However, I don’t think anyone uses this method today; the first I heard of it was in researching my response to your question.

Danish blogger Claus Tøndering, who is more interested in calendars than the average person, states: “The current definition of the Hebrew calendar is generally said to have been set down by the Sanhedrin president Hillel II in approximately A.D. 359.” In the 12th century, Maimonides called A.D. 1178 “the year 4938 of the creation of the world.” If you subtract 4938 from 1178, you get… -3760! Also known as 3760 B.C. Math for the win!