Masonic Life Network

Some of our newer brothers and friends may wonder why the year is 6018?. The answer to that is related to our calendar. The Jewish calendar is called Anno Mundi which is Latin for “The Year of the World” abbreviated as AM or A.M., or the “Year After Creation”. The Masonic Calendar is similar, Anno Lucis (“in the Year of Light”) is a dating system used in Masonic ceremonial or commemorative proceedings, which is equivalent to the Gregorian year plus 4000, for example, a date Anno Domini (A.D .) 2017 becomes Anno Lucis (A.L.) 6017. This calendar era, which would designate 4001 BCE as 'year zero', was adopted in the 18th century as a simplification of the Anno Mundi era dating system used in the Hebrew calendar and borrowing from other ideas of that time regarding the “Year of Creation”. Dating creation around 4000 BC became common place in ancient times, and it was received with wide support. Proposed calculations of the date of creation, using the Masoretic from the 10th century to the 18th century, were numerous and fluctuated by many decades, notably Sir Issac Newton also calculated the year of creation to be around 4000 BCE. I suppose that if we were to consider modern scientific evidence and dating techniques we could just add 4.5 billion years to it which would put us into the year 4,500,006,018

courtesy of Brother Darin Sanden PM, Senior Warden Yucca Valley Lodge #802