In one of the earliest estimates: Theophilus of Antioch (ca. 115–180 CE) was converted to Christianity as an adult. Only one of his writings has survived, in an eleventh-century manuscript, quoted in Haber 1959, p. 17, and in Dalrymple 1991, p. 19.

among these biblical scholars were John Lightfoot: Ussher (1581–1656) calculated that Creation occurred in the year 710 of the Julian period; Brice 1982.

added as a marginal note to the English: The note was removed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Kirkaldy 1971, p. 5.

“The knowledge of . . . nearly everything”: Spinoza 1925, vol. 3, p. 98.

“It would be a mark of great”: Philo, first century, book I.