According to the calendar of an ancient Jewish sect, 2025 marks the start of the “final jubilee” before the world enters a millennial age of peace. Whether their predictions prove true is uncertain, but their insights offer valuable information.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus warned his disciples not to focus on the exact timing of his return. “No one knows, but my Father only,” Jesus said. The New Testament, however, does admonish believers to watch for the signs and to “know the season” of the Messiah’s return; leading many prophecy students to emphasize the “nearness” of the end, while they avoid date-setting, based on prophecy.
The Essenes, a community active from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, believed 2025 could mark the beginning of a period leading to universal redemption. To be fair, they didn’t claim to know the exact day or hour of that redemption, but structured human history into three “ages” culminating in a thousand years of divine governance. These ages coincided with their unique solar calendar system which scholars have decoded into Gregorian calendar years.
The Essenes’ library, Dead Sea Scrolls, which was discovered between 1946 and 1956, revolutionized biblical scholarship. The scrolls, which include biblical books and apocalyptic writings, contain some of the oldest extant biblical manuscript fragments.
Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and theologian, Dr. Ken Johnson, explains that the Essenes viewed these ages of the world, and the length of their duration, in light of the Genesis creation account – which the Essenes viewed as both historical and prophetic. Just as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, they believed, the earth would suffer under man’s rule for a total of six thousand years. This six-thousand-year period would culminate in a seventh millennium of peace, they taught.
A version of this belief is also found in rabbinic writings such as the Talmud, which records that “six thousand years shall the world exist, and one [thousand, the seventh], it shall be desolate.” (Sanhedrin 97A)
Among the early church fathers, some of whom had direct contact with the disciples of Jesus, a parallel concept is found. Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Rome, and Barnabas are among several who postulated a six-thousand-year redemptive timeframe, followed by a final thousand years under Christ’s rule.
Pulling from earlier Jewish traditions, 2 Peter 3:8, and the apostle John’s millennial language found in Revelation chapter 20, the early church gave credence to this belief. This doctrine, often referred to as “chiliasm”, appeared to be the prevailing view among church fathers of earlier centuries.
The Essenes’ six-thousand-year scheme, beginning with Adam and ending at the reign of the Messiah, reflects more detail than what is preserved in early church literature. The Essenes broke the six thousand years into three “ages”: each lasting two thousand years.
The time between the fall in Eden and the Abrahamic Covenant they called “the age of chaos” (days one and two). The Abrahamic Covenant marked the beginning of “the age of Torah” or “law”; also lasting two thousand years (days three and four). Surprisingly, writing before the time of Jesus, the Essenes predicted the final “age of the Messiah” to begin right when Jesus showed up – two thousand years after Abraham (days five and six.
Pharisaic rabbinic literature affirmed this claim, also calling the final 2,000 years of history “the times of the Messiah”. To support their claim the rabbis quoted Psalm 90:4, which equates a thousand years with a day in God’s sight, and Hosea 6:2 which states, “after two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.” The “two days” referenced here was interpreted to be “the messianic age” (millennial days five and six), while the third day here is said to represent the seventh and final millennium, in which God is exalted.
The Essenes went further, breaking each age into fifty-year periods, called “jubilees”. Each two-thousand-year age, therefore, is forty jubilees long. The final jubilee of the “messianic age”, leading up to the millennial sabbath, coincides with year 2025, and ends in 2075. This means that, according to the Essenes, everything necessary to usher in the millennial age of peace and divine rule, must be accomplished no later than Gregorian year 2075.
Dr. Johnson emphasizes that this find is not license for date setting; something he cautions against. He argues that he is not trying to “set a date”, but rather “trying to set the calendar” that was found among the scrolls.
Unlike the modern Jewish calendar which marks the Gregorian year 2025 as year 5785 since creation, the Essene calendar converts 2025 to year 5950 since creation – implying that the Pharisaic calendar is incorrect and off by a few hundred years. The absolute end of the sixth millennium, year 6000, is scheduled for year 2075, according to the Essenes.
If true, does the Essene calendar imply that the Messiah cannot return any earlier than 2075? Based on their calendar of past ages, and how history has unfolded, that doesn’t seem to be how it works.
Using the “age of messiah” to illustrate, which Dr. Johnson calls “the age of grace”, the scholar explains. “The age of grace should have started in 75 AD, which was the end of the age (of law), and things did happen”, said Johnson in a 2024 talk. Johnson points out that the death and resurrection of Jesus occurred at the end of the “age of law”, and not at the beginning of the “age of Messiah”. Forty years after Jesus’ death, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, so that by year 75 everything needed to initiate “the age of grace” (also called “the church age” by theologians) was already in place. The death and resurrection of Jesus (30-33 AD) was earlier than the predicted start of the “age of grace” (75 AD).
Late theologian Dr. Thomas Horn, in his book Zeitgeist 2025, clarified that despite the Essene calendar assigning years to the beginning and end of ages; transitional jubilees between these ages tend to overlap. Horn explained it this way:
Prophetic events that are supposed to happen around this time don’t always work out so precisely. In fact, the beginning of one age tends to bleed into the end of the previous one.
Comparing the transition between ages to a relay race, when both runners are running together while the baton is handed off to the successive runner, Horn argued that the exact timing of the fulfillment of end-time prophecy really is unknowable.
Though the Essene calendar of ages does seem to miraculously comport with how biblical history has played out, Johnson and Horn remind us of the warning of Jesus in Matthew – no one knows the day or hour.
The magi understood prophecy and followed the star; not knowing the day or hour of the Messiah’s birth; and discovered baby Jesus. Still others have made bold predictions with embarrassing results.
So, what does the Essene calendar give us? Perhaps it offers a fuller perspective of the redemptive narrative, and how wise men have longed to see and understand the days we are in. We can not know the day or the hour, but as we see the signs converging, we can look up and rejoice as our redemption draws near.
