Chiliasm in the Early Church

An often stated claim is that the early Christian writers were premill. Many of them had premill elements based on a particular reading of the Bible. They believed that the earth had 6000 years followed by a 1000 year millennium based on the six days of creation and one day of rest. If the Bshp. Ussher chronology is right of a 4004 BC creation date (based on adding up the chronologies in the Bible), then 6000 years was up in 1996. The lynch pin of interpretation of the exegesis that led to their premillennialism has now been falsified by the calendar and their view can now be stated to be discredited/shown false. It was testable and the test failed. Now, like the early church, we’ve got to come to grips with a Scripture that didn’t work out the way our speculations led us to think it should work out.