were in Anno Mundi 1, and the creation of Adam was on 1 Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah) in Anno Mundi 2 which corresponds to 3760 BCE. The official Anno Mundi epoch is Anno Mundi 1. This first year begins almost a full year before creation and is commonly referred to as The Year Of Emptiness or The Ascension Year in Jewish tradition and coincides with the years 3761/3760 BCE. Counting years Counting a number of years based on an annual fixed calendar date yields a different result from a rolling year count based on dates such as birthdays which have the possibility of being at any time of the year and change depending on the individual. Using this method has led some chronologists to add or subtract a 0.5 year margin to/from the birth year of each patriarch to account for unknown birth dates. The first mention in Genesis of the use of a fixed method to reckon years is made in Genesis 1 referring to the "lights in the firmament". A fixed calendar system is usually determined by an annual epoch such as New Year's Day (1 January) which is fixed by the alignment of astronomical objects; the reckoning of the year occurs on its epoch. Years represented in Anno Mundi dates could be interpreted to be in alignment with Rosh Hashanah and are counted according to its annual occurrence. Birth years of Shem and Arphaxad There are several different interpretations as to the exact birth year of Shem and his son Arphaxad. Based on Noah being at least 500 years old when he began to beget children and Noah's sons each having an age difference, it is not uncommon to encounter chronologies that list Shem as being 98 years old when the flood began. Shem begat Arphaxad two years after the flood when he was 100 years old. In the Masoretic, Vulgate and the Samaritan Pentateuch the method of starting from the birth of Noah and adding exactly 500 years until Shem, and adding another 100 years until the birth of Arphaxad (Born 2 years after the flood) would be the same year as the death of Methuselah following the above chart. Since Methuselah was not mentioned in Genesis among those who were aboard the ark, it is possible that his death came in the same year of the flood. Based on the Masoretic Text, counting 1656 years on