The 4004 BC date of Creation has been brought frequently, and I'm really curious.
Here is a very interesting, and I think balanced article by a Canadian journalist:
The man who dated Creation at Oct. 23, 4004 BC - The Globe and Mail
He notes that Usshur is unfairly picked on, because Newton himself dated Creation at 4000 BC. He also notes how extordionarily brilliant this scholar was, and says that in his massive volume chronologing every major event up to 70 AD as compiled with both secular/pagan and religious sources - his footnotes contains references to far more secular sources than religious. And he was actually very accurate by today's estimates of the birth of Christ.
Here is a very interesting, and I think balanced article by a Canadian journalist:
The man who dated Creation at Oct. 23, 4004 BC - The Globe and Mail
He notes that Usshur is unfairly picked on, because Newton himself dated Creation at 4000 BC. He also notes how extordionarily brilliant this scholar was, and says that in his massive volume chronologing every major event up to 70 AD as compiled with both secular/pagan and religious sources - his footnotes contains references to far more secular sources than religious. And he was actually very accurate by today's estimates of the birth of Christ.
Ussher catches most of the flak because it was his dates that were printed in bibles for several hundred years, not somebody else's.
And Ussher, in the 17th century, had little knowledge of matters like geology, paleontology, et al.
YECs still don't.