Chronology of the Bible

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For a historical look at the bible see The Bible and history. For the writing of the various books of the Bible, see Dating the Bible. For material on the Christian New Testament, see Chronology of Jesus and Timeline of Christianity.

Biblical chronology is the academic study of the sequence and dating of events based on the narratives found in the Hebrew Bible.

The chronology of the Bible is the elaborate system of generations, reign-periods, and other means by which the Hebrew Bible measures the passage of time and thus gives itself a chronological framework. The Biblical narrative begins with the Tanakh, including creation and the age of the patriarchy, the history of ancient Israel and Judah, the Babylonian captivity down to the establishment of the Second Temple in 516 BCE.

It is unclear from what point this chronology can be taken to correspond to historical events. Some scholars have traditionally attempted to identify a date of the Exodus, suggesting historicity at least from the time of Moses, while mainstream biblical scholarship is more reserved about the historicity of any events predating the scope of the Books of Kings, beginning in the 10th century BCE. This leaves a space of several centuries, between the Exodus and the establishment of the United Monarchy, largely corresponding to the period of the Bronze Age collapse in the region, and depending on the author including parts of the Late Bronze Age, of dubious historical, or proto-historical, status.

[edit] Dating of Creation

Many attempts have been made to place Biblical chronology into historical time.

The passage of time in the earlier passages of Genesis is indicated not by dates but by counts of generations: Adam lives so many years, fathers a son, and dies at such and such an age. When the ages at each birth of a new generation are added together, the result is the total number of years elapsed from the creation of Adam. However, the Septuagint, Samaritan, Masoretic and other textual variants of the Hebrew Bible give differing ages.

In later passages the passage of years is indicated by numbers calibrated to events in the overall narrative (e.g., I Kings 6:1 states that the building of the Temple of Solomon began in the 480th year from the Exodus), or through inter-relationships of the reigns of kings (e.g., king A of Judah comes to the throne in the Xth year of king B of Israel and rules Z number of years).

[edit] Jewish computation

The Jewish calendar's reference point is traditionally held to be about one year before the Creation of the world.

The current Hebrew calendar year numbering system, which counts years from the Creation, has been in use for over 1000 years.^[1] The year numbering system was adopted sometime before 3925 AM (165 CE), and based on the calculation of Rabbi Yose ben Halafta in about 160 CE in the Seder Olam Rabbah.^[2]

The year numbers are based on the computations of dates and periods found in the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish tradition, "Year 1" is considered to have begun on the 25 of Elul, 6 days before the beginning of "Year 2" on the first of Tishrei, when Adam was created. The new moon of its first month (Tishrei) is called molad tohu (the mean new moon of chaos or nothing). By Halafta's calculation first humans were created in the year 3761 BCE.^[3] However, Seder Olam Rabbah treats the creation of Adam as the beginning of "Year Zero". This results in a two year discrepancy between the years given in Seder Olam Rabbah and the Jewish year used today. For example, Seder Olam Rabbah gives the year of the Exodus from Egypt as 2448 AM; but, according to the current system, the year would be 2450 AM.

Despite the computations by Yose ben Halafta, confusion persisted for a long time as to how the calculations should be applied.^[4] In 1000, for example, the Muslim chronologist al-Biruni noted that three different epochs were used by various Jewish communities being one, two, or three years later than the modern epoch.^[5] The epoch seems to have been settled by 1178, when Maimonides, in his work Mishneh Torah, described all of the modern rules of the Hebrew calendar, including the modern epochal year. His work has been accepted by Jews as definitive, though it does not correspond to the scientific calculations. For example, the Jewish year for the destruction of the First Temple has traditionally been given as 3338 AM or 421 BCE. This differs from the modern scientific year, which is usually expressed using the Gregorian calendar as 587 BCE. The scientific date takes into account evidence from the ancient Babylonian calendar and its astronomical observations. In this and related cases, a difference between the traditional Jewish year and a scientific date in a Gregorian year results from a disagreement about when the event happened — and not simply a difference between the Jewish and Gregorian calendars. (See the "Missing Years" in the Jewish Calendar.)

Although in popular Jewish thought the counting is to the creation of the world, it had been emphasized in many ancient texts dealing with creation chronology ^[6] that the six days of creation till man are metaphoric days - especially the days before the creation of the sun and earth^[7].

The modern epoch year is set at 3761 BCE, taking into account that there is no year zero in the Gregorian year count.

[edit] Other computations

Many scholars have over the centuries attempted to calculate the date of Creation, and have come up with significantly divergence results. These include the following:^[8]

Medieval historian Bede dated creation to 18 March 3952 BCE. The Chronicon of Eusebius and Jerome dated creation to the year of 5199 BCE.^[9][10] Earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day used this date,^[11] as did the Irish Annals of the Four Masters.^[12] The chronologists who date Creation in the top range of the scale base their dating on the Septuagint.

The objectivity of some scholars has been questioned. For example, J. Ussher's dating of Creation to 4004 BCE is believed to have been carried out from the presupposition that the Old Testament was the prelude to the New, and that the Biblical chronology therefore prefigured Christ. Some regard Ussher as having constructed his chronology and dating of Creation to 4004 BCE so that the birth of Jesus would be exactly 4000 AM, it being accepted that Jesus was actually born in 4 BCE. James Ussher, writing in 1654, dated Creation to 23 October 4004 BCE according to the Julian calendar, or 21 September 4004 BCE in the Gregorian calendar.^[13]

[edit] Creation to the Flood

Biblical dating commences with Creation, which is numbered year 0, and in Jewish tradition is immediately followed by year 1. The period to the Flood is derived using the genealogical table of the ten patriarchs listed in Genesis 5, and 7:6, called the generations of Adam. According to the Masoretic Text, this period consists of 1656 years, and this dating is also followed by Western Christian Bibles derived from the Latin Vulgate. J. Ussher agrees with the dating until the birth of Abraham, which he argues took place when Terah was 130, and not 70 as is direct reading of Genesis 11:26, thus adding 60 years to his chronology until the Egyptian experience.^[14] However, according to the Samaritan texts the period is 1307 years, and according to the Septuagint it is 2242 years.^[15] There are no non-biblical sources which can assist in the dating.

The Jewish AM dates given below are those traditionally used by Rabbinic Judaism and found in Seder Olam Rabbah. The Septuagint AM dates are derived from the Septuagint. The Gregorian date of Creation is generally given as 3761 BCE, based on the Jewish reckoning.^[16] However, a year of 3924 BCE is sometimes given. The deviation of about 163 years is explained in the article the "Missing Years" in the Jewish Calendar.

[edit] Flood to Babylon

[edit] Second temple period

• 516 BCE Second Temple completed by Zerubbabel under Persian rule
• 515 BCE Second Temple dedicated
• 458 BCE Ezra brings law to Jerusalem
• 446 BCE Nehemiah inquired about the Jews and Jerusalem
• 445 BCE Nehemiah stood before the king and was made governor
• 444 BCE Nehemiah built the wall of Jerusalem
• 332 BCE Alexander the Great conquers Israel
• 323 BCE Alexander the Great dies in Babylon
• 250 BCE-100 CE Septuagint written in Alexandria over a long period of time.
• 168-165 BCE Hasmonean uprising
• 80 BCE Roman defeat of the Maccabees
• 65 BCE Syria becomes a Roman province
• 63 BCE Roman conquest of Judea
• 37-4 BCE Herod the Great is ruler of Judea, appointed by Rome

[edit] See also

• Anno Mundi
• Chronology of the Ancient Orient
• Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria
• Dating creation
• History of ancient Israel and Judah
• Timeline of Christianity
• Timeline of the Bible
• Bible Numerics

[edit] Sources

• Mattis, Kantor, The Jewish time line encyclopedia: a year-by-year history from Creation to present, Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, N.J., 1992
• Handbook of Biblical Chronology by Jack Finegan (Revised edition, 1998), ISBN 1-56563-143-9.
• "Biblical Chronology". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03731a.htm. 
• The Jerusalem Chronology of the Israelite Monarchies by Brad Aaronson (1989)

[edit] References

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