Summary: While many nuances and debates about Biblical chronology exist, the basic framework of a Bible timeline can be constructed in just eight segments or steps.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; – Genesis 5:1 (KJV)
Time and History in the Bible
It has been said that chronology is the backbone of history. Chronology defines the time and order that events take place, and allows historical accounts to be organized in coherent and logical sequences. Oftentimes, knowing the correct timing of events contributes to important understandings of the messages being conveyed. Being unaware of chronology can lead to blunders of interpretation.
Additionally, before one can begin to assign absolute BC and AD dates (or the more recent trend of BCE, “Before Common Era,” and CE, “Common Era”) to events, the Biblical timespans need to be worked out. This is because there was no concept of BC and AD in ancient times. Timespans were recorded in relation to significant events (“two years before the earthquake”), or for the years between father and son in a genealogy (“When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh”), or the number of years in a particular king’s reign (“In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel”).
As far back as we have records, scholars and Bible readers have attempted to lay out comprehensive timelines for the history found in the Bible. This has led to a myriad of different results that are endlessly debated.
While the details of these debates can get quite involved and complicated, the basic information needed for a complete Bible timeline can be found in a surprisingly small number of locations. In fact, you can assemble a complete layout of Biblical history from Adam to Jesus in about an hour (or just read this summary in 10 minutes). This can be done by looking up passages related to eight major periods of Biblical history and writing down the timespans involved. Let’s see how it works.
1) From Adam to the Flood (1656 years)
The first block of information is found in Genesis 5:3-32 and 7:6. This section of Scripture lists the ten generations from Adam to Noah, giving the age when each one fathered their son. Then Genesis 7:6 says that Noah was 600 years old when the flood arrived. Adding all these figures together results in a total of about 1656 years.
Some have argued that the high ages in this early history show that there are missing generations in the record, and rightly point out that “son” can mean “descendant” in Hebrew as well as a direct son. However, it should be noted that there is no direct evidence for missing generations. Also, for the purposes of a timeline, it doesn’t really matter whether the son was a direct son, or whether generations are missing or not. The account gives a number of years between successive events (it was x number of years between a and b), which form an unbroken chain of events that can be added up to a total.
One of the many debated points of Bible chronology is that some of the early generations in Biblical history are given higher values in the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. But since this is just a basic treatment of the chronology we won’t dig into that topic here.
2) From the Flood to Abraham (427 years)
The second block of information comes from Genesis 11:10-12:4 and an important note in Acts 7:2-4. It lists the genealogy of Noah’s son Shem, who had a son two years after the flood. It continues through eight more generations down to Terah and his son Abram who would eventually be renamed Abraham. This period ends with Abram entering the Promised Land at age 75 in Genesis 12:4. The steps of the genealogy (with 2 years after the flood added before the genealogy starts) along with the 75 years of Abram’s life up to his entry into Canaan, adds up to about 427 years.
One important note is that Genesis 11:26 says Terah was 70 when he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. That would make the span between Terah and Abram 70 years if Abram was the firstborn.
However, siblings in the Bible are often listed in order of prominence rather than birth order. For example, the order of Noah’s sons are listed as Shem, Ham, and Jepheth six times in the Bible. Yet Ham is said to be the youngest son in Genesis 9:24, and Shem is said to be 100 years old 2 years after the flood in Genesis 11:10 (therefore 97 or 98 when the flood came). This after Noah is said to have fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth when he was 500 years old in Genesis 5:32, and that the flood came 100 years later when Noah was 600 years old in Genesis 7:11. So Japhath must have been the oldest son, born when Noah was 500, and Shem was the middle son born 2-3 years later.
We know Abram was not the eldest son born to Terah at age 70, because Acts 7:2-4 says Abram did not enter Canaan until his father Terah died in Haran, and from Genesis 11:32 we know this was at age 205. Since Genesis 12:4 has Abram entering the land at age 75, this means Abram and Terah were 130 years apart, not 70.
3) From Abraham to Exodus (430 years)
The next section involves a major debate in Bible chronology, with two main options resulting in a 210-215-year difference in the length of the Bible’s timeline. The main question is, does the “430 years” of Exodus 12:40-41 (and the 400 years for Abraham’s offspring in Gen. 15:13) pertain to just the time in Egypt, or the time of the entire sojourn of Abraham and his descendants in lands not belonging to them (Canaan, Haran, and Egypt) while they waited for God’s promises to be fulfilled?
Most modern English translations make it seem clear that it’s just the time in Egypt. But the original Hebrew is more open to both possibilities, which is better reflected in older translations like the King James, which has the 430 years as a potentially parenthetical phrase.
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. – Ex. 12:40 (KJV)
Nearly every Christian and Jewish theologian prior to the late 1800s interpreted the 430 years as pertaining to the time from Abraham to the exodus from Egypt, and not just the time in Egypt.
Some of the evidence for this view includes Galatians 3:16-18 where the apostle Paul states that it was 430 years from the promises made to Abraham to the giving of the law (at Sinai 50 days after the exodus). The ages listed for the line of Levi (Kohath – Amram – Moses) in Exodus 6:16-20 make it impossible for there to be 430 years in Egypt if no generations are missing, since Kohath was alive before the entry to Egypt (Gen. 46:11) and Moses was 80 at the time of the exodus (Ex.7:7). Jacob included all his life as a time of hard sojourning in Genesis 47:9. Additionally, the Greek Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch both say the 430 years were in Egypt and Canaan in the text of Exodus 12:40.
What would qualify as the point where promises were made to Abram for the start of the 430-year period? Options include in Ur when God originally spoke with him (Gen 12:1-3, Acts 7:2-4), when Abram first entered the land (Gen 12:4), or when God cut the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15. All these instances come from a relatively short span of years. If it was 430 years from Abraham to the exodus, this completes the link between those two points.
If the 430 years was just the time in Egypt, then we would need to add the 25 years from Abram’s entry at age 75 to the birth of Isaac when Abraham was 100 (Gen. 21:5); the 60 years from Isaac’s birth to Jacob’s birth (Gen. 25:26); and the 130 years for Jacob’s age at the point of his entry into Egypt (Gen. 47:9), for a total of 215 years. 430 + 215 = 645 years (rather than 430).
4) From Exodus to Solomon’s 4th Year (480 years)
The next segment seems rather straight forward. 1 Kings 6:1 say it was 480 years from the exodus to Solomon’s 4th year as king, when he began work on the temple. However, as with almost every point the Bible makes, this point is also vigorously debated. Because this connects so strongly with the various Exodus date proposals, the different camps either embrace this statement or attempt to explain why a straight-forward reading is not the best way to approach it.
For those holding to Ramesses Exodus date (around 1250 BC by standard dating) 480 years before Solomon (thought by many to have reigned from 970-930 BC) results in an Exodus date in the 15th century BC, To get around this, they suggest that since 480 is the product of 12 x 40, with both numbers having symbolic meaning, it’s not intended to be taken literally.
However, the time spans listed in the book of Judges seem too long to possibly be compressed into such a short space as required by a Ramesses Exodus date. At the same time one of the later judges, Jephthah, states that in his time Israel had been in the land 300 years (Judges 11:26). This fits well with the 480 years between Exodus and Solomon’s 4th year. This would include 40 years in the wilderness, 300 years of early judges, about 50 or 60 years of later judges, 80 years for kings Saul and David (2 Sam 5:4-5, Acts 13:21), and 4 years for Solomon. There seems to be no reason to discount a literal interpretation of 1 Kings 6:1.
Conclusion
Stay tuned for next week when the final four segments of the Bible timeline will be addressed to conclude the Bible’s timeline. Until then, keep thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Family tree. (Tomasz Steifer, Gdansk, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
