What kind are you looking for? Real time line? That maybe very hard to come by, Here's an example why:
Where can I find a biblical timeline?
by Listener 17 Replies latest watchtower bible
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saltyoldlady
Chart of Outstanding Historical Dates on pages 204-207 in the WTS All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial - of course the dates are all WRONG! lol
I made this one a hobby for myself and have detailed it all out but don't have a nice nifty printout format for you - and frankly don't think I've found another of the homo sapiens species in agreement with me but it all seems very logical to my way of thinking and miraculously jives with most modern history - uses Bible Scripture numbers "almost" exclusively - the two gaps - Joshua to Judges, and Samuel's timeline are done via reasoning - Samuel item has many solid clues for us though. The Joshua to Judges gap I finally solved by process of deduction. And funny thing this deductive process jives with Book of Jasher but that writing itself considered spurious by many.
Timeline begins in 4130 BC
Gen Chap 5 gives us 1656 years from Adam to Flood
Gen 7:11 and 8:14 indicate approximately 1 year in the Ark
Gen Chap 11 give us 292 years from getting off the Ark down to Abram's birth - Many disagreements here but Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment 4Q 252 supports my thesis
Gen 12:4 give us 75 years from time of Abram's birth (2181 BC) down to age 75 when he receives the covenant
Exodus 12:40 and Gal 3:17 give us 430 years til time of Exodus from Egypt
Numbers 10:12 gives us approximately 1 year til spies are sent out by Moses to examine the promised land
Joshua 14:7-10 establishes 45 years from time of going out to spy the land until Joshua divides everything up (Caleb's Speech)
How much time from then until Joshua dies? No scriptural reference - a gap - but some time MUST be allowed. All we know is he died at age 110 - a clue - but it doesn't do much to solve the problem authoritatively.
The Book of Judges - count up each time period spoken about provides 410 years - 1 Sam 4:18 provides an additional 40 years for time of Eli's judging - thus equals exactly the 450 year Period of Judges spoken of at Acts 13:20.
No specific time period specified for Samuel but several clues - One he was a young lad when God gave his message to Samuel - Chapter 3 and not long after Eli died -
Two I Sam 8:1-5 tells us he was old gray when he anointed Saul as King. We are also told his sons were old enough they had begun serving as priests (at least 30 yrs of age then and obviously older than that because they had had enough time to establish a bad reputation with the people by accepting bribes, etc.) plus Samuel was old enough the people were beginning to be concerned about the possibility of his dying and the fact they might get stuck with oversight by his sons. So ask yourself how old does that have to be? Bible tells us in Ps 90:10 that age 70 was old, 80 was exceptionally old. My reasoning then is Samuel has to be at least 70 when he anoints King Saul. So IF (a big IF) Samuel were about 12 when Eli died I'd allow another 58 years here til Saul becomes King.
From here on out it's easy - Using records from Book of Kings on the Judean line only we arrive at 513 years for the Period of the Kings. Adding up years of each king's reign.
One really great touchstone for us here is the year 609 BC - date of Josiah's death. Can be verified by 4 other secular historical records - done nicely by Carl Olof Jonnson in his Book Gentile Times Reconsidered. II Kings 23:28-29 tells us Necho (of Egypt) is the one who puts Josiah to death and also gives us the information that he was coming to the aid of the Assyrian King Assur-umballitt at Haran. The reason for the fear of Assur-umballitt was Nabopolasser's (Babylon) joining up together with Cyaxexes of the Medes and Persians to finish off Assyria. Interestingly all four of these can be dated by their own secular histories and conincide with the date of 609 BC for the death of Josiah. Thus we have the dates of 640 to 609 for Josiah's reign anchored nicely. (5 different verification methods if we include Jewish biblical history)
The above thus identifies 587 BC as the correct date for burning of Jerusalem which of course is what the rest of the world already knows - only WTS and Bible Students Groups try to combat these dates because of their love affair with the 1914 date for end of Gentile Times.
So working backward from 587 BC we add 513 years from Period of Kings and arrive at 1100 BC for beginning of King Saul's reign. Working back from 1100 BC and adding 58 years for Samuel's life story backing up to his age 12 we arrive at 1158 BC for death of Eli. Working back 450 years for Period of Judges from Eli's death we arrive at 1608 BC for beginning of Period of Judges. If we make a logical calculated guess that Joshua was near the same age of Caleb when he went out to spy the land - possibly age 42 at that time and we subtract the difference from the age of his death at 110 we arrive at the possibility that he had a period of administration over Israel for 22 years. Working back from 1608 and adding on 22 years would bring us to 1630 BC for the dividing up of the land. Working back 45 plus 1 year (a total of 46 years) to time of Exodus gives us the date of 1676 BC for the Exodus - an idea that turns Egyptian chronologers hair grey and brings shouts of IT CAN'T BE! But we can argue that on another thread another day. The truth of the matter modern day Egyptian figures are figured off Ussher's 4004 starting date. They come up with the exact same number of years from Adam down til the time of the Exodus as I do so they put Ahmose I reign ending 1550 BC. They have deducted 2454 years from 4004 BC. I say deduct 2454 years from 4130 BC and we get 1676 BC as end of Ahmose I reign. Work back 2454 years (a combination of 430 year period to Covenant in 2106 BC plus 75 years of age for Abram to his birth at 2181 BC plus 292 years back to getting off the ark in 2473 BC plus 1 year on ark to 2474 BC - begininning of the flood plus 1656 years to Adam) equals 4130 BC for the beginning of the Bible record.
There are just lots and lots of advantages to this method because now everything fits in place - no overlapping screwups or tangled webs as Russell called them because he didn't understand. I can just see all your eyes glazing over. LOL.
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AnnOMaly
Wow! An honorable mention?
saltyoldlady and Listener - http://www.bibleworldhistory.com/index.html - there are some niggles, and I'm sure SOL will spot a few disagreements with her research, but the charts are nicely set out and give a good overview.
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Listener
Thanks guys, this is a great help. The main reason I wanted it is because we were watching a movie about the life of Moses and when hubby and I tried to work out when things occurred we had no idea. The timeline will help us to put all the little stories we know into a better perspective.
I said to my hubby that it would be fun to use the timeline to prick our memory about the stories we do know. This made him puzzle about how a timeline could be accurate. His main question was how do they know how long a year is.
In the OT there are lots of times where a specific number of years are mentioned. Could someone please explain how bible interpretations were able to translate these earlier texts into what we understand a year to be these days? For instance, Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years (and we take that to mean approx 40 years of 365/366 days) but when that was written in the bible a year would have meant a different amount of days.
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Ding
The ancients used the lunar cycles to mark off the months.
This created a problem, because the solar year and the 12 months don't match perfectly.
This means that if all they had done was use the 12 months in their calendar, the months wouldn't correspond to the same seasons each year.
In other words, the months would "drift."
To solve this problem today, we have leap years every four years.
The Israelites didn't do it this way.
Instead, they added an extra month to the calendar periodically to keep the months from drifting away from the solar year.
This process was called intercalation (which means inserting).
You can look this up online if you want.
If not, I'm sure that Leolaia either has posted an explanation of this or could give you one depending on how deeply you want to go into it.
At this point, suffice it to say that their system kept the monthly system adjusted to the solar year in a similar manner to what our leap year system does today.
I hope this is what you are looking for or at least puts you on the right track.
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Larsinger58
Ann O'Maly Everytime I see one of your posts I think about this scene in the Wizard of Oz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IRe2HwMr2w
teeheee!!!
Listener: I really was't sure if my timeline would be helpful because I don't context anyone but the kings. But I am not quite sure what you're asking for, but it occurred to me you might not be aware of the WTS's timeline in the Aid to Bible Understanding which is a graphic timeline that follows the kingships during the time of ancient Israel and Judh, but also annotates which prophets were alive during the time as well. That is the closest example of a timeline that I know of that offers you the context of what was going on at the time. The Aid To Bible Understanding was replaced by the Insight on the Scriptures, Vols 1-2, but that wonderful timeline was not duplicated. If you can get a copy of the Aid book somewhere, or a scan of the timelime, then I think it would be close to what you are looking for.
As a general comment on the timelines you will find out there, most will follow the secular timeline that dates the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE and the fall of Jerualem in 587/586 BCE. This timeline varies from the JW timeline in three primary ways:
1) While JWs use 539 BCE to date the fall of Babylon, they follow 2 Chronicles 36 and Josephus in introducing a 70-year interval of desolation of Jerusalem prior to the 1st of Cyrus, except Josephus dates this 70-year period from the last deportation (year 23, Neb2) whereas the WTS dates the 70 years from year 18. Thus the WTS dates the fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE rather than 587 BCE. This is the first major variant between the WTS timeline and the secular timeline.
2) The secular timeline uses Edwin R. Thiele's co-rulership chronology in his book, "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings." Thiele died in 1986 but his book has been recently republished in paperback and is readily available at Amazon.com for only about $15 or used for $11. But it is also likely available from the library. This book will likely give you the details and discussions you might be looking for, so I recommend this book to you.
Of note, though, here again the WTS seeks its own direction for the period of the divided kingdom period and totally ignores Thiele's co-rulershis. Instead, they ignore all those co-rulerships and just end-to-end the timelime for the Judean Kings. I guess it got too complex for them. As a result, their Israelite kingships have several interregnums where there is no king ruling on the throne. I'm not judging, but I am laughing. The point is that the co-rulerships remove about 47 years from the timeline. So at the point of King David the WTS timeline has gained another 47 years and so is now 67 years earlier than the popular timeline. They match the "relative" chronology from that point back to the creation of Adam pretty consistently. For instance, the popular timeline dates the Exodus to 1446 BCE and the WTS dates it to 1513.
1513 - 1446= 67 years
3) Finally, the WTS dates the return from Babylon in 537 BCE consistent with the secular timeline, but when it gets to the reign of Xerxes and Artaxerxes, it diverges by inserting a 10-year co-rulership between Xerxes and Artaxerxes, thus moving the 20th of Artaxerxes up from 445 BCE back to 455 BCE. This 10-year divergence continues to the end of the reign of Artaxerxes I which the WTS ends in his 51st year, ratherthan in his 41st year per the popular secular timeline. But that means from that point on the WTS and the secular timeline are both in sync.
If you consider the above, therefore, I think most timelines will reflect pretty much the same "relative" chonology, and the dates don't matter that much. It seems you were more fascinated by the relative chronology of who was ruling when at the time of certain prophets, etc.
MY TIMELINE: My timeline follows Martin Anstey who in his "Romance of Bible Chronology" (available online) uses strict Biblical chronology to date the 1st of Cyrus 483 years prior to the baptism of Christ, thus dating that event c. 457-455 BCE. I then follow Josephus and the Bible in introducing 70 years back to the last deportation, year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar which is dated to 525 BCE. This means year 37 falls in 511 BCE which is confirmed by the VAT4956. The VAT4956 also dates year 37 of Neb2 to 568 BCE to reflect the revised timeline. From 455 BCE, I date the Exodus to 1386 BCE, which is 19 jubilees earlier.
19 x 49 = 931
931 + 455 = 1386 BCE
From that date, I date the 4th of Solomon to 906 BCE, 480 years later. This now ha good compatibility with RC14 evidence which dates Shishak's invasion of Rehov City IV to c. 871 BCE which would fall in year 39 of Solomon. From here I use the Assyrian eponym solar eclipse dated to 709 BCE rather than 763 BCE, which is the date used by the secular timeline. The WTS totally ignores this eclipse event, basically dismissing the reliability of the entire Assyrian eponym. Of cours, using the 709 BCE eclipse to date the Assyrian Period gives me dates 54 years later than the secular timeline, but that is not an issue for the NB Period because of the VAT4956 which when dating year 37 to 511 BCE rather than 568 BCE, lowers the NB Period by 57 years, which thus covers the 54-year reduction in the NB Period.
This means that by the 1st of Cyrus there is an apparent 82-year discrepancy (537 - 455 = 82), which was first noticed by Anstey. These extra 82 years are removed from both the Persian and Greek timelines so that by the 1st of Artaxerxes III my timeline is in sync with the secular timeline, dating his 1st year in 538 BCE. My timeline does vary a bit from the secular timeline as well in that I recognize two co-rulerships that Thiele missed;a 6-year co-rulership between Ahab and Jehoram and a 6-year co-rulership between Solomon and Rehoboam. I have a kingslist in text format if you want a copy of it. I can send it to you via e-mail if interested.
Hope this was helpful. But basically some have pointed out, you're going to get a different timeline depending on who you follow. If you're interested in strict Biblical chronology, however, you will have to date the 1st of Cyrus to 455 BCE as does Martin Anstey. Oherwise, the "relative chronology" you'll find in many Biblical timelines should be fairly accurate as far as who was living when, etc.
LS
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AnnOMaly
Larsie-baby.
I'm too gorgeous to be a bad witch.
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Listener
That has answered my question Ding, I didn't realise that the solar calander went as far back as the early Israelites.
I appreciate you are a wealth of information in this area Lassinger and your reassurance that the various biblical timelines are fairly accurate, with only minor differences. Certainly with the JWs dating of 1914 and 1975 etc. I understand how inaccurate they may be, one would have to be inspired by God to get this accurate.
What does amaze me is how detailed the bible is in being able to extract a timeline from it that is fairly consistant by those interpreting it.
