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.
