Chronology

The chronology in this PBwiki is based on a conservative veiw of the Bible. Statements of time in the Bible are taken at face value.

Correlations

Certain Bible dates can be correlated to events in secular histories. Assyrian king lists help us to date the rulership of Ahab king of Israel. Statements made by Stephen in his sermon in Acts and by Moses in Genesis and Exodus can be put together to create a framework around which other dates and events can be calculated.

However, the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament were not nearly as interested in dating their stories as we are. Further their concepts of dating and telling time differed from ours. For example the kingdoms of Judah and Israel differed in how they calculated the years a king reigned. One country calculated inclusively counting the part of a year from a king's accession until New Year's day as year one. The other country counted year one as beginning on New Year's day. Further complicating the issue was the fact that there were two seperate New Year's days, one in the spring and one in the fall. No one back then started their years in mid-winter where we count them today.

It is possible with a great deal of work to establish probable dates for some certain events. But a great deal of the time the dates we use will be aproximate and should be understood accordingly.

Paleology (Before the Exodus)

When we get back before the Exodus we run into major issues. All we have before this time are geneological lists. These generally give the age of the father at the son's birth and the total years of life of the father. In each of these combinations one can gain or lose several months depending on the system that was used to calculate the father's age. This means that the further back one goes the greater the uncertainty.

Further complicating time calculations are the differences between Septuagint and the Masoretic text. Comparison shows a difference of over 1000 years. The Septuagint dating would make our world a minimum of 7000 years old already. Which is correct?

While the dead sea scrolls help us to know that the Hebrew text is much more accurate than some had thought, they do not totally answer the question.

In this wiki we will use the Masoretic Hebrew text as the basis for our dating. But it should be understood that dates before Abraham may not be accurate and maybe off by hundreds if not thousands of years.

Having said all of this, a bare bones listing of events of each millenium can be found on these pages.