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This article deals exclusively with the chronology presented within the text of the Hebrew Bible. For issues of the chronology of historical events associated with the Hebrew Bible, see The Bible and history. For the chronology of the biblical books themselves, see dating the 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 a chronological framework to its history of ancient Israel and its relationship with God.

Background: the study of the biblical chronology

The Hebrew bible/Old Testament's books of Torah and Former Prophets and elsewhere set out what purports to be history of the Israelite people from the Creation to a time around the foundation of the Second Temple. This history is provided with a complex, intricately constructed system for measuring the passage of time, the "generations" of Genesis 5 and 11, the inter-related regnal periods of Kings, direct statements of periods of elapsed time, and others. The chronology appears to be "scientific" in its character - that is, it appears to intend to provide the reader with a means of telling when these events occurred - the Exodus, for example, a certain number of years after the birth of Abraham, or the construction of the First Temple at a point in time which could be compared to events elsewhere in the world at that moment.

Major differences exist between the standard or Masoretic Hebrew text, the Greek Septuagint text and the different Hebrew text of the Samaritan Torah. The differences affect particularly the chronology from Creation to the Flood, which the Masoretic text places in 1656 AM (Anno Mundi, years counted from creation). The Septuagint places it in 2242 or thereabouts (there are variations between Septuagint manuscripts), and the Samaritan in 1307 AM. These variations probably reflect on-going editing of the biblical text to a period as late as the 2nd century BC, when the Book of Jubilees gave an expansion of the Genesis story which agreed with the Samaritan chronology. The biblical chronology, in other words, was the product of a particular historical milieu, the Hellenistic world of the 4th to 1st centuries BCE, and was never absolutely fixed. The Masoretic text became the bible of mainstream Judaism and of Western Christianity, while the Greek text became the bible of the Eastern churches; the Samaritan community today numbers no more than a few hundred individuals, but still uses its distinct text and biblical chronology.

Tanakh

Creation to Abraham

The period from the Creation to Abraham is measured by the genealogies at Genesis 5 and 11, elapsed time being calculated by the addition of the patriarchs' ages at death. The genealogies exist in three main manuscript traditions, the Masoretic (in Hebrew), the Septuagint (in Greek), and the Samaritan Torah (Hebrew). The three do not agree with each other, here or elsewhere. (The Septuagint is represented in this table by two manuscripts, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus; dates are Anno Mundi, or AM, meaning from the Creation):

Abraham to Jacob

The chronology between the birth of Abraham and the arrival of the Israelites in Egypt is measured by significant events in the lives of the three major patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Abraham is said to have been 100 years old at the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:5); Isaac 60 at the birth of Jacob (Genesis 25:26); and Jacob on his arrival in Egypt informs the Pharaoh that he is 130 (Genesis 47:9). The sum of these three numbers gives 290 years for the interval between the birth of Abraham and the arrival of the Children of Israel (i.e. Jacob) in Egypt.

The actual ages of the three patriarchs - 175 years for Abraham, 180 for Isaac, and 147 for Jacob - create a conflict with this chronology. "The number associated with the Fathers is 140, the sum of squares of the digits one through seven. Abraham was 140 years of age when Isaac married Rebekah, a marriage which lasted 140 years. Rebekah was barren for twenty years before she gave birth to the twins Jacob and Esau ... since Isaac was sixty years old ... the twins were 120 years old when Jacob fled to Aram shortly before the death of Isaac at age 180. After serving Laban for twenty years ... Jacob was thus 140 years old when he re-entered the land of Canaan" - an event that occurred, in terms of the narrative, long before he arrived in Egypt.

Israel in Egypt

The story of Joseph, which closes Genesis, marks the transition for God's Chosen People from the Chosen Land of Canaan into Egypt, the Land of Oppression. He is 17 when this happens - the same significant number which sums the ages of the primary patriarchs Abraham/Isaac/Jacob, and which figures also in the Flood story to mark significant turning points: as the Flood ended the original Creation, so Israel will now leave the Promised Land.

At this point, the junction between Genesis and Exodus, the chronology becomes confused, for although at Exodus 12:40 the Masoretic text states unequivocally that "Israel lived in Egypt 430 years", at Genesis 15:13-16 Yahweh has warned Abraham that his descendants will be "sojourners in a land that is not theirs" for 400 years. A generations-based chronology is offered through Joseph's brother Levi and his descendants, but the sum of their four lifespans comes to 350 and thus fails to match either 400 or 430. The Septuagint and Samaritan texts avoid the problem by making the 430 years in Exodus 12:40 cover not only the time of Israel in Egypt but also its time in Canaan beforehand, back to Abraham’s entry into the land.

Exodus to First Temple

The chronology breaks down also for the period between the Exodus and the building of the Temple by Solomon. 1 Kings 6:1 states that this period was 480 years. This is not supported by the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges: between them they contain some two dozen statements detailing periods of oppression and peace for Israel which together add up to 410 years. Add to this the 40 years in the wilderness, the time required for the conquest of Canaan under Joshua, the time of Samuel and Saul and the 40-year reign of David, and the full period would amount to over 570 years. Apologists for the accuracy of the chronology and its relevance to history argue that these periods should be treated as overlapping rather than consecutive, so that the 510 years can fit within the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1, but many of the numbers given in Judges are clearly schematic: periods of 10, 20, 40 and 80 years recur frequently, for example, and periods of peace are inevitably either 40 or 80 years long.

Temple to Exile

The period from the foundation of the Temple by Solomon to its destruction is measured by a formula rather like that used for the patriarchs of Genesis 5 and 11: king comes to the throne of Judah in the xth year of king of Israel (or vice versa) and rules n years. It also mirrors Genesis 5 and 11 in having 20 kings in each royal line, matching the 20 patriarchs between Adam and Abraham (with a "wicked queen" between the 7th and 8th kings in each kingdom). As was noted by scholars as early as the 19th century, adding up individual reigns in the Book of Kings gives a total of 430 years for the monarchs between the Temple's foundation in the fourth year of Solomon and its destruction, mirroring the 430 years spent by Israel in Egypt.

Exile to Second Temple

After the destruction of the Temple the chronology becomes disjointed and incoherent. Two time-periods are given for the length of the Babylonian captivity, 50 years and 70. The first is added to the 430 years between the construction and destruction of the First Temple to make up a schematic total of 480 years, the product of the symbolically important numbers 12 and 40. The second is the holy number 7, representing the divine, raised to the power of ten. The biblical chronology, which begins by measuring time so precisely at its beginning in Genesis, ends in vagueness.

The 4000-year calendar

The chronology received a final revision soon after 164 BCE, the date when the Second Temple was re-dedicated by Judas Maccabeus following the Jewish struggle against the Syrian Greeks. The final chronology has not only a start-point - the creation of the world - but an end-point as well, making up a Great Year of 4,000 years.

From Adam to Abraham the chronology has 20 generations and 1945 years; from the call of Abraham to the entry of Israel into Egypt is 215 years; from Egypt to the Exodus and the Tabernacle (the fore-runner of the Temple) is 430 years; and from the Tabernacle to Solomon's Temple is 480 years. From Abraham’s birth to the foundation of the Temple was 1200 years, or 12 generations of 100 years each. (A biblical generation is sometimes 100 years, as the four generations covering the 400 years in Egypt, and sometimes 40, as the years in the wilderness and the life-spans of David and Solomon).

From the foundation of the Temple to its destruction was 430 years; from that event to the edict of Cyrus (for the existence of which the bible is the sole witness) for the return of Israel in 538 BCE was 50 years. (Jeremiah speaks of a 70 year captivity, but the final revision of the chronology needs a shorter period). And from the return of Israel to the re-dedication of the Temple is 374 years, the final number needed to complete the 4,000 years:

The biblical chronology and history

Scholarly belief in the historicity of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua and Judges has been largely abandoned since the 1970s; debate over the remainder has been intense and at times vitriolic. As a result, attempts to calculate the dates of these individuals such as Abraham or Moses and events such as the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan from the biblical chronology are no longer in fashion. Even the events to which the chronology is tied are increasingly recognised as problematic: the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem in 538 BCE, for example, has found no more support in the archaeological record than have those of Genesis.

The definitive work on this later period is Edwin Thiele's "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings" (first edition 1951, subsequently revised, 3rd edition 1983). Thiele's work, with some minor subsequent amendments, answers for many scholars a major set of problems with the biblical chronology of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel: the numbers don't work. For example, Zimri of Israel is said to reign for seven days in the 27th year of Asa of Judah, but his successor Omri begins in Asa's 31st year (2 Kings 16:15-29). Thiele's basic assumptions is that behind such things as the schematic parallel lists of twenty kings and the 430 year regnal total, and such details as the fact that kings always die at sunset, lies real history. Thiele's work relies on the assumption that discrepancies are to be corrected by assuming co-regencies and differing calendars in the two kingdoms, and is therefore ultimately subjective, but his work is thorough and his system works. Indeed, Thiele’s work on the Biblical chronology has implications outside the realm of purely Biblical studies, as his precise dating of Judah's king Rehoboam on the basis of the Old Testament chronology, and his synchronisation of that king and the Egyptian ruler Shishak, is used by Egyptologists to give absolute dates to Egypt’s 22nd Dynasty.

This table gives 34 calculations the biblical chronology's date of Creation over the past two thousand years:

Jewish computation

The modern Hebrew calendar is counted from a Creation year ("year 1" rather than "year zero") based on the Masoretic text. "Year 1" is not a full year: it begins 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).

The system in use today is based on the calculation of Rabbi Yose Ben Halafta made in about 160 CE in the Seder Olam Rabbah, and adopted sometime before 165 CE. Seder Olam Rabbah treats the creation of Adam as the beginning of "Year Zero", resulting in a two-year discrepancy between it and the modern Jewish chronology. Confusion persisted for a long time as to how the Seder Olam Rabbah should be applied to calculate the start-date of the calendar. In 1000, for example, the Muslim chronologist al-Biruni noted that three different epochs were being used by various Jewish communities, being one, two, or three years later than the modern epoch. The matter seems to have been settled by 1178, when Maimonides, in his work Mishneh Torah, described the rules of the modern Hebrew calendar, including the modern epochal year. His work is now accepted by Jews as definitive, but it does not correspond to modern historical knowledge. For example, the Jewish year for the destruction of the First Temple is 3338 AM or 421 BCE, whereas modern knowledge places it in 587 BCE. (See the "Missing Years" in the Jewish Calendar.)

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

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.
•  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Biblical Chronology". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• The Jerusalem Chronology of the Israelite Monarchies by Brad Aaronson (1989)

References

1. James Barr, Biblical Chronology: Legend Or Science?, Ethel M. Wood Lecture, 1987
2. Data from G.F. Hasel, "Genesis 5 and 11: Chronogenealogies in the Biblical History of Beginnings"
3. Philippe Guillaume, "Tracing the Origin of the Sabbatical Calendar in the Priestly Narrative (Genesis 1 to Joshua 5)" JHS (vol.5 art.13), pp.10-13
4. Duane L. Christensen, Chronology, Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, p.150
5. http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/bo/him.html Lea Himelfarb, "How Long Were the Israelites in Slavery?", Department of the Bible, Bar Ilan University
6. www.asa3.org/asa/topics/AboutScience/chronology_barr.pdf James Barr, Biblical Chronology: Legend Or Science?, Ethel M. Wood Lecture 1987, p.8
7. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=P9sYIRXZZ2MC&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=biblical+chronology+Judges+period&source=bl&ots=sAf2wEiJuw&sig=Ft3vu48lMGZkrTcNyv_geJOWzqg&hl=en&ei=iq1ESrGcApSGkQX0rLCsAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6 William H. Shea, Chronology of the Old Testament, "Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible" (eds. David Noel Freedman, Alan C. Myers, Astrid B. Beck), p.247.
8. Ian Provan and Tremper Longman, "A Biblical History of Israel", pp.163-4
9. Philip Davies, "Memories of Ancient Israel" (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p.24-25
10. James Barr, Biblical Chronology: Legend Or Science? The Ethel M. Wood Lecture 1987, University of London on 4 March 1987. London: University of London, 1987. Pbk. ISBN: 7187088644. p.19.
11. Burke O. Long, "1 Kings, with an Introduction to Historical Literature (Eerdman's 1984) table p.21
12. Burke O. Long, "1 Kings, with an Introduction to Historical Literature (Eerdman's 1984) table p.21
13. Athaliah began to reign in the same year as Jehu and died in Jehu's 7th year (2 Kings 11:4, 12:2). See Christine Tetley, "The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom" (Eisenbrauns, 2005), table 3.3 (fn), p.31
14. The following table is derived from pages 73-75 of The Mythic Past (also published as The Bible in History) by Thomas L. Thompson
15. Lester L. Grabbe, "A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah", (Library of Second Temple Studies, 2006), pp. 11-12
16. Philip Davies, "Memories of Ancient Israel" (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p.24
17. Floyd Nolen Jones, The Chronology of the Old Testament, 16th ed., p. 26
18. Leopold Zunz On Time and Literature Zur Geschichte und Literatur opening chapter.
19. See The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries.

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