This timeline gathers several hundred events of biblical and church history and assigns each the most
accurate date the evidence allows. Precision varies enormously across four thousand years, so every date
is labeled by how it is known:
- Fixed dates (shown plainly, sometimes to the day) are anchored outside the Bible —
astronomical records, Assyrian eponym lists, the Babylonian Chronicle, Roman consular years, or
inscriptions such as the Gallio stone at Delphi. Example: Jehoiachin's surrender of Jerusalem,
March 16, 597 BC.
- Approximate dates (marked c.) are reasoned from biblical synchronisms,
genealogies, and reign lengths tied to those anchors. Most Old Testament dates are of this kind, usually
reliable within a few years.
- Traditional dates (marked trad.) — chiefly events before Abraham — follow
the genealogical arithmetic of Genesis 5 & 11 (Archbishop Ussher's method), anchored here to
Abraham's birth in 2166 BC: creation in 4174 BC and the flood in 2518 BC. Ussher's own famous figures
(creation 4004 BC) run 170 years later only because he placed Abraham's birth at 1996 BC. Scripture
itself assigns these events no absolute dates, and the genealogies may be selective; the traditional
figures are kept for orientation.
The framework used here:
- Kings of Israel & Judah — Edwin Thiele's reconstruction of the regnal data
(The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings), anchored to the battle of Qarqar (853 BC) and
Jehu's tribute (841 BC): the kingdom divides in 931 BC, Samaria falls in 722 BC, Jerusalem in 586 BC.
- Exodus & patriarchs — the early Exodus date of 1446 BC, taken from
1 Kings 6:1 (480 years before Solomon's fourth year, 966 BC); Abraham's birth follows at 2166 BC via
Exodus 12:40. Many scholars prefer a 13th-century Exodus (c. 1270 BC); event notes flag the debate.
- Life of Christ — birth c. 5/4 BC (before Herod's death); baptism AD 29
(Tiberius's 15th year, Luke 3:1); crucifixion Friday, April 3, AD 33, following Harold Hoehner's
analysis of the Passover astronomy — with April 7, AD 30 as the chief alternative.
- Apostolic age — built on the Gallio inscription (Paul in Corinth, AD 51/52),
Agrippa I's death (44), Festus's accession (c. 59), and the fall of Jerusalem (70). John's gospel,
letters, and Revelation are dated c. 85–95 — after Jerusalem's fall — following the early-church
testimony of his long ministry at Ephesus into Trajan's reign.
- Church history — standard reference dates, precise from the fourth century onward.
Where good scholarship disagrees, the event's Dating note names the alternatives. The aim is a
single coherent, defensible chronology — held with appropriate humility.