Dean Anderson

The problem is that the Bible simply doesn't give many post-exilic dates at all. Some can probably be gleaned from the Prophets, but there is basically a huge gap.

The writers of the Torah (well, one of them anyway) and the Deuteronomic History were date-obsessed and bridge gaps for us - for example the gap between Joseph and Moses has no "begat"s in it, but the writer helpfully tells us in Ex 12:20 that the Exodus was 430 years after the Israelites arrived in Egypt, and the gap between Moses's death and David's ascension to the throne where the "regnal" lengths of the Judges are not given, but the writer helpfully tells us in 1 Kings 6:1 that the Temple was built 480 years after the Exodus.

Unfortunately, none of the Gospel writers had this obsession, so none of them tell us anything unambiguous like "Jesus was born in the 600th year after the Exile" or anything like that. Instead, they choose to place the event based on external events (the death of Herod and the Quirinius census). This means that we are forced to use external events as a guide to when things allegedly happened, rather than the "inerrant" text of the Bible itself.

DrDale

Thanks for the info people. I'm really keen on developing a comparison chart between the timelines proposed by modern Christian/Jewish fundamentalists and those proposed by mainstream archeologists. I know it's going to take a while but I really am interested in finding where they mainly diverge other than in the geology and evolution realms (i.e the bible says this king from civilisation X was in power at this time but all mainstream archeologists say he was in power during a different time).


Cheers, DrDale

RED DAVE

Pervy:

Great chart and thanx for your work. I wonder if, in addition to the dates running from 0 and the creation you could insert a second set of dates using our dating system. This would help to see how the alleged Biblical dates fit with actual historical events (as you pointed out above with the Flood and the Egyptian 4th dynasty.

RED DAVE

Dean Anderson

It's already there. Column 5 shows the assumed BC date of the event - assuming that the date of the Exile is fixed at 597 BCE and back-calculating from there.

Tigers!

Did you use the Masoretic, Septuagint or Samartian versions for your timeline?

Dean Anderson

Masoretic. That should be obvious from the dates/ages that I use.