The Bible: Story and Scholarship

1 AM – 194766 items

religionscripture
The Aleppo Codex, copied at Tiberias about 930, open at pages of Isaiah. Photo: ברי"א (Hebrew Wikipedia), CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Aleppo Codex, copied at Tiberias about 930, open at pages of Isaiah. Photo: ברי"א (Hebrew Wikipedia), CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

One book, two clocks

When were the books of the Bible written, and when do they say their stories happened? This timeline runs the two answers side by side, from the oldest Hebrew poetry to the closing of the Jewish and Christian canons and the great printed translations, and it never mixes them.

Two threads

  • scholarship: when historians, archaeologists and textual critics date the writing, the copying and the events. Most such dates carry a “c.”, and the notes say so.

  • tradition: the dates the story gives itself, as Jewish and Christian tradition count them. Each is stated as “the tradition dates…”, with a plain note where archaeology disagrees or is silent.

Filter by manuscripts for the scrolls and codices that carry the text, canon for the lists of which books count, translation for the Greek, Latin, German and English Bibles, and archaeology for inscriptions that touch the story.

Hebrew dates

The traditional Jewish dates are shown in the Hebrew calendar, counted Anno Mundi (“year of the world”) from the Creation date worked out in the second-century Seder Olam: AM 1 began in the autumn of 3761 BCE. The Exodus falls on 15 Nisan 2448 and the First Temple’s destruction on 9 Av 3338, and the app converts each to the modern calendar. Before the fixed Hebrew calendar was settled, centuries after these events, a date in it is a reckoning, not a record.

“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” — Ecclesiastes 12:12, King James Version (1611)

Items

  1. Creation, by the rabbinic count

  2. ≈ 1,654 years

  3. The Flood, by the rabbinic count

  4. The patriarchs, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 290 years

  5. Israel in Egypt, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 210 years

  6. Forty years in the wilderness, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 40 years

  7. The Exodus, by the rabbinic count

  8. The Torah is given at Sinai, by the rabbinic count

  9. “Israel” in stone: the Merneptah Stele

    Mortuary temple of Merneptah, western Thebes

  10. The oldest Hebrew poetry: the Songs of Deborah and of the Sea

  11. David and Solomon, as historians date them

    ≈ 79 years

  12. David’s reign, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 39 years, 11 months

  13. The Tel Dan Stele: “the House of David”

    Tel Dan, upper Galilee

  14. King Mesha of Moab names Omri and YHWH

    Dhiban (biblical Dibon), Jordan

  15. The First Temple, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 410 years · Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  16. Samaria falls to Assyria

    Samaria (Sebastia)

  17. Sennacherib besieges Lachish and Jerusalem

    Tel Lachish

  18. Hezekiah’s tunnel and the Siloam inscription

    Hezekiah’s tunnel, City of David, Jerusalem

  19. Josiah’s “book of the law” and Deuteronomy

    Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  20. The Ketef Hinnom amulets

    Ketef Hinnom, beside St Andrew’s Church, Jerusalem

  21. The Babylonian exile

    ≈ 49 years

  22. Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the First Temple

    Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  23. A second Isaiah names Cyrus

  24. The Torah takes its final shape

    ≈ 138 years

  25. The Second Temple, as historians date it

    ≈ 585 years · Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  26. The First Temple is destroyed, by the rabbinic count

    Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  27. The Second Temple, by the rabbinic count

    ≈ 420 years · Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  28. The Septuagint: the Torah in Greek

    Alexandria

  29. The Dead Sea Scrolls are copied

    ≈ 317 years · Khirbet Qumran and its caves

  30. Daniel, written during the Maccabean crisis

  31. Ben Sira’s grandson names “the Law, the Prophets and the other books”

  32. The Great Isaiah Scroll

    Khirbet Qumran and its caves

  33. Jesus is born, as historians date it

  34. The Nativity, as Christian tradition dates it

    Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

  35. Pontius Pilate governs Judaea

    10 years · Theatre of Caesarea Maritima

  36. Luke’s date: “the fifteenth year of Tiberius”

  37. Jesus is crucified, as historians date it

  38. The Passion and Resurrection, as the gospels tell them

    Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

  39. Paul writes his letters

    10 years

  40. Mark, the first gospel

  41. Rome destroys the Second Temple

    Temple Mount, Jerusalem

  42. Matthew and Luke–Acts are written

    10 years

  43. The rabbis at Yavneh: the council that wasn’t

    Yavne (Jamnia)

  44. Josephus counts 22 books

    Rome

  45. The Gospel of John

  46. The New Testament canon takes shape

    ≈ 275 years

  47. Marcion’s Bible

    Rome

  48. P52, the Rylands fragment of John

  49. The Muratorian fragment

  50. Origen’s Hexapla

    Theatre of Caesarea Maritima

  51. Codex Sinaiticus

    Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai

  52. Athanasius lists the 27 books

    Alexandria

  53. Jerome translates the Vulgate

    ≈ 23 years · Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

  54. The Council of Hippo

    Hippo Regius, near Annaba

  55. The Council of Carthage confirms the list

    Carthage

  56. The Talmud names the Bible’s authors

  57. Dionysius Exiguus counts the years from the Incarnation

    Rome

  58. The Masoretes of Tiberias

    ≈ 250 years · Tiberias

  59. The Aleppo Codex

    Tiberias

  60. The Leningrad Codex is finished in Cairo

    Fustat (Old Cairo)

  61. ≈ 512 years

  62. Luther’s September Testament

    Wartburg Castle, Eisenach

  63. The Council of Trent fixes the Catholic canon

    Trento Cathedral

  64. The King James Version

    London

  65. Ussher dates Creation to 4004 BCE

  66. Wellhausen’s documentary hypothesis

    University of Greifswald

  67. The Dead Sea Scrolls are found

    Khirbet Qumran and its caves

  68. The Aleppo Codex is damaged in the riots

    Central Synagogue, Aleppo