§ Timeline
Five eras, roughly two thousand years apart at the start and a few decades apart by the end.
Dates before the kings of Israel are approximate and debated among historians — the further back the story goes, the less precise any date can honestly be.
I
🌍 Creation & Patriarchs
~2000-1500 BC and earlier- Creation & the Flood — Genesis 1-9. No fixed date; treated as pre-historical in the text's own framing.
- Methuselah's death — the genealogies place it the same year as the Flood.
- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob — Genesis 12-50, the founding family narrative of Israel.
- Joseph in Egypt — sets up the migration that leads to centuries of Israelite presence in Egypt.
II
🏜️ Exodus & Conquest
~1450-1200 BC- The Exodus — Moses leads Israel out of Egypt; dating is one of the most debated questions in biblical archaeology.
- Forty years in the wilderness — Numbers and Deuteronomy.
- Conquest of Canaan under Joshua — Joshua 1-12.
- The judges, including Ehud and Samson — a cycle of oppression, deliverance, and relapse repeated across roughly two centuries.
III
👑 Kings & Kingdom
~1050-586 BC- Saul, David, and Solomon — the united monarchy.
- The kingdom splits — Israel (north) and Judah (south) after Solomon's death.
- Elijah and Elisha — prophets active in the northern kingdom.
- Fall of the northern kingdom — to Assyria, 722 BC.
- Fall of Jerusalem — to Babylon, 586 BC; the temple is destroyed.
IV
⛓️ Exile & Return
~586-400 BC- Babylonian exile — Daniel and Ezekiel are set here.
- Jonah's mission to Nineveh — set slightly earlier, before Nineveh's own fall in 612 BC.
- Return under Cyrus of Persia — 538 BC, the temple is eventually rebuilt.
- Ezra and Nehemiah — rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and re-establishing the law.
V
✝️ Second Temple & New Testament
~400 BC - 100 AD- Four hundred "silent" years — no new Old Testament writing; Greek and then Roman rule over the region.
- Birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus — the Gospels, set under Roman occupation.
- Paul's letters — written to early churches across the Roman world, including his shortest, to Philemon.
- Book of Revelation — closes the New Testament, written under later Roman persecution.