The Prophets and the Road (776 BC to 4 BC)

81 entries, in the order they happened: 21 where the Bible speaks and 60 where the historical record answers. The full timeline holds 82 entries for this era; some of them are only there.

Every entry in this era

before crucifixion existed…Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53: piercedIsaiah 53, and Psalm 22 as the Greek and the King James read it, describe a death by piercing, a method Israel's own courts did not use; their…
776 BCThe first Olympiad and the Greek alphabetGreece holds the first Olympic games, the city-state takes shape, and vowels are added to the alphabet; within decades Homer is fixed in writing for…
745–722 BCAssyrian deportation; Samaria fallsAssyria's Tiglath-Pileser III makes the deportation of whole peoples state policy, and Samaria, the northern kingdom's capital, falls: a way to end a…
8th c. BC by the book's own…Isaiah names CyrusIsaiah names Cyrus: the name and the job, rebuild Jerusalem and lay the temple's foundation.
c. 744–656 BCKush rules EgyptThe kings of Kush, south of Egypt in today's Sudan, conquer Egypt and rule it as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
701 BCSennacherib's siege of JerusalemAssyria's Sennacherib besieges Jerusalem, and his own victory prism never claims to have taken it.
701 BC (written 691 BC)Sennacherib's own accountSennacherib's annals say he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage", and do not claim the city was taken.
668–627 BCAshurbanipal's libraryAshurbanipal's palace library gathers some thirty thousand tablets, the Gilgamesh flood story among them: the palace that collects every text, a…
622 BCThe book of the Law foundIn 622 BC the book of the Law is found in the Temple, lost inside the building built to keep it: the record convicting itself, since a curated…
612 BCNineveh falls; the first coinsNineveh falls, and Lydia strikes the first coins; then Croesus sets gold and silver side by side.
605–562 BCNebuchadnezzar II and the temple ledgersUnder Nebuchadnezzar II the same temple speaks for the god and audits the barley: a closed loop, the priest vouching for the ledger and the ledger…
c. 594 BC (Solon's archonship)Solon shakes off the burdensBefore Solon, Athens' poor farmed rich men's land for a sixth of the crop and all borrowing was secured on the debtor's own person, so defaulters and…
c. 588 BCZedekiah's release revokedUnder Babylon's siege King Zedekiah proclaims liberty and the owners free their slaves; when the army pulls back, they take them back.
c. 587 BCThe law written in the heartIn the last days before Jerusalem falls, Jeremiah promises a new covenant: the law put in the inward parts and written in the heart, not on stone.
586–538 BCThe Temple destroyed; worship in exileBabylon destroys the Temple, and worship goes on in exile by reading the word aloud: the first proof that the building can be lost and the word…
c. 586 BCEzekiel's oracle against TyreEzekiel foretells that Nebuchadnezzar and many nations will scrape Tyre bare as a rock, its stones and timber thrown into the sea, dated by the…
586–539 BCThe exile as the land's sabbathsChronicles counts the exile as the land finally getting the sabbath years it was never given: seventy years.
c. 571 BCEzekiel's concession on TyreSixteen years after the oracle, Ezekiel concedes that Nebuchadnezzar's army got no wages from Tyre, and gives him Egypt instead.
6th c. BCZoroastrian dualismZoroastrian belief takes shape, with a savior, a resurrection and a judgment, in the empire where the exiles were living.
539 BCThe writing on the wallAt Belshazzar's feast the fingers of a man's hand write on the plaster of the palace wall: numbered, weighed, divided.
539 BC (conquest)Cyrus takes Babylon; the decreeCyrus of Persia takes Babylon and, by written decree, sends the deported peoples home; Ezra says a copy of the decree was filed at Ecbatana.
539 – 538 BCThe Cyrus CylinderCyrus's own cylinder records peoples and their sacred things returned to their places after he takes Babylon.
6th c. BC (traditional: the…Daniel 9: the seventy weeksDaniel 9 foretells an anointed one cut off, “but not for himself,” and after him the city and sanctuary destroyed.
c. 536 BCKnowledge shall be increasedThe last vision in Daniel ends with the book sealed until the time of the end, when many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
c. 520 BCDarius's Royal Road and the daricDarius lays the Royal Road and strikes the gold daric, and Herodotus counts its stations: a road finished and waiting before the payload it will one…
c. 520 BCThe Behistun inscriptionDarius carves his victory at Behistun and calls his rivals liars: power doing more than making law, certifying its own story and calling every other…
509 BC (Rome's traditional…Rome becomes a republicRome expels its last king, Tarquin the Proud, and is ruled instead by two consuls elected each year. By Rome's own reckoning the republic begins.
551–479 BCConfuciusConfucius teaches in the state of Lu that order begins with right relationships, sincerity and learning.
c. 500 BCHeraclitus and the logosHeraclitus takes logos, a merchant's word for an account or a reckoning, and uses it for the order of the world.
494 BC (Livy's chronology;…Rome: debtors in bonds; the first secessionLivy describes Roman debtors bound over to their creditors (nexi) and complaining that while they fought for Rome abroad they were enslaved by fellow…
490–480 BCPersia against Greece: Marathon to SalamisThe Persian kings send armies into Greece. Darius's is beaten at Marathon in 490 BC; ten years later Xerxes burns Athens but loses his fleet at…
c. 5th century BC (dates…The BuddhaIn northern India Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, teaches that suffering comes from craving and can end, and sends monks out to teach.
445 BCEzra reads the LawEzra reads the Law aloud to all the people, with others explaining it as he reads: scripture put into the people's own language on the spot.
c. 445 BC (Nehemiah's…Nehemiah 5: the king's tribute and the restored fieldsNehemiah 5 records Judeans who had mortgaged fields, vineyards and houses to buy grain in a dearth, and had borrowed money for the king's tribute…
c. 440–425 BCHerodotusHerodotus grounds his history in evidence and testimony, and says plainly when he doubts a source: the moment the oracle's monopoly on truth cracks…
419, 410, 407 BCThe Elephantine papyriPapyrus letters from a Jewish garrison at Elephantine, in Egypt, show a working temple to YHW far from Jerusalem, and name people the Bible names: an…
387 BC; 335 BCPlato's Academy and Aristotle's LyceumPlato opens the Academy in Athens; his student Aristotle opens the Lyceum in 335 BC and tutors the young Alexander.
333–323 BC and afterKoine GreekKoine Greek smooths the dialects into one common tongue for government. It is the language the Hebrew scriptures will be translated into within…
January–July 332 BCAlexander's causeway at TyreAlexander throws the old mainland city of Tyre into the sea to build a road to the island: Ezekiel's stones and timber laid in the water, come to…
early 331 BCAlexander at SiwaAt the oracle of Siwa, Alexander is greeted as the son of the god: a template born, a living man joining throne to altar and calling himself divine.
1 October 331 BCGaugamelaAt Gaugamela, on a date fixed by an eclipse, Alexander takes Persia's crown by open battle: power moving by open force, before the later shift to…
331/330 BCA sabbatical year kept, 331/330 BCA sabbatical year falls in 331/330 BC on the modern chronologies, and Josephus records Alexander remitting the Jews' tribute in the seventh year: the…
326 BC (Livy) or 313 BC…The Lex Poetelia abolishes nexumThe Lex Poetelia abolished nexum, the Roman loan under which an insolvent debtor could be held in bondage by his creditor; Livy says the confined…
c. 300 BCEuclid's ElementsEuclid's Elements: grant the starting assumptions and every conclusion follows, and anyone who can follow the steps can catch a mistake without…
c. 300–200 BC1 Enoch, quoted in Jude1 Enoch tells the story of Genesis 6 at length, with the Watchers binding themselves by oath on Mount Hermon, and the New Testament letter of Jude…
c. 295–283 BCThe Museum and the Great LibraryAlexandria's Museum and Great Library set out to gather every book in the world under one roof, and the crown keeps the originals: Uruk again, with…
c. 280–250 BCThe Septuagint TorahThe Torah is translated into Greek at Alexandria: the scripture put into the gospel's language three centuries early, and the version the New…
c. 279 BC; after 272–271 BCPtolemy II deifiedPtolemy II declares his parents gods, then himself and his sister-wife: the seat in its literal form.
c. 262 BC (Kalinga conquered…Ashoka's edictsThe Mauryan emperor Ashoka had his edicts carved on rocks and pillars across India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan, mostly in Prakrit in the Brahmi…
c. 250 BC onwardAphesis in the SeptuagintThe Greek translation renders both Hebrew words for release with one word, aphesis, the everyday word in business papers for cancelling a debt.
c. 240 BCEratosthenes and AristarchusEratosthenes measures the Earth from two shadows; Aristarchus puts the Sun at the centre, and the idea is not adopted for eighteen hundred years.
213 BCThe Qin burning of the booksIn 213 BC Li Si, chancellor to the First Emperor of Qin, forbade the teaching of history and ordered the burning of the books; by Sima Qian's account…
c. 197–159 BCThe papyrus embargo and parchmentPliny reports that Egypt cut off papyrus exports and that Pergamon perfected parchment in answer: a fight over the word that produced the tougher…
196 BCThe Rosetta decree remits the crown's debtsAt Memphis in 196 BC a council of priests honoured the young Ptolemy V, on the first anniversary of his coronation, in a decree recording that, after…
167 BCAntiochus IV makes the book a capital crimeAntiochus IV makes owning the book a crime punishable by death, yet copies older than his decree survive and are later found in the caves at Qumran…
163/162 BCBethsura and the sabbatical yearThe fortress of Bethsura surrenders for lack of food because it was a sabbatical year, with the fields left fallow, and 1 Maccabees gives the same…
146 BCCarthage and Corinth destroyedIn one year Rome razes Carthage, its old rival in Africa, and Corinth in Greece, and makes both provinces. The Mediterranean becomes Rome's sea.
141/140 BCSimon Maccabeus's bronze decreeSimon Maccabeus is made high priest, ruler and commander by one decree cut in bronze, valid until a faithful prophet should arise: the liberators…
138–126 BCThe Silk Road openedEmperor Wu of Han sends Zhang Qian west. His reports of the kingdoms of Central Asia open the overland routes later called the Silk Road, which link…
136/135 BCTwo more sabbatical yearsTwo more sabbatical years are recorded as kept, in 136/135 and 37/36 BC, by witnesses who mention them in passing, with no stake in proving it.
132 BCBen Sira's grandson and the Letter of AristeasBen Sira's grandson signs and dates his translation and admits it may fall short; the Letter of Aristeas invents a grand royal origin for the Greek…
c. 500 BC – AD 500The Nazca linesOn the desert plateau of southern Peru the Nazca scrape giant lines, shapes and animals into the ground, many visible whole only from the air.
c. 100 BC11QMelchizedekA scroll from Qumran, 11QMelchizedek, reads the laws of release together with Isaiah 61 and makes the cancelling of debts the way sin is forgiven, a…
63 BCPompey in the Holy of HoliesPompey enters the Holy of Holies and leaves the treasure untouched: force checked at the last inch. He took the room and left the gold.
53 BCCarrhae: Parthia stops RomeAt Carrhae, Parthian horse archers destroy the army of Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and kill him.
49–44 BCCaesar: the Rubicon and the Ides of MarchJulius Caesar crosses the Rubicon with his army in 49 BC, takes Rome and is named dictator for life; senators stab him to death on the Ides of March…
c. 44 BCCaesar's sabbatical-year exemptionJulius Caesar exempts the Jews from tribute in the sabbatical year, because they neither sow nor reap in it: the release seen from outside.
40 BC (title)Herod named King of the JewsRome's Senate names Herod King of the Jews. His title rests on Rome's paper, so a claim by blood is a legal threat to him, which is why a delegation…
c. 30 BCHillel's prosbulHillel creates the prosbul, handing debts to the court so they survive the seventh year, because, the Mishnah says, people had stopped lending to one…
27 BCAugustus and the Pax RomanaAugustus brings the Roman peace, puts Caesar's face on the coins, and completes the roads and the imperial post.
c. 20/19 BC onwardHerod rebuilds the TempleHerod rebuilds the Temple on a grand scale: a house with two faces, real worship and a king's borrowed legitimacy in the same stones, and the stage…
9 BCThe Priene calendar inscriptionA calendar inscription at Priene calls Augustus's birthday good news for the world and hails him as saviour: the imperial cult holds the very words…
c. 6–5 BCThe annunciation to MaryIn Nazareth the angel Gabriel tells Mary, a young woman engaged to Joseph, that she will bear a son and call him Jesus. She answers with her consent.
c. 6–5 BCJoseph's choiceJoseph, a carpenter of David's line, finds Mary with child and means to put her away quietly.
c. 6–5 BCMary's songVisiting her cousin Elisabeth, Mary sings of a God who puts down the mighty from their seats, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich…
c. 6–4 BCThe birth in BethlehemA decree of Caesar Augustus sends Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, the city of David. Jesus is born there and laid in a manger, and shepherds in the…
c. 6–4 BCThe magi and the flight into EgyptWise men from the east come seeking the newborn king. Herod orders the boys of Bethlehem killed, and Joseph takes the child and his mother into Egypt…
4 BC (by Josephus's eclipse)Herod diesHerod the Great dies at Jericho; Josephus places the death after an eclipse of the moon, usually dated to 4 BC.
6 ADRome annexes JudeaRome annexes Judea and takes the power of execution into its own hands; crucifixion is a Roman penalty.
28–29 ADJohn the BaptistJohn the Baptist steps forward quoting Isaiah, a line already copied a century and a half before he speaks it, in the scroll later found at Qumran.
c. AD 28–29 (written c. AD 93)Josephus on John the BaptistJosephus records that Herod Antipas killed John, called the Baptist, at the fortress of Machaerus, fearing that his hold on the people might lead to…