The Witnesses and the Turn

38 entries, in the order they happened: 10 where the Bible speaks and 28 where the historical record answers.

Every entry in this era

• c. AD 34Stephen, the first martyrStephen is stoned in Jerusalem for his witness and dies praying for those who kill him. A young man named Saul keeps their coats.
• c. AD 34–36Saul on the Damascus roadSaul, hunting the followers of the Way, is struck blind by a light on the road to Damascus.
• c. AD 40The gospel to the gentilesPeter baptises Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and his household, the first gentiles received without first becoming Jews.
• c. 44 ADJames son of Zebedee killedHerod Agrippa kills James, son of Zebedee, with the sword. The leaders start dying within fifteen years of the events they witnessed.
• c. 44 – 112 ADThey died without taking it backThey went to their deaths without taking it back. The point is narrow: people die sincerely for false stories all the time, but almost no one dies…
• c. AD 49The council at JerusalemThe apostles and elders meet in Jerusalem on whether gentile believers must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses.
• c. AD 49–55The Law as schoolmasterPaul writes to Galatia that the Law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, and that after faith has come we are no longer under it.
• c. AD 50Paul at AthensIn Athens Paul finds an altar inscribed to an unknown God and, on the Areopagus, tells the philosophers who that God is.
• AD 51–52The Gallio inscriptionA letter of Emperor Claudius carved at Delphi names Gallio proconsul of Achaia. It fixes Paul's stay in Corinth, where Acts says he stood before…
• 55/56 ADA loan dated by the sabbatical yearA private loan from Wadi Murabba'at is dated by the sabbatical year, in Nero's second year.
• c. AD 57Romans: the wages and the giftPaul writes to the church in Rome that by the Law comes the knowledge of sin, and that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life.
• AD 60Laodicea rebuilds on its ownAn earthquake lays Laodicea in ruins. Tacitus records that this famous city of Asia rebuilt itself from its own resources, without help from Rome.
• c. 62 ADJames the brother of Jesus stonedJames, the brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem, is stoned: the old attack on the line, in its form after the cross.
• 64 ADNero's persecution; 1 ClementNero executes Christians in Rome, and the letter known as 1 Clement speaks of the deaths of Peter and Paul as known facts.
• c. AD 60–70Faith, definedHebrews defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, and then walks the line of the faithful from Abel to the prophets.
• c. AD 68The scrolls go into jars at QumranThe scrolls, copied from about 250 BC to AD 68, go into jars in the caves at Qumran: preservation outside anyone's control, laid down some nineteen…
• 70 ADThe Temple burnedTitus takes Jerusalem and the Second Temple burns; the sacrifices stop that year and never resume, and the Arch of Titus in Rome shows the menorah…
• AD 95Domitian's charge of atheismDomitian has his cousin Flavius Clemens, a consul, put to death, and banishes Clemens's wife Domitilla to the island of Pandateria.
• c. AD 95Revelation, written on PatmosExiled on the island of Patmos, John writes the Revelation, the last book of the Bible.
• c. AD 105Cai Lun's paperAround AD 105 Cai Lun, chief eunuch at the Eastern Han court, reported to Emperor He a way of making paper from tree bark, hemp waste, old rags and…
• c. AD 107–110Ignatius writes on the road to RomeIgnatius, bishop of Antioch, writes seven letters to the churches on his way to die in Rome.
• c. 112 ADPliny's letter to TrajanPliny, a Roman governor, writes to the emperor Trajan describing his procedure: the accused must invoke the gods, offer to the emperor's image and…
• AD 117Rome at its widestUnder Trajan the empire reaches its greatest extent, from Britain to the Persian Gulf: about five million square kilometres and some sixty million…
• AD 118 (arrears of AD…Hadrian burns the arrearsOn reaching Rome as emperor, Hadrian cancelled arrears owed to the treasury for about fifteen years (AD 104–118), 900 million sesterces by the…
• 132/133 ADBar Kokhba's contractsRental contracts from Bar Kokhba's rebel government are dated by the sabbatical year: the sixth and last witness.
• after AD 132/133Six attestations, no JubileeSix independent records show the seventh-year release kept; not one shows a Jubilee, not a contract, not a return of land, not even a complaint.
• c. 144 AD, and through the…Marcion's canon; the Gnostic gospelsMarcion issues his own Bible, smaller, cleaner and easier to like, and other gospels appear under apostles' names.
• c. AD 125–175, by its…The oldest scrap of a GospelA papyrus fragment the size of a credit card, bought in Egypt and kept in Manchester, carries lines of John 18, Jesus before Pilate.
• c. AD 155Polycarp at SmyrnaPolycarp, an old bishop said to have known John, is told to curse Christ and go free.
• c. AD 155Justin's apologyJustin, a philosopher turned Christian, writes to the emperor describing what Christians do on Sunday: they read the apostles and the prophets, pray…
• c. AD 180Irenaeus names four GospelsIrenaeus of Lyon argues that there are four Gospels, no more and no fewer, as there are four winds: the earliest surviving statement that the Gospels…
• c. 100 BC – AD 550TeotihuacanIn the Valley of Mexico, Teotihuacan builds the Pyramid of the Sun and grows to perhaps a hundred thousand people, one of the largest cities in the…
• AD 203Perpetua's diaryIn Carthage a young mother, Vibia Perpetua, keeps a prison diary before she and the slave woman Felicity die in the arena.
• 3rd century AD (the crisis…The silver drains from Rome's coin; the price edictIn the 3rd-century crisis the Roman antoninianus, introduced by Caracalla at a nominal two denarii, was alloyed until little silver was left…
• AD 250Decius orders sacrificeEmperor Decius orders everyone in the empire to sacrifice to the gods and carry a certificate proving it.
• AD 224; 260Sasanian Persia takes an emperorA new Persian dynasty, the Sasanians, rises in 224 and makes Zoroastrianism the state's religion.
• AD 303–311The Great PersecutionDiocletian orders the churches destroyed and the scriptures handed over and burned, until the edicts of toleration of 311 and 313.
• 1095 → the presentThe word martyr invertedThe word martyr is turned inside out, from one who suffers violence to one who inflicts it: the martyr pays and claims nothing; the counterfeit pays…