The Bible on the Timeline

107 passages, each set where the text or the record places it, and each with its King James text, a line in plain words, the mechanism and the sources.

Every entry

• undatedPsalm 82: the council judgedIn Psalm 82 God stands among the gods, judges them, and sentences them to die like men: the sentence on every seat above humanity, emptied one by one…
• the beginningIn the beginningThe beginning. The earth without form and void, darkness on the deep, and the Spirit moving on the waters before any light.
• the beginningIn the beginning was the WordThe Gospel of John opens where Genesis does: in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and was God, and all things were made by him.
• the first lightLet there be lightThe light is spoken, seen to be good, and divided from the darkness; the evening and the morning, the first day.
• day fourThe two great lightsOn the fourth day the sun, the moon and the stars: the lights come after the light.
• day twoThe firmamentOn the second day a firmament divides the waters under it from the waters above it, and is called Heaven.
• day threeThe dry landOn the third day the waters under heaven are gathered into one place and the dry land appears; the land is called Earth and the waters Seas.
• day fiveThe waters teem, the fowl flyOn the fifth day the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, great whales among them, and winged fowl fly above the earth.
• day threeGrass, herb and fruit treeThe earth brings forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit, each after his kind: the third day, before the lights of the fourth.
• day sixThe living creature after his kindOn the sixth day the earth brings forth the living creature after his kind: cattle, creeping thing and beast of the earth.
• day sixIn the image of GodGod makes man in his own image, male and female, and gives them dominion over the fish, the fowl, the cattle and all the earth: the last work of the…
• by c. 150,000 years ago (c.…The breathThe LORD God forms the man of the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man becomes a living soul.
• a range, c. 150,000 – 79,500…The gardenA garden planted eastward in Eden, and the man placed in it.
• in the garden's rangeAdam names the animalsEvery beast and fowl is brought to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever he calls each living creature, that is its name.
• before c. 77,500 BCThe fallThe text says the temptation was to be as gods, knowing good and evil. The fall is not about fruit but about the self made judge: a creature taking…
• before c. 77,500 BCThe verdict at the fall: head and heelIn the same sentence that judges the fall, God puts enmity between two lines of descent: the woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head, and the…
• Adam → JesusThe genealogies, Adam to JesusSix overlapping lists, kept by different hands, trace the line from Adam to Jesus, and two of them run the same span in opposite directions: the…
• after the fallAbel killed; Seth namedCain kills Abel, and Eve names her next son Seth, “another seed instead of Abel.” The pattern starts here: the line survives not because its carriers…
• after the fallCain's fear and Cain's cityCain fears that anyone who finds him will kill him, and he builds a city. Both need other people.
• placed by the author's…The sons of God take wivesGenesis says the sons of God took wives from among human women, names what came of it, and says there were giants in those days “and also after…
• c. 10,950 BCThe floodThe fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven opened: the reset.
• after the floodThe rainbow oathAfter the flood God swears never again to destroy all life by water, and sets the rainbow as the sign.
• after the floodNoah the husbandmanAfter the flood, on the mountains of Ararat, the first farmer and the first vineyard.
• c. 3500 BCBabelAt Babel the builders, one people with one language, set out to build a city and a tower and make themselves a name, and they say why: so they will…
• c. 3500 BCThe capability estimate at BabelGod's verdict on Babel is an assessment, not mockery: with one people and one language, nothing they imagine will be held back.
• c. 3500 BCThe scatteringThe builders are scattered over the earth. The scattering is protection: a people spread out cannot be wiped out, and every modern attempt to destroy…
• the division of the nations,…Deuteronomy 32:8: the two readingsIn Deuteronomy 32:8 the oldest copies, at Qumran and behind the Greek translation, say God divided the nations by the number of the “sons of God”…
• c. 2050 BCAbram leaves UrTerah takes Abram, Sarai and Lot out of Ur of the Chaldees toward Canaan.
• c. 2000 – 1800 BC (the…The AkedahAbraham takes Isaac up the mountain; the son carries the wood, and a ram dies in his place.
• Abraham → DavidFive near-severances of the lineFive times the text records the line coming close to being cut, and five times it holds.
• c. 1450 – 1250 BC in the…Pharaoh's decree against the sonsPharaoh orders every Hebrew son thrown into the river: the oldest move in the war, striking the line at birth, before it can carry the promise.
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The PassoverThe Passover is laid down with a date, a manner of death, blood on the doorframe, and the rule that not a bone be broken: coordinates planted more…
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The Ark of the covenantThe Ark is built to exact instructions: acacia wood covered in gold, poles never removed, a set crew, and death for anyone who touches it.
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The tables written with the finger of GodAt Sinai Moses is given two tables of stone written with the finger of God; when they are broken, the same words are written again on new tables.
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The Urim and the ThummimThe breastplate of judgment holds the Urim and the Thummim, and counsel is asked of the LORD through them: at the word of the Urim the people go out…
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The appointed times (Leviticus 23)Leviticus 23 fixes seven appointed feasts on set days of the year: a schedule kept for centuries by people who did not know what they were keeping.
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The JubileeEvery fiftieth year, land returns to the family that held it and Israelite debt-servants go free.
• c. 1446 BC (early date)The Jubilee's exceptionsThe same laws carry their exceptions: an unredeemed field passes to the priests for good, and Leviticus 25 commands that foreign slaves be held…
• the wilderness generation,…The Anakim named from the NephilimNumbers records the spies' report that the Anakim, the giants they saw in Canaan, came from the Nephilim, and the text names the related peoples.
• c. 1406 BC (early date)The seventh-year releaseDeuteronomy fixes a release of debts every seventh year, and orders the law read aloud to everyone that same year, so the debtors themselves know the…
• c. 1406 BC (early date)The cost priced into the statuteDeuteronomy even names the temptation its own schedule creates: as the seventh year nears, lenders will be tempted to refuse the poor, and the law…
• Joshua's eraThe conquest left unfinishedJoshua records that the clearing of the land was never finished, and writes down where the Anakim remained: Gaza, Gath and Ashdod.
• Joshua's era, read through…The conquest read through the crossThe flood and the conquest are a debt called in: law is a ledger, and a ledger is harsh by its nature.
• c. 1050–1000 BCThe Ark capturedThe Philistines capture the Ark and carry it to Ashdod and Gath, and the text says the LORD's hand struck each city with no priest or Israelite near.
• c. 1010 BCGoliath's height in the manuscriptsThe standard Hebrew text gives Goliath about nine feet nine; the Dead Sea Scrolls copy of Samuel, the Greek and Josephus give about six feet nine.
• c. 1010 BCDavid and GoliathA boy kills the giant from Gath, the very city Joshua recorded as never cleared: the gap one book confessed is the place a later book stages its…
• c. 1000 BCUzzahUzzah reaches out to steady the Ark on its cart and dies. The text records the rule and the death and softens neither.
• 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…
• c. 970–930 BCSolomon's house and the foreign altarsSolomon builds the Temple, then takes foreign wives and builds altars to their gods on the hill east of Jerusalem.
• 8th–6th c. BC, read against…The prophets against the sacrificesThe prophets turn on the sacrifices and on boasting in conquest, from inside the same scriptures that record both: the sign of one God, since a rival…
• 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.
• 701 BCSennacherib's siege of JerusalemAssyria's Sennacherib besieges Jerusalem, and his own victory prism never claims to have taken it.
• 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…
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. 6–4 BC (the birth,…The four women in Matthew's genealogyMatthew's list of Jesus's ancestors names four women, each an outsider or a scandal: grace crossing the bloodline, announced inside the very document…
• 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…
• c. AD 8The boy in the templeAt twelve, Jesus stays behind in the temple at Passover, hearing the teachers and asking them questions. Mary and Joseph find him after three days.
• 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 28–29The baptismJesus comes to John at the Jordan to be baptised. The Spirit descends like a dove, and a voice from heaven names him the beloved Son.
• c. 30 ADThe temptation in the wildernessIn the wilderness the tempter offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for one act of worship: terms published two thousand years early.
• c. AD 28–30The twelve calledBy the Sea of Galilee Jesus calls fishermen, Simon and Andrew, James and John, and later chooses twelve apostles.
• c. AD 28–30Water into wine at CanaAt a wedding in Cana the wine runs out. His mother tells the servants to do whatever he says, and he turns water into wine, the first of his signs in…
• c. AD 28–30The acceptable year of the LordIn the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus reads Isaiah's proclamation of release and says, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." He stops…
• c. AD 28–30The Sermon on the MountOn a mountain in Galilee Jesus teaches the Beatitudes, and a prayer that asks, in the ledger's own words, for our debts to be forgiven as we forgive…
• c. AD 28–30Five loaves, five thousand fedFive loaves and two fishes feed five thousand men, with twelve baskets left over. Besides the resurrection, it is the only miracle all four Gospels…
• c. AD 28–30The transfigurationOn a high mountain, before Peter, James and John, his face shines as the sun, and Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, stand with him.
• c. AD 30The temple clearedHe rides into Jerusalem on a donkey to crowds, then overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple.
• c. AD 30The last supperAt the Passover meal he gives the cup as his blood of the new testament, shed for the remission of sins.
• c. AD 30"What is truth?"Before Pilate he says he came to bear witness to the truth. Pilate asks, "What is truth?" and goes out without waiting for an answer.
• c. 30 ADThe cry from the cross“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”: the Gospel, written in Greek, keeps this cry in the sound it was spoken in.
• c. AD 30Mary at the crossHis mother stands by the cross. He gives her to the disciple he loved, and from that hour the disciple takes her into his own home.
• c. 30 ADThe veil tornThe veil of the Temple is torn in two from the top to the bottom. The direction is the point: opened from the inside.
• c. 30 ADHis legs not brokenThe soldiers break the legs of the two men crucified beside him and, finding him already dead, leave his unbroken.
• c. AD 30The powers spoiled at the crossColossians says that at the cross God disarmed the powers, made a public show of them, and triumphed over them: three finished actions, in the past…
• c. 30 ADGrace ends seed as the borderThe cross ends bloodline as the border of the war: since the fall touched every line, no clearing could ever finish the job, and the victory is grace…
• c. AD 30Why it had to be graceIt had to be grace: keep human freedom and keep the human race, and every other move fails.
• c. AD 30The empty tombOn the first day of the week the women find the tomb empty. In John's account Mary Magdalene is the first to see him risen, and the first sent to…
• c. AD 30ThomasThomas will not believe without touching the wounds. When he has seen, Jesus blesses those who have not seen and yet believe.
• c. AD 30, the week of the…The spring feasts, from the cross to PentecostLabelled speculation, stated at full strength: the spring feasts, fixed centuries in advance, are kept in the week of the cross and at Pentecost.
• c. AD 30, forty days laterThe ascensionForty days after the resurrection he is taken up from the Mount of Olives, and two men in white say he will come again in the same way they saw him…
• c. 30 AD, fifty days laterPentecostAt Pentecost each listener hears the message in his own language, and the presence moves off one bloodline and one building onto all people.
• 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. 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.
• c. 55 AD; planted, unpaidThe last enemyPaul writes that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. “Last” is a place in line, with everything else still standing in front of it, and we are…
• 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.
• c. 60–62 ADPrincipalities and powersEphesians says the fight is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.
• 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 95Revelation, written on PatmosExiled on the island of Patmos, John writes the Revelation, the last book of the Bible.