X-Dreamers · Lab sheet

Bible Time Map

A zoomable timeline of the whole story from Abraham to Paul, tied to a map: kings, prophets, empires and books, with the Scripture behind each date and how sure it is.

Scan to open the lab

The map of Canaan with David's places: Hebron, Bethlehem and Jerusalem

Key facts

Pick an event on the timeline and the map shows where it happened.
The kingdom divided about 931 BC, a date anchored by Assyrian records such as the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC.
Babylon took Jerusalem's first exiles in 597 BC and destroyed the city in 586 BC (some say 587 BC).
Jesus was born before Herod died in 4 BC; the crucifixion is usually placed in AD 30 or AD 33.
An Exodus switch moves the earlier dates between the early view (about 1446 BC) and the late view (about 1260 BC).
In class: put the prophet you are studying next to the king of his day, and read both passages together.

Key verses

And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
1 Kings 6:1 · King James Version

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
Luke 3:1 · King James Version

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
Galatians 4:4 · King James Version

Talk about it

Which two events surprised you by being so close together, or so far apart?
Luke dates John's preaching by emperors and governors. Why tie the gospel to real rulers and years?
How should we hold a date the lab calls speculative?

How sure can we be?

The Bible says

Each event links to the passages that tell it, and some dates come straight from the text, such as 1 Kings 6:1 and Luke 3:1.
From the divided kingdom on, outside records (Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman) fix many years firmly.

Our reconstruction

The kings follow Edwin Thiele's chronology; other reconstructions differ by a few years.
Dates for the patriarchs are counted back from the Exodus using the ages in Genesis.

Still debated

The date of the Exodus: about 1446 BC or about 1260 BC.
No record outside the Bible names Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, so their dates are speculative.