This page goes into further detail on how I have arrived at certain dates where scholars differ. I discuss the dating of all the various stages of biblical history:
The great empires of world history have left a written record extending back at least five thousand years in the West and as many as eight thousand years in the Far East. As a result, we can often determine when biblical events happened by their references to the kings and emperors of the nations. At a minimum, this allows us at least to establish a couple starting points to assist us in a chronology.
One such landmark is the fall of Jerusalem. King Nabopalassar of Babylon died unexpectedly on August 15, 605 B.C., and his son Nebuchadnezzar returned from battle to succeed him on September 7 of that year. Shortly after Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, the captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, came to the city in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, which would have been 587-586. According to 2 Kgs. 25:8, he came on the seventh day of the fifth month. The capture itself had taken place on the ninth day of the preceding month (2 Kgs. 25:3). Since the Jewish year started at the beginning of spring, we can pinpoint the fall of Jerusalem in July, 586 B.C. We can then calculate other Old Testament dates based on their distance from the fall of Jerusalem.
The other major landmark is the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry. Luke 3:1-2 says the word of God came to John "in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar." Tiberius succeeded Augustus on August 19, A.D. 14, so his fifteenth year lasted from August 19, A.D. 28 to August 18, A.D. 29 (by the Roman method), or from January 1 to December 31, A.D. 29 (by the Julian calendar). And so the most likely date for John's ministry to begin would be A.D. 29.
(Some charts and study Bibles consider John's ministry to have begun in A.D. 26. The defense for this date is that Tiberius controlled the region of Judea-Galilee as early as A.D. 11, but this is not a natural way of reading Luke's dates. The perceived advantage of the earlier date is that it places Jesus' passion in A.D. 29, which better fits one interpretation of the "seventy weeks" of Daniel and has Jesus beginning His ministry at exactly age 30.)
Jesus must have been born before the death of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C., shortly after a lunar eclipse (March 12/13), but before the first day of Passover (April 11). Herod's men had directed the Magi to Bethlehem, where they found Jesus as a young child living in a house (Matt. 2:11). When the Magi fled, Herod ordered the slaughter of all Bethlehem's male children two years old and under (Matt. 2:16), implying that Jesus was less than two years old. From this we conclude that Jesus was born no later than 5 B.C. Herod's severe illness and disfavor with Rome around 7 B.C. may have prompted a census, and so Jesus was probably born between these two dates. The presence of shepherds in the fields at night (Luke 2:8) suggests the birth took place in winter or spring.
(The traditional dates for Christmas, December 25 in the West and January 6 in the East, are nine months after their respective second-century dates for Easter, assuming that Christ rose on the anniversary of His conception. The dates also correspond with Roman holidays that pre-dated Christianity and may have given persecuted Christians an opportunity to celebrate without being noticeable. The claim that Jesus was born on April 1, with April Fool's Day resulting from faithful Christians refusing to celebrate at the traditional time, is totally without evidence. It depends on the conviction that Jesus must have been born on the first day of the Jewish year, which actually straddles March and April.)
If Jesus was born in 6-5 B.C., He was 33 or 34 when John the Baptist began His ministry in A.D. 29. Luke 3:23 says that Jesus began His ministry at "about thirty years of age," so not much later than this. The first Passover of Jesus' ministry (John 2:13) would most likely have been in A.D. 30.
Jesus died on preparation day, the day before the Sabbath (Mark 15:42), so the 14th of the Jewish month Nisan. Nisan 14 fell on a Friday in A.D. 27, 30, 33, and 36. Of these dates, A.D. 33 is the only likely candidate for the end of Jesus' ministry. This makes Jesus' ministry a little over three and a half years long.
The length of Jesus' ministry is the subject of debate for several reasons. Some take literally the prophecy of His ministry as "the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:19), and so restrict His ministry to twelve months. But John's Gospel mentions at least three different Passovers (2:13; 6:4; 11:55)–at least a two-year ministry. Several factors support assuming a fourth Passover between the ones of John 2:13 and 6:4: the plucking of grain in Matt. 12:1, the "four months until harvest" of John 4:35, and an unidentified feast in John 5:1, which is probably the Feast of Tabernacles.
After Paul's conversion, the apostle went to Arabia, returned to Damascus, and did not leave for Jerusalem until about three years later (Gal. 1:16-18). When he left Damascus, it was under the rule of Aretas (2 Cor. 11:32-33), who controlled the city from A.D. 37 to 39. This places the conversion of Saul between A.D. 34 and 36. We can therefore place the events of Acts 1-9 within three years or less after Jesus' resurrection.
Paul's second trip to Jerusalem (Acts 11:29-30; 12:25) took place before his first missionary journey, which most all scholars say began in A.D. 48. After this journey, he made a third trip to attend the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, which occurred in A.D. 49 or 50. Paul spent a year and a half of his second missionary journey in Corinth, and "greeted the church" (i.e., Jerusalem) during the winter of A.D. 52-53 (Acts 18:22). This would be Paul's fourth Jerusalem visit.
Paul went on a third missionary journey, which included three years in Ephesus, and then began one last trip to Jerusalem, where he was arrested in spring/summer A.D. 57. He was held in Caesarea for two years, until Porcius became procurator of Judea in A.D. 59 (Acts 24:27). The rest of Acts details Paul's journey to Rome (including a winter on Malta), with him arriving in spring A.D. 60 and spending "two full years" there. Acts was probably written before Paul's death, since he is alive at the end of the book.
Since Acts is the sequel to Luke, Luke must have been written earlier, perhaps by A.D. 60. I believe Luke used Mark as a source when writing his Gospel, so Mark was probably written before that time, though after Mark's departure from Paul in A.D. 50. John 5:2 suggests John's Gospel was written before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the apparent efforts to refute worship of John the Baptist also argue for an early date. I think John probably wrote his Gospel after the other Evangelists, in the late 60s. The traditional view, however, is that John wrote in the 80s or 90s. Liberals who doubt John was the author often place the Gospel well into the second century.
Peter and Paul were martyred by Nero, probably shortly before Nero's death in A.D. 68, but no earlier than A.D. 64. The temple in Jerusalem fell to the Romans in A.D. 70, and the next major persecution of Christians took place under Emperor Domitian, who ruled from A.D. 81-96.
For the Old Testament, it is easiest to start near the end and work backward. We have 586 B.C. as a certain date for the fall of Jerusalem. The temple was rebuilt and dedicated on Adar 3 (late February), in the sixth year of Darius. Darius Hystaspes came to the throne of Persia by assassinating Gautama, a pretender to the throne, on September 29, 522. This places the rededication of the temple in 516, seventy years after its destruction. (There were also seventy years between the death of Josiah in 609 B.C. and the first return to Jerusalem in 539; cf. Jer. 25:11-12.) The later events of the Old Testament are all dated against the background of the Persian kings: Esther during the reign of Ahasuerus (486-465), and Ezra and Nehemiah under the reign of Artaxerxes (464-424). The genealogies of 1 Chronicles carry us a little past that time, which fits with the Jewish tradition that the Old Testament was completed by 400 B.C.
For several centuries, God's people were divided into two kingdoms that split after the death of Solomon. The northern kingdom (called Israel or Ephraim) fell to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, shortly before Sargon II succeeded him and took credit for the victory. This occurred in 722 B.C. Judah, the southern kingdom, lasted longer but fell under Babylonian control after Josiah's death in 609 B.C. After several deportations and a siege, the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 586, as established earlier. The history of the two kingdoms is given in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and we learn the dates of these reigns mainly from adding up the numbers mentioned. For help, we can look especially at places where events in Israel and Judah coincide; for example, the reigns of Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Israel ended at the same time, when both kings were assassinated by Jehu (2 Kgs. 9).
There is some difficulty involved in this calculation. First, events could be dated with reference to a king's reign in several ways, so that a king's first "year" may end with the close of the calendar year he became king, last twelve months, or extend to the end of his first full calendar year. For this reason, our estimates may be off by a year or two. Second, it is apparent from several overlaps that sons would often reign alongside their fathers, particularly in times of illness or crisis. There were as many as six of these co-regencies in Judah, and perhaps two in Israel. Third, most of Pekah's twenty-year reign in Israel must overlap the reigns of Menahem and Pekahiah (whom Pekah finally assassinated). From this we surmise that Pekah had a rival reign or else controlled part of the kingdom for some years. For solutions to these conundrums, I recommend Edmund Thiele's book The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, whose dates are used by most major references and many of the more common study Bibles.
Differences of opinion lead to a few debates, such as (1) Was Manasseh (who began his reign at age 12) born after his father Hezekiah's illness, or did he have a co-regency with his father in Hezekiah's final years?, and (2) Was Ahaz or Hezekiah the senior ruler of Judah when Israel fell?
Most of the writing prophets date their books by the reigns of kings. Hosea, Amos, and Jonah all lived during the time of Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam II in Israel (mid-700s B.C.). Micah and Isaiah lived before and during the reign of Hezekiah (c. 700). Nahum must have written between the fall of Thebes he recounts (663) and the fall of Nineveh he prophesies (612). I conjecture that Nahum's prophecy inspired Manasseh to rebel against Assyria after his repentance around 645 B.C. Zephaniah and Habakkuk wrote as Babylon was becoming a threat (c. 630-605 B.C.). During the fall and subsequent captivity, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were the main writers. Daniel's life spans the captivity and continues after Babylon's fall in 539 B.C. (Dan. 5). Haggai and Zechariah prophesied during the rebuilding of the temple (520-516 B.C.), and Malachi most easily fits into Nehemiah's departure in 433 B.C. The two big question marks are Obadiah and Joel, who make no reference to kings. Joel speaks as if elders and priests are in charge, and so he might have written during the boyhood of Joash, around 830 B.C., although liberal scholars prefer a post-exilic date. Obadiah refers to Edomites taking advantage of the plundering of Judah. The event was either the fall of Jerusalem in 586, or a Philistine-Arab attack in 841. The inclusion of these prophets among other early ones in the canon (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah) supports the earlier date.
The complicated dating of the kings leads scholars to different conclusions as to when the kingdoms divided. I use Thiele's date of 931 B.C., but other estimates range from 945 to 915. Solomon reigned for forty years (1 Kgs. 11:42), so his reign began in 971 B.C. David reigned for a total of forty years and six months (1 Chr. 3:4), so his reign began in 1011 B.C. Acts 13:21 also gives the reign of Saul as 40 years, so he began his reign in 1051 B.C. (I regard the repetition of the number forty in Israel's history as providential and not merely symbolic.)
For events within David's and Solomon's reigns, we can look to extrabiblical history, which indicates that Hiram ruled Tyre from 980 to 947. So Hiram must have built David's house toward the end of David's reign (2 Sam. 5:11). Solomon, too, had an alliance with Hiram (1 Kgs. 5:1-18) that included the building of the temple. The events of 2 Samuel 6-7–the moving of the ark and the Davidic covenant–came at a time when David had subjugated his enemies. This would have to be near the end of his reign, even though the account comes early in the book. Following Eugene Merrill (Kingdom of Priests, 244), I place the moving of the ark in 977 B.C., about a year before Absalom's rebellion.
The judges are notoriously difficult to date; I am less certain about my estimates here than anywhere else on the timeline. All I can say for certain is that they ruled between the conquest of Canaan and the beginning of Saul's reign, and that Jephthah lived around three hundred years after the conquest (Judg. 11:26). I place Job in the time of the judges because of references to iron in the book (19:24; 20:24; 28:2; 40:19). The traditional dating of Job around the time of Abraham is unlikely, since Abraham lived in the Bronze Age.
First Kings 6:1 says that the fourth year of Solomon's reign (967/966 B.C.) was the 480th year after the Exodus from Egypt. It does not take a scholar to determine that the Exodus took place in 1447/1446 B.C. Yet liberal scholars have tried to find every way around this number. They prefer to place the Exodus at the beginning of the reign of Pharaoh Rameses II (1304-1236), supposing the place in Exodus 1:11 is named after him.
The evidence for the biblical date is as follows:
Exodus 12:40-41 says, "Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt." If the Exodus was in 1446 B.C. (as established), the sojourn in Egypt began 430 years earlier–to the day (!)–in 1876 B.C. This was either when Joseph was sold into slavery, or, more likely, when Jacob's whole family moved to Egypt. Some scholars argue for a "short sojourn" of about 218 years (thus beginning around 1664); they begin the sojourn with Abram's trip to Egypt in Genesis 12. The phrase "sons of Israel" in Exodus 12:40 refutes this view; Abram was obviously not a son of Israel.
(We also know that the names and customs of Joseph's Egypt (Gen. 39:1; 41:14, 45; 43:32; 46:34) indicate those in charge were native Egyptians, not the Hyksos who were more similar to the Hebrews and who ruled Egypt from 1660 to 1580 B.C. So the move to Egypt must have taken place well before then. And in case anyone is wondering, no, the Hyksos were not the sons of Israel. There were differences as well as similarities.)
From here to the birth of Abram is a matter of simple arithmetic. Jacob moved to Egypt at the age of 130 (Gen. 47:9), so he was born in 2006. Isaac was sixty when Jacob was born (Gen. 25:26), so Isaac was born in 2066. Abraham was a hundred when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5), so Abraham was born in 2166.
What if the 430 years includes Joseph's time alone in Egypt? He was sold into slavery at age seventeen (Gen. 37:2), and was exalted at age thirty (Gen. 41:46). There followed seven years of plenty and at least two years of famine (Gen. 45:6) before the move. So we simply subtract 22 or 23 years to give birthdates for Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham in 1983, 2043, and 2143 B.C., respectively. Then the move to Egypt would have been in 1853 B.C. Again, I reject this view in favor of a strict reading of "sons of Israel" in Exodus 12:40, but in the grand scheme of things, there is only a small difference.
Abram's father Terah died at the age of 205 (Gen. 11:32), and this happened before the call of Abram recorded in Genesis 12 (Acts 7:3-4). Abraham was 75 at the time (Gen. 12:4). From this we conclude that Terah died in 2091 B.C., and so was born in 2296. If we continue to run the numbers back through Genesis chapters 5 and 10, we end up with the Flood in 2518 and the creation of Adam in 4174 B.C.
But is it quite that easy? Evidently not: several nations, such as Egypt and China, have written histories that go back centuries before the Flood date. Other nations were founded very shortly thereafter, such as Akkadia around 2350 B.C. There is also evidence of a continuous human presence in North America for thousands of years on either side of 2518. But the Flood wiped out all human life except for Noah and his family, and the race did not divide into separate nations until after the Babel incident of Genesis 11.
A closer look at the genealogies reveals several gaps. Matthew 1 has Joram as the father of Uzziah; Joram was actually his great-great-grandfather (compare 1 Chr. 3:11-12). Luke 3:33 inserts Admin between Ram and Amminadab, and 3:36 inserts another Cainan between Arphachshad and Shelah. If we hold to the complete truth of Scripture, we must admit that skipped generations are allowable in the lists and tables of Genesis and elsewhere.
How does this affect the numbers? Well, Genesis 10:12 reads, "Arphachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah," but 35 seems a bit young to be a grandfather. However we interpret this, we need to allow room for Cainan. While I believe these lists are faithful records of real, historical men, I find it telling that both Genesis 5 and Genesis 10 list ten men, as well as another ten from Abraham to the Exodus. It seems to me that the ten most important men in each segment of the geneaology have been preserved, without any indication of how wide the gaps are between generations. (Obviously, of course, some of the generations are successive, such as Lamech and Noah, but not all are.) As a result, we can truthfully say the Bible is silent regarding the calendar date of the Flood.
Geological, and archaeological evidence make it clear that Native Americans are descended from people who migrated from Asia to the Americas over a land bridge that was destroyed around 10,000 B.C. The city of Babel was therefore built before that time.
When to date the Flood? This is a mere guess, but following Hugh Ross, I believe God may have initiated the gradual loss of human longevity by using radiation from a nearby supernova–the Vela supernova of about 20,000 B.C. (He explains how this would work in his book The Genesis Question.) I previously had given the Flood an arbitrary date of around 15,000 B.C. We probably cannot justify extending generation gaps much beyond this.
Archaeological evidence for humans beyond 20,000 B.C. is very sketchy, and there really is none dating earlier than about 25,000. I therefore take that date as a very rough estimate for the creation of Adam. By this method, there are actually fewer skipped generations before the Flood than after.
(For anyone who's skeptical, I might point out that even the vast majority of young-earth creationists accept skipped generations. About the only authorities who accept a creation date of around 4,000 B.C. are those who have predicted that Jesus would return on the 6,000th anniversary of that date–which has passed by now according to any fair calculation.)
Because of the controversy surrounding this issue and the complexity of the evidence, I'm saving my defense of old-earth creationism for a separate article. What I will say is that two main questions are at issue: (1) Does the universe appear to be billions of years old, or only thousands of years old? (2) Did Moses intend his audience to understand from Genesis 1 that the world was created in six solar days, or over an indefinite period of time? Based on the flexibility of the Hebrew word for day, the distinctive syntax of the day formulas in Genesis 1, and the need to fit all of Genesis 2 into day six, I believe the Bible teaches these were days of indefinite length. I also believe the Bible indicates the earth and heavens are very ancient compared to man, as they reflect the eternity of God's nature. I also believe that science has confirmed the extreme age the Bible suggests, by undeniable observations of how the universe works and appears. Without going into detail, I have learned that the universe appears to be the same age by many independent and reliable ways of measurement; the same can be said for planet Earth. The consistency of these measurements tells me that if God created the earth recently with the mere appearance of age, He must have arranged many things just so to make it appear a specific age that it was not. This is not within God's truthful character, and so from both science and the Bible, I believe old-earth creationism is the biblical view.
It will not do to respond that old-earthers are simply catering to evolutionists. Old-earth creationists such as Don Stoner, J. P. Moreland, William Dembski, and Phillip Johnson, are among the most outspoken opponents of Darwinian evolution. Moreover, when evolution was first conceived, its proponents believed the universe did not have a beginning at all. It was evolutionists and other atheists who first opposed the theories of the Big Bang and general relativity, since they proved a universal beginning point. Billions of years was simply not enough time for evolution to happen. Besides, if we old-earthers are compromising on our dates in order to win credibility in the eyes of evolutionists, it certainly hasn't worked. As long as we believe in a God who directs and intervenes in the natural world, we will appear as fools to the unbelieving naturalists who dominate the scientific community (and who will continue to do so until the churches start putting out evangelical scientists, but that's a whole other article).
For a concise statement of my beliefs about history, see my Declaration of Faith.
