Chronology of the Bible

Theological timeline from creation to the Maccabean rededication.

The Bible’s chronology is a detailed system of lifespans, generations, and other markers used by the Masoretic Hebrew Bible—the version most common today—to track events from creation to about 164 BCE, when the Second Temple was rededicated. Its purpose was theological, not historical in the modern sense, and it works as a kind of hidden prophecy, with its meaning depending on identifying the final event. Time is first measured by adding the ages of the Patriarchs when their firstborn sons were born, then through explicit statements, and later by aligning the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah.

This chronology is highly patterned, outlining a world cycle of 4,000 years. The Exodus occurs in the year AM 2666 (years since creation), exactly two-thirds through that cycle. Solomon’s Temple construction starts 480 years later—12 generations of 40 years each—and 430 years pass between the Temple’s building and its destruction during the siege of Jerusalem. The 50 years from the Temple’s destruction to Cyrus’s decree and the end of the Babylonian Exile, added to the 430 years the Temple stood, creates another symmetrical 480-year period. The 374 years from Cyrus’s edict to the Maccabees’ rededication of the Second Temple complete the 4,000-year cycle.

As recently as the 17th and 18th centuries, figures like Archbishop James Ussher (1625–1656) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727) thought the Bible could reveal the date of creation. Today, the Genesis creation story is absent from serious cosmology, the Patriarchs and Exodus are mostly left out of histories of ancient Israel, and the Book of Joshua is widely seen as having little historical value. Even the United Monarchy is questioned, and while scholars still try to reconcile the chronology in the Books of Kings, there is little agreement on how to handle the conflicting data.

Pre-Masoretic chronologies

As the Hebrew Bible canon developed, theological chronologies emerged at different stages of composition, though scholars have proposed various theories about these stages and their time schemes.

A “Progenitor” chronology placing Abraham’s birth at AM 1600 and the Temple’s foundation at AM 2800. Alfred Jepsen suggested this by blending time periods from the Samaritan and Masoretic versions.