The timeline and the empires
The order the story happens in, the handful of dates worth knowing, and the empires that ruled over Israel one after another.
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Card 1 of 13
What are the main eras of the Bible's story, in order?
Creation and the early world; the patriarchs; slavery in Egypt and the exodus; the conquest and the judges; the united kingdom; the divided kingdom; the exile; the return; the years between the testaments; Jesus; the early church.
Nearly every book of the Bible fits into one of these slots. Placing a book or a person in the right era is most of what it takes to understand why they matter, because each era is shaped by the one before it: there are judges because there is no king yet, and there is an exile because the kings failed.
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Card 2 of 13
Roughly when did Abraham live?
Somewhere around 2000 to 1800 BC on most reckonings, though the dates this early are approximate.
Abraham lived about as far before Jesus as we live after him. Genesis sets him in a world of city-states and wandering herdsmen, moving from Mesopotamia to Canaan. Everything in the Old Testament from Genesis 12 onward is the history of his family.
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Card 3 of 13
When did the exodus from Egypt happen?
Scholars disagree: the two main proposals are about 1446 BC and about 1260 BC.
The earlier date comes from adding up a figure in 1 Kings, which says Solomon began the temple 480 years after the exodus. The later date comes mainly from archaeology and the mention of a city called Rameses. Either way, the exodus is the event the Old Testament keeps returning to as the defining act of God's rescue.
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Card 4 of 13
When did King David reign?
About 1010 to 970 BC.
This is one of the most useful anchor dates in the Bible. It sits roughly halfway between Abraham and Jesus, which makes it an easy peg to hang the rest of the timeline on. From here on the Old Testament's dates become much firmer, because they can be checked against the records of other nations.
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Card 5 of 13
When and why did the kingdom of Israel split in two?
About 930 BC, after Solomon's death, when the ten northern tribes rejected his son Rehoboam and made Jeroboam their king.
Solomon had taxed the people heavily and used forced labour for his building projects. When Rehoboam refused to lighten the load, the north broke away. From then on "Israel" usually means the northern kingdom and "Judah" the southern one, with Jerusalem and the descendants of David.
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Card 6 of 13
What happened to the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC?
Assyria captured its capital, Samaria, and deported much of its population, ending the kingdom for good.
The Assyrians moved conquered peoples around to break their national identity, and settled foreigners in the north. The deported Israelites are the origin of the phrase "the ten lost tribes". The mixed population left behind is part of the background to the Samaritans of Jesus's day.
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Card 7 of 13
What happened to Jerusalem in 586 BC?
The Babylonian army under Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city and Solomon's temple, and took much of the population into exile in Babylon.
It is the lowest point of the Old Testament. The land, the king, and the temple, the three signs that God was with his people, were all lost at once. A great deal of the Old Testament, including Lamentations, Ezekiel, and parts of Isaiah and the Psalms, was written in response to it.
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Card 8 of 13
How did the Babylonian exile come to an end?
Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC and the next year allowed the Jews to go home and rebuild the temple.
The first group returned soon after, and the second temple was finished around 516 BC, about seventy years after the first was destroyed. Many Jews stayed where they were. The return was real but small, and those who remembered the old temple wept when they saw how modest the new one was.
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Card 9 of 13
In what order did the great empires rule over Israel?
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
Egypt enslaved them before they were a nation. Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom, Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, Persia sent the exiles home, Greece spread its language and culture over them, and Rome ruled in Jesus's day. Knowing which empire is in charge tells you a great deal about any book of the Bible.
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Card 10 of 13
Who were the Maccabees, and how are they connected to Hanukkah?
A Jewish family who led a revolt against the Greek king Antiochus IV after he defiled the temple in 167 BC. They retook and rededicated it in 164 BC, which is what Hanukkah celebrates.
Antiochus had banned Jewish practices and set up an altar to Zeus in the temple. The revolt led to about a century of Jewish independence before Rome took over in 63 BC. The story is told in 1 and 2 Maccabees, which are in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. John's Gospel mentions Jesus in the temple at the Feast of Dedication, which is Hanukkah.
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Card 11 of 13
When was Jesus born, and when did he die?
He was born around 6 to 4 BC and was crucified around AD 30 or 33.
It sounds odd that Jesus was born "before Christ", but the calendar was worked out by a monk in the sixth century who miscounted by a few years. Matthew places the birth under Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. The public ministry lasted about three years, based on the number of Passovers John mentions.
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Card 12 of 13
Roughly when was the New Testament written?
Between about AD 50 and AD 95.
Paul's letters are the earliest, from the late 40s and 50s, so the first Christian writings that survive are letters, not Gospels. Mark is usually dated to the 60s, Matthew and Luke after it, and John and Revelation near the end of the century. All of it was written within living memory, or near it, of the events it describes.
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Card 13 of 13
What happened to Jerusalem in AD 70?
The Romans crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the city and the second temple.
Jesus had predicted that not one stone of the temple would be left on another. With the temple gone, the sacrifices stopped for good, and Judaism reorganised around the synagogue and the study of Scripture. The Arch of Titus in Rome still shows soldiers carrying off the temple's lampstand.