Old Testament Timeline Help

[awfulthings9]

Hey all,

I am trying to put together a very general timeline of the Old Testament, something that covers the important events and people in the story of the Israelites, but that doesn’t get so bogged down on the names of every single ruler that I’ll forget it all in a year’s time. I’ve put this together from a couple different sources and then cut it down to what you see below. I’m asking for feedback from the OT scholars in here. What did I leave out that I really should have included? What did I state incorrectly? Anything else? I should note that the design of this timeline isn’t really intended to include specific stories or theological events, but really to help me get a grasp on the political and social upheavals and transitions.

Here tis:

Timeline of Old Testament History

1900 Abram’s family migrates to Haran from Ur
1720 Jacob’s family goes to Egypt
1250 Moses hears God’s calling
Moses dies and lieutenant Joshua leads people into Canaan
Time of judges – twelves tribes settle in various parts of Canaan and fight with inhabitants
Spiritual leader and prophet Samuel guides Israel and chooses Saul
1020 Saul begins bringing tribes together
Saul goes insane, replaced by David
1000 David unites tribes – Jerusalem center of his government
Asked to watch Judah
Struggle for power between Saul’s son (Ishbaal) and David’s rule
Prophet convinces David to repent of sins and promises kingdom will last forever
961 Solomon succeeds David – builds temple
Rehoboam continues Solomon’s idolatry and oppression
922 Civil war splits people into two kingdoms of Judah (capital Jerusalem) and Israel (capital Samaria)
956? Egypt sakes Jerusalem
721 Israel attacked by Assyria – intermarried resulting in Samaritons
640 Amon’s son Josiah (8) succeeds
621 Josiah leads religious reforms and expands borders
Next four kings entangled with Egypt-Babylonia
597 Nebuchadnezzar takes control, sends king and leaders into exile.
587 Conquered by Babylon (walls destroyed, temple demolished).
560-538 Cyrus of Persia defeats Babylon and allows Israelites to return home, led by Sheshbazzar.
515 Hagai and Zechariah lead rebuilding of temple.
445 New walls built by Nehemiah
398 Ezra helps with spiritual restoration (law, intermarriage)
332 Macedonian prince, Alexander the Great, takes command
332-167 Struggle for control amongst generals of Alexander after his death
167 Mattathias Maccabeus rebels and joined with other patriots to become Hasideans, forerunners of Pharisees.
166-134 Struggle for control among Israelites
104 A new aristocratic class, Sadducees arise.
90 Civil war as Pharisees try to overthrow Janneus and Sadducees, who prevail
63 After years of prosperity for Israel, Romans conquer Jerusalem – make Palestine a vassal state
37-4 Herod the Great is king
Fortifies restores Jerusalem, including big temple. Ruthless.

 

[Fidelis]

I don’t have to to sort it out right now, but one simple thing that may be helpful for further refinement is to divide it up into major eras, like so:

Timeline of Old Testament History

GOD ESTABLISHES A PEOPLE
1900 Abram’s family migrates to Haran from Ur
1720 Jacob’s family goes to Egypt
1250 Moses hears God’s calling
Moses dies and lieutenant Joshua leads people into Canaan
ISRAEL IN THE HOLY LAND
Time of judges – twelves tribes settle in various parts of Canaan and fight with inhabitants
Spiritual leader and prophet Samuel guides Israel and chooses Saul
1020 Saul begins bringing tribes together
Saul goes insane, replaced by David
THE UNITED KINGDOM
1000 David unites tribes – Jerusalem center of his government
Asked to watch Judah
Struggle for power between Saul’s son (Ishbaal) and David’s rule
Prophet convinces David to repent of sins and promises kingdom will last forever
961 Solomon succeeds David – builds temple
Rehoboam continues Solomon’s idolatry and oppression
922 Civil war splits people into two kingdoms of
Judah (capital Jerusalem) and Israel (capital Samaria)
THE DIVIDED KINGDOM AND THE BABYLONIAN EXILE
956? Egypt sakes Jerusalem
721 Israel attacked by Assyria – intermarried resulting in Samaritons
640 Amon’s son Josiah (8) succeeds
621 Josiah leads religious reforms and expands borders
Next four kings entangled with Egypt-Babylonia
597 Nebuchadnezzar takes control, sends king and leaders into exile.
587 Conquered by Babylon (walls destroyed, temple demolished).
560-538 Cyrus of Persia defeats Babylon and allows Israelites to return home, led by Sheshbazzar.
THE RETURN FROM EXILE
515 Hagai and Zechariah lead rebuilding of temple.
445 New walls built by Nehemiah
398 Ezra helps with spiritual restoration (law, intermarriage)
GREEK RULE AND THE MACCABEES
332 Macedonian prince, Alexander the Great, takes command
332-167 Struggle for control amongst generals of Alexander after his death
167 Mattathias Maccabeus rebels and joined with other patriots to become Hasideans, forerunners of Pharisees.
166-134 Struggle for control among Israelites
104 A new aristocratic class, Sadducees arise.
90 Civil war as Pharisees try to overthrow Janneus and Sadducees, who prevail
63 After years of prosperity for Israel, Romans conquer Jerusalem – make Palestine a vassal state
UNDER ROMAN RULE
37-4 Herod the Great is king
Fortifies restores Jerusalem, including big temple. Ruthless.

 

[Deacon_Joseph]

Jeroboam lead the division of the Royal Kingdom of Israel. He was a descendant of Joseph, from the tribe of Ephraim. Jeroboam stopped his people from traveling to Jerusalem in the South Kingdom to offer sacrifices in the Temple. To do this he made 2 golden calf altars for his people to worship in his kingdom; one in the city of Dan, and the other in Bethel. Its an important point, but I didn’t condense it.

There were 3 deportations of Hebrews from the South Kingdom(Judah) in 605BC, 597BC and 587BC; and one from the Northern Kingdom(Israel) in 722BC

First Temple destroyed in 587BC- by Babylon
Zerubbabel rebuilds the Temple 537BC

Alexander the Great was King of Macedonia before he conquered the Persian Empire, not prince. His father, Phillip II died before he set out on his conquest.

During the Maccabean Revolt, Antiochus desecrates the Temple in 167BC

The Purification of the Temple took place in 164BC, which is where the holiday Hannukah comes from.

Herod was appointed, I believe, by the Roman Emperor.

I hope this helps.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Awfulthings9 & Fidelis:

The History Channel put together a show, The Exodus Decoded which makes a very good case for dating the Exodus in 1550-1500 B.C. instead of 1250-1200 B.C. as many scholars have done.

When they did that, they found artifacts from that era, from all over the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt and the Sinai, which confirmed the Biblical Account.

No one has ever found any artifacts to confirm the later date.

And, I’ve seen evidence to place Abraham’s Migration as early as 2250 B.C. if not earlier:

newadvent.org/cathen/01441a.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham#Dating_and_historicity

You might want to adjust the earlier part of your dating (Abraham’s Migration to Moses and the Exodus) by about 300 years to account for the archeological artifacts confirming the earlier date for the Exudos along with the historical information confiming the earlier date for Abraham.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[awfulthings9]

Thank you to all three of you. You each have been tremendously helpful in a different way. Fidelis, your categorization had already started happening in my head, but what you put made so much sense and really sorted out what I hadn’t done already. On the other end of things, Deacon Joseph, I really appreciate your clarification. My intention is to get more familiar with the big picture and then I’ll have the connections to which I can tie such details (though some of what you wrote was much more than a “detail”). Thank you. Lastly, Traditional Ang, I really appreciate the clarification. I don’t know how important the dates are to me in the long run, as least as compared to the sequence, but on the other hand, in addition to my personal goal of familiarization, I’ve been compiling a much larger and much more detailed list for reference (pulling from the many sources I’ve looked at) and your post (along with Deacon Joseph’s) helped on that end tremedously. All best.