Chapter 1 -- The Number of the Years: chronology for Adam to Saul

Chapter 1

The Number of the Years:

Chronology from Adam to Saul

In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years . . .

— Dan 9:2

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness . . .

— 2 Tim 3:16

The Bible is the family tree of Jesus. The first verses of the first book of the Old Testament speak of the generation by Jesus of Creation. The first verses of the first book of the New Testament speak of the generation of Jesus through his ancestors. The last ver­ses of the last book of the Old Testa­ment speak of the Com­ing of Jesus. The last verses of the last book of the New Testa­ment speak of the Second Coming of Jesus. The en­tire Bible tells a single story, of the coming of the Redeemer. This is not pious blathering — it is demonstra­ble fact.

Jesus is on every page of the Old Testa­ment. When the Holy of Holies was veiled, it spoke of man's separa­tion from God; when once each year the High Priest entered in, alone, it spoke of Jesus the High Priest, whose priest­hood never ends. When the scapegoat was driven from the camp, it spoke of the rejec­tion of Jesus. When Moses raised up the bra­zen serpent in the wilder­ness, it was a sign of the judge­ment of sin on the Cross. But the plan of the Bible could not be seen until the canon was com­pleted by the New Testament. Noah stopped his account — trans­mitted to Moses, and so to us, in pictographs — at Gen 6:9. Shem stopped writing at Gen 11:10. The abrupt stop gave no hint of any continuation — but the theme is taken up again by a new writ­er, who carries the story along through new chapters.

The entire Bible is a chronolo­gy, having a single theme: the ge­nealogy of one Man. Only the line leading to Christ is given chronologi­cal benchmarks. Eldest sons are often ig­nored: Seth, Shem, Abram, Isaac, Ja­cob, Judah, David are all younger sons, but highlighted by the Bible. The children of Cain are listed, but with no time frame. The clans of Edom are given, but only as a list of names. The lives of Moses and Aaron are de­tailed, but without those neces­sary details which we find in the chronological tables, of the age of their father at the time of their births. From Adam to Abraham, ‟there exists a record of an unbroken line of descent, and of one only, in which line the chronology is ac­cura­tely preserved and safe­guarded from error by the simple expedient of giving the father's age, in each genera­tion, when that particu­lar son was born through whom the line was to be continued . . .”

Of the sons of Noah, only the line of Shem is associated with a chronology, while those of Ham and Japheth are simply recounted, without reference to any time frame except that of the event at Babel. Japheth's lineage is most vague, concluding with the statement that the gentiles divided in their lands according to their tongue, families, nations. Ham's line notes Nimrod's kingdom, starting with Babel. And Shem's line remembers the division of tongues in Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided.

The Bible is about Israel, of course, but only in its rela­tionship to God. The plot focuses on Israel, but the theme is God's plan for the redemp­tion not only of Israel, but of all humanity. This is an important distinc­tion — just as when we point at the moon, we do not focus on the fin­ger, so when we read the Bible, the hero is not man, but God — Fa­ther, Son and Spirit.

Now, all this is theology, which is fine, since God and His plan is the theme of this work. But the plot is history. And there is an obvious con­flict between history as it is told in the Bible, and the construction of his­tory as we have it now, pieced togeth­er thousands of years later by human­istic historians. The evidence which these historians used to weave their tale will be studied in this work, but for now, let's con­sider their attitude toward the Bible.

‟The books of the Old Testament that deal with the early history of Israel are not his­torical narratives in the usual sense of the term. Rather, they are collections of remi­nis­cenc­es, of greater or lesser reliability, writ­ten down several cen­turies after the events they describe and rearranged and edited many times since. As they stand, therefore, they contain many anachro­nisms, contradictions, and obscurities . . .” At one level, of course, this is an aggressively offensive state­ment, to people who take the Bible on its own terms rather than on the subjective terms of those who for their own rea­sons can­not accept the idea of an actu­al God with an actual personali­ty who gives actual revelations. But more to the point for our purposes, this quote reveals the assumptions of the sec­ular arrangement of his­tory.

What are these ‛contradictions’ which the Bible supposedly contains? Well, for example, ‟There are two conflicting accounts of the route the Isra­elites took through Transjordan, one (Num. 33) suggesting a direct route through Edom and Moab, the other (Num 20:12 ff. and Judg. 11:17) telling of a long detour through the desert to the east of these countries.” What can I say? Open up a Bible and see if this is a fair statement. It is in­credi­ble. This is the kind of abject stupid­ity that smart people fall into — where, instead of letting a text say what it says, one's active imagination inserts objec­tions and explains away the clear mean­ing. I have spent much time deal­ing with the superfi­cial — as of Evol­utionism — and all I can say is that this is just another such example.

It is an absolute fact, in my judg­ment, that if the humanistic reconstruc­tion of ancient history is correct, then the Bible truly is just a grab-bag of half-accurate reminiscences. But, again, the secular hypothesis — though truly elaborate — is the less elegant and ulti­mately less defensible theory, when com­pared to the chronology of his­tory which I am proposing in this work.

But why should we suppose that the Bible has any more au­thority, any more claim to truth, than the imaginings of atheis­tic schol­ars? What is so special about the Bible? Briefly, of all the scriptures of any world religion, only the Bible contains prophecy. The atheist tries to explain away the accuracy of prophecies by saying that they were insert­ed after the fact. But the evidence for such a claim is [a] the fact that prophecy is accurate, and [b] the assumption that there can be no such thing as prophecy. So, the first reason I would give for taking the Bible as the final authori­ty, is that it exhibits qual­ities which may well be characterized as su­pernatu­ral. It demonstrates a mastery of the future, by which the prophets may be tested.

In terms of textual criticism or manuscript evi­dence, the prophetic books of the Bible clearly have internal consistency. The same can be said of virtually all supposed contra­dictions. Rather than defend this state­ment, I simply refer any reader to, say, Glea­son Archer's A Survey of Old Testa­ment Intro­duction, or his Encyclopedia of Bible Diffi­cul­ties. The Bible has a unity of world-view which spans the thousands of years of its com­position (thousands, since Genesis contains the "Book of Adam"). In aesthetic terms, it has an undeniably lofty style, wed­ded to an un­yield­ingly realistic awareness of human na­ture. Despite the dogma of modernism and so­cialism, history every­where demonstrates that man is a sinner who sometimes acts nobly, ra­ther than a saint who sometimes sins.

While other "religious" writings con­jure up a flaccid cos­mogony, as vague and mal­leable as a child's lie, the Bible is, again, just unique. A superficial reading of the first few chapters of Genesis has led some people into confusion, but a studied reading leads to concrete insight: I refer any doubter to the first few chapters of my book, The Pillars of Heaven, which deals with the natural sciences.

In terms of the focus of this work — his­tory — the Bible is utterly unique, in pre­ser­ving the unbroken story of mankind from abso­lute earliest times into Classical times. People who do not have a firm grasp on ancient history may not appreciate what this means.

The most ‛palpable’ difference between the early chapters of Genesis and ‟all other forms of religious literature is the fact of [the Bible's] objec­tive historical character. The reli­gions of Greece and Rome, of Egypt and Persia, of India and the East, did not even postulate a historical basis.” This histo­ricity is no incidental fluke: it is absolute­ly fundamental to both the Hebrew and the Chris­tian faiths. If God did not make literal promises to Abraham, the Jews are not chosen. If there was no first Adam, there is no last Adam — Christ (2Cor 15:45). Because Abraham lived, the Jews were chosen; because Adam lived, Jesus Christ is Savior. Bultmann and Frazier may place the Bible on the same shelf as the Brothers Grimm and the Bhagavad Gita, but to do so is to make the Bible a liar — and the evidence, when objectively viewed, will not allow such a conclusion.

Where pagans find their origins in the nebulous murk of mythology, the Bible is ex­plicit. Even the gentiles remember traditions of the young age of the world. But the Bible is unique. We might look at it as the world's oldest textbook of history: ‟appar­ently it did not enter into the minds of any of the scribes and schol­arly men of those early nations to preserve connec­ted his­torical re­cords, year by year (dating from some definite era), as has been the uni­ver­sal practice of the modern nations.” Even the Assyrian chroni­cles do not succeed here, since the dates depended on the whim of the king. The Hebrews are the only exception: the Bible pays such close attention to chrono­logi­cal details that it is possible to account for every year since the Fall! This chrono­logy is 100% consis­tent — there are no con­tra­dictions. I do not just assert this — I demonstrate it, as we shall see. The Bible is the only source of chronolo­gy prior to the first mil­lennium bc, and even more impressive, it uses origi­nal documents, the chroni­cles of eyewit­nesses. We will consider the writings of an­cient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but for now it is enough to stress the merely local charac­ter, of place and era, of such pagan writings.

Let's test my assertions as to the cohe­siveness of the Bible, using the book of Gene­sis. This book of beginnings is com­posed of 12 individu­al books, most with titles pre­served; they were written over about 2½ thousand years, by various pa­tri­archs, Adam to Joseph. Moses edited these books together into a single scroll, but they have the force of primary docu­ments. The first six of these separate books are identi­fied accord­ing to the cunei­form convention of the colophon, or end title. There is confu­sion on this point, which has led to the same word being vari­ously translat­ed as ‛histo­ry’, ‛gen­era­tions’, ‛account’, or ‛ori­gin’; this word, tohledah, is used ten times in the titles of such books. (Before I give the de­tails, let's under­stand that the conventional read­ing, by which the titles are made to pre­cede their books, is reason­able, so there is no place for arro­gance in this discussion.)

The first book (Gen 1:1 to 2:4) is named The History of the Heavens and the Earth, and tells of events witnessed in their entirety only by God. This book was no doubt given to Adam, as the Revelation was given to John. The second book of Gen­esis (2:5 to 5:1a) is called The Book of the His­tory of Adam,○ and re­lates Ad­am's expe­riences in Eden and after the Fall. Cain's line is included here, either edited in by Moses, or written by Adam, who would have chro­ni­cled his wretched son's descen­dants. The third book (5:1b to 6:9a) is called The His­tory of Noah, and con­tains a detailed gene­alogy, up until Noah was 500 years old, at the births of his three sons. The book ends with God's an­nouncement of the coming Flood. (Notice that this book could not be by Adam, since it records the birth of Noah, who was born after Adam died.)

These first three books would have been transmitted to successive generations through pictographic, rather than phonet­ic (e.g., cuneiform) or even ideographic writing (e.g., Chi­nese). I have concluded this on deductive grounds, since writ­ing simply does not appear in the archeological record until long after the Confusion at Babel — in fact, not until the very life­time of Abraham. Presumably, some symbolic system of notations was used prior to this time, but it could not be con­sidered proper writ­ing. The visual medium which the earliest patriarchs used would have been supple­mented by the poetry of epic and song. Whether Moses was using these very earliest pictographic documents, or translations written by, say, Shem or Abraham, is unknowable.

The fourth book (Gen 6:9b to 10:1a, 10:1b to 32) is called The History of Shem, Ham and Japheth, not because it is about them, but because it is by them. These men start the book by stating their father's character: righ­teous — it was not Noah boasting about himself, but rather the respect of his sons which caused these words to be written. In this book, they detail their father's life and events which occurred during and after the Flood. As a part of this book the genealogies of these three sons are includ­ed, in the second part of the book, which is subtitled The Families of the Sons of Noah.

The fifth book (Gen 11:1 to 10a) is called The History of Shem, who was, as it were, the High Priest of the post-Flood world. Noah lived for 350 years into the new era, but he was not really a part of it. This brief book is a moralistic narra­tive of the continuing rebellion of humanity, which led to the Tower of Babel event. In my book, The Serpent in Babel, I greatly expand upon this story, and upon the reason that it is Shem in particular who writes this section. The sixth book (11:10b to 27a) is called The History of Terah, and is a straight­forward genealogy, from Shem to Terah at age 70, when the older brothers of Abram were born. (Since it was by Terah, it does not include the life of Abra­ham).

Notice the structure of these books. The first and fourth books tell of the creation of ‛new’ worlds; the first is told by the Trini­ty, and the fourth by the trio of Noah's sons. The second and fifth books (of Adam and Shem) tell of survival through God's judgement, first in the Fall, and then in the Confusion of tongues. The third and sixth books (of Noah and Terah) each give genealogies of ten generations, and stop at the births of three sons.

The rest of Genesis has three main parts, tell­ing the story of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, and of Joseph in Egypt. Much more personal detail is given, because the stories were written not pictograph­ically, but in literary form. What the system of writing was I cannot say, but the cuneiform convention of the colophon is interrupted by genealo­gies.

Book seven (Gen 11:27b to 25:11) includes the biography of Abra­ham. The name of this book as been excluded, and the use of the colo­phon is suspended. Thus book eight is the straight­for­ward Gene­alogy of Ishmael (25:12 to 18), followed by book nine, The His­tory of Isaac (25:19 to 26:35). After this, the biog­raphy of Jacob is taken up in book ten, called The History of Jacob (through Gen 37:2a); this book is interrupted by book eleven, the two­fold Genealogies of Esau (36:1 to 8 & 9 to 43). Fi­nal­ly, the untitled twelfth book relates the story of Joseph, which takes up the rest of Genesis (37:2b to 50:26) — if it was not written by Joseph himself, it is perhaps more the work of Moses than any other part of Genesis.

Exodus takes up the story after several generations had passed. It has an entire­ly different style than most of Genesis — ex­cept perhaps the story of Joseph — since it is not an archi­val collec­tion of the histories of ancestors, but instead the living experience of Moses him­self. Rather than maintain the ar­chaic style of the tablets, Moses abandons the colophon, and identifies his theme at the be­gin­ning, as the story of the sons of Israel in Egypt (Ex 1:1).

Secular history is founded on fragments only, as of the legendary Synchroni­athon of the Babylonian Berosus, or the quot­ed scraps of the Egyptian Manetho — both of whom were pagan priests of the third century bc. All their original books have been lost, and we have only spotty quotations. Only when we get to Ptole­my, of the second century ad, do we have a foundation for a comprehensive chrono­logi­cal system (not just a history, such as that of Diodorus of Sicily), in his list of Persian kings, from Cyrus the Great to Alexan­der the Great. ‟Upon this ‛canon’ all modern chronolo­gists have built their systems, and this for the simple reason that there is noth­ing else, apart from the Bible, for them to build on.” Ptolemy wrote seven hundred years after the events he describes, and cites no au­thorities. Worse, he is contradicted by Josephus, by the Per­sian traditions recorded by Fidusi, by the Jewish traditions in the Sedar Olam, and by the timing of well-known events. Worst of all, he is in conflict with the chronology of the Bi­ble, report­edly by eighty years. This is a problem in terms of history (rather than of religion), because the Bible is primary docu­mentation, of eyewit­ness­es, whereas Ptolemy's account has the weight of mere gossip. Like­wise, for Egyptian chro­nolo­gy, Mane­tho is taken as the prima­ry autho­rity for the order and succes­sion of the pha­raohs, al­though we shall have cause to dismiss out of hand such a foun­dation (see Chapter 5).

Only in the first millenni­um bc does any concreteness come to define the gentile concept of history. And just when the "time of the gentiles" is start­ing, biblical and pagan chronologies are tied to­gether, in the first verse of Jeremiah 25: ‟The fourth year of Jeho­iachim, which was the first year of Nebu­chad­nezzer.” This is the anchor of world chro­no­logy. At precisely the time when secular sources become verifi­able, through the estab­lishing of a ‛world’ empire, the Bible allows a correla­tion. In­deed, Nebu­chadnezzer was the very first world leader to be explicitly ap­pointed to that of­fice by God. With the recov­ery of the writ­ings of the Assyr­ians, other keys to chronolo­gy can be found, pushing secu­lar chronology further back. But we shall have much opportu­nity to study the breaks, the gaps, the "dark ages" of standard history — enough to re­al­ize that there is no truly uni­fied account of history, other than the Bible.

It is easy enough to make the claims I have made. But Table 1-2 — Benchmarks of Biblical Chronology — should demonstrate the validity of such claims. Rather than spend many words repeating the information of the table, I will just explain a few points. First, I assume that there are no gaps in the genealogies of the Bible, except those which are specifically indicated. Even conservative scholars have assumed that there are gaps, in order to make the Bible fit into the humanistic time frame. I reject this compro­mise not out of some hyper-orthodoxy or over-zealous piety, but because, as we shall see, the evidence does not warrant such a scheme.

Next, the year 931 bc for the end of Solomon is taken from cor­re­spon­dences with the Assyrian records. If these records are not as straightforward as has been assumed, then all the bc dates will need to be adjusted accordingly. But this is not an im­portant issue, since the true value of chro­nol­ogy is not in any absolute date, but rather in the power to draw out correspondenc­es and relationships.

Next, I have assumed that Abram was not born when his father was age 70 (2126 bc), but rather that this was Terah's age when his sons Nahor and/ or Haran were born. In fact, Abram was 60 years youn­ger than one or both of his broth­ers, as we may conclude from the immedi­ate context of Gen 11:32 & 12:1. Here, Abram left Haran at age 75 (c. 2036 bc), shortly after his fa­ther had died at age 205; calcu­lating back, we find that Terah was age 130 when Abram was born (2066 bc), 60 years af­ter the older sons were born. Aside from the con­textual evidence we have just seen, the an­cient rabbis said that when the sons of Ham crowned Nimrod as their king, Nimrod chose Terah, fa­ther of Abram, as his gen­er­al. If we take this statement as having historical sub­stance, it forbids Abram's birth before his brothers (as the conven­tional interpretation of Gen 11:26 would have it), since Nimrod's con­quests would long since have been complet­ed, and Terah would simply be too young. Be that as it may, if this as­sumption is incor­rect, it has no relevance to the dates of Abram, but it would pull all the pre-Abram dates 60 years clos­er to us — which itself would have no meaningful ef­fect on the thesis of this work.

Finally, the duration of Israel's Bondage in Egypt is almost always misunderstood, imagined to have lasted almost half a millennium, based on Ex 12:40, which says that Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. The meaning of this verse is clarified by the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament): ‟And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years.” The 430 years were counted from the days of Abraham, since he exiled himself from the Promised Land by descending into Egypt. We will look at this period later, but here I will just supplement my chronology by citing Josephus, who says in Book 11 of his Antiquities that 220 years passed from the death of Isaac until the Exodus; this is only five years off from my calculations, and if anyone can find my error, I will be edified. In the meantime I assume that it is Josephus who miscalculated. All of the other evidence is given in Table 1-2, so need not be explicated here.

Related to this, I suggest, is the fact that the Babylonians used a calendaric cycle of 480 years, called "the Era of Isis." It may be just a coincidence, but Semiramis/ Isis came to power precisely around 2041 bc (see Chapter 6), and 480 years after this is the year 1561, the year of the Exodus — a significant benchmark if ever there was one.

More detail is given in Table 1-3, Biblical Chronology from Noah to Saul. It should be enough to say that the left-hand column gives the years since the Fall of Adam — Anno Mundi — and the right-hand column gives the years Before Christ (the secondary right-hand column gives dates based on the assumption that Abraham was older than his brothers). All dates which are used in this book will be based on my biblical chronology.

The center-left column of the following table gives all the strict­ly chronological data, from which any reader should be able to verify my conclu­sions; the center-right col­umn gives points of inter­est — some of these dates are best-esti­mates, or taken from traditional writ­ings. If any reference has been omitted, it is by acci­dent. The style is somewhat tele­graphic, but I trust a bit of thought will make it clear.

After the table of Biblical Chronology is a chart correlating the several timelines of the true blocks of history. This scheme is the key to understanding my reconstruction of the whole of ancient history. Throughout this book, this chart should be helpful; the companion volume, The Days of Brass and Iron, includes a continuation of this graphic presentation.

Year	Biblical Chronology from Adam to Saul		bc
Antediluvian Era
0	1. Adam's Fall	Genesis 5	4074
130	2. Seth born; Adam age 130		3944
235	3. Enosh born; Seth age 105		3839
325	4. Cainan born; Enosh age 90		3749
395	5. Maha­lale­el born; Cainan age 70		3679
460	6. Jar­ed born; Mahalaleel age 65		3614
622	7. Enoch born; Jared age 162		3452
687	8. Methuse­lah born; Enoch age 65		3387
874	9. Lamech born; Methuselah age 187		3200
930		1. Adam dies, age 930	3144
987		7. Enoch translated, age 365	3087
1042		2. Seth dies, age 913	3032
1056	10. Noah born; Lamech age 182	[From Adam to Noah, 10 generations]	3018
1140		3. Enosh dies, age 905	2934
1235		4. Cainan dies, age 910	2839
1290		5. Mahalaleel dies, age 895	2784
1422		6. Jared dies, age 962	2652
1536		Flood announced (Gen 6), Ark started	2538
1558	11. Shem born; Noah age 502		2516
1651		9. Lamech dies, age 777	2423
1656		8. Methuselah dies, age 969; Noah age 600, Shem age 98; Flood (Gen 7:6)	2418
Patriarchs
1658	12. Arphaxad born; Shem age 100	two years after Flood (Gen 11:10); Noah age 602	2416
1693	13. Salah born; Arphaxad age 35		2381
1723	14. Eber born; Salah age 30		2351
1757	15. Peleg born; Eber age 34		2317
1787	16. Rue born; Peleg age 30		2287
1819	17. Serug born; Rue age 32		2255
		325 before Shem's death, his rule starts in Erech	2241
1849	18. Nahor born; Serug age 30		2225
1878	19. Terah born; Nahor age 29		2196
1882		Tower of Babel event, Nimrod, Peleg age 125	2192
1948		Terah age 70; Nahor/ Haran born	2126
1996		15. Peleg dies, age 239. Traditional year of Babel event, 340 years after Flood.	2078
1997		18. Nahor dies, age 148	2069
2006		10. Noah dies, age 950	2068
2008	20. Abram born; Terah age 130	[From Noah to Abram, 10 generations]	2066
2025		16. Rue dies, age 239	2049
2039		17. Serug dies, age 230	2035
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
		19. Terah d. 205 (Gen 11:32).	1991
2083	Abram, 430 years (starts Gen 12:10; cf Ex 12:40-41; Heb 11:8-13) to Sinai (Gal 3:17).	Abram 75 (Gen 12:4) when he entered Canaan and into Egypt (12:10): Plague on Pharaoh (12:17)	1991
		War of Mesopotamian four kings (14:1,4, 9)
2093		10 years later, Abram m. Hagar (16:13)	1981
2094		Abram age 86, Ishmael born (16:16; 17:24)	1980
2106		12. Arphaxad dies, age 438	1968
2107		Abraham age 99, Sarah age 90 (Gen 17:17, 21,24, 18:10), Ish­mael age 13 (17:25), cir­cumci­sion, everlasting cove­nant; Sodom & Gomor­rah (Gen 19). Abraham Sarah and Abime­lech (24:).	1967
2108	21. Isaac born (17:21, 21:5, 18:10); Abra­ham age 100; Sarah age 91		1966
2113	Start 400 year (Gen 15:13) so­journ of Abra­ham's seed (Gen 21:12; Acts 7:6; Gen 27:9).	Isaac age 5, proclaimed heir by feast of wean­ing, (Gen 21:8-10, Gal 4:29-30). Ban­ishment of Hagar and Ishma­el.	1961
2126		13. Salah dies, age 433	1948
2144		Sarah dies, age 127 (23:1); Isaac as sacri­fice, age 36	1930
2148		Isaac marries, age 40 (25:20). Chasm in Delta	1926
2158		11. Shem dies, age 600. Height of Ice Age.	1916
2168	22. Jacob born; Isaac age 60, Abra­ham 160.		1906
2183		20. Abraham dies, age 175 (25:7)	1891
2187		14. Eber dies, age 464	1887
2208		Esau marries, age 40 (26:34); Isaac age 100	1866
2231		Ishmael dies, age 137 (25:17).	1843
2245		Jacob in Padam Aram, northern Mesopotamia by Ha­ran, age 77 (Gen 28); Isaac ‟old” age 137 (27:1)	1829
2252		Jacob age 84; worked 7 years, marries both Leah and Ra­chel (works another 7 years) (29:30)	1822
2253		Ruben born to Leah	1821
2254		Simeon born, L
2255		Levi born L	1819
2256		Judah born L Bilhah (Rachel): Dan
2257		Naphtali B (R) Zilpah (Leah): Gad
2258		Asher born Z Issachar L
2259	23. Joseph born; Jacob age 91	Zebulun L Joseph born to Rachel Jacob had served 14 years (30:25)	1815
2260		Dinah L
2265		Jacob age 97, returns to Canaan (31:41)	1809
2275		Dinah raped, age 15, Hamor (T-12, Levi)	1799
2276		Benjamin born to R, near Bethlehem (35:19), then Jacob in Hebron (35:27, 37:14). Joseph age 17 (37:1-2), into Egypt.	1798
2288		21. Isaac dies, age 180 (Gen 35:28)	1786
2289		Joseph age 30, before Pha­raoh (41:46)	1785
		Sons of Joseph born (41:50)
2296		Joseph age 37, end of plen­ty	1778
2298	Jacob age 130 (47:9); Joseph age 39	2 years of famine, Jacob into Egypt (45:6, 11). Of Jacob's descendants, 66 into Egypt, not coun­t­ing him­self or Joseph (46:26); 70 inclu­d­ing him, Joseph & two sons (46:27); all his kin, 75 (Acts 7:14), after LXX, count­ing 2 sons of Man­as­sah & 3 of Eph­raim	1776
2303		7th year of famine; Zoser's inscription	1771
		Time of Job's troubles; ending of Ice Age	1766
2315		22. Jacob dies, age 147 (Gen 47:28); Joseph age 56 — Levi age 60, Kohath born??	1759
		Nile flows with honey	1726
2369		23. Joseph dies, age 110 (50:22). Simeon dies, age 115 or 120 (5 year con­tra­diction in T-12). 712 years after Flood.	1705
2371		Ruben dies, 2 years after Joseph (T-12) [age 118 or 125; 7 year con­tradic­tion in T-12]
2373		Zebulon dies, age 114 (T-12 says 32 after Jo­seph's death)
2374		Levi age 119, Kohath 59??, Amram born??	1700
2375		Judah dies, age 119 (T-12)
2378		Dan dies, age 125 years (T-12)
2380		Issachar dies, age 122 (T-12)
2383		Asher dies, age 125 (T-12)
2384		Gad dies, age 127 (T-12)
2389		Naphtali, age 132 (T-12)
2392		Levi dies, age 137 (Ex 6:16). Fourth generation (14:16) from Levi is return: Kohath, Amram, Moses all born and died out of Promised Land.	1682
2401		Benjamin dies, age 125 (T-12). Egyptian war with Canaan
—		harbinger	1642
Era of Moses
2433	Moses born	Kohath age 118?? Amram age 59?? Moses born. 64 years between Joseph's death and Moses' birth	1641
2448		Kohath son of Levi dies?? age 133 (6:18). Job dies, if age of 140 dou­bled.	1626
2460	Joshua born		1614
2473		Moses flees, age 40 (Ex 2:11); Amram 99??	1601
2474	Caleb born	era of Sargon I	1600
2511		Amram son of Kohath dies?? age 137 (6:20)	1563
2513	Moses age 80 (Ex 7:7) — End 430 for Abraham (Ex 12:40-41); end 400 for seed (Gen 15:13, Acts 7:6). — Start "480 years" (1 K 6:1) of Ta­berna­cle The­ocra­cy — 594 years total, less 7 periods of oppres­sion which to­tal 114 years.	Exodus 1/15 (Ex 12:2, 41-2; Num 33:3); Sin 2/15 (Ex ); Si­nai 3/15?? ‛the same day’ (Ex 19:1). Law, after moun­tain 3 days (Ex 19:3,11). 857 years after Flood	1561
2514	Caleb age 40, (Josh 14:7)	Tabernacle, 1/1 (Ex 40:17); Leviticus 1/1-2/1 (Num 1:1); Num­bers 2/1-2/20 — census done, leave Sinai for Paran (Num 10:11); 12 spies 2nd month (Num 13:3)	1560
2552	Moses dies, age 120	See Gen 15:16. Miriam dies, 1st month (Num 33:36); Aaron dies, 5th month (Num 20:23-33:8). Census 11th month (Deut 1:3). Moses dies 12/1, mourning 30 days (Deut 34:8).	1522
2553		Cross Jordan, 1/3 (Josh 3:2). Jericho earthquake just after Pass­over (5:10). c. March 13	1521
		Long day, around Passover, c. March 21	1519
2559	Caleb age 85 (Josh 14:10)	Land of Canaan is divided; 14 years of peace.	1515
2570		Joshua dies, age 110 (Josh 24:29)	1504
Era of Judges
2573	oppression 8 — Starts 450 years of Judg­es (Acts 13:20).	Cushan of Mesopotamia (Judg 3:8) [Inkishush of Gutium]. Paul says about 450, but exact if count op­pres­sion.	1501
2581	Othneil 40	(Judg 3:11)	1493
2621	oppression 18	Eglon of Moab (Judg 3:14)	1453
2639	Ehud 80	(Judg 3:30); his captain is Shamgar (3:31)	1435
2719	oppression 20	Jabin of Canaan (Judg 4:3)	1355
2739	Barak/ Deborah 40	(Judg 5:31); disaster 5:4,5	1335
2779	oppression 7	Midian (Judg 6:1)	1295
2786	Gideon 40	(8:28)	1288
2826	oppression 3	King Abimalech son of Gideon, (Judg 9:22)	1248
2829	Tola 23	(10:1, 2)	1245
2852	Jair 22	(10:3, 5)	1222
2874	oppression 18	Ammonites (10:8, 18; 11:1)	1200
2892	Jephtha 6	(12:7). Had occupied Land for "300 years", (Judg 11:26) — roun­ded from 333 years since the Land was di­vided.	1182
2898	Izban 7	(12:9)	1176
2905	Elon 10	(12:11); Eli born	1169
2915	Abdon 8	(12:14)	1159
2923	oppression 40	Philistines (13:1); includes Samson's 20 years (15:20). Sam­son doesn't fit pattern (2:18).	1151
2963	Eli 40	(1 Sam 4:18), age 58; Samuel born	1111
2983		Saul born (1Sam 13:1)	1091
3003	Samuel 20	(1 Sam 7:2, 15, 8:1); at most age 40	1071
3023	Ends 450 years of Judges (Acts 13:20); disaster (1S 7:10)		1051
United Israel
3023	Saul 40	(Acts 13:21); Samuel age 60 = ‛old’ (8:1); Isbo­sheth born	1051

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