It has occurred to me that this work deserves a wider reading than its original limited distribution allowed, in the mid-1990s. I will refrain in this brief forward from indulging in many personal references. My most active blog, Forgotten Prophets, overflows with my idiosyncratic ruminations. But I'll share one thing. My relationship with God is not as untroubled as it was in that previous decade. I was tempted to remove any pious sentiments in this work, since they no longer reflect my current state, in God's grace. But I have chosen to leave the work unmolested. I would not dishonor that younger man's naivety, even in the light of my later anguish. He was not wrong, that younger self. I'm wrong. Perhaps I'll emerge from this long wilderness and rejoin the communion. But everyone must pass through his own night.
Regarding this text, I've had great difficulty in posting it. All of the endnote citations have been lost, due to incompatible formats and awkward conversion programs. I could enter the information manually, but I have no reason to, at this point -- my time is limited, and interest in the topic is likely to be limited. Likewise with the charts, graphs and tables -- so far, 5 chapters in, only one has survived. Again, I have hard copies, and I have the original computer files, somewhere. Perhaps over time I'll post them. We shall see. I will be adding chapters, on no particular schedule.
In any case, I hope that any reader of these chapters will be edified. I wrote them in good faith, and I believe my conclusions are correct, in general outline if not in perfect detail. This is copyrighted material, and I trust that fact is honored. Fair use is permitted, and encouraged, but the usual limitations are asserted.
J
Most Ancient Days: Preface
Most Ancient Days:
A Biblical Reconstruction of Ancient History
from Noah to Saul
By
Jack H
Copyright 2010
==========
Books by
Jack H:
Idols of the Cave:
the Arguments of Evolution
* * *
The Pillars of Heaven:
Creation, Fall and Flood
According to Science and the Bible
Dragons in the Earth:
According to Science and the Bible
* * *
The Serpent in
Fire-worship, Astrology and the Mystery Religion
from
* * *
Most Ancient Days:
a Biblical Reconstruction of Ancient History
from Noah to Saul
The Days of Brass and Iron:
a Biblical Reconstruction of Ancient History
from Saul to Alexander
=========
Table of Contents
Preface: World Views
The Age of Legend
1 — The Number of the Years: Biblical Chronology from Adam to Saul
2 — The Age of Evil Imagining: the confusion and scattering at
3 — The Generations of the Sons of Noah: the Table of Nations
4 — Cities of the Twin Rivers:
5 — Profane Fables: errors of the standard paradigm
6 — Kings of the
The Age of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
7 — Stones of
8 — Sands of
9, 10 — The Age of Base Metals: the confusion of the Bronze Age
The Scepter of
11 — Joseph Over the House of Pharaoh:
12 — The Pharaoh Who Knew Not Joseph: the "
13 — Moses, Prince of
14 — Into the Hands of the Living God: the Ten Plagues of
15 — Rise Up and Get You Forth: Exodus & Wilderness
Judges Over the Land
16 — Amalek, First of Nations: Dynasties XV & XVI
17 — The Kings of the East: from Sargon to Hammurabi
18 — When There Was No King in
19 — The End of Agag: Saul and Ahmose
==========
Preface:
World Views
Every reasonable person knows our world is billions of years old, and that the course of the planets have affected Earth only in the subtle, distant work of gravity. Everyone knows about the many ice ages, and that humans Evolved from lower forms. Everyone knows about the slow migration out of Africa of the ‛human’ animal which spread and Evolved over the past 100,000 years, and about the gradual increase in the complexity of human culture over scores of thousands of years, and about the 10,000-years-old settlement of Jericho. Everyone knows that there was no Adam and Eve, no Fall from grace, no Flood of Noah, no
Yet I maintain otherwise. You have before you a work which some may call lunatic-fringe, on a par with belief in a flat-earth. It may be accused of being religious, or ignorant, or of misusing evidence, or of not meeting the criterion of disinterestedness which is expected in any work of research. As to that, I trust that evidence and sound reasoning will speak louder than bigotry and ad hominem attacks.
I maintain that an issue should be decided on its merit — not on its popularity, and not on how readily it is ridiculed. I maintain that it is evidence, rather than conviction or bias, which should decide an issue. I propose a different set of ‛truths which everybody knows’.
When I was in my early teens, I read all the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, including the Pellucidar series which told of a fantastical, Mesozoic world at the core of our planet. Later, at age sixteen, I came across a book by a fellow who insisted that Earth actually was hollow, with openings at the poles. I dimly recall that he used as evidence the fact that icebergs were not salty: where else could such mountains of ice come from, if not from the very poles themselves? What he said about
I have encountered flat-earthers, and alchemists and ritual magicians, and communists and atheists and evolutionists and reincarnationists. And I have come to see that, while such world views may be fringe or mainstream, they are all based on uncritical faith and a less-than-rigorous acceptance of ‛evidence’.
Karl Marx spent years in the Library of the
Hinduism and Buddhism have been swallowed whole by New Agers, who regurgitate their faith in a form more palatable to Westerners. The hopelessness of karma is reinterpreted as a system of justice to which is added the escape tunnel of mercy. It is okay that women are raped and children tortured and babies murdered or born deformed, because that is karma, and they will get another chance, and they deserve what they get anyway for acts they committed in past lives. The First ‛Noble’ Truth, of Buddhism, is that life is pain, and the highest goal of life is to become non-existent. The godhood which reincarnationists claim for themselves does not last, since god ‛itself’ is an illusion — froth which sinks down once more into the sea of nothingness. But while we may put words together in a pretty or poetic way, the image and what is real need not be the same thing.
Atheists point to the fact that God has not in the flesh introduced Himself personally to them or any of their friends, and from this observation they conclude that there is no God. "Everyone who says otherwise is just too uncritical and emotional. Those who claim to have had communion with some Creator are deluded or brainwashed, or simple-minded or insane, or they're engaged in wish-fulfillment, or they can't tell when they're dreaming, or they're wrong in some other way . . . but they are wrong. Only randomness and unobserved laws of nature can explain the existence of ourselves and of the universe," says the atheist. "Only Evolutionism is true."
In my book Idols of the Cave I examine the arguments and the evidence used to support the claim that Evolutionism is scientific. The conclusion is that Evolutionism is a metaphysical philosophy dissembling as science, which distorts the fossil record with self-serving interpretations, rewrites the laws of nature, and uses shoddy and distressingly superficial ‛logic’. ‛Disinterestedness’ is not even an issue with regard to Evolutionism, since Evolution is absolutely foundational to the modern, naturalistic bias — no more to be questioned than one's own heartbeat.
Again, in The Pillars of Heaven and in Dragons in the Earth, I examine the positive case for Creationism. The age of the universe and of Earth and the six days of Creation, the physics of the Fall of Adam and the world and the great age of the pre-Flood patriarchs, the Flood and the fossil record and the geological evidence of stratified rock and of coal and of continental ‛drift’ and mountain-building, the Ark itself and the subsequent Ice Age — all these questions and more are dealt with from an evidentiary perspective. Here, my conclusion is that the more literally one takes the Bible, the closer one comes to reality — always remembering, of course, that there is such a thing as a figure of speech.
In The Serpent in Babel, I look at the origin and spread of paganism. Myths contain the hints and memories — though thoroughly corrupted — of the days before the Flood and of the time surrounding the confusion at
Now, in this book, Most Ancient Days, I address what I consider to be the final issue: not philosophy or physics or faith, but history. History and truth are different things, which may happen to agree. This is not a cynical or fatalistic statement, but simply a recognition of the limits of what history is. History is what we are told about the past. If it was not written down, it is not history. It may be archeology, or tradition, or myth, or even a correct guess, but it is not history. That some civilization once thrived may be a fact, but unless we can read their writings, or what their neighbors said about them, their civilization is not a historical fact, but rather an archeological fact. And we can learn a great deal from archeology — I do not mean any slight whatsoever. But just as a dentist and a barber do different jobs, so do the historian and the archeologist. Indeed, archeology is often the predecessor of history, as when libraries or archives are unearthed.
In this and its companion volume, The Days of Brass and Iron, I retell the history of mankind, from a precise beginning, to the Classical Age. We will proceed through history chronologically, as conceived in this reconstruction. I will not deal with one region at a time, but rather I will tell the story straight through. As a result, I cannot deal with, for example, each Egyptian dynasty according to its numerical order, and this will no doubt be a bit confusing: I am going to be talking about Dynasty XII before Dynasty III. Reference to the charts will be very useful. This topic is so large, and so challenging, that it must be, unavoidably, confusing. Where my prose fails, I hope the charts and tables will be of help, and visa versa. They are meant to complement each other.
In presenting this information, I affirm that I am certainly not disinterested in the conclusion. But my ‛yes’ means ‛yes’, and with that in mind I assert that I have striven to let the evidence speak for itself. In dealing with ancient history, the first and most troublesome problem is the lack of evidence, and the often contradictory reports of those elder historians who wrote before our ‛modern’ age. From the data, some information must be accepted, and some dismissed as corrupt. I have not given every detail, but I have given what I judge to be the relevant information. This is what every theorist does, and must do.
I have depended on the prior, ground breaking research of other writers, most prominently Immanuel Velikovsky. In his initial intuition that post-Exodus Egyptian chronology is grossly misunderstood, and in his proposal of an interplanetary cause for earthly catastrophes, Velikovsky arrived at great insight, and has significantly eased the task which I set for myself. He started with the Exodus, and allowed the logical implications to demand that conventional chronology be revised. While I disagree with some of what he proposes, this work would be significantly less detailed without his trailblazing effort.
In another sense, however, Velikovsky is irrelevant: the Bible demands a revision, and Velikovsky's greatest contribution was in providing an example of courage. For the most part, he revised only the history of post-Exodus
I started with the assumption that the Bible contained a recoverable and valid chronology. From this assumption, the requirement immediately appeared that ancient history as it is commonly understood be revised. Making some simple and reasonable judgments (and with the aid of Assyrian and Persian king lists), we can firmly date the Flood, the days of Abraham and Joseph, the Exodus and the reign of Saul. With some rigorous research, we can date the confusion at
Since virtually all of the more ancient dates produced by the conventional construction of history are in harsh contradiction with the data from the Bible, I will provide both systems, for ease of reference. To indicate the normal but incorrect dates, they will always be preceded by a symbol which indicates the specific erroneous timeline of some region and era.
The Old Babylonian (OB) timeline, generally off by about 700 years, is indicated by an asterisk [*]. Thus, the dates for Hammurabi (the great king of the Old Babylonian dynasty) are 1069-26/ *1792-50 — the first set is my correction, and the second is the standard albeit incorrect version of the
Now, there are passages in this work which may well be nothing but boring. I have given details of pharaohs about which almost nobody is likely to care. This is not an eat-your-vegetables book. If you are not interested in the topic of a paragraph, skim it or skip it. It is far more important that you see the over-all picture, than that you understand the minutia of archeology or historiography. But for the sake of completeness, and since it is in the details that a matter is established, I have been, admittedly, overly-precise.
But aside from the great wash of details, and behind the rigors of logic, the overriding theme of this book is that there is a God, who wrote a book by which we may come to know His character and the way to gain salvation — through Jesus Christ. I will not preach in this work, but that the Bible is true and Jesus is Lord is the backdrop against which every word appears. Some will take this clear statement of my bias as disqualifying my conclusions from serious scholarship. I offer no defense. Everyone has a religion. I state mine up front, and expect evidence to determine truth.
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
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
The Bible is about
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
What are these ‛contradictions’ which the Bible supposedly contains? Well, for example, ‟There are two conflicting accounts of the route the Israelites took through
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Finally, the duration of
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), | 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 | 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 | | | 2192 |
| 1948 | | Terah age 70; Nahor/ | 2126 |
| 1996 | | 15. Peleg dies, age 239. Traditional year of | 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 | 1991 |
| 2083 | Abram, 430 years (starts Gen | Abram 75 (Gen 12:4) when he entered | 1991 |
| | | War of Mesopotamian four kings (14:1,4, 9) | |
| 2093 | | 10 years later, Abram m. Hagar ( | 1981 |
| 2094 | | Abram age 86, Ishmael born ( | 1980 |
| 2106 | | 12. Arphaxad dies, age 438 | 1968 |
| 2107 | | Abraham age 99, Sarah age 90 (Gen | 1967 |
| 2108 | 21. Isaac born ( | | 1966 |
| 2113 | Start 400 year (Gen | Isaac age 5, proclaimed heir by feast of weaning, (Gen 21:8-10, Gal | 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 | 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 | | 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 | 1809 |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| 2275 | | Dinah raped, age 15, Hamor (T-12, Levi) | 1799 |
| 2276 | | Benjamin born to R, near | 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 Of Jacob's descendants, 66 into | 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 |
| | | | 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 | | | |
| 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 | 1682 |
| 2401 | | Benjamin dies, age 125 (T-12). Egyptian war with | |
| — | | 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 ( | 1626 |
| 2460 | Joshua born | | 1614 |
| 2473 | | Moses flees, age 40 (Ex | 1601 |
| 2474 | Caleb born | era of Sargon I | 1600 |
| 2511 | | Amram son of Kohath dies?? age 137 ( | 1563 |
| 2513 | Moses age 80 (Ex 7:7) — End 430 for Abraham (Ex — 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 | 1560 |
| 2552 | Moses dies, age 120 | See Gen 15:16. Miriam dies, 1st month (Num 33:36); Aaron dies, 5th month (Num | 1522 |
| 2553 | | Cross | 1521 |
| | | Long day, around Passover, c. March 21 | 1519 |
| 2559 | Caleb age 85 (Josh | | 1515 |
| 2570 | | Joshua dies, age 110 (Josh 24:29) | 1504 |
| Era of Judges | | ||
| 2573 | oppression 8 — Starts 450 years of Judges (Acts | Cushan of | 1501 |
| 2581 | Othneil 40 | (Judg 3:11) | 1493 |
| 2621 | oppression 18 | Eglon of | 1453 |
| 2639 | Ehud 80 | (Judg | 1435 |
| 2719 | oppression 20 | Jabin of | 1355 |
| 2739 | Barak/ Deborah 40 | (Judg | 1335 |
| 2779 | oppression 7 | Midian (Judg 6:1) | 1295 |
| 2786 | Gideon 40 | ( | 1288 |
| 2826 | oppression 3 | King Abimalech son of Gideon, (Judg | 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 | 1182 |
| 2898 | Izban 7 | (12:9) | 1176 |
| 2905 | Elon 10 | ( | 1169 |
| 2915 | Abdon 8 | ( | 1159 |
| 2923 | oppression 40 | Philistines (13:1); includes Samson's 20 years ( | 1151 |
| 2963 | Eli 40 | (1 Sam | 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 | 1051 | |
| United | | ||
| 3023 | Saul 40 | (Acts | 1051 |
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