(2013 revised April 29, 2014)
I have seen a number of Bible timelines. Some can be viewed on the internet. I even have some hard copies in my possession. They all have one thing in common, they contain errors. There are other Timelines that do not use the Bible as a source of information.
I recently did a study and determined some of the key dates in Biblical history. My findings have been verified by a few but most published Timelines disagree. I cannot tell you why they contain error but I will say that it appears to be deliberate in some cases.
The following figures are subject to a little error since the Bible only reveals the age of the fathers in years and not in days, months and years. If we were able to take into consideration the months and days we might derive slightly different sums.
Adam was created. (Genesis 1:26,27 and 2:7)
1558 years later Shem was born. (Genesis 5 and 11:10)
1656 years after Adam was created the flood came. (Genesis 7:6, 11)
1948 years after Adam was created, Abraham (Abram) was born. (Genesis 11:10-26) The exact age of Terah when Abraham was born is not given. This allows for a little leeway of perhaps a year or two in the dates. I used 70 as the age of Terah when Abraham was born.
2028 Abraham is 80 years old, +/- 5 years, when God made a covenant with him. (Genesis 15:18 and Galatians 3:17)
2238 years after Adam was created, Jacob and company arrive in Egypt. (Gen. 47:5,9 and Gen. 21:5, 25:26)
2255 years after Adam was created, Jacob dies at the age of 147. (Gen. 47:28)
{2668 years after Adam was created, Israel leaves Egypt after a 430 year stay. (Exodus 12:40-41) This may be inappropriate use of the 430 year period.}
2458 years after Adam was created, Israel leaves Egypt. (Galatians 3:17, Genesis 15:18 and Exodus 12:40-41) (2028 + 430 = 2458)
2938 years after Adam was created, 480 years after leaving Egypt, Solomon begins the construction of the Temple. (1 Kings 6:1)
According to some Timelines the dates given for Solomon beginning to build the Temple are years 1015 BC, 967 BC, 966 BC, 961 BC, 960 BC, 916 BC.
Dates derived for the Reign of Solomon are 1019-979 BC, 971-930 BC, 970-931 BC, 920-880 BC according to other sources.
These dates are apparently derived by scholars. So you can see that scholars disagree with each other quite a bit. For my exercise I chose the year 965 BC as the year that Solomon began to build the Temple. This is 50 years away from the earliest date and 50 years away from the latest date that the scholars determined.
Using this date we can determine the date of the creation on Adam as 3903 BC. (965 + 2938) with a plus/minus factor of 55 years, +/- 5 years for the date of the covenant and +/- 50 years for the date the scholars determined.
6000 years from Adam brings us to the year 2098 AD +/- 55 years, since there is no year zero (6000 – 3903 + 1 = 2098).
Pardon my human condition of limited knowledge but the best I can estimate is that we are in the year 5916 (965 + 2938 - 1 + 2014) +/- 55 years since the creation of Adam, this being April 2014 AD. This means that we may be as little as 29 years from the year 6000 or as many as 139 years away from the year 6000.
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