Biblical Chronology

- Matt Baker examines the origins of biblical chronology. He compares the chronology underlying the Jewish calendar with several chronologies used by Christian biblical literalists. He defines a literalist as someone who believes the Bible describes literal history from Adam and Eve onward, while identifying himself as a non-literalist interested in the Bible’s historical and literary development.

- The Jewish New Year in September 2021 illustrates the difference between calendar systems. Monday, September 6, 2021, corresponded to 29 Elul 5781, while Tuesday, September 7, began 1 Tishrei 5782, or Rosh Hashanah. The Gregorian year count is based approximately on the birth of Jesus, although many scholars date his birth to around 4 BCE.

- The Jewish calendar counts years from the supposed creation of the world. Its year designation uses Anno Mundi (AM), meaning “in the year of the world.” Under this system, the year 5782 places creation in 3761 BCE, calculated by subtracting 2021 from 5782. This traditional date differs from the scientific understanding that Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old and from the approximately 4000 BCE creation dates commonly used by Christian literalists.

- Early rabbinical chronology assigns specific durations to the two Jerusalem temples. The rabbis placed the First Temple’s existence at 410 years, followed by a 70-year interval associated with the Babylonian exile, and then a Second Temple period of 420 years. They placed the Second Temple’s destruction in AM 3831, with variations of approximately three years between rabbinical sources.

- The traditional rabbinical dates produce a consistent sequence of four major temple events. Working backward from AM 3831 gives AM 3411 for the Second Temple’s construction, AM 3341 for the First Temple’s destruction, and AM 2931 for the First Temple’s construction. Subtracting 3761 converts these dates into approximately 70 CE, 350 BCE, 420 BCE, and 830 BCE, respectively.

- The biblical account attributes the First Temple’s construction to King Solomon, son of King David. Baker considers David and Solomon more legendary than securely historical figures, although he does not claim that either necessarily failed to exist. He argues that their biblical descriptions probably exaggerate their power, wealth, military forces, and building projects.

- Archaeological evidence suggests David and Solomon ruled smaller territories than the later kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Baker argues that the region’s population was too small to support the scale of construction and military activity attributed to them in the Bible. He therefore considers them more likely to have been local rulers who established a dynasty than monarchs commanding the extensive kingdoms portrayed in the biblical narratives.

- The First Temple’s exact construction date and builder cannot be independently confirmed. Baker says there is no surviving historical record outside the Bible that establishes when the temple was built, nor archaeological evidence that he considers sufficient to confirm its existence. He nevertheless regards the temple as almost certainly having existed, while leaving its date and attribution to Solomon uncertain.

- The First Temple’s destruction can be dated much more confidently than its construction. Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, and surviving records and archaeological evidence help establish the chronology of his reign and military campaigns. Baker places the destruction in 586 BCE, with a margin of approximately one year.

- The rabbinical date for the First Temple’s destruction is approximately 166 years too late. The traditional date of 420 BCE conflicts with the historically accepted date of 586 BCE. Baker says Jewish scholars have acknowledged this discrepancy for a considerable time and that the overwhelming majority accept the historical date, although some fringe groups continue to defend the traditional chronology.

- The 166-year discrepancy is known as the “missing years” in the Jewish calendar. Baker presents three possible explanations: the rabbis deliberately altered the chronology to prevent calculations of the Jewish Messiah’s arrival; the dates were intended symbolically rather than literally; or the rabbis made an unintentional mistake because they relied on inaccurate historical records. He concludes that the precise explanation may never be known.

- The Second Temple’s construction is traditionally placed 70 years after the First Temple’s destruction. Although Baker says there is no exact historical construction date, he considers the interval plausible given the duration of the Babylonian Empire and the decree of Cyrus the Great of Persia permitting displaced peoples to return to their homelands. Starting from the destruction in 586 BCE gives an estimated construction date of approximately 516 BCE.

- The rabbis correctly dated the Second Temple’s destruction to 70 CE. Baker notes that this event can be cross-checked against Roman and Greek chronology: it occurred during the year of the 212th Olympic Games and when Emperor Vespasian held the consulship for the second time. He considers the agreement between the rabbinical and historical dates unsurprising because the rabbis lived relatively close to the event.

- Using the First Temple’s historically established destruction date and the traditional 410-year duration produces a construction date of 996 BCE. Counting backward 410 years from 586 BCE gives this estimate. It differs from both the rabbinical date of 830 BCE and the construction date derived from more detailed historical research.

- Adding the biblical reign lengths of Judah’s kings produces another First Temple construction date: 1016 BCE. This calculation assumes Solomon built the temple in the fourth year of his 40-year reign and totals 430 years for the period before the temple’s destruction. The result differs from the rabbis’ stated duration of 410 years.

- A more sophisticated reconstruction places the First Temple’s construction around 966 BCE. Biblical reign dates are difficult to reconcile because the kings of northern Israel and southern Judah do not always fit neatly into a single timeline. Some kings also ruled jointly with their sons, and ancient calendars differed from modern systems. Scholars have used non-biblical sources alongside biblical records to develop a chronology that Baker describes as having achieved near-universal agreement.

- The 966 BCE estimate implies that the First Temple stood for approximately 380 years. If the temple was built in 966 BCE and destroyed in 586 BCE, its duration was 380 years rather than the 410 years specified by the early rabbis. Baker identifies this historically reconstructed construction date as a major reason modern Christian-literalist chronologies differ from the chronology underlying the Jewish calendar.

- Baker distinguishes historical chronology from the biblical stories used to calculate creation dates. For the remainder of his calculations, he treats events such as the creation of the world and the Flood as mythology and legend rather than literal history. He explains that ancient writers often combined distant memories of real events, including migrations and floods, with literary embellishments designed to communicate ideas to later generations.

- The Bible’s account of the Exodus places it 480 years before the First Temple’s construction. Using the rabbinical construction date of 830 BCE produces an Exodus date of approximately 1310 BCE. Using the historically reconstructed date of 966 BCE produces approximately 1446 BCE, with minor variations of one year depending on the counting method; some chronologies therefore give 1447 BCE.

- The Jewish calendar places the Exodus in AM 2451, a number Baker identifies as symbolically significant. The ancient Israelites celebrated every 50th year as a Jubilee year. Because 50 multiplied by 49 equals 2450, AM 2451 marks the beginning of the 50th cycle of 50 years—a “Jubilee of Jubilees,” in Baker’s interpretation.

- The length of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt is a major source of disagreement between Jewish and Christian-literalist chronologies. Exodus 12:40 states that the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years. According to Baker, the early rabbis interpreted the period as covering both Egypt and Canaan, allowing only 215 years in Egypt and assigning the other 215 years to the interval between Abraham’s arrival in Canaan and Jacob’s departure for Egypt.

- The two interpretations produce different dates for the Israelites’ arrival in Egypt. The Jewish chronology places the arrival around 1525 BCE, 215 years before the Exodus. Christian literalists who apply the full 430 years to the Egyptian stay place it around 1877 BCE.

- Baker calculates Abraham’s birth using the stated ages of three generations. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, Isaac was 60 when Jacob was born, and Jacob was 130 when he moved to Egypt. These intervals total 290 years. Baker gives Abraham’s birth dates as 1850 BCE under the Jewish chronology and 2166 BCE under the Christian-literalist chronology.

- The Jewish Abraham date given in the transcript does not reconcile with its other stated figures. If Jacob entered Egypt in 1525 BCE and the stated 290-year interval is applied directly, Abraham’s birth would be 1815 BCE rather than 1850 BCE. The later Jewish Flood date of 2105 BCE also aligns with a 290-year interval from 1815 BCE, not from the stated 1850 BCE figure.

- Baker derives two Flood dates from the biblical genealogies. Using the generations recorded in Genesis 11, he gives the Jewish-chronology date as 2105 BCE and the Christian-literalist date as 2456 BCE. These figures depend on the genealogical intervals used in the respective chronologies.

- The time from creation to the Flood is calculated as 1,656 years. Baker combines the generations from Adam to Noah in Genesis 5 with Genesis 7:6, which states that Noah was 600 years old when the Flood occurred. Adding 1,656 years to the respective Flood dates produces creation dates of 3761 BCE for the Jewish chronology and 4112 BCE for the Christian-literalist chronology.

- Christian literalists do not all agree on a single creation date. Baker presents the 4112 BCE calculation as one version among many, explaining that relatively small changes in genealogical assumptions or temple chronology can produce substantially different results.

- James Ussher’s influential chronology places creation in 4004 BCE. Ussher, a 17th-century Irish bishop, accepted the Jewish interpretation that the Israelites spent 215 years in Egypt. However, he added 60 years to the interval between Noah and Abraham, arguing that Abraham’s father was 130 rather than 70 when Abraham was born, and added another 47 years to the First Temple period based on the historical documents available to him. Baker expresses the calculation as 4112 − 215 + 60 + 47 = 4004 BCE.

- The choice of biblical text also changes the resulting creation date. The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, gives different ages in Genesis 5 and 11 from those in the Masoretic Text, the Hebrew version. According to Baker, the Septuagint adds more than 1,500 years to the period between Adam and Abraham, helping explain why traditional Eastern Orthodox creation dates are generally closer to 5500 BCE than to 4000 BCE.

- An alternative chronology produces a creation date of 4162 BCE. Returning to the calculation that places the First Temple’s construction in 1016 BCE adds 50 years to the other dates in the 4112 BCE chronology, producing 4162 BCE. Baker finds the resulting numerical relationships particularly interesting.

- The 4162 BCE chronology places the rededication of the Second Temple in the 4,000th year after creation. The Hasmoneans, also known as the Maccabees, rededicated the temple in 163 BCE after its defilement by Antiochus IV. The event is commemorated by the Jewish festival of Chanukah. Baker notes that 4162 BCE and 163 BCE are separated by 3,999 years, placing the rededication in the 4,000th year under this reckoning.

- The same chronology places the Exodus exactly two-thirds of the way between creation and the temple rededication. Baker calculates that the Exodus occurred 2,666 years after creation. He considers these numerical relationships evidence that the biblical chronological figures may have been finalized during the Hasmonean period to emphasize the significance of the era in which the authors or editors were living.

- The Dead Sea Scrolls provide a further argument for the possibility of later additions to Genesis. Although most of Genesis has been found among the scrolls, Baker notes that Genesis chapters 5 and 11—the chapters containing the genealogies from Adam to Abraham—have not. He proposes that these genealogical sections may have been added later, possibly during the Hasmonean period. He presents this as a hypothesis rather than a demonstrated fact.

- Baker considers none of the biblical creation chronologies literally correct. In his view, creation and the Flood belong to mythology rather than recoverable historical chronology. Their value lies in showing how Jewish communities at different times understood and communicated their traditions, rather than establishing a scientifically or historically accurate date for the beginning of the world.

- The Jewish year 5782 remains meaningful to Baker as a cultural tradition. Although he does not believe that it literally represents the number of years since creation, he regards the calendar as an old tradition of which he is part. His position separates participation in a religious and cultural inheritance from accepting its chronology as literal history.

- David Rohl’s “New Chronology” attempts to align the Exodus with Egyptian history. Baker addresses Rohl’s approach, presented in the film Patterns of Evidence, which argues that the Exodus was a real historical event. Rohl retains a biblical Exodus date around 1446 BCE but substantially revises the Egyptian chronology so that the event fits within Egypt’s Middle Kingdom rather than the traditionally accepted New Kingdom chronology.

- Baker rejects Rohl’s revised Egyptian chronology because it conflicts with the prevailing academic consensus. He says the vast majority of Egyptologists favor the standard Egyptian chronology rather than Rohl’s reconstruction. For Baker, the weight of academic agreement is important when assessing competing historical timelines.

- Baker allows for a possible historical memory behind the Exodus story without accepting it as literal history. He considers it plausible that the narrative preserves a distant memory of Semitic people being mistreated by Egyptians. Nevertheless, he regards the Exodus as primarily theological literature, arguing that its significance does not depend on whether it can be assigned to the Middle Kingdom or the New Kingdom.

- The episode closes by returning to the Jewish calendar’s cultural significance. Baker explains why Rosh Hashanah in September 2021 marked the beginning of AM 5782, wishes viewers Shana Tova (“good year”), and reiterates that the chronology is best understood as a historical development in Jewish tradition rather than a literal timeline of the world’s creation.