OLD TESTAMENT TIMELINE

A large amount of archeological and historical evidence has been discovered that corroborates the events described in the Old Testament.  In order that these correlations may be more clearly seen, a review of some portions of Biblical history and Scriptural chronology is first necessary.  That is undertaken here, followed by a list of much of the secular historical evidence, and finally, a visual Old Testament timeline combining both.

This Old Testament timeline is grounded in the genealogy of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ as found in the gospel of Saint (St.) Luke, beginning with the first man, Adam, and ending with the foster-father of Christ, St. Joseph.  The lifespans and begetting ages, where provided, are taken from the Greek Septuagint (hereinafter the “LXX”) a translation into Greek of the mostly-Hebrew Old Testament that was completed by 132bc (before Christ).¹ 

The early Christian churches regarded the LXX as Scripture,² and most New Testament quotations of the Old Testament are taken from the LXX.³  The New Testament, which was written in Greek during the 1st century AD (Anno Domini [in the year of our Lord]) was also regarded as Scripture,⁴ though it was not compiled until later.  

Most modern Bible translations use the Hebrew Masoretic text (hereinafter the "MT") as the basis for their Old Testament, only using the LXX to help discern the meaning of difficult passages.  The MT was not finalized until several centuries after the New Testament was written, but it has a long history. 

The LXX has 1386 more years than the MT between the creation of Adam and the birth of Terah, Abraham's father; 12 patriarchs are 100 years older when they fathered the next-in-line, one is 50 years older, one is six years older, and there is a second Cainan, who was 130 when he fathered the next-in-line.  The MT lists only the first Cainan, the son of Enos (Genesis chapters 5 and 11).  Both the LXX and St. Luke's genealogy include the second Cainan, son of Arphaxad, grandson of Shem (Luke chapter 3: verse 36).

A point of dispute among biblical historians is the length of time that the descendants of Abraham—God’s chosen people—were enslaved in Egypt.  Some say 400 years, relying on what God told Abram in Genesis 15:13 (God would later change his name to Abraham): "Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.”  But Abram had been a stranger from the moment he had followed God's command to leave his native land and go to the land of Canaan, and his descendants would be strangers there and mistreated before they ever went down to Egypt (Gen. 26:3, 31:42 & 37:1; Exodus 6:2-4).  God went on to say:

• In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete....  To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates.

(Gen. 15:16 & 18). 

Because of Abram's obedience, God would bless all mankind through him (Gen. 12:1-3 & 22:18).  God changed Abram's name to Abraham and his wife (Sarai)'s to Sarah.  Though they were both advanced in years, God assured Abraham that Sarah would bear Abraham a son, Isaac, and through Isaac His plan would unfold (Gen. 17:19 & 26:4).  When Abraham's descendants returned to Canaan, God would cast out its inhabitants (including the Amorites); Abraham's descendants were to tear down the Canaanite's altars, burn the graven images of their gods (idols) and worship only Him—the one true God (Deuteronomy 7:1-7). 

St. Paul would later write to the churches in Galatia that 430 years passed between God's promises to Abraham and his seed, and the coming of the Law (Galatians 3:16-17).  God began making promises to Abraham before his departure for Canaan, and the ones quoted above were made about ten years later, which was 15 years prior to Isaac's birth (Gen. 12:4, 16:3 & 21:5).  When Isaac was 60 he fathered Jacob (whose name God changed to Israel).  Israel was 130 when he moved to Egypt with his family to escape a famine (Gen. 47:9).  The Israelites resided in Egypt as guests, then as slaves, followed by their Exodus from Egypt and receipt of God’s Law through Moses.  In the MT, Exodus 12:40 appears to say that the Israelites lived solely in Egypt for 430 years; the same verse in the LXX says that they were in the land of Egypt "and in the land of Canaan" for that length of time.

Moses was the great-grandson of Levi, one of the 12 sons of Israel (Ex. 6:16-20; I [first] Chronicles 6:1-3).  Levi was a grown man when he went down to Egypt, and Moses' grandfather appears to have already been born (Gen. 46:8 & 11).  Since Moses was 80 when he led the Exodus out of Egypt (Ex. 7:7), had the Israelites been there 400 years or more, it would have taken 320 years for two generations to pass—far too long.

Returning to the genealogy of Jesus, Nahshon led the descendants (or tribe) of Judah, another of Israel's sons, during 40 years the Jews/Israelites wandered in the desert between the Exodus and their entry into the Promised Land (Canaan) (Numbers 1:7).  His son, Salma (Salmon) was young enough to escape the judgment of God, given two years after the Exodus, that all men who had reached the age of 20 (the fighting age) except Joshua and Caleb (and likely the priestly tribe of Levi) would die before entering the Promised Land.  They had refused to enter for fear of its inhabitants, so God kept them in the desert (of the 12 spies that had been sent to survey the land, only Joshua and Caleb trusted that God would keep His promise to deliver it to them) (Num. 14:28-33).

St. Paul, while preaching the Gospel to the Jewish synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, reminded them of their history:

• The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers.  He made them into a great people during their stay in Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out of that land.  He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness.  And having vanquished seven nations in Canaan, He gave their land to His people as an inheritance.  All this took about 450 years.

(Acts 13:17-20 [in part]) (the 450 years are not universally translated as referring to the previous sentences; the KJV, for example, applies them to the thereafter-described period of judges).

Upon arriving in the Promised Land, Salma married Rahab of Jericho, who had assisted the Israelites, and fathered Boaz (Matthew 1:5).  Boaz married the much younger Ruth (Ruth 3:10) who bore him Obed.  Obed fathered Jesse.  Jesse fathered David, the second king of Israel, who established its capital at Jerusalem.  His son, Solomon, began building the temple there four years after David, at age 70, named him as his successor and, soon thereafter, died.

The MT says 480 years passed between the Exodus from Egypt and the start of temple construction; the LXX says 440 years (III Kings [I Kings] 6:1).  Even the latter requires Boaz, Obed and Jesse to each be nearly 100 years old when they fathered the next-in-line (remember that Abraham was initially incredulous when God told him that he would father a child at that age [Gen. 17:17]).  While it may not have been the intention of the author that the number, whether 440 or 480, be taken literally, the actual number should be something close.

The ages of the patriarchs in this Old Testament timeline are from the New English Translation of the [Greek] Septuagint (hereinafter "NETS") with one exception.  NETS lists the age of Methuselah as 167 when he begat Lamech; this has him living for 14 years after the Flood.  There is variance among manuscripts of the LXX (due to scribal errors); some copies say he was 187, which results in him dying six years prior to the Flood (because his lifespan remains the same).  The MT also says 187.  Common sense dictates that Methuselah died before the Flood, since he was not on the Ark with Noah, so that one change from the NETS was made.

1. The Flood: "All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the flood gates of heaven were opened" (Gen. 7:11 [in part]).   Only Noah and his immediate family survived this punishment for mankind's sins, by following God’s instructions to build an ark (Gen. 6:13-22). 

The Shuruppak flood, which occurred in the region of Mesopotamia, ended its Jemdet Nasr period⁵ in c.2,900bc.⁶  For Mesopotamians it marked the separation between murky protohistory and a fuller historical time,⁷ and it likely formed the basis of the earliest known written flood accounts—the stories of Atra-Hasis, King Ziusudra and King Utnapishtim.⁸

Each of these has several similarities to the Biblical event—divine causation with the purpose of destroying mankind, a divine forewarning to one man, who by means of a large boat (ark) saves a few individuals as well as animals, and, after the flood waters have receded, his offering of a sacrifice.⁹  Rainstorms are named as the instrumental cause.  The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts how, like Noah, King Utnapishtim's ark came to rest on a mountain and, before disembarking, he released birds from it to determine if the land was again dry.¹⁰

The city of Shuruppak was buried by its namesake flood under a thick layer of clay mixed with sand.¹¹  At least one other city, Kish, was also inundated¹² (it lay about 80 miles [130 kilometers] northwest of Shuruppak).  At that time the shore of the Persian Gulf (hereinafter the "Gulf") was about 60 miles (96 km) southeast of Shuruppak—much closer than today.¹³  The Gulf had expanded due to global glacier melt until 6,000 years ago; thereafter, silt from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has slowly filled in the most northwestern portion.¹⁴

Likely the combination of heavy rain and overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flooded most, or all, of the Mesopotamian plain (much of which was marsh) and potentially the entire Mesopotamian basin.  If  the Shuruppak flood began at the same time of year as Noah's (the second month of the Jewish year [Gen. 7:11] which corresponds to Springtime) the Tigris and Euphrates would have already been swollen, if not flooding their banks, due to melting snow in the upper watershed.  That is no longer a phenomenon, now that multiple dams have been constructed on both rivers.

No evidence of a tsunami has been found at either Shuruppak or Kish; that is not surprising given their distance from the Gulf.  One was possible, given that the northern Gulf lies over part of the Kazerun fault, which has long been tectonically active.¹⁵  While there is some evidence for a comet or meteor impact in the Indian Ocean around that time that was capable of generating both a tsunami and weather events,¹⁶ any such tsunami would have been greatly weakened as it passed through the narrow Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf.¹⁷

Mesopotamia is where the Tower of Babel (Babylon) was later constructed and is where Abraham would be born, in Ur of Chaldees [kal-dēz].  Its Tigris and Euphrates rivers had flowed near the Garden of Eden.  It is, therefore, fitting that evidence of Noah's flood was found in Mesopotamia; that does not mean that the Deluge was restricted to it.

2. Entry of the Israelites into Egypt: although Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel, was brought to Egypt as a slave, being blessed by God, Pharaoh raised him to second-in-command of all Egypt (Gen. 39:1-2 & 41:39-40).  Through Joseph, God saved His chosen people (and the Egyptians) from starvation during a seven-year famine.  Israel and his household were welcomed to Egypt (Gen. 41:46-57 & 47:1-6).

This probably occurred during the Hyksos period (c.1650–possibly 1522bc^​18) which ended with the defeat of Pharaoh Khamudi.  The Hyksos, who were originally from the East (including Canaan) ruled over lower (northern) and part of upper (southern) Egypt.¹⁹  Likely only a Hyksos pharaoh would have placed Joseph, who had come from Canaan, as second-in-command (Egyptians considered themselves superior to others²⁰).  Later, a pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph and enslaved the children of Israel (Ex. 1:8-11).

3. Exodus from Egypt: in order to free the Israelites and enable them to return to the Promised Land, God chose Moses as their leader and then devastated Egypt with ten plagues (Ex. 7:1-4).  Pharaoh finally freed them, but changed his mind and led his army into the desert in pursuit.  God divided the water of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to cross, then released it onto pharaoh’s officers and charioteers, drowning them (Ex. 14:5-9 & 21-28 & 15:4). 

A strong candidate for the pharaoh of the Exodus is Amenhotep III (1391–1353bc or 1386–1349bc).  Though he led a successful military campaign to quell a rebellion in Nubia in his fifth year, and there may have been a brief operation against the Hittites in year 11 (c.1381bc)²¹ during the latter part of his 38 year reign he seems to have ceased the usual pharaonic practice of regularly leading an army throughout Egypt's empire,²² only sending troops back to Nubia for a small action in his year 26.²³  Near the end of his reign, Egypt's empire, and possibly its prosperity, fell into a steep decline that continued into those of his successors.²⁴

The ten plagues could explain why Amenhotep III's son and successor, Pharaoh Akhenaten, initiated the only period of monotheism (worship of one god) in ancient times besides that of the Jews, for God designed these plagues to systematically undermine the polytheism (worship of multiple gods) of Egypt: "The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord" (Ex. 7:5 [in part]).

The tenth plague slew the first-born son of every Egyptian family, including that of pharaoh (Ex. 12:29).  Akhenaten's older brother, Crown Prince Thutmose, is thought by some scholars to have died as an adult during the third decade of Amenhotep III's reign, because of his other titles (High priest of Ptah, Sem-priest, Overseer of the Prophets of Upper and Lower Egypt²⁵) and because someone stood in for the heir of Amenhotep III during his 30^th regnal year celebrations (c.1361bc); the assumption is that Thutmose had died shortly prior, not allowing time for Akhenaten to be named as successor in his stead.²⁶

However, at least some of Crown Prince Thutmose's titles were given honorarily to the heir apparent, and because so little was recorded about him, he was probably only a few years old when he died.²⁷  Also, the mummy of an unidentified, roughly ten-year-old boy was found buried between Thutmose's mother, Tiye, and his sister²⁸ (though the mummy could be his great-uncle's, whose funerary items were found in that tomb).  Because Amenhotep III was married to Tiye by the second year of his reign,²⁹ Thutmose could have been born in the mid-1380s bc.

Arielle Kozloff holds the opinion that Amenhotep III and Tiye married and had Thutmose before his reign began.³⁰  She places Thutmose’s death during a large gap in Amenhotep's otherwise prodigious record keeping (c.1380–1373bc) with Thutmose in his late teens or perhaps twenties.³¹  This gap period was likely one of plague and pestilence for, among other things, Amenhotep commissioned hundreds of statues of Sekhmet, the goddess of war and pestilence—probably to ward off disease and promote healing—and afterward new priests needed to be appointed throughout the land.^​32

A temple was built in Soleb, Nubia in preparation for Amenhotep III's 30^th regnal year celebrations; it contains descriptions of lands and peoples allegedly subjugated by him³³ (or these depictions of foreigners with their arms bound were meant to assure Egyptians that they faced no external threats).  Included among these is "Land of the nomads of [God's name as revealed to Moses]."³⁴  As there was no location with this name or anything similar, it could be referring to the early Israelites before they settled in Canaan.³⁵

4. Conquest of Canaan (the Promised Land): over a seven year period the Israelites conquered land east of the Jordan River (because the inhabitants refused to let them pass peaceably) and after God held back the waters of the Jordan to allow them to cross, much of the Promised Land (between the west bank of the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea) beginning with the fall of Jericho (Deut. 2:14 & 2:26-3:2; Joshua 3:15-16, 14:6-10 & 24:11).