This online Bible history timeline shows the chronology of the Bible from 2300 B.C. through the first century A.D. Scroll down to see any part of it. To start at the bottom, click the “Bottom of main chart” link above.
(Aschmann.net/BibleChronology has now been simplified to biblechronology.net. Click here for details.)
• 44 A.D.:
Date of death of king Herod Agrippa
I (Acts 12:20-23). In Acts 12:3 we see that James’s
execution and Peter’s arrest occurred during “the days
of Unleavened Bread,” and according to Josephus Agrippa I died not long
after Passover, so this fixes his death to April or May.
Apparently this year is solid also because of Josephus, who stated that Agrippa
became king of Judea at the accession of the emperor
Claudius in 41, and reigned 3 years. Every source I have
seen agrees with this date. This is an important date,
although it only affects the events from Acts 11:29
through the end of chapter 12, since the immediately
preceding and following events are undatable.
• 51 A.D.,
July: Gallio becomes
proconsul of Achaia. The Delphi Inscription fixes his
accession relative to the reign of the emperor Claudius,
approximately 52, and this page calculates his accession
more accurately to July 51. The few that mention Gallio
say either 51 or 52. This date is important for dating
all of the events in Paul’s Second Missionary Journey,
and can even give an approximate date for the Jerusalem
Council that preceded it.
• 60 A.D.:
Porcius Festus becomes
procurator of Judea. This date is much more uncertain,
and different sources I have seen vary between 58 and
62, but most seem to prefer 60, and Conybeare and Howson (pages
899-900) give good reasons backed up by a lot of
research for preferring the summer of 60 A.D. for the
accession of Festus. This date is key, since it affects
the dating of all events from the start of Paul’s Third
Missionary Journey in Acts 18:23 all the way to the end
of Acts.
• I assume that the “three
years” of Galatians 1:18 and the “fourteen years” of
Galatians 2:1 both start at the conversion of Paul.
Most sources seem to agree with this, though a few
take the numbers sequentially, giving a total of 17.
• I further assume that the
Jerusalem visit recounted in Galatians 2:1-10 is the
Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. This would mean that
there were 14 years between Paul’s conversion and the
Jerusalem Council, and if the latter occurred in about
49 (working backwards from Gallio), then Paul’s
conversion would have been in 35. A few work back from Gallio differently,
putting the Jerusalem Council in 48, and even a few
in 50.
If we assume 17 years in
Galatians, then Paul’s conversion would have been in
32, leaving very little time for all of the events
of Acts 1-9.
At least one source (replaced link
2-May-2017), Julian Spriggs, assumes that this
visit was not the Jerusalem Council but instead the
Famine Relief Visit of Acts 11:29-30. The problem is
that if this famine relief visit is assumed to occur
before the death of Herod Agrippa I in 44 A.D. (Acts 12), as a
plain reading of Acts 11:29-30 would seem to suggest,
then this cannot be made to fit, since subtracting 14
from 44 gives 30, forcing all of the events of Acts
1-9 to fit into a few months, which is almost
inconceivable. However, Spriggs says that
the famine and the delivery of aid happened a couple
of years after Acts 12, in 46 A.D. Josephus
does discuss such a famine, but this page says that:
“The date of the famine described by Josephus is
uncertain, due to a difficult text. If under
[Tiberius Julius] Alexander it occurred between 46
and 48 CE, but it may have started in [Cuspius]
Fadus’ time, as early as 44. The Emperor Claudius
ruled from 41 to 54, matching the dating in Acts.”
This
suggests that we should take the plain sequence of
events in Acts 11. In any case, even if the famine
occurred in 46, and we assumed that this was the
occasion of the Jerusalem visit in Galatians 2, 32 A.D. is
awfully early for Paul’s conversion. (Spriggs says 32
in one place and 33 in another, but the math requires
32.)
|
Key events in the chronology are shown in a box with red borders and a yellow background, and marked with a red line across the chart. |
|
Genealogical and other information clarifying dates or events are provided in a box with black borders and a yellow background. |
Other background information is provided in a box with black borders and an orange background. |
Extra-biblical
information which helps to synchronize the
chronology is shown in lavender, and may or may
not be in a box. |
Other
extra-biblical information which helps to show
the historical context is shown in pink, and may
or may not be in a box. |
Information about when books of the Bible were
written is shown in a box with orange borders, and is sometimes colored orange.
|
Alternative timelines which I consider less
probable are shown in a box with extra-thick
dashed blue borders and a pale gray
background. (Only used in Judges. The preferred timeline has a solid blue border.) |
Non-Israelite dynasties of kings or other rulers are shown in a box with thick blue borders. |
Thankfully, I have found one (and so far, only one) web site which helps to make sense of this mess, called BcResources, which provides a series of charts somewhat similar to mine that match almost exactly the Narrated Bible dates, and are particularly useful for their earlier charts. The full set of their timelines can be found at: bcresources.net/2000000-bst-bib-gen-rev-1p010yr-tml-bcrx/. |
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This chronology is essentially complete, though I will still
be making adjustments to existing articles as time goes by. I
do not currently plan to add new articles, but I seem to keep
finding new ones that I end up adding! To see any recently
added articles, see the Site Map.
As of 5-Apr-2018 I have now translated all of these web
pages into Spanish, except 3 which are quite technical, and
which I do not plan to translate into Spanish unless some
readers explicitly request it. These are marked with an
asterisk in the Site Map.)
Since I find that I like to know something about the authors of websites I find interesting, and where they are coming from, I thought the least I could do would be to provide that information here. I have been a missionary since 1979, and am a pastor and a linguist. I also grew up as a missionary kid in Mexico. My personal web site is: Aschmann.net/Rick/.
Until January 28, 1922, this web site was called Aschmann.net/BibleChronology,
but now is called biblechronology.net.
I made this change to make the addresses simpler and more
descriptive, and to make this website easier for people to find.
But don’t worry: all of the addresses in the website will still
work in their old form as well as their new form, so any of
these addresses that anyone may have will still work. In fact, I
promise that you can continue to use the old addresses forever,
since both addresses actually point to the same place! However,
the new ones will be handier to work with, and even if you use
the old addresses, all of the links within the website will take
you to the new ones anyway. (The Spanish pages are now at cronologiabiblica.net.) (As of
18-Feb.-2022 I have now updated all of the links.)
(As of
10-Feb.-2022 all security and certificate issues now seem to
be resolved. If not, please let me know.)
I list these, mostly without comment, and in no particular
order, except to say that there is tremendous variation, and
that I have not necessarily taken information from all of these.
There are plenty more out there!
The Life and Epistles of St. Paul by
Conybeare and Howson, 1012 pages. This is almost certainly the
oldest (sometime before 1885, the death of Howson, though the
publication date of this edition is 1900) and certainly the one
with the most thorough research, which is carefully explained.
Their arguments for the dates of the Third Missionary Journey
through the end of Acts are quite convincing, and I have
followed them in my chronology.
st._paul_timeline.pdf This used to be at www.scotthahn.com/download/attachment/1514,
and is by Scott Hahn, Catholic theologian and apologist. I don’t
know what Philemon has to do with Paul’s birth year.
unbound.biola.edu/acts/index.cfm?item=table
(original link dead, using archived link)
biblehub.com/timeline/new.htm
www.evidenceforjesuschrist.org/Pages/bible/timeline-nt-events.htm
This web site used to be called errantskeptics.org, but the
author, Gary Butner, is not a skeptic, but a Bible-believing
Christian, so I guess he decided to change the name to avoid
confusion. (Sadly, he is now deceased, in 2019, and in 2022 the
website no longer works, so I am using an archived link.)
www.biblestudy.org/beginner/timelinent.html
www.newtestamenthistorytimeline.com/
www.blueletterbible.org/study/paul/timeline.cfm
www.julianspriggs.co.uk/Pages/Galatians
Only a partial timeline, relating to the timeline given in
Galatians.