If you were a frustrated student in your High School history classes, overwhelmed by dates to remember of world events, inventions and even obscure battles by long-dead heroes, you are not alone. Few folks actually enjoy memorizing such facts. And, in fact, most folks forget most dates they committed to memory shortly after the history tests they were memorizing them for have been graded by the teacher!

And most folks never have to deal much with historical dates any more after their school years are over, as most do not have interests, jobs, or hobbies that require much information about such things. But once a person embarks on a serious study of the Bible, it quickly becomes obvious that some knowledge about the history of Bible times is absolutely necessary in order to comprehend fully the panorama of events one reads about in the Bible. The question is only how much detail about dates is necessary.

If you are one of those students who is fascinated by dates, loves to memorize them, and prefers knowing "all the details", then you may be perfectly content to go to a Bible/Book Store and purchase one of the many scholarly works on Biblical History. In fact, you may want to acquire your own library of such books. But if that doesn't describe you, then keep reading—this lesson series will provide you with a simplified procedure of understanding and remembering the sequence of events in the Bible. Many people who will be reading these lessons may have only begun reading the Bible recently. Many will have never read through the whole Bible to get the complete story. As they continue their studies, it will not be necessary to know, for instance, exactly what year King David was born. But they will quickly become confused on many things they are reading in the scriptures if they do not realize David lived almost a thousand years before Jesus!

One reason for possible confusion will be that the books of the Bible, as presented in most English translations, are not in strict chronological order, either according to the time they were written, or according to the events they describe. The Bible is not "one" book, written by one man, or even a group of men, as a single, unified narrative. It is a collection of 66 smaller books, combined under one cover. These books were written by a wide variety of authors, over a period of over 1000 years. Some events are described by more than one author. Some authors cover a much longer time period than others. Thus it would be impossible, even if one wanted to, to somehow put the whole collection in a hard-and-fast chronological order.

Because these lessons are reaching out to a varied audience, it is hoped that all will understand the need to sometimes start with very basic principles and build the more complex concepts on those. If you have been a Bible student, or world history student, for some time, you may be able to quickly read over these foundational materials. However, even those quite familiar with the material may find it helpful to consider some of the simple principles a little more carefully if they plan to share the concepts with newer students. Sometimes when we move on to more complex information in our own studies, we forget how to communicate the simpler topics to others. If one of the jobs of disciples of Jesus is to reach out and make more disciples for Him, then we all need to learn to be "teachers of the basics"!

What does "A.D." and "B.C." mean?

One such basic historical concept that needs to be emphasized before moving on is the very simple distinction between dates "A.D." and "B.C."—and what these abbreviations stand for. Although this method of describing time is almost universal now, throughout much of history each civilization had its own unique method of calculating and referring to historical time. In many places one described the "date" something happened as a certain number of years before or after some significant event such as a great earthquake, or reign of a significant king, in one's society.

Eventually, hundreds of years after the time Jesus lived on the earth, some scholars decided to attempt to use the year of His birth as the "focal" point of history. All dates before his birth would be a certain number of years "B.C."—Before Christ. All dates after His birth would be "A.D."—which is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase Anno Domini. The word "Anno" refers to the concept of "year"… and thus shows up as a source for such English words as "annual" and "anniversary." The word "Domini" refers to the concept of "Lord" and shows up as a source for such English words as "dominate" ("lord it over") and "dominion" (lands ruled by a lord). Thus Anno Domini means "The Year of Our Lord", referring to the Lordship of Jesus. Throughout the next several hundred years, this way of referring to dates was eventually accepted by the whole world in international commerce—even by those nations who did not profess any belief in Jesus. Some, such as Israel, still use their own dating system within their own society. But the common system is used when dealing between nations.

But there is a problem: At the time hundreds of years ago that a number of scholars agreed to accept this system, there were no detailed, totally reliable records on hand of the actual number of years in the past that the birth of Jesus had taken place. The scholars were forced to make some assumptions and go by various historical clues. In recent years, new historical evidence has come to light which convinces most modern historians that the original calculations were off by more than a year, and perhaps even up to six years. Thus, by our current calendars, it looks as if we are in the 2000^th year after the birth of Christ, 2000 A.D.. But the most common date suggested by scholars for the birth of Jesus is now 4 B.C. ! If that is true, we would actually already be in the year 2004 A.D.. However, since the current system has been in place for so many hundreds of years, no one has ever seriously suggested that the whole world go back and "adjust" all their calendars, nor change the dating of future events.

What is "B.C.E."?

There is one other set of abbreviations used in dating you need to know about. You may sometimes see them in writings on Biblical History, particularly in Jewish sources. There are, in recent years, many groups which have reacted unfavorably to the notion that they should use what is, after all, a "Christian" definition of time. This would include those of other "world religions" such as Judaism and Islam, and those who are committed atheists. Realizing that they cannot possibly get the whole world to accept some totally new method of dating at this point in history, they have dealt with the issue by a symbolic change of the abbreviations used. Thus you may frequently see dates now that use the terms "B.C.E." and "C.E.." The C.E. stands for "Common Era", meaning the "commonly used system" of dating. And the B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era".

The first basic concept on Bible chronology which is helpful to know is this:

Keeping that fact in mind, the next basic concept which is helpful to know is this:

The Bible itself does not have an accurate "internal dating system", in which all events are described in relation to years before or after some key event. Thus, in order to construct a chronology of Biblical events, historians must rely on external historical records from such things as ancient monuments, records kept by writers in other civilizations, and astronomical facts such as the dates of known eclipses, and compare those factors to clues in the Bible. This is another reason why it is not necessary to remember exact dates of Bible events—the dates of many of them are in considerable dispute among Biblical historians themselves! What is not in dispute in most cases is the sequence of events.

Because there is such considerable dispute, it will be useful for this lesson series to pick a standard reference source for dates in Bible history. There is no real need to "hash over" for readers every variation and debate about specific details of the dating of events in Biblical history. Since these lessons emphasize the sequence of events, rather than debatable details, any of a number of reference works would be suitable. The standard reference work titled Halley's Bible Handbook, written by Henry Halley, has been chosen for this purpose. This book is available in both paperback and hardbound editions, usually at a very reasonable price, through most Bible/Book stores. This choice is not meant to imply it is the most comprehensive such reference work, nor superior to many others. But it has been widely accepted as a basic source of Biblical information for many years by teachers and students from many different religious backgrounds.

The basic premise of the "time line" we will be constructing in future lessons is this:

The next lesson in this series will begin the discussion of those five characters:

1. Abraham
2. Moses
3. David
4. Daniel
5. Jesus