Every date, with its source

Why this site exists

The idea for this site came to me after I finished reading the Bible for the first time. I wanted a single timeline that ran from Creation to the end of the story and followed the biblical text at every step.

Behind it lies a conviction I hold as a Christian. The Bible tells where humanity came from and where it is heading, and it presents faith in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. Jesus put it this way: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Sharing that good news is a duty I take seriously, and this site does it by setting the whole account out in order.

What the timeline covers

The Old Testament supplies 302 events and the New Testament 253. Another 12 cover the four centuries between them; the books of that period are not among the 66 books of the Bible, so these entries are there to explain the historical setting.

Books in Time shows where each of the 66 books falls among the eras. The Atlas plays the 185 events whose place is known across a relief map of the biblical world, and draws a route only where the text makes the order of a journey clear.

How the entries were written

Writing the 567 entries took most of the project's time. Many events are told in more than one place, a reign in both Kings and Chronicles or a miracle in several Gospels, so each entry had to be checked against every passage that mentions it, and the links between those passages had to hold. Every description was written to agree with the biblical text. The dates took the most work of all, because scholars disagree about so many of them.

The 567 illustrations were made with AI image tools. The site needed a picture for every event, and generating them meant that no one else's copyrighted artwork was used. Each picture is an imagined view of the scene; where a picture and the passage differ, the passage is the authority.

How were the dates decided?

The dates were compiled from the biblical text, informed by historical scholarship, and not copied from any single reference timeline. Each event carries one of seven labels showing how firm its date is, from "Relatively established" to "Unknown", and names the kind of evidence its date rests on: a genealogy, a king's regnal year, an Assyrian or Babylonian record, or no anchor at all.

That method has a cost: where a ready-made chart prints one tidy year, this site often has to say less. Only 60 of the 567 dates are fixed by records outside the Bible, such as Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles. Of the rest, 191 are scholarly estimates, 64 come from the biblical genealogies and 132 are disputed between the major systems of dating, such as the Exodus, which is given as c. 1446/1260 BC. For those, the disagreement is set out on the event page and no side is chosen silently.

The firmest anchors begin with the divided kingdom. Shalmaneser III of Assyria records Ahab at the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC and Jehu's tribute in 841 BC, and from there the kings of Israel and Judah can be tied to Assyrian and Babylonian records. Earlier dates are counted back from the Bible's own numbers and grow less certain the further back they go: dates for the patriarchs are rounded to the decade, the Flood and the Tower of Babel are placed only within part of a millennium, and Creation is marked "Unknown". Where the count rests on the genealogies, it uses the traditional method associated with James Ussher but does not adopt his date of 4004 BC for Creation, because the genealogies sometimes skip generations: Matthew 1:8 goes from Jehoram straight to Uzziah and leaves out three kings. 29 prophetic visions have an order but no calendar date. About the dates sets out every label with an example.

Two languages, two translations

Every page exists in English and Persian. English references link to the New International Version (NIV) and Persian references to the Persian Contemporary Bible (PCB) on bible.com, so a verse is one click away in either language.

Who builds it

I am Sushyant John Watkinson, a psychologist and web developer based in the United Kingdom, and I design and build Bible Timeline. I am a Christian and a member of the Church of England, and I have made the site for readers of any faith or none.

Through ChurchPillar, my own web studio, I also design and build websites for churches and charities.

The site is free and carries no advertising. Its upkeep and further work are paid for by readers who choose to support the project.

The night sky

The front page shows a starry sky in which each of the 567 events is a star, set in the order the story runs. The picture comes from Genesis 15:5, where God takes Abram outside and tells him, "Look up at the sky and count the stars", and then promises, "So shall your offspring be." Pointing at a star shows its event, and the key events of the same era join up into a constellation.

Key events shine brighter than the rest and the turning points of the story sparkle. The birth, baptism and ascension of Jesus shine gold, and the two brightest stars, each a gold cross of light, mark his crucifixion and resurrection, because the whole account turns on them. Paul reads the promise made to Abraham as pointing to Christ (Galatians 3:16).

A Milky Way runs behind the whole sky, and the same galaxy returns at the top of the site's other main pages, so the story is always told under the sky Abram was told to look at.

The logo

I designed the logo myself. It joins three signs in one continuous shape: Alpha (Α) and Omega (Ω), the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and the cross.

In Revelation 22:13 Jesus says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." The two letters stand for the beginning and the end of the story this timeline follows, and the cross at the centre for Christ the Saviour. The three share their strokes: the crossbar belongs to both the Alpha and the cross, and the legs of the Alpha become the feet of the Omega.

Like the rest of the site's design, the logo is protected by copyright and may not be copied or adapted.

Using the pictures and text

Churches, teachers, schools and anyone else may use the pictures and text from this site in a class or a sermon, provided the name Bible Timeline and the address genesis-revelation.com are shown with them. That is the only permitted use; any other use infringes copyright.

The site itself, including its code, design, interface and user experience, is protected by copyright and may not be copied, even with credit.

Corrections and contact

If you think a date, reference or description is wrong, email info@genesis-revelation.com with the name of the event and your source. Questions about using the material go to the same address. You can also write to me directly at me@sushyant.com.