Timeline of History

(Video Version)

Many mysteries in scripture are unlocked when you understand the correct timeline of history. For example, you will understand what YHWH meant when He said man’s days shall be one hundred and twenty years; also, prophecies like Daniel’s 70 Weeks just fall into place.

There are a few foundational facts that we need to lay down before this study will make sense.

1. The Bible is the inerrant inspired Word of YHWH.
   • From biblehub.com
     • Inerrancy refers to the concept that Scripture, in its original manuscripts, is entirely without error in all that it affirms. This applies to spiritual truths, historical accounts, and statements touching on science. In practical terms, believers understand inerrancy to mean that, when properly interpreted, every statement in the Bible is reliable and consistent. As it is written, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). The focus on inerrancy rests on the conviction that the God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) has communicated truth in the pages of Scripture.
     • 2 Peter 1:20-21  “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This passage underlines the divine origin of Scripture, indicating that it is ultimately God who inspired human authors.
     • Psalm 12:6  “The words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace, like gold purified sevenfold.” This statement emphasizes that the words flowing from God are inherently without defect.
     • Matthew 5:18  “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” Jesus Himself upholds the reliability of every part of God’s Word.
2. The universe did not create itself, the world is not 4.5 billion years old, and man has not been here for 6 million years. The earth and everything on it, under it, and above it, was created by YHWH in six days just less that six thousand years ago, just as the Bible says.
   • Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
   • Exodus 20:11 For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
3. YHWH does not change. He is the same today as He was six thousand years ago. Which means He doesn’t change His mind or His plan. Everything: the Law, the calendar, the plan for man’s salvation, all of it was in place on the first day of creation.
   • Malachi 3:6  For I YHWH do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
   • Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
   • Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
4. YHWH is not bound by time, and therefore He already knows everything that will happen as if it has already happened.
   • From biblehub.com:
     • Is God beyond the constraints of time?
       • Definition and Scope
         • The question concerns whether God operates outside the limits of human time. Time, from a biblical standpoint, is often presented as part of the created order. Genesis 1:1 states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This “beginning” signals the start of temporal existence, yet God is shown as already existing before this moment. For human experience, time involves past, present, and future. The key point is whether God, as revealed in Scripture, stands apart from these constraints.
       • Biblical Evidence of God’s Eternal Nature
         • Psalm 90:2 declares, “Before the mountains were born and You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” This verse underscores God’s eternal nature, existing before and beyond creation itself. Similarly, 2 Peter 3:8 teaches that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day,” conveying that God’s perspective on time is not confined to human scales or limitations.
         • In the book of Revelation, Jesus refers to Himself as “the Alpha and the Omega,” stating, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13). This expression spans all time, reinforcing that God transcends the start and finish points that frame the human timeline.
       • God’s Name and Timeless Identity
         • When Moses encountered the LORD in the burning bush, God identified Himself as “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). The phrase “I AM” suggests an ongoing, present-tense existence-points strongly emphasized when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). This use of “I AM” places Him outside the sequential flow of events in which humans exist.
       • Philosophical Considerations
         • From a philosophical standpoint, anything that causes all matter, space, and time cannot itself be locked within those parameters. The Cosmological Argument, discussed extensively in various apologetic works, argues that if the universe had a beginning, its cause must lie beyond material time and space. The biblical view identifies God as that cause, both outside of and unbound by time.
         • Additionally, God’s immutability (Malachi 3:6-“I, the LORD, do not change”) would be difficult to maintain if God were subject to time’s evolving nature. Hebrews 13:8 echoes this principle: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This unchanging nature aligns with being outside the temporal progression that affects creation.

Now that we have the foundation set, let’s talk about a few of YHWH’s time intervals, which He uses in both the Law and prophecy.

1. The Sabbath year:
   • Every seventh year on YHWH’s calendar is a sabbath year of rest.
   • Leviticus 25:1-5 YHWH spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, ² “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to YHWH. ³ For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to YHWH. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵ You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 
2. The jubilee cycle:
   • A 50-year period made up of seven sabbaths of years plus the jubilee year.
   • Leviticus 25:8-12 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. ⁹ Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. ¹⁰ And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. ¹¹ That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field.
   • When YHWH said man’s days would be 120 years (Genesis 6:3), He meant 120 jubilee cycles, which is six thousand literal years.
3. The millennial day:
   • For a full explanation of the millennial day theory, you can watch the 119 Ministries video teaching, The Creation Prophecy. Briefly, the seven days of creation are a prophecy of the seven thousand years from creation until judgment day. What was created on each day of creation prophesied a significant event during the corresponding millennium.
   • Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.
   • 2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
   • Isaiah 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

The image above is from our chronology of history from creation until the present day. There are two methods for reckoning time shown, years from creation (AM), and years before and after Christ (AD/BC). The years AM are on the right side of the spreadsheet and AD/BC are on the left side. Down the center of the chart are the jubilee cycles and millennial days. We are going to focus first on the right side of the chart as we calculate the years from creation based on the evidence given in scripture.

Zooming up on the right side of the chart, we see that the year of creation is year one. Note that there is no year zero, this is very important as this is the cause of the very first error made by other scholars when calculating the year Seth was born.

Genesis 5:3  When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

Seth was born after Adam had lived 130 years. The first year of Adam’s life was year 1 AM, and when Adam had lived one year it was year 2 AM. Therefore, after Adam had lived 130 years is year 131 AM.

Let’s look at this another way, when a baby is born she is less than a year old for the first year of her life. When she turns 1 year old, after she has lived for one year, she is in the second year of her life. Right? Adam was created at the start of year 1 AM, therefore he was less than a year old for all of year one. Adam turned one year old at the start of year 2 AM and did not turn two years old until the start of year 3 AM. There is no year zero, therefore, after Adam had lived 130 years is year 131 AM not 130 AM (where most scholars put the year of Seth’s birth).

We’ll jump ahead on the timeline now, to the year of the flood. We have calculated the years from creation through the genealogy given in Genesis 5 and found the year of the flood to be 1657 AM.

You can also see on this chart the birth of Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber (where the term Hebrew comes from), Peleg, and Reu; as we continue the timeline with the descendants of Shem, given in Genesis 11.

Jumping ahead again on the timeline, we get to the year 2007 AM and the death of Noah.

Genesis 9:28-29 After the flood Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹ All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

The year 2024 AM is the year that YHWH tells Abram to leave Haran and go to Canaan, we know this because Genesis 12:4 says that Abram was 75 years old at this time. Abram moving to Canaan marks the start of the 430 years that he and his descendants will be sojourners in a land not their own.

Exodus 12:40 And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years. (Greek Septuagint)

The Masoretic Text, which was translated from the Greek Septuagint between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, excludes “and the land of Canaan” from its manuscripts. Why the Jewish translators chose to change the text this way is a mystery that we’ll leave you to look into on your own.

We’ve marked other notable events on the timeline: the covenant with Abraham, the birth of Isaac, and the birth of Esau and Jacob. When you lay out the chronology this way, you can see that Abraham died the same year that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, which is interesting.

This section of the timeline continues where the previous one left off, at year 2150 AM. There’s a number of notable events, from Shem’s death at 600 years of age, to the birth of Moses in 2375 AM. Joseph is sold into slavery in 2217 AM while his grandfather Isaac was still alive, so that’s interesting. Isaac dies in 2229 AM at 180 years of age. Jacob moves his family to Egypt to escape famine in 2240 AM, when Joseph is 40 years old and had been viceroy in Egypt for ten years already. Jacob died at 147 years of age, and Joseph dies at 110 years of age, when his family had been in Egypt for 70 years. Levi, the son of Jacob who inherited the Melchizedek priesthood, died in 2332 AM, at which point the enslavement of the Israelites began.

The above section of the timeline has a little bit of an overlap with the previous one, we again see the births of Aaron and Moses. Then, we get to a section where we can confirm that our interpretation of the timeline is accurate. In the year 2455 AM Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt.

According to the Sedar Olam Revisited, the year of the Exodus was 2454 AM, one year earlier, this inaccuracy is caused by the error in placing Seth’s birth one year too earlier, as we discussed already. You may be wondering what the Sedar Olam is, so from the website: Sedar Olam Revisited:

The tabernacle was raised on the first day of the first month of the second year after the exodus, which was 2456 AM.

Exodus 40:17 In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected.

The same year, the Israelites arrived at the border of the Promised Land and Moses sent twelve witnesses in to spy out the land, one from each tribe. The witnesses returned after forty days and all of them except Caleb and Joshua gave a bad report. The Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron and this upset YHWH who disinherited the entire generation of Israelites, except for Caleb and Joshua. YHWH said they would wander the wilderness until all the rest of that generation were dead.

After forty years, in the year 2496 AM, YHWH brought them back to the border of the Promised Land, Moses died (at 120 years), and Joshua led the new generation into the Promised Land at the beginning of the year. Interesting fact, Joshua is the same name as Jesus in Hebrew, that is Yeshua.

In the year 2501 AM, the Israelites settle in the Promised Land.

Joshua14:6-10 Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what YHWH said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. ⁷ I was forty years old when Moses the servant of YHWH sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. ⁸ But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed YHWH my God. ⁹ And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed YHWH my God.’ ¹⁰ And now, behold, YHWH has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that YHWH spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old.

Caleb said he was 40 years old at the time Moses sent the twelve witnesses to spy out the Land, which was 2456 AM, and at the time that YHWH was having Joshua divide up the conquered land among the twelve tribes, Caleb was 85 years old. Caleb said it had been 45 years, so add 2456 + 45 = 2501.

The year 2501 AM is significant because it is the first year of a sabbatical and jubilee cycle. As we read earlier, the land was to rest on sabbath and jubilee years. YHWH had told the Israelites that when they take possession of the Promised Land they were to seed and harvest their fields for six years, and on the seventh year they were to let it rest. The only way that this would be true is if their first year in the Promised land was the first year in a sabbatical cycle. The year 2501 AM is the first year in a sabbatical cycle, so we know that we have the timeline correct so far.

The next time period we will look at is immediately following the period of judges, when YHWH relented and allowed the Israelites to have an earthly human king over them.

1 Samuel 8:19-22 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, ²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” ²¹ And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of YHWH. ²² And YHWH said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

The Greek Septuagint (oldest known manuscript of the Old Testament) gives us the timing for the building of the temple by Solomon.

Kings III 6:1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and fortieth year after the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the fourth year and second month of the reign of King Solomon over Israel, that the king commanded that they should take great and costly stones for the foundation of the house, and hewn stones. And the men of Solomon, and the men of Chiram hewed the stones, and laid them for a foundation. In the fourth year he laid the foundation of the house of YHWH, in the month of Ziu, even in the second month. In the eleventh year, in the month Baal, this is the eighth month, the house was completed according to all its plan, and according to all its arrangement. (Greek Septuagint)

Let’s do the math to calculate the years that the temple was started and finished. First, it was in the 440th year after the Exodus, which means 439 years had passed. 2455 + 439 = 2894; Solomon began to build the temple in the year 2894 AM. This was the 4th year of Solomon’s reign, which means that Solomon began to reign in 2891 AM.

We can add King David’s death as 2890 AM, which is counted as the final year of his reign.

2 Samuel 2:11 And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

1 Kings 2:11 And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

King David reigned forty years in total, which means he became king over Judah, in Hebron, in 2850 AM.

Turning our attention back to the temple, according to the Septuagint passage above, it was completed in the eleventh year of Solomon’s reign, and it took 7 years to build, which means it was completed in 2901 AM.

King Solomon died in 2930 AM, and the kingdom divided into two: the House of Judah and the House of Israel. The books of Kings and Chronicles give us the lengths of each king’s reign in both kingdoms, and they are marked on the spreadsheet in blue for Israel and pink for Judah.

The following chart is an overview of the kings of Judah (left side) and Israel (right side) from Solomon’s death until each kingdom was conquered. You can refer to this chart to understand how each king’s reign was calculated.

Now let’s look at how we made the connection between the two methods for reckoning time. In order to know what a particular year from creation is on our Roman calendar (AD/BC), we need to find a date that is known with 100% certainty on both calendars. Most dates given in BC years for historical events are estimates, and are known to not be 100% accurate. However, we only need one date that we can definitively lock down to connect two calendars, and the one historical event that we can know for certain is the date of an eclipse.

There is an eclipse mentioned in an ancient document called the Assyrian Eponym Canon, that we can accurately connect to a year on the Roman calendar. There are other events identified in that document that we can connect to events on our Biblical timeline, which allows us to connect the years from creation side of our spreadsheet to the AD/BC side.

The Limmu List or Assyrian Eponym List is an accurate historical source of information on the events that effected the Assyrian Empire between 858 BC and 699 BC. Instead of assigning numbers to years, they gave names to years based on the names of high officials and governors, these are called year eponyms. The Assyrian Eponym lists and chronicles were excavated in Ninevah, Assur, and Sultantepe in modern Iraq.

We will be looking at: The Assyrian Eponym Canon; containing translations of the documents, and an account of the evidence, on The Comparative Chronology of the Assyrian and Jewish Kingdoms, from the death of Solomon to Nebuchadnezzar, by George Smith, from London, in AD 1875.

YHWH answered Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah.

2 Kings 19:20-28 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. ²¹ This is the word that YHWH has spoken concerning him:

“She despises you, she scorns you—
    the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.

²² “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
²³ By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
    its most fruitful forest.
²⁴ I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.’

²⁵ “Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
²⁶ while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.

²⁷ “But I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
²⁸ Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come into my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.

YHWH smote the Assyrian army and saved the house of Judah.

2 Kings 19:32-37 “Therefore thus says YHWH concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. ³³ By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares YHWH. ³⁴ For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” ³⁵ And that night the angel of YHWH went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁶ Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. ³⁷ And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

YHWH also reminded the house of Judah that it was a Sabbath year and that the next year would be a jubilee year.

2 Kings 19:29-31 “And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³⁰ And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³¹ For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of YHWH will do this.

Now that we’ve made the connection between the years from creation (AM) and the Roman calendar (AD/BC), we can add the years AD/BC to our chronology spreadsheet right from creation all the way to the current year and beyond. The year Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem was 701 BC or 3199 AM, this was the final Sabbath year before the Jubilee of 3200 AM, as you can see on the spreadsheet. This is another scriptural confirmation that our timeline is correct.

Jumping ahead on our timeline we’ll note a few other important years:

1. Babylon was conquered by Darius the Mede in 3396 AM (504 BC),
2. the end of the 70 years of captivity in Babylon was 3398 AM (502 BC),
3. the 2nd temple was completed in 3441 AM (459 BC),
4. the decree to restore and build Jerusalem by Darius II was in 3499 AM (401 BC).

Please see our study on the Aryan Kings List to understand how historians are incorrect and scripture is correct on the order and number of the kings of Media and Persia.

The next section of the timeline that we’ll look at is the start of the years Anno Domini (AD).

The first 62 weeks of years (434 years) in The 70 Weeks of Daniel prophecy are the years from the decree to restore and build Jerusalem in 401 BC until the crucifixion of Yeshua Messiah in AD 33. We prove this is the year of the crucifixion in that study, using the accounts from the first century Jewish-turned-Roman historian Josephus Flavius and the second century Greek historian Phlegon of Tralles.

Notable events in this time period are:

1. the start of Yeshua’s ministry in AD 29,
2. the crucifixion of Yeshua Messiah in AD 33,
3. the martyrdom of Stephen in AD 36,
4. the martyrdom of James (brother of Yeshua) in AD 66,
5. the start of the 7-year Jewish-Roman War in AD 66,
6. the start of the 1260 days of Revelation 12 in AD 70,
7. the end of the 7-year war in AD 72-73.

This brings us to the final section of the Chronology of the World in Sabbath and Jubilee Cycles. The end of the 120 Jubilee cycles (6000 years) that YHWH gave to mankind, coincides with the year AD 2101. We believe Yeshua Messiah will return before the end of the 120 Jubilees and usher in His millennial kingdom, which will leave some time before the year 7000 AM for “Satan’s little season” as described in Revelation 20, before the second resurrection and final judgment.

Revelation 20:7-10 And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison ⁸ and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. ⁹ And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, ¹⁰ and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

The following is an illustration of how we envision time. This illustration is not meant to be doctrine. We are not saying this is exactly how time works. We are just showing this as an example of how it could work, because we do not need to know for certain how it works, we just need to see that there is a way that it works. When you read scripture with this image in mind, many things make sense that previously did not. For example, how the thief on the cross could be with Yeshua in paradise that very day.

Matthew 23:42-43 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Revelation 21:1-8 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” ⁵ And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. ⁷ The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸ But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”