Meaning of BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY

The precision of some of the events narrated in the Bible has suffered difficulties due to discrepancies with the generally accepted historical models for Egypt.

Thus, difficulties have arisen in locating in Egyptian history such events as the 7-year period of famine, Joseph as vizier of Egypt, the Pharaoh of oppression, the date of the exodus, the desert pilgrimage, and the time of the conquest of Canaan.

The commonly accepted time structure for Egyptian history is given in the chronological tables that follow, but we must warn the reader that this has a very weak basis before the time of the Ptolemies (333 BC).

A critical analysis of the evidence leads to an outline of the chronology of the Old Testament. A deep and considered study of this entire topic will be found by the interested reader in the following works in the English language:

Courville, D. A.: "The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications" (Challenge Books, Loma Linda, California, 1971), 700 pages.

Velikovsky, I.: "Ages in Chaos" (Double Day, Garden City, New York, 1952/1977), 350 pages.

On the other hand, with respect to the chronology of the biblical account of the Old Testament, other difficulties are encountered.

Firstly, because of the techniques used by the ancients to chronicle historical events, and the calendars used, which are different from ours.

In the particular case of the Old Testament, if to the loss of the original chronology of the Masoretic Text (today largely restored thanks to the evidence provided by the Greek version of the LXX) we add how difficult it is to specify events that took place ago many centuries, one understands the reason for the different criteria in the preparation of the tables.

We give below the chronological tables with the reservation already mentioned above, referring the reader to the cited bibliography and to the very brief alternative chronology in the appendix to the OT Chronology.

For the chronology of the Acts of the New Testament, we follow the data deduced from the internal evidence of the books of the New Testament, noting the names that refer to secular history.

Nascent Christianity is not much mentioned by Greek and Roman historians. Just a few references, and this is to talk about the persecutions against the followers of Christ.

Some Roman author mentions the census ordered by Quirinus and which is also cited by Luke (Lk. 1 5). It is also known that Dionysius the Exiguous, to whom we owe modern chronology, was wrong by a few years, suffering an error of four to seven years in the date of Christ's birth.

Using the data provided by Flavius Josephus, Eusebius of Caesarea and quotes from several Roman historians, we can deduce the years of the main events in early Christian communities.