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Bible Diagnostics & Timeline
By Tim Webb
BIBLICAL BEDROCKHebrews 4:12“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Second Timothy 3:16-17“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
First Peter 2:2“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
Acts 17:11“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” BUILT FOR ENDURANCEThe Bible has stood the test of time. The Bible is right for all people, is right for all places, and right for all times. The Bible is full of real people just like us, not fictional superheroes. The writing of the Bible was inspired by God through about 40 different authors, written over a period of 1,541 years, on three different continents. It’s rooted in world geography and world history. Unlike The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, where places like Tatooine and Mordor are fictional, the Bible was set in modern-day countries like Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
Some of the stories in the Bible are also recorded in secular history such as Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Roman, and Greek history. Even Jewish history records that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified. With the Bible, it’s not like one man went into the desert and had an epiphany and wrote it down. Moses was inspired and directed by the spirit of God at the beginning of the Bible the same as the Apostle John was at the end of the Bible, over 1,500 years later.
If the Bible were a lie, it would’ve never stood the test of time. If it were false, its writings wouldn’t have lasted this many years, from one generation to the next, because people aren’t willing to die for a lie. Only something true can last that long! Everyone in the Bible had flaws with the exception of Jesus. If the Bible were false it wouldn’t record the shortcomings of its own people. Proverbs 12:19 tells us, “Truthful words stand the test of time but lies are soon exposed.”
While the Bible is one book, it contains 66 smaller books. The 39 books of the Old Testament were written before the birth of Jesus Christ and the 27 books of the New Testament covers the life of Christ and beyond.
Each of the books, except five, are divided into chapters and verses. The five which aren’t divided by chapters are Obadiah, Philemon, Second John, Third John, and Jude. These are short books which only have verse divisions. Archbishop Stephen Langton developed the chapter divisions of the Bible in the early 13th century, and verse divisions were not added until 1551 by Robertus Stephanus. EARLY MANUSCRIPTSExcerpts from the book God Wrote a Book by James MacDonald.The word manuscript is used to describe the ancient documents upon which the scriptures were written and first copied. There are now more than 5,600 ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Add to that nearly 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 early versions, and we have nearly 25,000 early manuscripts of the Bible. No other ancient document even comes close. The next most commonly copied document is Homer’s Iliad with 643 manuscripts, all of them partial. Thus the Bible manuscripts outnumber those for Homer by nearly forty to one.
Now if you were to drive down to your local university and say to an English professor who studies ancient literature, “I don’t believe we have a reliable version of Homer’s Iliad,” he would say, “What are you talking about? Of course we do.” If 643 manuscripts are sufficient to establish an ancient text, what about 25,000? How can anyone doubt that we have the original text of the Bible? THE WRITERS OF THE BIBLEWhile there were at least 40 different people who wrote parts of the Bible, some were more prolific than others. Moses wrote the most with five books and one Psalm that totaled 125,139 Words. Ezra wrote three books that totaled 43,618 words. Luke is credited for writing the majority of the New Testament with only two books, but those two books are jam-packed with 37,932 words. Jeremiah is number four on the list with two books and 35,306 words. The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament but is only fifth on the list because many of those books are short letters with a total of 32,408 words.
These five authors wrote 45 percent of the Bible. The word count for this list is derived from original Hebrew & Greek texts. Of the forty authors, Luke was the only Gentile. It’s also important to remember that the original manuscripts were written on scrolls. So for example, the reason that we have two Samuels, two Kings, and two Chronicles is because they were too big to fit onto one scroll, so they divided them up into two books each. Those six books are all about the time when Israel was ruled by kings. So I like to nickname them the Six Kings, because they are essentially about the same thing.
THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORDThere are many books written about various religions. But the Bible is the only one which includes the actual words of God. Those who believe the Bible also believe that God inspired various people through the years to write down his actual words for mankind. The Bible says more than 3,000 times “thus saith the Lord,” and the words which follow are quotes from God.
The BIBLE NEVER CONTRADICTS ITSELFThere are no contradictions in the Bible. Various people claim to find contradictions, but they have to take verses out of context to do so. When looking at the Bible as a whole and understanding its teachings there are no contradictions. This is amazing when one considers that the Bible was written by so many people, over such a long period of time.
There are typos in the Bible. No one can deny that. But that’s all they are, typos. And they go back to the original Greek and Hebrew. Obviously God wanted them there or he wouldn’t have put them there. But they don’t change the overall meaning of the Bible, not in the least. Atheists love to use these typos and other small details to discredit the Bible, but in my opinion, if that’s all the evidence they have to destroy my faith in God, or even their own faith, then they don’t have much! It’s a very weak argument to rest your soul on.
The PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLEFulfilled prophecies are evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events, in detail, many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which have already been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. While the number of exact prophecies vary, depending on the Bible scholar, conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies during his earthly ministry, down to the exact detail.
The statistical probability of these prophecies being fulfilled is one in 10 to the 17th power, which is one hundred thousand trillion. That would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Then blindfold a person and tell him to wade out into the money and pick up the silver dollar that has a red dot on it. That’s the likelihood of all the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Christ coming true by way of coincidence.
It would be easy for a non-believer to discredit the Bible, perhaps saying it was all written a few hundred years after Christ, but made to look like it was written before, during, and after Christ, using prophecy to cleverly tell the future. Sometimes it’s hard to convince people of the solidity of the Bible on faith alone. They want concrete scientific proof, and God gave us that proof in 1946 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were found in the Qumran Caves in the Palestinian desert, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in 1946. They contained all of the Hebrew scriptures in the protestant Bible canon except the book of Esther. The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. Bronze coins found at the same sites support the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.
TRANSLATIONSIt's important to use a translation of the Bible that works best for you. I grew up with the King James Version (KJV), but now I like to read a translation that is closer to the language I speak, such as the New International Version (NIV) or the New Living Translation (NLT). Ultimately, the best translation of the Bible is the one that you will read.
There are three types of translations, formal, functional, and somewhere between the two. Formal translations such as The New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the King James Version (KJV) follow the original Hebrew and Greek texts as closely as the English language will allow, while functional translations like the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Message (MSG) are designed to be less word-for-word, but more readable and understandable, while staying true to the original meaning.
As of November 2024, the Bible has been translated into 756 languages, with the New Testament in an additional 1,726 languages. Smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 languages.
FIVE CULTURAL PRINCIPALS OF THE BIBLEMost scholars agree that the Bible was written between 1446 BC and 95 AD. We have to remember that the Biblical narrative is made up mostly of broken people just like us, which reminds us that we all need a savior. The Bible reflects the human culture that dominated society during the time in which it was written.
If the Bible was being written today, the Apostle Paul would simply email the churches that he established instead of writing to them on a scroll. We would use words like president and prime minister instead of king.
Many of these cultural principles, such as slavery and the treatment of women as second class citizens, were instituted by man, not God. It's important to distinguish between the culture of man verses the will, love, grace, and character of God. The Bible shows us the character and personality of God, but it also shows us the character and personality of mankind and a broken world.
1. The Bible was written in a patriarchal culture.2. The Bible was written in a monarchical culture.3. The Bible was written in a polytheistic culture.4. The Bible was written in a slave Holding culture.5. The Bible was written in a culture where polygamy was accepted.
GOD'S VIEW ON DEATHThere’s a lot of death and carnage in the Bible. Usually it’s the bad guy who dies, but we see multiple times that God isn’t beyond killing large numbers of people to fulfill his purpose. We have to remember that God looks at death differently than we do. To us, death is the end. To God, our death here on earth is only the beginning. The book of James reminds us that this life “is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while and then it’s gone.”
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERSAll scripture is inspired by God. All of it! All 66 books. All 1,189 chapters. All 41,173 verses. All 3,566,480 words.
The longest chapter of the Bible is Psalm 119 with 176 verses. The shortest chapter is Psalm 117 with only 2 verses. Incidentally, the middle chapter of the Bible is also Psalm 117. The longest book of the Bible is Psalms with 150 chapters, or psalms. It contains 43,743 words. The shortest book is Third John with only one chapter and 299 words. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9 with 90 words. The shortest verse is John 11:35 with only two words, “Jesus wept,” when his friend Lazarus died.
Numbers are important to God and certain numbers have more importance than others in the Bible. These are known as God’s numbers, and they are 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40.
#3The number three represents divine perfection. The Trinity is made up of three. The crucifixion and resurrection were three days. Jonah was inside the fish for three days.
#7The Bible mentions the number seven more than any other number at 461 times. It’s a number of completion. He gave us a seven day week after he created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. The number seven is also very prominent in End Times studies. #10The word ten occurs 226 times in the Bible. The fact that God created us with ten fingers and toes, and has made the decimal system natural throughout much of the world, including the ancient Holy Land. In the Bible we find ten plagues on Egypt, ten Commandments and 1/10 being a tithe. Jesus often used ten in his teachings, including the woman with ten silver coins (Luke 15:8-10); the ten servants, ten minas and ten cities (Luke 19:11-27); and ten wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:2). #12The number twelve is linked with the elective purposes of God. It’s also a number of completion. There were twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles. And the world uses a calendar of twelve months.
#40It represents a generation or a full period of time. A time of testing or judgement. The great flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the dessert for 40 days. Jesus was back on the Earth for 40 days after the resurrection, and the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years.
GOD'S TIMELINEIt’s Important to remember that God does things on his timeline, not ours. God has eternity behind him and eternity in front of him. His perspective and his time zone are a little different than ours. Peter tells us in Second Peter 3:8, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
The nuances of the Biblical timeline are interesting. It has always amazed me that Abraham lived some 2,000 years before Christ and we live some 2,000 years after Christ. We’re both equal distance from Christ on a timeline. Another tidbit to keep in mind is that people tend to think that the Israelites built the pyramids while they were living in Egypt, which was before the Exodus. But in reality, the pyramids were built long before the Hebrews ever arrived there. They would have already been a thousand years old whenever Moses was a kid running around Pharaoh’s temple as a kid.
BIBLICAL TIMELINE:Abraham 2166-1991 B.C.God’s Promise to Abraham 2091 B.C.Isaac 2066-1886 B.C.Jacob 2006-1859 B.C.Joseph 1915-1805 B.C.Moses 1526-1406 B.C.The Exodus 1446 B.C.Joshua 1466-1356 B.C.Israelites Enter the Promised Land 1406 B.CSaul rules Israel 1050-1010 B.C.David rules Israel 1010-970 B.C.Solomon rules Israel 970-930 B.C.Solomon's Temple Dedicated 959 B.C.Divided Kingdom 930 B.C.Israel Falls (Assyrians) 722 B.C.Babylon over Assyria 612 B.C.The Exile Begins605 B.C.1st Babylonian Invasion (Daniel) 605 B.C.2nd Babylonian Invasion (Ezekiel) 597 B.C.3rd Babylonian Invasion, (Exile) 8-14-586 B.C.God’s spirit leaves the Temple 593 B.C.Persia defeats Babylon 539 B.C. The Exile Ends 536 B.C.2nd Temple Dedicated 516 B.C.Ezra 538-430 B.C.Nehemiah 430 B.C.Esther March 7, 473 B.C.Rebuild Jerusalem decree March 14, 445 B.C.Malachi 430 B.C.Greece defeats Persia 331 B.C.Pompey defeats Jerusalem 63 B.C.Herod The Great king of Judea 37-4 B.C.Temple Restoration begins 20 B.C.
*Jesus Christ Born 1 B.C.
Christ's Ministry 29-32 A.D.Paul's Conversion 34 A.D.James/Galatians 49 A.D.Jerusalem Council 50 A.D.1st Thessalonians 51 A.D.2nd Thessalonians 51 A.D.1st Corinthians 55 A.D.2nd Corinthians 55 A.D.Romans 57 A.D.Ephesians 61 A.D.Philippians 61 A.D.Colossians 61 A.D.Philemon 61 A.D.1st Timothy 64 A.D.Titus 64 A.D.Acts 64 A.D.2nd Timothy 67 A.D.Peter Martyred 67. A.D.Paul Martyred 68 A.D.2nd Temple Destroyed 70 A.D.Revelation 95 A.D. Constantine's Conversion 312 A.D.Roman Empire Split 364 A.D.Muhammad’s Revelation 610 A.D.Muslim Rule Begins in Jerusalem 634 A.D.Dome of the Rock was completed 692 A.D.The Crusades 1000-1200 A.D.Printing Press 1450 Protestant Reformation 1517Ottomans Conquer Palestine 1556Jewish immigration returns to Palestine 1880sBritish defeat Ottomans 1917Modern Israel May 14, 1948The Israeli Six-Day War June 5-10, 1967Hamas kills 1,200 Israelis in surprise attack October 7, 2023
Second Timothy 3:16-17“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
First Peter 2:2“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
Acts 17:11“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” BUILT FOR ENDURANCEThe Bible has stood the test of time. The Bible is right for all people, is right for all places, and right for all times. The Bible is full of real people just like us, not fictional superheroes. The writing of the Bible was inspired by God through about 40 different authors, written over a period of 1,541 years, on three different continents. It’s rooted in world geography and world history. Unlike The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, where places like Tatooine and Mordor are fictional, the Bible was set in modern-day countries like Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
Some of the stories in the Bible are also recorded in secular history such as Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Roman, and Greek history. Even Jewish history records that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified. With the Bible, it’s not like one man went into the desert and had an epiphany and wrote it down. Moses was inspired and directed by the spirit of God at the beginning of the Bible the same as the Apostle John was at the end of the Bible, over 1,500 years later.
If the Bible were a lie, it would’ve never stood the test of time. If it were false, its writings wouldn’t have lasted this many years, from one generation to the next, because people aren’t willing to die for a lie. Only something true can last that long! Everyone in the Bible had flaws with the exception of Jesus. If the Bible were false it wouldn’t record the shortcomings of its own people. Proverbs 12:19 tells us, “Truthful words stand the test of time but lies are soon exposed.”
While the Bible is one book, it contains 66 smaller books. The 39 books of the Old Testament were written before the birth of Jesus Christ and the 27 books of the New Testament covers the life of Christ and beyond.
Each of the books, except five, are divided into chapters and verses. The five which aren’t divided by chapters are Obadiah, Philemon, Second John, Third John, and Jude. These are short books which only have verse divisions. Archbishop Stephen Langton developed the chapter divisions of the Bible in the early 13th century, and verse divisions were not added until 1551 by Robertus Stephanus. EARLY MANUSCRIPTSExcerpts from the book God Wrote a Book by James MacDonald.The word manuscript is used to describe the ancient documents upon which the scriptures were written and first copied. There are now more than 5,600 ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Add to that nearly 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 early versions, and we have nearly 25,000 early manuscripts of the Bible. No other ancient document even comes close. The next most commonly copied document is Homer’s Iliad with 643 manuscripts, all of them partial. Thus the Bible manuscripts outnumber those for Homer by nearly forty to one.
Now if you were to drive down to your local university and say to an English professor who studies ancient literature, “I don’t believe we have a reliable version of Homer’s Iliad,” he would say, “What are you talking about? Of course we do.” If 643 manuscripts are sufficient to establish an ancient text, what about 25,000? How can anyone doubt that we have the original text of the Bible? THE WRITERS OF THE BIBLEWhile there were at least 40 different people who wrote parts of the Bible, some were more prolific than others. Moses wrote the most with five books and one Psalm that totaled 125,139 Words. Ezra wrote three books that totaled 43,618 words. Luke is credited for writing the majority of the New Testament with only two books, but those two books are jam-packed with 37,932 words. Jeremiah is number four on the list with two books and 35,306 words. The Apostle Paul wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament but is only fifth on the list because many of those books are short letters with a total of 32,408 words.
These five authors wrote 45 percent of the Bible. The word count for this list is derived from original Hebrew & Greek texts. Of the forty authors, Luke was the only Gentile. It’s also important to remember that the original manuscripts were written on scrolls. So for example, the reason that we have two Samuels, two Kings, and two Chronicles is because they were too big to fit onto one scroll, so they divided them up into two books each. Those six books are all about the time when Israel was ruled by kings. So I like to nickname them the Six Kings, because they are essentially about the same thing.
THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORDThere are many books written about various religions. But the Bible is the only one which includes the actual words of God. Those who believe the Bible also believe that God inspired various people through the years to write down his actual words for mankind. The Bible says more than 3,000 times “thus saith the Lord,” and the words which follow are quotes from God.
The BIBLE NEVER CONTRADICTS ITSELFThere are no contradictions in the Bible. Various people claim to find contradictions, but they have to take verses out of context to do so. When looking at the Bible as a whole and understanding its teachings there are no contradictions. This is amazing when one considers that the Bible was written by so many people, over such a long period of time.
There are typos in the Bible. No one can deny that. But that’s all they are, typos. And they go back to the original Greek and Hebrew. Obviously God wanted them there or he wouldn’t have put them there. But they don’t change the overall meaning of the Bible, not in the least. Atheists love to use these typos and other small details to discredit the Bible, but in my opinion, if that’s all the evidence they have to destroy my faith in God, or even their own faith, then they don’t have much! It’s a very weak argument to rest your soul on.
The PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLEFulfilled prophecies are evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events, in detail, many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which have already been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. While the number of exact prophecies vary, depending on the Bible scholar, conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies during his earthly ministry, down to the exact detail.
The statistical probability of these prophecies being fulfilled is one in 10 to the 17th power, which is one hundred thousand trillion. That would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Then blindfold a person and tell him to wade out into the money and pick up the silver dollar that has a red dot on it. That’s the likelihood of all the prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Christ coming true by way of coincidence.
It would be easy for a non-believer to discredit the Bible, perhaps saying it was all written a few hundred years after Christ, but made to look like it was written before, during, and after Christ, using prophecy to cleverly tell the future. Sometimes it’s hard to convince people of the solidity of the Bible on faith alone. They want concrete scientific proof, and God gave us that proof in 1946 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were found in the Qumran Caves in the Palestinian desert, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in 1946. They contained all of the Hebrew scriptures in the protestant Bible canon except the book of Esther. The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. Bronze coins found at the same sites support the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.
TRANSLATIONSIt's important to use a translation of the Bible that works best for you. I grew up with the King James Version (KJV), but now I like to read a translation that is closer to the language I speak, such as the New International Version (NIV) or the New Living Translation (NLT). Ultimately, the best translation of the Bible is the one that you will read.
There are three types of translations, formal, functional, and somewhere between the two. Formal translations such as The New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the King James Version (KJV) follow the original Hebrew and Greek texts as closely as the English language will allow, while functional translations like the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Message (MSG) are designed to be less word-for-word, but more readable and understandable, while staying true to the original meaning.
As of November 2024, the Bible has been translated into 756 languages, with the New Testament in an additional 1,726 languages. Smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,274 languages.
FIVE CULTURAL PRINCIPALS OF THE BIBLEMost scholars agree that the Bible was written between 1446 BC and 95 AD. We have to remember that the Biblical narrative is made up mostly of broken people just like us, which reminds us that we all need a savior. The Bible reflects the human culture that dominated society during the time in which it was written.
If the Bible was being written today, the Apostle Paul would simply email the churches that he established instead of writing to them on a scroll. We would use words like president and prime minister instead of king.
Many of these cultural principles, such as slavery and the treatment of women as second class citizens, were instituted by man, not God. It's important to distinguish between the culture of man verses the will, love, grace, and character of God. The Bible shows us the character and personality of God, but it also shows us the character and personality of mankind and a broken world.
1. The Bible was written in a patriarchal culture.2. The Bible was written in a monarchical culture.3. The Bible was written in a polytheistic culture.4. The Bible was written in a slave Holding culture.5. The Bible was written in a culture where polygamy was accepted.
GOD'S VIEW ON DEATHThere’s a lot of death and carnage in the Bible. Usually it’s the bad guy who dies, but we see multiple times that God isn’t beyond killing large numbers of people to fulfill his purpose. We have to remember that God looks at death differently than we do. To us, death is the end. To God, our death here on earth is only the beginning. The book of James reminds us that this life “is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while and then it’s gone.”
BREAKING DOWN THE NUMBERSAll scripture is inspired by God. All of it! All 66 books. All 1,189 chapters. All 41,173 verses. All 3,566,480 words.
The longest chapter of the Bible is Psalm 119 with 176 verses. The shortest chapter is Psalm 117 with only 2 verses. Incidentally, the middle chapter of the Bible is also Psalm 117. The longest book of the Bible is Psalms with 150 chapters, or psalms. It contains 43,743 words. The shortest book is Third John with only one chapter and 299 words. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9 with 90 words. The shortest verse is John 11:35 with only two words, “Jesus wept,” when his friend Lazarus died.
Numbers are important to God and certain numbers have more importance than others in the Bible. These are known as God’s numbers, and they are 3, 7, 10, 12, and 40.
#3The number three represents divine perfection. The Trinity is made up of three. The crucifixion and resurrection were three days. Jonah was inside the fish for three days.
#7The Bible mentions the number seven more than any other number at 461 times. It’s a number of completion. He gave us a seven day week after he created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day. The number seven is also very prominent in End Times studies. #10The word ten occurs 226 times in the Bible. The fact that God created us with ten fingers and toes, and has made the decimal system natural throughout much of the world, including the ancient Holy Land. In the Bible we find ten plagues on Egypt, ten Commandments and 1/10 being a tithe. Jesus often used ten in his teachings, including the woman with ten silver coins (Luke 15:8-10); the ten servants, ten minas and ten cities (Luke 19:11-27); and ten wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:2). #12The number twelve is linked with the elective purposes of God. It’s also a number of completion. There were twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles. And the world uses a calendar of twelve months.
#40It represents a generation or a full period of time. A time of testing or judgement. The great flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the dessert for 40 days. Jesus was back on the Earth for 40 days after the resurrection, and the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years.
GOD'S TIMELINEIt’s Important to remember that God does things on his timeline, not ours. God has eternity behind him and eternity in front of him. His perspective and his time zone are a little different than ours. Peter tells us in Second Peter 3:8, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
The nuances of the Biblical timeline are interesting. It has always amazed me that Abraham lived some 2,000 years before Christ and we live some 2,000 years after Christ. We’re both equal distance from Christ on a timeline. Another tidbit to keep in mind is that people tend to think that the Israelites built the pyramids while they were living in Egypt, which was before the Exodus. But in reality, the pyramids were built long before the Hebrews ever arrived there. They would have already been a thousand years old whenever Moses was a kid running around Pharaoh’s temple as a kid.
BIBLICAL TIMELINE:Abraham 2166-1991 B.C.God’s Promise to Abraham 2091 B.C.Isaac 2066-1886 B.C.Jacob 2006-1859 B.C.Joseph 1915-1805 B.C.Moses 1526-1406 B.C.The Exodus 1446 B.C.Joshua 1466-1356 B.C.Israelites Enter the Promised Land 1406 B.CSaul rules Israel 1050-1010 B.C.David rules Israel 1010-970 B.C.Solomon rules Israel 970-930 B.C.Solomon's Temple Dedicated 959 B.C.Divided Kingdom 930 B.C.Israel Falls (Assyrians) 722 B.C.Babylon over Assyria 612 B.C.The Exile Begins605 B.C.1st Babylonian Invasion (Daniel) 605 B.C.2nd Babylonian Invasion (Ezekiel) 597 B.C.3rd Babylonian Invasion, (Exile) 8-14-586 B.C.God’s spirit leaves the Temple 593 B.C.Persia defeats Babylon 539 B.C. The Exile Ends 536 B.C.2nd Temple Dedicated 516 B.C.Ezra 538-430 B.C.Nehemiah 430 B.C.Esther March 7, 473 B.C.Rebuild Jerusalem decree March 14, 445 B.C.Malachi 430 B.C.Greece defeats Persia 331 B.C.Pompey defeats Jerusalem 63 B.C.Herod The Great king of Judea 37-4 B.C.Temple Restoration begins 20 B.C.
*Jesus Christ Born 1 B.C.
Christ's Ministry 29-32 A.D.Paul's Conversion 34 A.D.James/Galatians 49 A.D.Jerusalem Council 50 A.D.1st Thessalonians 51 A.D.2nd Thessalonians 51 A.D.1st Corinthians 55 A.D.2nd Corinthians 55 A.D.Romans 57 A.D.Ephesians 61 A.D.Philippians 61 A.D.Colossians 61 A.D.Philemon 61 A.D.1st Timothy 64 A.D.Titus 64 A.D.Acts 64 A.D.2nd Timothy 67 A.D.Peter Martyred 67. A.D.Paul Martyred 68 A.D.2nd Temple Destroyed 70 A.D.Revelation 95 A.D. Constantine's Conversion 312 A.D.Roman Empire Split 364 A.D.Muhammad’s Revelation 610 A.D.Muslim Rule Begins in Jerusalem 634 A.D.Dome of the Rock was completed 692 A.D.The Crusades 1000-1200 A.D.Printing Press 1450 Protestant Reformation 1517Ottomans Conquer Palestine 1556Jewish immigration returns to Palestine 1880sBritish defeat Ottomans 1917Modern Israel May 14, 1948The Israeli Six-Day War June 5-10, 1967Hamas kills 1,200 Israelis in surprise attack October 7, 2023