Biblical dates

 

Do you have one of those Bibles that has dates on the pages? How do scholars know? 

            In the case of the New Testament, the book of Acts has events of noted rulers which we can correlate with official records. The one everybody knows is from Luke 2 about Quirinius being governor of Syria. Yet he was governor twice so the date is subject to discussion. The onset of John the Baptist’s ministry is, however, well dated by Luke. Chapter 3 verse 1: “In the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar…” That is exactly AD 29.  Nonetheless, the life of Jesus ministry is only approximately dated.  3 Jewish calendar years transpire in each gospel, or so it seems, meaning 32 or 33AD is the likely date of his death. Even dates for when the gospels were written are controversial. We possess one recopied page of papyrus from the Gospel of Mark that handwriting experts conclude was written in a style and pen-tool used by scribes from 50-68 AD. Since Mark is briefer than other gospels, it has been concluded that it was written about 56, others came later. Luke likely left Paul in Rome about 62 AD and came back to Palestine and interviewed people.  On the other hand, we know that John’s Revelation was surely written between 90 and 96 AD when Emperor Domitian persecuted Christians and banished leaders, until his successor, Nerva, rescinded all Domitian’s decrees in 96. 

            The Old Testament was harder to date. But there were two breakthroughs.  First was the discovery of Assyria’s Eponym lists which date from 842 to 648 BC.  Each year was named after the prime minister who led Assyria and a recounting of the events throughout the world was given.  They list the battles between Assyria and Israel. By knowing the years served by Israel’s kings from the 2 books of Kings, we can know the dates of reigns of the kings.  There is an eclipse the Assyrians recorded in 763 BC that modern astronomers can date precisely to June 15, 763 BC.

            The second breakthrough is a monument erected by Assyrian King Shalmaneser III in 841 BC, known as the Black Obelisk.  It was erected to celebrate several fresh victories, among which was the victory over King Jehu of Israel. The confluence of the dates of other battles and Jehu’s defeat can confidently be ascribed to 841 BC and using the lengths of reigns of the Kings in Israel from I and II Kings, we can backdate to Saul’s annointing in 1048 BC, then follow it all the way to Jehoiachim’s release from prison in Babylon in 561 BC.  Further dates such as Media’s conquering of Bablyon and Persian kings make the rest of the dating fairly certain through Malachi in 430 BC. 

            The early dates surrounding Moses and Abraham are much murkier.  There is controversy about when the Exodus took place, 1450 BC or 1275 BC. There is also disagreement on number of years noted between the Septuagint (Greek translation of OT done in 3^rd century BC) and the Hebrew Bible (which was finally agreed upon by Jews in 930 AD).  After the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the Second Jewish Revolt 135 AD, there was no temple, only Rabbis in synagogues.  Rabbinical teaching was thought to supersede the Old Testament until the Scripture was restored to its rightful place by Jewish scholars in the 10^th century. Hence early Christians (who knew little Hebrew) used the Septuagint as an authoritative Old Testament.  That is why there are OT dating ambiguities.  But of course the primary reason for God’s Word is to convict hearts and win salvation through faith, then put us on a walk with the Spirit, not to record dates.

            In my days at St. John’s College, I asked their foremost historian, Dr. Gil Holstein, what it meant when a person’s name was followed by a date preceded by “b.”  Does that stand for “born”?  He nodded but then cracked a grin, and teased, “Naw, I think it stands for ‘bout.”