Biblical Chronology Integrated with Historical Witnesses

Posted by -

Christians know that the Bible is the written Word of God, and many unbelievers admit that it is historically accurate. However, people have struggled with correlating the chronologies with historical events. There are several reasons for discrepancies.

Biblical creationists like the dates of James Ussher, but a few consider them almost sacred text. He did have some flaws in his methodology, and in the years since, new knowledge has come to light. Also, other historical records are sometimes inaccurate or use different dating methods.

Clocks, Pixabay / Gerd Altmann (geralt)
It was learned that different anchor dates were used in texts. Those were not always used consistently and sometimes changed altogether, so adjustments had to be made. There are two major schools of thought on chronologies that are discussed in the paper linked below. Although it is rather long and detailed, people like me are able to get something useful out of the material, and not study the numerous charts. That may be a helpful hint for others.
Biblical chronology is an essential component of the young-earth creationist perspective, because it provides a way to calculate the age of the earth by working backward through biblical data from a fixed point in history. The renowned chronologist James Ussher used an anchor date of 562 B.C. for the death of Nebuchadnezzar, and together with biblical events covering a time span of 3,442 years suggested the earth was created in 4004 B.C.

. . .

Now is an opportune time to compare Ussher’s chronology to these more recent advancements, first because of the progress made in this area of study, and second because of the access that digitization currently provides for the archaeological data used to tie biblical chronology to absolute dates in modern calendar terms. Ussher started with an anchor point in 562 B.C., but other anchor dates have also been found that reach even further back into the history of Israel and Judah.

The entire paper is found at "Integrating Historical Witnesses in Biblical Chronology."