Early biblical events, relative to science, history, & archeology
| Event |
Time at which it occurred |
Relation to biblical account |
|
66 million years ago |
part of long evolutionary process
|
Humans inhabit the Americas |
|
Paleoanthropology contradicts the Genesis human-origins story
|
Still-present ice sheets built up in Greenland & Antarctica |
|
Shows that these glaciers could not have been submerged in the deep sea for months, as the Noah-Ark-flood story implies |
| New Kingdom (Egyptian Empire) continuously controls territory in the eastern Mediterranean, including "Canaan" (Palestine) |
ca. 1550-1177 BC |
Calls into question whether some of the events described in Exodus-Judges could have occurred
|
Egypt destroys a group called "Israel" in supressing a revolt in "Canaan", as described in the Merneptah Stele |
ca. 1207 BC |
Earliest known historical reference to "Israel"
|
Egypt lost control of "Canaan" in the Late Bronze Age Collapse |
ca. 1177 BC |
During the time when the biblical events before 931 BC would have happened
|
| Judah & Israel separate (I Kings 12) |
ca. 931 BC |
Earliest date of biblical events which are historically verified (Timeline of the Bible) -- video Which Bible Characters are Historical? (19:13)
|
| Composition of Genesis to II Kings
|
Centuries after 931 BC |
Possible fiction/folklore?
|
| sources of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
Genesis flood narrative shows the sources of the Noah flood story
|
ca. fifth century (400s) BC |
Torah stories were compiled long after the times they deal with
|
|
|
1799
|
Helped facilitate the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
|
|
1822
|
Enabled knowledge of the bronze-age history of Egypt & "Canaan" (Palestine) to be re-discovered
|