I finally finished charting the life-year datable events in the 430 years between Abram entering the land of Canaan and the Exodus. My first big step in developing a framework for the Internal Chronology of the Bible was done! But the Bible covers a lot more than 430 years.
So what next? Well, moving down the timeline, of course. The Exodus, the Wilderness Wanderings, the Promised Land, the Judges, the Kings – I wanted to put them all in the Chronology. Of course, it would be very nice if the Spirit had included another year summary number in the Bible as a framework into which all the events had to fit. And He did! For which I’m very grateful.
Now it happened in the 480th year from the going out of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year– in the month Ziw, which [is] the second month,– in the reign of Solomon over Israel ~ and he was building the house of YHWH. (1 Kings 6.1-dmd)
So, there were 480 years between the Exodus and Solomon laying the foundations of the Temple in his fourth year. That certainly gave me a framework. And further investigation of Scripture led to finding a lot of information useful for dating events or reigns. But learning how to use that information to chart events in the Chronology proved a challenge.
A Complication in Calendars
One complication was, although YHWH instituted a religious year calendar beginning in Abib (Nisan/Spring), the children of Israell continued to use the Autumn year (beginning in Tishri) for a civil year calendar. In practical terms of counting the years, I ended up with two 480 year counts overlapping each other by six months, or, a spring year calendar and an autumn year calendar.
The spring year calendar I named “Tabernacle” and the autumn year calendar I named “Yisrä@ël.”
The Tabernacle count begins with the Nisan of the Exodus, which occurred in the spring of T430 Can, starting as N001 Tab. The Israel calendar continues the Tishri count of the Canaan count, starting as T001 Isr six months after the Tabernacle count starts.
A Complication in Counting
In the course of attempting to chart the life, judgeship, and ruler years listed in Scripture, I discovered something interesting about how the Hebrew scribes counted those year spans: the Hebrew scribes did not count them the same way the Greco-Roman Western world would have counted them.
To my surprise, I had to learn a new way of counting before I could successfully continue on with building the next 480 years of the ICB.
Click here (Hebrew names) (essay) for the story of how the Rûãch Qödösh (Holy Spirit) taught me a new method of counting.
Grace and Peace to you,
Dori