Once a new Bible student has a grasp on the history of the nation of Israel, everything else falls into place. When Solomon died, the kingdom split into the northern ten tribes (called Israel) and two southern tribes (known as Judah). The northern kingdom was captured by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Judah was forced into Babylonian captivity starting in 605 BC and the temple in Jerusalem was completely destroyed in 597 BC.
The timeline from last week’s lesson covered Genesis through II Kings. The books of I Chronicles through Esther are easily dated. The rest of the Old Testament is more difficult to pin down, and in some cases, it is an impossible task. Let’s start with the known and proceed to the known, unknowns.
The two books of Chronicles contain the history of Israel from the perspective of the southern kingdom of Judah. I Chronicles chapters one-through-nine give us genealogies for the tribes of Israel and the family of David. The rest of I and II Chronicles focuses on the kings of David’s lineage all the way to the destruction of Solomon’s temple.
Ezra and Nehemiah describe a faithful remnant of Israelites returning from captivity to rebuild the temple (515 BC) and reconstitute the walls of Jerusalem (444 BC). The book of Esther belongs to the period of Ahasuerus (aka Xerxes) who is the king of Persia. History dates his rule from 470 to 465 BC.
The books known as wisdom literature (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) are not as easy to date. The prophets are a combination of books whose dates we can easily verify and others that are unknown except to God. Most scholars believe the last book of prophecy to be breathed out by God is Malachi around 425-400 BC.
This timeline is a rough estimate and is provided as an aid to understand the narrative of the Bible story in relation to landmark Scriptures and books of the Old Testament.
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