TIMELINE

The timeline gets a little tricky around the time of Abraham and downright difficult around the time of living in Egypt but this should give you some sense of scale.

Adam is created in year 0. His son Seth is born in year 130. Enosh is born in 235. Cainanl is born in 325. Mahalalel is born in 395. Jarad is born in year 460 followed by Enoch in year 622. Methuselah is born in 687 and will live until the time of the flood, entering the record books as the man who lived the longest. Lamech is born in 874 and will be the father of Noah.

Adam dies in year 930 before any of the people above die. He lives to see 8 generations beyond himself and shares 243 years on the earth with Methuselah. For those interested in oral history this means Adam could have taught Methuselah everything he needed to know about the history of the world directly. There is archaeological evidence suggesting that writing existed in this time period. The building of cities and craftsmanship of tools would imply mathmatics. use of musical instruments shows music and the arts. The most accurate oral histories are musical. Even the Hebrews, who had written histories, used music to more easily memorize stories. This is why the bible is written "in verse", or as poetry.

Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him. Enoch left earth in 987. Seth died in 1042 and Noah was born in 1056. Enosh died in 1140 and Cainan died in 1235. Mahalalel died in 1290. Jared died in 1422. Finally, Noah's son Shem was born in 1558.

Lamech died in 1651, 5 years before the flood. In 1656, shortly before the flood, Methuselah died. He shared 98 years on the earth with Noah's son Shem. Plenty of time to pass on the history. Now we have history passed from Adam, who was created at the beginning, to Methuselah, who lived the longest, to Shem, who would carry it through the flood to the rebirth of civilization.

The flood began in 1656 and lasted into 1657. Shem's son, Arphaxad, was born after the flood in 1658. Then came Salah in 1693. Eber is born in 1723. Peleg is born in 1757. Reu is born in 1787. Serug is born in 1819. Nahor is born in 1849. Terah is born in 1878. By 1948 Abram is born and will later be renamed Abraham by God. Peleg dies in 1996 so that Shem lives to see the death of his Great, great-grandson. The death of Nahor, in 1997 adds the death of his great-great-great-great-great-grandson to Shem's memory. Noah dies in 2006.

Salah, Shem's grandson, dies in 2026. Ishmael is born to Abraham by his wife's maid, Hagar. in 2034. Abraham's wife, Sarah, give birth to Isaac in 2048 and Shem's G-G-G-G-grandson, Serug, dies in 2049. Terah, the G-G-G-G-G-G-grandson of Shem, dies in 2083. Isaac returns to the land of Abraham's family and marries Rebekah in 2088. In 2096, Shem sees the death of his son, Arphaxad. Rebekah gives birth to Jacob and Esau in 2108. Abraham finally dies in 2123, Shem is still alive. Shem's Grandson, Salah dies in 2126. Finally, Shem dies in 2158. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob each returned to their homeland to take wives. Each had the opportunity to learn history from Shem. Shem shared at least 50 years on the earth with Jacob and Jacob spent at least 20 years in his Great-great-grandfathers homeland working for Laban. The history can pass from Adam to Methuselah to Shem and to Jacob.

At this point dependence on oral history would not make sense. Written records were being kept by nearby civilizations with which everyone involved would have had contact. Sanskrit, one of the earliest known languages, originated in this region. In addition, the 3 patriarchs had regular contact with Egypt where written histories could be found on papyrus, carved in stone and molded in precious metals in the form of Hieroglyphs. The first 5 books of the bible are called the books of Moses because he originated them. The idea that an educated prince of Egypt would depend on Oral tradition to pass on the knowledge he sought to teach would be ludicrous. Furthermore the bible makes it quite clear that God ordered Moses to make those records in written form on several occasions. The records were carved in stone and written on some form of paper.

Joseph, too, was a prince of Egypt. His job as a record keeper and treasurer of the kingdom make it unlikely that he would leave the important history of his people to the vagaries of Oral tradition. This gives us 5 generations of oral transmission at the maximum and probably less.

Ishmael died around 2171. But further timing of his line is unavailable.

Eber died in 2187. Joseph would have been born around 2198. The story of tattling on his brothers at age 17 places that event around 2115. Issac died in 2223 but it's not clear if Joseph had been sold into slavery yet. In 2226, Joseph was in the Pharaohs prison and interpreted a the dreams of the Pharaohs chief butler and chief baker. he would be in prison another 2 years before Pharaoh's dream reminded the butler about him.

In 2228, at the age of 30, Joseph stood before Pharaoh. Having interpreted the dream and warned Pharaoh of what was coming he was immediately made prime minister and began to store the grain through the 7 years of plenty.

The Famine began in 2235 Joseph's brothers would have come for the first time by 2236 and made their second trip by 2237 so that Abraham/Israel would have moved his family to The land of Goshen in Egypt by 2238. The famine would end around 2242. In 2255 Jacob dies and is mourned by his family and the whole of Egypt because his son provided the way for Egypt to survive and prosper in the famine. The Children of Israel and an honor guard of Egypt escorted Abraham's remains to Canaan to be buried in the tomb of the patriarchs.

Joseph died in 2308. If we assume that the 430 years in Egypt is counted from the time Abraham moved his family to Goshen then the story of the Exodus begins with the birth of Arron in 2585 and the birth of Moses in 2588. Moses was 80 years old when he told Pharaoh to free God's people so that the escape from Egypt would be in the year 2668.

I don't know what year it is on a Hebrew calender. I do know that they began counting years from the time they left Egypt and Zola Levitt often commented on the Israelites having been around about 4000 years so, Based on the timeline so far, the earth is around 6500 years old or so.

That's about as accurate as I can get for now. There isn't a lot of detail on timelines and lineage until the book of Numbers.
2668