Visualizing the Genesis Timeline from Adam to Abraham
I have previously showed how a network diagram plotting biblical genealogies can help us follow what would otherwise be a very monotonous section of text. Those same passages laid out on a timeline shows us how the ages of fathers and sons build up into the chronology visualized above. It is a remake of similar charts I’ve seen in several creationist resources.
The 17th-century historian, Archbishop James Ussher, is the one most often cited for calculating the year of creation at 4004 BC. He did so based on a chain of logic which spans 100 pages in The Annals of the World. While his work is widely scoffed at today, it is important to remember that renowned scientists Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton also arrived at very similar conclusions based on their own calculations.
The particular details of how the biblical record aligns with our calendar and many nuances about the calculations have been covered and debated at length elsewhere. Outside of Ussher’s work, The Chronology of the Old Testament by Floyd Nolen Jones is the most thorough modern analysis I’m aware of. It includes a CD with detailed charts for the visually inclined (like me).
Work is ongoing to produce snd share data defining events in every part of the Bible. You can obtain this partial data set by requesting it here.