The Bible in chronological order

Image via AliExpress.

To read the Bible in chronological order, in the order of its events, it goes something like this (arranged by century for the Old Testament, by decade for the New):

• Before Abraham: Genesis 1-11:26
• -1900s: Genesis 11:27 to 16
• -1800s: Genesis 17 to 26:22
• -1700s: Genesis 26:23 to 47:26
• -1600s:
  • Genesis 47:28 to 50,
  • Job
• -1500s: Exodus 1 to 2
• -1400s:
  • Exodus 3 to 40,
  • Leviticus,
  • Numbers,
  • Psalm 90, 91,
  • Joshua,
  • Judges 17 to 21,
  • Judges 2:16 to 3:11
• -1300s:
  • Judges 3:11-30,
  • Ruth 1:1-5
• -1200s:
  • Ruth 1:6 to 4,
  • Judges 4:1 to 10:2
• -1100s:
  • Judges 10:2 to 16,
  • 1 Samuel 1:1 to 7:8
• -1000s:
  • 1 Samuel 7:9 to 31
  • 2 Samuel
  • Psalms (those not mentioned elsewhere)
  • Song of Solomon
  • 1 Kings 1 to 8
  • Proverbs
  • Wisdom
• -900s:
  • 1 Kings 9 to 21
  • Ecclesiastes
  • Psalm 49, 88, 89
• -800s:
  • Psalm 48
  • 1 Kings 22
  • 2 Kings 1 to 14:24
  • Joel
• -700s:
  • 2 Kings 14:25 to 20:19
  • Amos
  • Hosea
  • Jonah
  • Isaiah 1 to 39
  • Micah
  • Tobit
  • Psalm 66
• -600s:
  • 2 Kings 20:20 to 24:4
  • Isaiah 40 to 66
  • Zephaniah
  • Nahum
  • Jeremiah
  • Baruch
  • Psalm 94
  • Habakkuk
  • Daniel 1 to 2
• -500s:
  • 2 Kings 24:5 to 25
  • Judith
  • Ezekiel
  • Lamentations
  • Daniel 3
  • Obadiah
  • Daniel 4
  • Psalms 44, 67, 102, 123, 129, 137
  • Daniel 7, 8, 5, 6, 9
  • Ezra 1 to 6
  • Daniel 10 to 12
  • Psalm 87, 125, 146
  • Esther
  • Haggai
  • Zechariah
• -400s:
  • Ezra 7 to 10
  • Nehemiah
  • Psalm 85, 107, 126, 147-150
  • Malachi
• -300s:
• -200s:
• -100s:
  • Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
  • 1 Maccabees
  • 2 Maccabees
• -000s:
  • Luke 1
• +000s:
  • 00s: Luke 2
  • 10s:
  • 20s: Luke 3 to 12
  • 30s:
    • Luke 13 to 24
    • Acts 1 to 11:24
  • 40s:
    • Acts 11:25 to 15:35
    • James
  • 50s:
    • Acts 15:36 to 28:15
    • 1 Thessalonians
    • 2 Thessalonians
    • 1 Corinthians
    • 2 Corinthians
    • Galatians
    • Romans
  • 60s:
    • Acts 28:16-31
    • Philemon
    • Colossians
    • Ephesians
    • Philippians
    • 1 Timothy
    • Titus
    • 1 Peter
    • Hebrews
    • 2 Peter
    • Jude
    • 2 Timothy
  • 70s:
  • 80s:
  • 90s:
    • 1 John
    • 2 John
    • 3 John
    • Revelation
• +100s:

Excluded: Deuteronomy, Chronicles, Mark, Matthew, and John, due to largely redundant content.

This is mostly based on Edward Reese, namely his book “The Reese Chronological Study Bible” (2016). Reese puts not just the books and chapters of the Bible in chronological order but even the verses. So, for example, when Ezekiel talks about the fall of Satan, it is put near the beginning so that things take place in the right order. Reasonable people can disagree with some of his choices.

Books in italics were added by me. They appear in Catholic Bibles but not in Reese or most other Protestant Bibles.

Dating: The farther you go back in time, the more uncertain the dates become. Everything before -1100 is largely guesswork. Exodus, for example, may have taken place in the -1400s, as above, or the -1200s, or not all!

Judges and Daniel: Both of these books are a mess. The chapters are not even in the right order.

Psalms are hard to date. Most are placed in the time of David (-1000s) unless Reese felt there was a good reason to put them elsewhere. Some were clearly written after David’s time, a few before.

Why a chronological order? The way most stories are told in the West is to place events in the order in which they took place, with maybe some flashbacks thrown in to provide background. The Bible is not like that. Instead it is like a literary anthology, arranged by kinds of writing: histories are put in one place, missionary letters in another, and gospels in yet another, etc. That makes it easy to find any particular book, but makes it a mess if you read the whole Bible front to back.

– Abagond, 2019.

See also:

• Bible
  • Reading the Bible
  • Augustine’s Bible
  • ANT: Abagond New Testament – also chronological, but in the order written, not in the order of events (it starts with Jesus being betrayed by a kiss).
  • New Testament canon – how the New Testament came to be
• book timelines
  • books I have done posts on
  • Greek historians
  • The Book of Centuries
  • Stories listed by century

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