Chronology of the Bible

biblical age / 235 year lunar cycle = integer
integer x 19 year adjusted solar cycle + 7 leap months = real age

NAME      /      BIBLICAL AGE      /      REAL AGE                     
                       
Adam            =         930          =           82.24

Seth               =         912          =           80.72

Enosh            =         905          =           80.15

Kenan            =         910          =           80.53

Mahalalel      =         895          =           79.20

Jared             =          962         =           84.71

Enoch            =          365         =           36.25

Methuselah  =          969         =           85.28

Lamech         =          777         =           69.70

Noah              =
(When he had his sons)  500         =           47.28
(When the flood hit)       600         =           55.64
(When flood receded)     601         =           55.64
(Death)                          950         =          83.76

Original study note here.


Methods of timekeeping can be reconstructed for the prehistoric period from at least the Neolithic. The natural units for timekeeping used by most historical societies are the day, the solar year and the lunation.

Clocks and Calendars traditionally held a sacred status among diversified cultures and provided the basis for maintaining the cycles of religious and civil events, as well as for agricultural and hunting purposes. These early calendars are based on the Moon's cycles.

Astronomical calendars have been in existence for thousands of years. For our ancient ancestors, time was measured by the number of Moons that had passed from a certain period, and by the shadows that the Sun and Moon cast.

There are "Man made" lunar calendars that some scientists place as old as 32,000 years! Some recent archeological findings are from the Ice Age where hunters carved notches and gouged holes into sticks, reindeer bones and the tusks of mammoths, depicting the days between each phase of the Moon. These artifacts are dated between 25,000 and 10,000 B.C. There are also surviving astronomical records inscribed on oracle bones dating back to the Shang dynasty of the fourteenth century B.C. that reveal a Chinese calendar, with intercalation of lunar months.

Priest-astronomers were assigned the duty of declaring when a new month began – it was usually said to have started at the first sighting of a new moon. Month length at that time was simply the number of days that passed from one new lunar crescent to the next.

Calendars are explicit schemes used for timekeeping. The first recorded calendars date to the Bronze Age, dependent on the development of writing in the Ancient Near East, the Egyptian and Sumerian calendars.

The first books of the Bible are supposed to be written by the hand of Moses himself. Mind you that Moses was born and raised Egyptian.

In Egypt, the paths of the stars were recorded as early as 6,000 years before Christ. The wisest of the Egyptians were the Hermetic philosophers, who possessed a profound knowledge of the sky. They relied upon the predictable motion of these bodies through the sky to determine the seasons, months, and years. People began a preoccupation with measuring and recording the passage of time. There was a need for planning and for divination and prognostication; to maintain these cycles meant that records needed to be kept and observatories needed to be built to precisely measure these cycles.

The ancient Egyptian calendar was invented over 5000 years ago. It was originally based on the lunar cycle of 12 months, which the Egyptians grouped into three seasons of four months each to coincide with the rise and fall of the waters of the Nile. However, although the flooding of the Nile began each year around the end of June, the floods occurred within a range of 80 days and were not accurate enough to base a calendar on. So the ancient Egyptians, having noticed that the Nile’s rising coincided with the helical rising of the star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, based the year on the cycle of its reappearance.

They erected various calendars to provide a source of order and cultural identity and as a need to organize their time more efficiently. As far back as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa also made primitive clocks in order to divide their time more precisely. Of primary importance to the Egyptians was the time when the Nile river began its annual flood tide. This was carefully noted so they knew when to plant and harvest.

All of their activities, whether for work, rest or play were in harmony with the flow of "Mother Nature," the changing of seasons, the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon and the phases the Moon passed through in a month. There was a time for to every purpose under Heaven!

The seasons, tides, eclipses, and phases of the Moon were known to be in direct correlation to the movement of the Sun, Moon, and Earth.

The beginning of the year, also called "the opening of the year", was determined by the appearance of the star Sirius, in the constellation of Canis Major, which occurred around June 21st. However, because the rising of Sirius is a stellar event, which means it occurs every 365 ¼ days, the rising of the star did not precisely match the calendar, which was based on the lunar cycle and so had an average of 354 days--11 days less than a solar year. This meant that the rising of the star would very quickly be out of sync with the calendar. To correct this, the Egyptians introduced an extra month to create a “Great Year” of 384 days every 2 or 3 years.

However, because this calendar was either not accurate enough, too complicated, or unsuitable for economic and administrative purposes, a standard calendar was introduced in the Old Kingdom to run along side the lunar calendar. This calendar, which probably resulted from counting the number of days between successive risings of Sirius.

The new “Civic” calendar year was divided into 3 seasons, each with four months. Each of the 12 months had 30 days divided into 3 decades (weeks) of 10 days each for a total of 360 days. The seasons of the Egyptian calendar were believed to have been chosen to correspond to the cycles of the Nile which was central to the life of the Egyptians. Because they lived an agrarian lifestyle the seasons were named after the significant events for farming. Translated to our Gregorian calendar, the dates of these seasons seem to vary considerably as do the names of both the seasons and the months. For example, the season of Akhet, is considered by one reference to occur between August 29th and December 26th, whereas another references place it between June 21st and October 21st .

Because this public calendar with 360 days was too short to coordinate with the agricultural and lunar calendar, a five day month (Epagomenal), was added at the end of the year with religious festivities to celebrate the birthdays of the gods. With the addition of these 5 intercalary days or “the days upon the year,” the total number of days was brought up to 365 days.

Although the ancient Egyptians were off in their estimation of the actual length of the solar year by only ¼ day, in time this discrepancy added up. The civic calendar was slipping at a rate of a quarter of a day per year. Although they could have corrected it be having 6 intercalary days in the last month instead of 5, once every 4 years, the ancient Egyptians instead added a third year, a civil lunar year which was not tied to the rising of Siruis.

In the original lunar calendar the months were simply numbered according to where they fell in the season rather than named; however From the New Kingdom on, the months are often named.

Civil dates (for the common person) were usually written as the number of the month in the season, followed by the season’s name and then by the number of the day in the month and finally the year and ruler. When each ruler ascended to power the year count would restart. Sometimes the count would restart beginning with the first full year of the ruler and the time before that would be listed also as the first year, but with references to allow someone to understand the difference between the two (even if they were very subtle). For example: Second Month of Akhet, the13th day in the fourth year of the rule of Tutmosis III.

In 238 BC, Ptolomy III replaced the civil lunar year with a system where every four years there was 6, rather than 5 epagomenal or intercalary days, in other words, a leap year. However, the Egyptians were very resistant to this change. It wasn’t until the Roman Emperor Augustus introduced it (25 BC) that it was effectively implemented.

The Egyptian calendar had an importance well beyond the Egyptians’ use of it. Astronomers throughout the ancient times and the Middle Ages used the old Egyptian calendar instead of the Alexandrian calendar because its regularity in both the number of day in the months and the year made their calculations much easier. Such regularity was highly desirable because the ancient peoples did not have Arabic numerals nor the concept of zero to make complex mathematics manageable.

By the eighth century B.C., civilizations all over the world either discarded or modified their old 360 day calendars. The 360 day calendars had been in use for the greater part of a millennium. In many places, month lengths immediately after that change were not fixed, but were based instead upon observation of the sky.

During those years in Rome, for example, a Pontifex (priest) observed the sky and announced a new moon and therefore the new month to the king. For centuries afterward Romans referred to the first day of each new month as Kalendsor Kalends from their word calare (to announce solemnly, to call out). The word calendar derived from this custom.

This practice of starting a month at the first sighting of a new moon was observed not only by Romans but by Celts and Germans in Europe and by Babylonians and Hebrews in the Lavant. All of these peoples began their month when a young crescent was first seen in the sky. This is still done for the Islamic Calendar, but a new moon’s date is calculated for traditional lunar calendars that are currently used in China and India.

A larger number of calendar systems of the Ancient Near East becomes accessible in the Iron Age, based on the Babylonian calendar. This includes the calendar of the Persian Empire, which in turn gave rise to the Zoroastrian calendar as well as the Hebrew calendar.

The Babylonian calendar is one of the greatest achievements of Antiquity: it combines a solar and a lunar cycle in such a way that the beginning of the year never wanders far from the Spring equinox. The basic theoretical principle is well-known: in a cycle of nineteen years, we have twelve years of twelve lunar months and seven years of thirteen months

The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar based on the lunar phases which was used in Babylon and surrounding regions for administrative, commercial and ritualistic purposes.

It consisted of twelve lunar months, each beginning on the evening (i.e. after sunset) of the first observed (or computed) lunar crescent after the astronomical new moon.

The year began around the spring equinox and in order to keep the calendar in step with the seasons, an intercalary month was inserted at (semi-) regular intervals. At first the intercalary months were inserted at irregular intervals, based on the observed discrepancies between the calendar and the seasons, but after about 500 BC a regular intercalation scheme consisting of seven intercalary months in a 19-year cycle was adopted.

This intercalation cycle was later also adopted by Greek astronomers, who referred to it as the Metonic cycle, and it still regulates the current Hebrew calendar.

There is a calendar converter for converting Babylonian dates into Julian dates, and vice-versa, and is based on the well-known calendrical tables in Babylonian Chronology by Richard Anthony Parker (1905-1993) and Waldo Herman Dubberstein (1907-1983) of which the most recent (4th) edition was published in 1971.

The calendar converter is valid between the year 626/25 BC, the accession year of the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, and the year 75/76 AD [= 386 Seleucid Era = 322 Arsacid Era].

Theoretically, dates in ancient Babylonian texts can be converted to our calendar; there are several webpages that offer converters, which are also useful for dates on Jewish calendars.

And that’s the problem. The Babylonian calendar is not exactly the same. In the end, a new month started when the new moon was actually observed, which means that the months could sometimes be one day longer or shorter, depending on the circumstances in Babylon or Jerusalem.

A more or less correct conversion is mentioned in the tables of Parker & Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. – A.D. 75 (1956; update 1971). Now, Dutch astronomer Rob van Gent of Utrecht University has made a calendar converter that’s not derived from the Jewish calendar, but is directly based on Babylonian information.

Note that the Babylonian day began at sunset: the Western (proleptic Julian) dates given by the above calendar converter are the post-midnight equivalents and are as such only valid until sunset.

For the convenience of Biblical scholars the weekday is also displayed, although there is at present no evidence that the Babylonians were familiar with the seven-day cycle of the Hebrews.

  The date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holidays are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the civil calendar used by most of the western world, so the date shifts on the civil calendar.

The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months.

The civil calendar used by most of the world has abandoned any correlation between the moon cycles and the month, arbitrarily setting the length of months to 28, 30 or 31 days.

The Jewish calendar, however, coordinates all three of these astronomical phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle.

The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.

The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in every solar year, so a 12-month lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than a solar year and a 13-month lunar is about 19 longer than a solar year. The months drift around the seasons on such a calendar: on a 12-month lunar calendar, the month of Nissan, which is supposed to occur in the Spring, would occur 11 days earlier in the season each year, eventually occurring in the Winter, the Fall, the Summer, and then the Spring again. On a 13-month lunar calendar, the same thing would happen in the other direction, and faster.

To compensate for this drift, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month lunar calendar with an extra month occasionally added. The month of Nissan occurs 11 days earlier each year for two or three years, and then jumps forward 30 days, balancing out the drift. In ancient times, this month was added by observation: the Sanhedrin observed the conditions of the weather, the crops and the livestock, and if these were not sufficiently advanced to be considered "spring," then the Sanhedrin inserted an additional month into the calendar to make sure that Pesach (Passover) would occur in the spring (it is, after all, referred to in the Torah as Chag he-Aviv, the Festival of Spring!).

A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me'uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral "1" in Hebrew). The extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit). Note that Adar II is the "real" Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the "extra" Adar.

Intercalation is the insertion of a leap day, week or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases.

The 19-year cycle (235 synodic months, including 235−(19×12) = 7 embolismic months) is the classic Metonic cycle, which is used in most arithmetical lunisolar calendars. It is a combination of the 8-year and 11-year period, and whenever the error of the 19-year approximation accumulates to 1⁄19 of a mean month, a cycle can be truncated to 11 years (skipping 8 years including 3 embolismic months), after which 19-year cycles can resume. Meton'scycle had an integer number of days, although Metonic cycle often means its use without an integer number of days.

It was adapted to a mean year of 365.25 days by means of the 4×19 year Callippic cycle (used in the Easter calculations of the Julian calendar).The 19-year cycle (235 synodic months, including 235−(19×12) = 7 embolismic months) is the classic Metonic cycle, which is used in most arithmetical lunisolar calendars. It is a combination of the 8- and 11-year period, and whenever the error of the 19-year approximation accumulates to 1⁄19 of a mean month, a cycle can be truncated to 11 years (skipping 8 years including 3 embolismic months), after which 19-year cycles can resume. Meton'scycle had an integer number of days, although Metonic cycle often means its use without an integer number of days. It was adapted to a mean year of 365.25 days by means of the 4×19 year Callippic cycle (used in the Easter calculations of the Julian calendar).The 19-year cycle (235 synodic months, including 235−(19×12) = 7 embolismic months) is the classic Metonic cycle, which is used in most arithmetical lunisolar calendars. It is a combination of the 8- and 11-year period, and whenever the error of the 19-year approximation accumulates to 1⁄19 of a mean month, a cycle can be truncated to 11 years (skipping 8 years including 3 embolismic months), after which 19-year cycles can resume.

Meton'scycle had an integer number of days, although Metonic cycle often means its use without an integer number of days. It was adapted to a mean year of 365.25 days by means of the 4×19 year Callippic cycle (used in the Easter calculations of the Julian calendar).The 19-year cycle (235 synodic months, including 235−(19×12) = 7 embolismic months) is the classic Metonic cycle, which is used in most arithmetical lunisolar calendars. It is a combination of the 8- and 11-year period, and whenever the error of the 19-year approximation accumulates to 1⁄19 of a mean month, a cycle can be truncated to 11 years (skipping 8 years including 3 embolismic months), after which 19-year cycles can resume. Meton'scycle had an integer number of days, although Metonic cycle often means its use without an integer number of days. It was adapted to a mean year of 365.25 days by means of the 4×19 year Callippic cycle (used in the Easter calculations of the Julian calendar).