Events
Named events in biblical history.
77 events
Between 334 and 323 BC Alexander of Macedon overthrew the Persian Empire and carried Greek language and culture from Egypt to the Indus — th…
Thomas Aquinas synthesized Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy into the Summa, a vast unfinished work answering the central quest…
From 911 to 612 BC the Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Near East with brutal efficiency. It deported the northern kingdom of Israel in 722…
Bishop of Alexandria and Nicaea's fiercest defender. Exiled five times under four emperors, Athanasius held the line that the Son is fully G…
Bishop, theologian, and the most influential Christian thinker after Paul. His Confessions invented spiritual autobiography; City of God ref…
On 16 January 27 BC the Senate granted Octavian the title Augustus — in effect the first Roman emperor. It was "in those days a decree went …
At about thirty, Jesus came to the Jordan and was baptized by John. The Spirit descended like a dove and the Father's voice declared, "This …
In the days of Caesar Augustus, Mary, betrothed to Joseph, gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. Angels announced him to shepherds; magi from th…
A limestone bone-box from a first-century AD tomb south of Jerusalem, inscribed "Joseph son of Caiaphas" — almost certainly the high priest …
John Calvin published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion at age 27. Revised across his life into a systematic the…
From 510 to 323 BC the Greek city-states produced Athenian democracy, the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, and the conquests of Alexander —…
On the road to Damascus to arrest Christians, Saul of Tarsus was struck blind by a light from heaven and heard the risen Jesus speak his nam…
Over 500 bishops confessed that Christ is one person in two natures — fully God and fully man, without confusion, change, division, or separ…
Around AD 49, the apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to settle whether Gentile believers must be circumcised. They declared salvation is b…
The Catholic Counter-Reformation council met across eighteen years to define Catholic doctrine against Protestant claims, reform clerical ab…
On Passover under Pontius Pilate, Jesus was crucified at Golgotha and buried. On the third day the tomb was empty; he appeared alive to the …
Greek-speaking brothers from Thessalonica took the gospel to the Slavs. They invented an alphabet to write Slavonic, translated the Scriptur…
Nearly a thousand ancient Jewish manuscripts found in the caves of Qumran from 1947 onward, including the oldest known copies of most Old Te…
Summoned before Emperor Charles V and ordered to recant, Luther replied that his conscience was captive to the Word of God. "Here I stand, I…
The empire's last and bloodiest persecution. Diocletian's edicts ordered churches razed, Scriptures burned, and Christians stripped of rank …
Constantine and Licinius proclaimed religious liberty across the empire, restoring confiscated church property and ending state persecution …
During and after the Babylonian exile, with the Temple destroyed and the people scattered, Jewish communities began to gather weekly for pra…
Erasmus published the first printed Greek New Testament, the Novum Instrumentum, with a fresh Latin translation alongside. It gave reformers…
On 24 August AD 79 Mount Vesuvius buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pumice — nine years after Titus had burne…
After an eighteen-month siege Nebuchadnezzar’s army breached Jerusalem in July 586 BC, burned the Temple and city, and carried Judah into th…
In 722 BC Sargon II of Assyria completed Shalmaneser V’s three-year siege, took Samaria, and deported the northern kingdom of Israel — the t…
Constantine summoned 318 bishops to settle the Arian crisis over whether the Son was created or eternal. The Council confessed Christ as hom…
Urban II preached at Clermont for an armed pilgrimage to free Jerusalem from Seljuk Turks. The Crusade ended with the bloody Christian sack …
A wealthy merchant's son renounced his inheritance, embraced poverty, and rebuilt the church through preaching and care for the poor. The Fr…
Mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople formalized the split between Latin (Catholic) and Greek (Orthodox) Christianity. The…
Pope, reformer, missionary statesman. Gregory sent Augustine of Canterbury to convert the Anglo-Saxons, shaped Western liturgy and chant, an…
Johannes Gutenberg's movable-type press produced the first printed Bible, the 42-line Latin Vulgate, at Mainz. Within a generation, mass-pro…
The First (Old) Babylonian Empire, c. 1894–1595 BC, made Babylon the cultural and political centre of Mesopotamia. Its most famous king, Ham…
About 1754 BC, three centuries before the Sinai Law, Hammurabi of Babylon issued a stele of 282 case laws. The find shows the legal climate …
For roughly a century after 140 BC, descendants of the Maccabees ruled an independent Jewish state from Jerusalem as both high priests and, …
From 20 BC Herod the Great rebuilt the second Temple on a vastly enlarged platform on Mount Moriah. "It has taken forty-six years to build t…
From their capital at Hattusa in central Anatolia, the Hittites (c. 1600–1178 BC) ruled an empire that rivalled Egypt. The Bible knows them …
Bishop of Antioch and disciple of John, Ignatius was condemned to the beasts at Rome. On the road he wrote seven letters defending the deity…
From Joseph’s rise in Pharaoh’s court to Moses’ birth and the Exodus, Israel lived in Egypt for 430 years (Exod 12:40), growing from seventy…
Czech reformer Jan Hus preached against indulgences and clerical abuses a century before Luther. Promised safe conduct to the Council of Con…
Commissioned by Pope Damasus, Jerome translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into common Latin. The Vulgate became the West's Bible for o…
Philosopher turned Christian apologist, Justin defended the faith to emperors and wrote the earliest description of weekly Christian worship…
Forty-seven scholars working in six companies produced the Authorized Version under James I, drawing on Tyndale, the Geneva Bible, and the o…
Augustinian monk Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses against indulgences for debate at Wittenberg. Printed and spread across Germany wit…
From 167 to 160 BC, a Jewish priestly family led an armed revolt against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, who had banned Torah observance and…
Stephen, one of the Seven, was stoned to death outside Jerusalem after preaching that Christ was greater than the Temple. He saw the Son of …
A ninth-century-BC basalt slab inscribed by King Mesha of Moab, recording his rebellion against Israel and naming the God of Israel by name.
From 626 to 539 BC the Chaldean dynasty of Babylon ruled the Near East. Under Nebuchadnezzar II it destroyed Judah and the Temple in 586 BC …
Captured by Irish raiders as a teenager, Patrick escaped, became a bishop, and returned to evangelize his former captors. His mission plante…
Returning from his third journey, Paul was seized in the Temple by a mob, rescued by Roman soldiers, and held at Caesarea for two years. He …
After a storm-tossed voyage and shipwreck on Malta, Paul reached Rome about AD 60 and spent two years under house arrest, welcoming all who …
Fifty days after Passover, the Holy Spirit fell on the gathered disciples with wind and fire. Peter preached, and three thousand Jews from a…
From 550 to 330 BC the Achaemenid kings of Persia ruled the largest empire the world had yet seen. Cyrus’s decree of 538 BC sent the exiles …
A limestone block discovered at Caesarea Maritima in 1961, inscribed with the name of "Pontius Pilatus, prefect of Judea" — the only contemp…
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and disciple of John, was burned at the stake at about age 86. When asked to curse Christ he replied, "Eighty-six…
From 305 to 30 BC the Greek dynasty of Ptolemy ruled Egypt from Alexandria. Under Ptolemy II the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Gree…
From about 150 BC to AD 68 a strict Jewish sect, almost certainly the Essenes, lived in the desert above the Dead Sea, copying scriptures an…
In 538 BC, the first year of Persian rule over Babylon, Cyrus the Great issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild…
In the Hasmonean and Roman centuries, three movements crystallized within Judaism: the Pharisees, focused on Torah piety; the Sadducees, dra…
In 63 BC, called in to arbitrate a Hasmonean civil war, the Roman general Pompey stormed Jerusalem, entered the Temple's Most Holy Place, an…
From 27 BC to AD 476 the Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean world — the empire of Augustus (Luke 2:1), Tiberius (Luke 3:1), Claudius (Acts…
From 509 to 27 BC the Roman Republic grew from a city on the Tiber to a Mediterranean superpower. Pompey’s conquest of Judea in 63 BC ended …
Swiss Anabaptist leaders meeting at Schleitheim drafted seven articles defining the Radical Reformation: believer's baptism, separation from…
After a sixteen-year hiatus and the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah, the second Temple was finished on 3 Adar 516 BC — seventy years after…
From 312 to 63 BC the Seleucid kings ruled the eastern share of Alexander’s empire from Antioch in Syria. Antiochus IV’s persecution of the …
A clay prism from Nineveh, c. 690 BC, on which the Assyrian king records his siege of Jerusalem — and, conspicuously, his failure to take it…
On a hillside above the Sea of Galilee, Jesus taught the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, and the deepest law of the kingdom — the longest con…
About 966 BC, in the fourth year of his reign, Solomon began to build the first Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Seven years later it wa…
A ninth-century-BC Aramaic inscription found at Tel Dan in 1993 — the first extra-biblical mention of the "House of David."
Forty days after his resurrection, on the Mount of Olives, Jesus blessed his disciples and was taken up bodily into heaven. Two angels promi…
In Noah’s day God judged a violent and corrupt world by a global flood (Gen 6–9). Eight people — Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wi…
On Solomon’s death in 930 BC his son Rehoboam refused the people’s plea to lighten his father’s yoke. Ten tribes broke away under Jeroboam, …
On the plain of Shinar the descendants of Noah set out to build a city with "a tower with its top in the heavens" (Gen 11:4). God scattered …
Beginning in the 3rd century BC in Alexandria, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The Septuagint became the Bible …
William Tyndale produced the first English New Testament translated directly from the Greek, smuggled into England by the thousands. Betraye…
From about 2112 to 2004 BC the Third Dynasty of Ur ruled a centralised Sumerian empire on the lower Euphrates — the most powerful civilisati…
Oxford theologian John Wycliffe led the first complete translation of the Bible into English from the Latin Vulgate. His Lollard followers c…