Changing History

Yesterday I hit the threshold as far as political discussion. I need a break so I'm not going to discuss politics for once in this blog. *gasp*

So instead, I thought I would treat all two of you who read this blog to one of my new hobbies: Biblical Chronology. For those of you unaware of this subject, its the establishment of a historical timeline in conjunction with events as specified in the Bible. A popular example is the establishment of when exactly the Israelites left Egypt, who was pharaoh at the time, and what other kingdoms were around at the time. Most chronologists will tell you that the current theories that the Israelites left during the reign of Ramses II or Thutmoses III just don't make sense on a practical level. They would also tell you that the timeline of the kings in current textbooks built by Edwin R. Thiele is not correct.

Theories vary wildly according to people's persuasion and personal beliefs. I myself have been studying the theories of James B. Jordan recently. They're quite interesting but you have to sift through things that don't quite jive with your own beliefs. For example, Mr. Jordan is a preterist (a person who believes that all biblical prophesy has already been fulfilled) and I am not. So I am careful when he refers to things as though they have already occurred when I believe that they are still to come (see Revelation, Ezekiel 38-39, and the later portions of Daniel). Still, most of his work is sound.

Currently I'm working on the possible modification of the Greek timeline. This stems from a passage in Daniel about the 70 weeks (Dan. 9:20-27). In this, God sets a timetable from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming/crucifixion of Jesus of 483 years. This coupled with a comparison of genealogy lists in Ezra and Nehemiah, lends me to believe that the edict referred to in Daniel was the original edict written by Cyrus the Great of Persia, bringing to an end the 70 years of exile spoken by Jeremiah. However, this creates a problem with the current, established timeline. This theory now only allows the existence of the Persian empire to be about 120 years. At first, not a problem considering that most of the records of Persia have been lost. Except that if the Persian empire existed for a shorter amount of time that currently believed, that means that events recorded in Greek history are also inaccurate. Most notably, the Pelopponesian War. Did Greece devolve into civil war after the expulsion of Xerxes' invasion which paved the way for Phillip of Macedon or is there some other explanation? So I'll be reading Thucydides' history of the War to see if I can gain any insight.

Its interesting and only for people who really like history and research. We'll see what kind of progress I make on this section. If I get frustrated, I'll move over to resolving the Sargon/Sennacherib issue. I'll give more detail on that later.