The bible should not merely be seen as a book containing every little detail about everything and anything under the sun, nor should it be seen as a book of rules and principles, even though it contains laws, handed down by God, Himself. 

This might cause us to question the Scriptures, simply because of certain dates and events not mentioned in detail, e.g. the exact date of Jesus’ birth and crucifixion or when the creation was formed, not to mention the dinosaurs.

The bible should rather be seen as the written word of how God has made Himself known to mankind throughout history.  God has not changed and believe it or not, man has also not changed from his wicked ways. 

Chronology can be seen as the foundation of history and instead of events simply taking place randomly without any purpose, these verified events, are positioned on our earthly timeline with specific relevance to each other and to us.  Just think of any history book in that regard and apply the same principles to the bible when researching the historical events mentioned in the Scriptures.

There is ample evidence that the biblical chronology can be trusted, whether absolute or relative.  Let’s have a look at a few relative events;

•       The ages of various characters are given, surrounding certain events, but it is not mentioned exactly when those events occurred, e.g. Sarah’s age when Isaac was born
•       An event taking place, although it is not dated, but sufficient evidence has been found that a flood probably caused all the erosion that is attributed to evolution, i.e. This refers to Noah when he was instructed to build an ark
•       We can also categorize the creation just for the sake of argument.  It is written that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Gen 1 v 1)
We are not told when this was, but a picture is given of the earth and its state.

Now have look at some absolute events and the timelines in which they occur:

•       Abraham enters Canaan (2091 BC) and more or less during the same time glass is produced by the Mesopotamians in 2100 BC.
•       The new temple is completed in Jerusalem (516 BC), while Rome became a republic.
•       Malachi becomes a prophet at the same time Romans agree to appoint a dictator during times of military emergency in 430 BC.

One cannot simply conclude that events are untrue, if exact dates cannot be applied.  If this was the case then evolution is the first theory that should be thrown out of the equation.  At the same time, historical accounts, mentioned in the bible, intersect with those of surrounding nations as can be seen in many secular writings. 

One can argue that figure of speech was used, such as the sign of Jonah, referring to him in the belly of the fish and also the use of the number forty (40), but it is not the purpose of this article to discuss.

In believing the accuracy of these events one would not necessarily come to the knowledge of the truth, but you would at least consider the possibility that if the events did occur as mentioned in the Scriptures, then some of the major events might also have a chance of being true and if those events have a chance of being true then God is probably who the bible says He is. 

If you deny the biblical chronology of events based on the fact that not all events can be placed on a timeline, or there is only some details provided, then you should return for the remainder in this series of articles.