Biblical literalist chronology

A Biblical literalist chronology is a tabulation or reckoning of dates applied to events in the Bible according to the hermeneutical method of Biblical literalism. The method depends upon an exhaustive knowledge of the numbers of years explicitly stated in the Scriptures, comparison to known dates of specific events, and calculation. Such chronologies have given rise to substantial controversy. Their derivation presents several methodological challenges. Absolute consensus regarding the results has not yet emerged, as various tabulations have not yielded identical or harmonized results.

A Biblical literalist chronology is a tabulation or reckoning of dates applied to events in the Bible according to the hermeneutical method of Biblical literalism. This method has been in use since the time of Jose ben Halafta ("Seder Olam Rabbah" 2nd century CE). Succeeding centuries saw its application by Jerome ("Chronicon" c. 380 CE), Bede ("De temporibus" 703 CE, "De temporum ratione" 725 CE), Scaliger ("Thesaurus temporum" 1606), Kepler ("Rudolphine Tables" 1627), John Lightfoot (chronology published 1642–1644), James Ussher ("Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti" 1650), and Martin Anstey ("The Romance of Bible Chronology" 1913).

Some 20th–21st century commentators have noted what they consider a disturbing trend in application of the method since 1878. Modern Biblical literalism has been seen by some observers, such as Karen Armstrong, as largely the product of 19th- and 20th-century Protestant theology, though its roots are considered by others to go further back, at least to 17th- and 18th-century Bible commentaries by Laurence Tomson (Geneva Bible 1560, 1599), Matthew Henry 1708-1710, John Gill 1746-63, John Wesley 1754-65, followed by Adam Clarke 1831, Albert Barnes 1834, R. A. Torrey 1880, David Brown 1882, Marvin R. Vincent 1886, and B. W. Johnson 1891. The 1878 Niagara Bible Conference statement of faith established as the first of its Fourteen Points, "The verbal, inspiration of the Scriptures in the original manuscripts". The 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in "A Short Statement" established as its fourth point: "Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching."

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