Timelines and map of the biblical worlds

How to read these timelines

The dates are landmarks, and they do not all have the same status: an attested event, a conventional date, a range that depends on a research model. Each note says which. The internal chronology of the biblical narratives is an object of study, not a calendar to be copied as it stands.

In the New Testament, the “Writing of the texts” view shows working ranges, not calculated probabilities. The solid bar gives the dating adopted by the University of Geneva’s introductory course on the New Testament (2020); the dotted bar, another research thesis, named in the note. The three vertical lines are events, not dates of writing.

The map shows only the places relevant to the selected landmark. A place that is missing is not a place that did not exist. The symbols distinguish the place of an event, the place where a document was found, the place or region a document speaks of, a network of witnesses, and the recipients of a letter. The map draws no borders.

Base map: GSHHG / WDBII, P. Wessel and W. H. F. Smith (NOAA / University of Hawai‘i), LGPL licence. Site positions are approximate. Landmarks drawn from the Meletan working file (October 2026), which relies in particular on Thomas Römer’s lectures at the Collège de France. New Testament datings: A. Dettwiler and A.-C. Baudoin, Introduction au Nouveau Testament, University of Geneva, 2020; K. Backhaus, ZNW 108 (2017). These references do not imply institutional endorsement. The notes are translated from the French page.