Have you ever wondered how historians know when things in the ancient world happened? How can we say with great confidence that some event happened 1,000 years before Christ (BC)? How do we know with precision when the events of the life of Jesus and the early Church transpired?
Ancient chronology is a fascinating subject. It’s also amazingly complex since it deals not only with ancient lists of the reigns of kings that have survived from antiquity but also with ancient astronomical observations and their recording. You don’t need to devote yourself to understanding how all these things are known in order to study the Bible. But it’s pretty important you know the when.
The books in your Bible were not chronologically arranged. Ezekiel was not written after Jeremiah. Paul’s epistles were not written in the order they’re listed in the New Testament. Even books like 1–2 Samuel can be chronologically misleading. Samuel was the last of Israel’s judges, right before the first king, Saul, came along. Consequently, the content of 1–2 Samuel overlaps Samuel’s life and a time that followed the events of the Torah, Joshua, and Judges. But the content of a book doesn’t tell us when a book was written. The fact that 1–2 Samuel never claim to have been written by Samuel adds to the chronological uncertainty.
Scholars have done their best to determine when the books of the Bible were actually written, but there’s a lot of disagreement. Yet the effort is worth it because knowing when a book was written is important for the development of theological ideas. For example, what Paul says about faith and works in Galatians (perhaps his earliest epistle) sounds a bit different than it does in Romans. Paul’s comments are specific to events in Galatians, whereas Romans reflects a fuller treatment of the issue, one that benefits from years of preaching and addressing the issue in churches.
Another reason to know when a book was written is that it provides a glimpse of the writer’s world. Knowing that the Egyptians wrote about the invasion of the Sea Peoples (from whom the Philistines derive) along the coast of Canaan helps us put certain references to the Philistines in the Old Testament in context.
Fortunately, this sort of information is available in reference works and good commentaries. Taking time to get your chronological bearings helps interpretation.