Troy isn’t in the Bible but so what? It’s fun and helpful to discover what was happening in the Bible during the days of Troy. I decided to check out just how useful the Amazing Bible Timeline with World History is. I actually couldn’t remember if Troy was on there or not.
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I checked the index printed right on the poster and sure enough, there was Troy – between 1200 and 1100 BC in the Greek line. I went to that section and found “Trojan Wars 1184 BC” It was an easy to check the Biblical events for those same years to find Samuel was the prophet during the time of the Judges. For the following I also used the index to find Homer, Alexander the Great and more.
Here’s more about Troy and the Bible:
2000 BC to 1180 BC:
Troy is a culture center
Bible: Abraham to Saul – ancient beginnings of Israel
1184 BC to 1100 BC:
Trojan War. Troy is abandoned
Bible: Time of Samuel the prophet
Homer writes the Iliad and Odyssey: the story of Trojan Wars
Bible: Time of Solomon and the division of the kingdoms of Israel
700 – 600 BC:
Greeks begin to move into Troy. Named Ilium
Bible: This is the century that begins with King Hezekiah and
ends with Josiah and finally the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar.
300 BC
Alexander the Great rules Troy/Ilium.
Bible: These are the silent years of the Bible
85 BC
Rome conquers Troy/Ilium. Roman general Sulla partially restores it.
Bible – still silent. Jerusalem is also under Roman rule. The stage is set for the birth of the Messiah.
In Genesis 41:46 we learn that Joseph was 30 when he was made overseer to the king of Egypt. Since he was 17 when he was sold into Egypt, that means he spent 13 years total in Potiphar's house and prison. We know Joseph was in prison at least 2 years because chapter 40 tells us about the servants of the king whose dreams Joseph interpreted. The first verse of chapter 41 tells us that 2 years passed after that event before the king had the dreams that Joseph was called to interpret.
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So Joseph lived in Potiphar's house 11 years or less and was in prison 2 or more years. According to the Biblical Timeline Chart, Joseph was born after 1771 BC, which is the year his older brother Levi was born.
There many details available about Joseph. For instance we know
He was 17 when he was sold into Egypt
He was 30 when he was made overseer
He was 39 when his brothers first came to Egypt (second year of the famine, or nine years after being made overseer)
He was probably 41 or so when the brothers came a second time and Jacob comes to Egypt
Andrewwas the brother of Peter and a son of Jonas. He lived in Bethsaida and Capernaum and was a fisherman before he was called by Jesus. Originally he was a disciple of John the Baptist (Mark 1:16-18). Andrew brought his brother, Peter, to Jesus (John 1:40)
Bartholomew Nathanael son of Talmai lived in Cana of Galilee. Tradition says he was a missionary in Armenia; some scholars believe that he was the only disciple who came from royal blood, or noble birth. His name means Son of Tolmai or Talmai (2 Sam. 3:3). Talmai was king of Geshur whose daughter, Maacah, was the wife of David, mother of Absalom.
James the Elder, Boanerges, son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of John the Apostle; a fisherman who lived in Bethsaida, Capernaum and Jerusalem.
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James the Lesser or Younger, son of Alpheus, or Cleophas, and Mary lived in Galilee. He was the brother of the Apostle Jude.
John Boanerges son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of James, the Apostle. He was known as this Beloved Disciple. A fisherman who lived in Bethsaida, Capernaum and Jerusalem
Judas Iscariot, the traitor, son of Simon who lived in Kerioth
Jude, Thaddeus, or Lebbeus, son of Alpheus or Cleophas and Mary. He was a brother of James the Younger. He was one of the very little-known Apostles and lived in Galilee. Jerome called Jude "Trinomious" which means "a man with three names." In Mark 3:18 he is called Thaddeus. In Matthew 10:3 he is called Lebbeus. His surname was Thaddeus. In Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 he is called Judas thebrother of James. Judas Thaddeus also was called Judas, the Zealot.
Many were Fisherman
Matthew, or Levi, son of Alpheus, lived in Capernaum. He was a publican or tax collector.
Simon Peter, son of Jonas, was a fisherman who lived in Bethsaida and Capernaum.
Philip came from Bethsaida, the town from which Peter and Andrew came (John 1:44). The likelihood is that he, too, was a fisherman
Simon, the Zealot, one of the little-known followers called the Canaanite or Zelotes, lived in Galilee. In two places in the King James Version, he is called a Canaanite (Mat. 10:4; Mark 3:18). However in the other two places, he is called Simon Zelotes (Luke 6: 15; Acts 1:13).
Answer:
Yes. Two genealogies of Jesus Christ are found in the Bible, one in Matthew 1 and the other in Luke 3. Both genealogies trace Jesus ancestry back to David. From David the genealogy goes like this: David son of Jesse son of Obed son of Boaz son of Salmon son of Naason son of Aminadab son of Aram son of Esrom son of Phares son of Judas (Judah) son of Jacob son of Isaac son of Abraham.
Was Christ a rabbi?
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Yes again. This is a Jewish title for teacher given to Christ. See Matthew 26:25, Mark 9:5, 11:21, John 1:38, and more.
Jesus Christ
How about the Apostles?
According to the Biblical Timeline ten of the original twelve tribes of Israel were lost during the various sacking and captivities from 735 BC to 720 BC.
The tribe of Judah had remained loyal to Solomon’s son Rehoboam when the nation split after Solomon’s death. They occupied Jerusalem, the city of David. (I Kings 12:20) Other verses suggest that Benjamin also remained. (I Kings 12: 23)
From this, we can safely conclude that not only was Christ a Jew but so were all the apostles. In fact, we have not only the Bible (both the New and Old Testament) but Christianity itself thanks to the Jewish people who wrote and preserved these records and were the original members of Christ’s church. They are still God’s chosen people, and He will redeem them. (Isaiah 11:111, 44:23, 51:11, 66:13 Romans 11:26 and other prophecies too numerous to mention.)
That’s a good question. Two verses suggest this might be the case.
In Genesis 5:32 we read that Noah lived 500 years and begat Shem, Ham and Japheth. Then again we read in Genesis 11:26 that Terah lived 70 years and begat Abram (Abraham), Nahor and Haran. We might want to assume that this just means they were born after Noah turned 500, or Terah turned 70. But in every other case the verse reads like this: And “the father” lived “x” years and begat “the eldest son” and after “the father” begat the “eldest son” he lived “y” years and begat sons and daughters.
So it is unusual to list three sons by name and not just one. Could this be because they were triplets and the first to be born is known as the eldest? Or might there be another reason?
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We get a clue from Noah’s sons. Here’s what else we learn from Genesis. Shem begat Arpachshad when he was 100, and Arpachshad was born two years after the flood (Genesis 11:10). We know that Noah was 600 years old at the start of the flood (Genesis 7:6). So what do we get from this? If Shem were born when Noah was 500 he would have been 100 the year of the flood but he isn’t 100 until two years later when Arpachshad is born That means Shem was born when Noah was 502.
This tells us, at least in the case of Noah’s sons, that they aren’t triplets. There must be another reason for listing the names of certain sons. Generally the sons are listed to establish the lineage of the prophets. The only time the names of other sons (or daughters) are listed by name is because they have a major role to play in Biblical lineage and the family of man. We know for sure that applies to Noah and his three sons since all the nations of the world are descended from those three.
Does that same reasoning apply to the sons of Terah? What about Nahor? His lineage is very important. Nahor is the grandfather of Rebecca, the wife of Isaac. And of course, Haran and his descendants are also key members of Abraham and his family.
Nahor married his niece Milcah, the daughter of his brother Haran and the sister of his nephew Lot. Nahor lived in the land of his birth on the east of the river Euphrates at Haran. He was the father of Bethuel and grandfather of Laban and Rebecca; Rebecca became the wife of Isaac, son of Abraham. Nahor’s great-granddaughters through Laban, Rebecca’s nieces Rachel and Leah, became the wives of Jacob, son of Isaac.
Also, the birth of triplets is remarkable even in this day and age. The Bible states unequivocally that Jacob and Esau were twins. It seems odd that it isn’t explicitly stated that the sons of Terah were triplets. If they were since it would have been a truly unusual event.
Also, other scripture verses suggest Terah was at least 130 when Abraham was born.
Were there triplets in the Bible? We know Noah’s sons weren’t. Most likely Terah’s sons were not either.
Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday? Should Christians celebrate Christmas? As always, the heart of the matter is the heart. Why do you celebrate it? Is it to celebrate with fellow Christians the birth of our Savior? If so, what does it matter why other people do it or what other peoples and cultures might have – or did have- a celebration on that date?
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Why talk about it? Not Biblical history but just an interesting thought to this author. What is being said is that Christmas is not a legitimate Christian holiday because
(a)there was a pagan holiday on that date, in fact, multiple pagan holidays around the world on that date, so it wasn’t about Christ and
(b) non-Christians also celebrate the holiday today so that today it still isn’t about Christ.
What’s a Christian to do? Should a Christian celebrate Christmas? Let’s look at some history now.
While Christmas has become a major celebration, for most Christians in the beginning it was only one of a number of masses celebrated for Christ and not necessarily the most important. It was a mass for Christ’s birth or Christ-mass. It is the recognition of God becoming as a man in all ways except sin. It is not a birth date but a birth that is celebrated. (There is no month or day date given in the Bible but enough clues are given to place it to within a year or two on the Bible timeline.) The date was chosen for symbolic reasons.
The December 25 date may have been selected by the church in Rome in the early 4th century. At this time, a church calendar was created and other holidays were also placed on solar dates:
“It is cosmic symbolism…which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the winter solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the summer solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception. While they were aware that pagans called this day the ‘birthday’ of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas,”
S.E. Hijmans author of Sol, the sun in the art and religions of Rome, 2009, pp. 587–588
Was it to convert pagans to Christianity, to allow them to keep celebrating pagan holidays if they would convert?
There are many theories surrounding Christmas, such as the belief that it was created simply to convert pagans and/or replace the pagan celebrations around the winter solstice. The problem with these theories is two-fold. First, there is a lack of evidence. There was no big push in the early church to create a birthday celebration for Christ. Of course, the church was and is “in the business” of spreading Christianity, so there is no doubt that the early church fathers wanted pagans to convert and wanted celebrations to honor God.
Second, pagan worship practices were seasonal and on-going. That is, almost any date or time frame could be said to be a pagan “Holy day. That Christian Holy Days would clash with and even replace pagan days was inevitable.2
Christmas today. Christmas is being celebrated around the world by people and cultures with no belief in Christ, people who retain the gift-giving and family get-together traditions but do not bring Christ into it. The US federal government closes for a paid holiday on both Thanksgiving and Christmas holding that to do so is not necessarily an endorsement of the Christian religion.
Should Christians celebrate Christmas? As always, the heart of the matter is the heart. Why do you celebrate it? Is it to celebrate a birth rather than a birthday? If so, what does it matter why other people do it or what other peoples and cultures might have – or did have- a celebration on that date?
What is Good Friday? Was it really on Friday? Can we pinpoint a day and year? Why do we celebrate the birth of Christ? Because of his death and resurrection. Without the death and resurrection, the birth is meaningless.
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Good Friday recognizes the sacred day when Christ began the completion of the mission He came to fulfill – to die for us and to pay for our sins. It is observed, in the spring during the Easter season or Holy Week. It coincides with the Jewish Passover, the symbol of the promised Messiah and saving by blood.
Was it really on a Friday?
Traditional Christian denominations honor Friday as the day of Christ’s death. Some Baptist, Pentecostal, many Sabbatarian and non-denominational churches observe the Crucifixion on Wednesday to coincide with the Jewish sacrifice of the Passover Lamb. A Wednesday Crucifixion of Jesus Christ allows for Christ to be in the tomb (“heart of the earth”). For three days and three nights as he told the Pharisees he would be (Matthew 12:40), rather than two nights and a day if he had died on a Friday. There is some basis in this idea in the Gospel of John, which has Jesus crucified on a Thursday evening (14 Nisan on the Hebrew calendar) instead of the Friday morning found in the Synoptic Gospels. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday) More detailed calculations are found here http://www.xenos.org/classes/chronc.htm
Can we pinpoint a day and year?
According to Ussher’s chronology, the basis for the Amazing Bible Timeline, Christ was born in 4 BC. If his ministry began when he was “about 30” as Luke states rather than at exactly 30 he would have been 32 in 29 AD and died in 33 AD after his 3 year ministry. Paul mentions a moon of blood suggesting a lunar eclipse. According to astronomers, such an event occurred on Friday 3 April 33 AD.
What do we know about King Herod historically?Herod the Great known in the Bible as the monster who ordered the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem, is a well-known figure in ancient historical records.
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According to the Amazing Bible Timeline Herod was born in 74 BC, 24 years after Julius Caesar and during the same decade that Buddhism was introduced to China. “The Gospels tell us that Christ’s birth was shortly before Herod the Great died. Herod’s death can be fixed with certainty. Josephus records an eclipse of the moon just before Herod passed on. This occurred on March 12th or 13th in 4 B.C. Josephus also tells us that Herod expired just before Passover. This feast took place on April 11th, in the same year, 4 B.C. From other details supplied by Josephus, we can pinpoint Herod the Great’s demise as occurring between March 29th and April 4th in 4 B.C. It might sound strange to suggest that Jesus Christ was born no later than 4 B.C. since B.C. means ‘before Christ.’ But our modern calendar that splits time between B.C. and A.D. was not invented until A.D. 525. At that time, Pope John the First asked a monk named Dionysius to prepare a standardized calendar for the Western Church. Unfortunately, poor Dionysius missed the real B.C./A.D. division by at least four years! Now Matthew tells us that Herod killed Bethlehem’s babies two years old and under. The earliest Jesus could have been born, therefore, is 6 B.C. Through a variety of other time indicators, we can be relatively confident that the one called Messiah was born in either late 5 or early 4 B.C.” (from http://bible.org/article/birth-jesus-christ). In 2007, two different groups of scientists added information to the facts about his life. Where he was buried. How he died.
Where Herod the Great Was Buried
In May 2007, Ehud Netzer (of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem) announced to the world that after a lifetime’s search, he had uncovered the remains of Herod the Great’s tomb (BBC coverage; London Times story). The likely site of the tomb – Herodium – is a man-made fortress of immense scale with many buildings, monuments, trackways and open spaces. Herodium is located in the West Bank some eight miles from Jerusalem.
How Herod The Great Died
“Herod the Great expired from chronic kidney disease probably complicated by Fournier’s gangrene,” according to the medical investigative work of Jan Hirschmann, M.D., staff physician at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and professor of medicine at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. The texts that we depend on for a close description of Herod’s last days list several major features of the disease that caused his death—among them, intense itching, painful intestinal problems, breathlessness, convulsions in every limb, and gangrene of the genitalia,” says Hirschmann. (from a news release by the Veterans Administration at http://www.newswise.com/articles/what-killed-king-herod in January 2002)
Saint Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra (the city now known as Demre, Turkey) born during the third century AD and died in 350 AD. According to the Amazing Bible Timeline during his lifetime the Goths first invaded Rome, the Transubstantiation mass was practiced, Constantine converted to Christianity, and the council of Nicea was held resulting in the Nicean creed.
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Nicholas lived his life as a faithful follower of Christ. Following in his footsteps, he constantly cared for the needy and worked for justice for his people in spite of persecution of Christians prior to Constantine’s conversion. He had a reputation for doing his good works secretly told in multiple stories. The most famous of these is the story of Saint Nicholas giving money to a poor man with three daughters who had no money for a dowry for them. In order to save them from spinsterhood or perhaps prostitution, Saint Nicholas secretly provided the money by either tossing a purse through an open window, or in one version, by dropping it down the chimney.
After his death, the local people revered his memory and began to tell of miracles. Sailors he had cared for began to spread stories of the miracles attributed to him. He became known as a saint long before canonization procedures were formalized by the Church in the tenth century AD.
What do we know about the three wise men in the Bible? The wise men from the east are mentioned in Matthew chapter 2.
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It only says, “wise men from the east.” No number is given. Nor are they named. The idea of three came from the fact that three gifts are mentioned. There could have been more or less, but the Bible gives no number. Another fact: the wise men did not come at Jesus’ birth but came later, perhaps as much as two years later since Herod ordered the slaughter of all Jewish male babies age two or younger. Bible fiction (popular stories or songs) lead people to believe the fiction rather than the Bible. Think of the song “we three kings of orient are” or popular books, opera or made for television movies such as “The Fourth Wise Man” or “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” All show three or four wise men. Stories such as these go back as far as writings of the sixth century AD.
