Timeline Tuesday: Back to Genesis!

This Friday we will return to the book of Genesis and pick up where we left off before venturing into the book of Job. (Feel free to go back and read here what I had to say about the insertion of Job within the context of Genesis and how he probably was a contemporary of Abraham.)

Which brings us now to reading about Abraham! Feel free to check my addition because I did a rather hurried calculation based upon the math/timeline project I mentioned in that earlier post (same link as above). My figures show that Abraham was born in year 1,949 of the earth's existence*****. Scholars place his birth near 2100 BC which fits with a literal interpretation of the earlier chapters of Genesis and places the year of creation at approximately 4050 BC. Agree or disagree with me concerning the age of the earth if you must. We should at least be able to agree on an approximate time for the life of Abraham.[1]

We will not interrupt our reading of Genesis again, but it will be mid-February before we complete it. The timelines for the next couple of Tuesdays will again be "micro" in nature as we focus on the Patriarchal Period.

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Source:
[1] Besides several Bible scholars I consulted The Illustrated Atlas of Jewish Civilization: 4000 Years of History by Josephine Bacon, Quantum Books, c. 2007. This is a secular volume dealing with the specific subject of Jewish history and as such it cannot ignore what the Bible has to say about their early history. Although Ms. Bacon does not necessarily believe that an individual named Abraham existed, she states that the events concerning Abraham as described in the Torah would have happened in approximately 2000 BC (or BCE "before common era" as she and other secularists who do not want to use the birth of Christ as the focal point in their dating structure call it. See here for a discussion of the BC/BCE and AD/CE debate. Call it what you will, the life of Christ is still the reference that determines when they change from BCE to CE. They didn't choose some other well-known person and event, like say, the death of Julius Caesar, as the date from which to define all of history as being pre or post that certain year. Just an observation.). I compared this book with Bible commentaries when setting an approximate date for Abraham's life and found it interesting that they agree.

*****My calculations actually came to 1948 but there is no such thing as a Year 0. The first year of time would be Year 1. Therefore I added 1 to get the year of Abraham's birth. It might skew things slightly, but as long as the procedure stays consistent throughout the calculations the addition of a year won't matter. For instance, it will show that Methuselah died the same year that the flood occurred whether one uses 1656 (the calculation) or 1657 (the year). Adam was created on day 6 of the 1st year of creation and lived to be 930 years old. That would mean his lifespan was from years 1-931 and not from 0-930. Correct?