§ 01 · Timeline
Four thousand years, one ruler.
527 entries from the chronology of Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman (pp. 519–531), paraphrased, and 372 detailed events from chapters 1 to 15. Approximate dates appear as hatched windows; items marked ◔ are under review because the printed date in the source appears to contain an error.
Visible window · scale: centuries
4034 BCE to 3739 BCE
899 items
2400 BCEtoday
Ctrl or ⌘ + mouse wheel: zoom at the cursor · drag: pan · arrows: previous and next item · hatched bars: uncertainty window of the date
List of the detailed events (372)
- fourth millennium BCEWriting and the alphabet
- 2000–1500 BCEThe patriarchal traditions
- nineteenth or eighteenth century BCEThe Code of Hammurabi
- 1700–1600 BCE to c. 1550 BCEHyksos rule and expulsion
- 1500–1200 BCEThe Exodus tradition
- 1400–1300 BCECanaan in the Amarna age
- 1300–1100 BCELate Bronze Age collapse
- 1207 BCEIsrael on the Merneptah Stele
- 1200–1000 BCEVillages in Canaan's highlands
- 1200–500 BCEFormation of Yahweh religion
- c. 1175 BCEPhilistine settlement
- c. 1020 BCE to c. 930 BCERise of Israelite monarchy
- c. 1000 BCE to c. 400 BCEBiblical inspiration of prayer
- c. 960 BCETradition of the First Temple's construction
- c. 930 BCE to 722 BCEKingdoms of Israel and Judah
- 900–700 BCEAssyrian expansion into the Levant
- 722–720 BCEFall of Samaria
- 722 to 720 BCEThe Judahite point of view
- 701 BCESennacherib's campaign in Judah
- seventh or sixth century BCEThe Ketef Hinnom amulets
- 640–609 BCEJosiah's law book
- sixth to fifth century BCEWhen did Judahites become Jews?
- 598 or 597 BCE to 587 or 586 BCEDestruction of Judah and the First Temple
- 587 or 586 BCEThe Babylonian conquest as watershed
- 587–332 BCEThe formation of the canon
- 587–332 BCECrisis, repentance and restoration
- 587 or 586 BCEThe fate of the Ark of the Covenant
- 586–539 BCELife in the Babylonian Exile
- c. 586 BCE to c. 500 BCEFrom Judahite to Jewish culture
- 539 BCECyrus conquers Babylon
- 539 BCECyrus in Isaiah and in the Cylinder
- 539–332 BCEYehud, a Persian province
- 539–332 BCEAramaic, Esther and Persian culture
- 539–332 BCEThe three parts of the Jewish Bible
- 539–332 BCECreation, election and covenant
- 539–332 BCEIntermediaries between God and Israel
- 522–486 BCEDarius and the Temple
- fifth century BCEThe Judahite community of Elephantine
- from the Persian age onwardHow to read the Bible: early interpretation
- c. 500 BCE to c. 900 CEShema: scriptural core of the liturgy
- c. 500 BCE to c. 1600Traditional origins of the prayer catalog
- c. 450 BCEEzra, Nehemiah and the law
- c. 450 BCEIntermarriage in the Bible
- c. 450 BCEThe public reading of the Torah
- 418 BCEHananiah's Passover letter
- 410 BCEThe Elephantine temple and the governor
- 331–323 BCEAlexander conquers the Persian Empire
- 323–200 BCEJudea under the Ptolemies
- Ptolemaic Egypt (the source gives no more precise date)Manetho and the first anti-Jewish literature
- c. 300 BCEHecataeus and the laws of Moses
- 283–246 BCEThe Torah in Greek: the Septuagint
- 259–258 BCEZenon's journey through Palestine
- third century BCE to first century BCEThe diaspora in Ptolemaic Egypt
- third century BCE to first century BCEMoses in Greek verse
- 202–200 BCEThe Seleucids take Judea
- 200 BCE to 200 CEApocrypha and pseudepigrapha
- c. 200 BCEThe Wisdom of Ben Sira
- c. 200 BCE to 70 CEDaily prayer patterns in the Second Temple period
- c. 200 BCE to c. 70 CEHalakhah in the Land and the Diaspora (Flusser)
- second century BCEThe Dead Sea Scrolls and text criticism
- 180–100 BCE to 180–100 BCEAristeas and twice-daily household prayer
- under Antiochus IV, before 167 BCEJason, Menelaus and the gymnasium of Jerusalem
- 167 BCEThe decrees of Antiochus IV
- 167 or 166 BCE to 161 BCE or the late 140s BCEThe Maccabean revolt
- 164 BCEThe rededication of the Temple
- 161 BCEJudah defeats Nicanor
- second century BCE to 74 CEA Jewish temple in Egypt
- second century BCEPharisees, Sadducees and Essenes
- c. 150 BCEWithdrawal to the desert
- 140–63 BCEThe Hasmonean state
- first century BCE to c. 200 CEFrom Pharisees to rabbis
- c. 100 BCE to 68 CEDaily and nocturnal prayer at Qumran
- c. 100 BCE to c. 70 CESynagogue before 70: communal, not a Temple substitute
- 76–67 BCEThe reign of Salome Alexandra
- 63 BCEPompey in Jerusalem
- 63 BCEJudea becomes a Roman tributary
- late Second Temple periodJewish life before the destruction
- 37–4 BCEThe reign of Herod
- 31 BCE – 14 CEOctavian and the birth of the empire
- 20 BCEHerod expands the Temple
- 4 BCE – 70 CEHerod's heirs
- between 4 BCE and 6 CE to 30 CEJesus of Nazareth
- Tannaitic period to final editing of the Babylonian TalmudThe Oral Torah and midrash
- 6 CERome takes direct rule of Judea
- 26–37 CEPontius Pilate, prefect of Judea
- c. 30 CE to 62 CEThe Jerusalem community of believers in Jesus
- 38–41 CEEthnic violence in Alexandria
- 40–41 CECaligula's statue
- 50–60 CEPaul's letters and the parting of the ways
- first century CE to sixth century CEThe synagogue, a virtual Temple
- from Paul to the twelfth centuryChurch doctrine on the Jews
- 66–70 CEThe First Jewish Revolt
- during the Jewish Revolt (66 to 70 CE)Yohanan ben Zakkai escapes to Yavneh
- centuries after the fall of the Second TempleThe Oral Torah and the Sabbath penalty
- 70 CEThe destruction of the Second Temple
- 70 CE to c. two centuries after 70 CEJewish life without the Temple
- c. 70 CE to late antiquityThe 'parting of the ways' debated
- c. 70 CE to c. 900 CEAmidah: core of rabbinic prayer
- 73 CEThe fall of Masada
- c. 80 CEJosephus writes the history of the revolt
- second century CEThe standardization of the biblical text
- after the rise of ChristianityThe Bible was not a book
- second or third century CE to abolished by 429The patriarch, nasi of the Jews
- 115–117 CEThe Diaspora Revolt
- 132–135 CEThe Bar Kochba Revolt
- 135 CEThe rabbis after Bar Kochba
- c. 180 CE to c. 400 CEThe Ebionites
- 193–235 CEThe Severans and the Jews
- third and fourth centuries CE'Old Testament' and 'people of the book'
- c. 200 CEThe Mishnah
- c. 200 CE to c. 400 CEThe Nazoraeans
- c. 200 CE to c. 400 CEThe Pseudo-Clementines
- c. 200 CE to c. 220 CEDebate on m. Tamid and Temple liturgy
- c. 200 CE to c. 1200Anatomy of daily and Sabbath services
- c. 200 CE to c. 600 CERabbinic literature as a modern category
- 219 CERav returns to Babylonia
- 226–642 CEThe Jews under the Sasanians
- c. 256 CEThe Dura-Europos synagogue
- fourth or early fifth century CEThe Jerusalem Talmud
- 312–414 CEThe empire becomes Christian
- fourth to sixth centuriesThe Christian empire and the law
- 324–337 CEConstantine and the Christianization of the empire
- fourth century CE to seventh-century conquestsThe Land of Israel becomes the Christian Holy Land
- c. 355 CE to c. 360 CEJoseph of Tiberias at Scythopolis
- 362–363 CEJulian tries to rebuild the Temple
- 388 CEThe destruction of the synagogue at Callinicum
- 418 CEThe conversion of Minorca (418)
- c. 450 CEMoses of Crete and messianic hope
- sixth to tenth century CEThe Masoretic Bible and the Aleppo Codex
- between 500 and 700 CEThe Babylonian Talmud
- sixth or seventh century CETraces of rabbinic influence: the Rehov inscription
- sixth century CE to 604 CEClermont and Gregory the Great
- c. 570 CE to 632 CEMuhammad and the Jews of Arabia
- 603–690 CEJewish believers in Visigothic Spain
- 610–1453Jews in the Byzantine Empire
- c. 611 CE to 632 CEThe Qur'an and the Jews
- 622–750 CEIslam and the Jewish Middle Ages
- 633–838 CEConversion to Judaism
- 642 CE to the 920sThe Geonim and Babylonian supremacy
- 661–750 CEThe Umayyads and the Pact of Umar
- 750 CE to twelfth centuryLegal status, economy and language
- 750 CEThe Abbasids and Baghdad
- 750–1040The Geonic academies, the kallot and the responsa
- eighth century to 1164Masoretes and biblical commentary
- c. 750 CE to c. 1050The first prayer-book in the Geonic horizon
- c. 754 CE to tenth centuryThe Karaites
- ninth and tenth centuriesCarolingian charters of protection
- ninth to thirteenth centuriesThe formation of Ashkenaz
- ninth century CEThe first siddur and the Haggadah
- 850 CE to twelfth centuryThe Pact of Umar in practice
- ninth centuryThe siddur and Jewish prayer
- c. 850 CE to c. 860 CEPaulus Alvarus in Córdoba
- late ninth and tenth centuries to 1103The Babylonian tradition prevails
- c. 900 CE to c. 1500Genealogy and variation of medieval rites
- c. 900 CE to c. 1100Cordoba and the Sephardic experience (Gerber)
- 909–1171The Fatimids and Egypt
- 912–970 CEHasdai ibn Shaprut and the caliphate of Córdoba
- c. 920 CE to c. 990 CEHebrew poetry in al-Andalus
- 921–922 CEThe calendar controversy of 921
- 928–942 CESaadya Gaon: reason and revelation
- tenth century to twelfth centuryEveryday coexistence and tensions
- tenth century to 1291Jerusalem, the yeshivah and the Crusades
- tenth century to twelfth centuryThe Cairo Genizah
- tenth century to thirteenth centuryJewish philosophy in the Islamic world
- tenth century to twelfth centuryCities, merchants and trade routes
- tenth century to twelfth centuryJews and the slave trade
- tenth century to twelfth centuryPoverty, charity and captives
- tenth century to twelfth centuryFamily, marriage and women
- tenth century to twelfth centuryThe synagogue as communal center
- c. 1000 to 1500A history beyond persecution
- eleventh to thirteenth centuriesSerfs of the royal chamber
- later Middle AgesJewish polemic against Christianity
- c. 1000 to c. 1400Jewish niche economy in medieval Europe (Chazan)
- 1040–1303Rashi and the tosafists
- eleventh century to 1085Samuel ha-Nagid and the taifa kingdoms
- 1066The Granada massacre of 1066
- c. 1075 to 1141Judah ha-Levi and the Kuzari
- 1085–1266The Reconquista and the Jews of Sefarad
- 1086 to twelfth centuryAlmoravids and Almohads
- 1095–1097The First Crusade and the Jews of the Rhineland
- 1096 to c. 1200The memory of martyrdom
- later Middle AgesA people apart?
- twelfth and thirteenth centuriesAdaptation and ritual exchange in Ashkenaz
- 1106 to c. 1140Petrus Alfonsi of Huesca
- 1135–1204Maimonides: philosopher, jurist and leader
- 1144–1370Blood libel and host desecration
- twelfth centuryMedieval messiahs
- twelfth and thirteenth centuriesThe Hasidei Ashkenaz
- c. 1150 to c. 1200The anonymous convert of Toledo
- 1190–1394The expulsions from England and France
- 1194–1270Nahmanides and the origins of Kabbalah
- thirteenth to fifteenth centuriesCrown, community and economy in Christian Spain
- 1204 to fourteenth centuryThe Maimonidean controversy
- 1215The Fourth Lateran Council
- 1236–1242The trial of the Talmud in Paris
- 1236–1497Converts, disputations, and conversos (13th to 16th centuries)
- 1263The Barcelona disputation (1263)
- 1264–1600Charters, exclusions, and jurisdictions
- c. 1290The Zohar and the sefirot
- 1298 to c. 1350Rindfleisch, Armleder and the Black Death
- fourteenth and early fifteenth centuriesCrescas and the ban on philosophy
- 1348–1349The Barcelona attacks of 1348 and 1349
- 1357The El Transito synagogue
- 1391–14141391 and the Tortosa disputation
- 1391–1600Conversos and blood purity
- 1414–1492The last century of Spanish Jewry
- 1438–1700The Jews of the Moroccan mellah
- 1444–1600The Hebrew printing revolution
- 1453–1688The Ottoman Sephardi renaissance
- 1478–1834The Spanish Inquisition
- 1480–1650Print, Talmud, and pilpul
- 1492–1700The early modern transition
- 1492The expulsion from Spain
- 1496–1497Forced conversion in Portugal
- 1500–1650Ottoman commerce and textiles
- 1500–1700Poland-Lithuania, a new Ashkenazi heartland
- 1500–1700Kehillah government
- 1500–1750Jewish time in early modern Europe
- 1500–1650New Christians in São Vicente
- c. 1500 to c. 1800Print and Kabbalah in the Siddur
- 1509–1548The Venice ghetto
- 1510–1517The Reuchlin affair
- 1517–1620Safed and Lurianic Kabbalah
- 1520–1756A Jewish Renaissance
- 1523–1543Luther and the Jews
- 1535–1555Gracia Mendes's network
- 1536–1821The Portuguese Inquisition
- 1536–1700New Christians in colonial Brazil
- 1539–1650The arenda economy
- 1550–1750Coffee and Kabbalah
- 1553–1595Rome and the Counter-Reformation
- 1555–1626The Ashkenazi Shulhan Arukh
- 1570–1650Jewish acculturation in Italy
- 1570–1700The decline of blood-libel trials
- 1576–1764Council of Four Lands
- 1580–1764The Council of Four Lands
- 1590–1700Yiddish print culture
- 1590–1720Port Jews of Amsterdam
- 1593–1750Livornina and a Sephardi port
- seventeenth and eighteenth centuriesFrom doubting Moses to the Documentary Hypothesis
- 1618–1648Jews in the Thirty Years' War
- 1618–1670Da Costa and Spinoza
- 1624–1654New Christians in Bahia (1624-1654)
- 1628–1680New Christian bandeirantes and Jesuits
- 1640–1780Dissent and the birth of Haskalah
- 1648–1657The revolt and massacres of 1648
- 1650–1700Rise of the court Jews
- 1654–1740Arrival in New Amsterdam
- 1654–1790Religious liberty in the United States
- 1655–1660Jewish return to England
- 1665–1666The Shabbatai Zvi movement
- 1686–1731Inquisition in the Captaincy of São Paulo
- 1698–1720New Road and gold towns
- 1700–1750Marranos in Minas Gerais
- 1700–1917Modernity and the Jews
- 1700–1780Communal autonomy and restriction
- 1700–1768The Polish Jewish economy
- 1714–1793The Enlightenment debate over Jews
- 1730–1897Education and Haskalah
- 1740–1760The Besht and Hasidism's origins
- 1744–1815Dissent and religious revival
- 1756–1795Partitions of Poland and Frankism
- 1758–1811Mendelssohn and Berlin Haskalah
- 1770–1830Conversion and Berlin salons
- 1770–1900Hasidic life and yeshiva culture
- 1772–1815Hasidic expansion and institutions
- 1772–1815Mitnaggdic opposition
- 1782The Edict of Toleration
- 1788–1863Jewish rights in Australia
- 1789–1790Daniel Mendoza and popular integration
- 1789–1831French emancipation
- 1791–1917The Pale of Settlement
- 1797–1870Emancipation and the Risorgimento
- 1800–1914Demographic transformation
- 1800s to 2000sModern liturgical transformations
- 1803–1905Volozhin and the Musar movement
- 1806–1808Napoleon and the Jews
- 1812–1871Germany's long road
- 1814–1908Modern culture and worship
- 1827–1855The Jewish cantonists
- 1830–1871Gradual British emancipation
- 1833–1914The ideology of modern antisemitism
- 1839–1909Tanzimat and Ottoman citizenship
- 1840–1870Damascus and Mortara
- 1845–1906French antisemitism and the Dreyfus Affair
- 1860–1917Eastern and overseas urban centers
- 1860–1914Jewish philanthropic networks
- 1862–1891From Hibbat Zion to auto-emancipation
- 1865–1917Russian emancipation
- 1867–1914Race science and exclusion
- 1872Gilgamesh and the Mesopotamian parallels
- 1873–1914German political antisemitism
- 1878–1923Sephardim and new states
- 1880–1914Metropolitan Jewry
- 1880–1910Mass politics in Vienna
- 1881–1906The Russian pogroms
- 1881–1914Hebrew revival
- 1881–1924Mass migration to the United States
- 1881–1916British Jews on the home front
- 1881–1939Sephardim and Muslim lands
- 1886–2003Sinai in the face of modernity
- 1889–1914Cultural Zionism and territorialism
- 1891–1937Revisionism and the Arab question
- 1893–1904Herzl and political Zionism
- c. 1896 to 1954Hebrew Christianity and Levertoff
- 1897–1921The Bund and worker politics
- 1898–1920Sport, Husayn, and the Balfour Declaration
- 1900–1939The interwar numbers
- 1902–1914Socialist Zionism and the Second Aliyah
- 1903–1913The Protocols and the Beilis case
- 1904–1919Diaspora nationalism
- 1905–1939Zionist culture and urban growth
- 1912–1930Histadrut, Hadassah, and Mapai
- 1913–1933Cultural revival in Central Europe
- 1914–1918The war and the end of the old order
- 1914–1917The eastern front
- 1914–1916Western fronts and the Jew Count
- 1917–1930Revolution and Soviet Yiddish culture
- 1917–1939Mobility and Russification
- 1917–1922Mandate politics
- 1918–1922New states, pogroms, and Weimar
- 1918–1939Culture and politics in Poland
- 1919–1938Interwar Poland
- 1919–1939Romania, Hungary, and the Balkans
- 1919–1933Jews in Hitler's worldview
- 1920–1939Violence, revolt, and partition
- 1928–1948Birobidzhan
- 1933The April 1933 boycott
- 1933–1939The web of anti-Jewish laws
- 1933–1941The Kulturbund and communal representation
- 1933–1939Emigration and closed doors
- 1933–1938Aryanization and the Anschluss
- 1933–1945Persecution and gender
- c. 1933 to c. 1945Holocaust studies: terms and antisemitism (Hayes/Roth)
- 1934–2004Suburbia and symbolic Judaism
- 1935–1936The Nuremberg Laws
- 1938The Night of Broken Glass
- 1939From the January prophecy to the invasion of Poland
- 1939–1941Plunder and terror in occupied Poland
- 1939–1942The ghettos
- 1940–1945News of genocide and rescue attempts
- 1941–1943Shootings in the East
- 1941–1943Wannsee and the extermination camps
- 1941–1943Resistance in Vilna
- 1941–1945The model camp at Theresienstadt
- 1941–1951Departure of Jews from Arab lands
- 1941–1947Struggle against the British mandate
- 1942–1944Deportations from Warsaw and Lodz
- 1942–1944Deportations from Western Europe and Hungary
- 1942–1986Soviet Jews, from the doctors' plot to exit
- 1943Warsaw ghetto uprising
- 1945–1991Rebuilding after the Shoah
- 1945–1957Displaced-persons camps
- 1945–2000Hasidic rebuilding
- 1946–2005The southern hemisphere
- 1947–1956The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
- 1947The 1947 Exodus
- 1947–1949Partition and the 1948 war
- 1948–1954The Law of Return and absorption
- 1948–1995Europe after the Shoah
- 1949–2011Mizrahi protest and inequality
- 1949–1956The Sinai Campaign
- 1960–1962The Eichmann trial
- 1961–1962The discovery of the Cave of Letters
- 1967–1970The Six-Day War
- 1967–2016American Jews and Israel
- c. 1970 to 2020Modern Messianic Judaism
- 1972–1981Yom Kippur and Camp David
- 1982–1989The Lebanon war and the first intifada
- 1991–1995Oslo and the assassination of Rabin
- 2000–2008The second intifada and peace plans
- 2006–2017Contemporary antisemitism