Full Bible Timeline

ABSTRACT

This white paper presents a unified historical, theological, and chronological study of Abraham using the Great Count Anno Mundi (AM) Chronology, beginning with the entrance of death into the world (Genesis 5:3) and tracing an unbroken line of covenant memory from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Christ. Abraham is not treated as an isolated religious innovator, but as a recipient and steward of living covenant knowledge—received personally from men who walked with God and preserved through blood covenant practice. Faith, in this framework, is inherited, transmitted, and finally entrusted to one man through whom redemption history advances.

Scholarly Challenges to the Great Count AM Chronology

and How the Full Bible Timeline Framework Addresses Them

1. James Ussher

Likely Objection:
Ussher’s chronology assumes that biblical time begins at creation and proceeds through a continuous year-count derived from Genesis genealogies treated as complete. Within this framework, Abraham’s birth is typically dated around 2008 AM.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
The Full Bible Timeline’s work developing the Great Count AM Chronology demonstrates that Scripture itself does not begin meaningful chronological reckoning at creation, but at the point where death becomes conscious and generationally acknowledged (Genesis 5:3; the naming of Enosh). While sequence exists prior to this moment, the biblical text does not record numbered time until mortality enters human awareness. The Great Count framework follows the text’s own chronological behavior, rather than imposing an a priori starting point.

Assessment:
Ussher’s model reflects theological convention rather than textual necessity. The Great Count chronology grounds its starting point in Scripture’s internal logic.

2. William Henry Green

Likely Objection:
Green argued that genealogies in Genesis may contain unrecorded generations, making absolute chronological reconstruction unreliable.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
The Full Bible Timeline’s approach does not rest on assumptions of genealogical completeness or incompleteness. Instead, it relies exclusively on explicit father–son age statements where Scripture provides them. Hypothetical gaps cannot nullify stated numerical data. Where Scripture records ages and overlaps, the chronology proceeds; where it does not, restraint is exercised.

Assessment:
Green’s caution introduces uncertainty but offers no textual mechanism for discarding explicit chronological markers. The Great Count framework operates on positive data rather than conjecture.

3. Gerhard von Rad

Likely Objection:
Von Rad viewed patriarchal narratives primarily as theological proclamations, with chronology serving symbolic rather than historical purposes.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
This study affirms the theological depth of the patriarchal narratives while demonstrating that biblical theology is incarnated in historical sequence. Scripture consistently embeds promise within dated lives, generational succession, and temporal continuity. Chronology in Genesis is not decorative; it is functional to covenant transmission.

Assessment:
Separating theology from history imposes a modern dichotomy foreign to the biblical text. The Great Count chronology preserves their unity.

4. John Van Seters

Likely Objection:
Minimalist approaches argue that Abraham is a late literary construction and that chronological coherence reflects retrospective editorial activity.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
The Full Bible Timeline’s work demonstrates that the patriarchal narratives exhibit internal chronological coherence across multiple textual strata, including Genesis through Kings. The documented overlap of patriarchal lifespans (Noah, Shem, Eber, Abraham) provides a historically plausible mechanism for covenant memory transmission—something literary retrojection alone cannot explain.

Assessment:
Minimalism offers literary skepticism but fails to account for the consistency and continuity of the biblical chronological framework.

5. Kenneth Kitchen

Likely Objection:
Kitchen generally affirms the historical plausibility of the patriarchs while remaining cautious about absolute chronological precision.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
The Great Count framework aligns closely with Kitchen’s cultural and legal realism while extending it into the chronological domain. By anchoring Abraham within a coherent temporal framework, the Full Bible Timeline strengthens rather than challenges Kitchen’s conclusions.

Assessment:
Kitchen’s work is complementary rather than adversarial. The Great Count chronology supplies what Kitchen leaves open.

6. Nahum Sarna

Likely Objection:
Sarna emphasized the theological and literary function of genealogies over their chronological utility.

Response from the Great Count AM Chronology:
This study demonstrates that genealogies function simultaneously as theological declarations and historical conveyors. Covenant inheritance, instruction, and transmission presuppose real generational succession. Abraham’s role depends not merely on symbolic lineage, but on historically plausible formation.

Assessment:
The Great Count chronology does not diminish theology; it stabilizes it within lived history.

Summary Evaluation

Critiques of the Great Count AM Chronology typically rest on philosophical presuppositions rather than textual contradictions. These include:

• Time must begin at creation

• Genealogies are symbolic unless proven otherwise

• Theology operates independently of historical sequence

The Full Bible Timeline’s work developing the Great Count AM Chronology challenges these assumptions by allowing Scripture to define when time is counted, why it is counted, and how it is transmitted.

Conclusion:
The Great Count AM Chronology does not impose an external system upon the biblical text. It recovers and follows the internal chronological logic Scripture already employs—rendering Abraham not a floating theological symbol, but a covenant figure anchored in real, remembered time.