Full Bible Timeline

PART VII:
MESSIAH AND THE TURNING OF THE AGES

WHEN TIME CONVERGES ON REDEMPTION

Before Scripture announces fulfillment, it anchors accountability.
Before Messiah appears, time is weighed.

The final centuries leading to Christ are not treated as an undefined prelude but as a rigorously measured convergence of covenant history, prophetic decree, and architectural witness. The Temple stands at the center of this convergence—not merely as a religious structure, but as a chronological instrument. Its construction, duration, destruction, and restoration are all measured because they testify to the exhaustion of national time.

Within the Great Count AM Chronology, Solomon’s Temple was founded in 3004 AM, during the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, and completed seven years later, precisely as Scripture records.¹ Ancient Jewish tradition preserves that this First Temple stood 410 years, until its destruction by Babylon in 3414 AM (586 BC).²

Jeremiah confirms this alignment internally. His prophecy in the fourth year of Jehoiakim is explicitly dated, delivered twenty-three years after Josiah’s thirteenth year,³ placing him in the final generation before judgment. Jeremiah later records that Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple in his nineteenth year,⁴ a detail that aligns exactly with Daniel’s account of Jerusalem’s siege in Jehoiakim’s third year.⁵

Time does not drift here.
It converges.

The seventy-year captivity that follows is not symbolic. It is counted.⁶

When that period concludes, the foundation of the Second Temple is laid in 536 BC, under Zerubbabel and Joshua, by decree of Cyrus.⁷ After delay and prophetic exhortation, the Temple is completed and dedicated in 516 BC.⁸ From that point until its destruction in 70 AD, the Second Temple stands 586 years, a span preserved in Jewish memory and confirmed by Roman historians.⁹

Herod’s extensive renovations around 20 BC enlarge the structure even as the age it represents nears its end.¹⁰ Herod dies in 1 BC, placing the birth of Christ no later than 3 BC,¹¹ just as Daniel’s long-running prophetic horizon reaches its terminus.

All of this occurs before a single Gospel verse is read.

Time has been speaking.

20. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST AND THE CLOSING OF AN AGE

THE INCARNATION AS A CHRONOLOGICAL HINGE

By the close of the prophetic era, biblical time carries weight. Centuries have passed under law. Kings have risen and fallen. Prophets have spoken, warned, pleaded, and been ignored. Judgment has come repeatedly—and yet it has never resolved the problem it exposed.

Scripture does not portray this condition as failure.

It portrays it as preparation.

Measured time has accomplished its purpose. Sin has proven persistent. Obedience has proven fragile. Law has proven diagnostic, but not curative. Prophecy has proven accurate, but not transformative.

The stage is set not for another warning, but for intervention.

This is the moment when chronology turns—not forward as before, but inward, toward fulfillment.

21. THE CROSS AND THE DEFEAT OF DEATH

DEATH CONFRONTED WITHIN TIME

The prophets speak not only of sin reaching fullness, but of time itselfdoing so. Judgment arrives “when iniquity is complete.” Restoration is promised “after seventy years are fulfilled.” Daniel is told that specific spans are decreed to accomplish defined purposes.¹²

These are chronological thresholds.

Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy (Daniel 9:24–27) is the most explicit example of time measured toward Messiah. In response to Daniel’s prayer for Jerusalem, God declares a fixed program of seventy weeks—that is, seventy sevens, or 490 years—determined upon Israel and the holy city.

The prophecy is internally divided.

The first seven weeks (49 years) correspond to the rebuilding of Jerusalem “in troublous times,” following the decree to restore the city.¹³ The second segment of sixty-two weeks (434 years) follows immediately, bringing the total to sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years. When calculated from 457 BC, the year of Artaxerxes’ decree to Ezra,¹⁴ this span terminates in 26/27 AD—the year of Jesus’ baptism. The audible declaration from the Father, as His voice from the heavens, declare Jesus to the world, and the beginning of His public ministry.

This is not approximate.
It is exact.

While this study affirms a futurist reading of Daniel’s seventieth week — anticipating a future Antichrist and a final covenant crisis — it also recognizes that Daniel’s prophecy contains distinct chronological markers that have already been historically fulfilled. The appearance of Messiah at the close of the sixty-nine weeks, followed by His being “cut off,” belongs to measured, completed time. 

The final week, by contrast, remains unexecuted, reserved for a future convergence of covenant, deception, and judgment.

Paul later names this convergence with clarity:

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.”¹⁵

This does not mean “when enough time had passed.”

It means when measured, decreed time had completed its assigned work.

Chronology has functioned as prosecutor.
Now it yields the floor.

At the Cross, death is not avoided. It is confronted within time—and defeated through obedience.

22. THE FORTY-YEAR WITNESS AND THE END OF THE TEMPLE AGE

MEASURED WARNING BEFORE JUDGMENT (30–70 AD)

Scripture provides one final confirmation that an age has turned: the forty-year interval between Christ’s death and the destruction of Jerusalem.

Jesus interprets this delay as deliberate. Judgment is restrained so repentance may yet occur.¹⁶ The apostles preach within this window, calling Israel to recognize what time has revealed.

Rabbinic tradition preserves a striking memory: the signs associated with the Temple ceased approximately forty years before its destruction.¹⁷ Whether preserved with precision or not, the tradition reflects a shared awareness.

Something had changed.
Time had run out.

When the Temple falls in 70 AD, it does not initiate a new warning. It ratifies a turning already accomplished. The age governed by law and Temple worship has ended. The age inaugurated by Messiah has begun.

Chronology bears witness.

FROM MEASURED TIME TO ANTICIPATED FULFILLMENT

With Messiah’s advent, Scripture’s use of time changes again.

Chronology no longer exists primarily to expose guilt or delay judgment. It now sustains expectation.

The Church lives between accomplishment and consummation. Time continues—but under promise. Death still reigns, but its authority is broken. Judgment is coming, but its outcome is decided.

Time has not ended.
But it has turned.

THE THRESHOLD AHEAD

Part VII establishes the axis of the Great Count AM Chronology.

Measured time has reached its hinge.
The ages have turned.
Redemption has entered history as event.

What remains is not another chronology of failure, but the anticipation of completion—of rest, of Sabbath, of a kingdom that will not end.

The structure of that remaining time, and the nearing of the Great Sabbath Week, form the subject of the next Part.

FOOTNOTES — PART VII

1. 1 Kings 6:1, 37–38

2. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9a;      Seder Olam Rabbah ch. 11

3. Jeremiah 25:1–3

4. Jeremiah 52:12–13

5. Daniel 1:1

6. Jeremiah 29:10

7. Ezra 1:1–3; Ezra 3:8–13

8. Haggai 1:1; Zechariah 1:1;      Ezra 6:14–15

9. Josephus, Wars of the Jews      VI; Tacitus, Histories V.13

10. Josephus, Antiquities of the      Jews, Book XV

11. Josephus, Antiquities      XVII.8.1; Matthew 2:1–16

12. Genesis 15:16; Daniel 9:24

13. Daniel 9:25; cf. Whitcomb,      John C., Daniel, 1962

14. Ezra 7:13–28

15. Galatians 4:4

16. Matthew 23–24

17. Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 39b