Help Clarifying Timeline Language?

[alisdupree]

Hey everybody! I just got Timeline last week and I'm really enjoying it, but I'm hoping that you could help clarify the language for some of the dating for me. It varies a bit when I look at the dates for some New Testament books (and I'm sure it does in other places, too).

 

For instance (in the conservative date scheme), Galatians says “ca. 49” which I assume means circa/approximately AD 49. The book of Romans says “ca. 57 to ca. 59” which I would assume would mean that it's being estimated as having being written between approximately AD 57 and 59. However, for some books it says “between” two dates instead of “ca…to ca...” (with Revelation it’s “between 90 and 95”).

 

My question is: is there a difference in meaning with the books that say "ca. xx to ca. xy" (like Galatians) versus those that say "between xx and xy" (like Revelation)? Thanks!

[Michael J. Bolesta]

Probably there is no difference. All such dates are scholarly estimates. The Timeline has two dating systems, "conservative" and "critical" which do differ due to different assumptions about authorship (among other things).

[Alistair]

I'm persuaded that Michael's response above is more or less spot on. Some books of the Bible are almost impossible to date with any degree of certainty; and a good commentary or Bible dictionary/encyclopaedia should give you the reasons for the wide range of dates, both 'conservative' and 'critical' in some detail. Plus you'll also get a range of opinions and arguments about authorship and the book's intended recipients as well.

 

 

[David Lang]

In general, a "between" date is telling you that something happened any time between the start and finish date, without giving any information about its duration. For example, Ruth (the person not the book) is "between 1150 and 1090". We really don't know anything about her birth or death dates, or how long she lived, so the best that can be done is a sort of broad-brush "she lived some time in this period."

 

We could have used "between" for Romans rather than circa to circa. For that matter, we could have used circa to circa for Revelation, since it's only a 5 year period. Not sure why we did it that way. It may have been because that is how our source (the late Harold Hoehner) did it, or we may just have been a little inconsistent. In general, though, a between date is meant to indicate a fuzzier date than the use of circa with a specific beginning and/or ending date.

 

Hope that helps.