Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Here's a website I discovered when I was trying to find some parallel timelines for a local bishop last year (he wanted to be able to tell the students in his Sunday School class what was happening elsewhere in the world while David was king of Israel or while Elijah and Elisha were doing their prophetic gig).

I'm posting the following links for my students, as well (it's now five men and one woman, having gained a gal and lost a guy since Wednesday night), just 'cause I think it's neat and colorful . . . though I'd recommend they trust the Wikipedia article on Constantine I, rather than the little linked text from this site, and Wikipedia's Jewish Diaspora article would be infinitely preferable to the blurb linked to from the site below, which seems very misleading, totally ignoring the pre-Roman Diaspora in the dispersion of Jews throughout the Mediterranean world even before 70 C.E..

As noted above, although some of the specific links in this timeline contain incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading information at times, I still find this site useful for getting a general view of what was happening in the Americas, Africa, India, China, and Japan while the more familiar (at least, in terms of what I was taught in school) events described in the Bible or in Western European history were taking place:

Timeline 3, covering roughly 30 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era -- secular equivalent to "Before Christ", and preferred in most scholarly circles) through mid-500's C.E. (Common Era -- less sectarian equivalent to "Anno Domini"/"Year of our Lord", preferred in scholarly discussions) -- or in other words, most of the formative period for early Christianity and the canon of the New Testament.

Timeline 1, covering roughly 1200 through 450 B.C.E. (including some major events in the Hebrew Bible).

Timeline 2, covering roughly 550 B.C.E. through 35 C.E. (formative period for later Hebrew Bible and Jewish diaspora).

Timeline 4, covering roughly 450 through 1100 C.E. (spread of Christianity, fall of the Western Roman Empire, Middle Ages, rise of Islam, etc.).

For all its many flaws and oversights, I still think this site is pretty 'neat', for provding at least a starting place for students who're trying to get a sense of what was going on in the world at various points in recent history.