History made visible
There’s a reason that history teachers use timelines in their classes. It’s because it’s hard enough for us to remember our daily plans without writing them down, let alone the passage of a hundred or a thousand years. A timeline shows us what happens, in the right order, and gives us an idea how long ago.The Bible made visible
The Bible isn’t exactly in historical and a timeline can help sort out which prophets spoke when, but more excitingly you can see the whole picture of salvation unfold, and you can see where the story you’re reading fits in this big picture.
History is connected
It’s amazing what you can fit on a timeline if you want to, although it’s not possible to put all history on it. I would recommend adding either big categories (Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman Empire) to it, or specific events (Stonehenge built, Alexander the Great lived). Details like these, especially if they connect to what they’re learning in school, emphasise the historicity and reality of what happened in the Bible.
The Bible has patterns
One exciting thing you could do with your Bible timeline is to highlight some of the themes which run throughout the Bible. Imagine if you could see every rescue highlighted in red and each sacrifice in blue on the wall of your Sunday School room!
Walking through the Bible
Probably my favourite thing about the timeline is that you can add to it as you go along, each time you read a story with your class you can find it on the timeline, you can add the connections to history outside of the Bible at the start of a new term, you could add picture or key words as you go along, and you can always use it to help remind your class of what happened before and what is still to come.
A picture timeline of key moments from Genesis.
This pictoral timeline can’t contain all of the information that a classic one could but it is great for knowing where your story fits. You can see how to make it here.