The main index page is here: Diagrams

• Fundamentalist - everything in the Bible is true.
  • When diagramming scripture, show as accurately as possible what the text says (e.g Genesis ch 1-10).
  • Indicate where scriptures place themselves, people and events, in time and space (using the tag "tradition", or "setting").

• Scholarly - a historical / critical approach to the text. This is largely the work of analysts who started in the 19^th century.
  • Books of the Bible are given dates and origins in accord with textual and archeological analysis (identified with the tag "final form")
  • The Documentary Hypothesis, which considers Torah/Pentateuch consisting of four sources, JEPD, with subsequent editing by a Redactor, is presented here.
  • For the New Testament, non-canonical gospels are shown (Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, et al) with placement in time according to different scholars (Brown, Crossan).

About the timeline:

• The earlier periods diagrammed (before the year 1000 BCE - from Exodus to Samuel) represent a fusion between fundamentalist and historical perspectives.
  • Most scholarly assessments categorize the early books of the Hebrew Bible as legend.
  • Fundamentalists consider them to be real history.
  • The diagrams found here for that period are something of a compromise: Include the personages, but scale back the timespans, typically years reigned, so that they better match other historical records (e.g. those from Egypt). This is done for the patriarchs and judges. You might call it "modified fundamentalist".

• The earliest period (before the year 1500 BCE - which is mostly Genesis), does not allow for an easy fit when using the timespans recorded in the Bible - because the 50-year-at-a-time diagrams would be mostly blank except for lines indicating which patriarchs (Adam to Abraham) were living at the time. Instead the personages are organized into a Nations Schematic, to show the relationships, but without dates.

It is not the purpose of this website to promote a point of view. This website is dedicated to presenting, in as clear a fashion as possible, what the Bible says, what fundamentalists believe, but also how historians and scholars view the scriptures. This website attempts to be inclusive, and to be a resource for as many people as possible.

Author's note: It is a major challenge to present material that does not offend one group or another. Not only is there the division between the traditionalist and non-traditionalist, but among the historians there are competing viewpoints as to the dating or historicity of events. This website tries to include as many perspectives as possible so that they can be compared with each other; no viewpoint should be considered to be preferred in the diagrams.

REPRODUCTION: Diagrams may be printed and used for personal and limited distribution (under 20) only; copying for commercial use or widespread distribution is prohibited except by permission.

The diagrams have been created using presentation software. Most are familiar with Microsoft's Powerpoint^®, and we use that along with a similar application, Sun's StarOffice^® StarImpress. When a diagram is finished, we capture the screen and convert it to a .gif image and that's what you see on this site.

All diagrams are being converted, if not already in that form, into PowerPoint^® slides. This is for a product to be introduced in the future.

PowerPoint offers the advantage of better quality screen display, quality print outs, and embedded links (right now, the 2000 Year Timeline slideshow has over 4,500 links).

All PowerPoint slides (with the exception of the Genesis Genealogy) are formatted with 1/2" borders for print out and are best displayed in plastic sheet protectors.

F Product preview page (restricted access)

Microsoft PowerPoint® is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.

Many of these authors are considered liberal Christians by fundamentalists.

The diagrams you see here are the work of Mark Poyser who started out in 2000 creating cartoons about the hi-jinks in the stock market. This was a time when the bubble was breaking, and so there were lots of crazy things going on. The cartoons could be seen at the website WallStreetFollies.com, and were also included in CNN-Money's morning e-mailer, The Eye Opener, for four years (2000 to 2003) until it was re-formatted. In addition to being seen in on the website, or CNN-Money's e-mailer, selected cartoons were used or mentioned favorably in a number of publications:

Canada's Financial Post (accompanying their main editorial of 9 July 2002) Salon's Scott Rosenberg's Links TheStreet.com The Houston Chronicle Grant's and was listed as one of USAToday's Hot Sites for September 2002

One of the popular items developed at WallStreetFollies.com was a diagram of various relationships between major players in the stock market, and various companies - some of which were accused of poor accounting - or worse.

Since then, we've spent time developing diagrams for a wide range of subjects. Those not related to the Bible may be found at threetwoone.org, and include such topics as the War of the Roses and Global Connections