The Story of Scripture

01Beginnings

Creation & the Beginnings

Primeval history — Genesis 1–11

Primary Scripture Genesis 1–11

The Bible opens not with a nation but with the world: creation, the first people, and humanity spreading across the earth. These chapters set the terms for everything after — a good creation, a broken relationship, and a God who keeps speaking.

02Beginnings

The Patriarchs

Commonly placed in the early 2nd millennium BC

Primary Scripture Genesis 12–50

The story narrows to one family. God calls Abraham out of Mesopotamia and makes a promise — land, descendants, and blessing that reaches every nation. The rest of the Bible keeps returning to that promise.

03Nation

The Exodus

Often placed in the 2nd millennium BC; the precise date is debated

Primary Scripture Exodus – Deuteronomy

Israel is enslaved in Egypt. God calls Moses, delivers the people, and meets them at Sinai — where a rescued crowd is given a law and becomes a nation bound to God by covenant.

04Nation

The Promised Land

Late Bronze to early Iron Age

Primary Scripture Joshua – Judges

Israel enters Canaan and settles it — a long, uneven process. There is no king yet. Leadership falls to judges raised up in emergencies, and the book that records them is candid about how badly things often went.

05Kingdom

The Kingdom

Commonly dated to around the 10th century BC

Primary Scripture 1 Samuel – 1 Kings

Israel asks for a king. Saul is anointed, David unites the tribes and takes Jerusalem, and Solomon builds the temple. The promise made to Abraham now has a capital, a throne, and a house for worship.

06Kingdom

The Divided Kingdom

From the late 10th century BC

Primary Scripture 1 Kings – 2 Chronicles

After Solomon the kingdom splits — Israel in the north, Judah in the south. Two capitals, two royal lines, and centuries of prophets calling both back to the covenant.

07Exile

Exile & Return

Commonly dated 586–539 BC and after

Primary Scripture 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah

Jerusalem falls and the temple is destroyed. Judah is carried to Babylon. Decades later, under Persian rule, exiles return to a ruined city and begin again — rebuilding the temple, then the walls.

08Prophets

The Prophets

Spanning roughly the 8th to 5th centuries BC

Primary Scripture Isaiah – Malachi

The prophets are not a separate age so much as a thread running through several. They confront kings, warn of consequence, defend the poor, and hold out a hope that outlasts the nation itself.

09Gospels

The Life of Jesus

Commonly dated to the first three decades of the 1st century AD

Primary Scripture Matthew – John

Jesus of Nazareth is born in Judea under Roman rule, is baptised by John, and spends roughly three years teaching, healing, and gathering followers — mostly around Galilee, and finally in Jerusalem.

11Acts

The Early Church

From around AD 30

Primary Scripture Acts 1–12

At Pentecost the followers of Jesus begin preaching publicly in Jerusalem. A movement forms — meeting in homes, sharing possessions, and drawing in people well beyond the community it started in.

12Acts – Epistles

The Spread of the Gospel

Mid to late 1st century AD

Primary Scripture Acts 13–28 and the letters

Paul and others travel the Mediterranean planting communities and writing letters back to them. Those letters — practical, occasional, addressed to real congregations with real problems — become much of the New Testament.

13Scripture

Scripture Through History

From antiquity to the printing press

Scripture reached us through centuries of copying, collecting, and translating. Understanding that process does not weaken the Bible — it is how the Bible survived.

14Scripture

The Bible Today

The present

The Bible is now read in more languages than any other book, and translation continues. It is studied in universities, argued over, preached from, and read aloud in small churches on country roads — including this one.