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This article is meant to be a chronological listing of events dated according to the assumptions of the time line. To avoid argument, and in spirit of the theme, the dividing point of the time line is the Great Flood (in OTL an act of judgment, but in this time line the consequence of man's actions alone).


The characters of the ancient mideast are taken from the Biblical record, but their nature may be changed due to no interaction with the Divine. There are "good guys" and "bad guys," but no knowledge of what difference that might make in the long run. The abbreviations for this time line are TM (teram madul: before the flood) and AM (akhar madul: after the flood) At times common dating from OTL will be used for reference. For reference, and identical to our "Anno Mundo" is the Hebrew "ST" (shenah tebel). As the time line comes into the Roman era, a dual time stamp may be used for a while, and then a merger into a fully Roman dating (assuming editors do not find another dominant power to use as a standard.

Calendars Compared
World
ST
Flood
TM/AM
Roman
PU/AU
Christian
BC/AD
Event(s)
1 1656 TM 3241 PU 4004 BC The first humans emerge from the rainforest.
1656 0 1585 PU 2348 BC The Great Cataclysm results in the end of the Age of the Ancients
3241 1584 AM 1 AU 753 BC The founding of the city of Rome
4006 2351 AM 752 AU AD 2 Twins Simon and Yosef born in Nazareth
4031 2376 AM 777 AU AD 28 Simon the Nazarene raises a band of "zealots"
4036 2381 AM 782 AU AD 33 Yosef, the Twin, takes his brother's place on a Roman cross
Simon goes into hiding for a time
4074 2418 AM 823 AU AD 70 The destruction of Yeru-Shelem

The Age of the Ancients[]

The tribe grows[]

  • 1656 TM. The first humans, self named "Adam" and "Khavah," emerge from the ancient forest, having inadvertently caused cosmic changes to the universe.
  • 1654 TM. The first child is born, the father of the Qeni.
  • 1650 TM. The first village is established as the first family has its second child, father of the Khabli.
  • 1649 TM. The first female children are born - twin girls who grow to be the mothers of the Qeni and Khabli, respectively.
  • 1640 TM. The first village is established. Mankind numbers fifteen individuals: two parents, six boys and seven girls.
  • 1638 TM. The first grandchild is born - a girl.
  • To be continued.

Division[]

  • 1526 TM. Tensions grow within the tribe, resulting in the murder of Khab'l by Qen.
  • 1524 TM. Shet is born to Khavah in her "old" age, much to the surprise of the whole tribe. Shet would be her sixty-fifth child, and first in over twenty years.
  • 1522 TM. Qen establishes a city after taking his faction to live apart from those that wanted him dead.
  • To be continued.

The Rise of the Ancients[]

  • 1400 TM. Qeni explorers return to the original rainforest, discovering the "tree of life" with fruit to effectively stop the aging process.
  • 1340 TM. Qeni warriors defeat the Khabli defenders of the rainforest, taking many to act as slaves in the processing plants that refine the fruit into "the cure," and elixir that grants a select few (mostly men) "eternal life."
  • 1300 TM. Khabli slave rebellion fails, but some escape with supplies of the elixir. They blend in with the Sheti, and a "super-race" develops among the offspring of the women who have taken the elixir.
  • 1200 TM. The first manned spaceflight by the Qeni elite (the "Ancients") as they harness deep earth minerals that prove to have enormous energy locked within them. They also use this energy source to power their continuing wars with both the Sheti and the Khabli.
  • To be continued.

Noakh and the Flood[]

  • 600 TM. Noakh is born to Lemekh, the third memorable occasion in his family in his 163 years. When he had been a relatively young man of 56, the founder of the human race, Adam, died at the age of 930 years. And then, only fourteen years before Noakh was born Lamekh's grandfather Enokh disappeared in what was said to have been the first manned "hyperdrive" flight in between the planets of the solar system. Enokh had been rumored to have taken the elixir, though most Sheti shunned the drug.
  • 480 TM. After a thousand years of second-class status under the Khablishet (the inter-married and elixir-altered super-race), a rebellion arose among the Sheti. Noakh became a leader of the rebellion and the Khablishet eventually decided to ally with the Qeni in plans to colonize other planets in the galaxy.
  • 250 TM. Mining of deep earth minerals begins to cause tremors felt hundreds of miles from the mine shafts. Oddly, the shafts themselves remain unscathed, so mining continues.
  • 225 TM. The last of the active Ancients leave the earth in "Star ships" for nearby star systems that have been found to support life. The systems, within 100 light years, had been found by expeditions over 200 years before. Judging from the laser burst messages, the "hyper-drive" had allowed the travelers apparent speeds far greater than light. However, the apparent speeds had actually been just short of the speed of light, effectively slowing time inside the "hyper-sphere" within which they traveled.
  • 120 TM Noakh collects intelligence which indicates that the earth will experience a mass-extinction event in about 120 years, by all credible calculations. The technology of the Ancients had all but been lost, so abandoning the planet was not an option. He began research to find out if the coming catastrophe was survivable.
  • 100 TM Noakh begins work on his fortress/vessel.
  • Year 0. For just over a year, the deluge destroys the world just as Noakh's calculations had predicted. Remarkably, his fortress floated above the rolling hills that had been characteristic of the world he knew. However, as the flood waters receded, he could tell that more that water had been destroying the world. His floating fortress lands in mountains more than twice as tall as anything he has ever known.

Rise of the nations[]

Starting Over[]

1 AM. After leaving the ark, Noakh and his family set about rebuilding a world with the animals they had retained as "domesticated." These included those that were those that had reproduced within the ark, getting a head start on repopulating the earth. Other animals, which Noakh had kept sedated for over a year, were slowly brought back to their natural wild state and released into the wild, with hope that they to would survive. Most did, for there was ample carrion that had not been buried in oceans of mud.

Meanwhile, the third generation of post-flood humanity began as all three sons sired children within what Noakh called Year 1, AM (akhar madul: "after the flood") This new calendar would continue in effect for two and a half millennia, going in to disuse only after a band of Yahudi committed suicide while taking a "last stand" for the remnant of that noble race's claim to a "home land."

As the year went on, Sem noted that the moon's were taking a little less time, on the average of a half day per cycle to be more exact, and the first seasonal reckoning of the sun's setting points had changed a bit as well. As the years went by, that change would increase by over a day per season. But at first, only the months seemed "off." In that first year, three sons were born. The son of Kham, the youngest of the brothers (all over one hundred years old, though their wives were still in their fifties), was born first and was named Kenñan. Over the years the descendants of this man would be the first to dwell in the land collectively called Yacob in later times.

2 AM. After that first year, Noakh would begin a garden, hoping to recreate the perfection that legend said had been in mankind's first days - or perhaps years, for the stories were garbled over time. In the cool foothills of what came to be known as Ararat, the first crop to do well was a vineyard of dark purple grapes. And in the course of time, following a well-used recipe from the old world, he made his first batch of wine. His son Kham joined him in a festival of drinking and remembering the old days. Noakh was not comfortable with some of the stories that his son related of the life he "missed," of old friends that he had failed to convince to join them in their floating fortress.

As all the women except Noakh's wife were very pregnant in a second round of children, and his other two sons were out tending the flocks (Kham being the only "farmer" among the three), the party included only the three - father, mother, and youngest son. As they drank, reason and common decency were discarded. Late into the night they were acting like animals - all three naked as the day they were born. The men "shared" the woman, and flaked out cold in the tent. Kham, being the youngest, awoke first, sober enough only to tie a loin cloth around himself and stumble out into the chill of the morning. The wives had been staying together (helping each other in their pregnancies) and so his brothers had been alone in their own tents - unaware of the orgy that had occurred. Kham found Sem, telling him only that their father was drunk. Sem awoke Yefet and they rushed over to find their parents lying naked, their mother apparently bruised quite badly. The two were covered with heavy linen blankets and allowed to awake on their own. Their mother was never the same after that.

4 AM. Noakh, then 605 years old, buries his wife of 107 years. She was a "young" 127. She had never recovered from the rape of that night of celebration, by all accounts fully insane. She was survived by her husband, three sons and seven grandchildren, never having recognized the last four. Noah would live for another 345 years, becoming more and more recluse as the years went on. However, as his descendants multiplied, many revered him as almost a god. Legends, in fact would make him a "god" who would be honored and worshiped throughout the world.

The families of Sem and Yepet lived peacefully for years together, having shunned their younger brother for the shameful thing that he had done in a drunken fit of passion. Noakh had given them his blessings, but had cursed the day that Kham AND his children had been born. It would be generations before the three clans would be joined once again -- under the skillful and crafty grandson of Kham -- Nimrod. Nimrod would not claim to be a god, but instead, would set out to prove that all mankind could be as great as the legendary ancients - if only they would work together.

The Rise and Fall of Babel[]

145 AM. Even as a young man, Nimrod had proven very resourceful. Never really trusting his grandfather, he nonetheless honored Kham for his resourcefulness in exile. The Khami had grown from the four people shunned by the others to a tribe of over 30,000 by the time Nimrod had reached his prime. By that time, they had come along with the rest of mankind to the plains between two rivers. There they reconciled in order to survive in the changing climate of the still "new" world. Mountains kept them from going too far, and fighting became counter productive. In the course of two hundred years, though, each tribe had begun to take on its own characteristics. But their languages were still but dialects of their parents' tongue.

This worked well for Nimrod as he "worked the crowd" over the course of a generation of mingling of the tribes. Proving himself skillful with both human manipulation and war with outlying sub-tribes (he called it "hunting"), he built an empire of city-states, the city of Bab-El (Gate to the Mighty Ones) as the capital. This city was built in honor of the ancients, who had long ago left the earth in ships much like the tower he was building on a much larger scale. In the end, this tower reached into the clouds -- the height of a thousand normal men. Using a great iron rod, he drew "fire" from the clouds and wondered if he could harness the power. His teams of the best thinkers he could assemble tried many things, eventually channeling the lightening to the ground where it still had enough heat to ignite fuel to be used in various processes -- such as hardening mud and clay.

250 AM. Mankind had grown to about a million people, scattered over several hundred sq mi, when the reign of Nimrod grew to a sudden close. His great uncles, sons of Father Noakh, 850 years old, all were honored more than he was. He had found that even his grandfather Kham was becoming hard to manage. Whatever he did to "impress" the people seemed to just make things worse. Civil war loomed as he feared an overthrow. Fearing the worst, he schemed to have the patriarchs killed. This was his downfall. As the sun set into the year's longest night, the uprising began. The tower became his prison, as thousands of servants refused to come from surrounding farms and villages to serve their masters. The thousand or so that lived at the tower began to fend for themselves, using up stored food in hopes to make it until the next harvest.

Rather than attack the tower, though, the patriarchs scattered in all directions. None stayed within sight of the mile-high structure. The closest city to flourish was one founded by Shem's son Ur, down river from the tower. Sem, himself, though, had not gone with him. Instead, he had migrated with some of his other sons up the Tigris toward the Western Sea. Kham ended up leading his tribes down into the fertile plains near the Western Sea. Yepet disappeared north, along with many of his tribes as well, in search of the ark and whatever secrets it held. Others of his tribe migrated east and south to see what lay in what had been the "land of Nod" in the days before the flood.


More to come ...

Rise of the Abrami[]

Abram[]

See Main article: Abram

291 AM. Abram was born in the city-state of ancient Ur. Not far from Babel, Ur had been founded by Ur (meaning "light"), the grandson of Noakh, builder of the large survival ship that had saved mankind from itself. Ur was the son of Sem, a man who had refused to be called a "god," though he had been alive through the whole aborted rise of Babel to the north of Ur. At the time of Abram's birth, Ur had come to be called a god in the place of his father. Ur, though hundreds of years old, was said to have been still living.

321 AM. Abram's father Terah had been a leader in Ur worship, having slain his own son (Abram's brother Haran) in defense of Ur worship, left the city and traveled upriver to a town he would rename "Haran." This was to perpetuate the lie he had told to Haran's son Lot concerning his father's death.

356 AM. Terah dies at the hands of his grandson when the truth came out. That crime would result in Abram taking Lot with him to protect the family name. Most of the refugees had come to admit that Ur was just a very old man. Some of them, like Abram, felt strongly that there was a higher being who had to have made everything that existed sometime before Noakh had survived the catyclism.

Abram, whose name meant "exalted father," had been given his half-sister Sarai in marriage by Terah in an attempt to preserve his hold on the family's loyalty to Ur. It had not worked, and Sarai had refused to accept Abram's seed until she had reached an age that was past child bearing. Abram, in return, had resorted to prostitutes when he wanted the pleasure of a woman in his bed. By the time he had left Heran, though, he too had considered himself too old for younger women. Sarai, meanwhile, had found a black market supplier for the youth-restoring elixir that the Khami had sythesised from the cache of the extract that Kham had taken aboard the ark. It did not restore true youth, but it did give an appearance of youth and a measure of vitality unknown to those above fifty years old. In her old age she had come to accept that Abram was the only man she would ever share a bed with. He had taken her into his tent for the first time since the disaster of a "wedding night" when she was seventy and he eighty. No children, of course, were expected.

368 AM. In the course of time, in a trip down into the land of the Mitsraim to escape a famine, Abram had lied about his relationship with Sarai, and consequently lost her to the harem of the Pharaoh. As a consolation, he was given a young female servant from among the lower class of the Mitsraim. This girl, sixty years Abram's junior, would produce two children for him. After a long life with Abram, she would die of a disease contracted in her home province on a visit. Abram proved to have a capacity to sire children far beyond the expected years, though, and produced several more children with his third wife Keturah. He truly lived up to a nickname given to him by his ancient mentor Sem before he died - Ab-Raham, father of multitudes.

Yitskaq[]

See main article: Yitskaq

393 AM. Yitskaq is born to Abram and Hagar. Born to his mother after a period of infertility, the youngster proved to be his father's favorite son. This would cause problems with not only his full brother Ishmael, but his half brothers born later to Abram's third wife Keturah. Yitskaq would have twins, Eshu and Yacob, who would be the forefathers of the nation that would be called Yitskaq in his honor.

Yaqob and `Eshu[]

The Yitskaqi[]

Rise of the Ashuri[]

More to come ...

Rise of the Babilli[]

More to come ...

Alexander the Great[]

Rise of Rome[]

Rise of the Natsareti[]

The times were hard in the land of the Yahudi. As a Roman province, the area called "Iudae" was a little more than the western bank of the Jordan River. This included the small village of Natsaret, a short distance from a large lake called "Kinneret," a quiet town looked on by a Roman garrison in nearby Sepphoris. It was not the type of place from which a rebellion would rise.

Or so the Roman Government thought.

750 AU (2349 AM). A man named Yosef took for himself a bride named Miryam. Yosef, a technician by trade, was said to have been a direct descendant of the last sitting king of the Dawid dynasty of Yahuda, the last remaining kingdom of the Yitzkaqi. His bride, having a name meaning "rebellious," was a descendant of the great hero of Abrami history, Aharon. Her name, though, did not describe her, but was taken from that same history -- the original Miryam had been Aharon's sister who like her brother had been an Egyptian slave before a rebellion that joined with troops their brother Mosheh when he returned to liberate his people. No one, though, expected such a couple of being rebels. But Yosef was indeed a part of a movement that wanted the Roman government out of the land.

752 AU, twins were born in Natsaret, Yosef and Simeon. A rare set of identical twins, one would grow up to be a rebel, and the other an unknown carpenter. Simeon, the second born, would prove to be a strong and active zealot for the cause of Yahudi freedom. Yosef, the twin, while retaining the right of the firstborn, was almost invisible in the town.

782. The people of Yeru-Shalem learned of Simeon Natsareti, known widely as simply The Zealot. For three years his band of rebels caused as stir in all of Yahuda, raising concern with the sitting puppet king Herod Antipas and the Roman curate Pontius Pilate. In the weeks leading up the spring equinox festival spies within the Roman camp - Jahudi servants to the centurion - got word out that an ambush was planned to take Simeon alone in ambush during the celebration. Messengers came to his camp to warn him, but found Yosef instead. The Twin had come for a visit and his brother had left on an errand.

In one of those twists of fate historians love to imagine, Yosef decided to take a chance that one man could "save the movement" by an unexpected sacrifice. When his brother came back, he had prepared him a meal. He included a drugged beverage that would within hours put Simeon into a stupor that he would not recover from for weeks. In the cover of night, Yosef took his brother back to Natsaret. He returned the next day to Yeru-Shalem. Leading a parade into the town on the tenth day of the Yahudi month of Nissan, Yosef looked every bit as much the rebel as his brother. Only the closest of Simeon's followers knew the difference. As only he knew, Roman conspirators had arranged a party in the name of a leading resistance member, sending an invitation to Simeon. All the leaders of the movement were to be there. When Yosef showed up, he was the one of three "guests." All three were arrested and brought before the Roman government for trial. All three were executed on crosses outside of the city. It seemed that the Zealot movement was dead.

Pontius Pilate, basking in the glory of this victory, petitioned the emperor Tiberius for a promotion. Herod Antipas would fail in his attempt to be "crowned king" of all of Yahuda because of infighting in his family, but things took a good turn for him in the eyes of the Romans as well. Meanwhile, though, Simeon Zealotes was not dead.

783. By the next spring, in fact, his followers thought he was a "god" who had risen from the garbage pit into which he and his cohorts had been thrown after the crucifixion. It was not unheard of among the various myths going all the way back to the founding of Egypt (Mitsra) and Rome for heroes to come back to life, And now it had happened among the Yahudi! Success was assured.

783 - 823. For the next forty years, in fact, the Natsareti, as they began to be known, followed the charismatic Simeon in a quiet movement among the dispersed Yahudi from Alexandria to the shores of Spain. He picked up a young follower by the name of Shaul - a descendant, some said, of the first king of the united kingdom of Yitskaq. Shaul proved to be an able spokesman for the ideals of freedom and liberty of all Yahudi. Shaul would die in the siege of Yeru-Shalem in 823 AU.

845. Simeon is last seen still alive by his cousin Yahonan on a visit to Ephesus. Strangely, Simeon had retained his youth all those years. Some historians suspect that he had access to the last stock of the ancient elixir from prehistoric days. Others reject tales of the elixir as myth, attributing the Zealot's long life to diet and exercise - along with expert cosmetics. Either way, though, nothing was seen of the man after his 95th birthday.

However, the Natsareti survived, quietly influencing Yahudi and Romans alike with a simple belief in an unknown but certain higher being, a true "god" that they knew had to be a lot like Simeon Natsareti. Years later, near the fall of Rome itself, a rival group of believers would arise from Abrami descended from Ishmael and the Ketarahim, but the way of the Natsarim would one day be known on every continent on earth.

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