Biblical Timeline

An interactive timeline of Biblical events — from Creation to the close of the apostolic age — shown alongside notable, orthogonal world events happening at the same time (the pyramids, Hammurabi, the Olympics, Confucius, Rome…).

Built with React 19 + Vite 7. The timeline itself is plain SVG rendered by React — no charting library.

Features

• Pan & zoom: drag to pan, scroll/pinch to zoom (8-year to 4,000-year spans), with zoom buttons and keyboard support (arrow keys, +/-, Home)
• Two tracks: Biblical events above the axis (gold), world events below (blue), each toggleable
• Ten era bands from Creation & Primeval History to the Early Church, with one-click era navigation
• Event details: click any marker for date, location, scripture reference, and a short summary, with earlier/later stepping
• Search across titles, descriptions, scripture references, and places
• Minimap overview strip showing where you are in the full sweep of history
• Responsive layout for narrow screens

Getting started

npm install
npm run dev       # development server
npm run build     # production build to dist/
npm run preview   # serve the production build

Deployment

The app deploys to GitHub Pages at https://theonize.github.io/timeline/.

Every push to main triggers the Deploy to GitHub Pages workflow, which builds the app and publishes dist/ via the official Pages actions. One-time setup: in the repository settings under Settings → Pages, set Source to GitHub Actions.

To deploy manually from a local checkout instead (publishes dist/ to a gh-pages branch):

npm run deploy

(If using the manual route, set the Pages source to the gh-pages branch instead.)

Data

All events live in JSON files under src/data/eras/, one file per era/epoch, loaded automatically in filename order. Adding an event or a whole era requires no code changes — see the schema in src/data/README.md.

Years are integers: negative = BC, positive = AD.

A note on dates

Ancient chronology is genuinely uncertain and often debated. Dates here follow a traditional conservative reckoning (Ussher-style primeval dates, the "early" Exodus date of 1446 BC, crucifixion c. AD 30/33), with most events flagged approximate (c.). World-event dates follow conventional scholarly dating. The point is the shape of the story, not precision to the year.