People and genealogy

The people of Scripture

The people this site has written or filed, set in the period each one stands in, from before Abraham to the letters of the apostles.

Summary

111 lives are written here in full, and 117 more names carry a register row with the verses that hold them. Five studies take a whole group at once and are counted apart.

Genesis opens with every nation. It narrows to the family God calls in Abraham.
The family goes into Egypt, comes out under Moses, and takes the land under Joshua.
Judges lead until Israel asks for a king. Then 39 reigns follow the split.
Assyria takes the north and Babylon the south. Persia sends the people home.
The Gospels open four hundred years later. The Twelve carry the story into Acts.

The people by era

Show the groups

Five walks across the familyeach takes a whole group at once0 group studies
Before AbrahamAdam to the tower1 in the register
Egypt and the wildernessMoses to the plains of Moab1 in the register
Exile and returnBabylon to the Persian years1 written life
Jesus and the Gospelsthe birth to the ascension2 in the register
The church, from Acts onwardPaul, his circle and the letters1 in the register

Before Abraham

The first eleven chapters of Genesis, from the garden to Babel. The rest of Scripture keeps looking back to these names.

1 in the register

The register: 1 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

CainAdam's firstborn; the first murderer, who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy and became the archetype of the way of self-will (Jude 11)8 passages

Back to Before Abraham

Egypt and the wilderness

The generation that left Egypt, took the law at Sinai, and died in the desert. Its leaders and its rebels are both here.

1 in the register

The register: 1 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

CalebOf Judah, one of the twelve spies — the man of another spirit who wholly followed Jehovah; one of only two of the census generation to enter the land, still claiming his mountain at eighty-five16 passages

Back to Egypt and the wilderness

Exile and return

The people who kept faith in a foreign court, and the ones who came back to build. Two empires and their kings stand here too.

1 written life

Cyrus the GreatThe founder of the Persian Empire, named by Isaiah about 150 years before his birthGustave Doré, Cyrus Restores the Vessels of the Temple (1866)

Jesus and the Gospels

The Twelve stand here, where a reader first meets them, with the family, the friends, the rulers who tried Jesus, and the witnesses of the resurrection.

2 in the register

The register: 2 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

Back to Jesus and the Gospels

The church, from Acts onward

Paul and his circle, the men and women of Acts, and the churches the letters were written to. The Twelve stand one period back, where they were called.

1 in the register

The register: 1 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

CorneliusA Roman centurion of the Italian band at Caesarea — devout, generous, praying, and uncircumcised1 passage

Back to The church, from Acts onward

Keep studying

Each of the 111 written lives cites the chapters it stands on. A name here is a way into the text.

Read it2

On this page

Subjects3

Where they stood3

The written lives come from this site’s own character pages. The register rows come from its person dossiers. The number in a register row is how many passages Orville J. Nave lists under that name in Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a public domain work.