The Torah Atlas

event · E0005

Destruction of the First Temple חורבן בית ראשון

After a two-year siege, Nevuchadnetzar's army breached Jerusalem; Nevuzaradan burned the House of God, the king's palace, and every great house in the city, and carried Yehudah into exile in Bavel. Four centuries of the Temple-centered order ended in a single day — the Ninth of Av — and the mesorah went into exile with the people, beginning the seventy years of Galut Bavel.

I. Who

Hebrew
חורבן בית ראשון
Also known as
Churban Bayit Rishon
Era
bible

II. When

Traditional
9 Av, 3338 AM (423 BCE by traditional reckoning)
Academic
586 BCE
Date range
423 BCE (traditional) / 586 BCE (academic)
Precision
exact

III. Where

Places
Jerusalem

V. How do we know

ClaimEvidenceConfidenceSources
Nevuzaradan, captain of the guard of the king of Bavel, burned the House of God, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; the remnant of the people was carried into exile.
Confidence is for what the biblical text states.
 biblical ★★★★★
Rabbinic tradition fixes the day as the Ninth of Av — the same date it assigns the Second Temple's destruction — and Seder Olam narrates the siege from Nevuchadnetzar's investment of the city in Tzidkiyahu's ninth year to the burning in his eleventh. rabbinic tradition ★★★★☆
The two chronologies part company here, and the atlas states both plainly. Traditional Seder Olam dating places the churban at 3338 AM, which the atlas's anchor (3830 AM = 70 CE) renders as 423 BCE. Academic chronology, anchored in Babylonian administrative and astronomical records, places it in 586 BCE. The ~166-year divergence lies almost entirely in the Persian period: Seder Olam counts about 34 years of Persian rule over the Second Temple — telescoping the kings ("he is Koresh, he is Daryavesh, he is Artachshasta") — where Greek and Persian sources count over two centuries. Neither system is adjusted to fit the other anywhere in this atlas; every AM date is traditional, every BCE/CE academic date is given as such.
Confidence is that each system says what is stated here, not a judgment between them.
tradition external ★★★★☆

Referenced by: Galut Bavel