Bible dateing methods

[artybloke]

So then why the geneology? To me it's an obvious family tree.

Have you never read historical fiction? They often have genealogies in them - including family trees. Doesn't make it any less fiction though. (Not that Genesis belongs to the genre "historical fiction" though...)

Actually, the British Royal family is supposedly descended from a mythical figure - King Arthur...

 

[shernren]

So the ancients did not use genealogies to count the passage of time? Yet YEC opponents, and Global Flood opponents are sure that Chinese empires, and Egyptian Dynasties can be calculated to discount the biblical chronology. The pagan chronologies are to be taken seriously, but the biblical ones are not? hmmmmm. I see. Thanks.

It isn't pagan chronologies vs. Bible chronologies. It's scientific radiodecay theoretical understanding vs. a straight-laced move-an-inch-and-you're-a-heretic literal hermeneutical approach to origins passages. I've never really heard of calculating pagan chronologies to refute Bible chronologies, so I do hope you'd broaden my understanding?

At what point does the Bible begin to present historical fact? The sons of Adam mentioned by Name in Hebrews and by Jesus are not literal? How about Noah, mentioned by Jesus and Peter? Was Joseph literal? Was Israel in Egypt? Was there an Israel? Did Abraham Lincoln exist? Julius Caesar? Richard Nixon?

Where does it start and stop?

I'd say at Adam, but that's my personal slant. The more important question, though, is where do Jews begin isolating the historical as a proper type of truth and start worrying about whether a certain piece of Scripture is history or not? I'm honestly not 100% sure myself, but I think there's a good chance of it being somewhere around Genesis 12.