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| c. 1200 BCE | Israelites settle in Canaan. |
| c. 1020 BCE | Saul anointed first king of Israel. |
| c. 1000–961 BCE | King David rules over a united Israel. |
| c. 965 BCE | King Solomon begins building the First Temple in Jerusalem. |
| c. 922 BCE | The united Israelite kingdom splits in two—the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. |
| 722 BCE | Sargon II of Assyria conquers the Northern Kingdom and exiles many of the inhabitants. |
| 586 BCE | Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia conquers Judah, destroys the Temple, and exiles thousands to Babylon. |
| 538 BCE | King Cyrus of Persia conquers Babylonia and allows Jews to return to the land of Israel (though many choose to remain in Babylonia). |
| c. 516 BCE | The Second Temple is built in Jerusalem. |
| 332 BCE | Alexander the Great conquers the Persian Empire, including the land of Israel. |
| 3rd century BCE | Early Jewish prayer houses are documented in the Diaspora. |
| c. 167 BCE | The Maccabean revolt against the Syrian Greeks achieves relative independence for the Jews. The holiday of Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Temple. |
| 63 BCE | The Roman Empire controls the land of Israel; the area called Judea (including Jerusalem) becomes a client kingdom of Rome. |
| 37 BCE | King Herod of Judea refurbishes the Second Temple. |
| 6 CE | Rome annexes Judea. |
| 66 CE | The first Jewish revolt against Rome begins. |
| 68 CE | Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai receives permission from Roman authorities to establish a rabbinical academy in the coastal city of Yavneh. This helps set the stage for the emergence of modern rabbinic Judaism. |
| 70 CE | The Romans destroy Jerusalem and the Second Temple. |
| 132–135 CE | Shimon bar-Kokhba leads the second Jewish revolt against Rome. Roman Emperor Hadrian eventually crushes the rebellion and expels the Jews from Jerusalem. |
| c. 210 CE | Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi edits the Mishnah. |
| c. 400 CE | The Palestinian Talmud is completed. |
| c. 499 CE | The Babylonian Talmud is completed. |
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Note: Scholars disagree on the exact dates of some events in Israel’s ancient history. The dates in this chronology are drawn from the Encyclopedia Judaica, CD-ROM, version 1.0. (Jerusalem: Judaica Multimedia, 1997) and The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: The Israel Excavation Society & Carta, 1993).