Biblical Chronology Research

The work

Biblical Chronology Research is a multidisciplinary independent research program on the chronology of the second millennium BCE and the synchronization of textual and archaeological evidence for the Bronze Age. Its central argument places the biblical Exodus tradition at approximately 1610–1606 BCE — in the immediate aftermath of the Minoan eruption of Thera and during the terminal collapse of the Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty at Avaris (Tell el-Dab'a, Eastern Nile Delta). The complete framework is set out in the two-volume book below; the monograph and working paper that underpin it follow.

The book

The 1600 Protocol is the unified statement of the framework: the whole argument assembled in one place, every load-bearing claim graded for confidence and every part stating what would break it. It draws the program's two lines together — the world-historical 1600 BCE Horizon and the biblical-historical Sinai Convergence — and anchors both to a single radiocarbon-dated event, the Minoan eruption of Thera (~1611 BCE). The claim is not that the eruption caused the Exodus, but that the two are one compressed window of history seen from two sides, anchored together so that each becomes more testable.

The work is published in two volumes. Volume I — The Synthesis lays out the argument in four parts, from the eruption and the systemic disruption through the chronological spine and the Sinai Convergence to the unification. Volume II — The Field Directive turns each falsification criterion into a named site, a named technology, and a result stated in advance that would confirm or end the framework — twenty-one operations in all. It is offered as an apparatus to be tested, not a thesis to be defended.

The monograph

The framework is anchored to Felix Höflmayer's high radiocarbon chronology for the MB/LB transition; to Sturt Manning's 2024 Bayesian refinement of Thera radiocarbon (1612–1602 BCE 1σ); to Hendrik Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht's 2025 Ahmose Gap; to Manfred Bietak's Tell el-Dab'a stratigraphy; to Drews's wind setdown model for the Yam Suph crossing; to Erez Ben-Yosef's Nomadic Complexity model for the wilderness period; and to the Jericho radiocarbon horizon (3306 ± 7 BP). Eight parts. Twenty-six thousand words. Every part carries explicit falsification criteria. The framework is offered as a working hypothesis to be tested, not a finished claim.

Working papers

Companion working papers extend the monograph's framework to adjacent questions in Bronze Age chronology and Mediterranean systemic history. Each is independently citable, deposited at Zenodo under its own DOI, and supplementary to The Sinai Convergence.

Between approximately 1650 and 1520 BCE, a geographically unprecedented number of Bronze Age complex societies across Europe and the Mediterranean underwent collapse, transformation, or terminal reorganization — the Únětice culture in Central Europe, the El Argar polity in southeastern Iberia, the Neopalatial civilization on Crete, the tell-based Ottomány–Füzesabony cultures of the Carpathian Basin, and the Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty at Tell el-Dab'a — while Scandinavia experienced not collapse but the "breakthrough" of the Nordic Bronze Age. The paper maps these synchronous terminations against the updated radiocarbon chronology for the Thera eruption and argues that the primary mechanism of transmission was not volcanic winter but trade-network severance: the eruption destroyed the Aegean maritime hub connecting Mediterranean, Central European, and Atlantic trade networks. Companion to The Sinai Convergence.

About the author

"I find the historical core in the chaotic information mass."

Balázs T. Kiss (also writing as Kiss Balázs Tibor) is a Researcher, Data Analyst based in Bavaria, Germany, working on Bronze Age chronology, biblical archaeology, and the synchronization of textual and archaeological evidence for the second millennium BCE.

He works without institutional affiliation, drawing on radiocarbon physics, Bayesian methods, stratigraphic geology, and biogeochemistry alongside the textual and archaeological tradition. The work is openly deposited under CC-BY-NC-ND on Zenodo to invite testing and critique. He is of Hungarian-Jewish heritage on his maternal line and Lutheran formation by upbringing; the work brackets the question of religious historicity and treats biblical traditions as historical sources to be critically evaluated, neither affirmed nor denied as theological claims.

Channels

• BCR SubstackLong-form essays on the framework
• Biblical Chronology ReportWeekly intelligence brief — evidence regardless of effect
• X / @BiblChronoRsrchDaily research notes and field updates
• Knowledge Commons · The 1600 ProtocolThe book — unified framework, two volumes (open access)
• Zenodo · The Sinai ConvergenceThe foundational monograph (open access)
• Zenodo · The 1600 BCE HorizonWorking Paper No. 2 — pan-European Bronze Age systemic disruption
• ORCID0009-0001-2992-590X
• OSFOpen Science Framework deposit
• Academia.eduProfile and papers
• LinkedInProfessional profile
• THERA AIResearch assistant trained on the monograph

Citation

@book{kiss2026protocol,
  author    = {Kiss, Balázs T.},
  title     = {The 1600 Protocol: The Thera Eruption, the
               Bronze Age Disruption, and the Exodus ---
               A Unified Framework},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Knowledge Commons},
  edition   = {Volumes I--II},
  doi       = {10.17613/7m2yy-sht83},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.17613/7m2yy-sht83},
  note      = {The unified statement of the Biblical
               Chronology Research framework}
}

@misc{kiss2026sinai,
  author    = {Kiss, Balázs T.},
  title     = {The Sinai Convergence: A Multi-Disciplinary
               Case for the ~1610 BCE Exodus},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.20072469},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20072469},
  note      = {A work of the Biblical Chronology Research program}
}

@techreport{kiss2026horizon,
  author      = {Kiss, Balázs T.},
  title       = {The 1600 BCE Horizon: A Pan-European and
                 Mediterranean Systemic Disruption --
                 Synchronous Cultural Terminations,
                 Trade-Network Severance, and the Thera
                 Eruption},
  year        = {2026},
  institution = {Biblical Chronology Research},
  number      = {Working Paper No. 2},
  type        = {Working Paper},
  publisher   = {Zenodo},
  doi         = {10.5281/zenodo.20128935},
  url         = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20128935},
  note        = {Companion to Kiss (2026), The Sinai Convergence,
                 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20072469}
}

Contact

For correspondence on the framework, the monograph, or related research questions: biblical.chronology.research@gmail.com