Command documentation

timeline

Build chronology for textual, historical, witness, or source events.

Purpose

This command is available over HTTP, MCP and the local CLI. HTTP responses use the compact public response shape with summaries, warnings and bounded tables.

MCP connection

Use endpoint https://bible.grod.es/mcp with tool bible_timeline. The MCP Server Card is /.well-known/mcp/server-card.json.

Parameters

Name	Required	Description
`target`	yes	Object whose chronology should be built: reference, book, passage, source, witness, entity, topic, or textual unit. Target grammar: natural Bible reference, or prefix:value. Examples: Deut 32:8, John 1, ref:Deut 32:8, strong:H7225, entity:Paul, source:LXX, variant:<id>, resource:<id>.
`limit`	no	Maximum chronology rows. Timeline needs more rows than synthesis to remain useful; rows are ordered chronologically when dates exist and by stable canonical/source order otherwise. Default 50, max 200.
`view`	no	Timeline shape, such as layered or earliest. layered groups event families; earliest focuses on first known signals.
`include`	no	Chronology layers to include, such as witnesses, history, sources, variants, or provenance. It controls which event families appear.

Required option sets: [["target"]]

Examples

HTTP

curl -s 'https://bible.grod.es/api/timeline?include=witnesses&include=history&target=John&view=layered'

MCP

{
  "arguments": {
    "include": [
      "witnesses",
      "history"
    ],
    "target": "John",
    "view": "layered"
  },
  "name": "bible_timeline"
}

CLI

bible timeline --view layered --include witnesses,history John

Caveats for this command

Textual variants and witness signals are source-backed but coverage varies by passage and tradition.
DSS material is fragmentary.
LXX GreekResources data is lemma-level and not a full critical apparatus.
The runtime does not call LLM or embedding APIs.