UPDATED 12.4.2017 Here is a PDF of the newest revised draft–it still isn’t complete, but it’s a huge improvement over the original.
Original post:
This graphic is a rough draft of a project I’m working on—organizing all the standard works of the LDS Church into a single timeline. I think this will be a valuable scripture study tool because it will help us see these writings outside of their monolithic arrangement in our books, and inside their chronological contexts.
For example, instead of seeing the Old Testament as the law, and then the writings, and then the prophets—where the timeline actually ends halfway through the Old Testament and then doubles back to fill in the narrative with the writings of the various persons in that narrative—we can read it in the order in which all of its contents occur. It will aid understanding and appreciation. This makes sense.
Not only the Bible benefits from this, though. By integrating its unique scriptures into this timeline, we can really see just how much time the book of Ether occupies, and how much the early Book of Mormon authors were in tune with the events of the end of the Old Testament.
We can see Book of Mormon stories filling in the gaps between the two testaments, and continuing the tragic legacy of the earliest Christian era after the New Testament ends.
We can see how complicated the “flashbacks” in the books of Mosiah and Alma are.
Much of this is speculative. I’m happy to hear from anyone with refinements. I intend to keep revising it, myself. As I said, this is only a draft.
Narratives that take place at the same time—or nearly so—are presented next to each other. This is most important in the four gospels.
I’ve used the gospel harmony available here at lds.org for this, as well as the chronological order of the Doctrine and Covenants, available here. These are both products of the LDS Church, not mine, and they belong to the Church.
The Bible chronology is one that is widely available online (for example, here, here, and here); I have modified it only very slightly where I thought useful.
The color coding should help us all to follow the flow and see the connections between the various bodies of scripture. The first three—the law, writings, and prophets—are traditional divisions of the Old Testament (see Luke 24:44).
Gently Hew Stone 
This looks awesome! I just learned from my mom. That my dad was really interested in how all this lined up, too. Thanks so much!
This is the only place I have found this. So glad you did this. Do you have it in pdf?
Aubrey, thanks, but no, I don’t–actually, I’m reading the standard works right now in this order, and I’ve already noted some mistakes in my chart and made some corrections, so I’ll post an updated version when I’m done, and maybe then I’ll do a PDF. Thanks so much for your interest!
Wow. This is quite the project. I just finished reading the Old Testament chronologically and found it really insightful; this will be fantastic.
Thank You for sharing.
Looking forward to the pdf.
Okay, I know you posted this nearly 2 years ago. I’m always a day late and a dollar short – It’s how I roll. Thank you for sharing this. I am very excited to study the standard works in a new way! Here’s to a new year of learning!
I’m wondering if the draft here includes the corrections you talked about or if you have posted an updated version somewhere else.
I haven’t updated this yet, only in my own notes, and I’m not done reading through the whole of it yet. Still, I could post an update of what I have so far, which probably does reflect over half the changes I expect need to be made. I’ll try to do that here soon.
Thank you for posting the update, and for the pdf.
Extremely well done, and very detailed down to individual verses where appropriate. Will give good insight to scripture study. One question: I don’t see 1 Nephi 17-22 anywhere?
Hi, I’ve actually been doing this same exact thing for the past few years! It’s nice to find someone else attempting to do this. I would love to compare notes with you.
Sure–where are your notes? My own are still evolving. Thanks!
Shoot me an email and we can compare ours. danielandandreaplumb@gmail.com
I’m also trying to compile a full chronological list so I can read through that way. One question — are the only improvements and changes that need to be added to your list the “See ‘Harmony of the Gospels — add these items,” and “See ‘Chronological Order of Contents’ in Doctrine and Covenants — add these items,” or is there yet more to be added? Are all of the scriptures there except for the harmony of the gospels and D&C in order? :D
this is exactly what I was looking for I’m surprised no one has done this before. I’m actually building it into my gospel Library app with links
Thank you so much for doing this work and sharing it! I was just thinking how cool it would be to read all of the standard works in the order that they rolled out, so I googled “Chronological reading of all of the standard works” and found this! I added the link to my home screen and am excited to begin to approach the scriptures this way.