Genesis Chronology And Birthdays

by hillary_step 7 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  hillary_step

  Hello,

  A recent thread that touched on the chronology of the patriachs in the book of Genesis triggered off a memory that I just had to uncover. How did we ever believe such stuff!

  Questions from Readers The conclusion that the Flood occurred 1,656 years after Adam’s creation rests on the ages in the genealogical list in Genesis chapter 5. The Bible there says how old each man was when he became father to the next. But is it not possible that each was some months older or younger, which could change the total considerably?
  Genesis chapter 5 provides detailed information about a chain of men from Adam to Noah. It tells how old each was when he became father to the next link. For example, ‘Adam lived on for a hundred and thirty years and became father to Seth.’ (Gen. 5:3) Thus we have:
  From Adam’s creation
  to the birth of Seth 130 years
  To the birth of Enosh 105 "
  To the birth of Kenan 90 "
  To the birth of Mahalalel 70 "
  To the birth of Jared 65 "
  To the birth of Enoch 162 "
  To the birth of Methuselah 65 "
  To the birth of Lamech 187 "
  To the birth of Noah 182 "
  From Noah’s birth to the flood 600 "
  ——————
  Total 1,656 years
  Some have wondered, though, ‘What if there was a few months’ difference in each case: If Adam was 130 years and 4 months old when Seth was born, and Seth 105 years and 4 months, and so on? Just a quarter year added to each link would amount to some three years more between Adam and the Flood. Might that be the case?’
  Frankly, there is no reasonable basis for thinking so.

  This is plain hilarious. It seems far more reasonable to the WTS to suppose that each of the above named offspring were all born on the exact birth date of their fathers.

  It would be speculation for someone to hold that Adam was four months older than 130 years when Seth was born. Another could speculate that Seth was four months younger than 105 years when Enosh arrived. So the differences could cancel each other out or average out to the same total reached from the Genesis record.

  This definitely sounds like the bats in Frederick Franz belfry had taken full flight that week. You are actually driven to new levels of respect for Tabby Hall when you read such stuff.

  But let us not ignore this……..is it reasonable that God would provide specific figures that, when used, would mislead his people? No. Unlike the Devil, Jehovah God is not a liar or a deceiver. If he put facts in his Word, we can trust that they are accurate and reliable for use.

  I suppose on such definitions, that is, that those whose ‘facts’ and 'figures' one cannot trust are liars and deceivers, we should rest our case.

  Best regards - HS
• 

  JanH

  Very good points, hs.

  In fact, if it was the case that someone would be chronicled as having his firstborn at, say, 30, even though he was one day short of his 31st, then you would have to add 6 months to every generation, and still have a wide error margin.

  - Jan
  --
  The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.
• 

  Moxy

  im gonna take a wild guess that this was written before or around '75 when the counting of even a few months was considered all important.

  how strange that they reason that god wouldnt have 'deceived' people by putting in dates that, although basically accurate, would mislead people who were trying to count up the years exactly to try and determine when armageddon would come, even though jesus specifically said we would not be able to do that.

  thats like mom saying not to swipe a cookie from the cookie jar while shes gone. but since we can reach the cookie jar by standing on a very tall chair we reason that she obviously meant for us to have the cookie because why else would she have left it 'within reach.' and the chair must be safe because thats the only way we could reach the cookie....

  sure, as a child i could make sense of that. but youre right H_S, how did that ever make sense to grown men?

  mox
• 

  metatron

  Way too many reported lifespans and terms of kingship
  end in zero - suggesting a rounding off.

  metatron
• 

  RunningMan

  One of the Society's older books (I believe it was "Is the Bible Really the Word of God") actually went so far as to ridicule old Assyrian documents because they recorded life spans of 10s of thousands of years. This was presented as proof that these old documents were unreliable - in contrast to the Bible.

  It is unbelievable that they could be so stupid. The Bible makes exactly the same claims, just with slightly smaller, but still ridiculous dates.
• 

  expatbrit

  But let us not ignore this……..is it reasonable that God would provide specific figures that, when used, would mislead his people? No. Unlike the Devil, Jehovah God is not a liar or a deceiver. If he put facts in his Word, we can trust that they are accurate and reliable for use.

  Translation: "Stop thinking and shutup. Now go more in field service."

  Expatbrit
• 

  Faithful2Jah

  Nearly all Old Testament scholars and Bible historians understand that the men who recorded the chronological history of Judah's kings contained in the Bible used what is now referred to as the "accession year system of reckoning" for counting the number of years of a king's rule. The way this system of counting years worked was that a king's first partial calendar year as king was not counted. Then his first full calendar year as king was counted as his "first" year. And finally his last partial year of rule was counted as his last year.

  The reason Bible writers counted time in this way is so they could later simply add together all the "years" of rule credited to two or more successive kings and, by so doing, arrive at the actual total number of years which passed during the period of time in question. They knew that if they had counted partial years as full years, or never counted partial years at all, they would not later be able to accurately determine exactly how many years passed during the history of their nation by adding together all the "years" which their kings ruled. So, to avoid such a problem, Bible writers who recorded Judean history always utilized the "accession year system of reckoning" when they counted time.

  With these things in mind it seems quite likely that the men who wrote the Bible, for the same reasons, would have employed this same system of reckoning when, in Genesis chapters 5 and 11, they counted and recorded the numbers of years in men's lives. For a thorough discussion of this subject matter see Handbook of Bible Chronology, by Jack Finegan, and The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, by Edwin R. Theile.
• 

  hillary_step

  Hello Faithful,

  Thank you for your comments.

  My post drew attention to the WTS attempt at justifying the chronological statements in Gensis 5, which are close to ludicrous.

  We must of course remember that Theile avoids the topic of the Genesis Chronology altogether, as he is focusing entirely on presenting what he views as a reasonable chronological modus, which balances the many discrepancies that occur if one does not use the accessionary method of dating the length of the reign of the Hebrew Kings. Of course no-one can be certain, and though it may be reasonable to assume that the same methods were used by the writer/s of Genesis, no facts exist to bear this out.

  The principle of the counting of the accessionary years in ancient times is well known to historians, though of course not quite as attested to as you would imply by ‘Bible Scholars’. Theile, for example states in the "Mysterious Numbers Of The Hebrew
  Kings’, (p29)

  most Biblical chronologists have followed a Nisan-to-Nisan year in dealing with Hebrew Kings’,

  - acknowledging the time-line chaos that can result from doing this.He also concludes;

  If we possessed an absolute scheme of
  chronology of the ancient Near East allowing of checks with the kings of Israel and Judah all the was along the line, we might find ourselves in a position to say beyond question that the chronological problem of the kings had been finally and fully solved.
  But such complete checks are not possible, and probably never will be.

  What conclusions can we reach from all this?

  Well, firstly, Bible chronology is not an exact science, but is formulated not by ‘facts’
  and ‘figure’s as the WTS would note, but by weight of evidence. Attempting to
  count years to Paradise, using a literal approach to Biblical chronology has, and will
  cause misery and heartache to millions. The Bible is not a book of chronology, it is a
  spiritual manual.

  Secondly, that given the inexact nature of Biblical chronology, it must be assumed that an all knowing God, does not view chronology as important a feature of worship as does his ‘faithful slave’ on earth.

  Having a Preterist bent myself, I see little need of chronology beyond the C1st and view Fundamentalism and Christianity as diametrically opposed disciplines.

  Best regards -- HS