​


Real History in Genesis 5-11



Real History in Genesis 5-11


Site: Jayden12.com › Rock › Real History

Section: Intro ⋅ Antediluvian ⋅ Reboot ⋅ Human Creativity ⋅ Babel ⋅ Fact/Fiction ⋅ Now What

Translate: Arabic ⋅ Chinese ⋅ French ⋅ German ⋅ Greek ⋅ Hebrew ⋅ Portuguese ⋅ Russian ⋅ Spanish

Jesus asked “if you don’t believe the writings of Moses, how will you believe me?”
John 5:46-47



Introduction



The church today has a serious problem with John 5:46-47​. We throw around slogans like "Jesus only" and expect the world to say thank you. All Christians (all people) are expected to have a strong command not only of the concept that Jesus is the only way to salvation (Acts 4:12) but also of the rest of the order of the universe as laid out in Genesis 1-11. This page is a commentary on Genesis 5-11, specifically for highlighting what early human history looked like when we start with the Bible. Because most of us were not raised this way, despite the commands of Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 11:19, Joel 1:3, etc. (or we childishly scorned our parents for trying) and therefore we have a distorted perception of where we came from, who we are, and where we're going. This commentary isn't intended to have all the answers, and it doesn't shy from posing some questions, but it does highlight that there are a lot more answers than many of us realize. Consider reading Genesis 5-11 for yourself before reading on. Read it in the translation of your choice, or here's a link to the original language: chapter 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11.

Jesus lamented to the people of His day (especially the religious leaders) about their lack of comprehension of the words of Moses, most succinctly expressed in John 5:46-47. Jesus understood that belief in Him would be linked to our belief in the writings of Moses. Let's rephrase His above comment, for a moment. He could have also been implying "if you believe in Me but not Moses, then how long will that faith last when it's challenged by this hostile world?" Or, just as importantly, how long will your kid's faith last? The Pentateuch, also called the Torah (including Genesis 1-11), are attributed to Moses. In the New Testament, both Stephen and Paul reminded us that the events in Exodus were, as a technicality, God speaking through angels to Moses (Acts 7:53, Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 2:2), even though in Exodus most English translations repeatedly say "the Lord" rather than "an angel of the Lord." This is not a theological problem because angels are literally understood to be God's messengers. It's easy to miss how Exodus 3:2 explicitly states it was an "angel of the Lord," then the text switches to just "the Lord" after that. Then we have Numbers 12:5-8, which reminds us that God didn't rely entirely on angels, but sometimes spoke directly to Moses (perhaps more than to any other human who ever lived). According to genealogic records, Moses was only the sixth generation after Abraham, who was only the tenth generation after Noah (and Noah was the ninth generation after Adam). All these people could easily have had high familiarity of their own history from being told by their parents and grandparents. (Remember their entertainment options were significantly limited by today's first world standards.) For example, Israel (Jacob) nonchalantly alluded to such knowledge when responding to Pharoah in Genesis 47:8-9.

Creation (Genesis 1) and the flood (Genesis 6-9) were already covered from a scientific perspective in my separate page, Scientifically Superior. The original couple and their initial children were covered in my separate commentary of Timeless Lessons from Genesis 2-4. That leaves the genealogies and the events at Babel. Don't worry, this will be more interesting than that might sound, and we're going to do a lot of connect the dots that were too broad to mention previously.

In 1650 AD, Irish Archbishop James Usher calculated backwards through all the genealogies in the Old Testament and concluded Creation happened in 4004 BC (and he thought the flood was in 2349 BC). Other scholars have used both similar and different methods to come up with dates for creation between 5000 BC and 3500 BC. The genealogies are a major reason why so many people who believe in six day creation also believe the world is about 6 millennia old.

The chapter numbers we now take for granted weren't in the original, they were only added in 1205 AD by Stephen Langton, a professor in Paris who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, and the verses were added in 1448 AD by Rabbi Isaac Nathan. The Hebrew language doesn't have punctuation like English does, so all comas, question marks, and exclamation points have been added by translators for readability.



Antediluvian (Chapters 4-5)



Cain was introduced in chapter 4. Was Cain the first naturally born (conceived) human? He was certainly the first to be described. There were a few options, none of which were explicitly declared:
  1. Cain was the firstborn
  2. Cain was the firstborn son (daughters could have come first)
  3. Cain was just a son and none of the older brothers did anything worthy of telling Moses about (hence being recorded in the Bible)
Eve's commentary in Genesis 4:1 would be weird if Cain wasn't her first son (if not her first child of either sex). So while it doesn't explicitly say there were or were not any other children before Cain, it's a reasonable conclusion that he was her first son. The angelic commentary in Genesis 4:2 indicates Abel came after Cain, but again doesn't explicitly declare him to be second or even the immediate next brother or sibling. But lacking any other information, we are best off when we take the scripture as seriously as possible, so it's a reasonable conclusion that he was specifically the second son. In Genesis 4:25, the angelic commentary leads us to believe, and Eve's commentary reinforces, that Seth was the next brother, which reasonably implies he was Adam & Eve's third son.

Given that girls mature faster than boys, it's highly believable that God had the first boys be born earlier than the first girls. But even if Adam and Eve had daughters before Seth, we can be reasonably assured they didn't have significantly more daughters than sons (meaning Cain would surely have had at most two sisters before Abel) because through all of human history it's been the norm that approximately as many males are born as females. That's not intentional by man's design, but by God's. And given God's preference for one man and one woman for life, if God allowed Eve to have significantly more daughters than sons, or vice versa, then that'd be at least a little weird.

In Genesis 4:17, ​we read Cain had a wife. Where'd she come from? Easy, remember Genesis 5:4 told us Adam "had other sons and daughters." Later, family inbreeding/​incest would be outlawed by God (Leviticus 18 and 20), but in the beginning, there were no other options. Today, the offspring of parents who themselves came from the same parents are at a very high risk of inheriting genetic disorders and deformities which other offspring are at a lower risk of. So the modern stigma in society isn't just religious, it's scientifically based for the health of the next generation. In the beginning, the human genetic pool was as rich and diverse as it ever was, combined with the lack of alternatives makes it easy to accept inbreeding was originally permissible. The Bible doesn't say how old Cain nor any of his family were when they had children, nor how long they lived. Presumably this was because 100% of them (male and female) died before or during the global flood. Unless of course one of his female descendants ended up marrying Noah, Shem, Ham, or Japheth. But this would have been novel enough to mention had it happened, so it probably didn't.

No age is given for when Cain nor Abel were born. Seth "replaced" Abel and he was born in the year 130 (Genesis 5:3). Thinking simplistically, there are two logical possibilities for when Cain and Abel were born. Either they were born very late in Adam & Eve's lives (perhaps somewhere around the age of 100) or Cain and Abel were very old (by today's standards, not by the standards of the time) when Cain murdered Abel. It's pretty universal that Cain and Abel are thought of today as young men (whether teens or young adults) but if that were true, and Seth replaced Abel, and Cain and Abel were only teenagers when Abel died, and if Cain was the firstborn, then that would have required Adam & Eve to have walked the planet alone for almost a century. It is not very believable Adam & Eve were the only two alive for that long. This makes a strong case that other sons and daughters were born but just not named or described (besides in Genesis 5:4) long before Seth. Which also means there could've easily been other sons and daughters born between Cain and Abel, they just didn't do anything worthy of telling Moses about in the context of what God wanted Moses to record. In Genesis 4:2, in the original Hebrew (interlinear) there is zero reference of time between Cain and Abel, in some English translations we just interpret and insert the word "later" (hub). Eve's comment in Genesis 4:1 is reason to believe Cain was indeed her firstborn son, and her comment in Genesis 4:25 is reason to believe Seth just happened to be the first son born after Abel died. So maybe Genesis 4:3-15 happened in the year 129. The second recorded murder was done by a married man (Genesis 4:23) so it's not crazy to think the first recorded murder (Genesis 4:8) was committed by a well grown adult man, too.

Genesis 4:25 and 5:3 tell us Eve was able to bear children far longer than contemporary women. Presumably this was true of all the early women, and only changed when God made His decree in Genesis 6:3. Less than 400 years later, Abraham and Sarah figured it was common knowledge that a woman of the age of 90 had no chance of bearing children. They had so little chance that to even suggest its possibility was laughable (Genesis 17:17 and 18:10-14). Since she was created by God on day 6, along with (but different from) Adam, when Genesis 5:3 says Adam was 130 years old, then naturally so was Eve. By today's standards, it's basically impossible to imagine that Adam and Eve only had their third child (or at least, third son) after walking the Earth for 13 decades. Most couples today with no form of contraception would be hard pressed to go 13 years without more than 3 (or even 6) children. It will only ever be speculation, but:
  • did women's menstruation cycle last significantly longer than a month (and get shortened when our lifespans were shortened)?
  • did God just not cause her to conceive as often?
  • did the first couple just not engage in the one activity that produces children very often?
It is conceivable (though not a certainty) that the urge and urgency to procreate was dramatically less when we knew we were going to live forever, or at least for a long time, and there was no limit to our procreative potential. Then it was largely when our life spans were compressed after the flood, and our fertile periods were caped at just a couple of decades, that the sense of urgency entered our psychology. We can imagine one of the first couple's early marital fights going something like this: "Adam, I wouldn't sleep with you if you were the last man on Earth." We can guess what kind of sarcastic response that could have produced, and Adam could also have responded "Eve, you're the only woman for me."

As common as the names Adam and Eve are today, Eve wasn't named until Genesis 3:20. This was the 12th time she was referenced. But don't feel too bad about this, Adam didn't get his proper name until 4:25, which was the 28th reference to him. In English translations his name is used as early as Genesis 2:20, but in the original Hebrew, he was referred to one way in chapters 2 and 3 (link), another at the beginning of chapter 4 (link), and another way (with his proper name) at the end of chapter 4 and in the beginning of chapter 5 (link). Eve had him beat though, she was referred to with 4 Hebrew words: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

There's an important departure from conventional evolutionary thought that deserves to be called out now. Did you notice there were people named who did some creative things? We also had the names of Lamech's wives, which was extraordinary for the time (Genesis 4:19). Eve, Adah, and Zillah were almost the only three women named in a 2000 year period, while 102 men were named during that same time (19 in the line of Abraham). Three other women were named in the first two millennia: Naamah (Zillah's daughter, Genesis 4:22), Sarai (Abram's wife, Genesis 11:29), and Milkah (Abram's sister-in-law, Genesis 11:29), making a total of six ladies. Naamah and Milkah have zero detail recorded about them, so it's curious why they were named. I will speculate about Naamah later. Noah's wife and his daughters-in-law were the only female humans alive on the planet for at least a year, and yet their names aren't recorded in the scriptures. Though they were mentioned 5 times (Genesis 6:18, 7:7, 7:13, 8:16, 8:18). Adah's and Zillah's children were either very inventive, very popular, or both. Perhaps Adah and Zillah were named because of their children, or perhaps it's because they had the first polygamous marriage. Impossible to tell for now. And it's interesting trivia that Adah and Zillah, at least in English, have rhyming names while one begins with the first letter of the alphabet and the other begins with the last letter.
  • In verse 20, Jabal "was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock." So they may have invented the craftsmanship of tent making (which the quasi-apostle Paul learned a few thousand years later, Acts 18:1-4) and may have invented animal husbandry, or at least understood some version of farming.
  • In verse 21, Jubal "was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes." The use of the word "all" is interesting. (Hebrew link.) It doesn't say he (or they) invented those instruments or the optimal technique to play them well, but it does imply it. Did they invent (discover) music? Maybe, or maybe Adam, or Eve, did.
  • In verse 22, Tubal-Cain "forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron." Unlike his brothers, he's described as personally doing things, rather than being the father of people who did. Again it doesn't say he invented the process of forging, but it might be implying it. Did Tubal-Cain personally usher in the first of what we today call the Bronze and Iron Ages? We'll have to wait until we get to heaven to find out.
  • Also in verse 22, it names another woman, Naamah. Like her mother, Zillah, and her aunt, she must have been extraordinary to have been named. In theory she could have been extraordinarily good or evil, but since she's not blamed for anything and her relatives are named for good things, she was probably a very cool girl. But the angel didn't disclose any detail on why he named her to Moses.
  • In verse 23, Adah and Zillah are named for the third time. (Remember Eve was only mentioned twice by name, in Genesis 3:20 and 4:1.)
No one is named in Adah's or Zillah's lineage after their immediate children. Jabal and Jubal were clearly fathers of many, and Tubal-Cain may have been too busy having fun as a blacksmith to make time for a wife and kids. Unfortunately, Genesis 6:5-6 included them (or their descendants). We don't know how many generations came after Lamech, other than there were at least two, but regardless, his whole family would have surely perished in the worldwide flood. But what they did and/or invented may have been at least partially, if not fully, known to Noah, his sons, and their wives.

One major takeaway from all this trivia in chapter 4 (and 10, which we'll cover later, below) are that people have always been intelligent. In Genesis 4:20, we read about the people who raised livestock, or farmed. It would not be surprising if Adam invented agriculture and farming. This is just speculation of course, but it also begs the question of how much else did Adam invent, and we still use today?
  • When we start with the Bible, people have always been creative, and it's not difficult to argue we're becoming less creative as the millennia tick by. Modern civilizations are more advanced because they have more knowledge available to them, but the individual members are not more advanced. Our educational systems afford wider varieties and depths of facts, but our humanity is no better now, and our creativity is no better, than 6,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, famous for articulating the natural laws of gravity and planetary motion, and inventing telescopes and calculus, is quoted as admitting, "if I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." (By the way, Newton was a Christian.) The ancients just didn't have as tall of intellectual giants to stand on, or as powerful of tools (both mechanical and electrical) as we do today. Perhaps this is at least part why we find references to respecting ancestors so strongly in both Israelite and other cultures around the world. For example, John 4:12 and Matthew 22:41-46.
  • When we don't know our Bible and instead start with Evolutionary thinking, then early man was very low intelligence, and today we are much higher. Cavemen were dumb, Romans were smarter, the civilization that split the atom, made footprints on the moon, and flew the SR-71 Blackbird was noticeably more advanced, and the trend is more or less linear. But archaeology is proving more each year that cavemen (including Neanderthal) had art and textiles and culture. The cavemen of the Bible were already described in my other article, Scientifically Superior. Is it a coincidence that the evolutionary paradigm strokes our ego?
The "progressive" movement, which is so popular in the world today, believes what is past is irrelevant except to have gotten us to where we are now, and the future is all we need to worry about and where our destiny lies. This is very evolutionary. When we start with the Bible, then where we came from is of the utmost importance, and our future has already been told to us by the same omnipotent God who created us. When we know where we came from and where we're going, then our path will be relatively straightforward. But if we reject where we came from and deny we know where we're going, then our path will be extremely elusive and erratic.

Another major takeaway from that trivia in chapter 4 is an introduction to a theme that will recur throughout scripture. This theme is most succinctly captured in 1 Samuel 16:7. People are impressed by inventors and champions. We are impressed by those who know or who do. But God is less impressed by those things and more impressed by who we are, also know as our character, sometimes described as our heart. To extrapolate a little farther, Cain's descendants were the engines of culture. They included the cultural elites. Seth's children are not recorded for doing anything, except we can imply they had the character God wanted. Jesus will later point out the meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5) but it wasn't a revolutionary concept. It had already been revealed by God explicitly in Psalms 37:11 and Zechariah 3:12. It had a good chance of being literally fulfilled back here in Genesis (with the flood of Genesis 7-8) and will surely fulfill again in our future. God's expectations are different than man's (Isaiah 55:8) and by man's standards God seems to be impressed with unimpressive, common, ordinary men, to whom society places no significant worth. If only good character and godliness was actually common! In a similar fashion, God created humanity from common, seemingly worthless stuff (Gen 2:7). He didn't make us from gold or other so-called precious materials. That's because He gives our soul worth, not our body (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

We don't know exactly what the final sentence in chapter 4 meant (“people began to call on the name of the Lord,” Genesis 4:26b.) There is some level of consensus that it could refer either to prophets (like the prophets described in Kings and Chronicles) or proclamations (for example but not limited to crying out for help). Either way, it's surely not a coincidence that the comment was made after Seth and his son, Enosh, were introduced (even though the whole rest of the chapter was dedicated to Cain and his descendants.)

Ignoring the previous 4, chapter 5 starts over and describes human history without Cain, Abel, or even Eve, and just begins afresh with Adam. But that's not too crazy, because it self-declares to be “the book of the generations of Adam [specifically]” (Genesis 5:1). Family is a big deal to people, and is a natural subject when we're on the topic of genealogies. Seth was the only son of Adam named in chapter 5, but clearly he was neither the only nor the first. When we look at the ancestry spelled out in chapter 5, the Hebrew (link) references Adam being the father of Seth, Seth being father of Enosh, etc. Strong's Concordance uses the English word "begat". This Old English word is no longer used in contemporary language, so more context would be helpful to truly understand what it means, because some have argued this word just means ancestor (progenitor) rather than direct father. This claim is not without merit, because Matthew's genealogy of Jesus was this way. In Matthew 1:1-16 , he described 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus (note his recap in Matthew 1:17). As an example, Matthew 1:8 says Jehoram was "the father of" Uzziah (Uzziah was also known as Azariah). But when we go back we can see he left a couple people out: 2 Kings 8:24-25, 12:21, 14:21, 15:1. Similarly, 1 Kings 15:11 says "father" rather than "forefather," describing Asa as a son of David even though he was really his great great grandson. Books have been written on this subject, but in brief, Matthew had a purpose in his genealogy, and that purpose was to demonstrate patriarchal lineage to satisfy messianic prophecy (beginning with but not limited to Genesis 3:15) and not so much the detailed passage of time. The author of Kings was also emphasizing the lineage of David and not implying any passage of time. If Moses had a similar purpose in Genesis 5, then that could significantly alter the calculation of how old the Earth is. The same Hebrew word for "father" (link) is used in Genesis 5, 6, 11, Judges 11, and 7 times throughout Chronicles. Two obvious highlights that prove the descriptions in Genesis 5 could easily have been literal/​direct/​biological father and son relationships were the way the same Hebrew word was used in Genesis 6:10 and 1 Chronicles 1:34. And there's Jude 1:14 (the last book of the Bible before Revelation) which is an explicit reminder that when Jesus walked the earth, the Jews of His day interpreted Genesis 5 as literal (no gaps). When we read the scripture and take it seriously, there's not actual reason/evidence to believe anyone was left out of Moses's record. It's just possible to make a logical argument that there could have been gaps. More importantly, the need to believe in genealogic gaps in Genesis largely comes from evolutionary paradigms, even if the people advocating for the existence of those gaps are self professing Christians. Differing paradigms are natural, and can help advance understanding, but the problem with the evolutionary paradigm is it was specifically invented to dethrone God (already explained in Scientifically Superior) and requires radically more time than the Biblical record allows. Here's the most critical point: even if the relationships in Genesis 5 (and 11) weren't literal father-son, and there are missing names, then remember the fathers' ages are painstakingly identified so there's no missing time, which renders the whole father versus forefather argument effectively moot.

To prove there's no missing time, just read the text again for yourself. To summarize, let's start with a graphical representation of those genealogies going all the way from Adam (created in Genesis 2:7) to Joseph (died in Genesis 50:26, the last verse of the book of Genesis). (Click here to open the graphic in a new tab.)
The blue vertical line for the flood is based on Genesis 7:6 and 11 (along with doing the math of when Noah was born) and the purple vertical line for the incident at Babel is based on Genesis 10:25 and doing the math of when Peleg was born, reinforced by the detail that chapter 10 genealogy ends with Peleg). In case there are any analytics geeks reading this, here are all the data for that graphic, in tabular format. (Click here to hide the below table if you don't care.) (Italicized numbers are not provided in the text, they are educated guesses, and all dates are from creation.)

Man Year
Born		 Dad's
Age
at
Birth		 Lived
After
First
Son		 Final
Age		 Year
Died		 Verse
References		 Ch
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Adam 0 0 930 930 Gen 2:7-4:1, 4:25-5:5 x x x x
Cain 100 100 912 1012 Gen 4:1-17 x
Enoch 205 105 905 1110 Gen 4:17-18 x
Irad 310 105 910 1220 Gen 4:18 x
Mehujael 415 105 895 1310 Gen 4:18 x
Methushael 520 105 950 1470 Gen 4:18 x
Lamech 625 105 900 1525 Gen 4:18-24 x
Jabal 730 105 926 1656 Gen 4:20 x
Seth 130 130 912 1042 Gen 4:25-26, 5:3-8 x x
Enosh 235 105 905 1140 Gen 4:26, 5:6-11 x x
Kenan 325 90 910 1235 Gen 5:9-14 x
Mahalalel 395 70 895 1290 Gen 5:12-17 x
Jared 460 65 962 1422 Gen 5:15-20 x
Enoch 622 162 365 987 Gen 5:18-24 x
Methuselah 687 65 969 1656 Gen 5:21-27 x
Lamech 874 187 777 1651 Gen 5:25-31 x
Noah 1056 182 950 2006 Gen 5:28-9:29 x x x x x
Shem 1558 503 500 600 2158 Gen 5:32-11:11 x x x x x x x
Arpachshad 1658 100 403 438 2096 Gen 10:22-24, 11:10-13 x x
Shelah 1693 35 403 433 2126 Gen 10:24, 11:12-15 x x
Eber 1723 30 430 464 2187 Gen 10:24-25, 11:14-17 x x
Peleg 1757 34 209 239 1996 Gen 10:25, 11:16-19 x x
Reu 1787 30 207 239 2026 Gen 11:18-21 x
Serug 1819 32 200 230 2049 Gen 11:20-23 x
Nahor 1849 30 119 148 1997 Gen 11:22-25 x
Terah 1878 29 205 2083 Gen 11:24-27 x
Abram 1948 70 175 2123 Gen 11:26-25:8 x
Isaac 2048 100 180 2228 Gen 21:2-35:29
Jacob 2108 60 135 2243 Gen 25:26, 47:9, 49:33
Joseph 2182 74 110 2292 Gen 30:23-50:26 (link)

There were 11 generations described in chapter 5 (Adam to Shem). Knowing the backstory given in chapter 4 and that Seth was Adam's third son, we have no reason to believe any of the other named sons were firstborn either. Even though God makes such a deal about firstborns later (like in Exodus 13:2 and Numbers 3:40) the genealogies in Genesis were more about the origin of the Israelites than a record of their first firstborns. Jesus's ancestors were not all firstborn. For example, Jesus was a descendant of David, who was Jesse's eighth son (1 Samuel 16:10-13). David was a descendant of Judah, who was Jacob and Leah's fourth son (Genesis 29:31-35).

Much later, Moses would share a command from God that the firstborn son should never be denied the customary largest portion of the inheritance, even if the mother dies or the father otherwise marries another woman (Deuteronomy 21:17). The culture then was patriarchy, and the oldest son bore responsibility for leading the entire extended family, so the double portion was not for their personal comfort but to empower them for the position they would inherit. We can assume that the culture in Moses's day was inherited from Noah's day which was inherited from Adam's early years. But that is just an assumption, we don't know for sure what the culture was like in Genesis 6. To make a stretch, in my experience this larger inheritance is typically interpreted as an incentive for the firstborn to live up to the responsibility that should come with such a blessing. And surely it was, but perhaps it was also as much an incentive for the parents to raise all their kids right, starting with the first, and not just wait until they felt like being a parent (which might not have been until the second or third child came, or maybe even never). Maybe the paradigm of beginning parenthood when they felt like it rather than when they had their first kid was a bigger contributor to the societal decay described in Genesis 6:5 than we parents today realize (or would like). If so, what would that say to us today?

After Adam, the first human ever, lived over 900 years and would have met his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, I wonder what his funeral would have looked like?



The Great Reboot (Chapters 6-9)



Genesis 1 described creation week, and the word "good" was used 7 times. Genesis 2 rewinded just a little and dived deeper into what happened on day 6 of creation. The word "good" was used 5 times. Chapter 3 described the fall of humanity, and the word "good" was used only 3 times. Chapter 4 described human violence, and the word "good" was not used. The word "good" will not be used again until Genesis 15:15. Chapter 5 fast forwards for us almost a thousand years with the genealogies, and Genesis 6:5-6 tells us since chapter 4, things have only gotten worse.

Genesis 6-9 was a story of epic, Biblical proportions, and has overwhelming evidence in the real world, available for scientific study today. Highlights of that evidence are covered in my Scientifically Superior article and is not revisited in this article. Noah and the worldwide flood are mentioned later in scripture, like Isaiah 54:9, Matthew 24:37-38/​Luke 17:26-27, Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20, and 2 Peter 2:5, always corroborating and never contradicting the story in Genesis. The worldwide flood was described in most of 3 chapters, so has a lot of context. A couple verses at the beginning of this story have very little context, so require an unavoidable level of interpretation. Whether they definitively mean A or B is less the point than thinking through what they most likely meant based on the context we do have (the rest of the Bible) and to recognize what both God and our greatest spiritual adversary either did or are fully capable of.

Noah is remembered as a great man, and rightly so. But like Moses (the guy whom God used to record Genesis) the memory of their greatness overshadows the horror of their lives and of the world in which they lived.
  • Moses was the sole survivor of a holocaust. All his contemporaries were murdered, as recorded in Exodus 1:15-16 and 22. He grew up with a reputation as the spoiled rich kid in the king's castle (Exodus 2:10-11), so his heritage people rejected him (Exodus 2:14) but when he tried to stand up for them anyway, that alienated him from his adoptive family (whom he was probably on shaky ground with his whole life anyway, because his adoptive mom did so in deliberate defiance of her father, the king: Exodus 2:6). The poor guy had no stable family (or very rocky) until after he ran away from home and started his own. It's tempting to think he may have benefited from top of the line royal education including leadership and military training, well preparing him for the role God had in store for him later in life. And maybe he did, but the way he responded to God in Exodus 3:11, 4:10, and 4:13 didn't really give that impression. Later Moses's character is described in Numbers 12:3.
  • And then Noah. In Genesis 5:29, Lamech (not to be confused with the Lamech of Genesis 4:18-24) said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.” To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Lamech was just hoping his son, tenth generation after Adam, would be the one to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15b. But that's not a foregone conclusion, and with the miniscule context we have, that comment could equally mean Noah was used. I'm not sure if he was a farm slave, whipping boy, or something else. Or maybe his father arbitrarily put unrealistic expectations on him that he could never live up to. The first child attributed to Noah was born after Noah was 500 years old (Genesis 5:32). That means Noah took two and two thirds times longer than any other man recorded in the Bible before he had his first son. I don't know why it took so long, but it can't be good (as in, fun). It's also curious Noah was the first man recorded as only having sons but no daughters. Everyone from Adam (Genesis 5:4) to Lamech (Genesis 5:30) had “other sons and daughters,” but not Noah. It's implied numerous times that Noah only had 3 children, beginning with Genesis 6:10, 6:18, 7:1, 7:7, 7:13, etc. It's possible that Noah had previous sons who were killed before Noah reached 500, but there's no hint of this in the text. Similarly, it might make sense if he had a legitimate family in his younger years, but they were all killed off sometime, then he started a second family. But this second family idea is purely speculative to help explain why it took him until he was 500 to have a son, there's zero evidence. However he grew up, by the time God described him in Genesis 6:9, he was both righteous and faithful. And then, of course there's the state of the world, which was described in Genesis 6:5-8 and rephrased in Genesis 6:11-13 and 17. It could not have been fun to live in a culture that was so bad that God decided everyone alive but you (and your household) was so guilty of wickedness they deserved capital punishment. And, as a technicality, God never explicitly declared any of Noah's family as righteous or blameless like He did Noah (Genesis 6:9).
Genesis 6:3 has a curious comment from God. It seems like it could be very strategic. There are a couple common interpretations of the 120 years, but neither is conclusively more correct than the other, so we are left to speculate:
  • When taken in isolation, we might assume it's a declaration that all human life spans will be capped at 120 from then on, like a universal change that was pronounced at a similar time as the flood. However, the flood ended in chapter 8 and in the genealogies of chapter 11 (from Shem to Abram) everyone named lived over 120. Shem lived to 500, Arphaxad lived to 403, Shelah to 403, Eber to 464, Peleg to 239, Reu to 239, Serug to 230, Nahor to 148, and Terah lived to 205. Further, Sarah (Sarai) lived to 127 (Genesis 23:1), Abraham (Abram) lived to 175 (Genesis 25:7-8), Ishmael to 137 (Genesis 25:17), Isaac to 180 (Genesis 35:28-29), Jacob to 147 (Genesis 47:28), and finally we have Joseph who only lived 110 years (Genesis 50:22). But then there's still more. Of the ancestors of Moses, Levi lived to 137 (Exodus 6:16), Kohath to 133 (Exodus 6:18), Amram to 137 (Exodus 6:20), and Moses lived to 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7). Moses had sons (Gershom and Eliezer) but they're only barely mentioned after he dies. Today it's the exception not the rule that people live even to 100. (Guinness World records confirm that in modern history, here.) It's possible this was another example of God making a punitive decree but being lenient on how fast it was implemented, similar to how He told Adam he would die if he ate that fruit, yet Adam ate the fruit and still lived for centuries.
  • The other assumption is God was giving Noah 120 years to build the ark before he would send the flood. Before we confirm this, it's relevant to note that this doesn't mean it took, nor that Noah was given, 120 years to actually construct the ark. Because verse 3 was sandwiched between verses 1, 2, and 4, and Noah wasn't introduced until verse 9. If God had said verse 3 between verses 21 and 22, that would be a stronger case that it took 120 years to build the ark. But Noah's sons were born to him after he was 500 years old (it's not specified if they were triplets or what) and he boarded the completed ark (and the flood came) when he was 600 (Genesis 5:32, 7:11). God mentioned Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives (all 8 of them) the first time He spoke to Noah (Genesis 6:13-18). The flood lasted a year and ten days (calculated in detail in my blog post, here). Genesis 11:10 tells us two years after the flood, Shem was 100. This would make him 97 at the onset of the flood, and since Noah was 600 when the flood started (Gen 7:11) this means he was exactly 503 when Shem was born. If Noah's sons were all born before he turned 505, and they all married at the age of 15 (admittedly a little young) that would put God's command to Noah in Genesis 6:18 a maximum of 80 years before the flood came (600-505-15=80). If Noah took 80 years or less to make the Ark, God first spoke to Noah in Genesis 6:13, and God made the declaration about "120 years" in Genesis 6:3, it's very believable that God's 120 years comment was made at least 40 years before He spoke to Noah, therefore it's very believable it was a prophecy about the flood. But it's never explicitly clarified, and given the reasonably true alternate interpretation above (about human lifespans) we can only speculate to it's true meaning. (Though, nothing says God's comment was limited to a single meaning. Maybe it meant both, or more.) As a side note about how long it took to construct the ark, remember it was made of wood. Specifically "gopher wood" (Genesis 6:14 hub int) which we have lost all meaning for. If gopher wood was like any other wood, it's worth remembering the ark was all wood (covered in pitch) so may or may not have been something he'd want to be working on for multiple decades, exposed to the elements.
I already discussed the science of the flood in my Scientifically Superior article. In this article, we're looking at the history recorded in the Bible in a more broad context than just strictly scientific. Besides their fascinating qualities as random trivia, have you ever wondered why Genesis 6:1-2 and 4 were there? And have you ever noticed that the apostle Peter specifically said in 1 Peter 3:20 (about 1,500 years after Moses wrote Genesis) that Noah and his family were saved through the water, not from it? Why'd he say it like that? Here are some thoughts. (If you're not super familiar with the backstory of the Nephilim, then buckle your seatbelt.)
  • Genesis (and most of the Old Testament) was written in Hebrew. In Hebrew, they don't use expressions like big, bigger, biggest. Instead, they repeat words to emphasize their significance. The phrase “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8) is the quintessential example of this that even gets translated literally in English. (Most of the time words are repeated in Hebrew that's transliterated to express emphasis as we do today.) In Genesis 6:4 the same thing is repeated from Genesis 6:2. This implies something very significant is being described.
  • The Bible does not describe the creation of the angels. Genesis 1, 2, 3, etc. don't describe the creation of heaven or those who dwell in it, other than the initial attribution of their creation to God in Genesis 1:1. Later, in Job 38:4-7, God rebukes Job for arrogant speech, and God asserted that He created everything, He personally and alone made the Earth, and that the angels watched. In the original Hebrew, the term "sons of God" used in Job 38:7 (int) is the same as Genesis 6:2 (int). Jesus will answer people who were trying to trick Him with a small nugget of information about life as an angel in Matthew 22:30 / Mark 12:25 / Luke 20:34-36. (Angels do not pair up in marriage, and they cannot die.)
    • The only other time the term "sons of God" was used in the original Hebrew scriptures was in Job 1:6 (hub, int) and Job 2:1 (hub, int). Though depending on your translation, you may need to check the footnotes.
  • In Genesis 3:15 (hub, int) God is recorded as saying the serpent's seed (offspring) was destined to be at war with the woman's seed. Then the very next sentence (in the same verse even) said the woman's offspring would crush the head of the serpent, while he would simply strike the less strategically important heel. We could argue that this text meant humans and snakes are forever enemies, but pay close attention to the exact wording. That second sentence in Genesis 3:15 said "He will injure your," meaning "the woman's offspring will injure your," not "the woman's offspring will injure your offspring's." As so often happens, God was speaking to the serpent but His meaning was deeper.
    • God will behave this way again in Ezekiel 28:11-13, when He gives a critique to His prophet Ezekiel to give to the king of a neighboring nation. But then He goes into a description that couldn't possibly mean, in a strictly literal sense, the king of Tyre. He was speaking to Satan through Satan's pawn, the king. Similarly, God was speaking to Satan in Genesis 3:15 through Satan's pawn, the serpent.
    • The book of Genesis was authored by God and recorded by Moses, and is the first book of the Bible. The last book, Revelation, was also authored by God, recorded by John. (Certainly all the books of the Bible were written by God (2 Timothy 3:16) but these two books described events that the human author didn't live to naturally see, they only knew what to write because God told/showed them.) God used language in Revelation 12:9, 13:3, and 20:2 which ties Satan to the serpent, reminding us that in Genesis 3 we didn't interact with, and God didn't curse, some mundane snake. For God would not name His "seal of perfection" after a lowly snake unless there was some strong reason. By using the serpent to cause the fall of man, he was forever memorialized by this animal (though, not only this animal).
    As outsiders reading this today, six millennia later, most of us miss two important takeaways from this really brief interaction.
    • Satan, the strongest of the angels (the "sons of God") was told he would be defeated by the son of a woman. This was a humiliating prophecy. (Remember angels are by nature physically superior to humans: Hebrews 2:6-7.)
    • Put the two sentences together that made Genesis 3:15 and we can conclude that Satan had children. He along with other corrupted angels described in both Genesis 6:1-2, 4, and Jude 1:6-7. (Don't overlook the direct comparison Jude makes between the angels and Sodom and Gomorrah, thereby emphasizing the specific sin of sexual corruption. There is no other description of angels doing what they weren't supposed to elsewhere in scripture besides Genesis 6:1-2 & 4, besides in Revelation which was a prophecy of the future.)
    At the time of Genesis 3, Satan didn't know how imminent the curse was going to be fulfilled. So it's reasonable to think he was determined to corrupt mankind as soon as possible in an effort to ruin the curse. Sound crazy? The 1995 movie Braveheart had the same theme when British King Edward made the decree about the Scottish, "if we can't get them out, we'll breed them out," but truth repeatedly proves stranger than fiction.
    • Because Genesis 6:4 was plural in its description of angels, we know all the Nephilim were not exclusively children of Satan, specifically. Can we know how many were? Actually, Satan probably fathered zero biological children, and probably had sex with zero women. Remember, the devil is a liar (John 8:44, 2 Corinthians 11:14-15) and used the serpent as a pawn, just as he uses everyone else. He was too smart to do something that evil himself, and most likely just duped other angels into doing his dirty work, knowing all who participated in this sexual perversion would be severely punished (as described in Jude 1:6). Satan uses everyone, and everyone he uses he considers expendable. The only time recorded in all of scripture that Satan stooped to personally, directly interact with a human was when God became human (Matthew 4:1-11 / Luke 4:13). Every other time Satan uses others as pawns to do his bidding.
    • He still had children though. Jesus personally said Satan had children in John 8:44, but there was no pretense these people were biological children, rather spiritual. Spiritual children works both ways (good and bad). Compare Matthew 3:9 / Luke 3:8, John 1:12-13, as well as Romans 8:14, 9:8, Galatians 3:26, Philippians 2:15, 1 John 3:1, and most interestingly relevant here: 1 John 3:10. Is it only coincidence that in Matthew 3:7 / Luke 3:7, John the Baptist rebuked the self-righteous as snakes? And then Jesus did the same in Matthew 12:34 and 23:33.
  • It makes sense why Eve was so excited when she gave birth to Cain and Seth (Genesis 4:1, 25) when we remember Genesis 3:15. Even if the church doesn't popularly teach this anymore, Eve knew full well, and may well have been waiting for the day, that one of her male descendants would finally kill Satan for tricking her and ruining her life. This also helps explain the origin of the globally consistent culture that women depend on men to fight their battles for them: because God said it would be her son, not her nor her daughter, who would vanquish Satan.
    • First, Satan convinced Cain to murder his brother, Abel (Genesis 4:8, 1 John 3:12). But then God exiled Cain (Genesis 4:16) from the land of Eden, just as God had exiled Cain's father, Adam, from the garden in Eden (Genesis 3:23). (In each case, God was pushing sin away from where He'd chosen to reveal His presence. This was not to defend Himself, for He needs no defense. It was to protect those who'd not yet been as corrupted as quickly.)
    • After Cain was banished, Satan decided on a new strategy, one that would be more like what we today call a "weapon of mass destruction," and that's where Genesis 6:1-2 and 4 come in. (Remember John 10:10 and 1 Peter 5:8.)
  • Genesis 6:1-2 and 4 give more perspective to what was meant in the original description of Noah in Genesis 6:9 when it first says he was "righteous" and then immediately says he was also "blameless" or "perfect" (depending on English translation). More to the point, it says he had this quality "among the people of his time." But righteousness and morality aren't temporal concepts, they're timeless. His morality was already covered in the statement he was "righteous" (as well that he was "faithful") and that second adjective was less likely redundant and more likely declaring his perfect genetics. This meant his DNA had not been contaminated by the illicit relations of fallen angels.
    • Compare the Hebrew word used to describe Noah as blameless in Genesis 6:9 (link) to the Hebrew word used to describe God's expectation for a flawless sacrifice in many verses, including Exodus 12:5 (link) and Leviticus 1:3 (link). It's Strong's Hebrew word #8549 (link), used 91 times throughout the Bible.
    • This meant his sons were qualified to carry on the human line which would fulfill the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, allowing Satan to be defeated by a son of the woman (John 1:29, Galatians 4:4-5, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Revelation 12:4).
  • Genesis 6:4 says "the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also after that." The key, for now, is "and also after that." Let's do some more genealogic connect the dots.
    • Numbers 13:33 (hub, int) clearly says the Nephilim were still around after the flood and called Anakites. Numbers 13:1-2 told us they were in the land called Canaan.
    • In Joshua 11:22 (hub, int) we read about the Israelites wiping out the remaining descendants, except those in Gath and two other towns.
    • Then in 1 Samuel 17:4​ we remember Goliath, the giant from Gath whom David fought.
      • A cubit may have been about 20 inches, so being 6+ cubits tall, Goliath could have been a little over 10 feet tall.
      • David may have well understood who Goliath was and what it meant to be a Nephilim. If he did, read again why David did what he did. Because it's not the fact that a person fights which makes them a hero, it's why they do. First he told king Saul why in 1 Samuel 17:36-37, and then even more dramatically when he confronted Goliath in verses 45-47.
    • In Deuteronomy 2:10-11, Moses said Anakites were a breed of Rephaites, who were also known as Emites. Deuteronomy 3:11 gives a brief description of another giant, Og, who was a Rephaite.
    • In Genesis 14:5, a coalition of kings defeated some Rephaites and Emites. (Who would later in the chapter be defeated by the patriarch Abram.)
    • So a remnant of the Nephilim described in Genesis 6:1-2 were still around after the flood, but there's not even a hint of any further breeding between angels and women. Further, Numbers 13:33 confirms the Anakites were descendants of Nephilim, not first generation offspring of angels. It seems the Nephilim, like their angelic fathers (and normal men) could have children with human women and pass on their supercharged genes.
    • God gave Amos a description of the giants hundreds of years later, in Amos 2:9. This time he named the Amorites.
    • In Genesis 15:16, when God was elaborating on His promise to Abram about the promised land (this time prophesying the timing) He pointed out the Amorites' wickedness had not yet peaked. That same evening, God announced the names of the nations who were rebelling so heinously that they would deserve extermination (Genesis 15:18-21). Later, God repeated the list for Moses numerous times, such as in Exodus 3:8 and 23:23, and said the time for action had arrived. And in Deuteronomy 9:1-3, Moses described the Anakites to the people and how God would fight for them (implication: God would fight if only they have a little faith).
    • The word choice wasn't identical, and the connection is poor in the NIV translation, but the chances are high that the references to Nimrod (nephew of Canaan, grandson of Ham) had a connection to the Nephilim. Compare Genesis 6:4 (hub, int) to Genesis 10:8 (hub, int). As Yoda said, "wars not make one great," but it does follow that a warrior fights in wars. Since he was a mighty warrior, we must assume violence returned to the world in his day, only 3 generations after Noah, possibly and probably because this guy instigated it. The idea that Nimrod "began to be" mighty, rather than was born that way, implies occult activity. Like Canaan, the legacy of Nimrod was pretty dark, including founding the cities of Babylon and Nineveh, both of which proved to be trouble later for God's people.
    • Numerous giants are described in 2 Samuel 21:15-22. Surely they were descendants of these Nephilim, especially since they were also from Gath, like Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:4.
  • There are what seems a couple anomalies in chapter 9.
    • In Genesis 9:18 there was the smaller of the two. We have a statement telling us what we already knew, that Noah had three sons come off the ark. There weren't any new sons born to him during that crazy year, and none had died, either. But the text tells us something extra here, it tells us that Ham was the father of Canaan. We were already going to be told this in the genealogies later, and between those 3 boys there were at least 16 sons. There was something special about Canaan being Ham's kid, beyond the obvious, that Moses didn't feel needed explained here.
    • In Genesis 9:24-27​, we find the bigger anomaly. For some reason, even though Canaan isn't ever recorded in the entire Bible as doing anything (good or bad) Noah curses his grandson, Canaan, rather than his son, Ham, who had actually committed the offense of the hour. Noah clearly had something against Canaan. So we're left to interpret. Given that Canaan's descendants presumably settled the land with his name, and they ended up being pretty wicked, he didn't leave a very positive legacy (Deuteronomy 9:4-5). So it's not a stretch to assume he wouldn't have lived a very positive life.
    Compare the list of Canaan's sons in Genesis 10:15-18 with that list in Exodus 23:23. If all the postdiluvian descendants of the Nephilim can all be traced back as descendants of Ham, and only Ham, then it's a logical conclusion that Ham's wife must have been either a Nephilim or a descendant of one.
  • Nephilim characteristics seem to have been passed down the same as any other genes, so not every descendant of Ham's wife would have had equal representation of Nephilim DNA in them, and once lost, those genes could never be recovered. That is, not without reintroducing the genes via sexual reproduction. Which would have been a contributing factor to why God gave the seemingly harsh proclamation in Deuteronomy 7:2-5.
  • It's not likely coincidence nor random trivia that Genesis 6:1-2 and 4 were exactly where they were, right before the flood. Given their strategic importance in the spiritual warfare brought on by Satan, and the influence their strength surely afforded, it's very possible that a significant factor in the decision to flood (destroy) the world was to rid it of the Nephilim. They would have easily overpowered mankind in military and other playing fields, and hence been a major cause of our moral rot described in the very next verse, Genesis 6:5-6 (plus Genesis 6:11-13). Remember that comment in Genesis 3:15 where God prophesied there would be enmity. Conventional reading may interpret that as between snakes and humans, but after proving God was specifically talking past the serpent to Satan in this verse, we know that enmity was between the spiritual children of God and of Satan (1 John 3:10). The Nephilim, while not biological children of Satan personally, were children of rebellious angels (turned demons), and would surely have been counted among Satan's spiritual children. It is entirely possible the worldwide flood was an act of love by God to defend His creation by purging it of Satan's most devastating corruption: genetic warfare. This in no way diminishes human responsibility to (a) avoid being wicked (Genesis 4:7) and (b) pursue holiness (Leviticus 19:2) it's just fascinating to think there was more going on. To further support the conclusion that a major influence in the flood was to destroy the Nephilim, consider how many people have been murdered in the last hundred years. And then add to that the number of people who've been terrorized into refugee status for fear of being murdered. (The number is over a hundred million from war, and another hundred million from persecution by godless atheist dictators. A hundred million is a 1 with 8 zeros after it.) Could the antediluvian world really have been that much worse that it deserved destruction while we don't? Possibly, but it also appears there were Nephilim then, and not now. Regardless of the Nephilim, let's not forget God promised never to flood the world again in Genesis 9:11. So if our world is worse off now, then that has serious implications for our need for repentance. God didn't say He wasn't going to do anything ever again, He just said He wouldn't kill everything (or almost everything) alive again with a flood of water. A couple thousand years later, He came as a baby to radically transform the world in peace. But He also promised to return in fire, as alluded to in Luke 12:49 and confirmed by the apostle Peter in his prophetic chapter: 2 Peter 3:6-7, 10-12. Paul spoke of the coming fire in 2 Thessalonians 1:7, a prophet warned of it in Isaiah 66:15, and a variation is alluded to in Revelation 8:5-7, 9:17-18, 16:8, 20:9.
  • Have you ever noticed how God gave 5 prohibitions against bestiality, and 3 of them described the act as punishable as a capital crime (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:15-16)? Remember how many of the ancient legends involve half humans, half animals? Like the minotaur, centaur, and a host of others named on Wikipedia, here. While humans haven't been observed to be genetically compatible with animals, perhaps angels ("sons of God") were (and maybe the Nephilim were capable, too) resulting in some of these odd creatures. The later prohibition God gave the Israelites didn't have to be to avoid offspring, it would have been adequate to avoid immorality (corrupting the purpose and use of sex in our lives) and reinforce for all people that the angels were not being acceptable role models we were allowed to emulate. But consider an implication this has. If half-animal-half-human-looking-things were real, and were caused by demons having sex with animals, then by definition all obedience to and worship of those things was occult (Satanic), whether the people realized it or not.
  • When we take Amos 2:9 and the rest of these Amorites, Anakites, and Rephaites verses seriously, these were big, strong dudes. Literally off the charts. It's not a stretch to think they could have personally been responsible for (or at least involved in, perhaps some of) the megaliths we find, and other items listed on Wikipedia, here. I'm not aware of proof for this connection, but it's a valid hypothesis. And certainly humans can be ambitious and do amazing things that inspire others for generations, but it'd be an interesting connect the dots.
  • Genesis 4 gave us precedence that Cain was susceptible to Satan's suggestions. Certainly Cain could have invented murder on his own, but it's at least as believable that he was fed the suggestion by Satan (John 8:44, 1 Peter 5:8, 1 John 3:12). Given that history, his great (x6) grand-daughter is named in Genesis 4:22 but without reason, and Satan required females to produce his offspring, it's possible that the fame afforded to Naamah was because she was the first to participate in Satan's generic wargame. She may have been the first mother of Nephilim. Though, while we're speculating, it's fair to point out not all mothers are so by choice.
Capital punishment was only available after the flood (Genesis 9:5-6), and the lack of it probably contributed to how we got so bad in chapter 6 (Genesis 6:5-6). This should be a lesson (critique) on absolute pacifism. Guess who knows this. Who was there the whole time? Besides God, all the angels were there too, including Satan. And he'd love to get us back to that depraved state. Though of course, just because capital punishment wasn't allowed until after the flood, doesn't mean murder wasn't common leading up to it. It would be hard to imagine God calling the world evil if there was no murder happening. The difference is murder is often done for greed, selfishness, convenience, or revenge, while capital punishment is done to set an example to others of what happens when we break the law in heinous ways.

Two observations admittedly don't perfectly fit the interpretations about the Nephilim above. 1. God's description in Genesis 6:6 doesn't explicitly lament about the Nephilim. 2. If Ham's wife was a Nephilim, then why were so few of her descendants described with super characteristics? Genes are typically not that elusive. 3. It's valid to point out the Bible never explicitly defines Nephilim. The original readers were presumed to already know what they were. Then we, millennia later, have to conclude whether God was sharing subtle clues along the way or not.

It is noteworthy that Noah was the first person recorded to have ever made or drank fermented drink (in this case, wine). It was recorded in Genesis 9:20-21. Interestingly, it was after the flood, but since it wasn't declared a novel invention (unlike the descriptions in Genesis 4:20-22), and it's difficult to imagine the whole world descending into sinful chaos before the flood without there being any alcohol around, so this probably wasn't a record of Noah accidentally inventing the substance. Unless fermentation was for some reason only possible after the flood, then it'd be an understandable accident. In the original Hebrew, Genesis 9:20 (hub, int) uses the word "began." It would seem odd if he hadn't planted anything before the flood, given the request (or prophesy) that was pronounced at his birth (Genesis 5:28-29) and he was 600 years old when the flood waters came. He probably "began" to be a farmer because he took a year off while there was no dry land. And perhaps the massive construction project required him to take the last few years (or even decades) off from farming, so he could focus. It would certainly be interesting if why Noah got drunk in Genesis 9:21 was because he didn't know that would happen, but it's more likely he was intentionally celebrating the completion of the most momentous challenge of his life. But we're left only to speculate. The lack of clarification on this nuance in no way diminishes the authenticity of the Biblical account, it just means this wasn't an important detail and wasn't intended to be clearly conveyed. And not everything had to be explained. We have no idea what exactly Ham did to his father in Genesis 9:22. The specific detail was probably left out to avoid humiliating Noah even further. But we can be sure what was described was accurate, and we are told Japheth and Shem handled the situation better (in verse 23).

We already reviewed all the geologic evidence for the global flood in the Scientifically Superior, but wouldn't it be fascinating if there was more? Genesis 8:4 says the Ark Noah built rested on the mountains of Ararat. In the later part of the 20th century, Ron Wyatt did fascinating research on what appears to be the remains of Noah's Ark. Extensive detail is shared on his website, here. It's not my purpose to repeat any of his evidence, I'm just pointing out it exists. And here's a photo:
This relic is pinpointed on Google Maps, here. Google doesn't validate the Bible, but it is fun to get a little recognition. East Turkey Expedition offers tours to the location, here, and Baptist Press ran a multipart article in 2005. Here are links to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. While we're on the subject, a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark was built in Williamstown, Kentucky, by Answers in Genesis. It was built to scale and specification as provided by God to Noah in Genesis 6:14-16, though it's a 3 level museum, not a functioning boat. It is a tourist destination and the website is here. Here's a photo I took on my first visit:

Jesus prophesied His second coming with an analogy to the days of Noah just before the flood, in Matthew 24:37-39 (and Luke 17:26-27). The Nephilim aside, our humanity (the natural state of man) is no better nor worse now than it was in Genesis 6. Overlooking what God has done for us, the key difference between today and Noah's day is how society handles sin collectively. It's important to notice that being "good" by our own definition was never good enough. We are to do good by the definition of our Creator (Deuteronomy 12:28, 29:19, Matthew 7:21).



Human Creativity (Chapter 10)



Chapter 10 was not just another genealogy. There were some details thrown in seemingly as trivia. But they weren't just trivia, they were, at the time, meant to demonstrate credibility, as well as preserve this sliver of history for the rest of time. Like in chapter 4, we have some records of creativity.
  • In verses 4 and 5, we read about "maritime peoples" who were descended from Javan, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah.
  • In verse 6, we see there was an actual person named Egypt, which is still the name of a country today. We also see a person named Cush and Canaan. In the rest of the Bible, the Cushites are specifically named 8 times and generally referred to just as many. The Canaanites are mentioned over 150 times, but mostly only up until the book of Judges.
  • In verse 8, we are told the name of one of Cush's sons, Nimrod. No one else in chapter 10 got even half as much coverage as this guy. Nimrod was not only a good warrior (already mentioned above) and hunter, but an adventurer who built at least 5 cities (Genesis 10:10) plus another 4 were named in verses 11-12. The last one named was nicknamed "the great city." Included in the list of cities this guy was responsible for were two we may recognize, Babylon and Nineveh.
  • It's interesting how in the 6 times all three of Noah's sons are named, Shem is always listed first and Japheth is always listed last (here's a text search). We might imply this meant Japheth was born last, but Genesis 10:21 explicitly says Japheth was older than Shem, and Genesis 9:24 specifically identified Ham as the youngest. Shem is the one through whom Abraham would come, and his being listed first may have been simply because he was the ancestor Moses and the rest could relate to best.
  • In verse 25, we see the first of two references that are used to pinpoint the time of the great dispersion at Babel (described in chapter 11). Notice, not only that verse 25 says the people were divided, but the genealogy stops with Peleg. Sure, it takes a tangent and names Peleg's brother and nephews in verses 26-29, but they only seem to have been named as a courtesy, because they're not really mentioned again. (Joktan and his first 9 sons were only mentioned in the genealogy of 1 Chronicles 1:20-23. The last 4 seem to have started cities that lasted a while, but they didn't get much coverage in the rest of scripture.) The genealogy of chapter 10 ends with Peleg specifically so that the story of Babel could be elaborated on. Then verses 30-32 are like a bookend to the chapter, there's no more genealogy. In verse 32 it points out the spreading over the whole earth was something that was in process, implying the events of Babel had already taken place. Verse 30 mentions they were settling in the east, and in Genesis 11:2 it also sets the stage by saying they were settling eastward. So chapter 10 basically ends with Peleg. He got his name "because in his time the earth was divided", so if children in that day were named at birth like they are today, then the division would have happened right before he was born.
So the postdiluvian account in chapter 10 begins with Noah's sons and ends with the birth of Peleg. Chapter 11 begins with the landmark event immediately preceding Peleg's birth, then continues by going back and restating a consistent genealogy beginning with Shem and going all the way to Abram. (Peleg was the 4th descendant from Shem, and Abram was the 5th descendant from Peleg.) With all this emphasis on genealogies, we get a greater appreciation for why Abram was so concerned about producing an heir (Genesis 15:2-3). (Similarly, Moses related an attitude from God equating fertility, or perhaps child rearing, with strength in Deuteronomy 21:17.) Certainly it's understandable that anyone would want to procreate, we can all relate to that since God specifically commanded us to in Genesis 1:28 (and repeated after the flood in Genesis 9:7). But the context of importance on genealogies gives a greater depth to the emotion. Genesis 11 was neither the first nor the last genealogy in the Bible. Surely genealogies were important in Abram's time, and it's logically obvious that without an heir, you aren't going to be remembered much by the later generations in a culture that only records names and not so much deeds.

Chapter 11 describes how God confused people's languages to discourage them from building the city/​tower and to encourage them to scatter around the planet. This begs the question, how did God decide to confuse & scatter them? Was it arbitrary random chance, or did God have a method? The Bible gives no clue in chapter 11, but fully answers the question in chapter 10. Noah had three sons, and their descendants are outlined in chapter 10. At the end of the account of each son's lineage we see a similar comment: Genesis 10:5, 20, 31, plus a catch all repeat in verse 32. God divided the people by family. God cares about families, and even when we made Him so mad He had to come down to earth and mess us up, He still preserved the nuclear families. So it's no surprise our great adversary hates our families and desperately tries to dupe us into categorically abandoning them, whether through lustful adultery, political ideology, or other means (1 Peter 5:8).

There are 73 names named in chapter 10. While there are around 7,000 languages spoken on earth today, there is growing evidence that all those languages can be traced back to around 70 distinct base languages. Correlation or causation? The Biblical worldview answer is causation.



Babel (Chapter 11)



Then there's Babel. Most Christians have hopefully heard of the Tower of Babel. But there's a nuance to notice. Both the city and the tower were named before the dispersion (Genesis 11:4-5), but only the city was named after (Genesis 11:8). After the confusion was brought down, God didn't mention their tower, He only commented on the cessation of the city. Cities were also described negatively in Revelation 16:19. In a world where cities are very common and urban growth significantly outpaces rural growth, it's almost taboo to think God could have a negative opinion of cities. But when we live in cities, we tend to forget about God (or worse, resent Him). Because when we live in a city and we need food, we go to the store. When we feel lonely, we walk a couple blocks or maybe take cheap public transportation to meet friends. When we need anything, there's likely some way to get it, even if that way involves getting into debt or mooching off other taxpayers. Our dependence on our Creator becomes much less obvious, though not less real. In cities, money or government too easily replace God as provider in our lives. Jesus had an opinion on this, recorded in Matthew 6:24, and He stated an opinion about specific towns in Matthew 11:20-24. God gave Moses a related warning in Deuteronomy 6:10-12. In the case of Babel, the people's reasoning was given to us in Genesis 11:4.
  • Their first reasoning was to make a name for themselves. And if they all teamed up to make one city, who else pray tell would be around for that reputation to spread to? There was no one else around except God and the angels. The people were trying to show off and impress God. When you want to make a name for yourself, you are demonstrating pride. That's not to condemn every form of pride, but what do we have pride in (or, what do we boast about: Jeremiah 9:23-24, 2 Corinthians 11:30, Galatians 6:14, James 4:16)? When we demonstrate pride in our deliberate, overt defiance of authority, we invite question. When that authority happens to be our Maker, our pride is misplaced (and sinful) and we invite punishment.
  • Their second reasoning was to avoid being scattered around the globe. This was a direct defiance to God's explicit command in Genesis 1:28 and 9:1.
God gave them a punishment of exactly what they were trying to avoid, recorded in Genesis 11:8. It's a little extrapolation, but whose idea was Babel, and who specifically said the quote in Genesis 11:4? There's a hint in Genesis 10:8-12. If Nimrod was a warrior, and he built a city in Shinar, and Babel was in the plain of Shinar (Genesis 11:2), then it's very possible Nimrod was responsible for both the city and the tower.

If God really disliked cities, He'd make sure they all failed. But He's more compassionate than that, and lets us have our cities (2 Chronicles 19:10). But there are lessons to be learned and snares to avoid (Genesis 4:7). We must learn these lessons because the Internet also brings the same benefits: we can get things without standing up, talk to friends on demand, and have access to seemingly anything else we need, as long as we can stay close to our Internet connected device. Again, this alternate reality just offers the illusion of replacing God as provider in our life, it doesn't actually work. And thanks to the illusion we may fall into the trap of not giving God the credit and honor He deserves. He explicitly warned us against this in Deuteronomy 6:10-12, 8:10-11, 8:17-18. Jesus had an opinion about that, too, or more specifically, what we should do if something gets in the way of our relationship with God, expressed in Matthew 5:29-30, 18:7-9, and Mark 9:42-48.

There were 4 genealogies recorded in Genesis 1-11 (found in the second half of chapter 4, then all of chapters 5 and 10, and the second half of chapter 11). This may seem boring to us five millennia later, but it was very important then, and still is now. It was a scientific proof at the time for the validity and authenticity of both the author and the people being written about. Genealogies are statements of fact. Disprove them and you disprove the speaker. Confirm them and validate the speaker has a higher chance of knowing what he was talking about. But how would we prove or disprove the genealogies, millennia later? The bodies of the people in question would have long decomposed, even if we had any clue where their bodies were. Note, 27 of the 108 people named in Genesis 1-11 lived before the flood, and all of them except Noah and his family would have both lived and died on the supercontinent Rodinia, which was torn apart and experienced continental shift by the flood. Their remains are hopelessly destroyed, except that life perpetuates life. Biological life is by design the passing along of information. The reason ancestry.com, 23andme.com, and genome.gov exist is because our DNA is the scientific equivalent of a genealogy. Trace our genes back far enough and they will lead boys back to Adam and girls back Eve (or at least girls back to the three women recorded as having children after spending a year on Noah's Ark). There are exciting developments being made by Answers in Genesis researcher Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson (AiG, YouTube) on the topics of maternal mitochondrial DNA, paternal Y chromosomes, and the genetic fingerprints these leave.
More specifics of that research, however fascinating, are beyond the scope of this article.



Fact, Fiction, or Somewhere In Between



Because it's now thousands of years old and we have seemingly infinite copies today, it's easy to forget Genesis was told to a real person (Moses) at a real, specific time. Have you ever noticed how Genesis 4:25-26 overlaps Genesis 5:3,6? This may mean something:
  • Genesis 1:1-2:3 was probably told one day, revealing how God made the universe.
  • Then another day, or by another angel, Genesis 2:4-4:26 may have been given separately, when God had a different portion of history to emphasize (the first couple, their first sin, and their first sons).
  • And possibly on a third occasion, Genesis 5-11 (and beyond) were given. There could have been a lunch break in the middle of the angel giving what we now call chapter 7 though, because the description in Genesis 7:6-10 seems repeated and provided with another perspective in Genesis 7:11-17. Chapter 11 is also a brief interruption in the linearity of chapters 5-12, so maybe there was a dinner break either between chapters 10 and 11, or in the middle of chapter 11.
It's not a stretch (though it is just speculation) to think these three accounts may have been provided either on different days or by different angels. It's important to recognize these three accounts aren't contradictory, rather they're complimentary. Perhaps this history was given to Moses during all that time on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:18, 34:28) or during their wanderings in the desert (Numbers 32:13, Deuteronomy 8:2, 9:25, Joshua 5:6). We don't know for sure exactly when he wrote his books, but we do know Moses was no stranger to writing from verses like Exodus 34:27 & Deuteronomy 31:19 (explored in detail in my blog, here).

Atheists know how ridiculous it is to accept all 1,189 chapters of the Bible as the inspired word of God except the first one (2 Timothy 3:16 hub int). They mock us when we do, though they really dislike us when we don't. The Bible is true and contains real history from Genesis to Revelation, beginning with the very first verse. Purely using exegesis (letting the text speak for itself), here are a few perspectives on why Genesis 1-3 were real, as written, history. We could also use eisegesis (where outside sources help draw conclusions from the text) but that's not my emphasis.
  1. In Genesis 2:7, when God made Adam and breathed life into him, then "the man became a living being." He didn't upgrade from being a primate, from another species that had been alive for eons. Paul quoted this in 1 Corinthians 15:45​. Abraham, Job, David, Solomon, and Paul alluded to it in Genesis 18:27, Job 10:9, 34:15, Psalms 103:14, Ecclesiastes 3:20, and 1 Corinthians 15:47.
  2. In Genesis 2:17, God warned Adam that eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would result in death. Then in Genesis 3:19​ we read more on the theme after the rebellion had occurred. There was no expectation of death before the curse was pronounced, which only followed Adam's sin of letting his wife eat that fruit and then letting her convince him to eat it too (James 4:17). In Genesis 1:31, God declared at the end of the sixth day that everything was "very good." By this time He claims to have made Adam and Eve. If Darwinian evolution is true, then Adam and Eve (if they were even real) lived hundreds of millions of years after both life and death were introduced to planet Earth. Death would have been around when God made the statement that everything was "very good." Paul made two great follow ups:
    • He explicitly describes the doctrine of "original sin" in Romans 5:12. Evolution and original sin are fundamentally incompatible.
    • He named death in 1 Corinthians 15:26 an enemy which Christ would someday destroy. This makes no sense in an evolutionary paradigm but makes perfect sense in the context of original sin which is based on a six literal day creation paradigm.
      • Theistic evolution, mitigated evolution, and progressive creation say death was a process God initiated in order to "use" evolution to progress the world to where it is now, with Adam and Eve (if they were even real) and more importantly their "original" sin coming after millions of years of death. Death would then be an instrument of God's evolutionary methodology and not an enemy to defeat (Matthew 12:25 / Mark 3:25 / Luke 11:17). In other words, if millions of years are true, then death isn't the last enemy but rather one of the first creations.
      • If no people nor animals died before Adam & Eve's original sin, and human sin was the reason for death to appear in the world, then calling death an "enemy" and having Christ conquer that enemy makes perfect sense, and is aligned with God being good (Mark 10:18 / Luke 18:19) even when He made that declaration in Genesis 1:31. When God describes the promise of the new Heaven and new Earth, He makes a point to say "there will be no more death" (Revelation 21:4), as He had already alluded to in Isaiah 25:8.
  3. In Genesis 2:21-22, when God made Eve from Adam's rib, there is no evolutionary reconciliation to be had. Evolutionists just have to ignore this. Surely someone will try to reconcile it sometime, but it'll be limited to a mockery of reason. By the way, everyone knows human body parts don't grow back. That's why stem cell research and artificial prosthesis are so popular. Cut off a human ear and it doesn't grow back. Cutt off a leg and it won't grow back. Remove a bone in the hand (but leave the hand) and it doesn't grow back. But there is one bone in the human body that grows back even if completely removed. Guess which one it is? The rib.
  4. In Genesis 3:17-18, God cursed the ground because of Adam. Part of the curse was that the ground would now produce thorns. Thorns are in the fossil record, so either they were around for millions of years before Adam and Eve (just another part of evolution) or interpreting millions of years from the fossil record is inaccurate and instead those fossils are a result of the flood of Genesis 7:11-12.
  5. In Genesis 3:19, when God described part of what death meant to Adam, He said Adam was dust and would return to the dust. If Adam had been an ape who'd been upgraded, then between the time Adam was dust and human he would have been countless things, and the reference to him being dust would be odd. Note God didn't say Adam would devolve, nor do we observe people devolve when they die today. When we die, we can be observed to decompose and go straight from dead human to dust, we do not become dead apes then dead fish, etc. If when we die and return to dust is a literal, observable description, then we should expect when Adam was created from dust then that was a literal, observable event too (that is, observable for those who were around at the time, and remember it was written about by Job, David, Solomon, and Paul). It's not a stretch to think that along with death, the concept of decay took a new, broader meaning with the curse. Because disease and suffering would have entered the world for the first time, too.
  6. If Adam and Eve were analogous (fictional) then why did God give Moses their family tree in chapter 5? Why would He waste all that time pretending fictional people had ancestors? Ancestors who, when God went out of His way to tell Moses the origin and history of the world, He knew billions of people would have to read about for over 150 generations.
Some may ask, "aren't we putting too much thought and effort into this? Even some highly respectable Jewish scholars believe that Genesis 1-11 are just allegorical, fictitious, poetry, or parables, with an original intent to share valuable lessons, but not facts. If they don't, then why would we believe these first eleven chapters are real history?" Well, here are some good reasons why:
  1. God reminded us in no uncertain terms in the middle of the 10 Commandments that He made the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th (Exodus 20:8-11). Then, in case that wasn't enough, He made an insanely stern comment as the exclusive reason why the 4th Commandment exists when He explained Himself in Exodus 31:14-17. Of course authority figures aren't obligated to always explain themselves, and the more authority they have the less obligation they owe, so when the omnipotent God does we can know He's going out of His way to tell us something. Notice He did not say "for in six eons I created," or "in six times as many grains of sand as there are on the seashore," He did reiterate the literal six days. If He did use millions and billions of years as tools, then the 4th Commandment and its explanation 11 chapters later are insane. But if God used 6 literal days to create the world then He set Himself up with a perfect example. Which is more characteristic of our omnipotent, omniscient Creator?
  2. God doesn't lie: Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hebrews 6:18, Titus 1:2. Jesus declared God's Word to be true: John 17:17. He didn't declare most of it true, or some of it true. All compromise positions that assert Genesis 1 as poetry or allegorical historical fiction are nothing more than wishful thinking, and are therefore heresy.
    • By definition historical fiction is a lie, even if there are times when we may choose to entertain ourselves with the genre. So to say "it's not real but has valuable lessons" would be patronization, to which God doesn't take kindly. If today you were going to write a non-fiction documentary book/movie, would you intentionally lie or otherwise distort reality in the opening hook (attention grabber)? It would be pathetic and counterproductive for an author to rely on pure fiction in the first few pages of their story while intending the remaining thousand pages to be taken very seriously. Moses wrote what we now classify as over 180 chapters in the Pentateuch. Almost all of that was history and law. Two chapters are song: Exodus 15:1-21 and Deuteronomy 31:30-32:43. You'd be quite a contortionist to compare either of those to Genesis 1. And why oh why would he (or the angel, or God) begin 180+ chapters of history and law with poetry?? He wouldn't, and he didn't.
  3. Jesus quoted Genesis 1:27, 2:24, and 5:2 as if they were real in Matthew 19:4-5 / Mark 10:6-8. The context was, He was being questioned (attacked) by the religious leaders of the day (Matthew 19:3 / Mark 10:2). He'd have been an idiot to use poetry or allegorical historical fiction as a basis for the authority of His answer. Because His ideological enemies would have just grinned ear to ear and walked away feeling like the victors of the argument. Plus, if Genesis 1 and 2 were not literal history but his attackers believed it to be, then surely Jesus would have used the opportunity to one-up the self-righteous of the day and shove an education in their face about how humanity really began. But He didn't re-educate them (us), He just quoted the text because it was already true, accurate, and complete. (As a side note, in Matthew 19:4, in some English translations He said "at the beginning," but in the original Greek He said "from" (interlinear). In Genesis 1:1, in the original Hebrew the first word is not "in," translated to English the first Hebrew word is three words: "in the beginning" (interlinear). Whether we say "in", "at," or "from," Jesus's language revealed He was a Young Earth Creationist.)
  4. Jesus referred to Genesis 4:2-8 as if Abel was a real historical person in Matthew 23:35. He was criticizing His contemporary religious leaders and warning them that for their attitude of self-righteousness they were signing up to share the blame for the murders of all the truly righteous people in history. He'd have been an idiot to use a fictional person as one of His two examples.
  5. Jesus made an analogy to Genesis 6-7 as if they were real to make a sharp point about His eventual and inevitable second coming in Matthew 24:37-39 / Luke 17:26-27. Notice at the end He said "all," validating that the flood was absolute (global). He'd have been an idiot to use a fictional or exaggerated story as analogy to warn His listeners to take Him more seriously.
  6. At one of his most famous speeches (at the Areopagus, in Acts 17:26) Paul told the Greeks "from one man God made all the nations," which is of course a direct reference to Adam. How crazy would it have been to have alluded to a fictitious character (if that's all Adam was) when trying to win a very steep uphill argument with those people?
  7. Paul's famous quote, expressed in Romans 5:17-19 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22,45 doesn't make sense if Adam wasn't a real person like you and me. Because Jesus was a real person, and Paul certainly believed He was real. So why would Paul have compared Jesus to someone who was or even could have been allegorical fiction? Especially while trying to encourage his disciples that Jesus was real and not only worth dying for, but worth changing how they lived. The answer is obvious. Every Bible believing Christian and Jew believed without question that Adam and Eve were factual historical actual people until the 1800s. That was when the ideas of the Enlightenment (which weren't all bad) crept into Christian theology, and the word of man was allowed (by some) to supplant the word of God. By the way, if the Bible accurately recorded that Adam was real, then it stands to reason that it accurately recorded where he came from, too.
  8. The apostle Peter directly referred to the eight people on the ark (described in Genesis 6:18, 7:7, 7:13, 8:16, and 8:18) as real people in both his letters: 1 Peter 3:20, 2 Peter 2:5.
  9. Peter quoted Genesis 1:1-2 and 1:6-9 as real history in 2 Peter 3:5. Then in the next sentence (2 Peter 3:6) he summarized Genesis 7:19-23, again implying he believed it as real history.
  10. The author of Hebrews 4:4 quotes Genesis 2:2-3 and clearly believed them as real history. So much so that he speaks sarcastically about them, saying "somewhere it says," as in, "duh." (It's clearly sarcasm and not a genuine uncertainty because he's writing to the Jews as evidenced by Hebrews 1:1.)
  11. Jude, the brother of Jesus, quoted Genesis 5:1-18 when he described Enoch as the seventh generation of man beginning with Adam in Jude 1:14-15.
  12. Genesis 4 and 5 were confirmed as real history by the early Israelites in 1 Chronicles 1:1-4, because why would you put fictional people in your family tree? Then the scientist Luke confirmed it in his record of Jesus in Luke 3:38. Even if they believed the earliest people named were fictional, and just included them because they didn't know who else to name, wouldn't they have said so? They could have included a disclaimer, saying: "we don't actually believe these stories were real, but for book keeping's sake we'll just go with it." Without such a disclaimer, if Adam and the rest were understood to be fictional, then Luke and the author of Chronicles would have been at serious risk of looking like fools among their contemporaries when they wrote that. A major point of keeping the genealogic records (and all those other numbers) was to prove they were good record keepers. They'd have been crazy to blend fiction with fact without any form of disclaimer, because they'd instantly lose their credibility. Genesis 4-5 implicitly confirms Genesis 1-3 by not contradicting them.
  13. Genesis 10 was confirmed as real history by the early Israelites in 1 Chronicles 1:5-23 and again centuries later in Luke 3:36-38. Genesis 10 confirmed chapters 6-9.
  14. Genesis 11 was confirmed as real history in 1 Chronicles 1:24-27 and Luke 3:34-36, and chapter 11 confirmed chapter 10.
  15. Adam is referred to 7 more times in scripture after Genesis 5 (not counting the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1:1 and Luke 3:38). Eve was referred to twice. Neither of them were ever hinted at even once as fictional:
    • Romans 5:14
    • 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45
    • 2 Corinthians 11:3
    • 1 Timothy 2:13-14
    • Jude 1:14
  16. We've just reviewed over 20 reasons above to take Genesis 1-11 as literal, accurate history, and not even once was there any hint of evolution or an old earth/​universe anywhere else in the Bible.
  17. Science confirms, not contradicts, everything written in Genesis (and just the tip of the iceberg of evidence was outlined in my article, Scientifically Superior, here).
People who believe in mitigated evolution or theistic evolution believe they're being noble. These same people think those of us who believe in either supernatural creation or godless random chance evolution are extremists. Being noble is a good start, but a straightforward reading of scripture only leads to one conclusion, and that is 6 day supernatural creation. It's great to try to honor our predecessors, and people who have invested enough time, money, and resources into a topic to get a PhD. But reinterpreting scripture to honor the conclusions (opinions) of men (whether scientists or the Pope) is not noble when it means dishonoring God. However noble you think you're being, quit it. Making up and believing stories about how He could have done it, then teaching others these alternatives, is insulting God when He explicitly told us how He did it. The apostle James warned us of this in James 4:4, and Paul had great perspective in Galatians 6:7. Decide right now to publicly declare evolution, mitigated evolution, and progressive creation as worthless garbage, and six day creation approximately six thousand years ago as the Bible says was true. If you're shocked by the boldness here (or you may call it narrow mindedness), bold lies must be countered by bold truth. Billions (or even millions) of years of history is among the boldest of lies. Remember God told us this isn't supposed to be complicated. We're not supposed to have to "figure this out." He told us how He did it and it's our job to take Him at His word (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, Isaiah 45:19). Not everything is spelled out for us. Some things are actually complex (or at least, not black and white). But the things that scripture is clear about should not be confused with the things it's not (Deuteronomy 29:29).

The six days of creation approximately six millennia ago weren't the only numbers that were incredible (non-believable) by atheistic, uniformitarian standards. Remember that Adam lived to be 900 years old (Genesis 5:5). That wasn't a fluke, because at least 5 of his descendants did, too (Genesis 5:8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, 31). Besides those 5, 3 others were named, one lived to 895, one only lived to 777, and the last one, well, “God took him” at the age of 365 (Genesis 5:23-24). (I say "at least 5" because remember Genesis 5:4. Adam had other ancestors who weren't listed, so of course we don't know how long they lived.) Then, after the flood, we see numerous people lived 200 years or more (Genesis 9:29, 11:11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23).

Snakes don't talk, floods don't cover the earth, seas don't split apart, people don't rise from the dead. But God's word is true. He can do these things, and He did. By our own power, these events would have been impossible and the record would be incredible (Matthew 19:26 / Mark 10:27 / Luke 18:27). Who would have actually believed these events enough to preserve them (and put up with the persecution) if they didn't actually happen? And most importantly, historical records, archeology, and the rest of science corroborate the accounts. That's why so many atheists want to discredit the Bible through science, because everything clearly points us straight to God. History is so important to God He used accurate retelling of the past and prediction of the future as His favorite evidences of His supremacy (there are a ton of examples, here are just a sample: Deuteronomy 17:14-15, Job 38:4, Isaiah 7:14, 44:7, 48:5). You and I would probably prefer to employ another means, but as God, He has the right to choose His own methods. As improbable as they were, these fantastic accounts were true and lived on, because God makes sure His word survives (Isaiah 55:11, Matthew 24:35, Revelation 17:17). God still speaks and acts, and is still sovereign.



Now What?



The church today has a serious problem with John 5:46-47 and 3:12. This is nothing new, Jesus was pretty annoyed with the religious people in His community, too: Luke 12:56-57​. We throw around slogans like "Jesus only" and expect the world to care. The good news is, some people do, and they are typically people who are already broken and realize they're in need of a savior but haven't heard about Jesus yet, or haven't heard Him presented clearly. But for the rest of the world, they've been given a "God vaccine." They've been exposed to just a little bit of God and think they know all they need to reject Him. (It's actually a power trip when we resolutely deny any need for something someone else claims we should be desperate for, making it literally fun to reject Jesus.) These people are quick to become hostile to God's Word and His opinion, and are likely to scoff at slogans like "Jesus only." We need a different approach for them.

In Acts, Peter preached to the Jews in chapter 2. He spoke a bunch of rich theology that religious leaders like. And it worked, he got thousands of converts. But then later, in chapter 17, Paul preached to the Greeks. He started with the basics and only got a couple people to admit he wasn't a fool. But consider the difference of setting. The Greeks had no background in Judeo/​Chrisitan theology. Peter would've been laughed out of the stadium with no converts, but at least Paul got a few people. These are examples of two entirely different styles, each more effective than the other in different cultures. The western world was more like Acts 2 in the 20th century, but now in the 21st century we're more like Acts 17:16-34.

In addition to both the recommendation and imperceptible complication posed by 2 Timothy 2:25-26, our other approach for hostile people should be, rather than to simply spout "Jesus saves," to start with the scientific and historical accuracy of Genesis, plus the rest of the writings of Moses, including (but not limited to) the Exodus, the 10 Commandments, and his most famous sermon: Deuteronomy. "Jesus only" works for salvation, but not for challenged faith in a cunning, deceptive, and spiritually hostile world (Matthew 10:16, Luke 16:8). When we start with Jesus only, ok, but we must never stop there. As heretical as it may sound, we have become distracted by "Jesus only." Jesus is unequivocally the cornerstone (Acts 4:11, Ephesians 2:20), but He's not the entire structure. We are called to mature beyond cute slogans and rudimentary themes many times, most succinctly and explicitly in Hebrews 5:13-6:2 (and also in 1 Corinthians 3:1 and 1 Peter 2:2). And for a red letter quote, there's John 8:50. I'm not saying we leave Jesus behind, for the whole Bible points to Him: Luke 24:27,44.

The importance of choice cannot be stressed enough. We are commanded to be discerning and wise and make good choices repeatedly in the Bible. Solomon reminded us in one of his most famous proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and that we are to seek wisdom (Proverbs 4:7). The goal of this knowledge, understanding, and wisdom is to make good choices and to help others make them too (this is a major recuring theme of scripture, beginning most famously with Genesis 2:9, 16-17, and later a succinct example is Matthew 18:15). When we read our Bible, God's word, and take both its history and theology seriously, it's obvious the most important choice we make is to accept Jesus Christ for who He is (our savior) and what He did (came to earth, taught, died, resurrected, and ascended). Believing God means more than believing in Him, we demonstrate our choice and our gratitude through our acts of obedience.

Jesus said, “Satan comes only to steal, kill, and destroy;
I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.”
John 10:10
“Submit yourselves, then, to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7 NIV

http://rock.jayden12.com/real.php
Last Modified: Tuesday 5 March 2024

( back | top )