Adam When?

    Thus far in our study we have attempted to outline some basic attitudes and concepts which we should employ when approaching God’s Word. The essence of the concepts consist of going to the Bible on its own terms, by faith, and of getting as large a perspective as possible. We showed how crucial it is to view the Bible as the Word of God (cf. Hebrew 4:12-13), to consider it to be, therefore, absolutely true, and to fully accept all its statements no matter what the subject may be. Also, we showed the necessity of considering all data on a given subject in order to get the whole picture. This is true whether the data is found in the Bible or in the observable universe. Conclusions that leave significant data out could only be speculation. In fact, the truths given explicitly in the Bible must be our guide for understanding implicit truths derived empirically in the world.

    If we read the Bibles with these thoughts in mind, will we actually discover new truth that will give us a better understanding of the Bible? Will we better understand the secular evidence that relates to Biblical truth, or will we find that secular concepts break down when they are put to the test?

    Let us attempt to develop a chronology of history from the Biblical statements, approaching the bible in the manner we have discussed. We must begin this search with the study of the genealogical record of Genesis 5 and 11. If further light could be given to arrive at a proper understanding of these important chapters, a great stride forward would be taken toward the development of a consistent statement regarding the exact date of Adam, the flood, and other phenomena of history. This in turn would greatly help in understanding and evaluating the evidence being brought by scientific discovery. Such new information and interpretation would point up anew the orthodox Christian’s belief in the total accuracy and authority of the Bible, especially with regard to the early chapters of Genesis which long have been open to dispute.

    Again, I must emphasize that as a fundamental starting point, one basic fact must be acknowledged as a presupposition upon which this study rests. It is that we will receive enlightenment from God’s Word only when we recognize it as His infallible revelation. II Peter 1:21:

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

    II Timothy 3:16:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

    The Bible must be accepted as God’s inerrant word to man and is, therefore, entirely trustworthy.


Inspired Verbs

    As we examine the genealogical record of Genesis 5 and 11, is there anything distinctive in the language pattern used that might give us a clue to the understanding of these chapters? The verses do seem very similar to each other. Although there are two that are definitely different from the others, and we will consider those in a moment, all the other genealogical notices in this chapter follow the same pattern: namely, when ‘A’ had lived ‘x’ years, he begot ‘B.’ For example, Genesis 5:12 says, “And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel.” There is no indication that Cainan gave his son the name of Mahalaleel. The passage simply says he begat Mahalalel.

    Now let us look more intently at these two passages that stand apart from the usual pattern. The first is Genesis 5:3 which records the genealogical descent of Seth from Adam. Genesis 5:3:

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth. Adam begat a son and called his name Seth. The second passage is verses 28 and 29, which tell us about the relationship of Lamech to Noah. Genesis 5:28-29 records: And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed. Lamech begat a son and called his name Noah.

    The phrase “called his name,” which is the Hebrew qara shem, gives us help with at least a few of the names in these chapters. A search of the Bible reveals no instance where such a phrase is used in connection with the naming of a person, where the person named was not an immediate child or was not immediately related to the person doing the naming.

    Many examples might be given to show this. Genesis 21:3, “And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.” Genesis 25:25, “And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.” This phrase is used in describing the births of all the sons of Jacob; for example, we read in Genesis 29:32:

And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.

    The phrase is also used in Genesis 38 where the five sons of Judah are noted in verses 3, 4, 5, 29, and 30. This particular indisputable father-son relationship is underscored in I Chronicles 2:4 by the statement, “All the sons of Judah were five.” Interestingly, the same phrase, qara shem, is used in Isaiah 7:14, where God prophesied that a virgin would bear a son and call his name Immanuel. It is used also in Genesis 5:2 where God called the man “Adam.” We know, of course, from the other Biblical data that there were no humans before Adam. From all of this evidence, we can be quite sure that wherever the clue phrase, qara shem occurs, we can be certain that an immediate son is being described and not a grandson or some more remote descendant.

    Returning to the Genesis account with this knowledge concerning the Bible’s use of the clue phrase “called his name,” we discover in Genesis 4:25 and in Genesis 5:3 that Seth was undoubtedly an immediate son of Adam, for in both of these verses qara shem is used. We find, too, in Genesis 4:26:

And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

    Thus, we can know that Enosh was an immediate son of Seth. Likewise, on the same grounds we can know that Noah was the immediate son of Lamech (Genesis 5:28-29).

    Thus, we may conclude on the basis of the information found in the verses cited above that when Adam was 130 years old, Seth was

born to him. When Adam was 235 years old and Seth was 105, Enosh, the grandson of Adam was born. Similarly, when Lamech was 182 years of age, Noah was born.


Noah’s and Terah’s Sons

    Two other generations are named in the genealogical accounts of Genesis 5 and 11 which can be shown to be of an immediate father-son relationship. In neither of these is the clue phrase “called his name” used, but sufficient information is given in other Biblical references so that we can know this.

    The first of these is in relationship to Noah’s son, Shem. In Genesis 5:32 we read:

And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

    We know that these must be immediate sons by the testimony of Genesis 9:18 which reads:

And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

    Genesis 7:13 states that Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with their wives, entered the ark. We read in I Peter 3:20 that there were eight souls in the ark. These verses lead us to the inescapable conclusion that Shem was an immediate son of Noah, not a grandson or later descendant.

    The other generation that can be known to represent an immediate father-son relationship is that of Terah and Abram. Genesis 11:26 declares:

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

    The verses which follow give additional information which points conclusively to the relationship that existed. Genesis 11:27-28 declares:

Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

    Verse 31 continues:

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

    This language surely has reference to an immediate family relationship. Thus, Abram could only have been the son of Terah, and not his grandson or some later descendant.

    Some futher clarification might be helpful at this point. Although Genesis 11:26 would seem to indicate that all three of Terah’s sons, Abram. Nahor, and Haran, were born when he was 70 years old, this cannot have been the case unless they were triplets. Verse 32 clearly states that Terah died in Haran at the age of 205 years. Upon his father’s death, Abram left Haran at the age of 75 (Acts 7:4, Genesis 12:4). Therefore, we must conclude that Terah was actually 130 years of age at the time of Abram’s birth, and that either Nahor or Haran was the oldest of the three brothers, one having been born when their father was 70. In the genealogies, Abram is probably mentioned first because he was the important figure in God’s redemptive plan for man.

    Returning to the sons of Noah, we are led to a similarly interesting conclusion. We find that Genesis 5:32 declares that Noah was 500 years old when he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, yet in verse 10 of Genesis 11 we are told:

These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood.

    Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood, so Shem must have been born when Noah was 502. Since Genesis 10:21 refers to Shem, the older brother of Japheth, we know that Japheth was born when Noah was more than 502 years old. Thus, as the oldest of the three sons, Ham must have been born when Noah was 500. Therefore, we may reasonably conclude that Shem was born when his father was 502, and that he lived a further 502 years after the flood with his father as his contemporary 350 years of that time (Genesis 9:28, Genesis 11:10-11). Again, as in Abram’s case, Shem’s name probably appears first in the Bible record because of his place in God’s great plan.

    Thus far, we have established that Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, and Abram were all immediate sons of their fathers, named in the record of Genesis 5 and 11. We are left with the remaining names in these two

chapters. Are they immediate sons or are they later descendants? The phrase qara shem is not used anywhere in the Bible in connection with these names to indicate an immediate father/son relationship. Neither is there other evidence in Scripture which conclusively suggests this kind of relationship. Is there Scriptural evidence to indicate that these verses are speaking of other than a father-son relationship? There is indeed as we shall now see.


Patriarchal Periods

    An analysis of the language used in Chapters 5 and 11 reveals a pattern that is unique only to these chapters. A typical passage is that of Genesis 5:15-17:

    We can see from the diagram that these three men must have been contemporaries, with Eber the oldest. If Eber had actually been born earlier than Peleg and Reu, and if he had outlived both Peleg and Reu (as the diagram shows), so that he was the patriarch, so to speak, of the clan, one would surely think it would have been a matter of divine record that he, instead of Peleg, lived when the earth was divided. Thus, we are led again to the conclusion that the term “begat” as used in Genesis 5 and 11, must have, at least in some instances, reference to some relationship other than that of an immediate father-son.

    As we reflect further on the question at hand, two passages must be examined. These passages suggest an answer to our problem that can be shown to make abundant sense. The first is Genesis 7 and 8 where the dates of the flood events are referenced to the age of Noah. Genesis 8:13 records:

And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

    Genesis 7:6 indicates that the six hundred years was the age of Noah when the flood came. This leads us to an important question: Could the calendars of ancient peoples have been tied to the life spans of certain individuals?

    The second passage is in the New Testament where Christ declares in Matthew 24:34:

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

    In this reference, Christ is speaking of events that will take place just before His return. He, therefore, insists that “this generation” will continue for at least two thousand years, for this much time has elapsed and all of the events of which he was prophesying in Matthew 24 have not yet happened. As a matter of fact, this present generation is the generation of Jesus Christ.¹ We speak of years today as “A.D.” which means the year of Our Lord. The events of today are dated exactly as they were in Noah’s day: by reference to the birth date of a person.

    Since this method of dating events, which was practiced in Noah’s day, was suggested by Jesus Himself, and is actually the practice used today, could not this have been the method described in Genesis 5 and 11? If so, then Eber, Peleg, and Reu were patriarchs who followed each other in history. Each in turn was the reference point for his period or generation in history. This makes abundant sense and would provide for continuity and clarity in historical reckoning.

    Thus, we see that when the Bible records that Eber was 34 year old when Peleg was born and lived 430 years after the birth of Peleg, fathering other sons and daughters (Genesis 11:16), it means literally that when Eber was 34 years of age, a son was born to him. This might have been his first (immediate) son or it might have been a second, third, or even a fourth removed in his line of direct descendants. Significantly, the Bible does not record that Eber “called his name Peleg” because as a point of fact Peleg was not born until about the time Eber died. The son born to Eber at age 34 was an ancestor of Peleg, but his name is nonessential insofar as God’s record is concerned. The important fact to remember is that the patriarchal successor to Eber was Peleg. Peleg was a direct descendant, and Eber at 34 was the progenitor of the Peleg line. The result should look like this:

“A” lived “x” years and begat “B” and “A” lived after he begat “B” for “y” years,

is actually a calendar. Exceptions to the patriarchal calendar are introduced, namely Adam begetting Seth, Seth begetting Enosh, and Lamech begetting Noah. Yet these exceptions are distinguished by the phrase “called his name,” thus showing Seth, Enosh, and Noah to be immediate sons. Of course some of our conclusions are still tentative; but as we consider more and more data, we will discover how close to the truth we are.


NOTES:

    ¹The Greek work translated in this verse is genea. It is translated “generation,” “age,” and “nation” in the King James Bible. It could have reference in this verse to the nation of the Jews who would endure until Christ’s return. More likely, it refers to the generation of evil that has existed all through history and will exist until the end of time.