The Antediluvian World - question 1 of 7

ddubois said:

...I am inclined to think that the Nephilim might be equivalent to the Greek Titans...

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Hello! Interesting thread. I don't know enough about dating to have an opinion on much of it.

But I think the Titans were the Nephilim's fathers, the "sons of God" of Genesis 6. Because in Greek mythology the Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus after being defeated. And 2 Peter 2:4 assigns that fate to those sinful antediluvian angels:

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment...

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I also think the first part of the Sumerian King's List refers to the same people as the genealogy in Genesis 5. Each has a first man, a flood hero, and eight generations between them.

2. Individuals and relationships (Ex: Were Noah and Tubal-Cain related?)

Distantly. Noah is in the line of Seth. Tubal-Cain is in the line of Cain. Seth and Cain were brothers.

Hi ddubois,

I'm curious as to 'how' the Septuagint arrived at its date of creation. It seems to me to be a fairly simple mathematical exercise. In Genesis, chapter 5, we find that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born. Thus the creation is somewhere between 130-131 years old if we also agree that the six days of the creation week were actual days as still accounted today - a single rotation of the earth upon its axis.

When Seth was 105 years old Enosh was born. Now the creation is somewhere between 235-237 years old. This allows that the sons may have been born anytime during the year of the Father's life.

When Enosh was 90, Kenan was born. Creation age 225-228 years old.

When Kenan was 70 Mahalalel was born. Creation age 295-299 years old.

When Mahalalel was 65 Jared was born. Creation age 360-365 years old.

When Jared was 162 Enoch was born. Creation age 562-568 years old.

When Enoch was 65 Methuselah was born. Creation age 627-634 years old.

When Methuselah was 187 Lamech was born. Creation age 814-822 years old.

When Lamech was 182 Noah was born. Creation age 996-1005 years old.

Sometime after Noah was 500 years old his sons were born to him.

Noah was 600 when the flood came. Creation age 1596-1606.

We now have only a 10 year span of possibility assuming that the sons were not born on the very birthday of the father.

Two years after the flood, Shem was 100 years old. Not understanding whether God's word means 'the flood' to be the day that God opened the floodgates or the day the flood waters receded allows us another few months of ambiguity, but certainly not thousands of years. However, if Noah was 600 when the flood came and Shem was 100 two years after the flood, then Shem could not have been born any later than Noah's 502nd year which is in full agreement with what the Scriptures account for the birth of Noah's sons.

So, allowing some wiggle room, the creation is now, at the time we pick up the genealogies of Noah's descendents, 1598 to 1609. At this date Arphaxad is born.

When Arphaxad was 35 Shelah was born. Creation age 1633-1645.

When Shelah was 30 Eber was born. Creation age 1663-1676.

When Eber was 34 Peleg was born. Creation age 1697-1711.

When Peleg was 30 Reu was born. Creation age 1727-1742

When Reu was 32 Serug was born. Creation age 1759-1775

When Serug was 30 Nahor was born. Creation age 1789-1806

When Nahor was 29 Terah was born. Creation age 1818-1836

After Terah was 70 years old he become the father of three sons, Abram, Nahor and Haran.

At this point again dates can get a bit fuzzy. Was Abram the first of Terah's sons and was he 70 when he had this first mentioned son? What we do know is that Terah lived 205 years and so the greatest allowance, if Terah had Abram in the last year of his life which is doubtful based on the narrative of all that happened after the sons were born but before Terah died, is 135 years. But we read that after the sons were born Haran died, but not before having his own child which Terah took with them when they left Ur. The sons had also married before Terah died and so it is highly doubtful that there would really have been more than say 50-75 years between the sons of Terah and the 70th year of Terah's life when the sons are said to have been born to him. So, I'm pretty comfortable with allowing a possibility of 75 years discrepancy at this point. This makes the creation 1878-1973 years old when Abram may have been born.

So, now we have Abram's life accounted with the creation date at his birth as being less than 2,000 years old. Then we pick up again in Genesis 21 that Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born. Creation age 1978-2072.

Isaac was 60 when Jacob was born. Creation age 2048-2143.

Now we move to records other than birth records to account the years of creation.

Jacob, now named Israel, was 130 years old when he met Pharaoh in Egypt. Creation age 2178-2273.

We are told that the descendents of Israel lived in captivity in Egypt for about 400 years and so we, again roughly, can date the creation at the time of the exodus from Egypt between 2478-2600. So, give or take 100 years, the creation is about 2500 years old at this point.

We then find in 1Kings 6 that is was 480 years from the exodus to the time that King Solomon built the first temple. Creation date app. 3,000 years old again with a give or take of 100 years.

Now the dating becomes a bit more difficult, but certainly not impossible, but being 'exact' in years becomes a bit more difficult. However, the allowances aren't particularly great.

Scholars date the building of the first temple to sometime in the mid 900's BC. So, now using assumptions that these scholars are correct we find that the creation would only be app. 4,000 years old at the time of Jesus' first visitation to us. Of course, from there the Gregorian calendar gives a pretty accurate accounting of years. So, based on the fact that we now live in the year 2015 from the Gregorian calendar and that the creation was app. 4,000 years old when the new system of counting years was implemented, it should be fairly well understood that the creation is app. 6,000 years old (plus or minus 200 years) at this time.

I believe that it is also telling that the Jewish calendar dates the year that we are currently living in as 5775. Now, there is some disagreement as to 'when' actually the Jewish calendar is counting from. In other words, what year was the first year that the Jewish calendar is supposed to be starting from? If you google an answer for that question, you will find that many, many Jews and Gentiles believe it to be from the creation of Adam.

So, we have two testimonies that are reasonably cohesive and in agreement that the creation, if it was 6 literal days, occurred about 6,000 years ago.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

1 Chronicles 1:1-3King James Version (KJV)
1 Adam, Sheth, Enosh,

2 Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered,

3 Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech,

This shows Kenan, 4th from Adam. Is he the same that you are talking about. Genealogy confuses me because of different spellings and name changes. I've never really been a fierce student of it. Thanks for this thread. Maybe I will learn something.

Hi ddubois,

Thanks for that. I'm not so sure that I find any valid evidence to believe that the masoretes just deleted the word of 'hundred' in their account, but there does definitely seem to be evidence that a son named Cainan was actually born between Arphaxad and Shelah. However, based on the average ages of all the fathers at the time of their son's birth in this second account of the genealogies, it would only seem to add 30-40 years to the timeline. I'm good with that.

As far as the question asked about 'where did all the people come from' when Nimrod was building the city of Ninevah. First, Nimrod, if the fathers generally had their children about the same ages as the ones accounted for in the line of Shem, would have been a contemporary of either Cainan, according to Luke's account or Shelah, according to the Masoretic text. Shem's line accounts that he was the father of Arphaxad and Arphaxad the father of Cainan or Shelah. Ham was the father of Cush, who was then the father of Nimrod. Second, we can't be completely sure of what it meant in those days to 'build a city'. Nimrod could have well settled in the area of Nineveh and could well have been building a city with as little as a few dozen people. Did 'building a city' in those days mean that it began as a place where hundreds or thousands of people called home or was it merely a place where they settled as a few dozen, but stayed and continued to build its population as time went on. Does 'build a city' mean that he lived to see its completion or did he just have some people to settle there and they continued to build the city. After all, we are told that he built several 'cities' and came from several cities. What would have been the definition of these 'cities' as regards population. Finally, if the sons of Noah believed God, that all human life other than their own had been wiped from the earth, repopulating the earth may have taken on great importance to them and the men and women may have kept quite a pace in births.

I know of families today where two parents have 10-11 children and by the second generation, assuming their children are as fruitful as they were, could well be counted in as over one hundred. We aren't told how old Nimrod was when he began to settle in Nineveh, but if he were 60 years old by that time, his own children could have been starting on the third generation by that time. We also don't know if Nimrod started the city with only his progeny, but he may well have had some of his brothers and sisters to begin that work with him. Now you have maybe 3 or four founding families each having many, many children who, by the time of Nimrod's starting his city would also be into the third generation of children. Therefore, I think that in the 70 or 100 years, if we add Cainan between the flood and Nimrod's birth, and then allow that Nimrod may well have not started building Nineveh until later in his life, there may well have been several hundred people to populate the beginning of Nineveh. When people are given the command to repopulate the earth, there can be quite a few children and children's children born in fairly short order.

So, I'm not so sure I'm willing to agree that because I can't think to understand where people came from to populate cities, that the Scriptures cannot be true in their timeline and geneological accounting. We read of this same thing happening in the account of Adam's generations. Cain went out and was building a city shortly after he killed Abel. Curiously, we also find much repetition in the names of Cain's descendents and the names of Seth's descendents.

I have never claimed to be dogmatic about trying to determine the exact number of years since Adam's creation, but merely want to assure others that I am not in the camp of many, many thousands or millions or billions of years that the creation has existed.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

ddubois said:

1. Creation date:
2. Noah's flood date:
3. Antediluvian history:

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Because such estimated dates are not clear
or repeated in multiple books in scripture,
and because the efforts of multiple scholars over 100's of years
have arrived at conflicting results

they all have no significance.

miamited said:

Hi ddubois,

Thanks for that. I'm not so sure that I find any valid evidence to believe that the masoretes just deleted the word of 'hundred' in their account, but there does definitely seem to be evidence that a son named Cainan was actually born between Arphaxad and Shelah. However, based on the average ages of all the fathers at the time of their son's birth in this second account of the genealogies, it would only seem to add 30-40 years to the timeline. I'm good with that.

As far as the question asked about 'where did all the people come from' when Nimrod was building the city of Ninevah. First, Nimrod, if the fathers generally had their children about the same ages as the ones accounted for in the line of Shem, would have been a contemporary of either Cainan, according to Luke's account or Shelah, according to the Masoretic text. Shem's line accounts that he was the father of Arphaxad and Arphaxad the father of Cainan or Shelah. Ham was the father of Cush, who was then the father of Nimrod. Second, we can't be completely sure of what it meant in those days to 'build a city'. Nimrod could have well settled in the area of Nineveh and could well have been building a city with as little as a few dozen people. Did 'building a city' in those days mean that it began as a place where hundreds or thousands of people called home or was it merely a place where they settled as a few dozen, but stayed and continued to build its population as time went on. Does 'build a city' mean that he lived to see its completion or did he just have some people to settle there and they continued to build the city. After all, we are told that he built several 'cities' and came from several cities. What would have been the definition of these 'cities' as regards population. Finally, if the sons of Noah believed God, that all human life other than their own had been wiped from the earth, repopulating the earth may have taken on great importance to them and the men and women may have kept quite a pace in births.

I know of families today where two parents have 10-11 children and by the second generation, assuming their children are as fruitful as they were, could well be counted in as over one hundred. We aren't told how old Nimrod was when he began to settle in Nineveh, but if he were 60 years old by that time, his own children could have been starting on the third generation by that time. We also don't know if Nimrod started the city with only his progeny, but he may well have had some of his brothers and sisters to begin that work with him. Now you have maybe 3 or four founding families each having many, many children who, by the time of Nimrod's starting his city would also be into the third generation of children. Therefore, I think that in the 70 or 100 years, if we add Cainan between the flood and Nimrod's birth, and then allow that Nimrod may well have not started building Nineveh until later in his life, there may well have been several hundred people to populate the beginning of Nineveh. When people are given the command to repopulate the earth, there can be quite a few children and children's children born in fairly short order.

So, I'm not so sure I'm willing to agree that because I can't think to understand where people came from to populate cities, that the Scriptures cannot be true in their timeline and geneological accounting. We read of this same thing happening in the account of Adam's generations. Cain went out and was building a city shortly after he killed Abel. Curiously, we also find much repetition in the names of Cain's descendents and the names of Seth's descendents.

I have never claimed to be dogmatic about trying to determine the exact number of years since Adam's creation, but merely want to assure others that I am not in the camp of many, many thousands or millions or billions of years that the creation has existed.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

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Nimrod didn't build Ninevah:
Gen 10:11
Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah

yeshuasavedme said:

Nimrod didn't build Ninevah:
Gen 10:11
Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah

Click to expand...

Right, also where does it say that Nimrod built Babel?

Handmaid for Jesus said:

2. Individuals and relationships (Ex: Were Noah and Tubal-Cain related?)

Distantly. Noah is in the line of Seth. Tubal-Cain is in the line of Cain. Seth and Cain were brothers.

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Yes...
The history book of Jasher which gives a chronology that agrees with Torah [but a 5 year difference, I think, on the time Israel was in Egppt; 210 years in one and 215 years in the other], also gives the family relationships of the Patriarchs before the flood:
chapter 2
Book of Jasher, Chapter 2

1 And it was in the hundred and thirtieth year of the life of Adam upon the earth, that he again knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare a son in his likeness and in his image, and she called his name Seth, saying, Because God has appointed me another seed in the place of Abel, for Cain has slain him.

2 And Seth lived one hundred and five years, and he begat a son; and Seth called the name of his son Enosh, saying, Because in that time the sons of men began to multiply, and to afflict their souls and hearts by transgressing and rebelling against God.

3 And it was in the days of Enosh that the sons of men continued to rebel and transgress against God, to increase the anger of the Lord against the sons of men.

4 And the sons of men went and they served other gods, and they forgot the Lord who had created them in the earth: and in those days the sons of men made images of brass and iron, wood and stone, and they bowed down and served them.

5 And every man made his god and they bowed down to them, and the sons of men forsook the Lord all the days of Enosh and his children; and the anger of the Lord was kindled on account of their works and abominations which they did in the earth.

6 And the Lord caused the waters of the river Gihon to overwhelm them, and he destroyed and consumed them, and he destroyed the third part of the earth, and notwithstanding this, the sons of men did not turn from their evil ways, and their hands were yet extended to do evil in the sight of the Lord.

7 And in those days there was neither sowing nor reaping in the earth; and there was no food for the sons of men and the famine was very great in those days.

8 And the seed which they sowed in those days in the ground became thorns, thistles and briers; for from the days of Adam was this declaration concerning the earth, of the curse of God, which he cursed the earth, on account of the sin which Adam sinned before the Lord.

9 And it was when men continued to rebel and transgress against God, and to corrupt their ways, that the earth also became corrupt.

10 And Enosh lived ninety years and he begat Cainan;

11 And Cainan grew up and he was forty years old, and he became wise and had knowledge and skill in all wisdom, and he reigned over all the sons of men, and he led the sons of men to wisdom and knowledge; for Cainan was a very wise man and had understanding in all wisdom, and with his wisdom he ruled over spirits and demons;

12 And Cainan knew by his wisdom that God would destroy the sons of men for having sinned upon earth, and that the Lord would in the latter days bring upon them the waters of the flood.

13 And in those days Cainan wrote upon tablets of stone, what was to take place in time to come, and he put them in his treasures.

14 And Cainan reigned over the whole earth, and he turned some of the sons of men to the service of God.

15 And when Cainan was seventy years old, he begat three sons and two daughters.

16 And these are the names of the children of Cainan; the name of the first born Mahlallel, the second Enan, and the third Mered, and their sisters were Adah and Zillah; these are the five children of Cainan that were born to him.

17 And Lamech, the son of Methusael, became related to Cainan by marriage, and he took his two daughters for his wives, and Adah conceived and bare a son to Lamech, and she called his name Jabal.

18 And she again conceived and bare a son, and called his name Jubal; and Zillah, her sister, was barren in those days and had no offspring.

19 For in those days the sons of men began to trespass against God, and to transgress the commandments which he had commanded to Adam, to be fruitful and multiply in the earth.

20 And some of the sons of men caused their wives to drink a draught that would render them barren, in order that they might retain their figures and whereby their beautiful appearance might not fade.

21 And when the sons of men caused some of their wives to drink, Zillah drank with them.

22 And the child-bearing women appeared abominable in the sight of their husbands as widows, whilst their husbands lived, for to the barren ones only they were attached.

23 And in the end of days and years, when Zillah became old, the Lord opened her womb.

24 And she conceived and bare a son and she called his name Tubal Cain, saying, After I had withered away have I obtained him from the Almighty God.

25 And she conceived again and bare a daughter, and she called her name Naamah, for she said, After I had withered away have I obtained pleasure and delight.

26 And Lamech was old and advanced in years, and his eyes were dim that he could not see, and Tubal Cain, his son, was leading him and it was one day that Lamech went into the field and Tubal Cain his son was with him, and whilst they were walking in the field, Cain the son of Adam advanced towards them; for Lamech was very old and could not see much, and Tubal Cain his son was very young.

27 And Tubal Cain told his father to draw his bow, and with the arrows he smote Cain, who was yet far off, and he slew him, for he appeared to them to be an animal.

28 And the arrows entered Cain's body although he was distant from them, and he fell to the ground and died.

29 And the Lord requited Cain's evil according to his wickedness, which he had done to his brother Abel, according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken.

30 And it came to pass when Cain had died, that Lamech and Tubal went to see the animal which they had slain, and they saw, and behold Cain their grandfather was fallen dead upon the earth.

31 And Lamech was very much grieved at having done this, and in clapping his hands together he struck his son and caused his death.

32 And the wives of Lamech heard what Lamech had done, and they sought to kill him.

33 And the wives of Lamech hated him from that day, because he slew Cain and Tubal Cain, and the wives of Lamech separated from him, and would not hearken to him in those days.

34 And Lamech came to his wives, and he pressed them to listen to him about this matter.

35 And he said to his wives Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice O wives of Lamech, attend to my words, for now you have imagined and said that I slew a man with my wounds, and a child with my stripes for their having done no violence, but surely know that I am old and grey-headed, and that my eyes are heavy through age, and I did this thing unknowingly.

36 And the wives of Lamech listened to him in this matter, and they returned to him with the advice of their father Adam, but they bore no children to him from that time, knowing that God's anger was increasing in those days against the sons of men, to destroy them with the waters of the flood for their evil doings.

37 And Mahlallel the son of Cainan lived sixty-five years and he begat Jared; and Jared lived sixty-two years and he begat Enoch

Handmaid for Jesus said:

Right, also where does it say that Nimrod built Babel?

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Nimrod built four cities after the fall of the tower, when he ceased building the city and the tower after 2/3's of the tower were destroyed by God and the one mother Edenic/Hebrew tongue was confounded to the 70 out of the one, with the one remaining, [which 70 grew like branches and leaves on a tree to over 5,000, today, but all one tongue at the root]. The place they left the ruins of, Nimrod called Babel, but that was never built to a be an occupied city and forever was a ruin. Josephus said in his day you could visit the remains of the fallen tower, as you could also visit the pillar of salt that Lot's wife became, for when the animals liked it down, it grew back, forever, states the history book of Jasher....atomic "destruction" can do that....I have read, turning things to such a salt.

The four cities Nimrod built after the fall of the tower were named for happenings at the tower. Not one of them is "Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar". Nimrod was never down there, ever.
Nimrod's cities after the fall of the tower were named after happenings at the tower. The Bible mentions them, after stating they ceased building the city of the destroyed tower, so the one Nimrod built and named "babel" was not Babylon or the original site of the tower.

Book of Jasher, Chapter 11

1 And Nimrod son of Cush was still in the land of Shinar, and he reigned over it and dwelt there, and he built cities in the land of Shinar.

2 And these are the names of the four cities which he built, and he called their names after the occurrences that happened to them in the building of the tower.

3 And he called the first Babel, saying, Because the Lord there confounded the language of the whole earth; and the name of the second he called Erech, because from there God dispersed them.

4 And the third he called Eched, saying there was a great battle at that place; and the fourth he called Calnah, because his princes and mighty men were consumed there, and they vexed the Lord, they rebelled and transgressed against him.

5 And when Nimrod had built these cities in the land of Shinar, he placed in them the remainder of his people, his princes and his mighty men that were left in his kingdom.

6 And Nimrod dwelt in Babel, and he there renewed his reign over the rest of his subjects, and he reigned securely, and the subjects and princes of Nimrod called his name Amraphel, saying that at the tower his princes and men fell through his means.

7 And notwithstanding this, Nimrod did not return to the Lord, and he continued in wickedness and teaching wickedness to the sons of men; and Mardon, his son, was worse than his father, and continued to add to the abominations of his father.

8 And he caused the sons of men to sin, therefore it is said, From the wicked goeth forth wickedness."

Thank you Yeshuasavedme. This is interesting, however we do need to back up a bit.Preflood according to the OP. My question was too far ahead of time.

yeshuasavedme said:

Nimrod didn't build Ninevah:
Gen 10:11
Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah

Click to expand...

Hi YSM,

You are correct and I apologize for the bad info. It should have been Babylon.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

miamited said:

Hi YSM,

You are correct and I apologize for the bad info. It should have been Babylon.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

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I do the same kind of mixups, and if I don't correct myself, someone always does, fast

I used to think it was true that Nimrod built Babylon, but I do not think he did.
He never got down where Babylon is located, of Nebuchadnezzar's fame.
at least I do not remember any info that he did, in any of the history writings.

When Terah departed from the presence of Nimrod [as his general], with Abraham and Nahor, and Haran's three offspring, [Milcah, Sarai[ also called "Iscah"; Genesis 12:29] and Lot; Nimrod remained up north of Canaan, close to Damascus, in Syria; and when he raided Sodom and Gomorah and the cities of the plain with the three kings [he is called Amraphael after the tower, because "in him/the mighty one/el, they/the people/am, fell/rapha"], Abram's home born army, and Memre and his brothers chased him and the three kings North, into Syria, to the north of Damascus. Genesis 14

According to the history book of Jasher/"the Upright Record", Esau killed Nimrod when Nimrod was 215 years old and Esau was 16 years old [the day he came home famished and sold his birthright for stew].
Esau was in the land of Canaan when Nimrod was out on a hunting party, and Esau was out hunting, and Esau killed him and his men with him....
The details are in the history record called the Book of Jasher.

So while we are talking about the age of the earth. Let me ask you this to get some wheels turning.

How long was Adam in the garden before being cast out? How long was Adam in the garden before Eve was created? Since Adam could not die, does the time that Adam was in the garden count against his "age"?

So what if the number of years that Adam lived, were only the years he lived outside of the garden? We as people only obsess over how old we are as it relates to us dying. Man only keeps track of what is important to man, if while in the garden you have no expiration date, you don't worry about how old you are because you are never get close to the expiration date. The Bible is full of the recordings of man's mistakes. Keeping track of "age" may also something of a snub to God, "look God, I am 600 years old and I did not die", "Sarah is way past her childbearing years, she cannot have children" .

So consider this...if Adam's age as mentioned in the Bible is only reference to how many years he lived after being kicked out of the Garden...could he not have been in the garden for hundreds, or thousands, or even millions of years?

Now I am not saying that is something that I jump right in and believe. There simply is not enough biblical evidence to support most positions, this one included. But it does get you wondering when the clock actually started for "age".