Hi Dave Taylor,
Dave Taylor said:
The date of the flood is not given in the Bible; nor is the age of the earth given.
It does provide alot of geneologies; but from the internal evidences of the geneologies; we know that they are not recorded in detail; one generation after the other; so as to form a perfectly accountable estimate; nor are all of the geneologies given supplied with birth and death dates....so again, your comment above is completely extra-biblical speculation.
We can work out the approximate age of the Earth and the Flood using these
genealogies. The genealogies are there primarily to show Jesus' history, which goes right back to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Adam, was the first Adam, while Jesus is the last Adam. Through the first Adam all will die, but through the last Adam, all are made alive.
The Bible tells us the age of the father when the male descendant was born. This is all what we really need to know. We don't need father son, son, son, son, etc, to use the genealogies. All what you need to know is how old the older male was when his descendant was born and then how old that descendant was when his descendant was born and so on down to Jesus Christ. So, all we have to do is just add up the numbers.
For example, say that my grand father was born during the creation week. He would have been 61 years old when I was born. Then say that I'm 25 when my first child is born.
Now, from the start of creation, it is 61 years until I am born, then an additional 25 years until my first child is born. So far the total is 86 years from creation until my child is born. Then say that my first child is 67 when he has a grand child. So we add 67 more years on to that, and we get 153 years from creation until my great gand child is born. My mother may have been 22 years old when I am born, but who cares? If my mother was mentioned, then my grand father's age when she was born would have been noted. We don't need that information about my mother or father in our calculations because we know how old my grand father was when I was born and we know that he was created during the creation week. And so it goes on. Whether Enoch was Methuselah's father or grand father is irrelevent because we know the age of his Enoch when Methuselah was born, and we also know the age of Jared when Enoch was born and so on all the way up to Seth and finally Adam.
Sometimes, the word father means not only natural father in the sense that we mean, but it can mean grand father or any other ancestor. But as shown, it makes no difference on the accuracy of the genealogies.
As you can see, such arguments about inaccurate dates being received from the genealogies are quite false. Therefore, arguments about the age of the Earth using the Bible's genealogies as evidence are quite true and accurate.
Yours in Christ,
COML.
Also, the death ages of the ancestors are not needed in the calculations of genealogies and the age of the Earth.