The Antediluvian World - question 2 of 7

[ddubois]

This thread and five more that I think will follow is for those who believe that Genesis 4 and 5 describe real people. I would like to hear what you think we can reasonably infer about what the antediluvian world was like -- addressing the questions of when?, who?, what?, how?, where?, and why?. If you don't have an answer yourself, but are aware of someone or some organization that does, I would appreciate a reference. The main topics I am interested in are as follows:
1. History and chronology generally (see my first thread)
2. Individuals and relationships (Ex: Were Noah and Tubal-Cain related?)
3. Social structures (Ex: Was Enoch a king and/or prophet?)
4. Flora and Fauna (Ex: Did humans really walk with dinosaurs?)
5. Technology (Ex: What about the Great Pyramid?)
6. Geography (Ex: Was there an above ground ocean then?)
7. Religion and existential issues (Ex: Did the ancients look at God and time like we do?)

So for this thread on individuals and relationships (to answer who?), I would like to put forth the following hypotheses and questions:
1. Individual vital statistics of patriarchs: I believe in the literal life spans quoted in the Bible, a year meaning a year, not a month. For the date of the first male son, I lean towards using the Septuagint Bible , which often gives a date 100 years later than in virtually all western Bibles. To see why I prefer the Septuagint, you could look at a website, Why the Greek Septuagint? (On the other hand, Isaac Newton favored the Masoretic text.) life spans in both versions are pretty much the same, though. Would you agree with the long life spans? Some people think that individuals between those listed and their purported sons were left out, as apparently happens in some other places in the Bible -- do you?
2. Sons of god and Nephilim: Were the "sons of God" descendants of Seth or were they angels? I favor the latter (though I think most western churches do not), which could explain why their descendants, the Nephilim, were considered giants. What do you think? If they were descendants of angels (appearing godlike), there could be some identification with Greek and/or Sumerian gods, possibly before and/or after the Flood. Also some of the giants encountered by the Hebrews between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, like Goliath, could be descendants of the Nephilim. What do you think?
3. Lines of Seth and Cain: In the website Just Genesis, I came across an intriguing hypothesis as to why the names in the two lines are so similar:

"The key to understanding the marriage and ascendancy pattern in Genesis 4 and 5 and throughout the whole of Horite history, is the person of Naamah, Lamech's daughter. Naamah, married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah (Gen. 5:26) and named their first-born son Lamech, after her father. This cousin bride's naming prerogativemakes it possible to trace the ancestry of Jesus Christ back to Cain and Seth, whose line intermarried.

In Genesis 4 only sons are listed as they became the rulers. However, this doesn't mean that Cain had not daughters. One of Cain's unnamed daughters married her cousin Enosh (listed in Genesis 5)and named their first-born son Kenan after her father. Kain and Kenan are linguistically equivalent names. Likewise Irad's unnamed daughter married her cousin Mahalalel and named their first-born son Jared, after her father. Irad and Jared are linguistically equivalent. Methushael's daughter married her cousin Enoch and named their first-born son Methuselah, again linguistic equivalents."

Could the lines of Cain and Seth be so related? If so, I believe Noah would be the maternal nephew of Tubal-Cain. What do you think?

 

[yeshuasavedme]

http://www.speakingbible.com/jasher/index.htm
The chronology of the Patriarchs is in the Book of Jasher, which is a redacted history of the Patriarchs which the author of Torah took for granted that his readers also had access to.

Nimrod was son of Cush, son of Ham, son of Noah. Nimrod was born late to Cush, and Cush's brother was Mizraim; "Mizraim", for some reason, is translated "Egypt", so the uncle of Nimrod was "Egypt".

Terah was Nimrod's army chief, and therefore Terah named Abram"Ab Ram" "exalted father", because Nimrod had given him a high position as "father" to him, concerning his armies.

Nimrod was slain by Esau when Esau was 16 years old, and Shem outlived Abraham.
Abraham was mentored by Noah and Shem, and Noah died when Abram was in his 58th year.

Nimrod was called "Am Rapha El" after the tower, by the people, because "in him [el] they [am/the people] fell [rapha].
Abram chased Nimrod and the kings back up into Syria, in Genesis 14, to a city left of Damascus, which is where Nimrod lived and where Terah was from, for Terah was a Syrian, and Damascus is the oldest occupied city in the world...
Another interesting thing learned from real history such as the book of Jasher is that there was never a city named "UR of the Chaldees", but God's references to that is His deliverance of Abram from the "Fire [wrongly translated "ur"] of the Kasdim", for Abraham was thrown in a furnace of fire and was not burned, for destoying his father's household gods when he came back home from living with Noah and Shem. Then he talked his father and household to flee from Syria, and they came to Haran.
In Genesis 11:29 Iscah is Sarah, the wife of Abraham, the sister of Lot and sister of Milcah.

They left Syria immediately after Abram was saved from the "fire of the Kasdim, for Abram convinced his father that he would no longer be safe from Nimrod's wrath because he had not killed Abram at birth, as Nimrod thought he had done, when Terah substituted a slave's son for Nimrod to kill, because of signs in the heavens the night Abram was born that showed Abram would rise above all kings.....and destroy them [but of course, it is the "Seed" in Abraham's line/Christ who will do that].

Amraphael/Nimrod was from up in Syria, and the Tower he built and the city was never built after God destroyed it, and Syria -perhaps Damascus, was where the tower of Babel and the city was being built.
Babylon way down by the Persian Gulf is not the location of the Tower of Babel, but two days walk east, from somewhere in Syria,

The tower of Babel was forty years in building, and God struck it down in Abraham's 48th year, I think it was, but he was living in hiding from Nimrod at that time with Noah and Shem.

The Septuagint is wrong on the chronology, and was written long after the temple books were burned, and rewritten by Ezra/Esdras and the scribes, miracously.

You will find a bit of the history of Europe in Jasher that is corroborated in the histories of the areas, and even such things in it that sheds light on the events of histories in those areas.

 

[ddubois]

http://www.speakingbible.com/jasher/index.htm
The chronology of the Patriarchs is in the Book of Jasher, which is a redacted history of the Patriarchs which the author of Torah took for granted that his readers also had access to.

Nimrod was son of Cush, son of Ham, son of Noah. Nimrod was born late to Cush, and Cush's brother was Mizraim; "Mizraim", for some reason, is translated "Egypt", so the uncle of Nimrod was "Egypt".

Terah was Nimrod's army chief, and therefore Terah named Abram"Ab Ram" "exalted father", because Nimrod had given him a high position as "father" to him, concerning his armies.

Nimrod was slain by Esau when Esau was 16 years old, and Shem outlived Abraham.
Abraham was mentored by Noah and Shem, and Noah died when Abram was in his 58th year.

Nimrod was called "Am Rapha El" after the tower, by the people, because "in him [el] they [am/the people] fell [rapha].
Abram chased Nimrod and the kings back up into Syria, in Genesis 14, to a city left of Damascus, which is where Nimrod lived and where Terah was from, for Terah was a Syrian, and Damascus is the oldest occupied city in the world...
Another interesting thing learned from real history such as the book of Jasher is that there was never a city named "UR of the Chaldees", but God's references to that is His deliverance of Abram from the "Fire [wrongly translated "ur"] of the Kasdim", for Abraham was thrown in a furnace of fire and was not burned, for destoying his father's household gods when he came back home from living with Noah and Shem. Then he talked his father and household to flee from Syria, and they came to Haran.
In Genesis 11:29 Iscah is Sarah, the wife of Abraham, the sister of Lot and sister of Milcah.

They left Syria immediately after Abram was saved from the "fire of the Kasdim, for Abram convinced his father that he would no longer be safe from Nimrod's wrath because he had not killed Abram at birth, as Nimrod thought he had done, when Terah substituted a slave's son for Nimrod to kill, because of signs in the heavens the night Abram was born that showed Abram would rise above all kings.....and destroy them [but of course, it is the "Seed" in Abraham's line/Christ who will do that].

Amraphael/Nimrod was from up in Syria, and the Tower he built and the city was never built after God destroyed it, and Syria -perhaps Damascus, was where the tower of Babel and the city was being built.
Babylon way down by the Persian Gulf is not the location of the Tower of Babel, but two days walk east, from somewhere in Syria,

The tower of Babel was forty years in building, and God struck it down in Abraham's 48th year, I think it was, but he was living in hiding from Nimrod at that time with Noah and Shem.

The Septuagint is wrong on the chronology, and was written long after the temple books were burned, and rewritten by Ezra/Esdras and the scribes, miracously.

You will find a bit of the history of Europe in Jasher that is corroborated in the histories of the areas, and even such things in it that sheds light on the events of histories in those areas.

Thank you for your past help, like with the encouraging idea that the Great Pyramid survived the flood. Also, I am grateful for the reminder of the importance of the Book of Jasher
(which I now intend to look at again soon), and I found the stories about Nimrod, Terah, and Esau interesting. But do you have any thoughts about Nephilim or the relationship between the lines of Seth and Cain?

You said the Septuagint was wrong on chronology. Can you help me develop a pro-Masoretic rationale to offset what I understand to be the following 3 advantages of the Septuagint:
1. It was accepted by those who wrote the New Testament;
2. It has a flood date easier to reconcile with archaeological findings;
3. It significantly expands the time between the flood and the tower of Babel, adding one more generation, which in fact agrees with the Luke 3 genealogy.

Finally, I would like to get your advice as a senior veteran on how best to get helpful responses. With my thread 1 of 7, I at first thought I was doing well, getting 4 responses the first day. But on my thread 2 of 7, I got no other response than yours. Do you think I was trying to get too much too quickly, and/or do you think I came across in a bad way, like too self-important, or what? Any suggestions for better approaches in starting threads?

P.S. I just reviewed the antediluvian portion of Book of Jasher (chap 1 -6), and wondered if there was a Septuagint version of it. Following is an extract from a response from Eastern Orthodox veteran Buzuxi02 to a thread in Christian Forums on that topic:

"The more detailed answer is that Jasher (Im not aware of the book of Jasher being quoted in the NT), is referenced in the OT (dont mistake modern forgeries with whats referenced in the OT) but was probably already lost when the Old testament was being translated into the LXX.
Also not all popular traditions commonly held in 1st century Judaism need to be included....
...the jews became suspicious of the accuracy of the LXX (as christians used to prove Christ was the messiah) an old testament manuscript 'industry' was born. Basically the jews were looking for new versions of the old testament which better represented the original hebrew terminology and better reflected their approved holy books. Basically 5-8 new versions of the OT were produced between 200 and 250 AD. These newer versions would be compared to the LXX to analyse where they diverged and so on, the most famous being Origens Hexapla...."
It seems he is skeptical that the current known book of Jasher is the same as the one referred to in the Bible. Also he appears to infer that the Jewish revisions to the Septuagint (which influenced the eventual Masoretic text) were motivated by suspicions of how the Christians were using the Septuagint to prove Christ was the Messiah. Any comment?

 

[ChetSinger]

1. Individual vital statistics of patriarchs: I believe in the literal life spans quoted in the Bible, a year meaning a year, not a month. For the date of the first male son, I lean towards using the Septuagint Bible , which often gives a date 100 years later than in virtually all western Bibles. To see why I prefer the Septuagint, you could look at a website, Why the Greek Septuagint? (On the other hand, Isaac Newton favored the Masoretic text.) life spans in both versions are pretty much the same, though. Would you agree with the long life spans? Some people think that individuals between those listed and their purported sons were left out, as apparently happens in some other places in the Bible -- do you?

I have no problem taking the long lifespans literally. Why might they have shrunk so quickly after the flood? One possibility I find interesting is that the genetic bottleneck induced by the flood passed on some undesirable mutation, via Noah, that the entire human race has since become stuck with.

Regarding missing generations, the genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 are unlike subsequent ones; these two seem designed (to me, anyway) to prohibit the introduction of extra generations.

2. Sons of god and Nephilim: Were the "sons of God" descendants of Seth or were they angels? I favor the latter (though I think most western churches do not), which could explain why their descendants, the Nephilim, were considered giants. What do you think? If they were descendants of angels (appearing godlike), there could be some identification with Greek and/or Sumerian gods, possibly before and/or after the Flood. Also some of the giants encountered by the Hebrews between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, like Goliath, could be descendants of the Nephilim. What do you think?

I favor the latter, too, since it was the almost universal opinion in the ancient world, including church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Commodianus, and Lactantius. Parallels have also recently been found in Sumerian literature.

I think the scholarly tide is turning against the Sethite explanation so favored by the Protestant reformers. Below is an example:

https://academic.logos.com/2015/05/...r-genesis-commentaries-are-eight-track-tapes/

3. Lines of Seth and Cain: In the website Just Genesis, I came across an intriguing hypothesis as to why the names in the two lines are so similar:

I don't have an opinion, but I don't see why their descendants couldn't have intermarried.

 

[ddubois]

I have no problem taking the long lifespans literally. Why might they have shrunk so quickly after the flood? One possibility I find interesting is that the genetic bottleneck induced by the flood passed on some undesirable mutation, via Noah, that the entire human race has since become stuck with.

Regarding missing generations, the genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 are unlike subsequent ones; these two seem designed (to me, anyway) to prohibit the introduction of extra generations.


I favor the latter, too, since it was the almost universal opinion in the ancient world, including church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Commodianus, and Lactantius. Parallels have also recently been found in Sumerian literature.

I think the scholarly tide is turning against the Sethite explanation so favored by the Protestant reformers. Below is an example:

https://academic.logos.com/2015/05/...r-genesis-commentaries-are-eight-track-tapes/


I don't have an opinion, but I don't see why their descendants couldn't have intermarried.

We appear to be in general agreement. I hadn't heard the hypothesis of a genetic bottleneck with Noah before as an explanation for reduced longevity -- I just now found it on the internet with Why Did People Start to Have Shorter Lives After the Flood? with the creationist answer from Answers in Genesis. Thank you for the response and the information.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

No time to reply to all, busy, busy, but God confounded the tongue, shortened the years of the Adam creation, and divided the earth, all because of the rebellion at the tower.
The very year he destroyed the tower, the years of Adam were shortened..

 

[ddubois]

I don't follow what you are saying -- "God confounded the tongue, shortened the years of the Adam creation, and divided the earth, all because of the rebellion at the tower.
The very year he destroyed the tower, the years of Adam were shortened.."
-- it sounds like you are saying Adam's years were shortened the year God destroyed the tower of Babel. But in traditional chronology, Adam died before the flood and the tower of Babel was destroyed after it. So am I misinterpreting, or are you saying God allowed the present to change the past (quantum entanglement on a macro scale?), or what?

 

[yeshuasavedme]

I don't follow what you are saying -- "God confounded the tongue, shortened the years of the Adam creation, and divided the earth, all because of the rebellion at the tower.
The very year he destroyed the tower, the years of Adam were shortened.."
-- it sounds like you are saying Adam's years were shortened the year God destroyed the tower of Babel. But in traditional chronology, Adam died before the flood and the tower of Babel was destroyed after it. So am I misinterpreting, or are you saying God allowed the present to change the past (quantum entanglement on a macro scale?), or what?

Hi, Adam is the name of our race, and it is the name used in Scripture original language translated "man", mostly: Genesis 5:2 "Male and female made He them, and called their name Adam."

I haven't much time as something is taking about all of it up at the moment, but in the "real" book of Jasher which I linked for you, you will find that the Torah is made clear for reasons of the things only redacted by Moses in Torah, cause all who would be in charge of reading Torah would be proficient in the understanding to make plain the readings to those who did not spend their time in study of the writings of the Patriarchs.
Moses had access to all the writings, and it is my personal, studied, opinion that he also wrote the Book of Jasher as a redaction itself, of the writings of the records the Patriarchs left.

They all wrote. God wrote the "Scripture of Truth" in heaven, for one thing, that the sons of God might read and know the things that would befall the sons of Adam from the beginning to the end. Adam, the head of our human being race, from whose loins we have come [passed down as the seed in the loins of the fathers from the firstborn son of God of the human being kind -who died, and we died in his loins and must be born again from above to be "sons of God of the human being kind" -but I digress; was, before his divorce from the Glory and from His presence in Eden, in Paradise, in the third heaven, also had access to the Scripture of Truth written there, by the Word of God [note that Enoch saw all the tablets written in heaven and read them all, and wept much....]. When the "angel" in Daniel 10 came to Daniel, he told Daniel he would show him all things concerning his people that are written in the "Scripture of Truth", referring only to that written in heaven, which the angels read, and which Adam once read, and which Enoch read [and it is also my personal opinion that the certain angel showing Daniel these things is Enoch, who is transformed to his glory body and is serving with the Watcher angels in Eden, above, over earth, below; for "angel" means only "messenger", and it can be a human [a pastor], an angel of spirit, or even forces/ spirits of nature that God calls His "Messengers", which means, again, "angels".

So, I said all that to lay the background to understanding where Moses got the "beginnings" from that he wrote, and it is the opinion of many -and mine, that he is copying from copies of copies that Adam, himself, our "first father"; the fallen, former son of God, wrote.
All the patriarches wrote, for language and the writing of it is a gift of God, not an invention of human beings.

So, we have one tongue in the beginning; one body of water called "seas" -currents and rivers in the seas from the beginning, to now; one land mass [there was a large island in the sea, Enoch described]; and long ages of the Adam creation, but not one would reach his "day" to be transformed [Enoch is the firstborn son of Christ/the Spirit, to fulfill the Law of the barren widow and the second husband's firstborn son and the inheritance of that son, raised in his father's name so the inheritance -earth- is not lost, but again, I digress], which "day", God set in the beginning as one thousand years [you will find that understanding written in the writings and confirmed by many passages alluding to the milllenial week for this present creation.

God's plan was not changed when Adam fell, but the promise of the "Seed" of the Woman [Jerusalem/Zion above, personfied as a woman from Genesis to Revelation], who would destroy the works of the devil and his authority over the world and over the dust of the flesh of all the earth's creatures, and who became the king of "the belly of the earth" in Genesis 4 [satan is not a snake that lost his legs, to crawl and eat dust, but is the evil angel [created by God to do what he does, he is not a fallen holy angel], and which "belly of the earth is Sheol [and there is one chief satan with many under him: the particular one over Sheol is called "Abaddon/Destruction/Death"]: but God's plan is going on, and His plan is to make living temple of living stones for His glory to indwell, and to "Plant the heavens" thereby.
Again, digressions: anyway: Adam wrote, Moses had copies, and Moses wrote.
The earth was one language, one land mass, one body of water, and the Adam lived long, even after the fall, but never reached "the millennial day", which would bring the undefiled Adam to his time of graduation to the transformed flesh, and entering into service as a priest in heaven, with the holy Watcher angels, over earth.

The plan is going on, as I said, but meantime, the Adam spirit we are born in is in rebellion, always, to the plan of God, and different ones have done different things under the temptation of the evil angels [the satans] to try to stop God's plan and to "take over Eden above and the earth below, in their own name":
The tower called "Bab-el" was the greatest rebellion since the ffallen watcher angels took daughters of Adam to get offspring on earth below, to thwart God's plan, under the temptation they fell for, of the satans.
That rebellion caused the division of our one mother tongue into 70, at first, which has spread to over 5,000, as tribes branched out; and to the shortening of the days of the lives of the Adam creation, and the division of the one land mass.
The days began to be shortened when Eber's son, Joktan, died the year of the tower, and the land began to divide the same year, completing when apparently, Peleg died. Eber named his sons prophetically as all the patriarchs names are prophetic, andmean things that are real, concerning our Adam creation race.

Read Jasher and Enoch and the DSS scrolls so as to form your own opinions, and not get my opinions and other's opinions here, but go to the sources that record these things and see for yourself if the corroborate with the Torah and each other.
In Christ,
Terrie, YSM
Sorry for errors. Writing on tiny tablet with tiny bluetooth keyboard or else on tiny phone screen makes me have to come back after I post to do corrections. I don't have time, today, to make the writing easier to read and punctuation and sp changes:-(

 

[ddubois]

Interesting. I have started a harmony adding additional antediluvian information from the books of Enoch, Jubilees, and Jasher to the antediluvian section of the book of Genesis. Based on your recommendation, I will also see if the book of Giants from the Dead Sea Scrolls has anything to add.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

I wouldnt use Jubilees to try to correlate anything with Torah or the history book of Jasher.
It doesn't.
Jubilees is pseudo history pretending to be real, and pretending to be "thus saith YHWH", when in fact it is just a "Judaising" false history which makes things up tp bring men into bondage to their version of the Law as the be all end all to God.
It is false, but useful in gaining some insight to the minds of men of the times it was written in, which was after the Books of first temple were burned, and removed totally from the corrupt rulers in Israel, because they "missed the message of the Law", as God said in Isaiah 29.

So, Jubilees will not correlate with Torah and with the history book of Jasher.
Torah and Jasher correlate, and Enoch is also corroborated by Torah and Jasher.
There is a lot of info in the writings of the DSS that aids in understanding or corroborates Enoch, Torah, and Jasher, though they could not keep Jubilees and Jasher together, obviously, cause they totally wanted to bring men under bondage to the Law in their own way, which was so far off they missed it totally and had no clue to the real Message of the Law.
But Jesus said it is revealed to Babes, in Matt 11:25, which is a reference to Isaiah 28:9

Book of Giants is written by Enoch, they say, and it does correlate with the book of Enoch in that the fallen Watcher angels asked Enoch, the scribe, to intercede for them and for their offspring, with God. Enoch tried, but they were damned irrevocably, and Enoch brought the report back to them and read it to them.

 

[SkyWriting]

1. Individual vital statistics of patriarchs: I believe in the literal life spans quoted in the Bible, a year meaning a year, not a month. For the date of the first male son, I lean towards using the Septuagint Bible , which often gives a date 100 years later than in virtually all western Bibles. To see why I prefer the Septuagint, you could look at a website, Why the Greek Septuagint? (On the other hand, Isaac Newton favored the Masoretic text.) life spans in both versions are pretty much the same, though. Would you agree with the long life spans? Some people think that individuals between those listed and their purported sons were left out, as apparently happens in some other places in the Bible -- do you?
2. Sons of god and Nephilim: Were the "sons of God" descendants of Seth or were they angels? I favor the latter (though I think most western churches do not), which could explain why their descendants, the Nephilim, were considered giants. What do you think? If they were descendants of angels (appearing godlike), there could be some identification with Greek and/or Sumerian gods, possibly before and/or after the Flood. Also some of the giants encountered by the Hebrews between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, like Goliath, could be descendants of the Nephilim. What do you think?
3. Lines of Seth and Cain: In the website Just Genesis, I came across an intriguing hypothesis as to why the names in the two lines are so similar:

"The key to understanding the marriage and ascendancy pattern in Genesis 4 and 5 and throughout the whole of Horite history, is the person of Naamah, Lamech's daughter. Naamah, married her patrilineal cousin Methuselah (Gen. 5:26) and named their first-born son Lamech, after her father. This cousin bride's naming prerogativemakes it possible to trace the ancestry of Jesus Christ back to Cain and Seth, whose line intermarried.

In Genesis 4 only sons are listed as they became the rulers. However, this doesn't mean that Cain had not daughters. One of Cain's unnamed daughters married her cousin Enosh (listed in Genesis 5)and named their first-born son Kenan after her father. Kain and Kenan are linguistically equivalent names. Likewise Irad's unnamed daughter married her cousin Mahalalel and named their first-born son Jared, after her father. Irad and Jared are linguistically equivalent. Methushael's daughter married her cousin Enoch and named their first-born son Methuselah, again linguistic equivalents."

Could the lines of Cain and Seth be so related? If so, I believe Noah would be the maternal nephew of Tubal-Cain. What do you think?

If you have any insights that help, fine.

 

[juvenissun]

1. Individual vital statistics of patriarchs: I believe in the literal life spans quoted in the Bible, a year meaning a year, not a month. For the date of the first male son, I lean towards using the Septuagint Bible , which often gives a date 100 years later than in virtually all western Bibles. To see why I prefer the Septuagint, you could look at a website, Why the Greek Septuagint? (On the other hand, Isaac Newton favored the Masoretic text.) life spans in both versions are pretty much the same, though. Would you agree with the long life spans? Some people think that individuals between those listed and their purported sons were left out, as apparently happens in some other places in the Bible -- do you?

I believe. But I don't understand.
You obviously have more thoughts about this issue. So, may I ask one of my key question: How is possible that they lived so long? Why could Abraham only live a fraction of their life spans?