What was the approximate date of the Flood?

Achilles6129 said:

They don't decimate - they simply offer their opinion, which is their own interpretation of the evidence. I simply disagree with their interpretation. That's what this is all about - interpretation.

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Agree.

There is not either correct or wrong interpretation. There is only good or bad interpretation.

Achilles6129 said:

You are incorrect and are using extrabiblical sources:

"40 The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years. 41 At the end of four hundred thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." Ex. 12:40-41 (NRSV)

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You are really kidding -right?
You used Stephen's recorded speech as if it was absolutely the Word of God; but though Stephen was a man of God and was the first martyr, his history was not correct and was got from extrabiblical sources. His history is in error and can be proven so by calculating the dates by using the Torah.

Paul heard Stephen's speech and was more learned than Stephen in the Law and the ancient writings used by the Israelites, who studied the books, and Paul states [as Scripture truth]:


Gal 3:17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

the Covenant was confirmed 430 years before the Law was given at Sinai, so now what do you do?
You go back to the Covenant confirmed, and add up the years to the entry into Egypt:


The Covenant was Confirmed before Ishmael was even born!
So what do you do now?
Ishmael was 15 years old when Isaac was born.
Isaac lived 60 years and begat Jacob
Jacob lived to age 130 and entered Egypt.

130 + 60 + 15 = 205 years before the entry into Egypt. But there was the additional time to add to that going back to the years before Ishmael was born when the promise was made. The Hebrew sources say that was 20 years before Issac was born and 5 years before Ishmael was born.

So what do you do now?

So entry into Egypt was 220 years after the confirmed Covenant.
So what do you do now?

Moses was the son of Levi's daughter, and he led Israel out at age 82, so 210 + 82 = 292 years from the confirmed Covenant to the Law, but that leaves a gap to fill in of the age of Jochebed when she bore Moses, and she certainly bore him 82 years before the Law.

You need the age of Jochebed when she bore Moses to complete the timeline -so what do you do now?
The Jewish writings say she was 128 when she bore Moses and that she was herself born at the gates of Egypt, to her father, Levi...so what do you do now?

How can you look at the confirmed covenant 210 years before Israel enters Egypt and try to make them there for 430 years more? It is not adding up, is it? The Covenant was not 650 years before the Law, which is what you have using Stephen's speech which is contradicted by the facts in Genesis!


YHWH said at the confirmed covenant that Abraham's seed would come back to the their inheritance in the fourth generation, and they did.
Abraham's generations are counted by God through:

Isaac
Jacob
Levi
Moses

4 generations counted because Moses is the son of Levi's daughter, and counted as Levi's seed because Levi's son's, son married his aunt Jochebed. God counted it that way, and if you try to make 430 years from the entry of Israel into Egypt, then you make the Torah a lie, for Jochebed is Moses' mother, and she is Levi's daughter. The histories of the Jews tell us Jochebed was born at Egypt's gate, when Levi went in.

So what are you going to do now?

Achilles6129 said:

"32 The days of Terah were two hundred five years; and Terah died in Haran." Gen. 11:32 (NRSV)

Add the verses together. Terah died at 205 and Abraham was 75 when he left Haran.
Acts 7:4 says that Abraham left Haran after the death of his father. Therefore, Abraham was born when Terah was 130 years old.

You are going off of extra-Biblical chronology. This is unnecessary - the Bible itself gives you everything you need to figure everything out - you do not have to reference the book of Jashar.

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No, the Bible itself does not give you everything you need to figure out the chronologies, straight forward -but you can deduct with much work and discover the ages and times.

You need the histories to understand the story line and the chronologies which correlate with the Torah account.

You assume Terah was age 130 when Abram was born because you use extrabiblical accounts that tried to figure everything out without all the information because the books were not available after the dispersion, to everyone -and still are not all available to this day, as Ezra tells us; but he actual ages can be discovered by deductions using the Torah and adding the many passages that tell when certain things are done.
Abraham left Haran two times, and the Torah record can be used to discover that, but Jasher has the chronology straight forward, without having to deduct and add what is not so plainnor needs to be, because it is plain in another place -but both correlate.


The fact is that the chronology is in Jasher, and for that reason it is not listed in chronological order in the Torah account, and you can prove it by just a few verses:
Japheth is older than Shem, but it looks as if they are triplets, if one is left in the dark without the facts and thinks the Torah account is chronological, but the Torah itself disproves the assumption that Shem is the same age as the others.

It also looks as if Abram, Nahor and Haran are triplets if you believe Genesis is in chronological order on their births -they are not!, and the Torah account proves they are not -if you add up certain facts.

It also appears [if you discount the facts elsewhere], that Issac died before even Joseph was sold as a slave in Egypt, if you think his death is in a chronological order to Jacob's coming back to canaan, but it is not, as Torah proves!

Gen 35:28 And the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years.

Isaac died when Jacob was 120 years old, which was ten years before Israel entered Egypt. Joseph was age 39 years old, so Isaac died when Joseph was 29 years old, and was only in Egypt at that time for 12 years, so Isaac did not die until 12 years after Joseph was sold as a slave; and as the history book says, Isaac came to comfort Jacob when he thought Joseph had been slain.




Gen 5:32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Gen 6:10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Gen 10:21 Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.




Gen 11:26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Terah was 70 years old when Abraham was born, but like Shem, Abram was not born first.



Terah was not the father of Sarah, but the grandfather of Sarah -making her his own daughter by law, just like Moses was the son of Levi, by law. Sarah was the daughter of Haran, and the sister of Lot and Melchi. In Genesis 11 she is called Ischa/princess, the daughter of Haran.

Gen 11:29 And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.

Sarah was 40 years old when she married Abram, who was age 50. she was barren til she was 90 years old and had been married to Abraham 50 years. They had lived in Egypt twice and Haran twice, and in Canaan four times. Genesis redacts the histories because they are already written in the Book of Jasher.

In Genesis 14, when Abram was living in Canaan, he chased Nimrod [who is called Am rapha El because "in him/the el/mighty one they/am/the people fell/rapha -at the tower], and Abram chased the three kings and got the mighty victory over them and got all the people and the goods back which they had taken away.
Abraham then met with Shem, who is called the" King of Righteousness" in Genesis 14 so as to morph him into a type of the Son of God who was to come; but since Shem lived 502 years after the flood, and died age 602, here you have him being blessed by Shem in Genesis 14, and very alive and well.

You cannot discount the historical records which tell us these facts, and all the Jews who study can tell you that Shem was Melchi -Zedek in Genesis 14, and that Israel was in Egypt for 210 years.



Now Terah died age 205, but he died after Abram left Haran. Abram left Haran two times, also, and Egypt two times, also.

I still date the flood to ~3,000 BC and read it as a local/regional flood. It is a matter of how to interpret the Bible. each and every word is accurate.

Achilles6129 said:

"16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring;[f] it does not say, “And to offsprings,”[g] as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,”[h] that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise." Gal. 3:16-17 (NRSV)


The entry into Egypt was when Jacob was 130 years old. Isaac was born when Abraham was 100, Jacob was born when Isaac was 60. So 100+60+130 = 290.

So the entry into Egypt was 290 years after the promise to Abraham - but Jacob is still a bearer of the promise, as per the Apostle Paul.


Then the Flood would have to be global, wouldn't it? That's what Scripture describes.

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You got you math wrong. Abraham entered Canaan when he was 75 and the promise was 1 to 5 years after he entered. The law was given 1 year after the Exodus. If the promise was when Abe was 76, then 100-76=24 so 24+60+130+1=215. This leaves 215 years in Egypt. There is another verse in Acts that gives 450 years but includes the seven years fighting in Canaan. It also can only allow about 215 years in Egypt.

About the flood, the word translated world can equally be translated region. Also in I Peter, he uses ge to refer to the whole world, but doesn't use ge to refer to the area destroyed by the flood. He uses cosmos, which refers to the organized world or region. So, no the flood would not have to be global, but I certainly understand your case why you interpret it to mean the whole world. It is a strong argument. After long and careful study, I decided the regional interpretation is a stronger argument.

Achilles6129 said:

Now you must be kidding! Of course Stephen's speech is the word of God - it's straight from the book of Acts! What other parts of the book of Acts don't you believe are the "word of God?"

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So if you are not kidding, then are you blind? Read what the Word of God says, itself, which I posted!


Acts is history of the acts of the Apostles. Acts is written to Theophilus, by Luke.
Do you not know the difference between history accounts and records of what men say in the histories, and what "thus saith YHWH" says?
Jews do know the difference.

Torah is the Word God gave through Moses, dictated by God to Moses to write each letter exactly as it was written. Even then, we do not have the original, and copies only date to the 9th century AD, but 3rd century BC Greek Septuagint, of which no copies of the Hebrew remain that it used.

Histories are "writings", in the Tenach, and the NT is the same. There is history, and there is "Thus saith YHWH" in the person of the Son of God.
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to remind His disciples what He said and did.
They were not possessed of all historically accurate knowledge to be chosen to be a disciple, cause Peter even believed the book of Jubilees as Scripture until the Holy Spirit let down the sheet, to teach Peter the truth, in direct contradiction to what the Book of Jubilees purports to be as; "Thus saith YHWH", as reported by the mouth of Abraham to Isaac-to a Jacob; but which is a total fable -as Torah accounts prove.



Acts is history. Within it there is "Thus saith YHWH" when the Holy Spirit speaks directly. Stephen was speaking on what his own faulty historical record that contradicts Torah says, but Paul wrote exactly what the Torah says:
You seem to not believe the Torah account nor what Paul writes that confirms it, which Stephen did not understand, though Stephen understood who Jesus was:
Gal 3:17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

The Covenant was four hundred thirty years before the law:
The Covenant was soon after Genesis 14, when Abram meets Shem at Shalem, and then, the land covenant comes when Abram is 70 years old, actually.
Isaac was born 30 years after the covenant, so Ishmael was born 15 years later, when Abram was 85. I think I added that up incorrectly ion my prior post.


No one in Israel was afflicted in Egypt until after Joseph died, according to Torah, so you have a discrepency in Torah English translation, and I think it is the problem of translators and possibly in faulty texts, because our Hebrew Masoretic text only dates to the
9th century.
The Septuagint dates only to the 3rd century BC.
So we have discrepencies in the accounts and you cannot make the claim that Stephen's speech was historically; "Thus saith YHWH", because it does not correlate to; "Thus saith YHWH" in the Torah account, which Paul does agree with, as he says in

Gal 3:17: the law was four hundred thirty years after the Covenant!

Achilles6129 said:

Read again! Abraham left Haran when Terah died. Terah died at 205 and Abram was 75 when he left Haran! Hence, Abram was born when Terah was 130.

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You assume Abram did not leave Haran until Terah died.
You assumption does not agree with Torah and with the written historical accounts.

The Torah only says Terah died age 205. Abram's leaving Haran is not chronological with Terah's death. It is just a statement like the statement of the age of Isaac at his death, but after that, we have a lot going on, as I posted lots of proof of in my second post back.

Also, Abram left Haran twice, and Egypt twice, and Canaan three times, after going to Canaan from Haran the first time. He did not dwell in Haran after the second time leaving, and only visited it the third time.


in Torah, You have Abram in Egypt when he is 85 years old because Sarah was 75 when she was taken by Pharaoh for her beauty, and Abram feared he would be killed for her beauty, if they knew he was her husband.

Hagar was given to Sarah as a handmaid and she told Moses to go in to her and get seed through her. Ishmael was then born to Abram when he was 85 years old.

That was not the first time Abram went into Egypt with Sarah and had Sarah say that she was his sister, either. They did it earlier, from Canaan, into Egypt, and back to Canaan, when Lot settled in Sodom and Sarah had Hagar given as handmaid to her.


So he had to go back to Haran to leave Haran at age 75, because he went to Egypt from Canaan, both times, and back to Canaan.


Read and correlate Torah accounts and history accounts to discover the true story line.

Achilles6129 said:

Well, we are simply going to have to disagree. You are rejecting Stephen's plain statement in Acts and saying that he was in error. Luke, also, was evidently in error as well. I also disagree with your interpretation of Gal. 3:17 and have given the reasons why.

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Luke recorded Stephen's speech correctly, but Stephen was not correct in his history as I proved from the Torah, but you will not believe the Torah nor believe the scholar of history and Torah, Paul, who specifically states that the Covenant was given 430 years before the Law..

There is no interpretation of Gal 3:17. It is plain, and it correlates with the Torah and with the histories.
The Covenant of Genesis 15 is the Covenant that was made by God with Abraham 430 years before the Law was given at Sinai.

There is nothing plainer than that.

yeshuasavedme said:

Luke recorded Stephen's speech correctly, but Stephen was not correct in his history as I proved from the Torah, but you will not believe the Torah nor believe the scholar of history and Torah, Paul, who specifically states that the Covenant was given 430 years before the Law..

There is no interpretation of Gal 3:17. It is plain, and it correlates with the Torah and with the histories.
The Covenant of Genesis 15 is the Covenant that was made by God with Abraham 430 years before the Law was given at Sinai.

There is nothing plainer than that.

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One of the problems is that people rely on the verse that says that the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt. They then twist the words to Abe that they would spend four hundred years as strangers in a land (Canaan) and enslaved (Egypt). (Gen 15:13). Acts 13:19 with 450 years from Isaac to the conquest. Finally, Gal 3:17 that says it is 430 years from the promise to Abe age to the giving of the law. What many people don't realize is that the verse Ex 12:40 has an alternate reading, that they spent 430 years in Egypt and Canaan. The alternate reading agrees perfectly with the other verses. Thus all four verses agree, they only spent 215 years in Egypt.

greentwiga said:

One of the problems is that people rely on the verse that says that the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt. They then twist the words to Abe that they would spend four hundred years as strangers in a land (Canaan) and enslaved (Egypt). (Gen 15:13). Acts 13:19 with 450 years from Isaac to the conquest. Finally, Gal 3:17 that says it is 430 years from the promise to Abe age to the giving of the law. What many people don't realize is that the verse Ex 12:40 has an alternate reading, that they spent 430 years in Egypt and Canaan. The alternate reading agrees perfectly with the other verses. Thus all four verses agree, they only spent 215 years in Egypt.

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Yes, for the most part that is correct.
The actual number of years from the promise was 220 to the entering in of Egypt, and the years in Egypt was 210.

And you are correct, Exodus 12:40 says they were pilgrims 430 years, which means, also, from the time of the Covenant promise.

They were not in Egypt four hundred thirty years by any account except Stephen's, and Stephen just had some wrong history.
Amazing that God calls us not by the knowledge we posses -which Paul said he counted all as dung that he might win Christ- but by the obedience to the call of Christ on our lives.
We may live and die as born again in Christ believers but never having any real understanding beyond the fact that He has saved our souls and that we know He is our LORD and Savior.


Exd 12:40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel -who dwelt in Egypt- was four hundred and thirty years.


Exd 12:41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

yeshuasavedme said:

Yes, for the most part that is correct.
The actual number of years from the promise was 220 to the entering in of Egypt, and the years in Egypt was 210.

And you are correct, Exodus 12:40 says they were pilgrims 430 years, which means, also, from the time of the Covenant promise.

They were not in Egypt four hundred thirty years by any account except Stephen's, and Stephen just had some wrong history.
Amazing that God calls us not by the knowledge we posses -which Paul said he counted all as dung that he might win Christ- but by the obedience to the call of Christ on our lives.
We may live and die as born again in Christ believers but never having any real understanding beyond the fact that He has saved our souls and that we know He is our LORD and Savior.


Exd 12:40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel -who dwelt in Egypt- was four hundred and thirty years.


Exd 12:41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

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So, the history book that gives the entire timeline from Adam to the entry into Canaan of the Israelites under Joshua leaves no guessing, and actually correlates with the Torah account completely.

There are a couple scribal errors in the translated copies of copies within the text, but they are self corrected within the text itself, to him who reads it all, and all correlate with the Torah account. It can all be figured out using just the Torah but it is hard work, with Sherlock Holmes type of logic and deductions, and most people do not ever take the time to do that.

The Real Book of Jasher?
Chronology After the Flood
The book of Jasher recounts the story of mankind from Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, to the destruction of Noah's Flood (chapters 1-6). The story of the post-Flood world begins in chapter 7 where we are told that Terah was 38 years old when he begat Haran and Nahor, the older brothers of Abraham (v.22). What year was this? According to the chronology, from the Flood, we discover that Noah was 600 years old at the time of the Flood (Gen.7:6). The Flood occurred in the year 2348 B.C. Noah's son Shem begat Arphaxad 2 years after the Flood (Gen.11:10), or in 2346 B.C. From that time on we can trace the descendants of Shem (see Genesis 11:10-26):

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Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 6:5
5. I will now treat of the Hebrews. The son of Phaleg, whose father Was Heber, was Ragau; whose son was Serug, to whom was born Nahor; his son was Terah, who was the father of Abraham, who accordingly was the tenth from Noah, and was born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge; for Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year. Nahor begat Haran when he was one hundred and twenty years old; Nahor was born to Serug in his hundred and thirty-second year; Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty; at the same age also Phaleg had Ragau; Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty-fourth year; he himself being begotten by Sala when he was a hundred and thirty years old, whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty-fifth year of his age. Arphaxad was the son of Shem, and born twelve years after the deluge. Now Abram had two brethren, Nahor and Haran: of these Haran left a son, Lot; as also Sarai and Milcha his daughters; and died among the Chaldeans, in a city of the Chaldeans, called Ur; and his monument is shown to this day. These married their nieces. Nabor married Milcha, and Abram married Sarai.

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Achilles6129 said:

I'm sorry, but the book of Jashar is not Scripture. It is not in Scripture for a reason - because it's not divinely inspired. So we should not be using the book of Jashar to figure out chronologies - it is no more divinely inspired than any book written by any other Biblical scholar.

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Josephus is not Scripture. It is history.
The Book of Jasher is history.
The book of Joshua is history.
The books of Judges; Ruth; the the Samuels; the Kings; the Chronicles; Ezra; Nehemiah; Job; Esther; the Maccabees; and Tobit, among others, are history.



Your timeline is in error, and I showed from Scripture why. If you really want to know, then do the historical research that correlates with the Torah account.

But for historians, the timeline is already given in chronological order.

Achilles6129 said:

If you believe they are incorrect, why not go to their website and write them an email on the errors you believe they have made? A discussion with them could be very fruitful. They read their emails and often publish them on their website.

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They are an "extrabiblical source" far removed from the histories -indeed!

Achilles6129 said:

Neither are divinely inspired and hence are subject to error.



CMI can be in error. Myself and juvenissun were simply talking about evidence for/against the global Flood.

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Josephus did the best job he could do with the books remaining available after the diaspora -many were still not given to Israel, as Eszra/Esdras says- but he erred honestly, with no intent to deceive, just like Stephen, who did err in the historical account Luke records, as a Torah check proves.
Whatever history one reads must correlate with Torah on the subjects the two mention, and Jasher correlates.
And as to being subject to error, you do not have English translations that are without error and which do not always correlate with one another, like I pointed out.
On these matters, however, one does not hang their salvation, which is not got through knowledge of words but of inner revelation of the Son of God, given by the Holy Spirit opening the spiritual eyes to see Him.

But: if one ignores history, then one begins all over again as if they, themselves are the center of all that is and has been discovered.

The Flood was probably anywhere from 7000 to even 12000 BC. To put it closer to that is simply unrealistic. You have to consider the glaciers and why they are still here thereafter a great deluge.