Friday, April 25, 2008

Days and years in Genesis

Many people today discount the lifespans of those listed in Genesis, saying that its impossible that people actually lived that long. However, if the years in Genesis 5 are really shorter concerning men’s ages, then the days in Genesis 1 and 2 must be shorter as well, concerning the Creation account. Contrarily, if the days in Genesis 1 and 2 are actually thousands or millions of years, then the years of men’s ages in Genesis 5 must be thousands or millions of years!

Other ancient genealogies other than the Bible show long lifespans as well, during that time. The Sumerian Kings list mentions 3 kings that are said to have reigned 72,000 years each. Now, that is obviously exaggerated, but that very exaggeration makes more sense if people did live long lifespans back then. If they merely lived 70 or so years, such an exaggeration would make far less sense.

Genesis 7:4 says, “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” If days were actually thousands or millions of years in Genesis, then it must have rained without letup for millions of years! That would mean that Noah was afloat in the ark with the animals for millions of years! On the other hand, if a 900 year genealogy is actually more like 90 years, then 40 days and 40 nights must only be a few minutes or less. This would mean that God flooded the entire world in just a few minutes!

Gen. 8:3,4 says, “The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” How could they be so precise and exact with time periods HERE, yet be so imprecise when reporting people’s ages, or the days of Creation, in earlier chapters? In other chapters, very exact measurements are given, as well. It’s ridiculous to think that they could be so particular and exact with dates, measures, etc., yet be so imprecise and inaccurate when notating the number of years that people lived, or how long the period of Creation took.

If the recorded ages of some of the people in Genesis reflects a longer span than the years they actually lived (i.e., Adam lived 930 years; Seth lived 912 years; Enosh lived 905 years; Kenan lived 910 years; Mahalalel lived 895 years; Jared lived 962 years; Enoch lived 365 years; Methuselah lived 969 years; Lamech lived 777 years; Noah lived 950 years), then why is it that after the Flood, when God announces that man's lifespan will be shorter from now on, the lifespan of people begin to be (eventually and somewhat progressively) more 'normal' as they are today?

Gen. 11:10,11 says, "Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters."

OK, lets say that 500 years was an exaggeration of, say, 5 times the actual years that Shem lived, meaning that he actually lived to be 100, and he actually had Arphaxad when he was 20 years old.

However, in verse 12, the next verse, it says, "When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah." Verse 13 continues, "And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters."

So, if you apply that 1/5 argument, Arphaxad must have become the father of Shelah when Arphaxad was 7 years old!

The same thing applies to the verses after that. Shelah became a dad at 30 years of age and lived to be 403. Eber became a dad at age 34 and lived to be 430. Peleg became a dad at age 30 and lived to be 209. Reu became a dad at 32 and lived to be 207. Serug became a dad at age 30 and lived to be 200. Nahor became a dad at 29 and lived to be 119.

If those ages of their lifespan were actually much shorter, then the ages they became a dad must have been much younger. So again, they must have fathered children when they were not even 10 years old yet!

Not only that, but notice that, in general, the lifespans become progressively shorter and shorter.

10 comments:

Jeff said...

Russ,

I know I already posted this controversial info in comments on your blog site, but I'm posting it here again, since I'm running out of stuff to post. I'll be posting more stuff I created in Photoshop and Illustrator; and then I'll have to start writing more commentary on Scriptural passages; and I will probably search for more videos to post as well. I may also post quotes from books, or maybe even summaries of portions of books. If I get really desperate for material, maybe I'll even start adding journal entries, like a diary.

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...

No problem, people can check my sites as well.:)

Jon Saboe said...

Hey Jeff!

Good thinking. Reminds me of the liberal preacher who said that the Red Sea that the Israelites crossed was only 12 inches deep, at which point, someone shouted "Praise the Lord!" When asked why, he said, "It's a miracle! The entire Egyptian army drowned in only 12 inches of water!"

My new novel, "The Days of Peleg" deals with the decreasing ages following the flood in an adventure story that mixes Sumerian mythology, Hebrew Midrash, and exciting new archeological finds.

You can check it out (along with numerous 5-star reviews) here:
DaysOfPeleg.com.
Jon Saboe

Jeff said...

Hi, Jon.

Thanks for leaving a comment. I went to your web page at http://www.daysofpeleg.com/ (I had to type it in manually, since clicking on the link you left didn't exactly work; it tried to take me to http://jeffjenkinsocala.blogspot.com/2008/04/www.daysofpeleg.com
...in other words, it looked for your website within my blog site, and since your website is outside my blog site, it couldn't find it.

Anyway, I bookmarked your web page, and I will check it out further. That book sounds interesting. If its available on Amazon, I may buy it. But first, I will plan to check out your web page further.
Thanks again.

Jeff said...

Jon,

One other thing I wanted to mention: regarding the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, the "12 inches" thing is exactly what they were teaching at a Lutheran seminary I visited many years ago. They were teaching that the tide merely went out or something. Some have also tried to say that it was the Dead Sea, not the Red Sea. So your 'joke' there is very appropriate. It's also tragic how American seminaries are teaching such liberal theories that deny the miracles recorded in the Bible. However, the greatest miracle is that Jesus rose from the dead. And if they try to explain that away, and deny that it happened, then they can't really call themselves Christians, because that is the root of Christianity.

Jeff said...

Hi again Jon,

I was just reading your article on "Racism Taught in Public Schools," and I found it so fascinating that I emailed the link to those in my Address Book. For anyone reading this, the page is:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=198629990&blogID=363539759

I found one paragraph that you wrote, Jon, interesting:
As recently as 1906, a captured pygmy was on exhibit in the Bronx Zoo in New York's Zoological Park. He was caged with an orangutan, and visitors were encouraged to find similarities. (See One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism, Master Books. 1999)

I made a comment regarding that exact incident in one of my comments on this page:
http://jeffjenkinsocala.blogspot.com/2008/01/theory-of-desperation.html

For anyone too lazy to copy and paste that long URL address in order to go to that page, here is what I wrote in the Comments section:

"Ota Benga: The African Native Put Into a Cage

After Darwin advanced the claim with his book The Descent of Man that man evolved from ape-like living beings, he started to seek fossils to support this contention. However, some evolutionists believed that "half-man half-ape" creatures were to be found not only in the fossil record, but also alive in various parts of the world. In the early 20th century, these pursuits for "living transitional links" led to unfortunate incidents, one of the cruellest of which is the story of a Pygmy by the name of Ota Benga.

Ota Benga was captured in 1904 by an evolutionist researcher in the Congo. In his own tongue, his name meant "friend". He had a wife and two children. Chained and caged like an animal, he was taken to the USA where evolutionist scientists displayed him to the public in the St Louis World Fair along with other ape species and introduced him as "the closest transitional link to man". Two years later, they took him to the Bronx Zoo in New York and there they exhibited him under the denomination of "ancient ancestors of man" along with a few chimpanzees, a gorilla named Dinah, and an orang-utan called Dohung. Dr William T. Hornaday, the zoo's evolutionist director gave long speeches on how proud he was to have this exceptional "transitional form" in his zoo and treated caged Ota Benga as if he were an ordinary animal. Unable to bear the treatment he was subjected to, Ota Benga eventually committed suicide."
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/chapter9.php"

Jeff said...

Jon,

I liked where you distinguished between fact and fiction on your page here:
http://www.daysofpeleg.com/factfiction.php

This brings to mind the book/movie "The DaVinci Code," where, though it is fiction, it is nevertheless touted by some to be fact, or at least a good theory. There was a failure (intentional?) to clearly distinguish between fact and fiction here. Many books have been written containing fictional accounts relating to biblical events, but most of the others clearly and explicitly represent themselves as fictional. With "The DaVinci Code," the fact/fiction line was not drawn clearly enough, as evidenced by a number of people I have spoken with who believe that the book is non-fiction.

Jon Saboe said...

HI Jeff!

I wanted to let you know that my second book has just been released. It is entitled, "The Days of Laméch" and is a prequel to my "Peleg" book. (Laméch was Noah's father.)

Info for both books (online availability at amazon, autographed copies, and e-books) can be found at http://www.daysofpeleg.com .

Thanks for your interest!

Jon Saboe

Jeff said...

Thanks, Jon. I looked at your site, and I also emailed the link to a friend who may be interested in one or both books.

Jeff said...

"Yom" is the Hebrew word for 'day.' When found in its plural form the word is translated in numerous ways including; age, life, season and years. Its first two occurrences are found in Genesis 1:5. When "yom" is accompanied by a numerical adjective, it always means a 24-hour day. For example: 'yom ehad' (day one).

Also see:
Question: "Does Genesis chapter 1 mean literal 24-hour days?"