The Creation Controversy: Conclusion

Also in this series:
 
Introduction
Part One: Biblical Authority
Part Two: Authority from Tradition – the Jewish Sages and the Early Church Fathers
Part Three: The Weight of Traditional Views
Part Four: Man’s Fallible Opinions
Part Five: Clues in the Text
Part Six: More Clues in the Text
Part Seven: What are the Days of Genesis?
Part Eight: Misconceptions of Paradise
Part Nine: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, I
Part Ten: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, II
Part Eleven: The Other Realm and the Other Fall
Part Twelve: Tracing the Advent of Man, I
Part Thirteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, II
Part Fourteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, III
Part Fifteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, IV
Part Sixteen: Was Jesus a Young-Earth Creationist?
Part Seventeen: The Flood of Noah
Part Eighteen: Some Considerations from Science

In the course of this series, I have labored to present plausible understandings of the major themes of the Genesis debate and the scriptures most often brought into contention. In summary then, the most important points to remember are these:

 

1. God communicates with man on man’s level, according to man’s conceptions, and often in the form of revelatory imagery. In so doing, he is not necessarily bothered with correcting inaccuracies in man’s perception of the world.
2. The Bible was written to an ancient, pre-scientific culture with a different understanding of the world than our modern, global, scientifically-informed understanding.
3. The English translation of scripture does not always bring out important nuances in the underlying, original languages. Hebrew in particular has a comparatively small vocabulary, and Hebrew words often have more than one meaning.
4. The debate over Genesis is not a unique debate in the history of the church. A number of contentious theological issues have come down to us through the centuries, with great minds taking opposite positions. Nor are the charges of “heretic” and “not really believing the Bible” unique to this debate, by any means.
5. What one believes about creation does not necessarily impact what he or she thinks about other scriptural matters, including core New Testament doctrines. Allegations that old-earth views amount to an attack on the gospel are specious, sensational, and unnecessarily inflammatory.
6. Scripture does not support the view that man’s intellect is “fallen.” On the contrary, scripture takes a high view of man’s capabilities. It is man’s moral center that is corrupt. God has given us the intellectual ability to comprehend the world in which we live, however imperfectly we have managed this to date. The scientific revolution is proof that man is not an inept, bumbling creature. Furthermore, scripture tells us that man is responsible before God on the basis of what God has made, which demonstrates that man is capable of understanding creation. The scientific revolution has also demonstrated this for us in the fact that Big Bang cosmology has made atheists extremely uncomfortable and has provided tremendous evidences that our universe is fine-tuned for the existence of life forms just like us.
7. Nuanced views of Genesis existed amongst the Jews and the early Christians long before Darwin came on the scene. There were at least three views of creation at the time of Christ. Christians from the earliest times right up through the Reformation period were not averse to looking at scripture in light of what they understood about the natural world.
8. While the views of ancient theologians can be instructive, they did not face the same debate we face today. For them, it was not a matter of “Bible right/science wrong.” We do not know how they would have reacted to modern scientific discoveries, but it is at least possible that they would have delved deeper into scripture in order to re-evaluate their understanding of it when confronted with the evidences of science.
9. It is entirely possible to understand God too literally at times. Christ rebuked his own disciples for this on occasion, and even allowed people to confuse themselves and walk away from him when he might have clarified his teachings easily. He frequently taught in parables—illustrative stories—and selectively explained them to only certain persons. His teachings were deliberately hidden in part, and were deliberately designed to upset particular individuals.
10. Certain scriptures, especially prophetic events, were not entirely understood by the generations that received them; rather, they were meant to be understood at a different time, by a different generation. Some apparent relationships between creation and prophecies surrounding the return of Christ suggest that this may also be true of Genesis.
11. In scripture, the terms translated as “land” and “earth” often simply refer to dry land or to a particular country or region. There is no reason to immediately insist that these terms must refer to the entire landmass of the planet, as is proven by the fact that such uses render many passages absurd. Further, there is no evidence in scripture that the ancients understood the earth as a planet in the way that we understand it today.
12. Scripture often employs hyperbole as a form of emphasis, and in many cases phraseology must be understood within a particular context, such as “the whole world going to be taxed” in Luke’s account of the birth of Christ.
13. One does not have to “stuff millions of years” into scripture to come away with interpretations other than “six days, six thousand years ago.” There are certain internal oddities that suggest that more may be going on with the creation account than immediately meets the eye. Other portions of scripture, such as Job 38-41, bolster this impression. It is this understanding, combined with what we have learned of the physical universe, that leads to old-earth conclusions. The Bible never tells us how old the earth is, nor does it impose any test of orthodoxy on the matter
14. The “days” of Genesis are strongly evidenced to be divine work days, expressed in terms of a standard work week, for two reasons: a) To provide the basis for a calendar system, and b) To do so in a cyclical work/rest framework to which the ancient Hebrews could readily relate. In so doing, God described the creation of the world as a landowner preparing his property to be handed over to a manager, and he ended the account by placing man on the scene and giving him just such a charge.
15. The story of the creation and the Fall of Man was likely compiled by Moses during the time Israel spent wandering in the wilderness, and the parallels between Eden and Canaan are quite strong. The expulsion from paradise was a fitting warning to the Hebrews, as God promised to evict them from their land if they would not obey him, calling their dilemma a choice between life and death, blessing and cursing.
16. The earth of Adam and Eve was not one vast paradise. The Garden of Eden was a place of special blessing and abundance, although it was still subject to the laws of physics and required care. God commanded Adam to care for the garden and to maintain it. The underlying Hebrew also suggests that Adam was to protect the garden. By contrast, however, God commanded that the land outside of the garden be forcefully subdued.
17. The prophesied Millennial Age will restore the Edenic dichotomy: Jerusalem and the land surrounding it will be blessed with particular abundance, health, and safety, whereas Christ will rule over the outside nations by force.
18. There is no evidence whatsoever in scripture that animals were immortal before the Fall of Man. For that matter, Adam and Eve were not immortal, either, as they required access to the Tree of Life to maintain themselves.
19. There is no evidence whatsoever in scripture that animals were cursed with death or endowed with predatory behavior as a result of the Fall of Man. Animal attack and defense capabilities give every appearance of having been purposefully designed and built into them from the beginning. Adam’s sin is said only to have brought death upon mankind. Animals are not “cursed” with death because it is their natural condition. By contrast, Adam and Eve did not have to die. They held a special status in the creation until they forfeited it through disobedience.
20. There is no evidence in scripture that the entire physical universe “fell” when Adam sinned. The curses of Genesis 3 are very specific. The curse on the ground is said only to have affected man’s labor for food and does not appear to have continued after the flood. The subjection of the creation to “futility” is explainable as the earth having been left under the inept management of fallen man.
21. The phraseology used in Genesis where God tells man that he has been given green plants for food just as the animals have been given them is perfectly explainable as God pointing out the particular animal behavior that he wanted man to emulate. It does not justify the assumption that all animals ate only plants. Most animals do eat some form of plant life, but we do not know what animals man was familiar with when this commandment was given. Furthermore, even some young-earth creationists have acknowledged that sea creatures may have been predatory from the beginning.
22. Many stories in the pages of scripture show us that God is perfectly willing to use, and even to ordain, things that are not good in and of themselves in order to bring about results that are in fact good. God’s pronouncement that the creation was “very good” should not be taken to mean that it lacked any characteristics that we might find objectionable, such as animal mortality, but simply indicates that it was suitable for its intended purposes. God is following a plan that is fully known only to himself, and until it is complete there is no justification for assuming that we know enough of what God is doing to authoritatively declare that he couldn’t have designed anything but a harmless creation.
23. Angels were the first intelligences created by God. They are employed by him in carrying out his will in a variety of ways and scripture tells us that God is demonstrating certain things to them in his dealings with mankind. Scripture provides hints that angels could have assisted in carrying out God’s creative decrees, and this may be a major factor in why the process of creation stretched over long ages of time. Yet, we know almost nothing about the history of angels or the full extent of what they do. This is a major gap in our understanding of creation and another reason why should we not be so quick to assume that we understand everything God is doing in creation now or did in the past.
24. It is indisputable that some biblical genealogies do contain gaps. Whether the Genesis genealogies contain gaps or not is debatable, but it is possible. Biblical genealogies, including those in Genesis 5 and 11, do not always list first-born sons first. Instead, they prioritize the records around especially important ancestors. The terms “father” and “begat” or “became the father of” do not always indicate direct ancestry in scripture. Consequently, there may be undetectable gaps of time in the Genesis genealogies. It cannot be ruled out.
25. The Genesis creation account, including where the creation of Adam and Eve is concerned, is strongly indicated to be a material origins account. Although it contains a degree of theological messaging and some appeals to the understandings of a pre-scientific culture, scripture is nonetheless describing real people and real events.
26. There is no need to push Adam and Eve back in time beyond a reasonable reading of the Genesis genealogies in order to account for scientific findings related to the origin of man. A two-population model of humanity accounts for the discrepancy and may be hinted at in scripture itself. Even if one dismisses these hints, however, this does not mean that Adam and Eve were necessarily the first human beings. Scripture is primarily the story of the Adamic race and does not focus on any other races of man that may have existed in the past.
27. In light of a two-population model of human origins, Adam was a type of Christ. He was the first man in the Messianic line, specially created to more closely resemble Jesus Christ, who was virgin-born into an existing population and became “the last Adam.” Recent research highlighted by Dr. Joshua Swamidass shows that, even assuming a two-population model, Adam and Eve could well have been the genealogical ancestors of every human being by 1 A.D., which would help explain why Christ was not sent for so long. “The fullness of time” in which he came may indicate the time by which all of humanity was finally united in the ancestry of Adam and Eve.
28. The reference Christ made to male and female being joined together “from the beginning” is not an endorsement of young-earth creationism. Man was not created at the beginning of the creation but rather at the end of the process, as even young-earth creationists acknowledge. When we understand the entirety of the creation week as “the beginning,” the statement of Christ poses no problem for an old earth paradigm.
29. The phraseology of the flood account in Genesis 6-9 matches closely with language employed elsewhere in scripture that is only reasonable in a limited context, suggesting that the flood could well have been regional rather than global. The dimensions of the ark, the depth of the flood, and the recession of the flood waters indicate that the ark ran aground on land that was not much higher in elevation than the surrounding region. Further, we do not see any hints of typical young-earth interpretations in the flood account itself, such as the raising and lowering of land masses.
30. Scientific findings concerning the nature of the universe are entirely consistent with great age and match well with the predictions of Big Bang cosmology. Stellar z-axis motion and colliding galaxies are ready examples of findings in nature that also support “deep time” measurements. The physics and features of our universe are not consistent with a young-earth paradigm. Indeed, young-earth creationists have conceded that there is abundant evidence for great age in materials collected from both the earth and extraterrestrial sources, and they are unable to offer credible explanations for this phenomenon. Instead, they resort to emphasizing their interpretation of scripture while arguing for divine intervention on a massive yet undetectable scale—and with no apparent purpose other than to endow creation with a false appearance of age.

 

I have written this series in a spirit of “Come, let us reason together.” I have friends and family members who are young-earth creationists, and I respect their beliefs and their right to hold those beliefs. At one time, I shared those beliefs, and I understand why many Christians continue to find them compelling.

What I have sought to do here is to present a respectful, coherent, biblically-based case for an alternative point of view, and I offer it up to the Lord for whatever use he may have for it. I can only ask that my young-earth brethren consider the case fairly and in the spirit in which it is offered; and whether you agree with it or not, let us be careful to extend godly grace to one another in the midst of our discussions. Although we may have different creation creeds, we have one Lord to whom we must all give account, and one everlasting gospel to share with the world before he returns.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that with one purpose and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us, for the glory of God. – Romans 15:5-7

 

Next in this series: Recommended Resources

The Creation Controversy, Part Sixteen: Was Jesus a Young-Earth Creationist?

 

Also in this series:
Introduction
Part One: Biblical Authority
Part Two: Authority from Tradition – the Jewish Sages and the Early Church Fathers
Part Three: The Weight of Traditional Views
Part Four: Man’s Fallible Opinions
Part Five: Clues in the Text
Part Six: More Clues in the Text
Part Seven: What are the Days of Genesis?
Part Eight: Misconceptions of Paradise
Part Nine: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, I
Part Ten: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, II
Part Eleven: The Other Realm and the Other Fall
Part Twelve: Tracing the Advent of Man, I
Part Thirteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, II
Part Fourteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, III
Part Fifteen: Tracing the Advent of Man, IV

An argument that often crops up in the creation controversy is that Jesus himself affirmed a young earth. This claim is based on a confrontation Jesus had with the Pharisees, as recorded in Matthew 19:3-5 and Mark 10:2-8, where they questioned him concerning divorce.

 

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” – Matthew 19:3-5

 

Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two but one flesh. – Mark 10:2-8

Commenting on this incident, young-earth teacher Henry Morris argues that old-earth claims contradict Jesus:

 

The Lord Jesus, on the other hand (who was there, having Himself created all things—note John 1:1-3), taught that men and women were made essentially at the same time as the cosmos itself, when He said that, “from the beginning God…made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). “The beginning” obviously was a reference to Genesis 1:1 and Christ was specifically citing Genesis 1:26.[1]

Morris says here that male and female were made “essentially at the same time as the cosmos itself.” Why the qualification? Because he knows that Jesus’ statement cannot be taken in a rigidly literal fashion. Humans were not made at the very beginning of creation but rather at the end of the process. In fact, they were the very last thing God is said to have made. For this reason, Morris writes of the “beginning of creation” in the sense of the general time period during which everything got started. In this sense, the whole creation week is “the beginning,” and while not technically accurate, Morris is comfortable with this idea because he views the days of creation as six literal calendar days. In that scheme, given that so little time passed from the creation of the cosmos to the creation of man, man might as well be said to have existed “from the beginning.” This is basically a matter of ‘close enough is good enough.’

On the other hand, Morris would undoubtedly find it absurd to argue the same way from an old-earth position, given that, according to this framework, humanity did not come along until billions of years after the cosmos began. In that sense, man does not appear on the scene anywhere near the absolute beginning. But if, in the eyes of God, the entire creation period comprises “the beginning,” then it really does not matter how long the days of creation actually were, as the creation was not finished until man came on the scene. Only then did God look upon all that he had made and pronounce it “very good.” Only then was the work complete and he chose to “rest.”

Thus, even from an old-earth perspective, it is true to say that man has existed “from the beginning.” It may seem rather counter-intuitive at first to think of “the beginning” in a sense of billions of years, but we must also bear in mind that there is an eternity of endless ages yet to come. Eventually, no longer how long “the beginning” took, that timeframe will come to seem insignificant. Given that he exists outside of cosmic time, God himself likely sees it this way already.

Moreover, in the Hebrew language, the famous opening phrase of Genesis, “in the beginning” (bereshit), is also the name of the book itself.[2] Thus, the entire book is literally called “In the beginning,” even though it chronicles events that occurred long after creation, such as the life of Abraham. For this reason, when a Hebrew (or Aramaic) speaker of Jesus’ time named the book of Genesis, they were literally calling it “In the Beginning.”

Bearing this mind, if we go back to the account of Jesus and the Pharisees in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, we find that the word translated “from” in the phrase “from the beginning” is the Greek preposition apo, which usually appears as “from” or “of” in the New Testament but can also be legitimately translated as “in.”[3] Thus, “from the beginning” could be alternatively translated as “in the beginning.” Given that he likely spoke Hebrew or Aramaic among his own people, it may be that Jesus was simply naming the book of Genesis here. A paraphrase of his remark to the Pharisees might read as follows: “Do you not remember reading that he who created them in Genesis made them male and female?”

At this point, I direct the reader’s careful attention to the differences between Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of this incident. There is general agreement among scholars and theologians that the Gospel of Matthew was written primarily to Jews. In fact, there was a tradition among the early church fathers that it was originally circulated in Hebrew and Aramaic rather than Greek, and the Jewish flavor of the gospel is apparent in a number of ways, including in this passage. Note how Matthew records Jesus as saying to the Pharisees, “Have you not read?” Read what? The book of Genesis, of course, which he then proceeds to quote. In doing this, Jesus was asking the Pharisees a rhetorical question. He knew very well that they had read Genesis; he was simply referring them back to it because the answer to their question should have been obvious in light of the account of man’s creation.

The Gospel of Mark, on the other hand, is thought to have been written for a gentile audience, and thus reads a bit differently. For one thing, Mark does not include the statement, “Have you not read?” in his version of this story, likely because most of his gentile readers had probably not read Moses and were not familiar with Genesis. So, where Matthew says, “He who created them from the beginning,” Mark says, “From the beginning of creation, God made them.”

If Mark recorded the incident in such a way as to communicate what Jesus was saying for the benefit of a gentile audience who had not read the Torah, he might have been partially paraphrasing Jesus here rather than trying to quote him verbatim. Rather than saying, “Have you not read that he who created them in Genesis made them male and female?” he says instead: “From the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” This is the same information expressed more generally with respect to the target audience. The truth content is still the same, however.

 

In the final analysis, this argument is far from a knock-out punch. Man was created in the period that compromises “the beginning” rather than at the absolute beginning, and thus it really does not matter how long that period lasted. Moreover, if God communicated the events of the creation week to man in the sense of a standard work week in order to bring the process down to ancient man’s level and simultaneously lay the foundation of the Jewish calendar, as I have argued in this book, then in the incident with the Pharisees Jesus was merely referencing the revelatory imagery of Genesis 1. In that framework, it’s once again perfectly true that man existed “from the beginning.” Jesus was merely referring the Jews to what they had already been taught, which is true whether you view it literally or metaphorically: man was created “in the beginning.”

 

 

Next in this series: Part Seventeen - The Flood of Noah 

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[1] Henry Morris, “Did Jesus Teach Recent Creation?” Institute for Creation Research. June 01, 2005.

https://www.icr.org/article/did-jesus-teach-recent-creation

[2] Ancient books were often named for the first words they contained. For instance, the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, begins with those words, which translate to “When on High…”

[3] For instance, see Romans 11:25, where Paul says that “blindness in part has happened to Israel.”

The Creation Controversy, Part Twelve: Tracing the Advent of Man, I

Also in this series:

Introduction

Part One: Biblical Authority

Part Two: Authority from Tradition – the Jewish Sages and the Early Church Fathers

Part Three: The Weight of Traditional Views

Part Four: Man’s Fallible Opinions

Part Five: Clues in the Text

Part Six: More Clues in the Text

Part Seven: What are the Days of Genesis?

Part Eight: Misconceptions of Paradise

Part Nine: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, I

Part Ten: Life and Death in the Pre-Fall Animal World, II

Part Eleven: The Other Realm and the Other Fall

Of the all the issues at stake in the creation debate, the origin of man is surely one of the most contentious, and with good reason. After all, what we believe about the creation of man heavily influences what we believe about the nature and purpose of man—including what it means to be made in the “image” of God. Were humans specially created by God, or did he instead direct their evolution from certain hominid ancestors, with Adam being the first “spiritual” man? What can scripture tell us about this? Are we free to “follow the science” wherever it appears to lead, or does scripture impose hard limits on what Christians can accept regarding the origin of humanity? These are high-stakes questions, and they deserve the most careful consideration we can devote to them.

Before I begin, I must say that this will be a survey-level approach to the issue by necessity. Entire books have been written on the creation of man and the identity and timeframe of Adam, and doubtless more will be added to them. As with every other issue covered in this book, my focus will be on what we can learn from the scriptures themselves—what is potentially plausible in light of the text. I believe there are answers that can reconcile the biblical record with the scientific data, but to do so will require we be willing to reconsider some common theological assumptions.

 

The Root of the Problem

 

If you add up the biblical genealogies at face value, they appear to place the creation of Adam at a point approximately 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. So, if Adam was the first human being, then the human race is only about 6,000 to 7,000 years old. Yet, scientists have dated the oldest human remains ever found at over 200,000 years—not even close to the biblical genealogical data. Even in antiquity—long before Darwin, the Big Bang, and “deep time”—cultures such as Egypt and India boasted of legacies extending back well beyond what the Genesis genealogies appear to allow.[1]

Young-earth teachers emphatically claim that scientific dating methods must be unreliable because they appear to contradict scripture and should thus be dismissed as “man’s fallible opinions.” For their part, old-earth believers fall into several camps on the issue. Some, such as Hugh Ross and William Lane Craig, argue that we should push the dates for Adam and Eve back in time, citing various considerations. Others, such as those from the Christian evolutionist group BioLogos, argue that Adam and Eve may have been chosen by God from amongst a population of a few thousand humans who evolved from the great apes, or that they may simply be archetypal rather than historical—“literary figures in a highly compressed history of all our ancestors.”[2] In short, there is no default old-earth view of the matter.

 

Severing an Unnecessary Connection

I think it’s essential to begin by noting that the timing of man’s creation does not necessarily have anything to do with the age of the earth and the universe. The alleged conflict only exists if the creation days of Genesis 1 are literal calendar days making up a literal calendar week, with no gaps between the days. If the creation days are non-literal, however, as I have already argued, then they could be of any length at all and the timing of man’s creation tells us nothing about the age of the earth. Humanity could actually be about 6,000 to 7,000 years old, whereas the earth and the universe could be vastly older.

The Biblical Genealogies Considered

It may be tempting to straightforwardly add up the years lived by the persons listed in the biblical genealogies and call it a day—case closed. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. There are certain internal nuances and various other scriptural factors that must be addressed where the genealogies are concerned. The following are some of the more prominent of those factors.

Birth Order Issues

Genesis 11:26 tells us that Terah, Abraham’s father, “lived seventy years and became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.” Read straightforwardly, the record seems to show that Abram, Nahor, and Haran were triplets, born when Terah was 70 years old. Further, it seems to indicate that Abraham was born first. Other scriptures make these conclusions impossible, however.

Genesis 11:31-32 tells us that Abraham moved to Haran with Terah and remained there until Terah died at age 205. It was then that God called Abraham to leave Haran for Canaan. Genesis 12:4 and Acts 7:4 tell us that Abraham was 75 years old when the call of God came to him. So, if Terah was 205 years old when Abraham was 75 years old, to find out when Abraham was born, we subtract 75 from 205, which gives us 130. Terah was not 70 years old when Abraham was born; he was 130 years old.

For this reason, if you tried to “straightforwardly” calculate the Genesis genealogies based on the idea that Abraham was born when Terah was 70 years old, you’d be off by 60 years. The text is telling us that Terah became a father when he was 70 years old and eventually had three named sons, one of which was Abraham. Yet, Abraham was not the first in birth order even though he is listed first in the text. He is probably listed first because Abraham is the key ancestor of the Hebrews. As such, he is the most important child of Terah in their family tree. Although he was not first in birth order, he was first in priority where the Hebrews were concerned.

If the same is true of any of the names in the genealogical listings prior to Abraham, then the situation becomes complicated indeed; and in fact, we do see a similar situation in the life of Noah. Genesis 5:32 tells us that Noah was 500 years old when he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is listed second amongst Noah’s three sons, although Genesis 9:24 tells us that he was actually the youngest son. Genesis 11:10 tells us that Shem was 100 years old when he had his son Arpachshad, who was born two years after the Flood (which occurred when Noah was 600 years old). This would mean that Shem was born when Noah was 502, making Japheth the oldest, born when Noah was 500. Ham was born sometime during the decades afterward and was old enough to have a wife of his own by the time the flood occurred (Genesis 7:7, II Peter 2:5). Shem is probably listed first among the three sons because he was the direct ancestor of Abraham, just as Abraham is listed first among Terah’s three sons even though he was not the oldest. Again, the Abrahamic lineage is primary here, not birth order.

How many of the other names in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 may tell a similar story, not of first-borns but of direct ancestors of the Abrahamic line? And what does this do to the date for Adam’s creation? For instance, Genesis 5 says that Seth lived a total of 912 years, becoming the father of Enosh at age 105. If, however, this account reflects what we’ve seen in the instances of Noah and Abraham, which is entirely plausible, then it may simply be saying that Seth first became a father at the age of 105, with Enosh being born sometime during the remaining 807 years of Seth’s life. He was not necessarily the first-born. So instead of there being 105 years between Seth and Enosh, there may actually have been a few more years, several decades, or even a few hundred years. We simply do not know.

At this point, it may be asked: If Enosh was not the first born, then why doesn’t the text list the names of Enosh’s siblings as it lists the siblings of Shem and Abraham?

As it happens, the text does tell us that Seth had other children. In full, Genesis 5:6-7 reads: “Seth lived one hundred and five years, and became the father of Enosh. Then Seth lived eight hundred and seven years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.”[3] So Seth did have other children besides Enosh. Judging by Genesis 4:16-26, these other children were probably named in the original source material from which Moses compiled Genesis, but it is likely that he did not name them in Genesis 5 because they were not significant in the view of the Hebrews. Again, this genealogy traces the Abrahamic line, which ultimately became the Messianic line. In that sense, Enosh is the only person of real importance amongst the children of Seth. Contrast this with Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Shem was the direct Abrahamic ancestor, but Genesis 10 tells us that Ham and Japheth fathered nations that were known to the Hebrews, so it makes sense that they are discussed in the text.

Where the children of Seth are concerned, however, apparently only Enosh produced any offspring that survived the flood. The nations or groups produced by Seth’s other children did not survive and were of no consequence to later generations. Thus, there was really no reason for Moses to include them in Genesis even if he knew their names. It would not have served his purpose, which was primarily to chronicle the lineage of Abraham back to Adam.

Given these things, it is entirely plausible that Enosh may not have been the first-born child of Seth. In fact, this is a common feature in the Messianic line. Seth was not a first-born son, and neither were Shem or Abraham. In later times, we find that Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon, and Nathan—all prominent, direct ancestors in the line of Christ—were not first-born sons. How many times this pattern repeats in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 is anyone’s guess, but given how many times we find it in later generations, the odds are very good that at least a few of the men listed in Genesis 5 and 11 (besides Seth, Shem, and Abraham) were not first-born sons. If this is the case, given the sort of lifespans we see in these genealogies, even if only a few of the listed names were not first-born sons, this could potentially throw off calculations done by the “straightforward” method by hundreds of years.

Possible Gaps, Compression, or Telescoping in the Genealogies

Matthew chapter 1 begins with “the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah,” and picks up the record beginning with Abraham. In Matthew 1:7-8, we find this:

 

Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa. Asa was father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat was the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah.

Now compare this listing to another lineage found in 1 Chronicles 3:10-12:

 

Now Solomon’s son was Rehoboam, Abijah was his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son, Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, Amaziah his son, Azariah his son.

Notice any differences? To make things easier, here’s a comparison chart listing the relevant portions of the two genealogies:

 

As you can see, three names are omitted from Matthew’s genealogy. Yet, Matthew writes: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17), making it sound as if he’s including everyone. For one reason or another, Matthew omitted three persons from his genealogy in order to create three neat groupings of fourteen. Yet, we would not know this if it were not for the listing in I Chronicles 3.

We have still another oddity to consider in Matthew’s genealogy as well. Adding 14+14+14 gives us 42, but if you add the names in Matthew’s list, you’ll find only 41. The breakdown in Matthew’s pattern occurs in the third set of fourteen names, chronicling the time “from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah.” The only way to resolve this is to count Jeconiah twice. He is the last name in the second group of fourteen, and the first name in the third group. If you omit him from the third group and only count his son, Shieltiel, you end up with thirteen names in the third group. So, by necessity, Jeconiah must be counted twice. This is obviously deliberate on Matthew’s part, but we can only speculate as to why he might have done it.[4]

Still another genealogical discrepancy can be found in Ezra 7:2, which creates an apparent direct father-son relationship between Azariah and Meraioth, skipping six names which are found between these two persons in I Chronicles 6:6-14. Azariah was not the son of Meraioth; he was actually his great-great-great-great-great grandson. Why Ezra skipped over these names is not evident.

Were someone to tinker with genealogical listings like this in our culture, they would likely be accused of misrepresentation, but such was not the case in the culture of the ancients. The Hebrew word translated father in scripture is ab, which can refer to a simple ancestral relationship, such as being someone’s grandfather, rather than to direct parentage. An example of this is Genesis 28:13, where God says to Jacob: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac.” Abraham was not Jacob’s father; he was his grandfather, yet God uses the term “father” here. God says something similar to Moses in Exodus 3:15 while commissioning Moses to go to Egypt and free the Hebrew slaves, whom he calls “sons of Israel.” When Moses asks what he should say to them, God tells him: “Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’” Here, God refers to himself as the God of their “fathers,” plural—with particular emphasis on Jacob—yet by this time the Hebrews were separated from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by many generations.

Beyond this, however, the term ab can have a much wider application even than ancestry. It can refer to someone who is the founder or originator of something, such as in Genesis 4:21, where Jubal is called “the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.” The same general concept is also found in the New Testament, where Jesus refers to Satan as “the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Correspondingly, the term son (Hebrew – ben) can also carry a broader meaning than one’s direct offspring. Genesis 46:19-22 lists Joseph, his brother Benjamin, and all of their children, saying “These are the sons of Rachel…fourteen persons in all.” Yet, amongst those listed, Rachel gave birth to only Joseph and Benjamin; the others are her grandchildren. We see something similar in the book of Ruth as well. When Ruth’s son, Obed, is born, the text tells us that “the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, ‘A son has been born to Naomi!’” (Ruth 4:17). Yet, Naomi was Ruth’s mother-in-law from a previous marriage. As such, she was not even a blood relative of Obed.

Even the Hebrew term yalad, meaning “to beget,” “to bear,” and “to bring forth” can have a wider application than direct parentage. To see this, go back to Genesis 46, where the fourteen persons called ‘sons of Rachel’ are said to have been “born to Jacob.” Again, Jacob was the actual father of only two of those persons: Joseph and Benjamin. This is particularly significant because yalad is the term used in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, such as where the text tells us that Seth lived 105 years and ‘begat’ or ‘became the father of’ [yalad] Enosh.

Given these factors, it seems plausible, even probable, that there may be a mixture of direct father-son relationships and gaps or “telescoping” (highlighting or expanded focus) in the Genesis genealogies. We’ve already seen that Moses was selective in his approach to chronicling the Genesis lineages, even listing persons first when they were not actually born first. We also see how Matthew skipped three entire entries and counted one person twice in order to give us three groupings of 14 generations in his genealogy of Christ. Strict, linear accuracy seems not to have been the top priority in these listings.

These and other factors have led some conservative Bible commentators to suggest that the Genesis genealogies may be incomplete. Norman Geisler is one such commentator:

 

The symmetry of the text argues against it being complete. Scholars have noted that the symmetrical arrangement of Genesis 5 and 11 into groups of ten argues for their compression. Noah is the tenth name from Adam and Terah the tenth from Noah. Each ends with a father who had three sons. This is certainly the case in Matthew 1 where there are three series of four-teen (double-seven, the number of completeness and perfection), for we know three generations are left out in Matthew 1:8.[5]

Even some young-earth creationists have admitted that there is compelling evidence for the possibility of gaps in the Genesis genealogies.

Writing in their book The Genesis Flood—which has been tremendously influential within the young-earth movement—John Whitcomb and Henry Morris list a number of evidences indicating that there may be “gaps of an undetermined length…in the patriarchal genealogy of Genesis 11.”[6] One such factor referenced by Whitcomb and Morris has to do with Peleg, of whom Genesis 10:25 remarks, “In his days the earth was divided.” Whitcomb and Morris comment:

 

It is difficult to understand why it should be said only of Peleg, that “in his days the earth was divided,” if, on the assumption that Genesis 11 is a strict chronology, Noah, Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah, and Eber (and probably Cainan) were still living throughout the entire lifetime of Peleg.

 

All of this leads us to submit the following proposition: at least in this section of Genesis 11, if not in other sections, we have warrant for assuming that the term “begat” is to be understood in the ancestral sense…we feel justified in assuming that Peleg was a distant descendant of Eber.[7]

Going by a “straightforward” reading of the Genesis genealogies, the flood came 1,656 years after Adam’s creation—a mere 412 years prior to the birth of Abraham. After weighing historical factors such as “remarkable similarities” between the biblical flood account and the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, however, in addition to examining the details of the biblical text, Whitcomb and Morris came to the surprising conclusion that “the Flood may have occurred as much as three to five thousand years before Abraham.”[8]

When I was a young-earther, I believed that the idea of gaps or “telescoping” (highlighting or expanded focus) in the Genesis genealogies was nothing more than another effort to compromise with secular authorities and fit long ages of time into the biblical text. In fact, even after I became an old-earther, I was still reluctant to entertain the notion, as it seemed too simplistic, too contrary to what appeared to be the straightforward meaning of the text. Yet, the factors I’ve listed here render such gaps plausible, even probable.

Given what we’ve seen with regard to birth order and potential gaps, and considering the lifespans of the people who lived during the Genesis 5 and 11 eras, it is entirely plausible that the “straightforward” reading may be off by a considerable margin. As to how much it deviates, opinions vary widely.

Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe has argued that we could potentially calibrate the Genesis genealogies by focusing on the genealogy in Genesis 11. Abraham appears at the end of that listing. Various archaeological discoveries show Abraham lived approximately 4,000 years ago, which is consistent with the biblical data. If we then go halfway back up the list in Genesis 11 to Peleg, “in whose days the earth was divided” (Genesis 10:25), and assume that this may be a reference to rising sea levels that submerged the Bering Land Bridge and other land bridges around the globe, thus ensuring that humanity was dispersed in obedience to God’s command, this would place Peleg at approximately 11,000 years ago. Based on these benchmarks, Dr. Ross reasons that if approximately the same amount of time is represented by both the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, then Noah lived around 35,000 years ago, whereas Adam and Eve lived some 50-70,000 years ago.[9]

William Lane Craig, on the other hand, thinks that Hugh Ross may not be going nearly far enough. He speculates that we should be ready to push the date for Adam back much further on the grounds of “a major shift in scientific opinion among paleo-anthropologists about the cognitive capacities and humanity of Neanderthal Man”:

 

It is utterly prejudicial to say that Neanderthals were not human beings. Now, if that’s right, that means that Adam and Eve need to be the ancestors not only of Homo Sapiens but also of Neanderthals, and that’s going to put them back somewhere around 750,000 to 500,000 years ago. And so, I think, putting Adam and Eve that far back is perfectly consonant with scientific evidence, in particular with the much ballyhooed evidence of population genetics.[10]

The questions we’re faced with now are: How many gaps are there in these records, and how much time do they represent?

For my own part, I tend to doubt that the division of the earth in the days Peleg refers to rising sea levels separating scattered populations. The Bible’s focus is on the narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt and Asia Minor, extending eastward to the Euphrates. Little is said about the world beyond this region, and most of that content is found in the New Testament. It is unlikely that the ancients who left the records compiled by Moses knew very much about what lay beyond Egypt, Sumer, Shinar, and Canaan.

The reference to Peleg comes from Genesis 10, which chronicles how the sons of Noah repopulated the land following the flood. It describes the families and nations they produced, along with some of the regions they inhabited, and ends with this statement: “These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated after the flood” (Genesis 10:32). For this reason, I tend to think it more likely that the “division” in the days of Peleg was some sort of treaty that was negotiated to officially recognize borders between the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. If Peleg was born at the time this treaty was ratified, it would make sense for his father, Eber, to name the period of division in association him (especially if his honor was somehow on the line or if Peleg was born to a wife who was given to Eber to cement this arrangement).

All in all, I take a conservative view of the Genesis genealogies. I would be surprised if Genesis 5 and 11 cover a period of more than 5-7,000 years each, with Adam and Eve coming in at around 7-14,000 years ago. I certainly cannot justify extending the genealogies by tens of thousands of years. As we’ve seen, there are indeed gaps in some biblical genealogies, but unlike those other genealogies, we have nothing against which to compare Genesis 5 and 11, so caution is warranted, and extending them to degree that Dr. Ross and Dr. Craig favor is, in my opinion, out of all proportionality with what we actually observe in the biblical text. Even if we were to go by the example of Ezra 7 and assume six missing generations in Genesis 5, and assuming an average lifespan of 800 years for each missing individual, we would only gain another 6,300 years—far short of what is needed.

As for William Lane Craig’s assertion that Neanderthals must be considered true humans and thus children of Adam and Eve, I believe he is reading some unwarranted assumptions into scripture, and that there is a better answer.

 

 Next in this series: Tracing the Advent of Man, II

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[1] For an example, see the account of the Egyptian priest who scorned the Greeks as “children” lacking even one science “that is hoary with age,” as chronicled in Plato’s Timeaus.

[2] Loren Haarsma, “Where are Adam and Eve in the Story of Evolution? Four Possibilities.” BioLogos. July 10, 2017.

https://biologos.org/articles/series/old-earth-or-evolutionary-creation-a-new-book-shows-fruits-of-multi-year-dialogue/where-are-adam-and-eve-in-the-story-of-evolution-four-possibilities

[3] The word other was added by the translators of the NASB.

[4] Matthew traces Jesus’ genealogy through David’s son Solomon, whereas Luke traces it through David’s son Nathan. One of Solomon’s sons was Jeconiah, of whom God says in Jeremiah 22:30, “Write this man down as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.” For this reason, it seems that the right of kingship is passed down to Christ through Nathan’s line rather than Solomon’s. Matthew follows the genealogy of Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph, whereas it seems that Luke followed Mary’s genealogy, treating Joseph as the son (son-in-law) of Mary’s father, Eli. This is not explicitly stated in the text, but it seems plausible. See Genesis 48:5-6, where Jacob adopts Joseph’s two sons, saying, “Now your two sons…are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are.” Mary’s father may have adopted Joseph in the same way.

[5] Norman Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), p. 269.

[6] John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1961), p. 483.

 

[7] Ibid., pp. 482-483.

[8] Ibid., pp. 488-489.

[9] “Calibrating Genesis Genealogies – Hugh Ross.” YouTube video, posted by “Abrahamic Faith.” February 11, 2017. As of this interview, Dr. Ross thought that the best date was probably 60,000 years ago, but was willing to go as high as 70,000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_i7Prd1UkA

[10] “The Book of Genesis: With Dr. William Lane Craig.” YouTube video, 31:27 - 33:35, posted by “The Remnant Radio.” April 22, 2020.

 https://youtu.be/KK3TbR4crho