This is the first of the Genesis Timeline and Genealogies series. Read the second here.
How many of you, when you read Genesis 5, are just itching to draw a timeline? I love Bible genealogies, and so when I read the numbers in Genesis 5, the data are calling out to me to analyze them. The antediluvian timeline really is fascinating, and there are a lot of lessons to be gleaned from it.
The Patriarchs’ Lives
When I was younger, I’d read the chapter and because of the way it’s written, I got the impression that these people lived back-to-back, i.e., one dies before the another starts his life. For example:
“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died. And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan.” Gen 5:3-9
Because it would describe a complete life of a person first before going to the next, the overlap is not as highlighted. But in fact, the overlap is quite remarkable, because the reality is that Adam didn’t die in verse 5; he was still alive when Lamech was born in verse 25! These overlaps paint a different picture of life back then, and here’s my version of the antediluvian timeline.
This means that Genesis 5 can also be written in the following way:
Adam lived 130 years and begat Seth.
When Adam was 235, Seth begat Enos.
When Adam was 325, Enos begat Cainan.
When Adam was 395, Cainan begat Mahalaleel.
When Adam was 460, Mahalaleel begat Jared.
When Adam was 622, Jared begat Enoch.
When Adam was 687, Enoch begat Methuselah.
When Adam was 874, Methuselah begat Lamech.
When Lamech was 56, Adam died.
All the days that Adam lived were 930 years.
That’s 9 generations living at one point for 56 years!!
Here are some points of observations from the timeline:
- Of the 10 antediluvian patriarchs, Methuselah lived the longest. He died the same year as the Flood.
- Methuselah was also the first patriarch to see a son died. All the other patriarchs died before their sons.
- Methuselah’s son, Lamech, died 5 years before the Flood (i.e., he did not die because of the Flood. God showed kindness to him and laid him to rest).
- Lamech was the most short-lived patriarch out of the 10. He died at 777. Interesting number.
- Lamech was also the only patriarch to be recorded to prophesy in Genesis 5 when he named his son, Noah. “And he called his name Noah [which means rest or comfort], saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.” Gen 5:29. It sounds like he was weary of some toil – perhaps preaching to the people around him about righteousness and God.
- All 10 patriarchs saw the deprivation of mankind in their lifetime.
- Methuselah saw all the patriarchs from Adam (except Enoch and Noah) died.
- Enoch was taken up to heaven at year count 987.
- Seth was still alive when Enoch was taken up to heaven – he was 857 years old.
- This means that everyone from Seth to Lamech was around when Enoch was taken up to heaven.
- This also means that only Adam had died when this happened, meaning that everyone only saw one death, and the next big thing was Enoch’s translation. What encouragement! Adam had to leave Eden, but just 57 years after he died, someone in the 7th generation made it back to heaven. It’s a message of hope to humanity.
- Noah was born 14 years after Enoch’s translation.
- The chapter before records the genealogy of Cain. It does not, however, contain markings of time (i.e., no age, no date of birth). The way that we can tell time is through the lineage of the righteous.
If you have any additional observations, feel free to comment!
P.S. If you want the Excel file I used to create the image, let me know and I can email it to you.
I would love to have your excel timeline to teach my grandchildren, Thanks!
I would love to use this for our homeschool project! Would you send me the file, please?
Hi Psimitar. These are very thoughtful questions. The Bible certainly did not specify how long they were in the Garden of Eden. And I agree that Adam was not familiar–as in, experientially–with death and dying before the Fall. If we compare this with Romans 6:23 that says the wages of sin is death, this aligns perfectly. Death comes after sin. They also had access to the tree of life (Gen 2:9).
Along the same vein, I think there’s evidence in the sequence that Lucifer and a third of the angels fell and were cast out of heaven before Adam and Eve because of the mentioning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2). When Adam and Eve was brought to the garden, the warning to not eat of this tree was given, necessitating the existence of evil beforehand. Because sin originated with Lucifer, this was equated to his rebellion and fall before this time. I believe this tree was there as a test of loyalty for Adam and Even, and it also indicates that mankind were free moral agents, able to choose whether to obey or disobey, now that there were 2 camps mankind could give loyalty to. There was also the serpent that Lucifer used as a medium to tempt Eve.
As for Cain, I understand him to be Adam and Eve’s firstborn because of the following verses. In Gen 3:15, after they sinned, God said He would put enmity between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. The woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head (at this point the serpent is now equated with Satan, e.g. John 8:44; 2 Cor. 11:3, 14; Rom. 16:20), which is understood by Bible writers as the promise of the Deliverer (see Rev. 12:1–5; cf. Gal. 3:16, 19; Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8), which Christians now know to be Christ. But there’s indication that this was misunderstood slightly by Adam and Eve in Gen 4:1. What Eve said when Cain was born, “I have gotten a man from the Lord” reads literally in Hebrew, “I have gotten a man, the Lord”, signaling her hope that maybe Cain was going to be that seed, the deliverer. Of course, this means that Adam and Eve were not in the garden for long, and that the other populations of the earth were Adam and Eve’s subsequent children (Gen 5:4 says they had sons and daughters, fulfilling the mandate to be fruitful and multiply). The ones that Cain were fearful of may be his family who may want to avenge Abel’s death.
I’m curious to your first question, how do you see evolutionary theories line up with Creationism in considering Adam and Eve’s elongated time in Eden? What evolutionary mechanisms do you think take place in Eden?
On the 2nd question, I tend to take the age as Adam’s total age, because the Bible doesn’t indicate any difference grammatically in describing Adam’s age and say, Seth’s, or Noah’s. It also says “all the days that Adam lived were 930”..
What do you think? Thanks for the thoughtful comments!
So I have carried a theory around with me (one of my own creation) that Adam and Eve existed in the Garden for an unspecified period of time (possibly hundreds to thousands of years) before the Fall. It is my belief that it was during this time that Lucifer and a third of the Host waged their war in Heaven and were defeated and ejected. (Revelation 12:7-9). During this time, I believe Adam and Eve were immortal. This was supported (in my mind) by Genesis 3:16-19 in which God greatly INCREASES Eve’s pain in childbirth, which, to me, implies that Eve had experienced bearing children before. This would explain why there were people outside the Garden after Cain killed Abel and found a wife in the land of Nod which was decribed as to the east of Eden which would have been present day east Iraq or Iran. God also pronounce eventual death upon Adam as part of his punishment which implied that death was not a concept he was familiar with.
So my theory loses a lot of it’s weight when looking at Genesis 5 and seeing Adam’s lifespan of 930 years. I guess my question is a) does anyone else look at these texts and see the same things I do in regards to how Creationism can line up with evolutionary theories without adopting Theistic Evolution (the idea that God created the world over millions of years because God has no concept of time) and b) is it possible that Adam’s age in Genesis 5 is measured from the time he was ejected from the Garden?
Thank you for your time.
Just read Genesis 5 today (not for the first time), but saw it differently today. Felt compelled to write out the timeline. I was blown away when I realized all the overlapping generations. I’d love a copy of your spreadsheet, it will save me a lot of time trying to create my own. Thanks for sharing.
Wow I like this so so much because am also interested in the Bible genealogy…Thanks a lot.
Hi Virginia,
I just emailed you the file. Hope you find it useful!
I just stumbled across this while searching for a copy of the timeline. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this; yours looks so much better than mine ever have 🙂 I’m in the middle of teaching a unit on the patriarchs to an adult special-needs class and they would be fascinated by this. Would you be able to email me a copy? Do you still have that available?
Thank you!
Hi Jonathan, I can definitely email it to you.
Hi Josephine
Tq for your sharing, do u still have the spreadsheet? Can you email me a copy? Tq
Hi – I just found your blog posts on the timelines and they’re great! A book I think you’d be very interested in is “The Days of Peleg” by Jon Saboe (http://www.daysofpeleg.com). He also has a new one coming out soon called “The Days of Lamech”.
I found your blog while researching a book I’m working on, “The Castors of Giza” (http://www.castorsofgiza.com). If you’re into Bible-prophecy stuff, I have some other books at my website at http://www.cwhambleton.com
Blessings!
Chris
Hi Isaac,
Thank you for your comments. I’m not aware of the sources that you mentioned, but the geographical depiction sounds interesting. I also just posted an entry on the postdiluvian timeline, which may be of interest to you too. Blessings!
Thank you so much Josephine! This information is very useful. I’m trying to piece together not only a chronological timeline, but a geographical depiction of the antediluvian world, utilizing not just the Bible but the Pseudoepigraphal texts as well as the Epic of Gilgamesh. I also found http://www.abiblestudy.com/part1.html to be very helpful and your timeline seems to coincide with it pretty well at points. They take a lot of info from the Halley Biblical Handbook. Your insights are wonderful!
Isaac
Yea, I feel like there will be a lot of parallels too! For one thing, Noah’s name sounds like the Hebrew for rest. I thought that was striking, since Rev 14:11 talks about the wicked who has no rest day and night, and the role of the Sabbath message that we bear in the last days!
thanks jo, fascinating stuff as always!
i often wonder how Noah felt living in his generation, which in that period were the “last days” on earth as man knew it. And what responsibility and privilege being the last generation to preach and prophesy the coming end of the world. Can’t not start to draw parallels to our generation. =)
Lisa!! Wow it’s been a while!!
Thanks for your comment – I’m glad that you find it a blessing =]
Hugs back to you!
Hey Josephine!
I just recently started following your blog, I love it! Thanks for sharing your insight and blessings. May the light continue to shine on you.
Hugs, Lisa
Thanks, all. This was really fun to do – I highly recommend the exercise.
Jen, I knew you’d be excited about this too hahah. I’ll send the file to your inbox – it can be a template for further time analysis.
Yes, let’s chat soon.
PS. This gets me oddly excited.
Dude!! hook me up. I’ve actually been contemplating timelines. I’m more into the geneological tree-drawings (it gets pretty hairy in 1 and 2 Kings) and I’ve especially been curious about post-flood, post-Abraham to the return from Egypt timeline. Something recently about the timing of the wandering in the wilderness brought that up. Let’s chat soon!
Only engineers can spend the time to analyze this kind of data. Thanks!
Nicely done! Thanks for sharing… I’ve always wondered if I could do that on my own, you just proved that I should’ve been able to :p Many blessings to you!
Very interesting! Never stopped to reflect on that. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Ko!
Masih inget dong! Sekarang lagi di New Jersey buat grad school. I’m sending the file to your email now.
Hi Phin,
msh ingat Koko gak? Pa Kabar? Where a U know?
good writing and good start to investigate the book..
could you send xls file to my email address?
rgds,