Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Genesis

  • Genesis 10: The Table of Nations

    Genesis 10 is one of those chapters that Bible students often try to avoid, because it is filled with names that are difficult to pronounce, and it’s hard for our modern ears to hear it as anything other than an interruption. But to the redactor of Genesis, these genealogies were serious business.

    Genesis 5 provides a key genealogy, and its major purpose is to show the preservation and continuity of the patriarchal line. We will see another genealogy much like it in Genesis 11. But Genesis 10 provides genealogies that deal with a number of people and nations.

    The key point here, I would suggest, is to show Israel as part of the world, related to those with whom she would interact over the centuries. As suggested in the Interpreter’s Bible (Exegesis on Genesis 10:1-32), this may be the beginning of Israelite universalism. God (YHWH) is not just interested in Israel, he is interested in the whole world. All the world’s peoples are in one family, however distant they may be. This idea is fairly weak in Genesis, but it will get stronger, especially in 2nd and 3rd Isaiah (40-55; 56-66).

    The Bible Knowledge Commentary comments:

    The table of nations is a “horizontal” genealogy rather than a “vertical” one (those in chaps. 5 and 11 are vertical). Its purpose is not primarily to trace ancestry; instead it shows political, geographical, and ethnic affiliations among tribes for various reasons, most notable being holy war. Tribes shown to be “kin” would be in league together. Thus this table aligns the predominant tribes in and around the land promised to Israel. These names include founders of tribes, clans, cities, and territories.1

    Other commentators generally agree on the purpose of the list, but vary in their view of the historicity.2

    There is a final question of historicity. I think this is really the wrong question to ask here. The story thus far tells us of the population of the earth. If the flood is to be regarded as a large, but nonetheless local event, then the issue is one of the groups of people most closely related to Israel. I believe there is good reason to expect that these lists arose from traditions, and not from some kind of direct revelation, and thus should be seen to paint a general picture and not to provide historical details.

    In particular, the interchange of personal names with the names of people groups is a key. The interest is less with the historical descent of the people involved than it is with the way the land is divided and their relationship to one another, and particular to the chosen people.

    Chapter 10, combined with chapter 11, forms a bridge between the history of the world in general that runs from Genesis 1-11 and the very specific history of Israel that begins in chapter 12 with the call of Abraham.

    I have only a small number of notes on this chapter. If you are looking for details on the various names, you will need a Bible dictionary, and even there facts will be a little bit scarce. I based the following working translation on the ASV simply to save myself the trouble of getting the transliteration of all the names in standard form. None of the transliterations are mine.

    Finally, this is an excellent example of Biblical criticism, particularly source and redaction criticism, in action, though one shouldn’t assume that there is sufficient information in this one chapter to build a character of the sources. Nonetheless there is a critical pattern in the language used that helps identify the sources, in this case J (Yahwist) and P (Priestly). I will use blue text for P, and black text for J. In addition, I will underline the key introductory phrases that separate the sources.2

    It is very likely that each source contained overlapping material, but the redactor combined all of this information into a single picture suitable for his purpose–displaying Israel as God’s servant in the broader world.

    The translation and notes will be below the fold.

    (more…)

  • Random Mutations and God

    JuliaL, in a comment to my previous post, Don McLeroy and his Big Creationist Tent . I’m going to copy the comment here and reply, because I think it brings up an important point that deserves a post of its own.

    Here’s the part that mystifies me:


    Consider natural selection of random mutations. If they’re random mutations, they can’t be God-directed, and if they’re naturally selected, you can’t hav, quote, “God-selecteds.”

    Is the claim being made that there is no such thing as a mathematically random process, such as the choosing of the winning number in a lottery? Or, is McLeroy saying that a process can indeed be mathematically random, but in some magical fashion then God is incapable of being any part of it? So God is completely excluded from lotteries? And if we want to cut God out of any issue, we need only introduce randomness (like “Russian roulette” with a gun before pulling the trigger), and God is forced to stand by helpless? I’ve seen people pick a Bible verse to read by closing their eyes, letting the Bible fall open, and then putting their finger to the page to pick a random verse to mediatate on. Does this process mean that God is now excluded from the event and must stand around looking incompetent?

    As for natural selection, is the claim here that anything selected for/against by nature thereby excludes God from any role? Nature pretty much destroys certain kinds of plants I attempt to put in my yard; the heat, humidity, and alternate drought and flood kills them off. Does installing such plants mean that I have managed to ban God from my yard?

    This seems a strange view of God, not as the ground of all being or as the wholeness of which everything else is a part, but as a separate, discrete individual who can be pushed aside through math and nature processes that we all normally acknowledge exist.

    The thing that has mystified me for a long time is that so many people seem to view a natural process as something which separates something from design by God. From my theological point of view, the universe exists because God wills it so, therefore everything is designed. Supposing I create a machine that automatically produces some other device. Would that secondary device not be considered my design? God goes one better, and designs and elegant and simple algorithm that produces huge variety. It’s still God.

    Intelligent design creationists (IDC) are not satisfied to have God ordain laws and processes. They want God to intervene along the way, and see indications of that design. The Holy Grail of this idea is that one process or system that simply cannot have been produced by the simple combination of variation + natural selection. They keep claiming to have found it, but as knowledge of the evolutionary process advances, ways are discovered. IDC requires a severe deficit in imagination.

    The requirement for detectable intervention ties intelligent design to creationism. If that were not the case, they could embrace people like me who believe in God and believe that the universe itself exists by the will of God. That means everything we see is designed at some level or another. I’m not a metaphysical naturalist. But IDCs do not embrace people like me. Why? Because the simple statement that the universe is designed is not their real goal.

    Their goal is to prove elements of the Biblical story of creation, specifically that there are “kinds” that cannot produce one another, boundary lines that can only be crossed by special divine intervention. That’s the point of trying to find detectable footprints. It’s not design/non-design so much as it is the detectability of design, and even more specifically the detectability of limits that require divine intervention at particular points.

    On this young and old earth creationists can agree, because their understanding of the Genesis story, while not the same, agrees in hearing it as narrative history. They just disagree in the level of symbol involved. They both need divine intervention in a way that should be detectable. (There’s some discussion of this right now because IDCs want to deny part of their roots. This has been discussed recently by Nick Matzke, Ed Brayton, and from the IDC side by Rob Crowther.

    Now to the word “random.” That is largely a scare word, since evolution is not, in fact, a random process. Natural selection is quite directed. There are a number of definitions of the word random, but in this case non-mathematicians are generally thinking something like “lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern” (Merriam-Webster). Though this is not the mathematical definition, it will work for our purposes.

    In A Wonderful Life Gould suggested a thought experiment rolling back the movie of the history of life on earth from the time of the Cambrian explosion onward, and suggested that it might unroll in different ways because random events might occur differently. But there is a view of determinism that would say that everything that occurs is totally caused by previous events, thus if we had sufficient knowledge we could tie every event right back to be big band, down to movements of subatomic particles. With this level of determinism, someone with my view of evolution could claim that God did design not just human beings as such, but me in particular, by the way he “set off the big bang.” Everything would be determined by the arrangement of particles (and whatever) at the moment “cause” came to have any meaning. Thus intelligent design without that identifiable time of intervention.

    (For those who want to think more about this, let me link to two series by Peter Kirk at Speaker of Truth. I’m not specifically endorsing everything Peter says, and I gather that he isn’t either, but that’s not because I disagree with any substantial portion. I simply don’t understand the physics well enough for my agreement to make any difference. The important thing is that he is here working with concepts from physics, and relating them to theology and origins, and deals some with the issue of causation. The posts are Kingdom Dynamics Introduction, Beyond Causality, The Boundaries, and The Crunch, followed by The Beginning part 1 and part 2.)

    IDCs would like that, however, because it wouldn’t give them their “kinds” with boundaries between them. In the view of some of them, front-loading would come with the creation of the first life, which should have DNA capable of producing everything that happened later.

    But there is no necessity that absolute determinism is true. It’s just a possibility. There could be events that are not caused in our sense of the word at all. For example, we have no way to speak sensibly of the “cause” of the big bang. I have had people I regard as reliable tell me that quantum physics shows that the universe is truly deterministic, and others I regard as equally reliable tell me it proves that there is true randomness. I don’t understand their arguments so I cannot comment on who is right. But it’s interesting that it appears to be a debatable issue!

    Some other theists who are scientists, especially physicists, see the subatomic realm as a place where God could intervene, for example, to cause mutations at the appropriate moment, without us being able to detect that intervention at all. Again, this wouldn’t make IDCs happy, because they want to find God, and also, for the most part, to prove that he created the world in a way that can be related to Genesis. Don’t ever be deceived by the rhetoric–Genesis will show up sooner or later.

    I don’t really understand the how of it at all. I would be satisfied if God simply created the process, and the process produces everything else. I think variation + natural selection is a very powerful process. At the moment I don’t see any example of demonstrated intervention. I would simply say that as a theist I hold that even if the process is random in its input (variation) it is random because that is the way God ordains it to be. That is not a scientific conclusion, however. Science must simply observe whether it is random or not and report.

    Finally, I do believe that the IDCs come up with a bizarre idea of God, a God who is more active at some points than others, and one who designed a process to diversify life, but it didn’t work right, so he has to tinker. Somehow they think this is a positive think and work very hard to prove that it happened, at the same time proving, in my view, that God is incompetent. That’s not a conclusion I’d prefer to come to!

  • Genesis 9: A New World

    Genesis 9 looks at the beginnings of life and society after the flood. It can be of interest in a number of ways, because along with parts of chapter 8 it supports the Noahide laws, and is the foundation for blood being forbidden to eat blood (Acts 15:20, which does not quote this, but must be based on it). The question of how much the world has changed following the destruction of everyone not in the ark must have been a serious worry for Noah and his family, and thus our narrator proceeds to correct that problem.

    For those interested in theodicy, this is an indication that the view represented in the Pentateuch is that the world was definitely harmed by the advent of sin, though it shows a progression of destruction rather than an instant fall. Following the flood, animals are said to fear humans. Whether this is something completely new, the story does not say, but it is at least a new level of fear, doubtless connected with the fact that animals are now offered for food. Note that there is no clean/unclean distinction provided for the world in general. That was specifically part of the covenant of Israel. It is important to note that in the debates in the early church, certain elements of the Christian faith were trying to force rules on gentile Christians that Jews would not require of them (See Acts 15 and Galatians, especially).

    As I have done in my previous entries on Genesis I will identify the sources as generally understood in source theory. In this chapter we have only P (priestly) and J (Yahwist) material, and there is a small disagreement on what is what. Verses 1-7 are identified as P by Speiser, but as J by von Rad. Noth also identifies 9:1-17 as a block by P. All agree that 18-27 is J, while 28-29 is again P. I will use blue text for P, red text for J and leave the disputed section in black. That will allow you to read a connected narrative in any source as much as possible.

    Again, the translation is as fresh as this afternoon, and should be considered a draft. Hopefully I’ll get back to checking it more thoroughly some day.

    (1)Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and told them, “Be fruitful, and multiple, and fill the earth. (2) The animals, birds, and everything that moves on the ground, along with the fish will be in awe of you and afraid of you. I have placed them under your authority. (3) Every living creature that moves will be your food. Like the plants and herbs I have given you all of them. (4) Yet you shall not eat the flesh with its life, that is, its blood. (5) Their blood and their lives I will demand from your hand, from every living thing I’ll demand it. And from humans I will also demand from each one the life of another human. (6) The blood of one sheds human blood shall be shed by human beings, because human beings were made in God’s image. (7) As for you, be fruitful and multiply, and move out across the land and multiply in it.”

    This is a very interesting text for several reasons.

    1. Animals are held responsible for killing
    2. People are not allowed the lifeblood, even of animals, something that would later be held to require expiation (Leviticus 17:11)
    3. While God forbids the killing, he requires humanity to enforce it–by killing
    4. Humanity’s blessing and sovereignty survive unimpaired, as does God’s image, given as the reason for forbidding murder.

    I would note that the strong connection to later Levitical law tends to support holding 1-7 as priestly (P) in origin.

    (8) God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, (9) “Look, I myself am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, (10) and with every living creature that is with you, with the birds, and the animals, and with all the living creatures of the earth with you, from all those who went out of the ark, all the living creatures of the earth. (11) and I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh will never again be cut off by the waters of the flood. There will never again be another flood to destroy the earth.

    The possibility of a rerun could be expected to be the greatest concern to everyone, so God makes a covenant that he will not destroy all living things again by a flood. All the living creatures are included in this covenant.

    (12) And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I am placing between me and you, and between all living creatures with you for eternal generations. (13) I place my bow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. (14) And when I bring clouds over the earth, then you will see the bow in the cloud. (15) And I will remember my covenant that is between me and you, and with all the living creatures, and with all flesh, and the waters of the flood will not come again to destroy the earth. (16) When my bow is in the cloud, I will see it, and I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature, with all flesh that is on the earth. (17) And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

    The question of reminder comes up. I would simply note that God is always portrayed in the Bible as much more involved with human activity and in the course of human history than many theologians are comfortable with. In theologies, God is generally much more respectable than he is in scripture. Here he allows one to believe that he requires a reminder, though the text doesn’t say he does. The text simply tells us that he will remember when he sees the rainbow, and makes no comment on what he does otherwise. I’m regularly impressed with how much less concerned with God’s reputation the Bible writers are than are modern theologians.

    (18) Now these are the sons of Noah who went out of the ark: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. (19) These three were the sons of Noah, and from them people spread over all the earth.

    (20) Noah became a tiller of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. (21) He drank some of its wine, and he became drunk, and he was naked in the middle of his tent. (22) And Ham, father of Canaan saw his father naked, and he reported it to his two brothers outside. (23) And Shem and Japheth took a robe, and they placed it on their two backs, and they went backwords, and they covered their father’s nakedness, but their faces were to the rear, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness.(24) Noah woke up from his wine, and he knew what his younger son had done to him. (25) And he said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a slave of slaves to his brothers.” (26) And he said, “Blessed is YHWH God of Shem, and Canaan will be his slave. (26) God will make Japheth’s territory spacious, and he will live in Shem’s tents, and Canaan will be his slave.”

    This is a difficult passage. One solution is textual. Some have suggested omitting “Ham, the father of” so that the whole episode would relate to Canaan, rather than Ham, but that would also cause some havoc with the logic of the rest of the story. The key (see Kidner, Genesis, p. 103-104) may be in seeing that major sin as an unfilial, disrespectful act on Canaan’s part. Since he sinned in terms of his family responsibilities, it is his family, via his youngest son, that is cursed. This sounds quite unfair to modern ears, but multi-generational curses were not unknown in the Bible.

    (28) And after the flood Noah lived 350 years. (29) And Noah’s full life was 950 years, and he died.

    The priestly (P) source is, as always, concerned with numbers and genealogies. Noah, however, was the last of the very long lived patriarchs. From here they begin to deteriorate as well.

  • Codex on Mesopotamian Creation Stories

    Tyler Williams is beginning a series on this topic. After reading just the first entry I strongly recommend that any of my readers interested in the creation stories take a look at this material.

    For those who have not been following my material you can look at the Genesis category on my Participatory Bible Study Blog, and particularly the first entry, which includes links to my other material on the web. The material in the Codex series will clearly deal in much more detail and depth with things I only mentioned in passing.

    Hat tip: Abnormal Interests.

  • Reflecting on the Flood

    In a previous post I commented on the two flood stories, so instead of covering each and every point of the flood story again here, I’d like to reflect just a bit on the story of the flood. I’ll resume my verse by verse commentary toward the end of Genesis 8.

    The flood story is a very troubling story to many people. Those who regard it as a historical account have to deal with the complete absence of evidence that any such event ever happened though see below on just what the flood involved. I comment on the various views on the meaning of Genesis 1-11 here.

    But it’s not merely as a historical event that the flood story troubles many people. If one is to take the story seriously in any sense, it presents us with the picture of God deciding to wipe out everyone alive. God is sorry that he created humanity, and so will wipe them all out at once. Noah and his family will be the sole survivors. This one is almost more troubling as a myth than as history.

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  • Pseudo-Polymath Series on Genesis

    I’ve been intending to mention this since last week’s Christian Blog Carnival came out, but I’ve been distracted. Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath has started a series on Genesis from a philosophical perspective. The first entry is Reflections on Gensis: Chapter 1, and he has now posted the second entry, Reflections on Genesis: Chapters 2-3 (part 1).

    Right now I only want to make one comment and mention a couple of my own related posts. At the end of the first entry, Mark says:

    However, Kass suggests that scientific views evolution may deny the intelligibility and primacy of species (the separation noted in Genesis) and the importance and uniqueness of man. And in that sense it might be in opposition, but I’m not expert enough on evolution to know how notions “kind” and “species” which arise from Genesis are denied by evolutionary theory.

    I’d simply like to link to two of my previous posts that may relate; Design, Direction, and Evolution and An Evolutionary View of Kinds.

  • Genesis 6:5-8: Cause of the Flood

    I’m trying to take this passage in smaller chunks than I usually do so that I don’t end up with so many incredibly long posts.

    We’ve been watching the deterioration of the human race throughout these chapters. Genesis 3 gives one view of the start. Chapter 4 carries that story forward. If viewed in conjuction with Genesis 11, Genesis 5 hints at the problem. Genesis 6:1-4 again expands on the theme. Alden Thompson, in his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? titles his second chapter “Behold it was very good – and then it all turned sour” in which he discusses this theme. (Bias warning: Alden Thompson was one of my undergraduate professors and I publish his book.) However one debates the details of Genesis 3 and the nature of the first sin, one thing is incredibly clear. Genesis presents a clear picture of increasing separation from God and from God’s will.

    Thompson says,

    To summarize the argument of this chapter, we can say that God did create a good world. In this world he placed free creatures. They chose to rebel and align themselves with the Adversary. His attacks on God set the stage for demonic rule, a rule which a freedom-loving God chose to allow as necessary evidence in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The Old Testament gives ample evidence of the impact of the demonic rule. At the same time, however, it testifies to God’s patient interest in his own people, a people through whom he hoped to demonstrate to the world that there is a God in heaven who is the source of everything good. God had much that he wanted to show and tell his people. As soon as they were ready, he passed on the good news. The tragedy was that they were so seldom ready. Yet God was still willing to watch and wait. That is the glory of the Old Testament and the glory of our God (pp. 31-32).

    Now I’m extremely interested in the broader topic of God’s commands for violence, and with moral issues that are raised by stories like the flood, but that is not the focus of this passage, so I’m going to try to stick more to what this particular passage says first and then discuss these broader implications in another post. I believe that the paragraph I quoted above is a good summary of the message here. Let’s look at the scripture passage:

    5And YHWH saw that the evil of humanity was great on the land, and the whole thrust of human thought was only evil continually. 6And YHWH was sorry that he had made humanity on the land, and it made him sad in his heart. 7And YHWH said, “I will wipe humanity which I created from the face of the ground, from human beings to cattle, to creeping things, to the birds in the sky, because I’m sorry that I made them!” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of YHWH. — Genesis 6:5-8

    There are several points to see in these verses. Let me break them out into bullet points:

    • The total deterioration and evil of humanity
    • God’s sorrow, leading to his statement that he’s sorry (or repents) that he’s made them
    • The universality of the proposed punishment or cleansing
    • The favor that Noah found, later attributed to Noah being found righteous (Genesis 7:1)

    Modern theology is concerned with two things that the text does not emphasize, first the violent and massive destruction that God carries out here, and second with God repenting or being sorry. But as far as the story is concerned, God is not to be questioned as to his cause–it’s assumed to be an adequate reason for the destruction. Further, God’s “repentance” is a common feature of the Hebrew scriptures, and does not cause the Bible writers the type of discomfort it seems to cause us.

    In addition, this is a good summary of the gospel (if we can deal with the destructive God issue), the good news about God: Big trouble is coming, God offers grace, people are saved.

    One note: The Hebrew word nicham won’t give much help to those who are uncomfortable with God’s repentance or God being sorry. It does mean what it appears to mean, and it appears frequently with reference to God in Hebrew scriptures. Thus I’m going to leave the two issues–God’s repentance and God’s violence–for further discussion, as I think that the solution to the two problems is quite similar.

  • Genesis 6:1-4: Sons of God and Human Beings

    These four verses provide a rather unusual interlude, coming between the genealogy of the patriarchal line in chapter five, and the story of the flood that truly begins in verse 5. I’m attributing them to the redactor who combined the J and P sources of the flood, though I think they work better with the P source. This is not the standard interpretation. The reason I suggest it is that:

    1. The style is neither that of J or P, despite the use of YHWH as the divine name.
    2. The instance of YHWH could well be the work of the redactor.
    3. The J source has explained the presence of evil in the world through the fall of chapter 3 and Cain’s sin of chapter 4.

    I could easily be wrong about all that, but it’s just a quick suggestion. Now to the interpretation.

    Wherever it started, this passage fits quite well into the final form of the story, giving us a reason for God’s action in sending the flood.

    1Now when human beings began to get numerous all over the land, and they gave birth to daughters, 2the sons of God {or “sons of the gods” or “divine beings} saw the daughters of the human beings. They saw that they were good looking, and they took wives for themselves from whomever they chose.

    There are three major suggestions for the meaning of “sons of God.” Before I list those, let me note that the translation could be “sons of the gods” as well, and that this would present the option of “divine beings.” The three major options are:

    1. The sons of the gods are divine beings such as angels. (The New Bible Commentary)
    2. The sons of God are the descendants of Seth and followers of God (Matthew Henry)
    3. The sons of God are human beings who are possessed by or under the control of demonic powers (The Bible Knowledge Commentary)

    (Commentary listings are just examples. There may be many more commentators who hold the same position.

    If the “sons of the gods” are divine beings, then the “sons of men” should be translated “human beings” or something similar, as I have done. If they are the descendants of Seth, then the “sons of men” would be the Kenites or descendants of Cain. If you take the third option, that they are human beings controlled by demonic forces, you would reverse the situation in option three, and in terms of physical form, at least, the sons of God would be the Kenites, while the sons of man would be the descendants of Seth.

    I think that the best parallel to the use of the term in this passage is Job 1:6, in which it is clear that supernatural beings are intended. In this case, the marriages between these supernatural beings and the human women result in ancient heroes and the “nephilim.” At the same time, wickedness increases, with very little in the way of limitations, because people live for so long. The long lives, as noted in chapter 5, help with passing on the patriarchal tradition, but this long life also allows some pretty incredible planning for evil.

    3Then YHWH said, “My spirit will not always work among human beings, considering that they are flesh. Their lifespan will be 120 years.” 4There were giants {Nephilim} on the earth in those days, and also after the sons of God went to the daughters of the human beings and bore children by them. These were heroes, the famous men of ancient times.

    God quickly reminds everyone that he is the one that is in charge. There’s to be a reduction in the lifespan, but don’t miss the way it happens. God withdraws his spirit, his breath of life.

    (29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
    You bring their breath to an end,
    And they return to their dust.

    (30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
    So you renew the face of the ground.

    — Psalm 104:29-30 (from my paper Psalm 104: God, Creator and Sustainer

    It’s easy to forget as we rebel against God that all life, and even all existence depends on him. So rebellion against God, while it may seem to be a liberated way to live, is actually simply the way to death. As we look at the flood, we will want to consider this option of God withdrawing himself, and at the same time withdrawing his protection.

  • The Two Flood Stories Updated

    I’ve just reposted my essay The Two Flood Stories, correcting some links, improving the notes a bit, making some verse numbering a little bit clearer, and adding a section concluding the flood story. This editing was in preparation for continuing my Genesis series here by discussing the flood story. Thus far, I’ve discussed through Genesis 5. Probably later today, I’ll make a general post on Genesis 6.

  • Genesis 5: Preservation of the Patriarchal Line

    Introduction

    Genesis 5 continues the priestly account of origins. Now I don’t want us to get the idea that there are two separate messages here, because the two sources (priestly [P] and Yahwist [J]) have been brought together with their own message. Nonetheless, we can get some additional breadth and depth to this message by noting how we might understand these passages if we had only one of the two sources.

    The priestly writer continues from the creation that is found good and moves to the patriarchal line. He mentions the curse in connection with Lamech, who believes that his son Noah represents some form of relief (see comment below), but he doesn’t mention the corruption of the world until Genesis 6:11, though the comment that Noah was found perfect in his generation suggests that there was something less than perfect going on. For P, the preservation of the patriarchal line is critical. We learn that the world became corrupt, but not how. More of the action is placed in God’s hands and less in people’s hands.

    J, on the other hand, emphasizes the human side. We have an explanation for the corruption in human action, we have a line of people who are in rebellion, and then, at the end of chapter 4, we have the simple statement that there was also a patriarchal line. Seth is born, then he has a son, and with that we are told that people began to call on YHWH.

    There is a certain elegance and simplicity to each of these source documents, but there is a depth that is provided by combining them. I’m reminded of the debate between Calvinists and Arminians, specifically about the sovereignty of God, and which view gives God more glory. By attitude, P could be a Calvinist and J an Arminian, as P puts all the focus on God, while J spends his time talking about the action of creatures. The redactor combines these into a story of God in relationship to people. This is one of the benefits I see in using critical methodologies. It is easy, however, to stop by observing the sources, as though identifying sources amounted to interpreting the text. It doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t even produce anything of real interest. But at other times it does help us get a bit closer to the author’s aim.

    There will be only a few verse by verse comments. Most of Genesis 5 is self-explanatory. At the end I will deal with an overview of the type of literature involved, chronological calculations, and ways in which the chapter has been understood.

    Genesis 5: Translation and Notes

    1This is Adam’s genealogical record. When God created humankind he created them like himself, 2he created them male and female, blessed them, and called them Adam (human).

    Note that Adam produces a son in his likeness as God produced Adam in his own likeness. I would imagine that those who support a physical likeness, i.e. that God physically looks like a human being, might use this verse for that purpose. I would see the reverse. The likeness is not primarily physical, it is in being a choosing, acting, moral creature. This was the foundation of the patriarchal line.

    The likeness of God must somehow be preserved, and as we can see in chapter 4, Cain’s clan is not doing so well at preserving it.

    3Adam lived 130 years and gave birth to someone like him, in his image, and he called his son’s name Seth. 4After he gave birth to Seth Adam lived 800 years, and gave birth to sons and daughters. 5His full lifetime was 930 years. after which he died.

    6Seth lived 105 years, and gave birth to Enosh. 7and Seth lived 807 years after he gave birth to Enosh, and he gave birth to sons and daughters. 8And Seth’s full lifetime was 912 years, after which he died.

    9And Enosh lived 90 years, and gave birth to Kenan. 10And Enosh lived 815 years after he gave birth to Kenan, and gave birth to sons and daughters. 11Enosh’s full lifetime was 905 years, after which he died.

    12Kenan lived 70 years, and gave birth to Mahalalel. 13And Kenan lived 840 years after he gave birth to Mahalalel, and gave birth to sons and daughters. 14Kenan’a full lifetime was 910 years, then he died.

    15Mahalalel lived 65 years, and gave birth to Jared. 16And Mahalalel lived after 830 years after he gave birth to Jared, and he gave birth to sons and daughters. 17Mahalalel’s full lifetime was 895 years, after which he died.

    18Jared lived 162 years, and gave birth to Enoch. 19And Jared lived 800 years after he gave birth to Enoch and gave birth to sons and daughters. 20Jared’s full lifetime wsa 962 years, after which he died.

    Thus far note the pattern. The phrase “and he died” is not likely to be accidental, as it is repeated throughout. We are noting physical mortality.

    21Enoch lived 65 years, and gave birth to Methuselah. 22Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah for 300 years, and he gave birth to sons and daughters. 23Enoch’s full lifetime was 365 years, 24but Enoch walked with God, and he was just no longer there, because God took him.

    We tend to focus on long lives in reading this passage, but the focus of the Bible writer is on the walk with God. Even those who have long lives are living on the ground that is under God’s curse. The one who is truly blessed is Enoch, who lives on earth a short time, and then is taken. The structure of the chapter points an arrow at Enoch because his story is missing that one phrase: “and he died.”

    Cain’s line goes seven generations, though the focus is on the sixth, named Lamech as is the ninth patriarch of Genesis 5. Lamech in Cain’s line is a murderer. The seventh in the patriarchal line walks with God and proves it is still possible. In Genesis 3 God walks in the garden, and Adam and Eve are afraid (Genesis 3:10). Enoch doesn’t have this fear of going for a walk with God. This passage affirms the possibility of a walk with God.

    25Methuselah lived 187, and gave birth to Lamech. 26And Methuselah lived 782 years after he gave birth to Lamech, and gave birth to sons and daughters. 27And Methuselah’s full lifetime was 969 years, after which he died.

    Methuselah is the longest lived patriarch, but he is not the hero. He is more or less a footnote to his father, Enoch, who walked with God.

    28Lamech lived 182 years, then gave birth to a son. 29He called his name Noah, saying, “This child will comfort us as we work and toil with our hands as the result of the ground being cursed by YHWH.” 30And Lamech lived 595 years after he gave birth to Noah, and gave birth to sons and daughters. 31And Lamech’s full lifetime was 777 years, after which he died.

    32Noah was 500 years old. He gave birth to Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Translation taken from my TFBV project.)

    Note that it can be presumed that Noah bore his three sons over the course of those 500 years, and that this is a summary. The 500 years note gives us some chronological data, and suggests that Noah’s call to build the ark may have come around this time, while the flood began, according to this chronology, when Noah was 600 years old (Genesis 7:6).

    Discussion

    The single most discussed and debated issue of this chapter deals with chronology, which was probably a secondary consideration of the author/redactor. He was more concerned with demonstrating the preservation of the patriarchal line, which then leads to the genuineness of the call to Abraham.

    But the simple fact is that on the surface, at least, it appears that one can generate some chronology from a genealogy like this. I have reproduced a portion of this chronology below.

    Name Age at Firstborn Remaining Years Age at Death Birth AM First Child AM Death AM
    Adam 130 800 930 0 130 930
    Seth 105 807 912 130 235 1042
    Enosh 90 815 905 235 325 1140
    Kenan 70 840 910 325 395 1235
    Mahalalel 65 830 895 395 460 1290
    Jared 162 800 962 460 622 1422
    Enoch 65 300 365 622 687 987
    Methuselah 187 782 969 687 874 1656
    Lamech 182 595 777 874 1056 1651
    Noah 500 *600 500 1056 1556 1556
    *Beginning of the flood. Noah’s death will be dealt with later.

    Looking at this from the point of view of known history, there are several problems. Around the time suggested for the flood (between 2300 and 2400 BCE, depending on how one dates creation), there was a flourishing Eblaite civilization, there had been a Sumerian civilization for around a thousand years, and Egypt was being ruled by its fifth and sixth dynasties. To put it quite simply, this chronology cannot be reconciled with what we know of ancient near eastern history. It is not simply a small discrepancy; the issue would be thousands of years. You not only need to move the flood prior to the advent of Sumerian and Egyptian history, you also need to leave enough time for the population to grow such as to form the people groups involved and produce an adequate population.

    There have been a number of solutions to this problem. One, of course, is to stick with the chronology as “God’s word” no matter what it may imply. This is often presented as the choice of faith. But faith in what? Actually the faith involved is in a chronology and in a particular way of reading the text. Is it truly honoring God to insist on reading the text of scripture, his written word, in such a way as to blatantly contradict his history as written in the natural world? I think we must consider the possibility that insisting that the form of chronology presented in the chart above is God’s word–the message God intended from this passage–is perhaps a bit arrogant.

    Old earth creationists, though they are particularly dealing with geological evidence and the age of the earth solve this problem as well by assuming gaps in the chronology. If you look at the structure of the chronology, however, it looks as though it was put together rather tightly. The father’s birth is recorded, followed by his age at his son’s birth, followed by the years he lived after that, and then the full lifespan. In response to this, old earth advocates would note that there is also a formal element in the number of patriarchs. There are ten here and another ten in Genesis 11; ten before and ten after the flood. In addition, if one had a longer list of patriarchs, one could remove individual names while leaving the remainder of the list unchanged. Thus if there was someone removed after Seth, we would understand “gave birth to” as “starting the genealogical chain that gave birth to” Enosh.

    There is a further option, which is the view that I have taken throughout these chapters. They are simply not narrative history. There is a theological point being made. There are two lines, or two categories of people: Those who follow God and those who don’t. The ultimate goal of those who follow God is to be with God (Enoch), while the ultimate goal of those who oppose God is to wind up like Lamech in further destruction. The chronology itself is simply a tradition whose form is maintained to hold together the full story that is being told–a story that teaches.