As promised, here is a chart of the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies. As you’ll see, there are blue columns and white columns. The blue columns contain the numbers provided in the Septuagint; the white columns contain the numbers from the Hebrew Masoretic. Those pairs of columns have six categories. They display the age of the fathers at the time of the births of their respective sons, then years for the rest of their lives, and the total number of years that they lived. From those numbers, we can determine the numbers that fill the following two columns, which show each person’s birth year and death year, counted from the creation. They are not BC (BCE) years. The last column is from Adam to Lamech only because it shows the number of years before the flood in which they died.
There is a caveat to this chart. The numbers in the columns for birth and death from the creation can only be an estimate with a margin of error of +1/-0, compounded. For instance, if Seth came when Adam was 230 years and eight months old, it still works to say that Seth was born 230 years from the creation. But if the birth of Enosh came when Seth was 205 years and 11 months old, then Enosh was born 436 years after creation and not 435 years. The eight months and 11 months would add more than a year and a half to the timeline. If Enosh were even six months beyond his birthday when his son was born, that would add another year to the timeline. In just four generations, we’re off two years in the timeline. That’s why there are usually ranges provided for events in distant history because the accounts record the year of the king’s reign or the year of the person involved. They don’t typically record when in that year the event began.
By the time we get to Noah, he could have been born in the year 1662 or 1670, from creation. That’s an eight-year range. The flood could have happened in the year 2662 or 2670, from creation. BE (BCE) dates have the same problem as mentioned above. When a king came to power, it could have been at the end of the year. Those last few months of the year counted as the first year of the king. His second year began at the start of the calendar year. When it records, “In the seventh year of King XYZ,” does that mean six years and some months, or seven years and some months? Historical dates are counted by adding whole numbers or years and don’t account for partial years or months.
There’s another thing to know about the chart. Since Shem was born when Noah was 503, there’s a row to add three to the count. As we’ll learn later, 60 years are needed to account for when Abram is born. There’s a row for that. Also, Abram’s date says 86 years. The Genesis 11 genealogy has Abram as one of the last sons mentioned and doesn’t include his fatherhood. The 86 is for the time of Ismael’s birth and not Isaac’s.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chart. It was a labor of love for me and very eye-opening. When I started reading the Septuagint and noticed the differences in the numbers, I had to make a visual to see what was happening. I would love to make a chart that chases down the family trees of all these men, but I don’t have the time. Maybe when I retire.
File in pdf format.
File in Excel format.