Genesis 5, Genesis 11: Primeval Chronology

I have noticed some popular “primeval chronology” charts that find their way around the internet. They are designed to challenge the chronology of the Hebrew Masoretic Text, calling it “corrupted.” The Genesis 5 chronology also tweaks the LXX timeline to keep Methuselah from living through the flood. I have created this chart to remove those objectionable features while providing a comparison of the chronologies in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Greek Septuagint (LXX) text. The color coding and other clarity is much better in the originals, and I apologize for the lack of crispness of the scans.

Note: In Quaestiones Hebraicae in Geneseos, Jerome describes having a Samaritan Pentateuch manuscript matching the MT regarding the years of Methuselah and Lamech. “It remains, then, that there is an error in number [i.e., in the LXX, rlv]. Indeed, in the books of the Hebrews and the Samaritans, I found it thus written, and Methuselah lived 187 years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech 782 years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. And Lamech lived 182 years and begat Noah.”

You should be able to click on these to enlarge them for easier reading. I may have missed or confused the color coding at times, as I was doing this in the midst of distractions. If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections, let me know.

Daniel 5:9-11 - Did the queen or the queen-mother speak to Belshazzar?

Q. In Daniel 5:9-12, who spoke to the king? What was her relationship to the king?

Daniel 5:9-12 Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied. Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father,[i] made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.

A. The Aramaic word מַלְכְּתָ֕א malketa/malkah means and is properly translated “queen.”[ii] A few modern Bible versions have changed here from a translation to an interpretation. It is “the queen mother” in the Good News Translation, New English Translation, New Living Translation, and The Living Bible. It is “the king’s mother” in the Easy-to-Read Version, International Children’s Bible, New Century Version.[iii] These glossators seem to think the word “queen” must be limited to a reigning king’s wife.

However, the English word “queen” has a broader semantic range than that. For example, it can mean a female monarch/sovereign (the female equivalent of a king), the wife of a king, or the widow of a king (and quite a few other things not relevant to this text in Daniel [iv]).

“Queen” is the correct translation – with the meaning in the sense of a widow of a king, derived from the context. Belshazzar’s wives and his concubines were already present at the feast (5:2-3). The person mentioned came into the banquet house (v. 10). Therefore, this queen was not already present; she was not one of the kings wives (who were already present). That she just came in and began to speak to the king (v. 11) suggests she is a person of high respect. That she knew the facts about Daniel and Belshazzar did not indicates a person of an older generation – either Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter or his widow. My opinion (and this is just an opinion) is this queen is the widow of Nebuchadnezzar.[v]  Describing this woman as the queen is correct, since “widow of a king” is within the range of meaning of the English word “queen” (and the Aramaic word means “queen”). However, based on the context of Daniel chapter 5, she was not Belshazzar’s wife.

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[i] Here “thy father” is used in the sense of ancestor, or perhaps as the head of the dynasty. Compare such usage in Luke 1:32.
[ii] This word מַלְכְּתָ֕א malketa/malkah is translated βασίλισσα in the Septuagint. βασίλισσα also means queen.

[iii] That she is a “queen mother” is contextually correct, but not an exact translation. That she was the king’s mother may or may not be correct – since, for example, she might be the king’s grandmother. A suggested timeline of the succession may be this. Evil-Merodach reigned as heir of Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Jeremiah 52:31-33 and 2 Kings 25:27-29). Nabonidus assassinated Evil-Merodach and also married the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. Belshazzar was their son, a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar on his maternal side.
[iv] Such as a chess piece, playing card, a female insect, or effeminate male homosexual.
[v] Josephus calls her Belshazzar’s grandmother: “Now when the King’s grandmother saw him cast down at this accident, she began to encourage him…” Josephus, Antiquities Book X, Chapter 11, Section 2.

Young and old earth creationism

Awhile back I read a proposal that young earth versus old earth creationim should be an issue over which we should separate (in the senses of both church membership and interchurch fellowship). I can agree, with caveats. Foremost in my mind is the question of what constitutes a young-earth view and an old-earth view of the creation. Obviously, evolution and theistic evolution are old old earth! However, by young earth do we mean one must hold creation very close in the vicinity of just over 6000 years ago? For example, below I notice two persons (one living and one dead) who propose a view of the earth created some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. They seem to build the case on an interpretation of the Bible, without reference to scientific explanations of the age of the earth. Those calculations are over twice the age of standard young earth interpretation. On the other hand, this view is still a very young earth in comparison to the billions of years proposed by the theories of evolution and theistic evolution.

Baptist missionary to China T. P. Crawford wrote a curious book titled The Patriarchal Dynasties from Adam to Abraham, shown to cover 10,500 years, and the highest human life only 187 (Richmond, VA: Josiah Ryland & Co., 1877). In it he proposed the idea that the long years of time recorded of various antediluvians were the length of their patriarchal dynasties rather than the years of their physical life. Below from page 7, showing in 1876 he thought the age of the earth was 14,376 years old.

From Adam to the flood,                                             7,737 years.

" the flood to the birth of Abraham,                            2,763    "

            10,500

" the birth of Abraham to Christ,                                            2,000

            12,500  

" Christ to the present time,                                                    1,876

Making a sum total of                                                             14,376

I found this intriguing especially because I had run across such an idea probably 15 or 20 years ago on the Mountain Retreat website, an article by Tony Warren titled “The Biblical Timeline of Creation.” 

“The key to understanding the truth which is locked in the genealogies of scripture is in comprehending the differences in how God, rather than man, recorded the passing of time…they are meant to be understood as ‘Patriarchal References’ in God’s system of documenting time. In other words, God is using certain genealogical names as Patriarchs to date the world in those early years. Each Patriarch or father reference, is a family name representing a chunk or epoch of time.” 

Warren’s assessment is a little “younger” than Crawford’s – by 1488 years – as Warren dates 13,008 years from creation to the time of his writing in 1996. It is beyond my purpose to figure out where these diverge. Unless I missed it, Warren does not credit anyone else with the idea. I would doubt he knew about Crawford’s book. Nevertheless, by T. P. Crawford shows the idea preceded Warren by at least 120 years.

An approach to resolve the young-earth old-earth “gap” is the Gap Theory (aka Gap Creationism and Ruin-Reconstruction Theory), popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible. This theory holds that Genesis 1:1 refers to the original creation, but the fall of Satan formed a cataclysmic event that ruined it. Thus, the 24-hour days of creation recorded in the rest of the chapter are days of “re-creation” or “restoration,” rather than the beginning of a creation. In effect, this allows one to hold to “creation” in six literal 24-hour days while at the same time embracing an old earth of billions of years. Scofield’s original notes make this clear, but some of that clarity has been revised out of later editions.

“…three creative acts of God are recorded in this chapter…The first creative act [v. 1] refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for the geologic ages…Neither here [v. 3] nor in verses 14-18 is an original creative act implied…Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains.” (C. I. Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible, 1917, pp. 3-4.)

The Gap Theory entered into the mainstream of conservative biblical theology in response to the attacks of science, falsely so-called. The timeline of the appearance of this theory, as well as its use, define it as a scientific view looking for scripture to support it. It becomes a dumping ground for whatever “science” the theory holder cannot fit into his or her understanding of the Bible. When I was young, I knew a lot of the older generation Christians who had picked up the gap theory from their Scofield Bibles. Most of the regular church folks had not thought too much about it, had not teased out it, and accepted it as reasonable (because Scofield had included it in his Bible notes, and maybe also because they felt it answered some questions they did not know how to answer). However, once it is teased out, it creates more biblical and scientific problems than it solves. It is unsound, biblically. For example, advanced versions add pre-Adamic man before Adam (who the Bible says is the first man), and death before the fall (which the Bible says is the cause of death).

The Gap Theory is an old earth creation view that holds a “young earth” view from Genesis 1:3 forward. It distorts a normal reading of Genesis chapter 1. There are those who hold the Gap Theory unadvisedly (without due scrutiny), and those who hold it adamantly (as an integral part of their view of the Bible and creation).

The Patriarchal Dynasties Theory is still a young earth creation view though seeing the earth as slightly older than the predominant young earth view. It does not try to subsume the billions of years of evolutionary theory into its system. It does, however, adapt an unusual reading of the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs as not being particular father/son relationships. It does not, in my opinion, actually address the six 24-hour days of creation differently. It differs chronologically in interpreting the early years of the history of man.

All that said, I come back to the issue of separating, both in church membership and church-to-church fellowship. Views in the evolutionary realm are unquestionably unacceptable. In other cases, approach this carefully and individually. Take each case on its merits. What does the individual hold and what is he promoting? What does the church teach about the Bible, the creation, and what are they trying to promote? What will be results of fellowshipping or disfellowshipping?

A Supputation of Years and Times

While researching the grand old 16th century Geneva Bible, I found in its back matter A Perfite Supputation of the Yeres and Times from Adam unto Christ. Supputation, no longer at the top of the charts in word lists, means a reckoning, accounting, or calculation. Perfite is an older form of the word perfect, here probably connoting complete and/or accurate. This supputation counts 3974 years, 6 months, and 10 days from the creation of Adam to the birth of Jesus Christ.

“…whereupon we recken, that from Adam unto Christ are 3974 yeres, six moneths and ten dayes…”

Biblical chronology has been and is a subject of interest to me. On the one hand, it is intriguing to compare when secular history and biblical history intersect (using common historical dating), but on the other hand, it is more important to fix biblical events by the Bible’s own timeline. I was excited to find that my calculations were similar to those made by men much my betters. When I posted A Biblical timeline from creation in 2009, I had calculated 4238 or 4048 yeres (years), the two differences showing my struggle with fixing the beginning of the 430-year period when Israel went out of Egypt. I have revised that downward, with 4002 years from Adam to Christ in the 2017 posting of Biblical timeline from Creation to Christ and Biblical timeline from creation, posted in 2019. However, in calculations not posted on Seeking the Old Paths, prepared for a handout at church called “Toward a Biblical Timeline from Creation,” I posited 3992 years the sixth day of creation to Christ. I need to go back through my calculations and compare my addition. Math is not always my best subject!

Long story short, my 3992 years varies 18 yeres from the supputation in the Geneva Bible. It will be interesting to compare the similarities and differences. I do not feel competent to calculate down to the months, weeks, and days.