Smoky Mountain Bible Institute
Lesson #45
Breakout your maps and histories as we travel in a time
machine of sorts to examine History & Geography through a biblical world
view. Let’s wrap up the antediluvian time frame from where we left off last
month: 3000 BC to circa 2350 BC—the 650 years leading up to the worldwide
Flood.
Let me first mention one of the books I plan on using to
highlight some of the events in history: "The Timetables of History."
Interestingly, this book has over 700 pages and covers the first 3000 years of
history on 2 pages (it starts in 5000BC).
It gets through the next 2000 years in 25 pages; the first 1000 years AD
are covered in 16 pages; the reminder of the book (over 80%) is spent on the
most recent 1000 years. I think this is an excellent representation of the
amount of information that exists at different points in history—the further back
you go, the sparser the information becomes.
However, we have some good information in Scripture
covering this period of time. The world we observe today can provide clues
about the pre-flood earth, but we must keep in mind that geographically
speaking, the world was probably very different. In lesson 34 we discussed
plate tectonics which can help us to understand how the pre and post flood
earth would be geographically different.
So let’s take a look at this 650 year period and see what
Scripture tells us. Chapter 5 of Genesis starts with Adam’s death (as I
mentioned last month) at the ripe old age of 930. In the following centuries this line of
patriarchs passes away at the rate of one about every 50 years. They all did
live for a very long time—by our standards, a miraculous amount of time: Seth
912, Enos 905, Cainan 910, Mahalaleel 895, Jared 962, Methuselah 969, and Lamech
(Noah's father) 777. The chapter ends
with Noah fathering three sons at the age of 500. These ages and this sequence of events can
produce a number of valid questions from post-flood people who rarely make it
to 100 years old. Did they really live so long? Were Shem, Ham and Japheth
triplets born to a man five centuries old?
These questions have some good answers but they are
speculative. The truth is we know
Scripture plainly claims these ages in chapter 5 of Genesis, and we cannot know
for sure the answers to the above questions.
But we can come up with some good theories that coincide nicely with the
biblical narrative.
First let’s discuss Noah's three sons. It is possible but
unlikely that He had triplets, because Genesis 5:32 says "After Noah was 500 years
old." So these three sons were born to him after his 500th
birthday. Noah probably had other sons
and daughters but these were the three who helped him build the ark.
Next, this question of long ages—there are a number of
good possibilities to help explain this, and we can draw on some clear biblical
truths to put them together. If we keep in mind that Adam and Eve were created
to live eternally, 930 years in comparison is a relatively short life span. Before sin came into the world, Adam and Eve
were genetically perfect. It took
centuries of sin, death, disease, and the accumulative effect of the loss of
genetic information and mutations to shorten the human lifespan. This is all
due to the harsh nature of life following the curse due to sin. It has been
further theorized that the world had a vapor canopy like many planets in our
solar system, and ours was made of water filtering out harmful rays from the
sun that cause and accelerate aging.
This could further explain longer life spans that preceded the
flood. It is finally helpful to look at
Genesis 6:3 which says Then the Lord said, "My Spirit shall
not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years."
This could mean that the flood will be in 120 years or it could mean that God
intentionally limits man’s lifespan to 120 years to limit the affects of our
sinful nature.
Whatever the cause, life
spans gradually decrease in 15 generations from Noah to Moses. Human life spans are reduced to an average of
120 years.
Now that we have covered the first 1656 years of world
history, I think the Flood account in Genesis 6-9 will be helpful in
understanding all the history and geography that follows. So we will start an
in-depth study at the worldwide flood of 2344BC (approximately) and consider
some of the things we can learn from this historic event.
Till next month,
blessings. Pastor Portier
