A friend looked me in the eye a while back and asked, "Are you a young-earth creationist?" I told him I believe in a literal six-day creation, but am not so convinced about the "young earth" part. That opened a whole can of worms.
In the conversation that followed, I mentioned I had once made a spreadsheet compiling the birth dates and ages from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 to create a chronology. It occurred to me that was a long time ago, so I spent a few hours to recreate it that evening.
And then things got out of hand.
For the last few weeks, I have found myself obsessed with the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. I filled a spreadsheet with dates and inferred ages from Adam through Joseph, I have made some timeline charts with multiple scenarios based on the text. I have even read some commentary on it, although I've endeavored to stick to the text without leaning too hard on those commentaries.
I am not exaggerating when I say I have lost sleep over this.
Face-Value Timeline
Taken at face value, there are some fascinating discoveries in those genealogies. The young earth position takes those genealogies as a working chronology. My summary looks like this:
There are some things to note here. First, we're reading each date as though it were a complete year. It's not hard to imagine that Seth was born near the end of Adam's 130th year, or that Enoch was translated at the start of his 365th year. Those would throw the chronologies off in a rounding error that would accumulate so that the Flood is in 1656 at face value, but could have been several years earlier or later, depending on the accumulation of rounding errors.
Second, Shem's age has been corrected in this table. Genesis 5:32 says that Noah was 500 years old and became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Then Genesis 7:6 tells us Noah was 600 years old when the Flood came. Then Genesis 11:10 tells us that Shem became the father of Arphachshad two years after the Flood, when he was 100 years old. That makes Shem 98 when the Flood came, born when Noah was 502. The obvious explanation is that Shem was a younger son, not the oldest.
Third, the genealogy gets hard after Isaac. Genesis 25:26 tells us Isaac was 60 years old when Esau and Jacob were born, but no ages are given for Jacob's sons. We know Joseph stood before Pharaoh when he was 30 years old (Genesis 41:46). We know there were seven years of plenty (Genesis 41:47) and Joseph sent for Jacob to join him in Egypt after two years of famine, while there were five years of famine remaining (Genesis 45:6). So Joseph was 39 years old when he sent for Jacob. Jacob met Pharaoh at 130 years old (Genesis 47:9). So if we assume the move to Egypt happened fairly quickly, then Jacob was 130 years old when Joseph was 39 years old, meaning Joseph was born when Jacob was 91 years old. I left that out of the table above, because it's not explicitly given in Scripture.
It's noteworthy that in this timeline, Abram leaves Haran less than 400 years after the Flood, and only 17 years after Noah dies. In fact, Abraham dies before Shem.
William Kelly's Revision
But this face-value chronology gives us trouble in Acts 7:4, where Stephen tells us Abram left Haran after his father died. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran when he was 70 years old (Genesis 11:26) and Abram left Haran when he was 75 years old (Genesis 12:4). If we take those two numbers together, then Abram leaves Haran when Terah is 145 years old, a full 60 years before Terah dies.
In the Q & A Section of Bible Treasury, William Kelly addresses the age of Terah when Abram leaves Haran by asserting that Abram was likely Terah's youngest son. If Abram's eldest brother was born when Terah was 70, and Abram himself was born when Terah was 130, then Acts 7:4 and Genesis 12:4 agree.
(Kelly doesn't mention Romans 4:19 or Hebrews 11:12 in connection with this, which is unfortunate. If Abram was born when his father was 130 years old, then he would not expect to be too old to have Isaac when he was only 100 years old. But both Romans and Hebrews emphasize his age as being "as good as dead." So I'm not convinced Kelly's explanation is the best: it seems to me a better explanation might be that there is an unnamed generation between Terah and Abram, although I recognize that introduces difficulties for the following verses.)
If we adjust the timeline to have Abram leave Haran when Terah dies, all the dates after that adjust by about 60 years.
Now we have Abram's birth two years after Noah dies, and Abraham's death 26 years after Shem's. The other patriarchs are all adjusted to about 60 years later, so Isaac is now 50 years old when Shem dies, instead of 110.
I put both these variations into a chart to help visualize the timeline, you can download a PDF.
Tower of Babel and Other Considerations
Now, I still lean to an old(er) earth. I realize the young earth view works so much better in Genesis 5 and the second half of Genesis 11, but there are other considerations. Let's take Genesis 11:1–9 for example. When is the Tower of Babel? On the chart, I put it half-way through Peleg's life based on Genesis 10:25. But that's only a guess, and possibly a very bad one. It would make more sense for "in his days" to refer to his father Eber, not to Peleg himself. Regardless, Isaac is an old man before Eber dies. That would put Babel in very recent memory during the times of the patriarchs.
Babel couldn't have happened immediately after the Flood, because only eight people survived (1 Peter 3:20). It must have happened long enough after the Flood that there was an available workforce to build the tower. And there must have been enough people that when they were divided into languages, it wasn't only a few people in each language: there were enough to build nations. That suggests a long time – at least several generations – after the Flood.
But we have to place Babel long enough before Abram that the newly-formed Chaldee nation had time to have built cities (Ur and Haran at a minimum) and formed their pagan religions. We know Terah and Abram worshiped idols in Ur (Genesis 24:1ff): pagan religions were fully formed by Abram's time.
And to further complicate matters: even if we place Abram's birth at two years after Noah's death (William Kelly's date), then Shem is alive well into Isaac's life. That means the pagan societies in Ur, Canaan, and Egypt were built while there were still two people (Noah and Shem) who were personally on the Ark. And it's not like they were the two old men down the street: they were the direct ancestors of the idolaters.
Again, if we take Kelly's view on the date of Abram's birth, then we have at most 350 years (Noah's death) + 2 years (Abram's birth) + 75 years (Abram's age when he leaves Haran) = 427 years between the Flood and Abram leaving Haran. That's not a lot of time to fit in Babel, the rise of pagan religions, and the building of Ur, Canaan, and Egypt.
But here's the real question: was Noah involved in Babel? Was Shem?
So we come back to my earlier claim: the young earth view works very well when we're considering genealogies, but it doesn't give a lot of room for the world that the non-genealogical passages describe. Genesis 12ff describe a world that has forgotten the Flood, forgotten God, and forgotten Babel. That's difficult to imagine when there are two eye witnesses still alive, and the world's population is largely (in the case of Shem) and entirely (in the case of Noah) descended from them.
I'll point out here that William Shakespeare died a little over 400 years ago, and we still know many, many details of his life. It seems the Flood would have left a memory at least as significant as Shakespeare. When we take into consideration the average lifespan from Arphachshad to Terah is more than 250 years, that just doesn't seem reasonable.
Interestingly, Genesis 5 and 11 give ten generations from Adam to Noah, and ten from Noah to Abram. That reminds me of Matthew 1:17. No one disputes that Matthew skips several names in that genealogy in order to make a point (although I don't know what the point is). I suspect there is something similar going on in the Genesis genealogies. That would suggest the that old(er) earth view implies a purpose in the genealogies over and above history.
Doctrinal Implications
But let's also acknowledge the young earth view isn't impossible. It might align more closely with Romans 1 than the old earth idea. They forgot God because they really didn't want to remember Him.
I don't like exposition based on doctrine: that seems pretty common, but it strikes me as pretty dodgy. That being said... if I were a preacher, I might find the young earth view irresistible in light of the Pauline epistles. The idea that it takes the human race less than 450 years to forget God, build pagan religions, and do their best to stamp out the memories of the Flood is just too good. Add in Noah's and Shem's actual presence, and you have the world of Genesis 12ff a product of deliberate rebellion against God. That works so well with Romans 1:18ff, it might be impossible to ignore.
Another doctrinal bonus of the young earth view is that God wastes no time in calling Abram. In other words, God moves pretty directly from saving Noah to saving Abram: He's not ignoring the human race for generations at a time. That's not as compelling an argument as it might seem, because there have always been Jobs and Mechizideks and Jethros. Just because the Scripture focuses on the line of Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob doesn't mean there aren't other true believers out there. But it does appeal.
And if I were to allow my speculations absolutely free reign, I might go so far as to suggest (only suggest, mind you) a connection between Melchizidek and Shem. That might be too juicy to let pass.
On the other hand, I find the old earth view attractive because of all the hints in Genesis that there's a lot more going on there. Who were the Nephilim? Was there a pre-Edenic creation? We need to be careful around these questions, it's possible to really mess up someone's faith with them. But just like the young earth view is attractive partly for the conclusions we can draw from it, the old earth view attracts me in part because a whole lot of wild possibility seems to be tied up in it.
And yes, I recognize Scripture itself cautions us here (1 Timothy 1:4, 4:7, 6:4; Titus 1:14). Pretty much everyone who has ever dug into Genesis has been in danger of falling into what Paul calls "fable" and "myth" here. No matter which view you take, you are getting close to what the New Testament cautions against.
Conclusion
In the end, I like the old earth view better, because whenever I read Genesis 12ff, I keep wondering how the world Scripture describes could have arisen in such short time. I feel like Genesis 12ff is describing a world that comes much more than ten generations after the Flood. But it's not something I'm willing to be dogmatic about. The fact is that the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness could very easily have packed much more in the 367 years (or 427 years, if we take Kelly's explanation) between the Flood and Abram than we expect. It's not even close to impossible.
One point Dennis Prager makes (repeatedly) in his commentary on Genesis is that the Bible's goal isn't to give us a detailed history, it's to teach wisdom. Prager is Jewish, so he has slightly different starting assumptions. But we could take his quote and change it a bit to say that Genesis isn't interested in history, it's interested in Christ. History matters, but only as a means to an end.
So there is a tension here: we need to read the Word of God carefully, and try to really see what it's saying. At the same time, we need to be careful we don't lose sight of the real point, which is the revelation of God to man. Ultimately, that's in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1–4).
If we take the genealogies in Genesis as a chronology, then we can see some glaring evidence of our need of God in how quickly we turned from Him following the Flood.
If we don't see those genealogies as a chronology, then we have to conclude they are curated in order to drive home the point God is making in Genesis. From the very start, He has been interested in honoring His Son, and revealing God in Him. As a result, even something as simple as a genealogy is presented to drive that home.
