Genesis 5

Toledoth II (Genesis 5:1)

This remarkable chapter bridges the time-lapse between the Creation and the Flood, that is, from Adam to Noah. It is an error to view this genealogy as merely a variation of the Cainite line given earlier. The resemblance between some of the names is of no significance whatever, but a characteristic exhibited in many Hebrew genealogies. We also reject the notion that this chapter should be identified with so-called "P," the alleged priestly document. The whole complicated theory of the document sources of Genesis is cumbersome, unprovable, and unreasonable. (See the Introduction to Genesis.)

The great problems connected with the chapter are: (1) the longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs, and (2) the chronology of the passage which gives us 1,656 years[1] as the elapsed time between the Creation and the Great Deluge.

Regarding the first of these, there is nothing actually unreasonable about the extremely long lives of men in the morning of the race, before ravages of sin and disease had brought about the deterioration of men's bodies. All of the machinery for immortality already exists in the human body; and not even the separation of Adam's race from the "tree of life" would have prevented longevity in the first few generations. What is really remarkable about the ages of the patriarchs given here is that they are so dramatically different from the fantastic ages accredited to ancient men in various mythologies dealing with the same period. For example, the ages often great heroes up to and including the Flood, according to Babylonian myth, varied between 18,000 and over 64,000 years each,[2] thus giving a total of some 432,000 years for the consecutive reigns of those ten kings.[3] There are certainly a lot fewer problems with the Genesis account!

Some flatly refuse to believe that men once lived so long, pointing out that research done on ancient skeletons reveals extremely short lifetimes. Life Magazine published a survey done on prehistoric fossils, concluding that less than 3 percent reached age 50,6 percent lived to past 40, and all the rest died between 20 to 40 years of age.[4] So what? It cannot be proved that those skeletons even belonged to the human species, much less to the posterity of Adam. Besides that, the dates assigned to so-called "prehistoric" fossils must ever be held as suspect. The notorious case of Piltdown Man immediately comes to mind. Also, the major assumption underlying much of the dating of excavated materials is that all things "continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," a proposition that is categorically declared to be false by an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:4). (See the Introduction for more on this.)

Still others have attempted to make dynasties out of the persons whose names appear in this chapter, or to understand "months" instead of years in the numbers given for their ages, or to allegorize the whole passage. The text will not bear any such devices. "The statements are meant to be understood literally, and the author had in view actual individuals."[5]

With reference to the problem of a mere 1,656 years lying between the Creation and the Flood, this presents no problem at all for the believer who accepts the Bible as true. For all that anyone really knows, such a period is absolutely accurate. Remember, it is not from the creation of the world, but from the creation of Adam to the Flood; and, while it is true enough that the earth itself is God's book, and men are justified in reading the record of the fossils, etc., as they reach for conclusions regarding those far-off times, it must never be forgotten that between us and those dim yesteryears, there roll the vast waters of the mighty Deluge itself, involving not merely the inundation of the earth, but tremendous and cataclysmic changes that accompanied it. In short, the pages of God's book (the earth) have been disrupted and shuffled. If we knew all of the facts, we would have no difficulty with what the Holy Spirit has revealed on these pages. A physician called upon to examine Adam half an hour after he was created, or a wine-taster estimating the age of the wine that Jesus created in Cana, would doubtless have reached conclusions far different from the facts in the case, with reference either to the age of the wine, or of Adam.

The great purpose of the chapter was not to give the age either of the earth or the human race when the flood came, but to trace the line of people who continued to honor God in those generations leading up to the Deluge.