Biblical Chronology: Genesis 5

The logical place to begin our chronology is with the genealogies recorded in the book of Genesis.  They give detailed information on the lifespans of the individuals listed and the ages at which their children were born.  We'll start with chapter 5.

This table is your worksheet for the genealogies of Genesis 5. At the current time we will work only with dates after creation (Anno Mundi or AM). The scriptures needed to fill in each line are given in the last column. Of the six columns of information, three will be taken directly from those scriptures:

• The age at the birth of the son (column 2)
• The years lived after the birth of the son (column 4)
• The total years of life (column 5)

You will calculate the others. 

• Column 3 is the sum of column 1 and column 2
• Column 3 goes into column 1 on the next line
• Column 6 is the sum of column 1 and column 5

Here is your table filled in with the genealogies up through our first quandry. In Genesis 5:32 the Bible tells us that Noah was 500 years old when he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Were the boys triplets? Is there another explanation? Let's look at a couple of other scriptures to see if we can resolve the issue.

 Genesis 7:6 tells us that Noah was 600 years old when the flood came on the earth. Genesis 11:10 tells us that Shem was 100 years old when his son Arphaxad was born, two years after the flood. So, we can see that someone was born to Noah 100 years before the flood, but that it was not Shem, who was 98 at the time of the flood. In Genesis 9:24 we see that Ham was the youngest, so Japheth was the eldest child, born when Noah was 500, Shem is the middle child, born when Noah was 502, and Ham is the youngest. Our completed table looks like this:

Next post we will extend those genealogies.