Please keep the discussion civil and refrain from flaming and personal attacks.
This is a little on the long side, so bear with me.
dad said:
"Beginning with the archeological landmark event of the fall of Jerusalem (which has now been corrected to 588 B.C., instead of 586-587 B.C.) and counting backwards the prophesied number of years between this event and the division of Solomon's kingdom (390 yrs. + 40 yrs., according to Ezekiel 4:4-7), brings us to 1018 B.C.
First problem: Zedekiah had been king (2 Kings 24:17) for 11 years when Jerusalem fell in 586ish. Counting back to when Rehoboam and Jeroboam became kings following Solomon’s death brings us to about 930 B.C.
dad said:
From the end of Solomon's 40-year reign to the start of the Temple in the 4th year of his reign takes us back another 37 years to 1055 B.C.
Based on the correction above, the start of the Temple is 967 B.C.
dad said:
From the start of Solomon's Temple "in the 480th year" (1 Kings 6:1) back to the Exodus from Egypt (hence 479 years previous) brings us to near 1534 B.C.
The problem here is that according to Paul (Acts 13:18-20) there were 590 years from the time of the Exodus to the start of the Temple. This puts us at 1557 B.C. If we used 1055 B.C., that would bring us to 1645 B.C. for the Exodus.
It is also worth noting that Josephus puts the gap at 592 years.
dad said:
From the Exodus out of Egypt to Abraham's entering Canaan from Haran was exactly 430 years to the day (Gen 12:10/ Exodus 12:40/ Gal 3:17), thus around 1964 B.C.
Acts 7:6 puts the date at 400 years, although that could just be for a nice round approximate number. Going with 430 years puts Abraham entering Canaan to about 1987 B.C. to 2075 B.C.
Another problem that arises here is that of genealogies:
Exo 6:16 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years.
Exo 6:17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their clans.
Exo 6:18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years.
Exo 6:19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their generations.
Exo 6:20 Amram took as his wife Jochebed his father's sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years.
Looking at Gen. 46:11, Kohath was born prior to the Israelites decent into Egypt, 430 years prior to the Exodus. Since Moses was 80 years old at the time of the Exodus, that puts a minimum of 350 years between Kohath and Moses, so he could not have been Moses’ grandfather.
Also, here it appears that Moses is the great-grandson of Leviâ€â€4 generations from Levi to Moses. Levi was Jacob’s son and Joseph’s brother. However, 1 Chr. 7:22-27 shows something different:
1Ch 7:22 And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brothers came to comfort him.
1Ch 7:23 And Ephraim went in to his wife, and she conceived and bore a son. And he called his name Beriah, because disaster had befallen his house.
1Ch 7:24 His daughter was Sheerah, who built both Lower and Upper Beth-horon, and Uzzen-sheerah.
1Ch 7:25 Rephah was his son, Resheph his son, Telah his son, Tahan his son,
1Ch 7:26 Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son,
1Ch 7:27 Nun his son, Joshua his son.
Ephraim is Joseph’s son and we have 10 generations from Ephraim to Joshua. It is now more than obvious that the genealogy in Ex. 6 is an abbreviated version.
Do you see the problem with assuming that genealogies make chronologies? This is only one of several glaring examples.
dad said:
Since Abraham entered Canaan at age 75 (Gen 12:4), he was born approximately 2039 B.C.
Born approx. 2062 B.C. to 2150 B.C. And this is as accurate as we can get since, as has already been shown, genealogies do not necessarily represent an accurate chronology.
dad said:
From Abraham's birth to Noah's grandson (Shem's son), Arpachshad's birth, 2 years after the Flood started, was 290 years (Gen 11:11-26), this places the onset of the Flood at around 2331 B.C. [definitely 4,300-4,400 years ago].
This is a larger problem since all that is said about the date of Abraham’s birth is that after his "father" was 70, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. There is no date given to when Abram was born and the names may not even be in chronological order.
dad said:
The genealogy of Genesis 5:3-32 precludes any gaps due to its tight chronological structure and gives us 1,656 years between Creation and the Flood, thus bringing Creation Week back to near 3987 B.C. or approximately 4000 B.C.
The main problem with this argument is
the assumption that the genealogies in Genesis are in chronological order; careful study has already shown that this is not necessarily the case.
Gen 5:32 After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
It seems that Ham is older than Japheth.
Gen 9:24 When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,
The reference is to Ham--the youngest.
In the OT in general:
1Ch 6:3 The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.
1Ch 6:4 Eleazar fathered Phinehas, Phinehas fathered Abishua,
1Ch 6:5 Abishua fathered Bukki, Bukki fathered Uzzi,
1Ch 6:6 Uzzi fathered Zerahiah, Zerahiah fathered Meraioth,
1Ch 6:7 Meraioth fathered Amariah, Amariah fathered Ahitub,
1Ch 6:8 Ahitub fathered Zadok, Zadok fathered Ahimaaz,
1Ch 6:9 Ahimaaz fathered Azariah, Azariah fathered Johanan,
1Ch 6:10 and Johanan fathered Azariah (it was he who served as priest in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem).
1Ch 6:11 Azariah fathered Amariah, Amariah fathered Ahitub,
1Ch 6:12 Ahitub fathered Zadok, Zadok fathered Shallum,
1Ch 6:13 Shallum fathered Hilkiah, Hilkiah fathered Azariah,
1Ch 6:14 Azariah fathered Seraiah, Seraiah fathered Jehozadak;
Ezr 7:1 Now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,
Ezr 7:2 son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub,
Ezr 7:3 son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth,
Ezr 7:4 son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki,
Ezr 7:5 son of Abishua, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the chief priest--
Ezr 7:6
this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He
was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD the God of Israel had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him.
Interesting that a skilled scribe would omit some names from his genealogical tree. I would argue that it was intentional by Ezra.
One of the more glaring examples:
1Ch 26:24 and Shebuel the son of Gershom, son of Moses, was chief officer in charge of the treasuries.
Shebuel was around in the time of David, about 1000 B.C. but Gershom is the first son of Moses (Ex. 2:22).
Then there is the genealogy of Christ which omits 3 generations.
With all that in mind, we now come to anthropology.
If modern dating is accurate, and that remains to be seen, then the dates given for man arriving in North America over some ort of land bridge come into play. Dates are quite wide ranging (a quick internet search yielded dates of 12,000 to 25,000 years), but the flood would had to have occurred prior to anyone crossing on a land mass since they had to have been descendants of Noah and his sons.
Due to the issues with certain dates that are clearly given, issues with the chronological order within genealogies and issues with deriving dates from genealogies, one cannot rely on genealogies to give an accurate date as to the age of the Earth.
Enough said. We need to turn our attention now to the Creation account.
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