Break in Civilization

According to the Ussher chronology, the Flood was in 2348 BC. Bishop James Ussher used biblical genealogies to calculate that the universe and the creation took place in 4004 B.C.

When we examine Old Testament chronologies, we can date the Flood as most likely occurring between 2500 B.C. and 3400 B.C.- depending on our choice of the Masoretic Hebrew text or the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament, respectively.

The most practical choice to get a close date for the flood is the beginning of construction of King Solomon's Temple. Here it gives us a precise date, "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD." (1 Kings 6:1).

Now to find out what date the temple was built, we know an absolute date of the destruction of the Temple. This took place between 588-586 B.C. by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon depends on which authority you reference, but either one it is for certain that it happen during this two year time frame

If we add up the reigns of the kings of Judah from Solomon from his fourth year to Zedekiah we come up with 429 years

But co-regencies shorten the length of the total reigns of the Kings of Judah. Some were not sole reigns but co-reigns which shorten the over all length.

The reign of each king is given by the length of the reign and by the beginning of the reign as it compares to the regnal year of the ruling king in the opposite kingdom. The years do not add up at first sight, but if we accept the existence of the following three scenarios, then we can resolve the "problems":

From the Destruction of the 1st Temple between 588-586 B.C. and we add 381 years to Solomon Commencing to build the Temple the year is between 971-969 B.C.

So 480 years from 971-969 gives us the date of the Exodus which is 1451-1449 B.C.

Judges 11:26. In this passage Jephthah tells the king of Ammon that Israel had been living in the land for 300 years prior to the beginning of the Ammonite oppression. Although we do not know precisely when the Ammonite oppression began, it had to have been sometime around 1100 BC (Davis 2008: 153; Ray 2005: 99; Steinmann 2005: 499), placing the Conquest at ca. 1400 BC and the Exodus in the mid-15th century BC.

This is where we should begin our calculations. We've developed the intervals between various events; so we simply add those intervals to the known BC dates. For example:

(Temple Start) + 480 = (Exodus Date)
969 BC + 480 = 1449 BC

(Exodus Date ) + 430 = (Egypt's Entry)
1449 BC + 430 = 1879 BC

(Egypt's Entry) + 130 = (Jacob's birth)
1879 BC + 130 = 2009 BC

(Jacob's Birth) + (Isaac's Beget Interval) = (Isaac's Birth date)
2009 BC + 60 = 2069 BC

*Note: "Haran was certainly the eldest son of Terah, and he appears to have been born when Terah was about seventy years of age, and his birth was followed in successive periods with those of Nahor his second, and Abram his youngest son. Many have been greatly puzzled with the account here, supposing because Abram is mentioned first, that therefore he was the eldest son of Terah: but he is only put first by way of dignity. An in stance of this we have already seen, Gen 5:32, where Noah is represented as having Shem, Ham, and Japheth in this order of succession; whereas it is evident from other scriptures that Shem was the youngest son [Gen 10:21], who for dignity is named first, as Abram is here; and Japheth the eldest, named last, as Haran is here. Terah died two hundred and five years old, Gen 11:32 [see Acts 7:4]; then Abram departed from Haran when seventy-five years old, Gen 12:4; therefore Abram was born, not when his father Terah was seventy, but when he was one hundred and thirty." (Clarkes Commentary)

Critics however have observed that Ussher’s timeline between Noah’s flood and Abraham seems too short (see From Noah to Abraham to Moses: Evidence of Genealogical Gaps in Mosaic Literature, Part 1, Daniel J. Dyke, MDiv, MTh).

Note on Genealogies* It’s important to note that the Bible was written in the context of ancient Near Eastern thought, which focuses on function rather than form. Biblical Hebrew is a flexible, contextual language that tends to be more subjective than determinative. The mathematical precision characteristic of Western thinking was not innate to the biblical authors; they were more interested in telling a story. Still, the problem isn’t the Bible but rather modern translations and uninformed interpretations of the Bible.

The key to timeline calculations is the meaning of the Hebrew word yālad, commonly translated “begat” (KJV) or “became the father of” (NIV, NASB). Scholars who attempt to calculate a timeline assume yālad implies a parent/child relationship, and this assumption is reflected in English translations of genealogical passages. However, analysis of yālad’s full range of meaning demonstrates that this assumption is a significant oversimplification of the word’s meaning.

As Old Testament scholar William Henry Green observed, “Amram and Jochebed were not the immediate parents, but the ancestors of Aaron and Moses.” Hence, yālad as used in Exodus 6:20, Numbers 26:59, and 1 Chronicles 6:3, 23:13 means Moses is a descendant, not a son, of Amram and Jochebed—proving a gap in Moses’ genealogical records. (William Henry Green, “Primeval Chronology,” Bibliotheca Sacra (April 1890): 293.).

When names are intentionally left out of a genealogy, it is referred to as “telescoping.” In a telescoped genealogy only the highlights are given, usually the names of the most important and relevant people. As an example, if we were to telescope “Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob,” it might read in Hebrew, “Abraham was the father [ab] of Jacob” (e.g. Genesis 28:13). In English, this telescoped genealogy would be considered erroneous and should read “grandfather” instead. In Hebrew (and similarly for Greek), this telescoped genealogy would be perfectly true and acceptable because there is no separate word for grandfather in Hebrew and the word “father” (ab) includes the meaning grandfather.

Typically when a genealogy is telescoped, the number of names is reduced to an aesthetically pleasing number (usually 10 or a multiple of 7); less important names are omitted until that number is reached. For example, the genealogy of Genesis 4:17–18 contains 7 names. The genealogies in Genesis 5:3–32; 11:10–26; and Ruth 4:18–22 all have 10 names each. The genealogy of the nations (Genesis 10:2–29; 1 Chronicles 1:5–23) contains 70 names. Matthew arranged his genealogy (Matthew 1:2–17) into 3 groups of 14 names each. There are 14 names from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus Christ. To get the groups of 14, Matthew omitted at least 4 names (see below) and counted Jeconiah’s name twice. (See Table 1, Matthew’s Genealogy.) Matthew clearly indicates in his gospel that that arrangement was intentional (Matthew 1:17). Whereas Matthew’s genealogy is broken into sections, Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23–38) is given as a single list. Luke has 14 names from Abraham to David, 21 from David to the exile, and 21 from the exile to Jesus Christ (in contrast to Matthew’s 14 names each). Luke also has an additional 21 names from Abraham back to Adam. (See Table 2, Luke’s Genealogy.)

While modern genealogies are generally intended to be complete, most biblical genealogies are telescoped. Based on the above discussion and biblical examples, we can see that the telescoping of genealogies was a fairly common practice in ancient times. Such telescoping is perfectly acceptable and literal (based on Hebrew word usage)—even if it may be disconcerting to modern readers.

Now early Jewish writers claim that Adam was created 5000 years from the time of Christ. Josephus declares that history covered 5,000 years (Antiquities preface 3; Against Apion 1.1). He further writes that the time from the “origin of mankind” to the death of Moses was a little short of 3,000 years (Against Apion 1.8). An additional 2,000 years was said to have passed from Moses to his own day (Antiquities preface 3; Against Apion 1.7). This is 1000 years longer that what Ussher purposed.

Ussher said that the flood occurred in 2348 BC. Obviously too short. Taking into consideration all the above-the gaps in the genealogies, The early Jewish writers etc... The flood took place around 3000 B.C.

The experiences of Gilgamesh, coupled with the Sumerian King List (in which he is mentioned), suggest a Flood date close to 3000 BC.

These traditions of the Flood, though mixed with polytheism and some evident myth, show that the Flood had become a fixed fact in the memory of the early inhabitants of Babylonia. And now, within the last few years, an Actual Layer of Mud, evidently deposited by the Flood, has been found in three separate places: Ur, which was 12 miles from the traditional site of the Garden of Eden; at Fara, traditional home of Noah, 60 miles further up the river; and at Kish, a suburb of Babylon, 100 miles still further up the river; and, possibly, also at a fourth place, Nineveh, 300 miles still further up the river (see page 80).

At Ur, city of Abraham, the Joint Expedition of the University Museum of Pennsylvania and the British Museum, under the leadership of Dr. C. L. Woolley, found (1929), near the bottom of the Ur mounds, underneath several strata of human occupation, a great bed of solid water-laid clay 8 feet thick without admixture of human relic, with yet the ruins of another city buried beneath it. Dr. Woolley said that 8 feet of sediment implied a very great depth and a long period of water, that it could not have been put there by any ordinary overflow of the rivers, but only by some such vast inundation as the Biblical Flood. The civilization underneath the flood layer was so different from that above it that it indicated to Dr. Woolley "a sudden and terrific break in the continuity of history." (See Woolley's "Ur of the Chaldees.")

Woolley's cross-section of Pit F showing the four basic levels. (1) (lowest) Ubaid pottery mixed with heavily burnt domestic building; just prior to (2) an alluvial deposit with no sherds or signs of occupation (some graves of later date were dug into this layer); above that (3) a deep level of pottery debris and a number of kilns, indicating that the abandon area was used as a pottery factory during the Uruk period; above that (4) Early Dynastic domestic occupation.

Kish (Ukheimer, El-Ohemer, Uhaimir), on the cast edge of Babylon, on a bed of the Euphrates which is now dry, was said, on the tablets, to have been first city rebuilt after Flood.

The Field museum-Oxford University Joint expedition, under the direction of Dr. Stephen Langdon, found (1928-29) a bed of clean water-laid clay, in the lower strata of the ruins of Kish, 5 feet thick, indicating a flood of vast proportions. In the center of Fig. 19 the flood layer is located just above the wall ruins. It contained no objects of any kind. Underneath it the relies represented an entirely different type of culture. Among the relics found was a four-wheeled Chariot, the wheels made of wood and copper nails, with the skeletons of the animals that drew it. (See "Field Museum-Oxford University Expedition to Kish," by Henry Field, Leaflet 28.)

Fara (Shuruppak, Sukkurru), home of the Babylonian Noah, about half way between Babylon and Ur. Once on the Euphrates, now 40 miles to the east. A low-lying group of mounds, beaten by the sands of the desert. Excavated (1931), by Dr. Eric Schmidt, of the University Museum of Pennsylvania. He found the remains of three cities: the top one, contemporaneous with the 3rd Ur dynasty (see page 87); the middle city, Early Sumerian; and the bottom city, Pre-Flood.

The Flood Layer was between the middle city and the bottom city. It consisted of yellow dirt, a mixture of sand and clay, definitely alluvial, water-laid, solid earth, without relics of human occupation, as illustrated in Figure 21. Underneath the flood deposit was a layer of charcoal and ashes, a dark colored culture refuse which may have been wall remains, painted pottery, skeletons, cylinder seals, stamp seals, pots, pans and vessels. Figure 20 shows Dr. Schmidt's men digging underneath the flood deposit. (See "University Museum Journal," September, 1931.)

In the last analysis, the only really reliable recorder of time is man himself! In any kind of natural process that might be used to determine past time, there is always the possibility that the rates may have changed as well as uncertainty regarding its initial condition. It is absolutely impossible to know beyond question that such and such a formation or deposit has an age of so many years, unless that age is supported by reliable human records of some kind.

And it is, therefore, highly significant that no truly verified archaeological datings antedate the time of about 3000 B.C. or even later. Larger dates are of course frequently ascribed to various localities and cultures, but they are always based on radiocarbon or other geological methods rather than written human records. There are numerous extant chronologies that have been handed down from various ancient peoples, and it is bound to be significant that none of them yield acceptable evidence that the histories of these or other peoples antedate the Biblical date for the Deluge.

The Bible pictures the dispersal of post-diluvian man from the geographical areas implied also by archaeology and secular history. The most ancient peoples leaving historical records were, of course, the inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the Nile Valley of Egypt, and other near-Eastern areas. This correlates perfectly with the Bible records, which picture the centrifugal movement of tribes out from the first kingdom of Babylon (Babel, Genesis 11:9).

The archaeological testimony is confirmed further by botanical studies. A systematic agriculture was, of course, necessary for the existence of stable and civilized communities and so would be one of the best indices of the beginnings of post-diluvian cultures. The following from a Danish scientist is therefore significant:

Thus, we may conclude from present distribution studies that the cradle of Old World plant husbandry stood within the general area of the arc constituted by the western foothills of the Zagros Mountains (Iraq-Iran), the Taurus (southern Turkey), and the Galilean uplands (northern Palestine), in which the two wild prototypes occur together. We may conclude, further, that wheat played a more dominant role than barley in the advent of plant husbandry in the Old World."'

It is remarkable how many different lines of evidence of a historical nature point back to a time around 3000 B. C. as dating the beginning of true civilization. There have been theories and speculations about earlier periods, but nothing concrete. With reference to Egypt, H. R. Hall, the Egyptologist, states:

We think that the First Dynasty began not before 3400 and not much later than 3200 B.C. . . . A. Scharff, however, would bring the date down to about 3000 B.C.; and it must be admitted that his arguments are good, and that at any.-rate it is more probable that the date of the First Dynasty is later than 3400 B.C. than earlier .'

Even this date is very questionable, as it is based mainly upon the king-lists of Manetho, an Egyptian priest of about 250 B.C., whose work has not been preserved except in a few inaccurate quotations in other ancient writings. As George A. Barton, of the University of Pennsylvania pointed out long ago:

"The number of years assigned to each king, and consequently the length of time covered by the dynasties, differ in these two copies, so that, while the work of Manetho forms the backbone of our chronology, it gives us no absolutely reliable chronology. It is for this reason that the chronological schemes of modern scholars have differed so widely."

Other scholars think that some of Manetho's lists may actually represent simultaneous dynasties in upper and lower Egypt, which would still further reduce the date of the beginning of the period. The length of the pre-Dynastic period is quite unknown, but there is no necessary reason to regard it as more than a few centuries at most.

In Babylonia, the earliest peoples leaving written monuments were the Sumerians, who were later displaced by the Semitic Babylonians. These people likewise are dated about this time.

Dr. Samuel Noah Kramer, Research Professor of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania says:

"The dates of Sumer's early history have always been surrounded with uncertainty, and they have not been satisfactorily settled by tests with the new method of radiocarbon dating. . . . Be that as it may, it seems that the people called Sumerians did not arrive in the region until nearly 3000 B.C."

The Egyptians and Babylonians were presumably of Hamitic and Semitic derivation, as were most of the other tribes who settled in Africa and Asia. The Japhetic peoples, on the other hand, according to the Table of Nations of Genesis 10 (which Dr. William Foxwell Albright regards as "an astonishingly accurate document"'), migrated largely into Europe, where they became the so-called Aryan peoples, peoples of the language stocks known as Indo-European. Recent linguistic studies have indicated that these languages radiated from a common center, probably in central Europe. Dr. Paul Thieme, Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Yale, in discussing this evidence, says:

"Indo-European, I conjecture, was spoken on the Baltic coast of Germany late in the fourth millennium B.C. Since our oldest documents of Indo-European daughter languages (in Asia Minor and India) date from the second millennium B.C., the end of the fourth millennium would be a likely time anyhow. A thousand or 1500 years are a time sufficiently long for the development of the changes that distinguish our oldest Sanskrit speech form from what we construct as Indo-European."

Since the above date was based somewhat heavily on geopaleontological data, it is likely that it is too high even as it stands.

Studies of ancient agricultures in Europe, based mainly on pollen analyses and radiocarbon datings, point to similar conclusions:

"The main results of the age determinations is that the oldest agricultures in Switzerland (Older Cortaillod culture) and in Denmark (younger Ertebolle culture and A-earthen vessel) started almost simultaneously, about 2740-90 B.C. and 2620-80 B.C., respectively."

The same story could be repeated at other places if space permitted. For example, in China, the earliest historical cultures date from somewhat later than this time. The anthropologist, Ralph Linton, says:

"The earliest Chinese date which can be assigned with any probability is 2250 B.C., based on an astronomical reference in the Book of History."

The worldwide testimony of trustworthy, recorded, history is therefore that such history begins about 3000 B.C. and not substantially earlier. This is indeed surpassingly strange if men actually have been living throughout the world for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years! But on the other hand, if the Biblical records are true, then this is of course exactly the historical evidence we would expect to find. And it is pertinent to mention, in passing, the worldwide incidence of flood legends, which we have discussed in an earlier chapter. It is not at all unreasonable to conclude that the clear testimony of all recorded human history points back to the stark reality of the great world Deluge, which remade the world in the days of Noah.

Edmund Schulman: "Bristlecone Pine, Oldest Living Thing," National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 113, March 1958, p. 355.

Hans Helback: "Domestication of Food Plants in the Old World," Science, Vol. 130, August 14, 1959, p. 365.

1. Solomon	4th year of his reign builds temple reigns 36 more years
2. Rehoboam	17 years
3. Abijah	3 years
4 Asa	41 years
5. Jehoshaphat	25 years
6. Jehoram	8 years
7. Ahaziah	1 years
8. Athaliah	6 years
9. Joash	40 years
10. Amaziah	29 years
11. Uzziah (Azariah)	52 years
12. Jotham	16 years
13. Ahaz	16 years
14. Hezekiah	29 years
15. Manasseh	55 years
16. Amon	2 years
17. Josiah	31 years
18. Jehoahaz	3 mo
19. Jehoiakim	11 years
20. Jehoiachin	3 mos
22. Zedekiah	11 years-Temple destroyed from 2 kings 25:2
Total	429 years