Rerouting you

You will automatically be rerouted to my article on William Henry Green.  It gives some key history in the dicsussion about the chronology of Genesis.

Follow the thread discussing my proposal

You are being rerouted to a post which discusses the history of calculating the timeline of Genesis.  It is key in the discussion of the origin of humanity, as described in Genesis.  William Henry Green is a key figure.

Three arguments that Eden was in a different physical world

These three arguments assume the truth of evolution and also a quite realist understanding of the Genesis creation accounts.

First, the Edenic Paradise is described as a place where Adam and Eve could in theory have lived in perfect happiness forever. The perfection of such a physical Paradise is such that it could not have been achieved in a place that could be visited today. Long before the advent of humans, our world had tectonic activity, (causing earthquakes and tsunamis), lightning strikes, disease, annoying insects like flies and dangerous animals like lions, cancer-causing sunburn and wind-storms.  None of these would be expected to exist in a perfect Paradise, yet all are understood to have been ubiquitous in our world since before humans were on Earth.  There is nowhere we can find in our world where these things could ever have been escaped by humans.  Therefore the Paradise in Eden was necessarily physically cut off from our world. 

Second, the fact that Eden is physically distinct from our world is suggested by its geography, as described in Genesis 2:10-14.  Wenham suggests the possibility that Eden is not in our world.  He does so by means of his understanding that the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers described in Genesis 2:14 is reversed from the flow in our world.  He writes, 'Maybe the reversed flow of the rivers suggests that paradise is beyond man’s present experience. Their names (the names of the rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:10-14) affirm that there was a garden there, but maybe the insoluble geography is a way of saying that it is now inaccessible to, even unlocatable by, later man'.  That is, Genesis itself suggests by its geography that Eden was not a part of our physical world.

Third, evolution has taken a long time in our world, in the order of millions of years.  This does not square with a creation of Adam from dust around 4000 B.C.  It squares even less well with a creation of all animals from dust around 4000 B.C.  The only viable solution to this problem is to see that Adam and Eve's world was different from our world, and additionally to see that the time frames of creation in the two worlds are very different.  Once we accept that there are two separate worlds, we can conclude that in our world human (and animal) evolution took millions of years, while in the pre-flood world, the creation of humans and animals was very swift.  Thus we can embrace both the scientific consensus and the biblical account of human and animal creation.

This post is taken from the Draft Thesis.  I recommend you start with the Draft Journal article, not with the Draft Thesis.

Why William Green was wrong about the Genesis chronology

Green’s very significant contribution on the subject of Genesis’ chronology was made in the late nineteenth century.[1]  His contribution was his argument that the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 were likely abridged and therefore should not be used to construct a chronology of the events in Genesis.  This overturned a very long-standing tradition of understanding.  The genealogies had been used for chronological purposes by Jewish pre-Christ commentators[2], early Christian commentators[3], Augustine[4], Calvin[5], and Archbishop James Ussher, to name just a notable few.  Ussher famously calculated the date of creation as the 23^rd day of October (on the Julian calendar) in 4004 B.C.[6], and this date became famous through its publication in the marginal notes of the Authorized Version.

Green’s argument was expressed in greatest depth in an article entitled ‘Primeval Chronology’, published in 1890.[7]  It was termed ‘The Most Important Biblical Discovery of Our Time’ by one of his Princeton colleagues, professor of natural history, George Macloskie.[8]  After that time, his arguments steadily grew in influence, through the agency (among others) of Charles Hodge[9], B. B. Warfield, Francis Schaeffer, Old Testament scholar Ronald Youngblood, and geologist Davis Young.[10]  In 1972 Baker Book House brought out a volume, edited by Walter C. Kaiser Jr., of "the fourteen best evangelical essays in the field of Old Testament studies."[11]  Green’s essay on primeval chronology was included, thus sending it into the category of ‘evangelical classic’.

A summary of Green’s position can be found in a few key sentences, which were first written in 1863, and then reproduced in the opening paragraph of his 1890 article:

‘If Matthew omitted names from the ancestry of our Lord in order to equalize the three great periods over which he passes, may not Moses have done the same in order to bring out seven generations from Adam to Enoch, and ten from Adam to Noah? […] But if these recently discovered indications of the antiquity of man, over which scientific circles are now so excited, shall, when carefully inspected and thoroughly weighed, demonstrate all that any have imagined they might demonstrate, what then? They will simply show that the popular chronology is based on a wrong interpretation, and that a select and partial register of ante-Abrahamic names has been mistaken for a complete one.’[12]

The 1890 article is certainly correct when it points out that there are many abridgements in various Biblical genealogies, including the Matthean genealogy.[13]  However, the lengthy and robust character of this section of Green’s article masks the weakness in his overall case.  This weakness is exposed in a short sentence in the middle of his article, when he tries to explain the meaning of Genesis 5:9, ‘Enosh lived ninety years, and became the father of Kenan.’  Green writes, ‘When it is said, for example, that "Enosh lived ninety years and begat Kenan," the well-established usage of the word "begat" makes this statement equally true and equally accordant with analogy, whether Kenan was an immediate or a remote descendent of Enosh; whether Kenan was himself born when Enosh was ninety years of age or one was born from whom Kenan sprang.’[14]

The reason Green presents for this understanding is that it is consistent with the scenario where the genealogies have been abridged.  However, even if this were true, it would be an insufficient reason for his conclusion.  The problem is that Green does not discuss any alternative understandings which might also be consistent with the genealogies being abridged.  His one proposal for the meaning (using Genesis 5:9 as his example), is that if Enosh were not the father of Kenan (but say a great grandfather), then Enosh must have fathered one of Kenan’s ancestors at age ninety.

This suggestion can be compared with an alternative understanding which is also consistent with the genealogies being abridged.  This alternative is that Enosh was ninety years old at the actual birth of Kenan, whether the birth of Kenan made Enosh his father, grandfather, or some other ancestor.

This alternative understanding has the advantage that Enosh was precisely ninety years old when Kenan was born, whether the genealogy was abridged or not.  This is a significant advantage.  Under Green’s proposed understanding, one is not sure of the age of Enosh at the birth of Kenan.  One only knows that Enosh had a child at age ninety who may or may not have been Kenan.  The most obvious problem with such an understanding is the potential that Enosh ‘became the father of Kenan’ at a point in time when Kenan was not alive.  This is strained at best.  Given that there is an alternative which avoids such a possibility, the alternative should be accepted.
This is an excerpt from the Draft Journal Article.  Why not read more by clicking on 'Draft Journal Article', above?

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[1] His views were first canvassed in W. Green, The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersions of Bishop Colenso (New York: John Wiley, 1863), 128.

[2] E. Merrill, "Chronology," Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch: 117-118.

[3] Merrill, "Chronology," 118.

[4] Saint Augustine of Hippo, The City of God (De Civitate Dei) (trans. John Healey; vol. One; Edinburgh: John Grant, 1909), 15.12.

[5] John Calvin, A Commentary on Genesis (Geneva Series of Commentaries; ed. J. King; trans. J. King; London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 226-227.

[6] J. Ussher, The Annals of the World (trans. L. Pierce, et al.; Green Forest: Master Books, 2003), 17.

[7] W. Green, "Primeval Chronology," Bibliotheca Sacra, no. 47 (1890): 285-303.

[8] R. Numbers, ""The Most Important Biblical Discovery of Our Time": William Henry Green and the demise of Ussher's chronology," Church History 69, no. 2 (2000): 257, 271.

[9] Numbers, "Green and Ussher," 266.

[10] Numbers, "Green and Ussher," 275.

[11] Numbers, "Green and Ussher," 275.

[12] Green, Pentateuch Vindicated, 128.  The part of the quotation beginning ‘But if these…’ was reproduced in Green, "Primeval Chronology," 285-286.

[13] Green, "Primeval Chronology," 286-294.

[14] Green, "Primeval Chronology," 297-298.