Genesis 5
Sunday Morning Bible Study
December 3, 2006
The “Young” Earth
If you take the ages listed in Genesis 5 literally, it’s not to come to the conclusion that the Bible might be saying that the earth is quite young. While science tells us that the earth is over 4 billion years old, the account of the Genesis 5 might lead us to think that the earth might only be six thousand years old.
I know that some of us have this idea that the theory of evolution is a foregone conclusion. We have been raised to think that scientists are unbiased and have come to their conclusions regarding evolution on purely objective, clinical reasoning. That same kind of reasoning concludes that to believe in God’s design and creation of the earth, and to even stretch that idea further by claiming that the earth isn’t billions of years old but rather only thousands of years old – is purely a non-rational, unscientific, irrational, emotional conclusion. Usually when we who espouse a young earth talk of such things, those who are smarter than us will nod their heads and think to themselves, “poor, deluded fool”.
A Russian scientist and a Czechoslovakian scientist had spent their lives studying the grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone to study the bears. Finally their request was granted, and they immediately flew to NY and on west to Yellowstone. They reported to the ranger station and were told that it was the grizzly mating season and it was too dangerous to go out and study the animals. They pleaded that this was their only chance, and finally the ranger relented. The Russian and the Czech were given portable phones and told to report in every day. For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the camp completely ravaged, with no sign of the missing men. They followed the trail of a male and a female bear. They found the female first and decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientists because they feared an international incident. They killed the bear and opened her stomach to find the remains of the Russian. One ranger turned to the other and said, “You know what this means, don’t you?” The other ranger responded, “Of course, “The Czech is in the male.”
All that to simply say that scientists aren’t perfect. They make mistakes too.
Would you allow me a minute or two to challenge your world view?
When Dr. Henry Morris published his book “The Genesis Flood”, in 1961, he began to shake things up in the world of science. He not only posed difficulties towards the evolutionary theory, but he showed the possibilities that the biblical record might actually be accurate, and not just a collection of fanciful stories.
Since that time, there have been a growing number of scientists who have begun to question evolutionary theory from their own respective fields of study. If you want to do more study, start by checking out the website at the Institute for Creation Research, www.icr.org.
Helium versus Uranium {slide one, “Zircon”}
In one article, D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D., talks about a series of experiments, the “RATE project”, that involved the study of zircon crystals. Zircon is formed when molten rock cools. As the crystals are formed, they absorb Uranium 238. After forming, the crystal ages and the Uranium 238 decays to form lead and helium. There are two different ways to gauge the age of the crystal. The typical way is to measure the amount of Uranium 238 and lead found in the crystal. But Dr. Humphreys theorized measuring the age by measuring the amount of helium found. To get an unbiased result, they hired a non-creationist laboratory through a third party and asked them to do the studies. When measuring the decay of the Uranium, the laboratory determined the crystals were 1.5 billion years old. But when measuring the helium, the data came back saying the material was only 6,000 years old. Dr. Humphreys goes on to suggest a way of accounting for the discrepancies, validating a young earth.
Moon problems {slide 2 “Receding Moon”}
In another article, Thomas G. Barnes, D.Sc. raises some difficulties about the age of the earth in regard to the moon.
First, you need to understand that if the moon was any closer than 11,000 miles from the earth, the gravitational forces from the earth would break the moon into tiny pieces and cause it to form rings around the earth, like Saturn. This is called the “Roche Limit”. Second, we know that the moon is receding from the earth at a constant rate – we can measure it. If the moon started at the “Roche Limit” and you multiply the rate of recession over 4 billion years, the moon would be much, much farther away than it is. Dr. Louis B. Slichter, Professor of Geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology treats this problem in great detail and concludes that “the time scale of the earth-moon system still presents a major problem.”
Summarized: The distance of the moon from the earth validates a young earth.
{slide 3 “Lunar Dust”} The dust on the moon is another problem. Before landing on the moon, the evolutionary theory presented concerns that the moon would be covered with a huge layer of dust accumulated over 4.5 billion years. Some were concerned that the astronauts would be swallowed up in dust when they landed. Yet when Neil Armstrong stepped outside the lunar module, there was only a thin layer of dust. It speaks of a young earth.
Magnetic problems {slide 4 “The Earth’s Magnetic Field”}
Another issue raised by Dr. Barnes is the rate of decay of the earth’s magnetic field. In 1830, Karl Gauss first measured the strength of the earth’s magnetic field. Since then science has documented that the magnetic field is decreasing at a steady rate. It loses 5% of its strength every 100 years. The earth will no longer have a magnetic field by the year 3391. {slide 5 “Protection”}That ought to concern us since the magnetic field protects us from cosmic rays and the solar wind. At the time of Jesus, the magnetic field was three times stronger than it is today. If you go keep going backward in time, say 4 billion years, well you can’t because the magnetic field would be impossibly strong. But you could project it back 6,000 years. {slide 6 – Gen. 5 - Blank}
:1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
the book of the genealogy of Adam – the language used in this phrase suggests a written record. The phrase is used in chapter 2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 25, 36, and 37. The suggestion has been made that it refers to specific written records, the records that Moses collected and used to put together the book of Genesis. This would imply that these first couple of chapters might actually be the written record of Adam himself.
:2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.
:3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Adam was created to be in the likeness of God. But after Adam’s sin in the garden, mankind is now after the likeness of Adam. The implication is that sin is now being passed on from generation to generation.
{show slide 7 – graph of Gen. 5 genealogies and dates}
:4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters.
We mentioned last week about the issue people have with Cain’s wife. Where did Adam’s first son Cain get a wife? He married one of his sisters. Adam and Eve had other children than the ones whose names we know.
:5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.
If Adam lived this long, then Adam was still alive when Noah’s father, Lamech, was born.
{click on slide 7 – highlight names above Adam’s}
:6 Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh.
:7 After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters.
:8 So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.
Some have suggested that since some of the genealogies in the Bible aren’t complete, but have gaps in them, like those in Matthew, that this genealogy might also have gaps in it as well. But the problem with that suggestion is that unlike Matthew’s genealogy, this one attempts to make a clear link from one generation to the next, giving you the age of the father when the son was born, and the age when he died.
Over the next couple of verses you can read about …
:9-20 Enosh …Cainan…Mahalalel…Jared…Enoch
:21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah.
:22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.
:23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
:24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
With everyone else in this list, it mentions that the man died. There is no mention of Enoch dying. Instead it simply says “God took him”. The implication is that Enoch was the first human to ever not die. There would be another, Elijah, who would be taken straight to heaven.
The writer of Hebrews tells us:
(Heb 11:5-6 NKJV) By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. {6} But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Enoch was pleasing to God because he had faith. He trusted in a God he couldn’t see.
Enoch was an example of what will happen one day in the rapture.
(1 Cor 15:51-52 NKJV) Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; {52} in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Enoch was walking on the earth, and suddenly one day he was gone. He did not die.
Jude writes,
(Jude 1:14-15 NKJV) Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, {15} "to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."
Enoch may have been thinking of his own ungodly generation of people before the flood. Yet his words were prophetic in talking about what is just around the corner in front of us. Not only does Enoch remind us of the rapture, he reminds us of the coming judgment on the earth.
:25 Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech.
:26 After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters.
:27 So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.
Methuselah – His name can mean “His death shall bring”, “man of the dart”, or “When he dies, judgment”
Methuselah is known as the oldest man in history
{Show slide 8 – “Gen. 5 – The Numbers”}
There are three signs of old age. The first is your loss of memory, the other two I forget.
Illustration
Forgotten Something
A man was driving on his way home from Christmas shopping for the family. He was very absorbed in thinking about how much the gifts were going to cost him when all the bills came in. Suddenly a thought struck him that he had forgotten something. Twice he stopped and counted all the parcels and searched all of his pockets. However, he could not find a missing item on which to pin the source of his feeling. Finally he resigned himself to a malady of old age and determined he had everything with him. When he reached home his daughter ran out to greet him. “Hi, Daddy! How was the shopping? Did you get me any good presents? Where’s Mommy?”
{click “+ 600”} If you track the dates, the flood of Noah came 600 years after Noah was born (Gen. 7:6), the year 1656 after Creation. That also happens to be the year that Methuselah died.
One suggestion is that Methuselah died in the flood.
Another suggestion is that God was waiting to bring the flood until after Methuselah died.
The name Methuselah’s godly father (Enoch) gave him seems to hint at the coming judgment in the flood, “When he dies, judgment” or “His death shall bring”
He may have been the last of the good guys. And when he died, there was no more reason to delay the judgment.
If God was waiting for Methuselah to die before the judgment, isn’t it interesting that this man lived the longest life in history?
What a picture of God’s grace.
(2 Pet 3:9 NLT) The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.
(Ezek 33:11 NKJV) "Say to them: ’As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ’I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live…
Some people have the idea that God can hardly wait to punish the slightest little sin. The evidence says just the opposite.
How about those ages of men?
{click on slide 8 – show averages}
If you took the average of all the guys up through Noah, but take out Enoch because he never died, you find that the average age of men before the flood was 912 years old.
How could these men have lived so long?
If you pay attention to the life spans recorded in the Bible, you will notice that after the flood, life spans began to decrease dramatically.
Noah continue to live 350 years after the flood and died at the age of 950, but he was the last one to live that long.
Shem lived to be 600 years old. His son, born two years before the flood, lived to be 438 years old. Three generations later, Peleg lived to be 239 years old, and the decline continued to Joseph who lived to be 110 years old, just thirteen generations after the flood, a 90% decrease.
Could the flood have changed the conditions on the earth that would affect the lifespan of man?
We suggested back in Genesis 1 that the record seems to indicate that there was some sort of water canopy that originally surrounded the earth.
(Gen 1:7 NKJV) Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
When the flood of Noah occurs, those waters fell as rain.
(Gen 7:11 NKJV) … the windows of heaven were opened.
It seems possible that with the collapse of the water canopy, the earth was exposed to an increased amount of radiation which in turn could have affected man’s lifespan.
God’s original creation was “good”. Adam would have lived with perfect DNA. Yet increased radiation with the collapse of the water canopy would begin to degrade man’s genes, which he would pass down from generation to generation.
{click for blank slide 9}
:28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son.
:29 And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed."
Noah – Noach – “rest”
Lamech had the idea that Noah was a special child.
He was a child of promise, a child of hope. He would save the world by saving his family in the ark.
:30 After he begot Noah, Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years, and had sons and daughters.
:31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died.
:32 And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The significance of names
If you’ve been our church for awhile, you will hear me speak from time to time on the meaning of someone’s name. I imagine that for some this seems kind of strange. In our culture, we don’t place a lot of meaning on a person’s name. We tend to either name a child after someone who was important to us, or we will pick a name on how it “sounds”.
In ancient times, a person’s name had great significance.
The name might tell a story about the birth of the child.
Isaac named the first twin “Esau” (“hairy”, Gen. 25:25) because the baby was covered in hair. He named the second twin “Jacob” (“heal-catcher”, Gen. 25:26) because he was holding onto his brother’s heel when he was born.
The name might speak of some historical circumstance that was taking place at the time of the birth.
When Eli was the high priest, his two sons Hophni and Phinehas were also priests, and they were wicked men. God decided to bring judgment against the nation to get their attention. There was war with the Philistines and the outcome was that the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, killed Hophni and Phinehas, and Eli died of shock. Phinehas’ wife was pregnant and she gave birth to a boy which she then named “Ichabod” (1Sam. 4:21), meaning “the glory has departed”, because that was what had happened – God’s glory had departed from Israel with this great defeat.
The name might even be prophetic in nature, a name that speaks of a future event or the future of that child.
The angel Gabriel told Joseph to name his baby boy “Jesus” or “Ya-shua” (“Yahweh saves”, Mat. 1:21) because He would save the people from their sins.
Though I am not sure you can make a point out of every person’s name in the Bible, we’ve already seen explanations given for several of the names:
(Gen 3:20 NKJV) And Adam called his wife’s name Eve (“havah”, “life producer”), because she was the mother of all living.
(Gen 4:1 NKJV) Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain (“acquired”), and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD."
{click for slide 10 – “The names of Gen. 5”}
You might think I’m going out on a limb here, but if you translated the list of names found in Genesis 5, you come up with something pretty interesting.
Adam Man
Seth Appointed
Enosh Mortal
Kenan Sorrow
Mahalalel The Blessed God
Jared Shall come down
Enoch Teaching
Methuselah His death shall bring
Lamech The Despairing
Noah Rest
Follow the thoughts –
{click for first group} “Man appointed mortal sorrow” – Man, Adam, was the one who rebelled and sinned in the garden, bringing death to all men.
(Rom 5:12 NLT) When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
{click for second group} “The Blessed God shall come down teaching” – We celebrate the incarnation at Christmas, when God came down and took on human flesh. Jesus came to teach us about how to find the way back to God.
(Mat 1:23 NKJV) "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."
{click for third group} “His death shall bring the despairing rest” – Jesus Christ would die on a cross in order to pay for our sins. If we will trust in Him, we will find forgiveness with God and rest for our souls. Jesus said,
(Mat 11:28-30 NKJV) "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. {29} "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Is there a message here in Genesis 5? I’d say there is.
It’s a message of hope. Even though Man blew it and rebelled against God, God Himself would one day make things right, God would make a way back to Him.
The invitation is open to you to come back to God…
