BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 14: Hebrew years 1560 to 1680 (2200-2080 BCE)
Introduction
God decided to eradicate the living creatures of His creation and to establish new rules upon Nature and mankind.
From Adam to Noah
In Hebrew year 1651 (2109 BCE), Lemech died at the age of 777. Then his father Methuselah died in 1656, reaching the longest human life duration of 969 years. Because he walked in the path of God, God postponed His decree to eradicate His creation. But more importantly, Methuselah lived long enough to be a good influence over Sem (pronounced ‘Shem’ in Hebrew), Noah’s worthy son. Methuselah died and the Flood started. Sem was 98 years old at the time, because the Biblical text mentions that he had a son two years after the Flood, when he was 100 years old (Genesis 11:10) as mentioned in previous generation 13.
The 10 human generations from Adam until the Flood have been as follows:
Noah's Ark
The scene was now set for God’ s punishment: the Flood. According to Jewish tradition, God ordered Noah to build an ark 120 years before the Flood started, so that humanity would have time to repent eventually. But it didn't.
The ark was to be made of gopher wood and coated with kopher (Genesis 6:14). While nobody knows for certain what pre-Flood gopher wood was, it is generally admitted that kopher was a sort of pitch or resin to keep the ark waterproof. Both words are similar in their Hebrew roots: gopher is written גֹפֶר and kopher is כֹּפֶר, the difference being the first letter. We can assume that both materials were of course complementing each other in the same role of keeping the ark afloat and dry in the inside. But the word גֹפֶר is the root for Sulphur. And the word כֹּפֶר is the root for "expiation": it is also used to write Kippur (כִּיפּוּר). Expiation is what the Flood is about!
There is a parallel between the detailed instructions from God to Noah to build the ark, with what materials to build it and with which dimensions: it is with the same level of details that God instructed the Hebrew people in the desert on how to build the Tabernacle, after the Exodus. This gives a strong suggestion that God saved His creation at the time of Noah, in the same way that God will later save the Hebrew people at the time of the Exodus. And, therefore, that this divine salvation came as an expiation for previous sins.
There is another parallel between the main characters of both stories, the Flood and the Exodus: Noah was saved from the Flood with the ‘ark’, and Moses was later saved from the Nile waters with the ‘cradle’. Both words do not highlight anything noticeable in English, but they are in fact the translation of the same Hebrew word: "teva" תֵּבָה. And this word is not used anywhere else in the entire Hebrew Bible except for these two occurrences: this shows that the divine salvation, seen as an expiation in both cases, have been unique in history.
The ark’s dimensions were as follows:
And this is how you will do it: 300 cubits for the length of the ark, 50 cubits for its width, and 30 cubits for its height. (Genesis 6:15)
The cubit was one of the first measures of length used in the Antiquity and several rods were found in Egypt and Turkey as a sample of its length. The cubit was based on a human feature that would be common everywhere: it was roughly the length of a human arm, so about half of a meter. It was also divided into units, of the size of one palm (hand width), and sub-units being the size of a finger’s width. These were convenient human-based measurements for constructions in these old times, even if not accurate.
Year 1656 – 2104 BCE – The Flood
The ark was complete when Methuselah died in Hebrew year 1656 (2104 BCE). Noah was then 600 years old, and Sem was 100 years old. This is when continuous rain started to fall upon the earth:
Noah was six hundred years old, and the Flood was water upon the earth. (Genesis 7:6)
This verse is Genesis 7:6 so it is the 6th verse of the 7th chapter of Genesis. As already mentioned, God intervenes in His creation every 7 generations of mankind, as it is shown in various pages of this site; these occurrences are summarized in Generation 21. And the 5th word of this verse is the word Flood (מַּבּוּל). Thus, the divine punishment came upon the earth by the word Flood in position 7:6:5 of the Biblical text. Maybe there is a message behind this particular sequence: the Creation was done in 7 days including Shabbat as the 7th day, which was supposed to be the spiritual day for mankind; mankind was created on the 6th day to be at the image of God, but they erred and behaved as a mere flesh creature (or animals); so mankind reduced the Creation to the animal kingdom, which God created in the 5th day. The sequence 7 > 6 > 5 symbolized the descent of mankind from spirituality into bestiality. This is when God had to intervene and stop the decadence of His Creation. The fact that this sequence is symbolized in "three" steps also means that the decadence was complete. To read more about the Jewish symbolism of numbers, click here.
In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the 2nd month, in the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the springs of the great abyss busted, and the windows of the skies opened up. (Genesis 7:11)
The waters that fell upon the earth were waters that were specially brought in by God and were not waters that resulted from climatic conditions on earth. Already in the tale of Creation, it is mentioned that the original waters were created and separated in two parts: one part consisted of waters that were above the firmament (Genesis 1:7). The ‘firmament’ is the atmosphere that protects the earth. The waters ‘above the firmament' are waters that came from space...
Science is always looking for proof of the presence of water on other planets in the Solar Systems, but there is plenty of water in the Solar System itself! For example, water and dust are what compose the comets that orbit our system. The Tunguska Event that occurred in Siberia in 1908 can give us an idea of what a relatively small ball of ice, estimated to be of about 100-meter radius, which was only a mere fragment from a comet, can do as damage when it collides with Earth. The blast was 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima! And the Solar System is full of comets and meteorites. In the 1980s, the number of them was thought to be in the hundreds. Twenty years later, it was thought to be in the thousands. The truth is that we do not know for sure how many comets are in the Solar System. Today there are over 7000 asteroids which have been discovered and it is estimated that there are at least 400,000 of them with a radius over 1 km. One expert from NASA even stated that our Solar System may contain "billions of moving bodies beside the planets and satellites" and he went on describing comets as "dirty ice balls" (Short, Nicholas M., NASA article Asteroids and Comets, 2002; to read it online click here).
Another report assesses that the Oort Cloud is "estimated to contain trillions of comets (Yep, Jeffrey, Number of Comets, The Physics Factbook, 2009, to read it online, click here.)." The Oort Cloud orbits the Solar System at about 1 light-year from the Sun and is predominantly composed of ice (comets).
And, if we go further out, astronomers have found in 2011 a mass of water located at 12 billion light years from the Solar System, and which is nearly as old as the Universe itself: this mass contains "140 trillion times more water that all of Earth’s oceans combined" (NBCNews.com, Largest, oldest mass of water in the universe discovered, 2011, to read it online, click here).
The simple conclusion is that there is plenty of water inside and outside our Solar System. So, we can interpret the biblical words that waters were above the firmament as, at least, that they were outside the view of our naked eye.
The continuous rain started on the 17th day of the 2nd month and stopped at the end of the 3rd month.
And the rain was upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. (Genesis 7:12)
Interestingly, the text shows a reverse order from the one used in the days of the Creation when each "day" was completed by the expression There was evening, there was morning. In the narrative of the Flood, the expression is forty days and forty nights, in other words day before night, as if it is to be understood as a de-Creation process. This is to hint that, with the Flood, God also removed some features or powers that He previously gave to the Creation, such as an extent of free-will to all parts of the Creation, earth, water, animals, plants, etc.
And yet there is hope. Because the punishment lasted for 40 days. The number 40 is significant in Jewish tradition as it corresponds to the coming of the age of reason (to read more about the Jewish symbolism of numbers, click here). Indeed, it took 40 years for the Hebrews to wander in the desert as a punishment after the Exodus, until they could then be allowed to enter the Promised Land. Similarly, it took 40 days for Moses to remain on Mount Sinai and receive the Torah. It is at the age of 40 that a man is allowed to start the study of Kabbalah. It also not before the age of 40 that Rabbi Akiva started to study of the Torah. And, in Jewish tradition, it takes 40 days for a foetus to be considered "human" (meaning that the spiritual faculties are formed) and therefore a time from which it would be considered as murder to abort a pregnancy.
It may not be surprising that the Hebrew letter which has 40 for value is the letter מ (pronounced mem) because this is the letter that is exactly positioned at the middle of the Hebrew alphabet, and is therefore the letter which is pivotal and provides equilibrium between two antagonisms, equally balanced. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, and 5 of them are doubled with final forms; the letter מ is located at the center of the extended alphabet of 27 letters, with 13 letters before and 13 letters after; we can also note that 13 is the age of Bar-Mitzvah for the Jewish boys, which is the passage from childhood to adulthood, to maturity and reason in other words. And, again, to read more about the Jewish symbolism of numbers, click here.
So, 40 days of Flood meant that God considered that, after this symbolic time of “40” had elapsed, mankind had paid the price of punishment, and that a new chapter of His Creation could start.
But the return to normal life was not an easy process, because the waters didn’t die out quietly. Instead, they had to be forced to, as it is illustrated by the Biblical text that proved that God had to impose His will against the waters that He unleashed upon the earth:
God caused a spirit to pass over the earth and the waters appeased (וַיָּשֹׁכּוּ). And the springs of the great abyss and the windows of the skies took a toll (וַיִּסָּכְרוּ) and the rain was imprisoned (וַיִּכָּלֵא) from the heavens. And the waters came back above the earth, were going and coming back. And the waters ceased (וַיָּשֻׁבוּ) at the very end of one hundred and fifty days. (Genesis 8:1-3)
We can only see that it was not an easy task to end the Flood (even if some of the text is obscure), as the unleashed waters would not cease their action until God finally put a stop to their on-going rampage when they refused to recede. Only then did the waters start to withdraw and reduce their strength continuously.
And the ark came to rest on the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. The waters were going and diminishing until the tenth month. In the tenth [month], on the first [day] of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. (Genesis 8:4-5)
So, the ark came to a rest, after 150 days of ordeal, upon the mountains of Ararat. It was on the Hebrew date of 17 Sivan (for the chronology of the Flood, check Chabad website by clicking here.).
Mount Ararat is in Turkey and is the highest mountain in the region with a peak culminating at 5165m (about 17,000 ft); this is higher than the highest mountain in Europe (Mount Blanc). An expedition had found wooden frames quite high up on this mountain, and speculated it came from Noah’s Ark (for the article from National Geographic magazine, click here).
Due to the rotation of the Earth, the warm ocean waters of the northern hemisphere flow from south-west to north-east. As the waters covered the globe, the Ark had arrived at Mount Ararat necessarily by having started in a location south-west of this mountain. This is the place where the Land of Israel is located, thus Noah would have started his journey from there before reaching Ararat after 1200-1500 km drifting on the surface of the waters.
Forty days later, Noah sent a dove for the first time, but the bird returned as it couldn’t find dry land to rest upon. Noah waited 7 more days and tried again. The dove came back to the ark again but, this time, with a branch of olive tree. Then, after waiting another week, and trying again, the dove didn’t come back. In the Talmud, the dove has become a symbol of Israel:
Because the Congregation of Israel is likened to a dove, as it is said, “as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her pinions with yellow gold,” [Psalms LXVIII, 14] just as a dove is protected by its wings, so with the Israelites, their precepts protect them. (Talmud, Shabbat 130a)
Noah then opened the ark on the 601st year of his life, on the first day of the first month of that year, meaning the Rosh Hashanah day (Jewish New Year) of Hebrew year 1657. But they only came out of the ark on the 27th day of the 2nd month, waiting for the land to be totally dry. They were so cautious and reluctant that God had to intervene and ordered them out:
God spoke to Noah saying: "Come out from the ark." (Genesis 8:15-16)
The timing of the Flood corresponds to the period of 2200-2000 BCE where archaeologists noticed that mankind abandoned the city-states and went back to a nomadic style of life. This sudden change, noticed in all civilizations, cannot find a reasonable explanation except for a catastrophe of global nature when cities were abandoned: the Flood is the answer to this enigma.
The story of the Flood has been found in many ancient civilizations, from the Mesopotamian earliest ones but also from other cultures such as the Pre-Colombians. It was one of the very first stories that was recorded in human texts, which is probably proof of it happening because of the obvious psychological impact it left on all ancient human race. In Mesopotamia, the same story has been found in many cuneiform texts (written on clay tablets) of which the famous Epic of Gilgamesh which was recorded over most of Antiquity. The tablets found with this story have been dated of about the 18th century BCE, but they tell of events or legends that had happened earlier than their recording, which would be contemporary with the Biblical account of the Flood.
The existence of a hero such as Gilgamesh is possible, if we refer to the Bible which mentions that the fallen angels (Nephilim) took human women for wives, gave birth to reputed people:
The ‘Nephilim’ [= the fallen angels] were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God [= these fallen angels] came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)
Beside the Flood, the epic contains other similarities with the Biblical account of Creation and narrates what happened to the hero of the story. Here are some extracts from the earliest tablets found with the Epic of Gilgamesh (to read the full text online, click here), as compared to the Biblical narrative (for more information about the match between Bible and Archaeology regarding the Flood, click here):
Epic of Gilgamesh | Bible |
Anu [the main god] granted him [Gilgamesh] the totality of knowledge of all | The tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden |
He brought information [of the time] before the Flood | God told Noah ahead of time that He will bring the Flood and when it will occur |
[He] who explored the world regions, seeking Li | Humanity populated the entire world |
[He] who restored the sanctuaries [or cities] that the Flood had destroyed | Some of the survivors of the Flood went back to the old cities and restored them |
[…] for teeming mankind | Humanity is tasked to grow and populate |
Stars of the sky appeared and some kind of meteorite(?) of Anu fell next to me | God brought waters from above the firmament [comets?] to flood the earth |
Archaeology also bears witness that something unexplained happened around that time: many of the Early Bronze Age civilizations simply disappeared around the time of the Flood (the Early Bronze Age, so-called EB, ended around 2200 BCE). Cities became suddenly deserted, such as Arad in the Negev in Israel, with no trace of battle nor destruction. But no scientific explanation was ever found. For Bible believers, the Flood had caused these eradications. And a new generation of people emerged, who built cities differently, and who used new techniques or designs never seen before.
Og, the odd survivor of the Flood
According to the Bible, a giant called Og survived the Flood. He was one of the Rephaim, from the Anakim (the word means "giants"), who were born from the coupling of the fallen angels (Nephilim) with human women. About Og, his descendance became kings of Bashan, and the Biblical text mentions his giant size:
The Emim dwelt therein aforetime, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim; these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. (Deuteronomy 2:10-11)
For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. (Deuteronomy 3:11)
How Og the giant survived the Flood is told in Midrashic accounts:
And there came one that had escaped and told Abram [Abraham] the Hebrew in connection with which Rabbi Johanan explained: This refers to Og who escaped the fate of the generation of the flood. (Talmud, Niddah 61a)
And all living things which were upon the face of the earth decayed, as it is said, "And every living thing was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground", except Noah and those who were with him in the ark, as it is said, "And Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark", except Og, king of Bashan, who sat down on a piece of wood under the gutter of the ark. He swore to Noah and to his sons that he would be their servant forever. What did Noah do? He bored an aperture in the ark, and he put (through it) his food daily for him. (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 23)
According to the same source, Og and his descendance served Noah and his descendance, until the time of the Patriarch Abraham who had one of Og's descendants as the servant called Eliezer (the one who was sent to find a wife for Isaac, Abraham's son).
The Rephaim lived on the Golan heights (which is the location of the old kingdom of Bashan) up to Mount Hermon. There are archaeological remains of what is thought to have been either a place of cult or an astronomical observatory that they had built. It is called Gilgal Rephaim (meaning the Rephaim Circle), also called Rujm el-Hiri in Arabic (rujm means tumulus). Some people call it the "Stonehenge of the Middle-East". The outer circle is about 500 feet (160 meters) in diameter. At its center is found a sort of tumulus that was used as a burial place in a later period, while the main structure is estimated to date from the Early Bronze Age period (3000-2200 BCE), so it was built in the pre-Flood period.
After the Flood
In the Sumerian King List, there is a clear distinction made about rulers before the Flood, who had long life spans, and the rulers after the Flood, who lived much reduced life spans. This is compatible with the Biblical account as visibly seen below for the lifetime of the main Biblical characters where a clear reduction started after Sem (Shem) son of Noah, except for Hanoch, as explained in a previous document C09:
The 7 Noachide Laws
After the Flood, evil was still present in human nature. God only required from Noah and his sons to respect basic laws, so-called the Noachide Laws. They were supposed to form the foundation of a civilized world. These laws were seven in total to promote justice and prohibit idolatry, immorality, blasphemy, murder, cruelty to animals, and theft. The choice of 7 as the number of laws is reminiscent of the will of God, who fixed the Shabbat (7th day) and punished Lamech by 7 generations, and more (to read about the Jewish symbolism of numbers, click here).
But not all three sons of Noah were equal in character. When Noah got drunk from a vine he planted, and was naked, Canaan, the elder son of Cham, humiliated his grandfather. It was Sem who took the initiative to cover their father’s nakedness without looking on and engaged Yafeth to help him. When Noah recovered from his drunken state, he got angry:
And he said: "Cursed be Canaan, a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers." And he said: "Blessed be God, the God of Shem [Sem], and let Canaan be a slave to him. Let God embellish Yafeth, let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be a slave to him." (Genesis 9:25-27)
The three sons of Noah then went off in three different directions, to avoid any future conflict because of Noah's curse. According to traditions, Cham went down to Africa, Yafeth went over to Europe and became the forefather of the Western civilization, and Shem remained in the Middle East and spread into Asia. The world started to re-populate from the three sons of Noah, and his sixteen grandsons. Genesis 10 gives an account of the generations since the Flood. Some have speculated about which people and race of the world descended from which of Noah’s sons. To read more about it, see the Table of Nations in Wikipedia.
To return to the list of Seder Olam Revisited articles, per "generation", click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Adar 5785 - March 2025