# Genesis 11 Chronology ## Intro Add up the ages in [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) and you can calculate how long ago the Flood was. The catch is that the three oldest surviving forms of the text do not give the same numbers. The Hebrew text most modern Bibles translate says Arphaxad was 35 when his son was born. The Greek translation made by Jews roughly two centuries before Christ says he was 135. The Samaritan version agrees with the Greek on some names and with the Hebrew on others. Across six generations that gap comes to about 600 years, and a seventh name adds another 50. So the same chapter, read from different manuscripts, puts the Flood either around 2350 BC or around 3000 BC. That is not a small difference. It decides whether Egyptian history appears to start before the Flood, and it is the reason two Christians who both believe the Bible completely can disagree about the date by six centuries. This page lays out what the three witnesses actually say, why scholars disagree about which is original, and what can and cannot be argued from the difference. ## In full The chronological data of [Genesis 5](/codex/genesis-5/) and 11 survive in three divergent recensions: the **Masoretic Text** (MT), the textual tradition standardized by Jewish scribes and preserved in medieval codices such as the Leningrad Codex (AD 1008), from which nearly all modern translations render the Old Testament; the **Septuagint** (LXX), the Greek translation begun in Alexandria in the third century BC from a Hebrew *Vorlage* older than any surviving Hebrew manuscript; and the **Samaritan Pentateuch** (SP), preserved independently by the Samaritan community. The divergence is systematic rather than random, which is what makes it interesting. In the postdiluvian line of [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/), LXX gives begetting-ages 100 years higher than MT for Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu and Serug. For Nahor, LXX and SP read 79 where MT reads 29. SP agrees with LXX on some figures and with MT on others, and LXX alone inserts a second Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah. The resulting totals differ by roughly 650 years from the Flood to Abraham. Neither figure is a translation artifact; both are what their manuscripts say. ## The three witnesses, side by side | Patriarch | MT age at fatherhood | LXX | SP | |-----------|---------------------|-----|-----| | Arphaxad | 35 | 135 | 135 | | Cainan | absent | 130 | absent | | Shelah | 30 | 130 | 130 | | Eber | 34 | 134 | 134 | | Peleg | 30 | 130 | 130 | | Reu | 32 | 132 | 132 | | Serug | 30 | 130 | 130 | | Nahor | 29 | 79 | 79 | | Terah | 70 | 70 | 70 | Read the table carefully before deploying it. SP sides with LXX on every figure above except the extra Cainan, which only LXX carries. That pattern is the single most important datum on this page, and it cuts in more than one direction. ## Which is original, and why it is genuinely contested **The case for the longer (LXX / SP) chronology.** The agreement of LXX and SP against MT on eight consecutive figures is hard to explain as coincidence, and both traditions branched from the Hebrew stream long before the medieval Masoretic manuscripts. Josephus, writing in the first century, gives the longer figures. Where LXX and MT diverge elsewhere, the New Testament writers frequently follow LXX, and in at least one case a Dead Sea Scroll vindicates them: **Stephen says seventy-five persons went down into Egypt ([Acts 7:14](/codex/acts-7-14/)) where MT reads seventy ([Genesis 46:27](/codex/genesis-46-27/), [Exodus 1:5](/codex/exodus-1-5/)), and 4QExod reads seventy-five in Hebrew.** That is direct manuscript evidence that a Hebrew text differing from MT existed and that the apostolic writers were following it, not misquoting. **The case for the shorter (MT) chronology.** MT is a disciplined tradition whose accuracy the Dead Sea Scrolls repeatedly vindicated elsewhere, and the burden on the longer chronology is to explain why anyone would shorten it. Several text critics argue the reverse: that the +100 pattern is precisely the fingerprint of a *systematic* adjustment, and systematic adjustments are more plausibly additions than subtractions. A scribe inflating figures to push the Flood back has a motive available (harmonizing with Egyptian or Babylonian king-lists); a scribe deflating them has a less obvious one. **The honest position is that this is unsettled.** All three recensions show schematic features. [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) was not among the fragments recovered at Qumran, so the one witness that could most directly adjudicate the passage is silent on it. Anyone presenting either chronology as the demonstrated original is overstating the evidence. ## What this does and does not license **It does license** saying that the biblical date of the Flood is not fixed by the text alone, that a Christian may hold a Flood date around 3000 BC on manuscript grounds without departing from Scripture, and that Ussher's 4004 BC creation date rests on one recension among three rather than on the Bible as such. James Ussher calculated from MT; so do most young-earth chronologies, including those of [Young Earth Creationism](/codex/young-earth-creationism/) proponents. A longer chronology adds roughly 650 years and puts the earth nearer 7,000 years old than 6,000 on the same young-earth assumptions. **It does not license** the charge that Jewish scribes cut the genealogy deliberately in order to defeat Christian claims. That accusation is not carried by any of the sources; it is an inference from motive, and the motive usually alleged (making Shem contemporary with Abraham so that Shem could be identified with Melchizedek) fails on its own terms. The Shem-Melchizedek identification is an attested rabbinic tradition with its own internal logic (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on [Genesis 14](/codex/genesis-14/), b. Nedarim 32b), not a cover story reverse-engineered against [Hebrews 7](/codex/hebrews-7/). This codex repudiates the Jews-altered-the-text trope wherever it appears; see [Psalm 22:16](/codex/psalms-22-16/) and the Jewish cluster indexed from [The Jewish Defense](/codex/the-jewish-defense/). **It also does not license** the claim that "recovery of sight to the blind" is missing from the Hebrew of [Isaiah 61:1](/codex/isaiah-61-1/). The Masoretic text reads *peqach-qoach* there, and LXX rendered that word as recovery of sight; [Luke 4:18](/codex/luke-4-18/) quotes the Greek. That is a translation decision on a word that is present, not a deletion, and asserting otherwise is refuted by opening a lexicon. ## Downstream consequences - **Egyptian chronology.** On MT dating the earliest Egyptian pyramids appear to predate the Flood, which is the objection answered at [Pyramids Predate the Flood Objection Defeater](/codex/pyramids-predate-the-flood-objection-defeater/). On the longer chronology the problem does not arise. - **Population growth before Babel.** MT leaves roughly a century between the Flood and the birth of Peleg, in whose days "the earth was divided" ([Genesis 10:25](/codex/genesis-10-25/)). Eight survivors growing at 3.2 percent annually reach fewer than two hundred people in a century, which will not build a city and a tower. The longer chronology gives about four centuries, reaching a population in the millions at the same rate. See [Tower of Babel Objection Defeater](/codex/tower-of-babel-objection-defeater/). - **Length of the Egyptian sojourn.** The same textual pattern appears at [Exodus 12.40](/codex/exodus-12-40/), where LXX and SP read that Israel dwelt in Egypt **and Canaan** 430 years, which resolves the arithmetic of [Galatians 3:17](/codex/galatians-3-17/). ## Tensions The extra Cainan cuts against the witness on which the longer chronology most relies. LXX carries it; SP, Josephus, MT and [1 Chronicles 1:18](/codex/1-chronicles-1-18/) do not, and the earliest LXX manuscripts do not. Anyone who argues that LXX agreement establishes the original reading in [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) must explain why LXX agreement does not establish Cainan, and the available answer, that Cainan is a later accretion, concedes that LXX acquired errors in transmission. That concession is correct, and it should be made openly rather than left for an opponent to find. ## See also - [Pyramids Predate the Flood Objection Defeater](/codex/pyramids-predate-the-flood-objection-defeater/), the objection this chronology answers - [Septuagint](/codex/septuagint/), the Greek witness, its date and its use by the New Testament writers - [Young Earth Creationism](/codex/young-earth-creationism/), which chronology the standard young-earth figures assume - [Tower of Babel Objection Defeater](/codex/tower-of-babel-objection-defeater/), the population-growth objection - [Melchizedek](/codex/melchizedek/), on the Shem identification and why the chronology matters to it - [Genesis 11.10-26](/codex/genesis-11-10-26/), the passage itself - [Manuscript Variants Bible Corruption Objection Defeater](/codex/manuscript-variants-bible-corruption-objection-defeater/), the general question of what variants do and do not prove
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Why do different Bibles give different dates for Noah's Flood?** They do not differ in translation so much as in the manuscripts behind them. The Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Septuagint give begetting-ages in [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) that differ by 100 years across six generations, so adding them up yields a Flood date around 2350 BC from one and around 3000 BC from the other. Most English Bibles follow the Masoretic figures. **Q: Did Jewish scribes change the Old Testament to hide evidence for Jesus?** No, and the charge should not be made. The differences between the Masoretic, Septuagint and Samaritan texts are real, but they are the ordinary result of manuscripts being copied in separate communities over centuries. Which reading is original in [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) is still debated by textual scholars, and no source records anyone shortening the genealogy on purpose. Alleging a motive goes well past the evidence. **Q: Is the Septuagint more reliable than the Hebrew text?** Neither is uniformly more reliable. The Septuagint preserves older readings in some places, and the New Testament writers often follow it, sometimes with Dead Sea Scroll support, as when Stephen says seventy-five persons went down to Egypt and a Qumran Hebrew manuscript of [Exodus 1:5](/codex/exodus-1-5/) also reads seventy-five. But the Septuagint also picked up errors, such as the extra Cainan in [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/). Each variant has to be weighed on its own. **Q: How old is the earth if the longer chronology is right?** Roughly 650 years older than the usual figure. Young-earth chronologies built on the Masoretic text give about 6,000 years; the same reasoning on the Septuagint figures gives closer to 7,000. The difference does not touch the wider debate between young-earth and old-earth positions, which concerns orders of magnitude, not centuries. **Q: Does Ussher's 4004 BC date come straight from the Bible?** It comes from the Bible as preserved in one manuscript tradition. James Ussher calculated from the Masoretic figures. That is a legitimate choice, but it is a choice, and a Christian who follows the Septuagint figures instead is not departing from Scripture.