# Pyramids Predate the Flood Objection Defeater ## Intro The objection is short and it lands. Egyptologists date the Great Pyramids of Giza to about 2550 BC. A common creationist date for Noah's Flood is about 2350 BC. If both are right, the pyramids were built two centuries before a global flood, survived being submerged, and show no water damage. Worse, Egypt as a nation should not exist yet: Scripture makes the Egyptians descendants of Mizraim, a grandson of Noah born after the Ark. So either the Flood was not global, or the Bible's history is wrong. That is the argument, and it is a fair one to press. The answer is not to attack Egyptology. It is to notice that the 2350 BC date is not what the Bible says. It is what you get by adding up the genealogy of [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) **in one manuscript tradition**, and the two other ancient witnesses to that chapter give figures roughly 650 years longer. On those, the Flood falls near 3000 BC, five centuries before the first Egyptian pyramid, and the objection dissolves without anyone having to redate a single Egyptian dynasty. ## In full The objection is a collision between two chronologies, and it is usually argued as though only one of them were adjustable. It treats the Egyptian dates as provisional and the biblical date as fixed, or the reverse. In fact the biblical date is the softer of the two, not because Scripture is unreliable but because the chronological data of [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) survive in three divergent recensions, and the popular date depends on choosing one of them. The full textual case is at [Genesis 11 Chronology](/codex/genesis-11-chronology/). In brief: the Masoretic Text gives begetting-ages roughly 100 years lower than the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch across six generations, plus 50 lower for Nahor. The received creationist date of about 2350 BC, descending from James Ussher, is calculated from the Masoretic figures. The Septuagint figures put the Flood near 3000 BC. ## Cheatsheet **30-second reply.** The 2350 BC Flood date is not the Bible's date, it is Ussher's arithmetic on one manuscript tradition. The Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch, both older witnesses to [Genesis 11](/codex/genesis-11/) than any surviving Hebrew manuscript, give figures about 650 years longer. That puts the Flood near 3000 BC and the first pyramid at Saqqara around 2450 BC, five centuries later. There is no overlap to explain and no water damage to look for. **Fast facts.** - Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the earliest Egyptian pyramid, conventionally about 2650 BC; Giza about 2550 BC. - Masoretic-derived Flood date about 2350 BC; Septuagint-derived about 3000 BC. - Septuagint translated from a Hebrew text in the third century BC, a millennium before the oldest complete Masoretic manuscript. - The pyramids sit on fossil-bearing sedimentary limestone, which on a Flood-geology reading was deposited by the Flood, so the structures postdate the deposit. - Egypt descends from Mizraim, son of Ham ([Genesis 10:6](/codex/genesis-10-6/)), born after the Ark. **Counter-moves.** - If the objector insists on 2350 BC, ask which manuscript that number comes from. Most have never been told it comes from one. - If the objector says you are inventing an escape hatch, point out the Septuagint chronology predates the objection by about two thousand years and was the chronology of the early church. - Do not argue that the Egyptian dates are simply wrong. That is the weaker road; see the Egyptian-revision section below. **Concessions.** - Concede that on the Masoretic chronology the objection is unanswered. It is. That is why the argument is about the text and not about masonry. - Concede that Egyptian chronology for the Old Kingdom is reasonably secure and that redating it by 200 years is a minority position most Egyptologists reject. - Concede that which recension is original is genuinely disputed and that the longer chronology is a position, not a proof. **Closing line.** The objection assumes the Bible gives one date. It gives one genealogy in three manuscript traditions, and the church read the longer one for its first fifteen centuries. ## The objection, steel-manned 1. **The dating is not marginal.** Old Kingdom Egyptian chronology is anchored by king-lists, astronomical observations and radiocarbon series that broadly agree. A 200-year error is possible; a 650-year error is not easily accommodated. 2. **The absence of water damage is real evidence.** The Giza pyramids retain fine surface detail and interior casing work. Total submersion under a sediment-laden global flood should not leave that. 3. **Continuity is the sharper form.** Egyptian civilization shows no interruption across the period in which a global flood would have destroyed it. Dynastic succession, building programs and burial practice continue. 4. **The escape is ad hoc.** Reaching for a different manuscript tradition precisely when the usual one produces a problem looks like special pleading. ## Rebuttals, in order 1. **Against (1), the biblical date is the adjustable term, not the Egyptian one.** This response does not touch Egyptian chronology at all. It grants Giza at 2550 BC and Saqqara at 2650 BC and moves the Flood, on manuscript evidence that exists independently of this dispute. 2. **Against (2), the water-damage question does not arise once the dates separate.** On the longer chronology no pyramid was ever submerged. Independently, the Giza plateau is quarried from fossil-bearing limestone, which on a Flood-geology reading is itself Flood deposit; a structure cannot predate the rock it is cut from and built upon. 3. **Against (3), continuity is exactly what the longer chronology predicts.** Egyptian civilization begins after the Flood, descends from Mizraim, and continues unbroken because nothing interrupted it. The objection only generates a discontinuity problem if you first insert the Flood into the middle of Egyptian history, which is what the shorter chronology does. 4. **Against (4), the charge of special pleading fails on dates.** The Septuagint figures were not produced to solve this problem. They were in circulation before Christ, they are what Josephus reports, and they were the chronology of the Greek and Latin fathers. Adopting a reading that predates the objection by two millennia is not an ad hoc escape. ## Why not simply redate Egypt A popular alternative moves Egyptian chronology forward by about two centuries, following David Rohl's New Chronology and John Bimson's work on the Exodus, as popularized in the documentary *Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus*. It is worth knowing, and it is worth **not** relying on here. - It is a minority position. Most Egyptologists reject the scale of revision proposed. - More decisively, it does not solve this problem even if granted. Shifting Egypt forward 200 years puts Giza at about 2350 BC, contemporary with a Masoretic Flood, which leaves no interval for the Tower of Babel and the dispersion. And the Step Pyramid at Saqqara predates Giza by roughly a century, so it still lands before the Flood. A defeater that needs a contested revision of Egyptology and still fails is a worse defeater than one that needs neither. ## What this argument must not claim Two adjacent claims circulate with this material and neither should be used. **Do not allege that Jewish scribes shortened the genealogy deliberately.** The manuscript divergence is real; the motive is an accusation the sources do not carry, and the version usually told (that the shortening was done to make Shem contemporary with Abraham so Shem could be identified with Melchizedek, defeating [Hebrews 7](/codex/hebrews-7/)) fails on its own terms, since the Shem-Melchizedek identification is an attested rabbinic tradition rather than a cover story. This codex repudiates the Jews-altered-the-text trope wherever it appears. See [The Jewish Defense](/codex/the-jewish-defense/). **Do not claim that "recovery of sight to the blind" is missing from the Hebrew of [Isaiah 61:1](/codex/isaiah-61-1/).** The Masoretic text has *peqach-qoach* there, which the Septuagint rendered as recovery of sight and [Luke 4:18](/codex/luke-4-18/) quotes. It is a translation choice on a word that is present. The claim is refuted by a lexicon, and using it costs more than it gains. The honest version of the textual argument is strong enough without either. ## Live-cite kit **Scripture.** [Genesis 10:6](/codex/genesis-10-6/), Mizraim among the sons of Ham. [Genesis 10:25](/codex/genesis-10-25/), the earth divided in the days of Peleg. [Acts 7:14](/codex/acts-7-14/), Stephen's seventy-five persons against the Masoretic seventy, with 4QExod reading seventy-five in Hebrew. **Scholarly.** Henry B. Smith Jr. on the case for Septuagint primacy in the [Genesis 5](/codex/genesis-5/) and 11 chronologies. Emanuel Tov, *Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible*, on the recensional character of the divergences. For the Egyptian side, Rohl and Bimson, cited as the position being declined rather than adopted. **Aphorism.** The objection dates the Flood from a manuscript, then blames the Bible for the manuscript.
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Were the pyramids built before Noah's Flood?** Not on the chronology this page defends. The apparent overlap comes from dating the Flood to about 2350 BC, which is arithmetic on the Masoretic manuscript tradition. The Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch give figures about 650 years longer, placing the Flood near 3000 BC and the earliest pyramid at Saqqara around 2450 BC, roughly five centuries later. **Q: Why don't the pyramids show water damage from the Flood?** Because on the longer biblical chronology they were never under it. The question only arises if the Flood is dated after the pyramids were built. There is also a geological point: the Giza structures are built from and stand on fossil-bearing sedimentary limestone, which Flood geology treats as Flood deposit, so the pyramids cannot predate it. **Q: How could Egypt exist before the Flood if Egyptians descend from Noah's grandson?** It could not, and that is part of the answer rather than a problem for it. Scripture derives Egypt from Mizraim, a son of Ham born after the Ark, so Egyptian history must begin after the Flood. A chronology that puts Egyptian civilization before the Flood has the dates wrong somewhere, and the manuscript evidence indicates where. **Q: Doesn't this just mean Christians move the dates whenever it is convenient?** The Septuagint chronology was not invented for this argument. It was in circulation more than two centuries before Christ, Josephus reports the longer figures, and it was the chronology the Greek and Latin fathers used. Adopting a reading that predates the objection by two thousand years is not an ad hoc adjustment. **Q: Should I use the argument that Egyptian chronology is off by 200 years?** It is better known than it is useful here. The revision associated with David Rohl and John Bimson is a minority position, and even if granted it does not resolve this objection, because the Step Pyramid at Saqqara would still fall before a Masoretic-dated Flood and there would be no room left for the Tower of Babel.