Jesus was NOT the Son of God

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, God declared that Jesus was in fact his son:

And when Jesus was baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:16 – 17)*

The claim that Jesus is the Son of God is repeated throughout the New Testament, as the following passages illustrate:

Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

(Luke 1:34 – 35)

When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, two men possessed by demons came out of the tombs and met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, “What have you to do with us, Son Of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

(Matthew 8:28 – 29)

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

(Matthew 14:28 – 33)

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

(Matthew 16:15 – 16)

Whenever the unclean spirits beheld him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God.”

(Mark 3:11)

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where do you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

(John 1:47 – 49)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

(John 11:25 – 27)

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

(Mark 15:37 – 39)

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

(John 20:30 – 31)

But these many attestations to the divinity of Jesus are complicated by a few other passages that seem to imply that Jesus was not the only child of God. For example, this well known passage from the Beatitudes says that peacemakers are children of God:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

(Matthew 5:9)

The following passage, from a dispute between Jesus and the Sadducees about marriage in the afterlife, states that resurrected people are also children of God:

Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”

(Luke 20:34 – 36)

And here is a passage from Paul that says that any who follow Jesus are children of God:

So then, brethren and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

(Romans 8:12 – 14)

Here’s another passage in which Paul repeats this idea:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

(Galatians 3:25 – 26)

In addition, Jesus several times refers to himself as the “Son of Man,” as in the following passage:

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

(Matthew 11:18 – 19)

Jesus may have meant that he is the Son of God in the respect that Mary was made pregnant not by a human male, but by the Holy Spirit; and that he is the Son of Man in the respect that he was born to a perfectly normal human female via a perfectly natural human birth. That would reinforce the idea that Jesus was God made incarnate, and was therefore both divine and human. And it would make his suffering on the cross seem as real as it would be to any human.

Was Jesus really the Son of God? Certainly the New Testament provides many examples of miracles that Jesus performed, including the following:

Jesus cured a man of his leprosy (Matthew 8:1 – 3, Mark 1:40 – 42, Luke 5:12 – 13)
He healed the servant of a Centurion merely by saying that it would be done (Matthew 8:5 – 13, Luke 7:2 – 10)
Jesus stopped a windstorm (Matthew 8:23 – 27, Mark 4:35 – 40, Luke 8:22 – 25)
He drove two demoniacs into a herd of swine that drowned themselves in the sea (Matthew 8:28 – 34)
He healed a paralytic by telling him to get up, take his bed, and go home (Matthew 9:1 – 7, Mark 2:4 – 5, Luke 5:17 – 25)
He cured a woman who had endured a hemorrhage for 12 years (Matthew 9:18 – 22, Mark 5:25 – 29, Luke 8:41 – 48)
He brought a young girl back to life (Matthew 9:23 – 25, Mark 5:32 – 34, Luke 8:49 – 55)
He restored vision to two blind men by touching their eyes (Matthew 9:27 – 30)
He restored a man’s withered hand (Matthew 12:9 – 13, Mark 3:1 – 5, Luke 6:6 – 11)
He healed a man who was blind and dumb (Matthew 12:22, Mark 7:31 – 36)
He fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (Matthew 14:13 – 21, Mark 6:30 – 44, Luke 9:10 – 17, John 6:1 – 13)
He walked many furlongs across the rough waters of the sea (Matthew 14:22 – 27, Mark 6:45 – 50)
He healed the sick of Gennesaret, most of whom were healed by merely touching the fringe of this garment (Matthew 14:34 – 36, Mark 6:53 – 56)
He healed a woman’s daughter who was possessed by a demon (Matthew 15:21 – 28, Mark 7:27 – 29)
He healed a great many of the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb, and many others along the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 15:29 – 31)
He fed 4,000 people with 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish (Matthew 15:32 – 39, Mark 8:1 – 9)
He healed two blind men by touching their eyes (Matthew 20:29 – 34)
He cursed a fig tree and it withered immediately (Matthew 21:18 – 22, Mark 11:12 – 14)
He removed an unclean spirit from a man (Mark 1:23 – 26)
He healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and many others who lived nearby who were sick with various diseases (Mark 1:29 – 34, Luke 4:38 – 41)
He drove demoniacs named Legion out of a man and into a herd of swine (Mark 5:1 – 13, Luke 8:26 – 33)
He cured a blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22 – 26)
He removed a dumb and deaf spirit from a boy (Mark 9:14 – 29)
He cured the blindness of a man named Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46 – 52)
He restored a man who had died in Nain to life (Luke 7:11 – 15)
He removed a demon from a man’s only son (Luke 9:37 – 42)
He healed a woman who could not stand straight (Liuke 13:10 – 13)
He healed a man of dropsy (Luke 14:1 – 4)
He healed 10 lepers (Luke 17:11 – 14)
He healed a blind beggar near Jericho (Luke 18:35 – 43)
He healed the son of an official (John 4:46 – 53)
He cured a man’s blindness (John 9:1 – 12)
He resurrected Lazarus after he had been dead for 4 days (John 11:1 – 44)

Surely if Jesus performed such miracles, it could only be because he was divine.

But there is an aspect of the teachings of Jesus that cast his divinity in doubt; and that concerns the most important prophecy that he made. In Matthew Chapter 24, his disciples ask Jesus about the last days:

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

(Matthew 24:3)

Jesus answers the second part of this question first, with a lengthy description of the events that will take place leading up to the last days. There will be many pretenders who claim to be the Christ. There will be wars and famines and earthquakes. The followers of Jesus will be hated; many will be killed; many will surrender their beliefs; and some will betray their fellows. And then the Son of Man will appear:

“Immediately after the suffering of those days

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from heaven,

and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

(Matthew 24:29 – 31)

Then, finally, Jesus answers the first part of the disciples’ question by telling them exactly when this will all happen:

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

(Matthew 24:32 – 34)

Jesus said that his return as the Son of Man, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment would all happen before the passing of his generation. That is, Jesus expected the end of time to happen sometime very early in the first century CE.

Well, that simply did not happen. Therefore the most important prophecy that Jesus made was wrong. Why would a divine being have been so completely wrong about such an important prophecy? The simplest explanation is that Jesus wasn’t divine at all but was instead a character in a human authored narrative.

The story related in Matthew 24 concerning the end of time is repeated in Chapter 13 of the book of Mark. There is a similar narrative in Luke 17:20 – 37 and Luke 21:20 – 32, though Luke’s version has several differences. Even so, the narratives in Mark and in Luke both repeat the same prediction that the end of time would occur before the passing of the then present generation. This story is not repeated in the book of John.

The idea that the resurrection was near is repeated several times in the New Testament. Here are the words of John the Baptist:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

(Matthew 3:2)

And here is Jesus making the same point:

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

(Matthew 4:17)

Mark has a slightly different rendition of that passage in Mark 14 – 15. And here is Jesus making the same point again when he gives the Apostles their commission:

“When they persecute you in this town, flee to the next, for truly I tell you, you will not have finished going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

(Matthew 10:23)

What about the book of John? Here is John 3:16 again:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

(John 3:16)

The phrase “may not perish” is a tell. John certainly did not believe that people who were born in his time and who believed in Jesus would still be living several thousand years later. And yet he said they would not perish. He must have thought that the time of the resurrection would arrive before his generation passed away. That is, he must have agreed with the Jesus of the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the time of the resurrection was near.

Was Jesus divine? Certainly the miracles he allegedly performed are not the sort of actions that could have been carried out by a normal human being. But his prophecy as to the time of the resurrection of the dead was wrong. It’s difficult to understand how a divine being could have made such a monumental mistake.

*All passages from the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, which was published in 2019. The owner of the copyright on that edition is the National Council of Churches of the United States of America and it therefore represents the orthodox Christian translation in the United States.

Jesus Was NOT the Messiah

The word Christ is Greek for Messiah. Throughout the Greek language books of the New Testament Jesus is called the Messiah, as in the following well known passage from the book of Luke:

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

(Luke 2:8 – 11)*

From his birth Jesus was announced to the world as being the Messiah. But what exactly does that mean? The Hebrew word “Messiah” means “Anointed one.” But there were a great many Hebrew leaders who were anointed before the time of Jesus. Every king of Israel and of Judah was anointed by the temple priests. Here Samuel describes the anointing of Saul as King of Israel:

Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him; he said, “The LORD has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the LORD, and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.”

(I Samuel 10:1)

At the time of Saul, there were two kingdoms populated by the descendants of Jacob: Israel in the north, with its capital in Samaria; and Judah in the south, with its capital in Jerusalem. After the death of King Saul, David was first anointed King of Judah:

Then the people of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.

(2 Samuel 2:4)

Saul’s son Ishbosheth was king of Israel at the time. After the assassination of Ishbosheth, David was anointed king of all Israel:

So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel.

(2 Samuel 5:3)

Following the death of this father King David, Solomon was anointed as king:

There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!”

(1 Kings 1:39)

Anointment was also used for the installation of Hebrew priests:

“The sacred vestments of Aaron shall be passed on to his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them.”

(Exodus 29:29)

And even some foreign kings were considered to be among the anointed, as in this passage from Isaiah that describes Cyrus the Great of the Persian empire:

Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their robes…

(Isaiah 45:1)

Was Jesus anointed? He was baptized by John the Baptist, as is reported in this passage:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:13 – 17)

These passages illustrate that baptism isn’t the same thing as anointment. For one thing, baptism was performed with water, whereas anointment was done with oil. And anointment was the ceremony by which a person was initiated into a leadership position, whereas baptism was intended to be a form of confession:

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

(Matthew 3:5 – 6)

Baptism and anointment were two different processes that were devised for two different purposes. But in addition to being baptized Jesus was also anointed, as described in this passage:

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head.

(Mark 14:3)

That was a very different type of anointment. The woman didn’t anoint Jesus as part of an initiation ceremony; she did it in preparation for his burial:

“She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.”

(Mark 14:8)

So yes, Jesus was anointed with oil, but not as part of a ritual that would have appointed him a king or priest. This story is told in Matthew 26:6-13 and again in John 12:1-8; but in the book of John the woman is named as Mary the sister of Lazarus.

Jesus even made every effort to avoid being anointed as king:

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

(John 6:15)

Luke says that Jesus was anointed in a completely different sense:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

(Luke 4:16 – 21)

(The passage from the book of Isaiah referenced in the above passage can be found in Chapter 61.) According to Luke, Jesus wasn’t anointed with oil, as would be done in an initiation ceremony; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Annunciation of Luke 2:8 – 11 proclaims Jesus to be the Anointed One. But as we have seen, every king and priest of Israel was anointed– so Jesus could not have been “the” Anointed One– at least, not in the terminology of the Old Testament. And since Jesus was never anointed in the fashion of the kings of either Israel or Judah, he couldn’t have been a king, at least not in the Old Testament sense.

Returning to the annunciation, we should note that Jesus was also called a savior:

“…to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah.”

(Luke 2:11)

The word “savior” makes many appearances in the Old Testament, as for example the following:

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,

my shield and the horn of my salvation,

my stronghold and my refuge,

my savior; you save me from violence.”

(2 Samuel 22:2 – 3)

In the Old Testament it is God who is the savior. But there are a few passages that describe a savior who is to arrive at some point in the future:

On that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to the LORD at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the LORD because of oppressors he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them.

(Isaiah 19:19 – 20)

The savior Isaiah described is someone who will defend the worshipers of Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament. The above passage is part of a longer narrative of the conquest of Egypt by Judah:

On that day the Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts raises against them. And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the plan that the LORD of hosts is planning against them.

(Isaiah 19:16 – 17)

The LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD on that day and will serve with sacrifice and offerings, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them.

(Isaiah 19:21)

Well, that did not happen. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonians in 597 BCE. So the savior of this passage is really just a literary device employed by the author to serve his thematic purposes.

Here is another passage in which Isaiah identifies God as the Savior:

Truly, you are a God who hides himself,

O God of Israel, the Savior.

All of them are put to shame and confounded;

the makers of idols go in disgrace together.

But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation;

you shall not be put to shame or confounded

ever again.

(Isaiah 45:15 – 17)

God in this selection is viewed as the savior of Israel, not of all the people of the world. The passage states that Israel has already been saved, and that its salvation shall last forever. That, too, turned out to be false, since long after this passage was written the Romans conquered Palestine. After a revolt in Judaea the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in 70 CE, tore down the temple of Solomon, and used booty from the temple to build the Colosseum of Rome. That hardly sounds like a permanent salvation.

This gives us some context to understand what the word “Messiah” meant to the authors of the Old Testament. So does Jesus measure up to their expectations?

To answer that we need to go back to the story of the garden of Eden. Here’s what that story says about why God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden:

Then the LORD God said, “See, the humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now they might reach out their hands and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever” — therefore the LORD God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken. He drove out the humans, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

(Genesis 3:22 – 24)

God threw them out because he didn’t want the humans to eat the fruit of the tree of life, because doing so would extend their lives. He even posted cherubim and a flaming sword at the entrance to the garden to prevent any of their descendants from entering the garden and getting access to the tree of life. In other words, God threw them out to prevent any of their descendants from having eternal life.

And that is the perspective from which the entire Old Testament was written– except for Chapter 12 of the book of Daniel. That is the only section of the Old Testament that explicitly describes the resurrection of the dead, a last judgment, and rewards or punishments in the afterlife.

Here’s a passage from the Psalms:

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
    I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
    for they are cut off from your hand.

(Psalm 88:4-5)

If God no longer remembers the dead, then he can’t forgive their sins. If the dead are cut off from the hand of God then God can’t resurrect them.

The Old Testament authors (with the exception of Daniel) didn’t believe in the single most important teaching of Jesus: the rewards of the afterlife.

But it goes much deeper than that. They didn’t believe in anything Jesus had to say about the forgiveness of sins. The Old Testament was about knowing the law, following the law, and punishing those to disobey it. But Jesus said:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

(Matthew 7:1-2)

You can’t punish someone according to the law unless you first judge them an find them guilty of violation of the law. Here’s another quote:

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

(Matthew 18:21-22)

So every sin must be forgiven 77 times. And which sins must be forgiven? Jesus answered that question too:

Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

(Matthew 12:31-32)

So murder, rape, incest, sodomy, assault, robbery, battery, fraud, slander, libel– all must be forgiven, and must be forgiven 77 times each. That is literally the opposite of what the Old Testament authors taught.

The Old Testament authors had a vision of the end of time– but it was nothing like that of the New Testament authors. Zechariah 14 describes a final battle that will take place before the gates of Jerusalem. And here’s what he says will happen afterwards:

Then all who survive of the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Festival of Booths. If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon them.

(Zechariah 14:16-17)

That is decidedly NOT a New Testament vision. That is a vision of a world converted to Judaism, not to Christianity.

The Old Testament authors did not believe in Jesus’s message about the afterlife, they didn’t believe in anything he had to say about forgiveness, they didn’t believe in his morality, and they had a completely different vision of the end of time. Why would they have predicted the coming of someone whose beliefs were so antithetical to their own? Answer: they wouldn’t have.

*All passages cited are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition that was published in 2019 by the National Council of Churches of the United States of America.

Biblical Chronology, part 3

The chronology of the Old Testament is convoluted and difficult to reconcile with known historical events. In the article titled “Biblical Chronology – Part 2” I presented a mapping that puts the date of the creation of Adam at 4117 BCE. That mapping is based on the known historical date of the invasion of the Levant (which we know as Lebanon today) by the Pharaoh Shishonq I in 925 BCE.

But there are other historical events to which we could have pinned those in the Old Testament. Ideally we would like to match all of the following historical events to their corresponding events in the biblical timeline:

The conquest and sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 BCE, which is mentioned in 2 Kings 25:1 – 7
The battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE, described in Jeremiah 46:2
Defeat of Josiah, king of Judah, by the Pharaoh Nekau II in 609 BCE, mentioned in 2 Kings 22:21 and 2 Kings 23:28 – 30
The conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser V in 722 BCE, described in 2 Kings 18:10 – 11
The attack of Jerusalem by the Pharaoh Shishonq I in 925 BCE, described in 1 Kings 14:25

There are portions of the biblical chronology related to all of the above to be found in 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, and Haggai. In addition the New Testament books of Matthew and Luke have genealogies for Jesus. Matthew’s goes back to Abraham, and Luke’s goes back to Adam. But there are several problems with these various timelines:

Luke’s list includes a man, Cainan, son of Aphraxad, who is nowhere to be found in any Old Testament book.
Luke’s list matches Matthew’s list between Abraham and King David, but Luke lists Nathan rather than Solomon as the son of King David– and their two lists disagree on all but two names (Shialtiel and Zerubbabel) between King David and Joseph the father of Jesus. This means that Matthew and Luke disagree about the identity of the father of Joseph.
Between King David and Joseph Matthew’s chronology lists 26 generations; Luke lists 41. That represents a difference of roughly 300 years.
The names in Matthew’s list between King David and Zerubbabel don’t always agree with histories found in the Old Testament.
The books of Kings and Chronicles record the histories of two different kingdoms– Israel and Judah. Jerusalem was the capital of Judah; Samaria was the capital of Israel. The lists of the kings of these two kingdoms reference each other. For example, 1 Kings 16:28 says that Ahab became king of Israel when Asa was in his 38th year of kingship over Judah. These cross-linked relationships are difficult to untangle, and they have gaps.
Some of the times reported in the Old Testament books could not possibly work. For example, 2 Kings 15:33 says that Jotham reigned Judah for 16 years. But 2 Kings 15:30 says that Hoshea killed the King of Israel in the 20th year of Jotham’s reign, which would be impossible if Jotham only reigned for 16 years. And 2 Kings 17:1 says that Hoshea began his rule in the 12th year of the rule of King Ahaz of Israel, which would put the date of his ascension to power 7 years later.

Given these various constraints it is simply not possible to map the 5 key historical events listed above to the biblical timeline with absolute assurance. The following list is, I think, about the best that can be done. It starts at the time of the Pharaoh Shishonq I and works forward in time. This is an abbreviated listing, as it only shows the kings of Judah. To get a full understanding of the overall timeline you need to show the timeline of the kings of Judah alongside those of Israel. Another issue to keep in mind is that the names in this listing are specific to the Revised Standard translation. Bear in mind that there are some differences in the spellings of proper names from one translation to another.

925 BCE: Invasion of the Levant by the Egyptian Pharaoh Shishonq I in the 5th year of the reign of Rehoboam, King of Israel. (1 Kings 14:25)
913 BCE: Abijah began his reign as King of Judah in the 18th year of the reign of Jeroboam, King of Israel. (1 Kings 14:31)
911 BCE: King Abijah is killed by God andAsa began his reign as King of Judah in the 20th year of the reign of Jeroboam, King of Israel. (1 Kings 15:9)
869 BCE: King Asa died after ruling for 41 years and Jehoshaphat began his reign as King of Judah in the 4th year of the reign of King Ahab of Israel. (1 Kings 22:41 – 42)
844 BCE: King Jehoshaphat died after ruling for 25 years and his son Jehoram began his reign as King of Judah in the 5th year of the reign of King Joram / Jehoram of Israel. (Should be the 7th year.) (2 Kings 8:16 – 17)
839 BCE: Ahaziah began his reign as King of Judah in the 12th year of the reign of Joram / Jehoram of Israel. (2 Kings 8:25 – 26)
837 BCE: Athaliah killed her son Ahaziah and took control of the throne of Judah after Ahaziah had ruled for 1 year. (2 Kings 11:1 – 3)
831 BCE: The temple guards killed Athaliah and put Joash / Jehoash on the throne in the 7th year of Jehu’s reign as King of Israel. (2 Kings 12:1)
811 BCE – 809 BCE: GAP of 2 years with no King of Israel
791 BCE: The servants of Joash / Jehoash killed him in the 40th year of his reign and his son Amaziah began his reign as King of Judah in the 2nd year of Joash King of Israel. (2 Kings 14:1)
764 BCE: King Amaziah died 15 years after the death of King Joash / Jehoash of Israel. (2 Kings 14:17)
763 BCE – 750 BCE: GAP of 13 years with no King of Judah
750 BCE: Azariah / Uzziah began his reign as King of Judah in the 27th year of Jeroboam III’s reign as King of Israel. (2 Kings 14:21)
736 BCE – 712 BCE: GAP of 24 years with no King of Israel
698 BCE: King Azariah / Uzziah died after ruling for 52 years.
698 BCE – 696 BCE: GAP of 2 years with no King of Judah
696 BCE: Jotham, son of Azariah / Uzziah, began his reign as King of Judah in the 2nd year of Pekah, King of Israel. (2 Kings 15:32 – 33)
681 BCE: King Jotham died and his son Ahaz began his reign as King of Judah in the 17th year of Pekah, King of Israel. (2 Kings 15:38, 2 Kings 16:1 – 2)
678 – 669 BCE: Hoshea killed King Pekah of Israel and began his rule as King of Israel. (There are three different reports of when and how this happened in 2 Kings 15:30, 2 Kings 15:33, and 2 Kings 17:1. Several of the following dates are calculated from this date. I believe that the only date that makes sense in the context of what follows is 669 BCE.)
665 BCE: King Ahaz of Judah died after ruling for 16 years. (2 Kings 16:2)
666 BCE: Hezekiah began his reign as King of Judah in the 3rd year of Hoshea’s reign as King of Israel. (This only makes sense if we use the date of 669 BCE for the killing of King Pekah.) (2 Kings 16:2, 2 Kings 18:1)
660 BCE: King Shalmaneser V of Assyria attacked Samaria in the 7th year of Hoshea’s reign as King of Israel. (2 Kings 18:9). The historical date for this event is 722 BCE.
637 BCE: Hezekiah died after ruling as King of Judah for 29 years. His son Mannaseh began his reign as King of Judah. (2 Kings 20:21; 2 Kings 21:1)
582 BCE: Amon began his reign as King of Judah when his father Mannaseh died after ruling for 55 years. (2 Kings 21:18 – 20)
580 BCE: Josiah began his reign as King of Judah when his father Amon was killed after ruling for 2 years. (2 Kings 21:26; 2 Kings 22:1)
549 BCE: King Josiah was killed at Megiddo by Pharaoh Nekau II. (2 Kings 22:21; 2 Kings 23:28 – 30) The historical date is 609 BCE.
549 BCE: King Josiah’s son Jehoahaz reigned as King of Judah until he was taken captive by Pharaoh Neco after 3 months.
549 BCE: Eliakim, the second son of King Josiah, was made King of Judah by Pharaoh Nekau II and was renamed to Jehoiakim. (2 Kings 34 – 36; I Chronicles 3:15)
545 BCE: Pharaoh Nekau II was defeated by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon at Carchemish in the 4th year of King Jehoiakim’s reign. (Jeremiah 46:2) The historical date for this event is 605 BCE.
538 BCE: Jehoiachin became King of Judah following the death of his father Jehoiakim after 11 years of rule. (2 Kings 23:36)
527 BCE: King Jehoiachin and the officials and artisans of Judah were carried off to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar in the 11th year of Jehoiachin’s reign. (2 Kings 24:10 – 17; Jeremiah 24)
527 BCE: King Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah king of Jerusalem and renamed him Zedekiah. (2 Kings 24:17)
516 BCE: Nebuchadnezzar laid seige to Jerusalem and took it in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign and carried off all survivors as captives to Babylon. (2 Kings 25:1 – 7) The historical date for this event is 587 BCE.

The key differences from the above list are as follows:

660 BCE: King Shalmaneser V of Assyria attacked Samaria in the 7th year of Hoshea’s reign as King of Israel. (2 Kings 18:9). The historical date for this event is 722 BCE, a difference of 62 years.
549 BCE: King Josiah was killed at Megiddo by Pharaoh Nekau II. (2 Kings 22:21; 2 Kings 23:28 – 30) The historical date is 609 BCE, a difference of 60 years.
545 BCE: Pharaoh Nekau II was defeated by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon at Carchemish in the 4th year of King Jehoiakim’s reign. (Jeremiah 46:2) The historical date for this event is 605 BCE, a difference of 60 years.
516 BCE: Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and took it in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign and carried off all survivors as captives to Babylon. (2 Kings 25:1 – 7) The historical date for this event is 587 BCE, a difference of 71 years.

So there is a difference of between 60 and 71 years. That’s about a 17 to 21 percent error over the 338 years between 925 BCE and 587 BCE. But 41 of those years can be accounted for by the gaps in the biblical chronology that I have highlighted above. If those gaps are simply errors in the record, then that would reduce the discrepancy to a range of 19 to 30 years, or a 5 to 9 percent error. Another possibility is that they actually do represent periods of time when there were no kings of either Israel or Judah.

Part of that difference might be due to a confusion of names. At one point a king named Joram or Jehoram ruled as King of Israel at the same time that another man named Joram or Jehoram ruled as King of Judah. And later, a man named Joash or Jehoash reigned as King in Israel while another man named Joash or Jehoash ruled as King of Judah.

Rahab’s deceit and betrayal

According to the book of Joshua God made it possible for the Israelites to conquer the city of Jericho by tearing down the city’s high walls:

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given into your hand Jericho, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus they shall do for six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him.”
Joshua 6:2 – 5, Revised Standard Version

As the following passages relate, Joshua did exactly as God directed, and indeed the walls did collapse on the seventh day when the whole army gave a shout.

On the seventh day they rose early at the dawn of day, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times: it was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers that we sent.”
Joshua 6:15 – 17 RSV

So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.
Joshua 6:20 – 21, RSV

Notice that the story states that the prostitute Rahab and all of those in her company were to be spared. The reason given is that Rahab hid the “messengers” that Joshua sent to Jericho prior to their attack. But just who were these messengers? The Bible tells us in the following passage:

And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.”
Joshua 2:1, RSV

So! The “messengers” were spies! They weren’t sent to convey a message from the Israelites to the people of Jericho; they were sent to gather intelligence on the city!

Once the spies arrived at Jericho they quickly found out that the people of Jericho were afraid of the Israelites.

Before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof, and said to the men, “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
Joshua 2:8 – 10, RSV

The people of Jericho were terrified of what the God of the Israelites might do to their city. They knew what happened to the Pharaoh’s army, and to the cities of Sihon and Og. So with the entire city of Jericho on the lookout for Israelites, how did the two Israeli spies escape from Jericho without being caught? The Bible tells us exactly how they managed it in this passage.

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she dwelt in the wall.
Joshua 2:15, RSV

So! Rahab’s house was part of the mighty walls of Jericho– and all that was needed to scale those walls was a simple rope thrown from the window of her house! The book of Joshua makes it very clear that the walls of Jericho were destroyed by the power of God. As appealing as that narrative might be, a much more likely possibility is that Rahab simply threw a rope from the window of her house– and the Israelites climbed up the rope, perhaps the night before the attack, and brought a strike force into Rahab’s house. Then Rahab and the others of her family were let down the rope to safety. And the next day, when the Israelite priests blew their trumpets, the strike force fought its way to the city’s main gate, threw it open, and caught the city by surprise.

That version of the story explains how the Israelites could have brought down the walls of a great city without the use of siege engines. It accounts for the need of the spies. And it fully explains why the Israelites would have been so willing to grant safety to Rahab and the others of her household. Rahab made the conquest of Jericho easy.

Rahab betrayed her entire people– the residents of Jericho. The two Israeli spies guaranteed her safety (and that of the members of her family) in exchange for their lives. And all she had to do to obtain a new life as a member of Israelite society was to throw a rope out her window.

Biblical Chronology, part 2

As described in Part 1 of this blog the events of the bible can be given chronological dates relative to the time of the creation of Adam. To associate that biblical chronology with historical chronology it is necessary to find one or more narrations in the bible that clearly correlate with known historical events. The most obvious of such common events would be the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, which is known to have happened in 587 BCE. The problem with using this date as an anchor for the biblical chronology is that the biblical narrative loses chronological consistency well before Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of the city. I will write another article to explain how and why this part of the chronology went awry. The following passages describe the attack of the city of Jerusalem by the Pharaoh Shishak:

In the fifth year of King Rehobo’am, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house; he took away everything.
I Kings 14:25, Revised Standard Version

In the fifth year of King Rehobo’am, because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen. And the people were without number who came with him from Egypt– Libyans, Suk’kim, and Ethiopians.
2 Chronicles 12:2 – 3, RSV

The date of this event is known from historical sources to be 925 BCE, as seen in the following quotation:

After more than a century of passivity on the part of Egyptian rulers, Sheshonq I intervened aggressively in the politics of the Levant to reassert pharonic prestige there. His Karnak inscriptions record a major military expedition c.925 BC against Israel and Judah and the principal towns of southern Palestine, including Gaza and Megiddo. The Old Testament records the same event, stating (I Kgs. 14:25-6) that, in the fifth year of Rehoboam, ‘Shishak, king of Egypt’ seized the treasures of Jerusalem, and adding (2 Chr. 12:2-9) that he came with 1,200 chariots and an army that included Libyans and Nubians. These sources indicate that the campaign was launched in support of Jeroboam, an exile in Egypt who claimed the throne of Judah.
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, pg. 337

Fortunately there is just enough chronological detail in the bible to provide a complete timeline from the fifth year of Rehobo’am’s reign to the creation of Adam. The following listing traces the evidence from the bible, starting from the sacking of Jerusalem by Sheshonq I and working backwards to the creation of Adam.

925 BCE – Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonq I invades the Levant and sacks the city of Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign. (1 Kings 14:25 – 26; 2 Chronicles 12:2 – 9)
930 BCE – Rehoboam succeeds King Solomon as King after Solomon had reigned for 40 years. (1 Kings 11:42 – 43)
968 BCE – King Solomon breaks ground for the temple in the second year of his reign and 480 years after the Israelites leave Egypt. (1 Kings 6:1)
1448 BCE – The Israelites leave Egypt 430 years after entering it. (Exodus 12:40; Galatians 3:17)
1878 BCE – The Israelites settle in Egypt at the invitation of Joseph. (Genesis 47:7 – 9)
2008 BCE – Isaac fathered Jacob, who was later renamed Israel by God, when he was 60 years old. (Genesis 25:26)
2068 BCE – Abraham fathered Isaac when he was 100 years old. (Genesis 21:5)
2069 BCE – Abram is renamed Abraham by God when he was 99 years old. (Genesis 17:1 – 5)
2093 BCE – Abram leaves Haran when he is 75 years old and settles in Canaan. (Genesis 12:4 – 5)
2168 BCE – Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran when he was 70 years old. (Genesis 11:26)
2238 BCE – Nahor fathered Terah when he was 29 years old. (Genesis 11:24)
2267 BCE – Serug fathered Nahor when he was 30 years old. (Genesis 11:22)
2297 BCE – Reu fathered Serug when he was 32 years old. (Genesis 11:20)
2329 BCE – Peleg fathered Reu when he was 30 years old. (Genesis 11:18)
2359 BCE – Eber fathered Peleg when he was 34 years old. (Genesis 11:16)
2393 BCE – Shelah fathered Eber when he was 30 years old. (Genesis 11:14)
2423 BCE – Arphaxad fathered Shelah when he was 35 years old. (Genesis 11:12)
2458 BCE – Shem fathered Arphaxad 2 years after the Flood. (Genesis 11:10; note that this passage says that Shem was 100 years old when he should have been 103 years old.)
2460 BCE – End of the flood one year after it started. (Genesis 8:13)
2461 BCE – Beginning of the flood in the 600th year of Noah’s life. (Genesis 6:9, Genesis 7:6)
2561 BCE – Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth when he was 500 years old. (Genesis 5:32)
3061 BCE – Lamech fathered Noah when he was 182 years old. (Genesis 5:28)
3243 BCE – Methuselah fathered Lamech when he was 187 years old. (Genesis 5:25)
3430 BCE – Enoch fathered Methuselah when he was 65 years old. (Genesis 5:21)
3495 BCE – Jared fathered Enoch when he was 162 years old. (Genesis 5:18)
3657 BCE – Mahalalel fathered Jared when he was 65 years old. (Genesis 5:15)
3722 BCE – Kenan fathered Mahalalel when he was 70 years old. (Genesis 5:12)
3792 BCE – Enosh fathered Kenan when he was 90 years old. (Genesis 5:9)
3882 BCE – Seth fathered Enosh when he was 105 years old. (Genesis 5:6)
3987 BCE – Adam fathered Seth when he was 130 years old. (Genesis 5:3)
4117 BCE – Adam was created by God on the sixth day of the creation week. (Genesis 1:26 – 27)

It is important to remember that the above calculations cannot be regarded as absolute. The majority of these dates are based on the Hebrew calendar which was a lunisolar calendar and was therefore subject to intercalations that did not follow a predictable rule.

A key assumption in these calculations concerns the time at which the Israelites settled in Egypt. Here is what Exodus says about their leaving:

The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, on that very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
Exodus 12:40 – 41, RSV

But exactly when did the Israelites enter Egypt in the first place? Some have argued that when Terah and Abram entered Canaan in (roughly) 2093 BCE they were settling in Egypt because Egypt controlled the Levant. The chronology above instead assumes that the 430 years is to be counted from the time that the Israelites entered Egypt at the invitation of Joseph in 2239 BCE, roughly 146 years later. This is more plausible since God didn’t rename Jacob to Israel until 2008 BCE, after the death of Abraham. So prior to that time the Israelites– the followers of Israel– didn’t really exist.

The above chronology is, I believe, the most generous possible in the respect that it represents the greatest possible antiquity for the time of the creation of Adam. And that we know is false, given that humans of a fully modern physiology have existed for at least 200,000 years.

Written in 2019-09-14.

Biblical Chronology, part 1

The bible has sufficient clues to enable one to reconstruct a religious timeline that stretches back to the time of the creation of Adam. There are chiefly three kinds of clues that contribute to this timeline:

Genealogical lists
Regnal dates
Statements of elapsed time

Some of the old testament genealogies include the age of the father when his son was born. Here are some examples:

When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. …
When Seth had lived a hundred and five years, he became the father of Enosh. …
When Enosh had lived ninety years, he became the father of Kenan. …
Genesis 5:3 – 9, Revised Standard Version

Such genealogies enable us to reconstruct a continuous series of relative dates; but not all of the genealogies in the bible provide the age of the father at the time of the son’s birth. So this method only works for a portion of the time between the creation of Adam to the birth of Jesus.

An example of both a regnal date and a statement of elapsed time can be found in this passage:

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD.
1 Kings 6:1, Revised Standard Version

A regnal date is a date from the beginning of a king’s reign. “…The fourth year of Solomon’s reign” is such a date. Regnal dates were used widely throughout the ancient world, including in Sumer, Babylonia, and Egypt. The statement that Solomon began building his temple 480 years after the exodus from Egypt is a record of elapsed time.

There are several ambiguities in the biblical text that require one to make assumptions about how some of these three types of dates in the bible are to be interpreted. So any chronology resulting from a study of biblical text alone will necessarily involve some key assumptions. In the text that follows the dates I provided are based on a chronology I have developed from my own study. I have documented the assumptions I have made in developing this chronology in Part 2 of this blog.

Another important consideration is that the Jewish calendar is a lunisolar calendar. An additional month was added to the Jewish calendar every two or three years to bring it into line with the solar calendar. The precise times when intercalary months were added in the ancient past is not known. The “years” in the bible do not therefore necessarily correspond to years in the Gregorian calendar.

According to the bible God created the universe, the earth, all living things, and the first man Adam and the first woman Eve in six days in about 4117 BCE. Noah, the man whose family was chosen by God to survive the flood, was born in 3061 BCE. The flood took place in 2461 BCE. The flood wiped out all human beings and all traces of their civilizations– except for the 8 people on board the ark. The descendants of Noah dispersed all over the planet and repopulated it. The great civilizations of the ancient world– Egypt, Sumer, Akkadia, Babylon, Assyria– were all founded after the flood by the sons and descendants of Noah.

The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.
Genesis 9:18 – 19, RSV

The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.
Genesis 10:6, RSV

So Egypt was a grandson of Noah who traveled to the Nile river valley and founded the entire Egyptian civilization.

Sometime between 2168 BCE and 2093 BCE Terah left the city of Ur of the Chaldeans with his son Abram and headed west toward Canaan, but they settled in Haran.

Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sar’ai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chalde’ans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Genesis 11:31, RSV

Ur was a great city of Sumer that was destroyed by the Elamites in roughly 2000 BCE. So Terah and his son Abram were likely refugees of the destruction of Ur.

In 2069 BCE God renamed Abram to Abraham, which means “father of a multitude”.

No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.
Genesis 17:5 – 6, RSV

The bible traces a line of descent from Abraham to King David over a total of 13 generations. The time from the birth of Abram’s son Isaac to the time that King Solomon broke ground for his temple was 1100 years.

In addition the new testament books of Matthew and Luke provide genealogies that trace the lineage of Jesus. Matthew’s traces his lineage back through Abraham, and Luke traces it back to Adam.

There is almost nothing about this chronology that is actually true. The creation of the universe did not happen about 6,100 years ago; it happened roughly 13.5 billion years ago. That’s more than 2 million times longer ago than the bible says. How do we know this? Oh, many ways– but for starters we can actually see galaxies that are as far away as 10 billion light years. Since a light year is the distance that light travels in one year (in a vacuum) the light we are currently seeing must have been in transit for at least 10 billion years. Biblical apologists respond by claiming that modern physics and astronomy are completely wrong.

Let’s consider the story of the flood. The whole point of the story is that God had concluded that the people of the earth were bad because they had all deserted the worship of God. All, that is, except for Noah and the members of his family. So God decided to wipe all of the bad people– the ones who refused to worship Yahweh– from the face of the earth. So he told Noah to build an ark and to put himself, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and two of every kind of animal (and fourteen of every kind of “clean” animal) on board the ark.

After the waters of the flood receded the descendants of Noah were dispersed across the entire earth to rebuild the population. The bible specifically mentions a grandson of Noah’s by the name of Egypt:

The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.
Genesis 10:6, RSV

And it names a great grandson of Noah named Nimrod who ostensibly founded Babel, and the Akkadian and Assyrian empires:

Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nin’eveh, Reho’both-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nin’eveh and Calah; that is the great city.
Genesis 10:8 – 12, RSV

But curiously none of the inhabitants of those empires ever erected a single temple or monument or even a stele to Yahweh. In Egypt the descendants of Noah erected temples to Ra, to Amun, to Ptah, to Hathor, to any of a number of of Egyptian gods and godesses. But not one temple to Yahweh. The whole reason that Yahweh wiped all of the bad people from the face of the earth was to ensure that only the worshipers of Yahweh would be left. But the descendants of Noah strayed from the worship of Yahweh within just two generations. The Sumerian city of Ur had a ziggurat that was a temple to the moon god Nanna, but throughout ancient Sumer there was not one temple to Yahweh. The Zhou dynasty of China and the Olmecs in Central America and the Incas of South America– not one of them worshiped Yahweh. So when Yahweh decided that he was going to wipe all those who had failed to worship him from the face of the earth and replace them all with devoted followers, he obviously blew it.

Surely an omniscient God who knows absolutely everything about the behavior of his greatest creation– human beings– would have known how to prevent the descendants of Noah from worshiping any god other than him.

Modern archaeology asserts that the unification of Upper (i.e. Southern) and Lower (i.e. Northern) Egypt took place sometime between 3100 BCE and 3000 BCE. That’s at least 550 years before the flood would have taken place, according to the biblical chronology. Biblical apologists respond by claiming that all of modern archaeology is completely wrong.

The man named Nimrod was a great-grandson of Noah. As shown in the citation from Genesis 10 above Nimrod was described as the world’s first “mighty man”. But that couldn’t possibly be true. The bible actually lists all of the men who would have been alive at the time that Nimrod was founding his empires in Genesis 10. The main lines of descent are as follows:

Ham’s son Cush would have migrated south toward what is now Ethiopia
Ham’s son Egypt would have migrated to the Nile river valley
Ham’s son Put would have migrated toward what is now Libya
Ham’s son Canaan would have migrated to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea
Genesis 10:5 says that the sons of Japheth became the “coastland” people, presumably living on the coast of either the Mediterranean Sea or of the Red Sea
Genesis 10:30 says that the sons of Shem migrated toward the Jordan river valley

The only person who is specifically named in Genesis 10 as a descendant of Noah who migrated to Mesopotamia was Nimrod. So this “mighty man” Nimrod would have ruled over a population of just one family– his own.

The books of Matthew and Luke have genealogies of Jesus. These genealogies are at odds with each other. They have 16 names in common, but Luke lists 38 names that are nowhere to be found in Matthew’s list. And the lists are different in length for the period of time between King Solomon and Jesus. They differ by a total of 15 generations. That’s around 300 years.

Matthew says that there were 14 generations between Abraham and King David, 14 more between King David and the Babylonian exile, and 14 more between the exile and Jesus. But his own list actually has only 13 generations between Abraham and King David.

The genealogy that appears in the book of Luke extends back to the birth of Adam. But Luke’s list includes someone that is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament. Luke says that Aphraxad was the father of Cainan who was the father of Sala. But Genesis 11 says that Aphraxad was the father of Salah. And of the 40 names that Luke lists between King David and Joseph the “father” of Jesus only two are mentioned anywhere else in the bible.

Both the genealogies in Matthew and Luke trace the lineage of Jesus through Joseph. But if Mary was a virgin at the time she gave birth to Jesus then Joseph would have had no blood relationship to Jesus. Why was the lineage of Jesus not traced through Mary rather than Joseph?

These are some of the more obvious internal problems of the chronologies in the bible. There are many more external problems, including the following:

The oldest rocks of earth have been dated (by radioisotope dating) to about 4.2 billion years. That’s about 700,000 times older than the bible says the earth is old.
The oldest fossils found on earth have been dated to about 3.5 billion years old.
The Big Bang theory is a far better explanation for the observed current state of the universe than is any other hypothesis. It predicts the distribution of elements that should have been created– and the actual distribution fits the predicted value almost perfectly. It explains the existence of the Cosmic Background Radiation and the corresponding average temperature of the universe. And it accounts for the observation that the universe is expanding. The bible makes no such predictions.
There is evidence of the existence of human activity and settlements throughout the world going back long before 6,000 BCE. There is evidence of human activity in the Nile river valley going back more than 100,000 years.

Of course biblical apologists claim that all of the above evidences are false.

Written in 2019-06-30.