Antediluvians
ANTEDILUVIANS
A general name for all mankind who lived before the flood, including the whole human race from the creation to the deluge. For the history of the Antediluvians, see Book of Genesis. Whiston’s Josephus, Cockburn’s Treatise on the Deluge, and article DELUGE.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
antediluvians
(Latin: ante, before; diluvium, flood)
The people who lived before the time of the Flood.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Antediluvians
(From Lat. ante=before, and diluvium=flood; people who lived before the Flood).
IN THE PENTATEUCH
From Adam to Noe the Bible enumerates ten patriarchs. A genealogical table of them is given (Genesis 5). Their names, lifetime, and age at which they begot their successors are systematically stated.
The modern theory of the composition of the Pentateuch assigns the chapter in which this table occurs to the documentary source commonly called the “Priestly Code”, or by abbreviation, P. (See PENTATEUCH.) In the narrative of this code the table of the ten patriarchs is said by critics to have followed immediately after the Hexahemeron of chapter i. The account of the Creation concluded or began, as they maintain, with the phrase: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 2:4). The list of the patriarchs begins: “This is the book of the generations of Adam”. The thread of the same narrative is said to be further continued in chapter vi, 9, by means of the same phrase: “These are the generations of Noe”. The intervening chapters, critics hold, belong to an older account of the primeval time.
Critics allege that among the names of the ten patriarchs there are six that occur also in the list of the descendants of Cain. The table of Cainites is given in chapter iv, verses 17-18. The six names, supposed to be the same in both registers, are Cain or Cainan, Henoch, Irad or Jared, Maviael or Malaleel, Mathusael or Mathusala, and Lamech. The different manner in which some of the names are spelled in the parallel list is held to be insignificant. As the table of Cainites in chapter iv is assumed by critics to be from an older document than that of the Adamites in chapter v, the inference was obvious that the names of the latter table were taken from the former. For this inference critics find a support in the meaning of the names Adam, Enos, and Cain or Cainan. The names Adam and Enos mean “man”; Cain or Cainan means “the one begotten” or “the son obtained” cf. iv, 1. Thus we would have the parallel Adam-Cain, Enos-Cainan, namely, man and his scion.
THE NUMBER TEN
In fixing upon the number ten as the number of patriarchs the author may have followed some ancient and perhaps widely spread tradition. The list of the ten patriarchs with their abnormally long lifetime resembles that of the first ten Babylonian kings as recorded by Berosus, Eusebius, Chron. Arm., I, i, t. XIX, col 107-108. According to Vigouroux, “Dictionnaire de la bible”, the tradition of ten ancient ancestors is found also with other races; e.g. among the Hindus, with their ten Pitris or forefathers, comprising Brahma and the nine Bramadikas; among the ancient Germans and Scandinavians, with their belief in the ten ancestors of Odin, etc. But it is equally possible that the number ten is simply due to a systematic method of computation. Thus the pro-historic age from Adam to Abraham was to comprehend twenty generations, ten from Adam to Noe, and ten from Sem to Thare. A similar systematic arrangement we have in the genealogical table of Christ in St. Matthew containing three times fourteen generations.
The following table contains the names of the patriarchs with their respective ages according to the Hebrew text, Septuagint, and Samaritan Bible; also the names of the reign of the ten Babylonian kings. The first number is the age at which the patriarch begot his successor, the second the remainder of his years, the third the total number of his years. The list of Babylonian kings is taken from Vigouroux (Dict. de la bible):
Adam: Hebrew: 130 + 800 = 930 Samaritan: 130 + 800 = 930 Chaldean: 230 + 700 = 930 King (Alorus): 10 sares (185 civil years; 36,000 astronomical years) Seth: Hebrew: 105 + 807 = 912 Samaritan: 105 + 807 = 912 Chaldean: 205 + 707 = 912 Babylonian king (Alaparus): 3 sares (55.5 civil; 10,800 astronomical) Enos: Hebrew: 90 + 815 = 905 Samaritan: 90 + 815 = 905 Chaldean: 190 + 715 = 905 Babylonian king (Almelon): 13 sares (240.5 civil; 46,800 astronomical) Cainan: Hebrew: 70 + 840 = 910 Samaritan: 70 + 840 = 910 Chaldean: 170 + 740 = 910 Babylonian king (Ammenon): 12 sares (222 civil; 43,200 astronomical) Malaleel: Hebrew: 65 + 830 = 895 Samaritan: 65 + 830 = 895 Chaldean: 165 + 730 = 895 Babylonian king (Amegalarus): 18 sares (333 civil; 64,800 astronomical) Jared: Hebrew: 162 + 800 = 962 Samaritan: 62 + 785 = 847 Chaldean: 162 + 800 = 962 Babylonian king (Daonus): 10 sares (185 civil; 36,000 astronomical) Henoch: Hebrew: 65 + 300 = 365 Samaritan: 65 + 300 = 365 Chaldean: 165 + 200 = 365 Babylonian king (Edoranchus): 18 sares (333 civil; 64,800 astronomical) Mathusala: Hebrew: 187 + 782 = 969 Samaritan: 67 + 653 = 720 Chaldean: 167 + 802 = 969 Babylonian king (Amempsinus): 10 sares (185 civil; 36,000 astronomical) Lamech: Hebrew: 182 + 595 = 777 Samaritan: 53 + 600 = 653 Chaldean: 188 + 565 = 753 Babylonian king (Otiartes): 8 sares (148 civil; 28,800 astronomical) Noe: Hebrew: 500 (before Sem’s birth) + 100 (from Sem to the Flood) Samaritan: 500 + 100 Chaldean: 500 + 100 Babylonian king (Xisuthrus): 18 sares (333 civil years; 64,800 astronomical years) Total: Hebrew: 1,656 years to the flood Samaritan: 1,307 years to the flood Chaldean: 2,242 years to the flood Babylonian kings: 120 sares (12,220 civil years; 432,000 astronomical years)
As the table shows, the original text and its two versions differ greatly in fixing the number of years from Adam to the Flood. In the Hebrew Bible the number is 1,656, in the Samaritan, 1,307; in the Septuagint, 2,242. On a closer examination it will be found that the difference between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint is chiefly occasioned by the systematic addition of 100 years which the Septuagint has made to the age of six patriarchs at the birth of their successors. The Samaritan on the contrary has in the case of three patriarchs deducted 100 years. No reliable clue that we know of has as yet been found for deciding which of the computations is the original. Presumption is on the side of the one in the Hebrew text being the oldest text of the three. On the other hand, the Samaritan has the advantage that the lifetime of the three patriarchs Jared, Methusala, and Lamech has been shortened, so that there is a gradual decrease in the number of years of each patriarch from Adam to Noe.
In the table of the ten Babylonian kings the length of their reign is calculated by means of sares. Berosus counts 120 sares. The sare has an astronomical value of 3,600 years and a civil value of eighteen and one-half years (Vigouroux, Dict. de la bible). According to the first estimation of the sare, the total number of years for the ten kings would be 432,000, according to the second 2,220. The efforts made to bring the sares or 432,000 years of the Babylonian kings, into harmony with the 1,656 years of the patriarchs (e.g. by equating seven Hebrew days with five Chaldean years) have yielded no satisfactory result.
LONGEVITY OF THE PATRIARCHS
Various theories have been advanced for explaining the abnormally long lifetime of the patriarchs. They may be classified into three groups:
(1) The Literal and Historical Interpretation
The genealogical table is accepted as a record of the past and as possessing the ordinary certainty of history. The ten patriarchs are held actually to have lived the long life assigned to them. The object which God intended by this extraordinary longevity is said to have been the increase of men on earth and the preservation of ancient tradition. In answer to the objection that the system of the human body does not permit of so long a lifetime, it is argued that a special providence of God had favoured the ancients with a peculiar organization and constitution of body, and had provided for them a special kind of food and climate. Thus already Josephus: “Let no one make the shortness of our lives at present an argument that neither the Patriarchs attained so long a duration of life; for those ancients were beloved of God and made by God himself; and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life; and besides God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, etc.”
Furthermore in corroboration of the Biblical account he names as witnesses the historians Manetho the Egyptian, Berosus the Chaldean, Mochus, Hesitaeus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and others, who all bore testimony to the longevity of primeval man. Ant., I, III, 9.
(2) The Metaphorical Interpretation
The names of the ten patriarchs signify ten dynasties or tribes. Each dynasty might have comprised a succession of several rulers. The explanation is ingenious. It may be doubted, however, whether this was the meaning of the narrator. By naming the patriarchs he seems to have meant one individual. For he states the age at which the patriarch begot the son who was to succeed him. Others argue that the Hebrew word, Shanah, in the list of the ten patriarchs signifies the duration not of a year, but of a month. But in that case Enos begot his successor when he was eight years of age, and Malaleel and Henoch begot theirs when they were five.
Others again, but without sufficient ground, say that the year is to be taken as a year of three months from Adam unto Abraham, of eight months unto Joseph, and only after him are we to allow for it the natural duration.
(3) The Mythical Interpretation
We have already pointed out that according to the theory of the documentary composition of the Pentateuch, chapter v belongs to the original history named by the critics the “Priestly Code”. If the genealogical dates recorded in that narrative are examined, a gradual and systematic shortening of man’s lifetime is distinctly noticeable. From Adam to Noe the duration of man’s life ranges from 500 to 1,000 years. From Sem to Thare it ranges from 200 to 600 (xi, 10-32). From Abraham to Moses, from 100 to 200. Abraham lived 175 years; Isaac, 180; Jacob, 147 (Gen.. xxxv, 28; xxv, 7; xlvii, 28). After that the average human life is 70 or 80 years. “And the days of our years in them are three score and ten years. But if in the strong they be fourscore years” (Psalm 89:10). Critics, moreover, hold as we have seen, that according to the original structure of the “Priestly Code” the genealogical table in chapter v immediately followed the account of the Creation in chapter i. If so, the narrative of this Code contained no mention of paradise, nor of man’s immortality, fall, and punishment. On the other hand it may have been the opinion of the author of this Code that the smooth and even course of man’s life, the result of his continued state of innocence, contributed to the possibility of his attaining a preternaturally old age. But when this primordial innocence was lost the duration of man’s life was shortened. Thus the longevity of the patriarchs would agree with the notion of the primeval oetas aurea, a fabulous period of innocence and happiness.
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Delitzsch, Dillman, Commentaries on Genesis (Edinburgh, 1897). and by Hummelauer (Paris, 1895); Schanz, Das Alter des Menschengeschlechts nach der heiligen Schrift, der Profangesehichte und der Vorgeschichte, in Biblische Studien, I, No. 2 (Freiburg, 1895).
C. VAN DEN BIESEN Transcribed by Nicolette Ormsbee
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Antediluvians
people who lived before the Deluge (q.v.), which occurred A.M. 1657. SEE AGE. All our authentic information respecting this long and interesting period is contained in forty-nine verses of Genesis (4:16; 6:8), more than half of which are occupied with a list of names and ages, invaluable for chronology, but conveying no particulars regarding the primeval state of man. The information thus afforded, although so limited in extent, is, however, eminently suggestive (see Clarkson, Antediluvian Researches, Lond. 1836; Boucher d. Perthes, L’Homme Antedilucien, Par. 1860; Stein, De moribus ante diluvium, Wittenb. 1783; Burton, World before the Flood, Lond. 1844; Redslob, De Antediluvianis, Hamb. 1847; Willesch, De philosophia antediluvianorum, Leipz. 1717; Jour. Sac. Lit. July, 1862, p. 376 sq.). Some additional information, though less direct, may be safely deduced from the history of Noah and the first men after the Deluge; for it is very evident that society did not begin afresh after that event, but that, through Noah and his sons, the new families of men were in a condition to inherit, and did inherit, such sciences and arts as existed before the Flood. This enables us to understand how settled and civilized communities were established, and large and magnificent works undertaken within a few centuries after the Deluge.
The scriptural notices show, SEE ADAM, that the father of men was something more than the noble savage, or rather the grown-up infant, which some have represented him. He was an instructed man; and the immediate descendants of a man so instructed could not be an ignorant or uncultivated people. It is not necessary, indeed, to suppose that they possessed at first more cultivation than they required; and for a good while they did not stand in need of that which results from or is connected with the settlement of men in organized communities. They probably had this before the Deluge, and at first were possessed of whatever knowledge or civilization their agricultural and pastoral pursuits required. Such were their pursuits from the first; for it is remarkable that of the strictly savage or hunting condition of life there is not the slightest trace before the Deluge. After that event, Nimrod, although a hunter (Gen 10:9), was not a savage, and did not belong to hunting tribes of men. In fact, barbarism is not discoverable before the confusion of tongues, and was, in all likelihood, a degeneracy from a state of cultivation, eventually produced in particular communities by that great social convulsion. At least, that a degree of cultivation was the primitive condition of man, from which savage life in particular quarters was a degeneracy, and that he has not, as too generally has been supposed, worked himself up from an original savage state to his present position, has been powerfully argued by Dr. Philip Lindsley (Am. Bib. Repos. 4, 277-298; 6:127), and is strongly corroborated by the conclusions of modern ethnographical research; from which we learn that, while it is easy for men to degenerate into savages, no example has been found of savages rising into civilization but by an impulse from without administered by a more civilized people; and that, even with such impulse, the vis inertiae of established habits is with difficulty overcome. The aboriginal traditions of all civilized nations describe them as receiving their civilization from without generally through the instrumentality of foreign colonists: and history affords no example of a case parallel to that which must have occurred if the primitive races of men, being originally savage, had civilized themselves.
All that was peculiar in the circumstances of the antediluvian period was eminently favorable to civilization. The longevity of the earlier seventeen or twenty centuries of human existence is a theme containing many problems. It may be here referred to for the purpose of indicating the advantages which must necessarily have therefrom accrued to the mechanical arts. In pottery, mining, metallurgy, clothmaking, the applications of heat and mixtures, etc., it is universally known that there is a tact of manipulation which no instruction can teach, which the possessor cannot even describe, yet which renders him powerful and unfailing, within his narrow range, to a degree almost incredible; and when he has reached his limit of life he is confident that, had he another sixty or seventy years to draw upon, he could carry his art to a perfection hitherto unknown. Something like this must have been acquired by the antediluvians; and the paucity of objects within their grasp would increase the precision and success within the range. SEE LONGEVITY.
By reason of their length of life the antediluvians had also more encouragement in protracted undertakings, and stronger inducements to the erection of superior, more costly, more durable, and more capacious edifices and monuments, public and private, than exist at present. They might reasonably calculate on reaping the benefit of their labor and expenditure. The earth itself was probably more equally fertile, and its climate more uniformly healthful and more auspicious to longevity, and consequently to every kind of mental and corporeal exertion and enterprise, than has been the case since the great convulsion which took place at the Deluge.
But probably the greatest advantage enjoyed by the antediluvians, and which must have been in the highest degree favorable to their advancement in the arts of life, was the uniformity of language. Nothing could have tended more powerfully to maintain, equalize, and promote whatever advantages were enjoyed, and to prevent any portion of the human race from degenerating into savage life. SEE CONFUSION OF TONGUES.
The opinion that the old world was acquainted with astronomy (q.v.) is chiefly founded on the ages of Seth and his descendants being particularly set down (Gen 5:6 sq), and the precise year, month, and day being stated in which Noah and his family, etc., entered the ark, and made their egress from it (Gen 7:11; Gen 8:13). The distinctions of day and night, and the lunar month, were of course observed; and the thirteenth rotation of the moon, compared with the sun’s return to his primary position in theheavens, and the effects produced on the earth by his return, would point out the year. SEE MONTH. The variation between the rotations of the moon and sun easily became discoverable from the difference which in a very few years would be exhibited in the seasons; and hence it may be supposed that, although the calculations of time might be by lunar months or revolutions, yet the return of vegetation would dictate the solar year. SEE YEAR. The longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs, and the simplicity of their employments, favor this conjecture, which receives additional strength from the fact that the Hebrew for year, , implies an iteration, a return to the same point, a repetition (Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 1448); and it is also remarkable that the Indians, Chinese, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and other nations, all deduce their origin from personages said to be versed in astronomy. SEE TIME. The knowledge of zoology (q.v.) which Adam possessed was doubtless imparted to his children; and we find that Noah was so minutely informed on the subject as to distinguish between clean and unclean beasts, and that his instructions extended to birds of every kind (Gen 7:2-4). A knowledge of some essential principles in botany (q.v.) is shown by the fact that Adam knew how to distinguish seed-bearing herb and tree in which is a seed-bearing fruit, with every green herb (Gen 1:29-30). The trees of life and of knowledge are the only ones mentioned before the Fall; but in the history of Noah the vine, the olive, and the wood of which the ark was made (Gen 6:14; Gen 8:11; Gen 9:20) are spoken of in such a manner as clearly to intimate a knowledge of their qualities. With mineralogy (q.v.) the antediluvians were at least so far acquainted as to distinguish metals; and in the description of the garden of Eden gold and precious stones are noticed (Gen 2:12).
That the antediluvians were acquainted with music (q.v.) is certain; for it is expressly said that Jubal (while Adam was still alive) became the father of those who handle the , kinnor, and the , ug, ab (Gen 4:21). The former, SEE HARP, was evidently a stringed instrument resembling a lyre; and the latter, SEE LYRE, was without doubt the Pandeean pipe, composed of reeds of different lengths joined together. This clearly intimates considerable progress in the science; for it is not probable that the art of playing on wind and on stringed instruments was discovered at the same time. We may rather suppose that the principles of harmony, having been discovered in the one, were by analogy transferred to the other; and that Jubal, by repeated efforts, became the first performer on the harp and the pipe. SEE ART.
Our materials are too scanty to allow us to affirm that the antediluvians possessed the means of communicating their ideas by writing (q.v.) or by hieroglyphics, although tradition, and a hint or two in the Scriptures, might support the assertion. With respect to poetry (q.v.), the story of Lamech and his wives (Gen 4:19-24) is evidently in verse, and is most probably the oldest specimen of Hebrew poetry extant; but whether it was written before or after the Flood is uncertain, although the probability is that it is one of those previously-existing documents which Moses transcribed into his writing. With regard to architecture (q.v.), it is a singular and important fact that Cain, when he was driven from his first abode, built a city in the land to which he went, and called it Enoch, after his son. This shows that the descendants of Adam lived in houses and towns from the first, and consequently affords another confirmation of the argument for the original cultivation of the human family. What this city was is not mentioned, except in the term itself; and as that term is in the early Scriptures applied to almost every collection of human habitations, we need not attach any very exalted ideas to it in this instance. But if we take into view the requisites necessary to enable Noah to erect so stupendous a fabric as the ark (q.v.) must have been, it will not be difficult to conceive that the art of building had reached considerable advancement before the Deluge; nor can one reflect on the building of Babel without a conviction that it must have been through the great patriarchs who lived in the old world that so much knowledge was obtained as to lead to the attempt of erecting a fabric whose summit was intended to reach the clouds. It is not likely that the builders would, by their own intuitive genius, be equal to a task which they certainly were not inspired by Heaven to execute.
The metallurgy (q.v.) of the antediluvians appears to have originated with the line of Cain (Gen 4:22), being carried to a high degree of perfection, so far as forging and tempering are concerned, by Tubal-Cain (q.v.). Respecting agriculture (q.v.), which was evidently the first employment of Adam (Gen 2:15; Gen 3:17-18), and, afterward, at first of Cain (Gen 4:2), we shall only add a reference to the case of Noah, who, immediately after the Flood, became a husbandman, and planted a vineyard. He also knew the method of fermenting the juice of the grape; for it is said he drank of the wine, which produced inebriation (Gen 9:20-21). This knowledge he doubtless obtained from his progenitors anterior to the destruction of the old world.
Pasturage (q.v.) appears to have been coeval with husbandry. Abel was a keeper of sheep, while his brother was a tiller of the ground (Gen 4:2); but there is no necessity for supposing that Cain’s husbandry excluded the care of cattle. The class of tentd-welling pastors that is, of those who live in tents that they may move with their flocks and herds from one pasture-ground to another did not originate till comparatively late after the Fall; for Jabal, the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, is said to have been the father or founder of that mode of life (Gen 4:20). It is doubtful whether the manufacture of cloth is involved in the mention of tents, seeing that excellent tent-coverings are even at this day made of skins; and we know that skins were the first articles of clothing used by fallen man (Gen 3:21). The same doubt applies to the garment with which the sons of Noah covered their inebriated father (Gen 9:23). But, upon the whole, there can be little doubt that, in the course of so long a period, the art of manufacturing cloths of hair and wool, if not of linen or cotton, had been acquired. SEE WEAVING. It is impossible to speak with any decision respecting the form or forms of government which prevailed before the Deluge. The slight intimations to be found on the subject seem to favor the notion that the particular governments were patriarchal, subject to a general theocratical control, God himself manifestly interfering to uphold the good and check the wicked. The right of property was recognised, for Abel and Jabal possessed flocks, and Cain built a city. As ordinances of religion, sacrifices certainly existed (Gen 4:4), and some think that the Sabbath was observed; while some interpret the words, Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord (Gen 4:26), to signify that public worship then began to be practiced. From Noah’s familiarity with the distinction of clean and unclean beasts (Gen 7:2), it would seem that the Levitical rules on this subject were by no means new when laid down in the code of Moses. SEE WORSHIP.
Marriage (q.v.), and all the relations springing from it, existed from the beginning (Gen 2:23-25); and, although polygamy was known among the antediluvians (Gen 4:19), it was most probably unlawful; for it must have been obvious that, if more than one wife had been necessary for a man, the Lord would not have confined the first man to one woman. The marriage of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain appears to have been prohibited, since the consequence of it was that universal depravity in the family of Seth so forcibly expressed in this short passage, All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth (Gen 7:11). This sin, described Orientally as an intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men (Gen 6:2), appears to have been in its results one of the grand causes of the Deluge; for if the family of Seth had remained pure and obedient to God, he would doubtless have spared the world for their sake, as he would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah had ten righteous men been found there, and as he would have spared his own people, the Jews, had they not corrupted themselves by intermarriages with the heathen. Even the longevity of the antediluvians may have contributed to this ruinous result. Vastly more time was upon their hands than was needful for clearing woodlands, draining swamps, and other laborious and tedious processes, in addition to their ordinary agriculture and care of cattie; so that the temptations to idleness were likely to be very strong; and the next step would be to licentious habits and selfish violence. The ample leisure possessed by the children of Adam might have been employed for many excellent purposes of social life and religious obedience, and undoubtedly it was so employed by many; but to the larger part it became a snare and the occasion of temptations, so that the wickedness of man became great, the earth was corrupt before God, and was filled with violence (Crit. Bibl. 4, 14-20; see also Ant. U. Hist. 1, 142-201). SEE DELUGE.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Antediluvians
an-te-di-luvi-ans.
1. Chronology Uncertain
According to the ordinary interpretation of the genealogical tables in Gen 5 the lives of the antediluvians were prolonged to an extreme old age, Methuselah attaining that of 969 years. But before accepting these figures as a basis of interpretation it is important to observe that the Hebrew, the Samaritan and the Septuagint texts differ so radically in their sums that probably little confidence can be placed in any of them. The Septuagint adds 100 years to the age of six of the antediluvian patriarchs at the birth of their eldest sons. This, taken with the great uncertainty connected with the transmission of numbers by the Hebrew method of notation, makes it unwise to base important conclusions upon the data accessible. The most probable interpretation of the genealogical table in Gen 5 is that given by the late Professor William Henry Green, who maintains that it is not Intended to give chronology, and does not give it, but only indicates the line of descent, as where (1Ch 26:24) we read that Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler over the treasures; whereas, while Gershom was the immediate son of Moses, Shebuel was separated from Gershom by several generations. According to the interpretation of Professor Green all that we can certainly infer from the statement in Hebrew that Adam was 130 years old when he begat Seth, is that at that age the line branched off which culminated in Seth, it being permitted, according to Hebrew usage, to interpolate as many intermediate generations as other evidence may compel.
2. Meaning of Genealogies
As in the genealogies of Christ in the Gospels, the object of the tables in Genesis is evidently not to give chronology, but the line of descent. This conclusion is supported by the fact that no use is made afterward of the chronology, whereas the line of descent is repeatedly emphasized. This method of interpretation allows all the elasticity to prehistoric chronology that any archaeologist may require. Some will get further relief from the apparent incredibility of the figures by the Interpretation of Professor A. Winchell, and T. P. Crawford (Winchell, Pre-adamites, 449ff) that the first number gives the age of actual life of the individual while the second gives that of the ascendancy of his family, the name being that of dynasties, like Caesar or Pharaoh.
3. The Nephilim
The nephlm (giants) and the mighty men born of the sons of God and the daughters of men (Gen 6:4, Gen 6:5) are according to the best interpretation giants in wickedness, being the fruit of intermarriage between the descendants of Seth (sons of God who called on the name of Yahweh, Gen 4:26), and the daughters of men. The idea that sons of God refers to angels or demigods has no support in Scripture. On this familiar designation of the worshippers of the true God see Exo 4:22; Deu 14:1; 32, repeatedly; Isa 1:2; Isa 43:6; Isa 45:11; Hos 1:10; Hos 11:1. Intermarriage with depraved races such as is here intimated produced the results which were guarded against in the Mosaic law prohibiting marriages with the surrounding idolatrous nations. The word Nephilim in Gen 6:4 occurs again only in Num 13:33 (the King James Version giants). But the word is more probably a descriptive term than the name of a race. In the older Greek versions it is translated violent men.
4. The Ice Age
The antediluvians are, with great probability, identified by some geologists (Sir William Dawson, e.g.) with glacial or paleolithic man, whose implements and remains are found buried beneath the deposits of glacial floods in northern France, southern England, southern Russia, and in the valleys of the Delaware, Ohio and Missouri rivers in America. The remains of paleolithic men reveal only conditions of extreme degradation and savagery, in which violence reigned. The sparse population which was spread over the northern hemisphere during the closing floods of the Glacial period lived in caves of the earth, and contended with a strange variety of gigantic animals which became extinct at the same time with their human contemporaries. See DELUGE.
Literature
Green, Primeval Chronology, Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1890; Dawson, Modern Science in Bible Lands; B. B. Warfield, On the Antiquity and the Unity of the Human Race, Princeton Theol. Review, January, 1911; Winchell, Pre-adamites; Wright, Ice Age in North America, 5th ed.; Man and the Glacial Period, and Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Antediluvians
Antediluvians, the name given collectively to the people who lived before the Deluge. The interval from the Creation to that event is not less, even according to the Hebrew text, than 1657 years, being not more than 691 years shorter than that between the Deluge and the birth of Christ, and only 167 years less than from the birth of Christ to the present time, and equal to about two-sevenths of the whole period from the Creation. By the Samaritan and Septuagint texts (as adjusted by Hales) a much greater duration is assigned to the antediluvian periodnamely, 2256years, which nearly equals the Hebrew interval from the Deluge to the birth of Christ, and much exceeds the interval from the birth of Christ to the present time.
In the article ‘Adam’ it has been shown that the father of men was something more than ‘the noble savage,’ or rather the grown-up infant, which some have represented him. He was an instructed manand the immediate descendants of a man so instructed could not be an ignorant or uncultivated people. Their pursuits from the first were agricultural and pastoral; for it is remarkable that of the strictly savage or hunting condition of life there is not the slightest trace before the Deluge. In fact, savagism is not discoverable before the Confusion of Tongues, and was in all likelihood a degeneracy from a state of cultivation, eventually produced in particular communities by that great social convulsion. All that was peculiar in the circumstances of the antediluvian period was eminently favorable to civilization.
By reason of their length of life, the antediluvians had ample opportunities of acquiring the highest skill in the mechanical arts. They had also more encouragement in protracted undertakings, and stronger inducements to the erection of superior, more costly, more durable, and more capacious edifices and monuments public and private, than exist at present. They might reasonably calculate on reaping the benefit of their labor and expenditure. The earth itself was probably more equally fertile, and its climate more uniformly healthful, and more auspicious to longevity, and consequently to every kind of mental and corporeal exertion and enterprise, than has been the case since the great convulsion which took place at the Deluge.
But probably the greatest advantage enjoyed by the antediluvians, and which must have been in the highest degree favorable to their advancement in the arts of life, was the uniformity of language. Nothing could have tended more powerfully to maintain, equalize, and promote whatever advantages were enjoyed, and to prevent any portion of the human race from degenerating into savage life.
The opinion that the old world was acquainted with astronomy, is chiefly founded on the ages of Seth and his descendants being particularly set down (Gen 5:6, sqq.), and the precise year, month, and day being stated in which Noah and his family, etc. entered the ark, and made their egress from it (Gen 7:11; Gen 8:13). The knowledge of zoology, which Adam possessed, was doubtless imparted to his children; and we find that Noah was so minutely informed on the subject as to distinguish between clean and unclean beasts, and that his instructions extended to birds of every kind (Gen 7:2-4). A knowledge of some essential principles in botany is shown by the fact that Adam knew how to distinguish ‘seed-bearing herb’ and ‘tree in which is a seed-bearing fruit,’ with ‘every green herb’ (Gen 1:29-30). With mineralogy the antediluvians were at least so far acquainted as to distinguish metals; and in the description of the garden of Eden gold and precious stones are noticed (Gen 2:12). That the antediluvians were acquainted with music is certain; for it is expressly said that Jubal (while Adam was still alive) became ‘the father of those who handle the kinnur and hugab’ (Gen 4:21). The kinnur was evidently a stringed instrument resembling a lyre; and the hugab was without doubt the pandean pipe, composed of reeds of different lengths joined together. This clearly intimates considerable progress in the science.
Our materials are too scanty to allow us to affirm that the antediluvians possessed the means of communicating their ideas by writing or by hieroglyphics, although tradition, and a hint or two in the Scriptures, might support the assertion. With regard to architecture, it is a singular and important fact that Cain, when he was driven from his first abode, built a city in the land to which he went, and called it Enoch, after his son. This shows that the descendants of Adam lived in houses and towns from the first, and consequently affords another confirmation of the argument for the original cultivation of the human family. The metallurgy of the antediluvians has been noticed in ‘Adam:’ and to what is there said of agriculture we shall only add a reference to the case of Noah, who, immediately after the Flood, became a husbandman, and planted a vineyard. He also knew the method of fermenting the juice of the grape; for it is said he drank of the wine, which produced inebriation (Gen 9:20-21). This knowledge he doubtless obtained from his progenitors anterior to the destruction of the old world.
Pasturage appears to have been coeval with husbandry. Abel was a keeper of sheep, while his brother was a tiller of the ground (Gen 4:2); but there is no necessity for supposing that Cain’s husbandry excluded the care of cattle. The class of tent-dwelling pastors that is, of those who live in tents that they may move with their flocks and herds from one pasture-ground to anotherdid not originate till comparatively late after the Fall; for Jabal, the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, is said to have been the ‘father’ or founder of that mode of life (Gen 4:20).
It is impossible to speak with any decision respecting the form or forms of government which prevailed before the Deluge. The slight intimations to be found on the subject seem to favor the notion that the particular governments were patriarchal, subject to a general theocratic control. The right of property was recognized, for Abel and Jabal possessed flocks, and Cain built a city. From Noah’s familiarity with the distinction of clean and unclean beasts (Gen 7:2), it would seem that the Levitical rules on this subject were by no means new when laid down in the code of Moses.
Marriage, and all the relations springing from it, existed from the beginning (Gen 2:23-25); and although polygamy was known among the antediluvians (Gen 4:19), it was most probably unlawful; for it must have been obvious that, if more than one wife had been necessary for a man, the Lord would not have confined the first man to one woman. The marriage of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain appears to have been prohibited, since the consequence of it was that universal depravity in the family of Seth so forcibly expressed in this short passage, ‘All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth’ (Gen 6:12).
It is probable that even the longevity of the antediluvians may have contributed to the general corruption of manners. As there was probably a good deal of time upon their hands, the temptations to idleness were likely to be very strong; and the next step would be to licentious habits and selfish violence. The ample leisure possessed by the children of Adam might have been employed for many excellent purposes of social life and religious obedience, and undoubtedly it was so employed by many; but to the larger part it became a snare and the occasion of temptations, so that ‘the wickedness of man became great, the earth was corrupt before God, and was filled with violence.’
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Antediluvians
Worship God
Gen 4:3-4; Gen 4:26
Occupations of
Gen 4:2-3; Gen 4:20-22
Arts of
Gen 4:2-3; Gen 4:20-22; Gen 6:14-22
Enoch prophesies to
Jud 1:14-15
Noah preaches to
Heb 11:7; 1Pe 3:18-20; 2Pe 2:5
Wickedness of
Gen 6:5-7
Destruction of
Gen 7:1; Gen 7:21-23; Job 22:15-17; Mat 24:37-39; Luk 17:26-27; 2Pe 2:5 Flood; Longevity; Giants