Note: This teaching was too long and needs trimmed
Genesis 4
13 Cain replied to the Lord, “My punishment is too great for me to bear! 14 You have banished me from the land and from your presence; you have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!”
15 The Lord replied, “No, for I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. 16 So Cain left the Lord’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
The Descendants of Cain
17 Cain had sexual relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain founded a city, which he named Enoch, after his son…
Where did Cain’s wife come from? See Gen 5:4 – “Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters” who must have migrated east, perhaps in an attempt to partially follow God’s command to fill the earth and multiply.
19 Lamech married two women. The first was named Adah, and the second was Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the first of those who raise livestock and live in tents. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal, the first of all who play the harp and flute. 22 Lamech’s other wife, Zillah, gave birth to a son named Tubal-cain. He became an expert in forging tools of bronze and iron. Tubal-cain had a sister named Naamah. 23 One day Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; listen to me, you wives of Lamech. I have killed a man who attacked me, a young man who wounded me.
24 If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times, then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times!”
[Music, tools, civilization. But also polygamy and violence.]
Thoughts on genealogies
- Not complete. Highlights. Could be read as, “He became the father of a family line that included or culminated in _______.”
- How old is civilized man?
- Hugh Ross: hominids “may have roamed Earth as long ago as 1.5 million years, but religious relics and altars date back only as far as twenty-four thousand years, as most, and art containing indisputable spiritual content just five thousand years.” (Ross, The Genesis Question, 110)
The Birth of Seth
25 Adam had sexual relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to another son. She named him Seth, for she said, “God has granted me another son in place of Abel, whom Cain killed.” 26 When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. At that time people first began to worship the Lord by name.
Two key lines in this part of Genesis – Seth and Abel
Chapter 5
The Descendants of Adam
1 This is the written account of the descendants of Adam. When God created human beings, he made them to be like himself…
3 When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of a son who was just like him—in his very image. He named his son Seth. 4 After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 5 Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.
Image of God is passed on to our kids.
Hugh Ross theories on long lives of ancient man: (The Genesis Question, p. 117-125)
- Refutes canopy theories on the grounds that they establish conditions unsuitable for life. Also, we can’t just say they thought a month was a year. Because how is a 6 year old having babies?
- Other ANE cultures also list long lives – even longer than the ones in our biblical record
- He lists 15 major factors limiting life spans today and focuses on three
- Radiation from the earth, like uranium, radium, etc
- Cosmic radiation from space
- The Vela supernova would have brought global cooling and damaged the ozone layer, 20,000-30,000 years ago
- someone who grew up near a radioactive plant meltdown. They would think it’s crazy that humans could live 100 years without defects and high rates of cancer
- Something related cell biology and an enzyme called “telomerase”
- These ages stay high until after the flood
One sad feature of these accounts is the refrain “and then he died,” something that never should have happened to humans.
8 Seth lived 912 years, and then he died…
11 Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died…
31 Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died.
32 By the time Noah was 500 years old, he was the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Chapter 6
Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. 2 The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.”
4 In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.
Who were these “Sons of God”?
- Some say kings who were just going around taking women by force.
- But these was actually some sort of occult spirituality. The sons of God were angels (Job 1:6, 2:2, Jude 1:6-7, 2 Peter 2:4-5)
Jude 6 – And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment.
- These angels took on physical form and slept with women or somehow possessed men in such a way that their offspring were different than normal humans
- Their offspring were over 8 feet tall – the Nephilim.
- The flood wiped them out but it looks like it happened on smaller scale after the flood. We’ll see more about these later in our OT study
5 The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. 7 And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.”
This act of judgment raises objections in many of our minds. When we look at the NT we see that Jesus and the NT authors agreed with it too:
Lk 17:27 – In those days, the people enjoyed banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat and the flood came and destroyed them all.
2 Peter 3:6 – By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
Q: How might a Christian respond to the objection that God would bring this kind of a judgment on the world?
Ross: “This story has more to do with rescue than with wrath. God saved 100 percent of the noncancerous tissue in the body of humanity.” (Genesis Question, 143)
8 But Noah found favor with the Lord.
9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God. 10 Noah was the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. 12 God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. 13 So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!
14 “Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. 15 Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16 Leave an 18-inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.
17 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. 18 But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
First occurrence of this term “covenant” in Scripture. More detail on this covenant in Genesis 9. God’s promise to Eve will pass through him.
19 Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. 20 Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. 21 And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.”
22 So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
He was faithful to God, building a massive ark on dry land.
One question that arises here is: how extensive was the flood?
- Evidence that a flood happened
- Archer points to Hindu, Chinese, Hawaiian, and Mexican legends and says: “All of these agree that all mankind was destroyed by a great flood (usually represented as worldwide) as a result of divine displeasure at human sin, and that a single man with his family or a very few friends survived the catastrophe by means of a ship or raft or large canoe of some sort.”[1]
- Charles Martin, Flood Legends, 2009:
Part of the appeal of the Flood account is its widespread popularity among ancient cultures. It is found on every continent (with the exception of Antarctica, of course), in many different countries, and across a variety of people groups.[2]
In the Fish Myth of the Mahabharata, Manu is instructed to take seven very specific people on board. While in many version the hero boards with his friends and family, Manu boards the vessel with seven relatively obscure people—the seven Rsis.[3]
Is it likely that three distinctly different people groups develop a story—whether by invention or misunderstanding—and put the exact same number of people on the vessel? It seems to ask for a greater stretch of the imagination to believe that hypothesis than it does to believe in an actual Deluge.[4]
In the Karina myth, the survivors are told to stock the Great Canoe with two of every animal and ‘a seed from every kind of plant.’[5]
The Hareskin tribe of North America tells of an old man who builds a raft and collects the drowning animals two by two as he floats past them. [6]
- Options
- Worldwide flood?
- Local flood?
- Still wiped out humanity, but all humans were concentrated in one particular part of the world.
- Takes “earth” to mean “land” in most cases
- Noah needs two of each animal to repopulate his own herds
- Doesn’t think there is room for all species on the ark, and wonders how penguins and koala bears and kangaroos made it on there
- Worldwide flood camp responds that these animals may have migrated and evolved too (there are penguins at the Columbus zoo outside in the summer)
- Gleason Archer argues that you can fit all the basic kinds of animals on the ark, which would have evolved into different species later with plenty of room for food[7]
- Also, how is there any freshwater lakes left?
- Oceans may have been a lot less salty then, and got saltier with all the rivers in the world dumping into them since then
- Either way it was a miracle, and we don’t want to make too big of a deal out of it.
- I lean toward the worldwide flood, but right now I’m looking into this issue in depth the most I ever have. I’ll try to present how both sides view it.
Chapter 7
The Flood Covers the Earth
1 When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. 2 Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. 3 Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. 4 Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”
5 So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth. 7 He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives. 8 With them were all the various kinds of animals—those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not—along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground. 9 They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth.
11 When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. 12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.
Some water came from under the earth too…
James Foley, Nature World News, 2014:
Large amounts of ocean water could be transported through deep-sea fault zones in volumes much greater than previously believed… The research supports the theory that there could be vast amounts of water buried deep beneath the Earth’s mantle… Based on their research, University of Liverpool seismologists suggest that over the age of the Earth, the Japan subduction zone alone could transport as much as three and a half times the water contained in all of Earth’s oceans to the mantle. Some of this water gets cycled back out of the mantle, but some gets trapped deep within it.[8]
13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives. 14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind. 15 Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes. 16 A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.
17 For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. 18 As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. 19 Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, 20 rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks.
Hugh Ross: “Kasha can be interpreted to mean that more than twenty feet of water stood, that is, remained, over the high hills or mountains; or it could mean that this quantity of water either ran over them as in a flash flood or fell upon them as rainfall… Any of the… scenarios would guarantee total destruction, no survivors.[9]
The word “mountain” can mean anything from a hill to Mt Everest. Clearly, Noah saw nothing but water.
Local flood theorists wonder where so much water came from to rise above Mount Everest. But if this is a miracle, and waters came out of the earth too we have to say that with God all things are possible.
21 All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. 22 Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. 23 God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat. 24 And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.
Chapter 8
The Flood Recedes
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. 2 The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. 3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, 4 exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
Not necessarily Mount Ararat. The mountains of Ararat
- These mountains cover a 100,000 square mile territory. [10] Apologist Richard Deem writes, “If the ark had come to rest on the top of Mount Ararat, this would be at 17,000 foot elevation. Olive trees (and every other tree) do not grow at 17,000 feet. In fact, you will not find olive trees growing much above 5,000 feet.” [11] Furthermore, a bird would not be equipped to fly at altitudes like this either to fetch the olive branch.
- Of course, atmospheric conditions may have been different back then. Some trees and plants can survive underwater (see New Orleans)
- People are always trying to find the ark on Mt Ararat, but surely they would have disassembled the ark and reused all of the wood for other stuff.
5 Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.
6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat 7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up. 8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. 11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back.
13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. 14 Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. 17 Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.”
18 So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. 19 And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. 21 And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. 22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.” [12]
Point out the New Covenant symbolism here. We already saw Jesus point to the judgment of the flood symbolizing the final judgment of God.
1 Pet 3:20-21
20 …the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Also 2 Pet 3:6-9
6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.[13]
[1] Archer, Gleason L. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Third Edition. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1998. 220.
[2] Martin, Charles. Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2009. 35.
[3] Martin, Charles. Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2009. 54.
[4] Martin, Charles. Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2009. 56.
[5] Martin, Charles. Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2009. 64.
[6] Martin, Charles. Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event. Green Forest, AR: Master, 2009. 67.
[7] Archer, Gleason L. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Third Edition. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1998. 221.
[8] James Foley. “Oceans Worth of Water Could be Trapped Beneath the Earth’s Mantle.” Nature World News. January, 2014.
[9] Ross, Hugh. The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1998. 145.
[10] Ross, Hugh. The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1998. 147.
[11] Rich Deem “The Genesis Flood: Why the Bible Says It Must Be Local.”
[12] Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2013), Ge 4:13–8:22.
[13] Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2013), 2 Pe 3:6–9.