Although there are two to five solar eclipses visible from some place on Earth in any given year, the total solar eclipse predicted for August 21, 2017 has attracted more attention than any eclipse in recent memory. During this event, the moon’s umbra (complete shadow), first falling on the Pacific Ocean, will make landfall in Oregon and then traverse the North American continent before darkening the ocean off South Carolina one and one-half hours later. During this time, virtually all of North America will be partially darkened by the penumbra (partial shadow) of the eclipse.

Due to the great international attention devoted to this eclipse, there has been the expected spate of unreasonable speculations about its being an end-time event. Without advocating any such speculations, we at ABR have thought that the subject of eclipses does have some relevance to events in the Bible. This was the subject of an article by ABR Associate Rodger Young in the Spring 2013 issue of Bible and Spade, which is reproduced below.

How Lunar and Solar Eclipses Shed Light on Biblical Events

In the closing days of his life, Herod the Great was presented with a crisis called the golden eagle incident. Herod had placed a golden eagle over the entrance to the Temple. Although he professed that it was an offering dedicated to the Lord, it was regarded as a desecration of the Temple by two rabbis, Matthias and Judas, who provoked a group of more than 40 individuals into pulling down the eagle. Herod’s soldiers captured and executed many of the participants; Matthias and Judas were burned alive. After relating this sordid incident, Josephus comments that the night after Matthias and Judas were executed by burning, there was an eclipse of the moon (Antiquities 17.6.2-4/17.149-167).

This is the only reference to a lunar eclipse in all the writings of Josephus. Perhaps a modern historian would not have mentioned it, judging that an astronomical event like an eclipse is independent of the activities of man, unless it preceded some important occasion such as a battle and so influenced a decision such as whether or not to go to war. In the ancient world, however, an eclipse was regarded as an omen or portent whenever it happened. For Josephus, the eclipse in the night after Herod put to death the two protesters was a sign of displeasure from God. This is shown by the fact that Josephus describes, immediately after the mention of the eclipse, Herod’s physical suffering, a suffering from which he could find no relief until his death at some time between the eclipse and Passover. In the Antiquities passage, the eclipse and Herod’s torment signified the same thing: God’s solemn judgment on Herod after he put to death individuals more righteous than himself.

Jonah and the Bur-Sagale Eclipse

Another famous eclipse, this time of the sun, may have played a part in the account of Jonah and the Ninevites. The time of Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh can only be estimated very generally from the Bible. Second Kings 14:25 says that Jeroboam II, king of Israel, restored the northern and eastern borders of Israel according to the word of the Lord spoken by the prophet Jonah, son of Amittai. Jeroboam II began a coregency with his father Jehoash in 793/92 BC and reigned alone from 782/81 to late summer or early fall of 753 (Thiele 1983: 116; McFall 1991: 45; Young 2005: 245). Assuming that Jonah’s prophecy of restoration came early in the reign of Jeroboam, Jonah’s ministry would have been in the first half of the eighth century BC, i.e. from about 793 to 750 BC. During this time the Assyrian Eponym Canon records an eclipse of the sun that occurred in the eponym of Bur-Sagale, in the month of Simanu. Modern astronomical calculations date this eclipse to June 15, 763 BC, and show it was a total eclipse as it passed near Nineveh. For historians, the importance of this eclipse is that it provided an absolute date that allowed assigning BC years to the yearly eponyms of the Assyrian Eponym Canon (AEC). The accuracy of the AEC dates was later confirmed when new inscriptions were found, and also when compared to the data derived from Ptolemy’s Canon for the century for which the Canon overlaps with the AEC, 747 to 648 BC (Thiele 1983: 71).

Could the Bur-Sagale eclipse be part of the reason why Jonah, when he finally got to Nineveh, found a city that was serious about repentance? This has been suggested by various writers, and if true it would suggest that Jonah’s trip to Nineveh took place during the reign of Ashur-Dan III, who reigned from 773 to 755 BC. But the eclipse was not the only calamity during Ashur-Dan’s reign. The AEC recounts a plague in 765, the eclipse and a revolt in the city of Ashur in 763, a revolt in Ashur again in 762, a revolt in Arrapha in 761 and 760, and a plague plus a revolt in the city of Guzana in 759. The year 758 was marked by a campaign against Guzana and then “peace in the land,” after which the king remained “in the land” for the following two years. Although there were military campaigns in 755, 754, 749, and 748, the AEC does not list any misfortune until the city of Calah revolted in 746 BC, which was the ninth year of Ashur-Dan’s brother and successor, Ashur-Nirari V. The Assyrians regarded plagues and eclipses as divine signs of judgment for the whole land (Wiseman 1979: 44). The plague of 765, followed by a revolt and eclipse in 763 and then revolts in the following four years would only confirm in the mind of the Assyrians that they were under divine displeasure. It is then appealing to think that the “year of peace” in 758 and the lack of rebellions and plagues in the following 11 years were a consequence of God’s mercy because of the repentance of the nation. If so, this would date Jonah’s appearance at Nineveh to 759 or 758 BC.

The New Testament: When Did Herod the Great Die?

Such a correlation of Jonah’s ministry with the Bur-Sagale eclipse and other events in Assyrian history is speculative. In contrast, the usefulness of astronomy in determining the chronology of two important New Testament events is now on a firm footing. The first of these is the date of Herod’s death, for which the lunar eclipse on the night after the burning of Matthias and Judas plays a decisive role. For many years the prevailing opinion was that the eclipse mentioned by Josephus was the one that modern astronomical calculations date to the 13th of March, 4 BC. However, in 1880, F. Riess stated that Herod did not die in 4 BC, “but soon after the eclipse in 1 BC, because the other data, namely the numerous events that took place between the eclipse and the Passover, could not be squeezed into the four weeks available in 4 B.C.” (Filmer 1966: 284). There were only 29 days between the eclipse of March 13, 4 BC and Passover that year, insufficient for the many activities that Josephus relates happened during that time, whereas there were an adequate 89 days between the eclipse of January 10, 1 BC and Passover that year. In addition only about one-fourth of the moon was fully eclipsed in 4 BC, whereas in 1 BC the eclipse was total. W.E. Filmer, writing in 1966, also corrected the notion that Herod died in 4 BC by showing that this date arose because historians did not realize that Herod’s sons back-dated their reigns to 4 BC. Herod had assigned them to various posts at that time, although they did not begin their independent reigns until 1 BC when Herod died. Filmer’s ideas were accepted in Jack Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology (1998: 298-301), and have been expanded and defended by Andrew Steinmann (2009; 2011: 219-54). Steinmann also discusses new research on the Quirinius Census (Luke 2:1,2) that agrees with the 1 BC date for Herod’s death. These more recent studies are consistent with the writings of the majority of early Church Fathers, who dated Jesus’ birth, which necessarily was before the death of Herod, to sometime in either late 3 BC or early 2 BC. The many considerations that support Herod’s death occurring in early 1 BC are therefore in agreement with the dates of lunar eclipses and dates for the start of Passover in the years 5 to 1 BC., as calculated by modern astronomical methods.

Year of the Crucifixion

Astronomy again comes into play in the discussion of the year in which the Messiah was put to death and rose victorious from the grave. The four Gospels relate that the Crucifixion took place on the “Day of Preparation” for the Sabbath, i.e. on a Friday. It was also the 14th of Nisan according to the official Jewish calendar in use in the first century AD. Astronomical calculations allow only two years in the range from AD 26 to AD 36 in which Nisan 14, the first day of Passover, was a Friday. The years are AD 30 and AD 33. The first of these has been advocated by several writers who maintained that the 15th year of Tiberius cited in Luke 3:1 for the start of Jesus’ ministry refers to the 15th year of an assumed coregency between Augustus and Tiberius that began sometime between AD 11 and AD 13, rather than starting the 15 years at the death of Augustus in AD 14. However, all extant coins and inscriptions date the reign of Tiberius as beginning in AD 14. The age of Jesus when He began His ministry, “about 30” (Luke 3:23), is also more consistent with the Crucifixion in AD 33 than in AD 30, as are events related to Roman policy and the actions of Pilate. A full discussion of the issues involved is found in Andrew Steinmann’s From Abraham to Paul, page 219 n. 329 and pages 257 to 289. Jack Finegan, who previously advocated AD 30 for the Crucifixion and Resurrection, now advocates AD 33 (1998: 340, 368). In these considerations, astronomy narrowed down the possible years to two choices. Other criteria were then employed to decide between the two choices, criteria that rule quite definitely against AD 30 in favor of AD 33. The death of Christ therefore was on Nisan 14 (Friday, April 3), and His Resurrection on Sunday, April 5, AD 33.

The Lunar Eclipse of April 3, AD 33

In 1872, J.R. Hind published a paper in the British scientific journal Nature in which he noted that the “moon was eclipsed on the generally received date of the Crucifixion, AD 33, April 3.” Bible scholars paid little or no attention to this observation, because the best astronomical calculations available at the time showed that the eclipse would not have been visible from Jerusalem. In the 20th century, however, there was a major advance in the accuracy of historical astronomical calculations, due largely to studies of the change of the earth’s rate of rotation over the centuries. Using ancient astronomical observations from Babylon and China, the rate of slowing of the earth’s rotation is now known precisely enough so that the timing of events such as the rising of the moon or the sun as viewed from any point on earth and at any time in the last 2000 years can be known within about three minutes (Humphreys 2011: 90).

In 1981, a British scientist who had learned of the improvements in astronomical accuracy thought it might be interesting to revisit calculations for the eclipse of AD 33. Colin Humphreys, who was teaching at Oxford at the time, asked Oxford astrophysicist Graem Waddington to determine whether the lunar eclipse would have been visible at Jerusalem, and if so, at what time it would have been observed. Very fittingly, their findings were published in the same scientific journal that had published Hind’s study 111 years earlier (Humphreys and Waddington 1983). The results were as follows. Moonrise in Jerusalem on the evening of Friday, April 3 AD 33 was at about 6:20 p.m., right after sunset. The part of the moon that appeared first was in the full shadow (the umbra) of the earth. After several minutes, the remainder of the moon was seen; this lower part was in the partial shadow of the earth (the penumbra). The eclipse lasted until about 7:11 p.m., at which time the moon was restored to its usual brightness and coloration.

The accuracy of Waddington’s calculations has been demonstrated by the acceptance of the paper by Nature, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that would not have printed the paper if there was anything wrong with its science. Waddington’s calculation is also in general agreement with NASA figures for this eclipse, although the NASA chart suggests that the eclipse would have been visible for several minutes longer than Waddington’s estimate that ended the eclipse at 7:11 p.m. Jerusalem time.

In determining what the eclipse looked like, Waddington took into account other phenomena that physicists have studied related to the appearance of the sun or the moon at sunset. These phenomena are well known and may be observed on any clear evening. The first is that the moon or sun appears somewhat oblate due to the refraction of the earth’s atmosphere. The second is that, because there is more atmosphere for the sun’s or moon’s light to go through at sunset, the shorter blue wavelengths are filtered out, resulting in the familiar red color of either celestial body at this time. In the case of an eclipsed moon, there would be the extra darkness of the earth’s shadow on the face of the moon. Further, some of the light reflected back from the moon would have passed through the earth’s atmosphere twice, adding to the reddening. These considerations for the special case of a lunar eclipse viewed at sunset mean that the fully eclipsed portion would not be just red, but dark red. Blood red. The portion in the penumbra (partial shadow) would show a lighter hue, red or possibly orange/yellow.

This phenomenon (the reddening of an eclipsed moon as seen at sunset) has been observed in modern times, and observers have used just this terminology: the moon appeared “blood red.” In January 2001 an eclipse of the moon was visible from Wales at sunset. The front page of The Times for January 10, 2001 showed a picture of the moon with a caption underneath reading “The blood-red moon over the Welsh borders last night.” The accompanying write-up continued with, “Thousands of people who braved freezing temperatures to watch last night’s total lunar eclipse were rewarded with a stunning view of one of nature’s marvels: the Moon turned blood-red” (Humphreys 2011: 86). The Daily Mail for this date used the same expression: “The first total lunar eclipse of the 21st century turned the moon blood red.”

The day of the AD 33 eclipse—Friday, April 3—must have been a difficult one for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The city was crowded; Jewish people and proselytes had gathered from all areas of the land and from far countries for the celebration of the Passover. For some, the day had started before dawn with a mob scene before the Roman governor and before their own leaders, in which they had been incited to demand the death of the miracle-worker from Galilee. Mob hysteria is always emotionally taxing, but even more so when the emotions are being manipulated toward putting someone to death. Once the consent of Pilate was obtained, there followed the horrible scene of the crucifixion of the three malefactors. Roman practice was to make crucifixion a very visible event, as a warning against anyone else attempting the crimes for which the victims were being punished. To that end, Jesus and the two thieves were crucified by a public road, outside the city wall, with the charges against them prominently displayed. The Passover in AD 33, intended as a time of rejoicing and thanksgiving over God’s great deliverance in the past, had instead assumed an ominous, hateful, and tragic nature.

The Gospel writers describe further disturbances. About noon a darkness overtook the land that lasted for three hours. We are not told whether it was caused by clouds or a dust storm. Then at approximately 3 p.m., when the Figure on the central cross died, there was an earthquake—something that we no longer associate with divine displeasure, but which must have had this significance for at least one individual, a Roman centurion who was stationed near the cross of Jesus. With more insight and acuity than possessed by many modern critics of the Gospel accounts, this soldier concluded that the righteous man who had just died was truly God’s Son.

After the earthquake, there may have been a respite from the troubling phenomena of nature. The darkness lifted; the atmosphere became clear again. The terrifying sight outside the city wall came to an end as three bodies were removed from public display and buried. Soon there would be the appearance of the Passover moon. In the wisdom of God, the feast of Passover always took place in the middle of the lunar month, guaranteeing that a full moon would illuminate the nighttime activities of the festival. Everyone knew that the comforting sight of the rising full moon could be expected right around sunset.

Shortly after the sun set in the west, the moon rose in the east. It was dark. Dark red. Bloody red.

If God spoke to people in ancient times, we would not expect Him to use a modern language such as French or English. We would expect Him to use as His medium of communication a language that they would understand. For the Jews, this would be Hebrew or Aramaic. In the modern world, an eclipse of the sun or moon should not convey any message of divine displeasure or coming judgment. We pride ourselves on our scientific knowledge; these are natural phenomena, the cause of which, and the timing of which, are well understood, and their meaning to us is only that the laws of physics are being obeyed. However, that was not the significance that the people of Israel would have assigned to the lunar eclipse in April of AD 33. For them, as for Josephus when writing about Herod, the eclipse was God speaking in a language they understood. God was revealing His displeasure toward those who had put to death Someone more righteous than themselves.

This then is the problem for the skeptic. The lunar eclipse, especially with the unusual darkening that only occurs in those places on the globe that observe it at sunset, did not happen at an arbitrary time, even an arbitrary time in the earthly ministry of the Son of God. It happened on the day that Christianity has always maintained was the most important day in the history of the world since Creation: the day on which the Lamb of God died for the sins of mankind. The Resurrection, two days later, was God’s sign that Jesus was who He claimed to be, the Messiah whose suffering and death were for our sake (Is 53:5,6,8,10,11,12), after which He would rise from the dead (Is 53:10,11; Ps 16:10,11).

Most people today would claim they had never seen a miracle. If at any time they have read the many Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah that were fulfilled in the life of Christ, then they have observed a miracle without recognizing it, because the prediction of these events beforehand, and then their fulfillment, are a miracle. This includes, but is not limited to, the prophecies in Isaiah just cited. The definiteness and clearness with which Isaiah 53 describes the person and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth is testified to by the fact that this portion of Isaiah is not read in the synagogues. Besides these prophecies, the other miracle attesting to the significance of the Crucifixion is the Resurrection two days later. Unbelief has never provided a credible alternative explanation of this event, and the halls of atheism have many unoccupied alcoves where those who attempted to discredit the bodily resurrection of Christ became convinced that the Gospel accounts were true, and so became believers, and, in many cases, fervent evangelists for the truth.

To these two classes of miracles that testify to the meaning of Christ’s death—the prophecies beforehand and the Resurrection—there must be added the testimony of the lunar eclipse. It has been customary for skeptics to deny the natural phenomena that the Bible associates with the death of Christ. Modern science cannot prove the darkening of the sun while Christ was on the Cross, so the Gospel accounts are rejected on this matter, with no evidence to the contrary. Neither can we prove from science that an earthquake occurred on that day, and so this also is denied, again with no contrary evidence. Recent reports based on varve samples from the Dead Sea state that there was an earthquake in Judea sometime between AD 26 and AD 36 (Williams et al. 2012), and a more recent examination of varve strata near the Dead Sea concluded that the epicenter of the earthquake was near Jerusalem (Austin 2012).

The authors of the first study were objective enough to point out that the Dead Sea varve data are compatible with an earthquake on the day of the Crucifixion, while they also offered two alternatives: 1) that the earthquake was not on that day but the author of Matthew’s Gospel “borrowed” the earthquake from its actual day of occurrence; or 2) Matthew just invented it altogether as an “allegorical fiction” (Williams et al. 2012: 1226). Some reports of this paper went beyond what was actually said and stated that the varve evidence showed that the Crucifixion could be set at April 3, AD 33, whereas the paper only stated that the data are consistent with this date, while the actual date of the Crucifixion is determined by other means. Stating that the varve data give the actual day, month, and year of the Crucifixion was a regrettable misinterpretation of what can be deduced from considering only the geological data without reference to the historical accounts in the Gospels. Worse yet was the approach of some in the secular press and in anti-Christian blog sites who said that although the varve data showed there was an earthquake about this time, it did not happen at the death of Christ, and therefore Matthew’s account was a lie. Since the varve data cannot be used to determine the day on which the earthquake happened, these data cannot be used to say it was not on the day of the Crucifixion any more than they can be used to say it was on that day. By twisting what was actually said in a scientific study, skepticism has once again been diligent in building its case to dismiss the evidence in the Gospel accounts and confirm unbelief based on no real evidence.

But stubborn unbelief cannot dismiss the eclipse. The principles of modern science, which we are told must be believed above any belief in the supernatural (which is not a scientific statement, but a religious statement), now prove that the foreboding eclipse happened just after the death of the Christian (and Jewish, and universal) Messiah, and there is no doubt what the eclipse would have meant to the people of that time.

This was, in a sense, a “natural” miracle. Its miraculous aspect lies in its timing: the timing and trajectory of the moon’s orbit around the earth so there was an eclipse at this time, and also the timing of the earth’s rate of rotation so that, at the longitude of Jerusalem, the earth’s atmosphere would cause the moon to appear with a dark red color when it rose over the horizon. This third testimony to the importance of Christ’s death should be especially meaningful to those who say they will only believe what can be proven by science.

The Prophecy of Joel

It gets worse. Worse, that is, for the edifice of unbelief, but better for the household of faith. The physical phenomena associated with the death of Christ were foretold hundreds of years before by the prophet Joel. Before looking at the specifics, Joel’s prophecy, as found in Joel 2:28-32, should be examined in light of other Old Testament scriptures that touch on the same theme.

The two verses in Joel’s prophecy that deal with signs in the physical realm are verses 30 and 31 (in the Hebrew Bible these are verses 3 and 4 of chapter 3). The preceding two verses that introduce the prophecy have as their subject the pouring out of the Spirit of God on all flesh—men and women, servants, old and young. This will be accompanied by the spiritual gifts of prophecy, visions, and dreams. The coming of the Spirit was foretold by the Lord in his Last Supper discourse (Jn 16:7-15). It is also spoken of in Ezek 11:19-20 and 36:26-27, where God says that he will replace the stony heart of His people with a new heart of flesh and put His Spirit in them. It is the subject of Jer 31:31-34, where God promises to bring in a new covenant with His people that will be marked by His speaking directly to their hearts and minds instead of through prophets and priests. Christian doctrine has always been that these prophecies in Joel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah look forward to the age of the Holy Spirit, that is, the church age, which began with outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, seven weeks after Christ’s Resurrection. Verses 28 and 29 of Joel chapter 2, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh...” therefore refer to the beginning of the Church age.

These verses are followed by the physical manifestations of verses 30 and 31, and then the closing verse of Joel’s prophecy (2:32), which refers to the salvation procured through the death of the Messiah and offered to all who will believe and call on His name. This verse reads, in the NIV translation, “And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.” This does not refer to the end time at the conclusion of history. It refers to our present age, an age that began with Christ’s atoning death and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Consequently, the verses that introduce Joel’s prophecy and the verse that concludes the prophecy have the same frame of reference. They do not refer to the Second Coming of the Lord.

With this background, let us look at the intervening two verses that speak of physical or natural phenomena. Many commentators have said these marvels refer to the end of the age rather than the time implied by the preceding and following verses, namely the beginning of the gospel dispensation. The signs are as follows: “I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Joel 2:30-31, NIV). Verse 32 then presents the offer of salvation and a promise of deliverance. The deliverance possibly refers to when Christians escaped death in the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in AD 70 because they heeded the words of the Savior in Mt 24:15-18 and Mk 13:14-16 and fled the city.

There is nothing in the verses dealing with the physical phenomena related to the outpouring of the Spirit that must be put off until the end of the age. The sun had turned to darkness on the day of the Crucifixion (Mt 27:45, Mk 15:33, Lk 23:44). Thanks to the advances of modern astronomy and the research of Humphreys and Waddington, we now know that the moon did indeed “turn to blood” in a way that the Jewish people would have understood, and this happened on the evening of the day when their Messiah was crucified. The only question remaining might be about the blood and fire and billows of smoke. It is not clear what these words describe, but casting the prophecy to the Second Coming does nothing to clarify their meaning. We cannot be dogmatic, but a reasonable interpretation is that they refer to the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Romans, at which time many were slain (“blood”) and the temple and much of the city were burned (“fire and pillars of smoke”).

It is doubtful that anyone understood the import of Joel’s prophecy in the time between the darkening of the sun and moon on Friday, April 3 and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, seven weeks later. During this time, there were unsettling rumors that Jesus, whom many regarded as a prophet, was alive and had appeared to His disciples. What was puzzling about these rumors was that they would be easily extinguished if the authorities could produce Jesus’ body; this they could not do. Instead, the official story was that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body. Surely no thinking person could believe that; this would have been a capital offense if it were true, and no one was even trying to arrest the disciples.

The confusion, for many, came to an end on the Day of Pentecost. As the second of the three feasts which all Jewish men were required to attend, Jerusalem was again crowded with Jews and proselytes from the various nations of the empire. And once again there was a physical phenomenon, this time the sound of a strong wind that was centered on the place where the disciples of Jesus were gathered. This was accompanied by the people hearing various languages in which God’s word was proclaimed. The purpose of the wind and the languages was to assemble the people so that they could hear God’s explanation of the events that had troubled them, as spoken by His chosen agent for this task, the apostle Peter. When the crowd had gathered, they witnessed the outward signs of the coming in power of God’s Spirit, providing a visual and audible affirmation that the prophecies of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Joel regarding a new dispensation when the Holy Spirit would indwell all His people were now realized. For the disciples, the manifestations were not only outward, but inward; the Holy Spirit had come to indwell them and provide an internal witness to God’s reality. Paul later referred to this precious truth in Romans 8:16: “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” Empowered by that Spirit, Peter preached to the assembled thousands, boldly proclaiming that the One they had crucified had indeed risen from the dead and God had made Him both Lord and Messiah. The text he started from was the prophecy of Joel.

As found in Acts 2:16-21, Peter quoted all three parts of Joel’s prophecy: the introductory verses about the day when God’s Spirit would be poured out on all flesh; the two intermediate verses about the physical manifestations on earth and in the skies; and the conclusion that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” For Peter, Joel’s prophecy was being fulfilled, and had been fulfilled, before the eyes of his audience. He did not say, “This is similar to what Joel spoke of,” but “This is what (touto estin to) was spoken by the prophet Joel.” Or, in the memorable first words of the KJV, “This is that.” The people were witnessing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit referred to in the first part of the prophecy, just as, seven weeks previously, they had witnessed the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood spoken of in the middle verses. For Peter and his listeners, Joel’s prophecy was for the immediate present, not some distant future time. And for at least three thousand individuals that day his sermon made sense out of the whole ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and the many things they had been puzzling over since His death and reported resurrection. They now understood, and “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day” (Acts 2:41, NIV).

The skeptic can always find some reason to cast doubt on most of these events, even when there is no contrary evidence, and he or she will find an audience among the similar-minded. But it is no longer intellectually defensible to ignore the eclipsed moon that became visible three and one-half hours after the death of the Messiah, and what its blood-red appearance would have meant to those who witnessed the Crucifixion. May God grant that reflection on the timing and science of this event will lead those who value scientific objectivity, and are willing to follow the truth wherever it leads, to a full understanding of this and all other events related to Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection.

Addendum: Eclipses—the Science and the Pseudoscience

Eclipses, whether of the sun or the moon, are not rare. There are from two to five solar eclipses that can be viewed from somewhere on earth each year, and every year there is at least one lunar eclipse of one type or another. “Total” lunar eclipses are those for which the entire moon is covered by the earth’s full shadow (the umbra) at some time during the eclipse. “Partial” eclipses are those for which only a portion of the moon’s surface is covered by the earth’s full shadow, and “penumbral” eclipses are those for which no part of the moon is covered by the earth’s umbra, but a portion of the moon is slightly darkened by being in the earth’s partial shadow, or penumbra. Penumbral eclipses are usually too faint to be observed by the unaided eye. The other two types can be seen by anyone who is on the night side of the earth when the eclipse occurs, unless their visibility is obscured by clouds.

It might be thought that during a total lunar eclipse the face of the moon could not be seen at all, since the moon’s entire surface is in the geometric shadow of the earth. However, the accompanying graphic from NASA shows how some sunlight is bent (refracted) as it passes through the earth’s atmosphere, and thereby reaches the moon’s surface. The shorter blue wavelengths are scattered by the earth’s atmosphere and the light that does reach the moon during a lunar eclipse therefore takes on a reddish tinge. The reddening becomes more pronounced and deeper when the moon is viewed from those longitudes of the earth where it is just after sunset or just before sunrise. In these cases, the light returning to the earth again travels horizontally through the earth’s atmosphere and undergoes further reddening, taking on a dark red color. An additional phenomenon in effect for such observers is that the moon, when observed at the horizon, appears to be enlarged. NASA (2011) states that “For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low hanging moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings, and other foreground objects.” This phenomenon has been known for a long time, and an explanation was offered by the Christian philosopher George Berkeley (1709) in his insightful book on the theory of vision. These two effects—the apparent enlargement of the moon when seen on or near the horizon, and its reddening during an eclipse—combine to make a lunar eclipse viewed at sunset or sunrise an impressive sight. The accompanying article touches on the psychological effect this must have had on the people of Jerusalem at the time of the lunar eclipse immediately after the death of Christ.

As explained in the above article, the timing of the lunar eclipse at the death of Christ has only been established since 1981, and the Christian community has not had long to reflect on its significance. Recently, however, there has been an unfortunate misuse of the science of eclipses that can only tend to discredit the genuine science associated with the lunar eclipse of AD 33. A popular speaker has claimed in his television show that there will be blood-red lunar eclipses visible at Jerusalem on April 15, 2014 and April 4, 2015 at the start of Passover in these two years, and on October 8, 2014 at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles in that year. It is then claimed that this is not the speaker’s idea, but comes straight from NASA. NASA is also cited as showing there will be a solar eclipse on March 20, 2015. These phenomena are presented as signs of the end times for Israel and the world.

Despite such claims, NASA tables show that Jerusalem will be on the day side of the earth all during the two lunar eclipses of 2014, and hence these eclipses will not be visible from Jerusalem, much less be seen as blood-red from there. The lunar eclipse of September 28, 2015 will be visible from Jerusalem just before sunrise, and will indeed appear blood- red to those who rise early enough to see it. The shadow of the solar eclipse of March 20, 2015 will pass between Iceland and Great Britain in the far North Atlantic. Hardly anyone will see it unless they make a special effort to be in its path. The pseudoscience that has misrepresented these astronomical facts can be a stumbling block to anyone investigating the claims of Christianity. Whereas true science is always on the side of the Gospel, any dishonest or questionable means used to support the cause of Christ will cause skeptics to think that they can also ignore valid arguments that support God’s eternal truth.

Bibliography
Austin, Steven A.
2012 Jerusalem Earthquake of 33 A.D.: Evidence within Laminated Mud of the Dead Sea, Israel. Paper No. 235-11, annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Charlotte NC. Online at https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2012AM/webprogram/Paper204688.html.
Berkeley, George
1709 An Essay towards a new theory of vision. Gale Ecco, 2010; originally published in Dublin, Ireland, in AD 1709.
Finegan, Jack
1998 Handbook of Biblical Chronology, revised edition. Peabody MA: Hendrickson.
Filmer, W.E.
1966 The Chronology of the Reign of Herod the Great. Journal of Theological Studies 17: 283-98.
Finegan, Jack
1998 Handbook of Biblical Chronology, revised edition. Peabody MA: Hendrickson.
Humphreys, Colin J.
2011 The Mystery of the Last Supper: Reconstructing the Final Days of Jesus. Cambridge UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Humphreys, Colin J. and Waddington, W. Graem
1983 Dating the Crucifixion. Nature 306: 743-46.
McFall, Leslie
1991 A Translation Guide to the Chronological Data in Kings and Chronicles. Bibliotheca Sacra 148: 3-45.
NASA
2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuhNZejHeBg (video explaining eclipses).
Riess, F.
1880 Das Geburtsjahr Christi. Freiburg, Germany: Herder. Cited in Filmer 1966: 283-84.
Steinmann, Andrew E.
2009 When Did Herod the Great Reign? Novum Testamentum 51: 1-29.
2011 From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology. St. Louis MO: Concordia.
Thiele, Edwin R.
1983 The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, third ed. Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan/Kregel.
Williams, Jefferson B., Schwab, Marcus J., Brauer, A.
2012 An Early First-century Earthquake in the Dead Sea. International Geology Review 54, 1219-28.
Wiseman, Donald J.
1979 Jonah’s Nineveh. Tyndale Bulletin 30: 29-52.
Young, Rodger C.
2005 Tables of Reign Lengths from the Hebrew Court Recorders. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48: 225-48.

Notes
¹http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SEatlas-1/SEatlas-0779.GIF.
²http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCLE/5MCLE-Figs-05.pdf.
³The author has a full review of Dr. Steinmann’s book on the ABR website: Part 1, Part 2.
⁴This citation and the following discussion of the scientific findings related to the lunar eclipse of April 3 AD 33 are taken from Humphreys 2011, chapter 6.
⁵http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEhistory/LEplot/LE0033Apr03P.pdf.
⁶To accept as true only what can be proven scientifically rules out the basic tenet of this philosophy, which cannot be demonstrated scientifically. This foolishness was the premise of the old and thoroughly discredited “logical positivism.”

The goal of this article is to update the ABR community of supporters and other interested readers on the present state of the Genesis 5 and 11 Research Project. The project officially began in 2016 (with its unofficial roots extending back to 2010). The research has produced substantial fruit, and as a result, ABR is pleased to announce plans to publish our first book, tentatively titled, 'From Adam to Abraham: The Case for the Septuagint's Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11.' This update will survey the goals of the project, describe new developments and the present direction of our research, answer some questions we have received about Genesis 5 and 11 from supporters, and briefly outline plans for publication(s). 

Project Goal: The Genesis 5 and 11 Genealogy and Chronology Research Project

To determine if Genesis 5 and 11 and other directly relevant biblical texts yield a calculable chronology of human history from Adam to Abraham. If such a chronology can be constructed, a main goal of the project will then be to establish a BC date for the creation of Adam, the Flood, and a biblical chronology for the time-period between the Flood and Abraham (Genesis 11:10-32). These dates can then be correlated with historically grounded, non-carbon 14 based archaeological data from this time period, serving an important apologetic purpose.

Background

For over 2200 years, Christian scholars and their Jewish predecessors interpreted the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 as yielding a continuous chronology of human history from Adam to Abraham. Up until the Reformation, a solid majority within the Church believed the Greek Septuagint (LXX) preserved most of the original numerical figures in Genesis 5 and 11. During the Reformation, the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) supplanted the primacy of the LXX in the Western church, and thus, a chronological interpretation of Genesis 5 and 11 using the MT’s numbers became the majority viewpoint. In 1890, the chronological interpretation was challenged by a seminal article by William H. Green of Princeton, “Primeval Chronology,” whose non-chronological interpretation eventually ascended to a position of primacy in conservative OT scholarship. Since then, evangelical OT scholars have primarily followed Green’s arguments and have interpreted archaeological discoveries dated prior to Abraham with the assumption that Genesis 5 and 11 do not yield a chronology of pre-Abrahamic history (i.e. that the genealogies contain chronological gaps). This is particularly the case for the post-Flood epoch from Shem to Abraham. The goal of this research project has been to revisit the question of primeval chronology and the prevailing non-chronological interpretation of Genesis 5 and 11.

There are two major areas of investigation:

1. Interpretation

A grammatical, syntactical and literary-structural analysis of Genesis 5 and 11, which entails a close examination of the directly relevant Hebrew and Greek texts. From Adam to Abraham (FATA) will extensively engage with the biblical text and critically evaluate the claim that Genesis 5 and 11 should be interpreted non-chronologically. This includes:

a. We will first establish a hermeneutical foundation that prioritizes the biblical text over and above other competing authority structures. These authorities include outside sources such as Ancient Near East mythologies and texts, modern scientific knowledge claims, secret mathematical formulae of various kinds, and other non-biblical hermeneutical constructs. In most cases, we have found these external sources lead to interpretations that are foreign to sound exegetical principles, the internal testimony of Scripture itself, biblical and systematic theology, and the Reformation principles of the clarity and sufficiency of Scripture. In particular, we will examine the problematic claim that the begetting ages and lifespans of the Genesis 5 and 11 patriarchs require modern knowledge to be interpreted correctly.

b. Our research has led us to conclude that the non-chronological interpretation (NCI) of Genesis 5 and 11 advanced by Green and modern conservative scholars is fatally flawed. The NCI arguments are characterized by numerous exegetical and hermeneutical fallacies, which are pervasive in the conservative literature. Most of these fallacies appear to have their origin in Green’s article from 1890, with a few modern innovations that collapse under the weight of scrutiny. FATA will present extensive arguments from the biblical texts that Genesis 5 and 11 is intended to be interpreted (in part) as yielding a chronology from Adam to Abraham.

c. Pastor Jeremy Sexton published an article in the Fall 2015 issue of The Westminster Theological Journal which demonstrates the insurmountable semantic and exegetical problems with the non-chronological interpretation of Genesis 5 and 11. We reached out to Pastor Sexton in March 2016, and his article has been republished here on the ABR website: "Who Was Born When Enosh Was 90?: A Semantic Reevaluation of William Henry Green's Chronological Gaps." The Westminster Theological Journal 77, no. 2 (September 2015): 193-218. [Thanks to the WTJ Editor, Dr. Vern Poythress, for allowing ABR to republish Jeremy’s article on the ABR website]. In that article, Jeremy also presented arguments in favor of the LXX’s primeval chronology.

As a result of this new relationship, Pastor Sexton and I collaborated to publish an article in ABR’s own Bible and Spade magazine: "Primeval Chronology Restored: Revisiting the Genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11," Bible and Spade 29, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2016): 42-49. This article provides a summary of the arguments Jeremy laid out in his WTJ article, with some additions and expansions.

2. Textual Reconstruction

The NCI effectively halted any serious discussion among conservative scholars on the numerical divergences in the three main textual witnesses of Genesis 5 and 11 (MT, LXX, and Samaritan Pentateuch [SP]). Most evangelicals have lost all interest in the text-critical issues related to the begetting ages, remaining years, and lifespans, and have simply accepted the figures in the MT as original. Those who do discuss the textual differences tend to repeat superficial arguments in favor of the MT. However, "Primeval Chronology Restored" and "Who Was Born When Enosh was 90?" challenge this assumption, proposing that the Septuagint preserves (most of) the original numbers given to Moses in Genesis 5 and 11.

FATA will closely examine the numerical divergences found in the three main witnesses of Genesis 5 and 11 (see Table 1). FATA will also extensively investigate external sources from antiquity that cite the numbers found in Genesis 5 and 11. We will propose a framework for textual reconstruction and outline a chronology primarily based on the LXX’s begetting ages from Adam to Abraham. This includes:

a. Proposing a comprehensive theory to explain the wholesale and deliberate alteration of the chronological texts. This is vital to textual reconstruction. In a rare moment of unanimous agreement, there is actually a scholarly consensus that the begetting ages have been purposefully inflated or deflated to change the overall chronological calculations.

The million-dollar question is: WHO DUNNIT?

There are two main hypotheses that have been presented in the academic literature: it was either the Alexandrian Jews who translated the LXX Pentateuch in Egypt in 281 BC (the LXX “inflation” hypothesis), or the second century AD rabbis in Israel. We encourage you to read "Primeval Chronology Restored" and "Who Was Born When Enosh was 90?" to understand why it cannot be the Alexandrian translators, and why the rabbis had strong motive, unique means, and rare opportunity to deliberately reduce the primeval chronology on the order of 1250 years. We submit that only the rabbis could have gotten away with such an egregious and large-scale manipulation of the biblical texts in the proto-MT textual tradition. We will also examine the antediluvian chronology in the Book of Jubilees, its close affinities with Genesis 5 in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and then propose how (many of) the figures in Genesis 5 SP originated.

b. We will closely examine various LXX “inflation” hypotheses in FATA, and demonstrate their inadequate explanatory power and lack of sufficient evidence. FATA will also evaluate the originality of Kainan in Genesis 11 and Luke 3:36. Methuselah’s begetting age (187/167) in manuscripts of the LXX and other witnesses will also be examined.

Questions Received

ABR friends and supporters have asked a number of great questions about this project. Here are some important highlights thus far:

Q1: [In your previous email] you mentioned “the case for the originality of the Septuagint’s primeval chronology”. My problem is this: I believe in the inerrancy of the original manuscripts, but that implies that we essentially have the original manuscripts, apart from minor variations that don’t affect meaning. I have always believed, as do most, that the Masoretic Text is essentially that manuscript for the O.T. The Septuagint is not an original manuscript, but a translation from the Hebrew, but with significant variation from all known Hebrew texts, as I understand. Does any existing Hebrew manuscript have the numbers as the Septuagint? For this reason, I find the arguments against the Septuagint representing the inerrant text to be solid.

A1: My view is certainly that our Lord has preserved His Word and watched over it to ensure its preservation over the millennia. Preservation of His Word is promised in numerous places throughout Scripture itself. That being said, He has not promised that such preservation would occur through only one textual tradition or group of people. Such a concept is not found in Scripture itself. In the case of the MT, we have many good reasons to say that it is very dependable. Overall, the Jews demonstrated a high respect and view of Scripture, and faithfully preserved it. A number of meticulous methods to preserve it were clearly in place even before the Masoretes (600-900 AD) implemented their rigorous system of copying, and the addition of vowels, cantillation marks, etc. However, the MT has suffered accidental corruption in some places, and correct readings have been preserved elsewhere. For example, the MT of 1 Samuel has undoubtedly suffered some quite severe textual corruption, a fact universally acknowledged by scholars of various persuasions. In the MT, Saul ascends to the throne at the age of two. (Josephus actually preserves the right figure). The LXX preserved a good deal of the text that had been lost in the MT, and this was confirmed by scrolls of 1 Samuel found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. But even before the discovery of the DSS, it was clear the MT was wrong and the LXX was correct in this instance. Genesis 4:8 in the MT is another example, where the statement by Cain, “Let us go out into the field,” has completely dropped out of the MT, but is preserved in the LXX, SP and other witnesses. I mention these examples simply to illustrate that each textual situation must be evaluated on its own merits, and that the MT is sometimes wrong. A vast majority of the original, inspired text has been preserved in the MT textual tradition, but in individual cases, the original text has been preserved elsewhere.

Gen 5 and 11 present an unusual problem, as it is universally acknowledged that many of the begetting ages and remaining year numbers have been deliberately altered by scribes (the SP also deliberately altered several lifespans in Genesis 5). The large-scale differences cannot be explained by variations in translation techniques or accidental scribal errors (though there are some accidental errors in the LXX and MT as well). In particular, the begetting ages and remaining years differ by 100 years in the MT, LXX and SP in a variety of ways. They have been deliberately changed.

In this way, Genesis 5 and 11 are unique, and therefore, the general rule that the MT most likely preserves the original numbers simply does not, and cannot, apply.

Q2: I am intrigued by the article on the Genesis 5 and 11 chronologies in the Spring/Summer 2016 Bible and Spade, by Jeremy Sexton and Henry Smith. I did not see any reference in the article though to comparisons with the Genesis fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Has a comparison been done against them? If your thesis is correct, the Dead Sea Scrolls should line up better with the Septuagint.

A2: No fragments or manuscripts of Genesis 5 and 11 with the numbers were found in the Dead Sea caves, so there is no evidence from those discoveries to directly help us. One tiny fragment was found in Cave 4 at Qumran. Text from Gen 4 is on the right side of the fragment, on the far left, one word from Genesis 5:13 or 14 appears, "Kenan."

The best external evidence we have that corroborates the longer chronology found in the LXX are from four sources that pre-date the second century AD: Demetrius (Greek, third century BC), Eupolemus (Hebrew/Greek, second century BC), Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB, Hebrew-based, first century AD), and Josephus (Hebrew-based, first century AD).

Further, there are no reliable, external historical witnesses prior to Eusebius in the early fourth century AD that even cite the shorter and complete primeval chronology found in the MT (Eusebius cited the MT’s numbers, but rejected them as having been deliberately changed by the rabbis). Jerome (late fourth century AD) appears to be the first ancient author outside of rabbinic circles to even accept the MT’s shorter primeval chronology as valid.

The MT’s complete primeval chronology is first found in the Seder Olam Rabbah (ca. AD 150), a corrupted chronology of world history written by the very same rabbis who we argue deflated the MT’s chronology (see discussion in "Primeval Chronology Restored"). Scholars agree that the Seder Olam reduces postexilic history by nearly 200 years. We believe it is significant that the first historical reference to the MT's complete primeval chronology first appears in a compromised Jewish history that is known for reducing its chronology. These chronological reductions are explicitly related to the time and coming of the Messiah. Thus, we believe the external witness of the Seder Olam as it relates to Genesis 5 and 11 is completely biased.

Q3: As a general statement, the numbers in the three witnesses of Genesis 5 and 11 seem to diverge in so many places, it is probably impossible to reconstruct them. The difficulties are simply “intractable.” Some have even said the original (and now lost) chronology had multiple patriarchs living past the Flood!

A3: Liberal-critical scholars have used these difficulties to claim that the chronology is incoherent and cannot be fixed. Most of conservative OT scholarship has ignored this problem because they have adapted the non-chronological interpretation of Genesis 5 and 11, effectively relegating the numbers to irrelevance. Once the chronological interpretation is shown to be correct, the need to answer this charge from critical scholarship becomes obvious.

A theory of textual reconstruction must provide an overarching explanation for the evidence. Our theory begins with the historically attested, ancient claim that the rabbis deliberately reduced the chronology by 1250 years in the proto-MT (the Genesis Hebrew text that preceded the Masoretic Text). Despite the deeply negative, millennia-long impact of this egregious violation of Deuteronomy 4:2, we see strong evidence that the three witnesses go back to a single archetype yielding an internally coherent chronology, and that the original numbers have been preserved for us today. The schemes of unbelieving men cannot thwart the promises of God.

Here are the important highlights (refer to Table 1 for the numbers):

1. The Genesis 5 lifespans are preserved in all three witnesses from Adam to Mahalalel, then Enoch. Two witnesses (LXX/MT) preserve the lifespans for Jared and Methuselah. Josephus’ Genesis Hebrew text confirms the Genesis 5 lifespans, serving as a third or even fourth witness. (Lamech’s numbers are a unique and complex difficulty, and a resolution will be proposed in FATA).

2. The begetting ages in Genesis 11 LXX/SP match (save Kainan) and are affirmed by Josephus, serving together as a triple witness to the higher numbers, and hence, the longer post-Flood chronology.

3. Noah’s numbers (500, 350, 600, 601, and 950), Shem’s numbers (100 and 500), two years after the Flood, and Terah’s 70 are found in all three textual witnesses, and in numerous external sources. Terah’s lifespan of 205 matches in LXX/MT.

4. In my theory of textual reconstruction, I propose the remaining years of life for each patriarch in Genesis 11 were left unchanged by the rabbis, and are preserved in the MT (except for two or possibly three accidental scribal errors). The rabbis had no reason to change the figures because Genesis 11 contains no lifespans to serve as a mathematical cross check (unlike Genesis 5). The LXX readings for the remaining years match the MT when accidental scribal errors are reconstructed. Since it can be shown that the LXX/MT remaining years all matched in Genesis 11, this serves as a double witness to the original figures.

These four major areas of textual agreement serve as a strong framework for textual reconstruction of the original text. These agreements are also supported by ample external evidence.

Q4: Ok, what about the fact that the begetting ages and remaining years in the Samaritan Pentateuch of Genesis 5 match the MT from Adam to Mahalalel, and Enoch? (see Table 1). Since the SP pre-dates the MT altered by the rabbis, it shows that there was a textual tradition of these shorter begetting ages before Jesus, which negates the post-Jesus argument for “deflation” in the MT by the rabbis in the second century AD.

A4: This is a very important question! We can see how the antediluvian chronology in SP Genesis 5 has been deflated to a total (1307 years) that is even less than the MT’s (1656 years). The question is: Why?

I have developed a theory that Genesis 5 SP was corrupted by the Book of Jubilees, most likely in the second century BC. Jubilees claims to be from Moses, and was used as authoritative at Qumran. The chronology of Jubilees and SP Genesis 5 mirror each other for the pre-Flood period. Jubilees constructs an artificial chronology of OT history by imposing 50 jubilee cycles of 49 years each from Adam to the death of Moses. The year at the end of this time, Anno Mundi 2450, amount to a “jubilee of jubilees,” and terminates with Moses’ death and Joshua’s entry into Canaan. Thus, Jubilees reflects a deliberately altered chronology of OT history to make its timeline conform to jubilee cycles. In other words, the jubilee structure is imposed on the OT text, and the primeval chronology has been significantly emended to conform to the new “revelation.” In a word, the chronology of Jubilees for Genesis 5 (and 11) is “fudged.”

There is no discernable reason for the SP scribes to have reduced the chronology of the SP the way they did, except to mimic Jubilees. The testimony of church father Jerome (ca. AD 380) supports this argument. He stated that he had copies of the SP that had the higher begetting ages for Methuselah and Lamech (matching the MT for both, and the LXX for Methuselah), proving they had been deliberately reduced in some SP manuscripts previously. Since Jubilees was immensely popular in Second Temple Judaism, I theorize that the rabbis were aware of this construct in Jubilees and adapted the concept into their Hebrew manuscripts of Genesis 5 to reduce the pre-Flood chronology by 600 years in order to discredit Jesus as the Messiah. However, unlike Jubilees and the SP, the rabbis left Methuselah's and Lamech’s numbers alone (along with Noah’s and Shem’s) in the MT because of the various problems associated with the onset of the Flood and its chronological matrix.

In summary, I am proposing that the begetting ages in Jubilees and SP Genesis 5 are not derived from a Hebrew biblical text circulating in Israel prior to the time of Christ, but are the result of an artificial scheme invented by the author of Jubilees. This is especially evidenced in Jubilees’ recitation of Genesis 11, where the begetting ages wildly depart from any and all other witnesses (save Terah’s 70). Jubilees’ chronological system is both artificial and unreliable. Thus, the begetting ages that appear in Jubilees serve to undermine the credibility of the MT/SP wherever they agree, and where the SP/MT have no other corroborating and independent witness. I propose that the rabbis partially commandeered the chronological deflation scheme from Jubilees in Genesis 5, using the idea for their own purposes. Then, in Genesis 11, the rabbis applied their own unique 650-year chronological reduction scheme by reducing each begetting age from Arpachshad to Serug by 100 years each (and Nahor by 50 years). FATA will develop this argument in much further detail than is presented here. A new article delaing with this specific problem will be published in Bible and Spade in 2018, "MT, SP, or LXX? Deciphering a Chronological and Textual Conundrum in Genesis 5."

Q5: What about Kainan II in Genesis 11:13b-14b and Luke 3:36?

A5: FATA will address the issue of Kainan in-depth. For now, these are some important facts with respect to Kainan:

1. Kainan’s originality in LXX Genesis 11 (ca. 281 BC) is virtually indisputable. His name appears in the following, earliest manuscripts:

Papyri 911-late third century AD
Codex Alexandrinus (A) – fifth century AD
Codex Cottonianus (D) – fifth-sixth century AD
Codex Coislinianus (M) – seventh century AD
Papyri 833 - a palimpsest of Genesis written in an uncial script and dated to the eighth-ninth century AD

2. Kainan is not absent from any extant LXX manuscript of Genesis 11 until the 12th century AD (miniscule 82). He is also absent from miniscules 376 (15th century AD) and 53 (1439 AD). This evidence is so late as to render it virtually meaningless. *There is a lost section of text of Gen 11 in Papyrus 961 (early 4th century AD), and it cannot be determined with certainty if Kainan appeared there. Wevers' text critical apparatus includes Kainan in 961.*

3. Kainan’s alleged “addition” to the LXX in Genesis 11 by the Alexandrian translators has no evidence to support it. This claim is inextricably bound to the LXX “inflation” hypothesis. Once the LXX inflation concept is shown to be inadequate, any viable motive for the translators to add Kainan to Genesis 11 in the LXX disappears.

4. Kainan appears as an important figure in the eighth chapter of the Book of Jubilees (ca. 160 BC origin). He is in the main patriarchal line from Shem to Abraham, located between Arpachshad and Shelah. Jubilees’ witness must be treated with caution because of its artificial chronology and manifold elaborations beyond the biblical narrative. However, the author does not invent any new names for the main patriarchs in Genesis 5 and 11. Further, since the author’s explicit goal was to craft a jubilean structure of history, there was no reason for him to add Kainan to his chronology and thereby increase its length. There is no evidence to indicate that he invented Kainan out of thin air; rather, the author of Jubilees was using a Hebrew text with the name Kainan in it. Kainan’s independent corroboration in LXX Genesis 11 strongly supports this line of reasoning.

5. Kainan is a necessary part of the chronology of Demetrius of Alexandria’s (ca. 220 BC) calculation of 1360 years from the Flood to Jacob’s entry into Egypt. This means Kainan was in Demetrius’ LXX manuscript of Genesis 11, less than 70 years from the time of the LXX translation.

6. Kainan’s external witness in both Jubilees and Demetrius disproves the unsustainable theory that Kainan arose as a scribal error in Luke 3:36 and was subsequently interpolated back into manuscripts (Codex Alexandrinus, in particular) of LXX Genesis 11 by Christian scribes in the fourth-fifth centuries AD. His appearance in papyri 911 and 961 of Genesis 11 LXX also disproves this theory.

7. While Kainan is absent in manuscript P75 of Luke 3:36, its only corroborating textual witness is Codex Bezae (which is often considered an inferior manuscript). Kainan appears in Codex A, and other witnesses of Luke 3:36. While the value and date of P75 needs to be taken seriously, its age and Alexandrian provenance are insufficient grounds alone to reject Kainan’s inclusion. Other factors must also be considered. Kainan has always been considered original to Luke 3:36 in NT text-critical works such as Nestle-Aland 28.

8. Since Kainan was in LXX Genesis 11 originally, this means it was in the Hebrew Vorlage being used by the Alexandrian translators. Thus, his name would have dropped out of the Hebrew textual tradition by accident, perhaps sometime after the LXX translation in Egypt. I am working on a textual reconstruction of how this may have happened. With one slip of the eye and by writing from memory for a small section of text, Kainan could have completely been dropped out of the Hebrew text inadvertently. The textual matrix is very repetitive in Genesis 11, increasing the possibility of this kind of error.

9. Josephus was using an early first century AD Hebrew text of Genesis with the longer chronology, and he does not mention Kainan at all. LAB’s first century AD Hebrew-based text of Genesis 11 also excluded Kainan. This may mean that Kainan accidentally fell out of the Hebrew text sometime between the early third century BC and the early second century BC. It is also possible that Kainan fell out of a major Hebrew archetype much earlier, since he does not appear in both the MT and SP of Genesis 11. In this reconstruction, his name must have been preserved in the Hebrew textual stream that eventually led to both the LXX and Jubilees. It is unlikely we can ever be certain when Kainan may have dropped out of proto-MT (and SP), but we can be virtually certain his name was included in the Hebrew Vorlage being used by the Alexandrian translators and the author of Jubilees.

10. Kainan’s witness in both LXX Genesis 10:24 and 1 Chronicles 1:18,24 is best described as mixed. The textual situation is very messy, and it is difficult to reconstruct exactly what happened in the transmissional history. This thorny problem is not evidence against Kainan’s inclusion, however, since this kind of textual uncertainty would be a natural consequence if Kainan accidentally fell out of an ancient Hebrew archetype. Later scribes and translators would be inclined to compare their manuscript(s) of the LXX to circulating Hebrew text(s) and other LXX texts, and then make changes by removing or adding Kainan. They undoubtedly saw those changes as improvements to the text. The knotty textual situation is exactly what one might expect from Kainan’s accidental omission from an early Hebrew archetypal manuscript.

Conversely, the only other alternative is to argue that a scribe invented Kainan out of thin air, added him to the Hebrew text of Genesis 11, and he only found his way into Genesis 11 LXX and Jubilees. The person adding Kainan would have somehow mysteriously neglected to add his name to Genesis 10:24 and 1 Chronicles 1:18,24 (which would have been much easier to do than adding several lines of text to Genesis 11). And, in this scenario, Kainan would have to not subsequently appear in the SP or MT. When the LXX was being copied and re-translated again and again over several centuries, scribes saw the name was missing from their Hebrew manuscripts and eliminated his name in some instances in Genesis 10:24 and 1 Chronicles.

Thus, for now, our working theory is that Kainan is original to Genesis 11, unless evidence and analysis moves us into a different direction. Much work is left to be done in this area.

Impact on Archaeological Interpretations

If the biblical text of Genesis 5 and 11 yields a chronology of human history from Adam to Abraham, the implications are enormous for anthropology, archaeology, and human history. First, archaeology will not be addressed in FATA, but will be investigated after the biblical framework is sufficiently developed.

Second, anyone developing a model of archaeological interpretation for the pre-Abrahamic period must make critical decisions about the geographic and anthropological extent of the Flood. From my perspective, I believe the force of the biblical narrative demands that the entire pre-Flood world was obliterated on a global scale in a year-long cataclysm. In this framework, archaeological and anthropological remains would be dated and interpreted in a post-Flood context. Carbon-14 dates closer to the date of the Flood (ca. 3298 BC) would be severely skewed with an overturning and burial of the earth’s entire ecosystem by the year-long Deluge (off-site link). Evolutionary and deep-time presuppositions also profoundly influence archaeological dating from these earlier eras (such as interpreting cave implements from the so-called “Stone Age” and seeing them as part of man’s long-age evolutionary development instead of as necessary post-Flood survival measures). As a result, a researcher’s interpretation of the creation account and assertions about the age of the earth and humanity will also exert significant influence on the working chronological framework and interpretation of the evidence.

Not all researchers will agree with this perspective, of course, but a recent creation and cataclysmic, global Flood will be the framework for my own investigation of the archaeological evidence. Those who disagree with me are still encouraged to pursue research in this area, for much fruit can still be gained from digging further into the archaeological discoveries from this period. Evidence for the Tower of Babel incident and its date, or persons named in Genesis 10-11 (such as Nimrod), are areas of great research interest. I could envision an investigation into the archaeological evidence continuing over a long period of time, with multiple researchers working on a variety of subjects within the general framework being proposed in FATA.


Publications

Beyond the two articles already cited, several plans are in place for further publication of this research. Updates on the status of these activities will be posted here on the ABR website (updated December 16, 2017). 

Please pray for each of these initiatives:

1. The article, "Methuselah’s Begetting Age in Genesis 5:25 and the Primeval Chronology of the Septuagint: A Closer Look at the Textual and Historical Evidence," is available in the Answers Research Journal online (off-site link).

2. I recently presented a brief outline of this evidence at the annual meeting of the Near East Archaeological Society at the annual ETS Conference in Rhode Island, November 15, 2017. Title: Primeval Chronology Revisited: Genesis 5 and 11 and Their Potential Impact on Biblical Archaeology.

3. A presentation for the 2018 International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, PA (July 29-August 1, 2018) is presently in editorial review. Title: The Case for the Septuagint’s Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11. The final, edited version is due on March 31, 2018. Please pray for this paper to make it through the editorial review process.

4. I spoke on the Gen 5 and 11 Research Project on October 21, 2017 at the “Creation Celebration Conference 2017,” at Grace Evangelical Church, 355 Paper Mill Road. Newark, Delaware 19711. Title: Primeval Chronology Revisited: A Closer Look at Genesis 5 and 11.

5. I submitted an article for the Spring 2018 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly on Gen 5 and 11. Title: Once More: Primeval Chronology-A Fresh Look at the Genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. This article is in editorial review.

6. A new article is scheduled appear in the Winter 2018 issue of Bible and Spade, "MT, SP or LXX?: Deciphering a Chronological and Textual Conundrum in Genesis 5." This article further addresses Question #4 above:

One of the objections to this proposed reconstruction of the original numbers are the lower begetting ages found in Genesis 5 of the SP. From Adam to Mahalalel, and then Enoch, these figures match those found in the Masoretic Text. Some scholars have argued the matching character of these MT/SP figures in Genesis 5 favors them as original. Since we have proposed that the lower begetting ages in the MT are the result of deliberate deflation in the 2nd century AD, an explanation for their appearance in the SP must be offered. The purpose of this article is to present a plausible theory as to why the SP was also deflated in Genesis 5.

7. ABR friend Jeremy Sexton is publishing a new article that expands on his original article from the Westminster Theological Journal. Presently, the article is slated to appear in the June 2018 issue of The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Title: "Evangelicalism's Search for Chronological Gaps in Genesis 5 and 11: A Historical, Hermeneutical, and Linguistic Critique." Please pray that Jeremy's excellent article is published as planned.

We ask for your continued prayers and support of this important project. If you feel so inclined, please send a gift to ABR’s general fund, which will help fund this research. This will be especially helpful as we move towards publishing From Adam to Abraham, which will entail numerous expenses and extensive labor to prepare.

Feel free to send in your questions as well. We look forward to reading your questions in a spirit of Christian charity.

Blessings in Christ Jesus,

Henry B. Smith Jr.

ABR Research Staff

Administrative Director of the Shiloh Archaeological Excavations, Israel

For a number of years, the ABR staff has been endeavoring to conduct research on the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. As we worked towards the launching of this important project, Pastor Jeremy Sexton published this article in the Westminster Theological Journal. Since it was very much in accord with the direction of our research, we invited Pastor Sexton to republish his article here, and he graciously agreed. We expect this to be the first of many articles (re)published by ABR that deal with this important, ancient, and complex subject. For more about the project, please visit: https://biblearchaeology.org/abrprojects/4293-the-genesis-5-and-11-genealogy-and-chronology-research-project