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#7.
The First Registry of Births and Deaths (Gen. 5: - 7: 6).
pp. 189, 190
Once more, we leave the question of "place" and return to the element of "time".
"This is the book of the generations of Adam" (Gen. 5: 1). A serious writer has
recently put forward the idea that the fourteen generations of Genesis, refer not to what
follows, but to what goes before. Thus, Gen. 2: 4 refers to the first chapter of Genesis,
and speaks of the "origin" of heaven and earth, and so throughout the book.
While an appeal to Matt. 1: 1 most certainly shows that, there not the "descendants",
but the ancestry of Jesus Christ constitute His "generations", an examination of the usage
of toledoth, "generations", in the O.T. makes the idea of ancestry impossible in every
case. The only meaning that fits all cases is "family history", the context alone deciding
whether the look is backward or forward.
"The generations of Pharez."
These are found in the book of Ruth, but one looks in vain for any of the ancestors of
Pharez: what is given is a list of his descendants, from his son Hezron to David.
An example where "family history" better fits the case is found in I Chron. 26:, in
verse 31 of which chapter the expression "according to the generations of his fathers"
obviously looks backward. Two "books of generation" are found in Scripture. The first
relates to Adam, the second to Christ, and between the two is to be found the chronology
of the Scriptures. After the birth of Christ, chronology ceases, and all attempts to
construct a chronology of the N.T. fail because the necessary facts are wanting.
Anstey, in his work "The Romance of Bible Chronology", says:--
"In a conversation with a friend, the present writer, in claiming authenticity for the
chronological records of the early chapter of Genesis, was met by the objection `At any
rate there were no Registrars of Births and Deaths in those days', to which we replied,
`That is just exactly what the fifth chapter of Genesis is'. It might have been copied from
the fly-leaf of an old patriarchal family Bible, or genealogical family chart. The family
records that are preserved in these days are little else but records of births, marriages and
deaths, but they go back farther than any other records in the family chart. Moses was
the literary executor of Joseph, and the custodian of the heirlooms of antiquity preserved
by the chosen race."
The chronology that extends from Adam to Noah is simplicity itself, but in later
Scriptures we meet increasing complication. It may be good for us to construct our own
chronology, collecting the material from the record of the Scriptures themselves. We
shall soon find that we must not assume that the son named in the genealogy is always
the firstborn, or that where the firstborn is included, he is always mentioned first. Seth
was born after Cain and Abel, and, though mentioned first, Shem was not the eldest