Lifespans
Patriarch Lifespans: Adam to Abraham
Adam to Abraham on one timeline, in the Hebrew, Greek and Samaritan texts of Genesis 5 and 11. Switch texts and watch the lives shift, see who was alive at the Flood, and find out who could have met whom.
Patriarch Lifespans: Adam to Abraham
Genesis 5 and 11 in three texts
Adam to Abraham on one "year of the world" (Anno Mundi, AM) axis. The Hebrew, Greek and Samaritan texts of Genesis 5 and 11 give different ages, so the years shift with the text you choose. Hover, tap or tab to a patriarch to see who was alive at the same time.
Year of the world (AM)
Masoretic Text
The Hebrew text behind most English Bibles, the ASV included.
Septuagint
The Greek translation of the Old Testament, begun in Alexandria about three centuries before Christ and widely read in the early church.
Before the Flood (Genesis 5)
After the Flood (Genesis 11)
Flood (Genesis 7:6)
Terah's age at Abram's birth
70 (Genesis 11:26)
130 (Genesis 11:32; 12:4; Acts 7:4)
LXX Methuselah reading
167 (NETS)
187 (other manuscripts)
NETS prints 167 and 802, following Wevers' Göttingen text. Codex Alexandrinus (corrected from 167), Codices Cottonianus and Coislinianus, Papyri 911 and 961 and over a dozen minuscules read 187 (Smith 2017, pp. 174-175, citing Wevers); Codex Vaticanus lacks this part of Genesis. Eusebius knew copies with 167 and 802 and others with 782, and Jerome found 187 in the Hebrew and Samaritan copies he consulted (both as quoted in Smith 2017, pp. 174-175). Augustine reports three Greek manuscripts, one Latin and one Syriac in which Methuselah dies six years before the Flood (City of God XV.13). Josephus has 187 (Antiquities 1.86). With 167, Methuselah outlives the Flood; with 187, he dies before it.
NETS prints 330, read by several Septuagint manuscripts; a few read 403, as the Masoretic does (Smith 2018, Appendix n. 6, p. 131, citing Wevers).
NETS prints 430. Almost all Septuagint manuscripts read either 430 or 330 (Smith 2018, Appendix n. 5, p. 130, citing Wevers).
Adam (Genesis 5:3-5)
Seth (Genesis 5:6-8)
Enosh (Genesis 5:9-11)
Kenan (Genesis 5:12-14)
Mahalalel (Genesis 5:15-17)
Jared (Genesis 5:18-20)
Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24)
Enoch did not die: "he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). His bar ends at 365.
Methuselah (Genesis 5:25-27)
Lamech (Genesis 5:28-31)
Septuagint manuscripts read 188 almost without exception; none has the Masoretic 182 (Smith 2018, pp. 124-125, citing Wevers). Manuscripts of Josephus divide between 188 and 182 (Antiquities 1.87; Smith 2018, p. 125).
Noah (Genesis 5:32; 7:6; 9:28-29)
Genesis 5:32 gives 500 when Noah's sons are named; the years after (450) are 950 less 500. He lives "after the flood three hundred and fifty years" (Genesis 9:28).
Shem (Genesis 11:10-11)
Arpachshad (Genesis 11:12-13)
Cainan (Genesis 10:24; 11:12-13 (LXX); Luke 3:36)
Cainan is not in this text. He appears in the Septuagint (Genesis 10:24; 11:12-13) and in Luke's genealogy: "the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad" (Luke 3:36).
Shelah (Genesis 11:14-15)
Eber (Genesis 11:16-17)
Peleg (Genesis 11:18-19)
Reu (Genesis 11:20-21)
Serug (Genesis 11:22-23)
Nahor (Genesis 11:24-25)
Terah (Genesis 11:26, 32)
Terah's years after Abram's birth are his lifespan less the age chosen above.
Abraham (Genesis 25:7)
Flood
Methuselah dies
Dying in the Flood year
Alive when Abram is born
Outliving Abraham
A puzzle in this text
Except
- noah
{names} would outlive the Flood, yet only Noah's household came through it: "few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water" (1 Peter 3:20). Augustine took up this very problem in City of God XV.11, and reported manuscripts in which Methuselah dies six years before the Flood (XV.13).
Try the 187 reading
Choose a patriarch to see his dates in all three texts and everyone whose life overlapped his.
Method
- Each man is born in his father's birth year plus the father's age when "he begat" him, counting Adam's creation as AM 0. Noah "was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth" (Genesis 7:6), so the Flood year is the year Noah turns 600. Shem "was a hundred years old, and begat Arpachshad two years after the flood" (Genesis 11:10), Genesis 5:32 names Noah's three sons together at 500, but if Shem were born that year, Arpachshad would be born in the Flood year itself. So, as John Gill reasons in his commentary on Genesis 5:32, this chart puts Shem's birth in Noah's 502nd year. A chart that simply adds Shem's 100 years to Noah's 500 dates every later birth two years earlier.
- Terah, 70 or 130? "Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran" (Genesis 11:26) may date the first of the three sons, not necessarily Abram. Terah died at 205 in Haran (Genesis 11:32), Abram "was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran" (Genesis 12:4), and Stephen says he left "when his father was dead" (Acts 7:4). Read together, these put Abram's birth in Terah's 130th year. The Samaritan Pentateuch gives Terah 145 years, so there, with Abram born in Terah's 70th year, Abram leaves Haran in the year Terah dies.
- Cainan appears only in the Septuagint (Genesis 10:24; 11:12-13) and in Luke's genealogy (Luke 3:36). The Masoretic and Samaritan texts go straight from Arpachshad to Shelah.
- Which numbers are original? In Genesis 5 the Hebrew and Greek texts give the same lifespan for every man but Lamech; they differ on the age at which each son was born, the Greek usually 100 years higher. In Genesis 11 the Greek and Samaritan texts agree on those ages, 100 years above the Hebrew (50 for Nahor), but differ on the years that follow. Scholars still debate which text preserves the original figures. The Masoretic Text is shown first because it stands behind most English Bibles, the ASV included, not because the chart settles the question.
Masoretic numbers: Genesis 5; 7:6; 9:28-29; 11:10-32; 25:7 in the American Standard Version (1901).
Septuagint numbers: A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), Genesis, tr. Robert J. V. Hiebert. Numbers cited only.
Samaritan numbers: Moshe Florentin and Abraham Tal, The Samaritan Pentateuch: An English Translation with a Parallel Annotated Hebrew Text (Open Book Publishers, 2024, CC BY-NC 4.0): Genesis 5 (pp. 100-103), 9:28-29 (pp. 114-115), 11:10-32 (pp. 119-122) and 25:7 (p. 169). Numbers cited only.
Septuagint manuscript variants and Josephus: Henry B. Smith Jr., "The Case for the Septuagint's Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11," Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018), 117-132 (PDF, Associates for Biblical Research). Smith argues for the Septuagint's numbers; the chart uses his manuscript reports, not his argument.