CHAPTER 18
THE AGE OF THE PATRIARCHS
We last left Adam and Eve in a fallen state, having been thrown out of the Garden of Eden into an imperfect environment where hard work and childbearing was required of the human race. They did as God commanded, and worked hard and procreated. The timeline of human history started with their exit from the Garden, and it began with what the Bible reveals as the Age of the Patriarchs.
The time from Adam and Eve exiting the Garden of Eden until the Jews departed Egypt to form a nation called Israel is known as the Age of the Patriarchs, the first Age of time during man’s occupancy on a cursed earth outside of the Garden. There is nothing in the Bible which refers to this Age of time as the Age of the Patriarchs, so it could be called several different names. But this one suits the purpose. It is the time from the fall of mankind until the beginning of the Age of Israel. Ages are defined by covenant changes. Once fallen man was thrown out of the Garden he was given a basic covenant from God under which to live in harmony once again with God. After all, that is the purpose of the various covenants God has given, and will give in the future to man. Namely, the covenants define how man will relate to God and please Him in a fallen state during each specific Age of time.
When Adam and the woman sinned in the Garden of Eden, God needed to either condemn them immediately to the Lake of Fire or provide a plan for salvation. God chose to provide salvation through a future Messiah who would eventually be Jesus Christ. This Messiah Savior would not be provided immediately after the first sin, therefore God divided how He would interact with mankind into stages with the Messiah's salvation work being the central issue in human history. God established a plan which included the various Ages discussed above, and they would require different covenants as time progressed to define how God and man would interact during each Age.
The Age of the Patriarchs covenant was very simple, and was at its core to believe in Him, multiply, and work hard for a living. There was no Mosaic Law or complicated set of instructions for them to follow. That would come at the beginning of the second Age, the Age of Israel which will be covered in the next chapter. And after that, the New Covenant (Testament) to the Church defined the Church Age, and so on. As time proceeds, the covenants become more complex and nuanced. Therefore this Age of the Patriarchs was a time when mankind’s primary task (other than to choose for or against God’s salvation offer for them) was to populate the earth, setting up future Ages which would be much more complex regarding how God would interact with mankind. This Age was a simple time when family Patriarchs ruled their expanding families, and since these Patriarchs lived for many hundreds of years each, they ruled over extensive families, providing spiritual guidance and teachings, and generally directing the future of their clans. These Patriarchs had names like Adam, Seth, Jared, Enoch, Peleg, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham, and Moses (who began the next Age). Their spiritual lives were not very complex, certainly when compared to the Church Age spiritual plan God now has put into place. This Age was defined by two very significant events, namely the Great Flood and the Tower of Babel dispersion.
As God had commanded, Adam and Eve set out to multiply, to set up farming and ranching communities among their offspring, and to worship God in a simple way. Hard work was their lot in life, and their relationship with God was based on a basic faith in Him. They believed that God would fix what they had broken by their sin, and the basic message of evangelization was Genesis 3:15 discussing the serpent Satan and the future seed of the woman Jesus Christ: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This basic message about the future "offspring of the woman" Messiah who would "crush Satan's head" at the cross was what they believed for salvation during the Age of the Patriarchs. It is called the "proto-evangel" meaning it is the first gospel message in the Bible.
Genesis chapter 5 provides the genealogy from Adam down to Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth who were all three born to Noah after he was 500 years old. Adam lived 930 years and died about 725 years prior to the Great Flood. There were seven generations between Adam and Enoch, and Enoch did not die, but was taken off the earth by God as a special tribute to his spiritual life (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5). Methuselah, who lived 969 years, the longest of any human in history, died just as the Great Flood was about to begin. The average lifespan of the nine men mentioned in Genesis 5 who lived from Adam to Noah was 912 years (not counting Enoch since he was taken away early by God and did not live out his natural lifespan). After the Great Flood the lifespan decreased rapidly and dramatically. Those mentioned in the Bible who were born shortly after the Great Flood lived just over 400 years, then those who were born 100 years after the Flood lived just over 200 years. That was a 700 year drop in lifespan in about 100 years. By the time we get to Abraham, people were generally living about 150 years, then in Moses' day it was down to just over 100 years, and by the time of David it was down to 75 years.
To put into perspective the timeline from Adam to the present, Adam lived 930 years, then the time from Adam's death to the birth of Abraham was just over 1000 more years. During that time Adam and Noah's father Lamech were living on the earth at the same time, and then Noah, who lived 950 years, was still on the earth when Abraham was born about 1920 BC. Therefore the lives of Noah and Abraham also overlapped, as did the lives of Adam and Noah's father. Looking at this in perspective, it was about 2000 years from Adam's creation to Abraham, then about 2000 years from Abraham to Christ, then about 2000 years from Christ to the present day. The Great Flood occurred approximately 1650 years after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, or about 4350 years ago. Then Abraham was born 350 years after the Great Flood, and only 2000 years after Adam and Eve left the Garden. So Abraham lived twice as long ago from today as the cross, and Adam and Eve were created three times as long ago as the cross. That is not a very long period of time when put into perspective. Therefore the Bible provides all the information necessary to calculating the times of the creation of the first humans, the Tower of Babel, the Flood and other major events is not difficult. This is especially true since we know fairly certainly when Abraham lived, and we know very certainly when the Exodus of Israel occurred. When a person understands how truly short a period of time elapsed from Adam down to the present time, it brings the rest of the timeline of the history of man into clear perspective as a rather short period of time.
Adam was created about 6000 years ago, and died about 5000 years ago. Put into hundreds of years, a time frame most can relate to as a little more than a lifetime, Adam and Eve were created just 60 times 100 years ago. Or if you look at it in terms of current life expectancy of about 80 years, humans were created just 75 lifetimes ago. Think of Adam and Eve having been created just 75 lifetimes ago. From human creation until your own birth there were only the equivalent of 75 people between you and the first two humans. Not all that long when put into perspective. This is why the dinosaurs could not have lived during the time of man, and why the fossils were formed long before man appeared on the earth. It is also why the Bible is perfectly consistent with all of this. The Bible accounts for possibly millions of years ago and 6000 years ago. It is the difference between the times of the angels on earth and the time of mankind on earth. It is all consistent with what the Bible reveals and it all makes perfect sense.
Regarding some practical questions, where did the wives of the early descendants of Adam and Eve come from? The answer is sisters and cousins, because things were different at that time. The early DNA transfers from parents to children was different. Exactly how we cannot say. But God made provisions so mankind could procreate among close relatives. There were no other options, and God sanctioned it. Also, after the Great Flood the only option was to marry cousins. This was a major difference between Ages. In later Ages God would close off this practice. This is just one of many differences between the various Ages of time. God does not change His mind, but He does change some rules during certain Ages of time to prove certain points in the angelic conflict, and for other very practical reasons. After all, God is practical.
When Cain killed Abel it was the first death ever of a sentient being. No angel had ever died, and the first death of a human was by murder. Cain was a farmer, and Abel, his younger brother, a rancher. From just after the fall of man, God required animal sacrifices as a means of teaching about the Messiah. The Messiah would need to be sacrificed as a substitute for man in order to allow God to offer man salvation. The animal sacrifices were therefore not something to appease God, but rather they taught man. Abel brought sacrificial animals and offered them to God as required. Cain, being a farmer, brought vegetable "bloodless sacrifices" instead of animals which did not teach what God required. Cain would have needed to trade Abel vegetables for animals, which was proper in this very early economy of a small family, but he refused. God was not pleased with being offered vegetables instead of a blood sacrifice because the blood sacrifices taught people about the future Messiah. The Messiah would not be a plant. This arrogance of Cain led to the first murder, and the first death of all time, either angel or man.
As the human population expanded and spread out, Satan saw another opportunity to win his appeal trial. This time it was an attack on the lineage of the future Messiah in order to prevent Him from becoming true humanity.
Angelic Attack & The Great Flood
Satan’s goal since his fall has been to thwart the plan of God. He has tried many things to prevent God from fulfilling promises made to mankind. The main promise God made to man was that of a Savior (Messiah) who would be truly man and also God in one Person. Satan’s primary plan, therefore, became stopping the Messiah, first from being born, and if that failed, then preventing Him from fulfilling His salvation mission. If God was able to offer mankind salvation, this would demonstrate He is indeed a fair, loving, gracious God. Meaning, Satan loses the appeal trial and ends up in the Lake of Fire after all.
But back to 4000 BC, once humans began to populate the earth in relatively large numbers Satan launched one of his most ingenious attacks in history. Note that we “give the devil his due” because he is indeed a super-genius in our terms. Plus he has lived for eons so he has a lot of experience and memories, and he also has millions of fallen angels to serve as intelligence sources. His ingenious evil plan during that first Age involved changing the nature of the human body in an attempt to prevent the Messiah from becoming a true human so He could not become the Savior for all mankind. Genesis chapter 6 tells the story of this evil plan devised by Satan, and God's counter to it which was the Great Flood.
Most people know the story of the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark. But why was this worldwide destruction necessary? Why would God kill off all but eight people? The answer is one of the most fascinating accounts in the Bible.
After Satan was foiled by the fall of man and how it did not definitively prove his appeal case, he set off to devise a new plan. God had offered salvation to fallen mankind, which Adam and Eve accepted, along with many others afterward. This salvation offer spoiled Satan’s plan to win his appeal trial by simply causing man to sin in the Garden. So if God could still follow through and provide the Savior, Satan would certainly lose his appeal. Therefore God’s counter to Satan’s plan in the Garden caused Satan to seek a new plan to win his appeal. Since God had promised a Messiah (not yet called by this name) who would take away all sins from mankind to provide salvation, and God had said the Messiah would be "the seed of the woman" which meant a human, Satan’s new plan involved stopping the Messiah from being born in order to stop God's salvation plan. Satan decided to corrupt the human race and prevent the Messiah from becoming a true human, therefore he had his fallen angels start having intercourse with human women, resulting in half-angel half-human offspring. The Messiah had to be true human, not half-angel, so this was Satan's attempt to thwart the Messiah from being born as a true human. It was an outrageous plan, but also ingenious.
According to Genesis chapter 6 the plan worked quite well.
Vs1: “When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God [angels] saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.”
The phrase “sons of God” as constructed in this passage always refers to angels. And the passage contrasts these "sons of God" with human women, showing they are indeed angels. Also, the Apostle Peter wrote in 2 Peter 2:4: "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others..." showing the fallen angels violated God's rules resulting in the Great Flood. Therefore we see that fallen angels seduced human women by the thousands, and the women willingly complied. After all, these angels had great physical prowess. Since the DNA was compatible (showing that angel bodies and human bodies had similar DNA at that time) the children born were half-human half-angel, having extraordinary physical powers and were up to ten feet tall. These are referred to as the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." Ancient stories of their feats of strength have come down to us as heroes of old named Hercules, Achilles, Agamemnon, and others. The Nephilim were the ones who lifted the huge rocks high in the air to build Stonehenge and other structures from long ago, and accomplished many other great feats of strength beyond the capabilities of normal humans during the 3000 BC to 2350 BC time frame. They also had enhanced sinful natures making them very violent, and they killed off the truly human men until only Noah and his family remained fully human, protected by God as the Apostle Peter said in the verse mentioned earlier.
Additionally, this shows us something about the angels in general. Angelic souls are exactly the same as human souls, but angels have superior bodies to house their souls. Details can be found in my book "Exploring Deep Concepts & Mysteries of the Bible" which is available free online. Angels also had sexual capabilities. They had DNA that was compatible with mankind at that time, allowing children to be born. But the DNA was also different, enabling superior bodies for the Nephilim. It also introduces questions. Did angels have angel children, or was sex only for pleasure among angels, as it was from the beginning in the Garden of Eden for mankind? Were angels all created at one instant in time, or did they procreate over many millions of years? Were angel bodies changed after the Flood to avoid another human corruption attempt? We do know that the Bible says "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." (Matthew 22:30) Does that mean no marriage, or no sex at all? Interesting questions, but the Bible does not provide enough information to draw any firm conclusions.
Gen 6:3 “Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
God was obviously displeased that human women would copulate with angels and bear half-angel children. God set a limit of 120 years to allow humans to straighten this out or be destroyed. Noah evangelized the Nephilim but none accepted salvation.
Gen 6:4 “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”
The Nephilim were the half-human half-angel children of the fallen angels, and they had superhuman capabilities. As a side trip into historical possibilities, Homer wrote the Iliad about ancient Troy, a city where heroes of old fought. If they were real, these were supposedly the half-human half-angel people of the time frame around 3000 BC and prior to the Great Flood. Homer lived in about 750 BC, and supposedly wrote about the fall of Troy in about 1200 BC. But the “heroes of old” spoken of in Genesis 6 could not have been from 1200 BC but would have been from about 3000 BC, almost 2000 years earlier. Troy was a city during the time of the Nephilim, and man had only left the Garden 1000 years before that time. The names of these children would be Hercules, Artemis, Agamemnon, Achilles and others. Homer wrote about their exploits at the battle of Troy and the voyages to and from Troy. They had great physical abilities and set Olympic records which have never been matched. Was Homer writing about ancient stories handed down of the actual Nephilim or was he inventing stories? Who knows? It is merely interesting that oral records of the Nephilim existed and were passed down for over 2000 years after the Flood. But otherwise it does not matter; only what the Bible reveals truly matters since it is the only source of truth from God.
Genesis 6:5 "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
Except for Noah, his sons, and their wives, all the earth was filled with half-angel humans. Only eight people remained pure humans. God would have wiped out all people on earth if not for these eight true humans. So He decided to only kill off the half-humans instead. That was the reason for the Great Flood. It was not to wipe out people because they were especially evil, although they certainly were, but rather it was intended to wipe out the half-angel humans and protect the blood line of the Messiah and all other humans as well. Therefore Noah built the ark to save the pure humans and also the animal creation. The eight pure humans survived, and all the half-angel humans were drowned, which was the reason for the extended time of forty days. The number of drowned Nephilim would have been well over a million, and possibly many more. Then the eight pure humans re-started the human race. This plan of Satan would seem silly if not for the fact that it was one of his most successful attempts of all time to win his appeal trial. Only Satan would try to carry out such an outrageous scheme. But it almost worked. However, many of Satan's fallen angels ended up in the Abyss prison as a result of this gross violation of the rules of the angelic conflict, and they will remain there until the Tribulation, as we will discuss later.
The Great Flood is described in Genesis chapter 7: "In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." The resulting Great Flood killed all the half-human half-angel people on the earth, so that the human race could continue with only pure humans, allowing the Messiah to provide salvation as a true human, not as a half fallen angel. There could not have been a Savior born with a half-demon ancestry.
Since these half-human half-angel people had human souls, the same souls as pure humans, these unbeliever souls ended up in Hell (Torments) except that any children who were not yet at an age of accountability for accepting salvation went to Paradise.
A number of things changed on earth during and after the Flood. Vast amounts of water flowed with great force in some areas and caused new gorges to be formed, earth to be moved, and other changes which water flowing with such force could cause. It would have moved some things around including fossils, rocks, dirt, vegetation (especially seeds), and such which could have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles. Some things ended up in places far from where they started, pushed up, washed away, or buried deep underground. The Flood explains how certain of earth's features were relocated, formed or buried. Other places did not have the stronger currents and remained intact, such as Stonehenge. The changes made by the Great Flood are often overlooked as a reason for many of the changes to the earth's surface after the restoration event.
One of the most striking changes was that people lived much shorter lives after the Flood. Before the Flood some people lived almost a thousand years, and most lived to be several hundred years old. By the time of Abraham (a thousand years after the Flood) people only lived about 100 years. Abraham was very long-lived at 175 years, and only because his body was refurbished when God made him the first Jew. Another thousand years later King David only lived 65 years, and Psalm 90:10 says "Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures" which was discussing average lifespans at the time of David. So what happened with the lifespans? Why the obvious significant change from before the Great Flood and after? God wanted the human race to expand somewhat quickly, so he put in place human genetics which allowed for more rapid expansion early on, and diminishing afterward. Genetics tells us that each cell has a limit on the number of allowable divisions before it dies, telomere shortening and all that, so somehow the cell division allowance for higher order stem cells which maintain body health and prevent aging decreased over the first couple thousand years, and then stabilized. It is also possible that there was no bacteria until the Great Flood occurred, which could have brought it up from below the earth. Or possibly their immune systems were much stronger early on. Mostly questions without clear answers, but interesting to contemplate. But God could not allow such long lifespans to continue, otherwise the earth would have quickly become overpopulated.
One final reminder about the Great Flood. There were no dinosaurs on the Ark, since there were none on earth during any part of human history. Man and dinosaurs have never mixed. They were created for the angels to enjoy when earth was their home.
Tower of Babel
Four generations after the Flood, or about 100 years later, the Tower of Babel was erected. The building of the tower did not represent a physical attempt to reach God as some have suggested since they could have simply climbed a nearby mountain and been much higher, and they were not far away from such a mountain. The Bible says this was a rejection of God in the form of man attempting to join together to set up a human kingdom apart from God, which is something Satan attempted long before this time. Now Satan was trying to incite humans to revolt against God using an internationalist secular religion which was man seeking personal redemption apart from God. The theory was that man could save himself by human good deeds among themselves, which was a rejection of God's salvation plan through the promised Messiah. And Satan would be there to help them accomplish this, since he rules the world. So the Tower of Babel had nothing to do with man seeking God, but rather it was a Satan-inspired revolt against God. This was just 100 years after God had saved the eight people from the demons and from the Flood, which shows quite a lack of gratitude.
God’s response was to divide people and scatter them by both making them speak different languages (to that point there was only one language on earth) and also making them separate and scatter, spreading them to the far regions of the earth. The Tower of Babel was primarily a scattering event, and was how the far continents and islands were initially populated.
So how did people get to the Americas? Because God promoted this scattering He would have made the far regions of the earth accessible by various methods, including extended freezing of the Bering Straits, extremely favorable winds to cross the Pacific, and the use of other weather patterns to promote the scattering. People quickly ended up in North America as a result of God promoting this worldwide scattering event. Therefore they walked across the Bering Strait ice in certain extremely cold years and they also sailed boats across, since it is only 55 miles to present day Alaska. This issue also comes up in Biblical history because it raised the question about when land masses were split into continents. Some have suggested the continents were formed after these people crossed, but this is not accurate. That continent separation was done during the restoration of earth prior to man's creation. The issue of people ending up in the Americas and on isolated islands in the Pacific formerly seemed to confound people, but with several re-creations of crude vessels crossing the Pacific by island hopping and the Bering Straits to Alaska, and complete freezing of the Bering Straits at certain times throughout history, this is not difficult to understand, especially since it was a scattering for which God paved the way using weather and other means. This deep freezing could also have been when Mammoths died out since it was an extended weather event, and the timing was the same. The voyage to what is now the Americas likely happened within a thousand years of the scattering of the people after the Tower of Babel. As people became isolated in these far regions they developed physical characteristics based on limited DNA since there were very few of them who made it across the Bering Straits. But as shown by Eskimos, Native Americans, First Nations, Central and South Americans they initially came from the same limited number of originating peoples.
Behind this Tower of Babel internationalism was Satan, of course, and his plan was to bring man together to form an alliance with him and against God. So God thwarted that attempt by scattering and separating people by distance and language. This prevented Satan from uniting humans into his own kingdom under his rule, which was a revolt against God. So God's response to this revolt prevented Satan from succeeding at another of his many schemes.
What About the Cave Man?
People lived in several types of dwellings from just after the Garden of Eden was closed. Weather was no longer perfect, so shelter was required. Most people made tents from animal skins, or built wooden or stone huts depending on the local materials, and some lived in caves where available. The type of dwelling did not define the person. Depictions of the cave man as sort of the homeless people of the ancient world, dressed poorly and acting generally crudely are fiction. They were just people who had a cave in their area, so why not live in it? Who wouldn't? The smartest people would want to live in a cave since it was better than most other options for large family groups since they generally lived together in clans at the time. Cave men were therefore no different than other people at the time. But who were these people, anyway?
These so-called cave men were early descendants of Adam and Eve, and since the DNA of those original parents was so pure, it remained exceptional for a long time. The time frame was about 5500 years ago, which is not very long. Therefore those early descendants lived some 500 years after Adam and Eve exited the Garden, and were still alive since Adam lived over 900 years. All of these people at that time were very smart, not dumb social dropouts who reverted to a lower level of social status and lived life at a basic level. Almost all of these early people were farmers and ranchers. People were generally not the "hunter-gatherers" as they have been portrayed to be, but worked hard to earn a living off the land as God required after the fall of Adam and Eve.
Therefore the cave man as generally referred to is an invention of those who believe in evolution. This is how such anti-creationists push their ridiculous theories on the rest of the world, trying to show man as evolving from some inferior knuckle draggers who ate dinosaurs, and they became smarter as they evolved. As we have seen, this is not what the Bible reveals. God c