Are the Genesis Genealogies Mostly Gaps?

Most Christians today have accepted the claim that the earth is about 4.6 billion years old and the universe is about 13.8 billion years old.1 The first humans formed about 40,000 to 600,000 years ago, depending on which evolutionist you ask, because they strongly disagree with each other about what a human being is and when the first humans (Homo sapiens like us) evolved from a subhuman creature.2

This story sharply contrasts with the history God gives us in Genesis 1–11. There we learn that Adam and Eve were made on the sixth literal day of history, after God made the earth on day one and the sun, moon, and stars on day four. The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 tell us how long it was from Adam to Abraham.

But since 1890, most evangelical Bible scholars have been influenced by an article written by Princeton Seminary Old Testament professor, William Henry Green, who wrote

That the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 were not intended to be used, and cannot properly be used, for the construction of a chronology. . . . On these various grounds we conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.3

As a result, most evangelical scholars, apologists, and pastors contend that the age of the creation is unknowable and unimportant. So we can accept the evolutionary dates for man, the earth, and the universe.

Furthermore, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 cannot be ignored or manipulated to accommodate any evolutionary dates for the first humans.

But the Bible is clear. Adam was made on the sixth literal day of history. There could not be millions of years of animal disease, death, and extinction and other natural evils before the fall.4 Noah’s flood was global, yearlong, and catastrophic, which would have produced most of the geological record (thereby demolishing the idea of millions of year of earth history).5 Furthermore, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 cannot be ignored or manipulated to accommodate any evolutionary dates for the first humans.

Genesis 5 and 11: Missing Names?

Many old-earth Christian scholars have correctly pointed out that the Hebrew words translated as father, begat, and son don’t always mean a literal father-son relationship. Jesus Christ, the “son of David” (Matthew 1:1), proves that.6 It is also true that many genealogies in the Bible leave out generations. A well-known example is the genealogy of Jesus back to Abraham in Matthew 1, which leaves out several generations in the three groups of 14 names.

But none of this means that there are missing names in Genesis 5 and 11. These genealogies are unique not only in the rest of the Bible but also in all ancient Near East literature.7 They are the only genealogies that contain chronological information, telling the reader how old a patriarch was when the next man was born. So, while it is theoretically possible that there are missing names (i.e., skipped generations), there can be no missing years. For example, it would not change anything if Seth was the son, grandson, or great-grandson of Adam. He was born when Adam was 130 years old.

Therefore, on its face, if we total up the years, Genesis 5 and 11 tell us that it was about 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham. Several verses in the rest of the Bible pinpoint Abraham at about 2000 BC. So, according to the Hebrew Bible (from which our English Bibles are translated), the age of the whole universe is a little more than 6,000 years.8

Genesis 5 and 11: Missing Years?

Some young-earth creationists (who have equated supposed missing names with missing years) have suggested that the age of the earth could be perhaps 10,000 years ago. But even adding that little time is unlikely, and it won’t harmonize the Bible with secular dating methods.

Some creationists have said that if God wanted us to know how long it was from Adam to Abraham, he should have totaled the years, as he did in Exodus 12:40 when he told us how long the Israelites sojourned in Egypt. But to come up with that number would take some detective work in the biblical text. In Genesis 5 with the chronological data all in one place, Moses showed us how to add the numbers to get the total lifespan of each patriarch. I suspect he and the Lord figured we could do the math in Genesis 11 to get the lifespan of those patriarchs and also come up with the grand total for the period from Adam to Abraham.

In Genesis 5 and 11, there are 19 “father-son” links. We know that 6 of those 19 links are definitely literal, because of details in the text.9 For example, Eve named Seth, Noah was on the ark with Shem, and Terah traveled to Haran with Abraham. But Jude 14 says that Enoch was the seventh from Adam. So that means that 10 of the 19 links are literal and cover 1,536 years, according to Genesis.

Most scholars agree that Abraham was about 4,000 years ago. If Adam was 10,000 years ago, then we would have 6,000 years between Adam and Abraham. But if we subtract 1,536 years for the literal links, then we must account for 4,464 years in the nine possibly “nonliteral” links, which would be on average 496 years for each link. This seems highly unlikely given the following facts.

Noah begat Shem at 502 years old. But all the other begetting ages were less than 187 years, and most (especially after the flood) were less than 100 years. So an average begetting age of 496 years for links between men we know nothing about is extremely doubtful.

Or if we put all the extra years between Arpachshad and Terah, it would look like this.

But if this were so, we have to ask: Why would God through Moses give such an erroneous and misleading view that the years between those men were only 220 years, involving six named men? This would put the flood over 8,000 years ago. If so, why isn’t the human population today much larger? Adding this much time in this way would turn Genesis 5 and 11 into a very strange and unique genealogy.

A Lesson from Hugh Ross’ Writings

But now we need to consider the writings of Dr. Hugh Ross, founder and past president of Reasons to Believe, whom I debated on October 11, 2024, on the question “Does Belief in Inerrancy Necessitate a Particular View on the Age of the Earth?”10 He says he believes in the inerrancy of Scripture, endorsing the ICBI Chicago Statement on Inerrancy (which unfortunately has some subtle weaknesses, as I explain elsewhere11). But he also believes in the big bang, billions of years, animal death, disease, and extinction before the fall, and that Noah’s flood was just in the Mesopotamian Valley of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. He has greatly influenced the church because his books and ministry have been endorsed by some of the most prominent evangelical theologians and apologists today (including Wayne Grudem, Norman Geisler, J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, Sean McDowell, Walter Kaiser, C. John Collins, John Ankerberg, etc.).12

Since the evolutionist dating of the first human beings keeps changing, Dr. Ross’ date for Adam has also changed.

Several years before Dr. Ross professed faith in Christ at age 18, he had already accepted the big bang theory and billions of years as “proven scientific fact.”13 He has never questioned the consensus results of the evolutionist dating methods. But since the evolutionist dating of the first human beings keeps changing, Dr. Ross’ date for Adam has also changed.

In his 1991 book, The Fingerprint of God, after stating that several scientific methods “reveal a level of consistency that permits the secure conclusion that the universe is roughly 16 billion years old,” Ross says, “The best Hebrew scholarship places the biblical date for the creation of Adam between 10,000 and 35,000 years (the outside limits being 6,000 and 50,000 years).”14 But he cites no Hebrew scholarship to support this statement, for the simple fact that there is none.

In his 2005 book, Who Was Adam? (coauthored with Fuz Rana, his long-time associate at Reasons to Believe), he said, “The RTB model views Adam and Eve as historical individuals—the first human beings—originating by God’s miraculous intervention approximately 70,000 to 50,000 years ago.”15 So we can do away with the 35,000 years or the “outside limit” of 50,000 years he confidently told his readers in 1991. Taking an average of 60,000 years, his new 2005 date would require us to insert 6,052 years into each of the “nonliteral” links of Genesis 5 and 11. If we said that a literal generation was 153 years,16 that would mean an average of 39 missing names in each of the “nonliteral” links! Such a date for the creation of Adam would also mean that 42,364 years (with about 277 missing names) passed between Arpachshad and Terah after the flood! Given that much time and large families (judging from Genesis 10), the human population at the time of Abraham would have been gigantic! What happened to all those people?

In his 2014 book, Navigating Genesis, Ross was confident that “Adam and Eve [were] anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 years ago.”17

But in the 2015 revised edition of Who Was Adam?, we have more confusion. On page 66, Rana and Ross say that “molecular anthropologists find mtDNA nearly ideal for the study of human origins because of its relatively simple pattern of inheritance and its rapid mutation rate.”18 But on page 68 in a sidebar titled “How Accurate Are Genetic Dates?,” we read,

Though molecular clock analysis is relatively straightforward in principle, its application is problematic. One chief difficulty centers on the clock’s calibration. In practice, calibration is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish. Researchers simply cannot determine with any real accuracy, mutation rates, and the changes in these rates over time.

Nevertheless, Rana and Ross trust the evolutionist dates anyway!

Continuing on page 66, they report on a 1980 study that “rather crudely characterized mtDNA sequences with provocative results—humanity originated recently (about 180,000 years ago) from a small original population.” Ross and Rana then tell readers about the results of a study in 1987 that “led scientists to conclude that humanity originated from one woman. She came from a single location (apparently Africa) roughly 200,000 years ago.”19

They continue by citing a 1991 study which “confirmed the earlier results. They pointed to a recent origin of humanity (between 249,000 and 166,000 years ago) from one location (apparently Africa) from a very small population of women.” Then they cite a study in 2000 which “indicates that women appear to have had a relatively recent beginning (171,500 ± 50,000 years ago) from a small population. The mtDNA genetic fingerprints paint a picture of humanity’s origin consistent with the biblical account and RTB’s model.”20 So Eve was somewhere between 121,500–221,500 years ago, which is obviously quite precise!

Having told readers (in the sidebar at the top of page 68, as noted above) that mutation rates are nearly impossible to know, they assure readers that “corrections to mtDNA mutation rates in heteroplasmy place mitochondrial Eve perhaps as recently as 50,000 years ago—squarely within the range predicted by the RTB model (between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago).”21 So the RTB model predicts Adam and Eve were created 10,000–100,000 years ago but is equally consistent with a date between 121,500 and 221,500 or maybe even 166,000 and 249,000. And Rana and Ross assure us that it is consistent with the biblical account. Amazing!

But 10 pages later in the same book, Rana and Ross give us corroborating evidence about the timing of Adam and Eve’s creation from the humanly friendly tapeworms and lice.

Traditionally, the scientific community thought the tapeworms infested human populations about 10,000 years ago, after cattle and swine were domesticated. Genetic analysis, however, reveals a different story. It turns out that tapeworms began parasitizing humans between 90,000 and 160,000 years ago (depending on which mutation rate is used in the analysis). Given the uncertainty associated with molecular clock analysis, these dates can be considered to coincide with humanity’s origin.22

Using molecular analysis (already reported as untrustworthy) of malarial parasites also informs us.

In 2002, a team from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined the genetic variation of 204 genes from a worldwide sampling of Plasmodium falciparum (the malaria parasite). Based on molecular analysis, the group concluded that this pathogen originated between 100,000 and 180,000 years ago. Again, given that this technique yields approximate dates, it can be argued that this parasite’s origin coincides with humanity’s. A follow-up study in 2003 refined the earlier NIH results and demonstrated an African origin for P. falciparum between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.23

So, according to tapeworms and malaria, Adam was somewhere between 50,000 and 180,000 years ago.

Now Ross and Rana assure us that “biologists believe that body lice emerged (via a microevolutionary process) from head lice after clothing use became widespread.”24 So that should help to pinpoint Adam and Eve since they got clothes shortly after their fall in sin, which was soon after their creation (Genesis 3). A 2003 German research team “concluded that body lice originated in Africa around 72,000 years ago (± 42,000 years). This result fits nicely with all the other genetic studies designed to probe humanity’s origin and seems to suggest that clothing use came into vogue with the first humans.”25 So we are to believe that Adam and Eve were created 30,000–114,000 years ago, which matches “nicely” with the previous studies and are “remarkably consistent with RTB’s creation model. The scientific evidence continues to indicate that humanity had a recent origin from a single location and involved a small population size.”26

A couple hundred thousand years is “recent,” of course, when compared to the age of the earth according to the evolutionists trusted by Ross (4.5662 ± 0.0001 billion years).27 “The timing and location of humanity’s origin are consistent with the predictions of RTB’s human origins model”28 (which they told us a few pages earlier predicted Adam’s date was 10,000–100,000 years ago).

But apparently, Rana and Ross don’t expect their readers to remember all these different dates, what their model predicts, and how it so nicely fits and is consistent with the scientific data. For 300 pages later in the same book, we are told, “In 2005, we predicted that God created human beings between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago.”29 But readers of this 2015 edition who don’t have a copy of the 2005 edition would not know that this contradicts what that edition actually said (as quoted above). They continue in the same 2015 paragraph,

The latest results from molecular anthropology place humanity’s origin between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. We were wrong. However, the new dates line up with estimates of humanity’s origin from the fossil record (between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago). Though these dates are older than those reported in the first edition of Who Was Adam?, we argue that they still harmonize with Scripture. After carefully reconsidering our interpretation of the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, we now take the position that the biblical text implies that Adam and Eve were created while an ice age, probably the most recent one, was in effect.30

So, following the evolutionary “science” as always, they say that Adam was 100,000 to 200,000 years ago and that this date range harmonizes with Genesis. But in the book, they don’t show how they carefully reconsidered their interpretation of Genesis. It most certainly was not the result of careful Bible study! In an endnote to the last sentence quoted above, they point to Ross’ 2014 book Navigating Genesis, which says on page 75 (as noted above) that Adam was 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. So the 2014 book’s date for Adam that is cited in the endnote of the 2015 book contradicts the date range for Adam in the 2015 book.

Now, if we go with the more recent 2015 date range and take the average of 150,000 years, that would put 16,052 years (and about 105 missing names) in each “nonliteral” link of Genesis 5 and 11 and insert 112,364 years (and about 734 missing names) between Arpachshad and Terah, like this:

Is this not absurd? Why give the time for the literal links but then give grossly errant times for the “nonliteral” links? What is the point of putting any chronological information in these genealogies? Why not just have a list of names as in Matthew 1 or 1 Chronicles 1?

To make things even more clear about how Ross and Rana mishandle or ignore the text of the Word of God, we must consider the 2017 multiauthored debate book about creation in which Rana represented the view of Reasons to Believe by saying that Adam was 130,000 years ago. He said, “In light of the scientific data, we estimate humanity’s origin to be roughly 130,000 years ago. We maintain that this date for humanity’s origin comports with the biblical account of humanity’s Genesis.”31 Of course, most readers of that book won’t know that in Rana and Ross’ 2015 book, we are told that the range predicted by the RTB model for Adam’s creation is 10,000–100,000 years!

Ross’ most recent book, Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense (2023), claims to defend the inerrancy of Scripture. Following carbon-14 dating and the dating of ice ages according to the evolutionists, he says that the creation of Adam was somewhere between 45,000 and 250,000 years ago.32 So the dating methods are obviously very precise and accurate, right?

Let’s review what Ross, Rana, and RTB have said about when Adam was created.

• In 1991: 10,000–35,000 (“at the outside 50,000”) years ago.
• In 2005: 50,000–70,000 years ago.
• In 2014: 60,000–100,000 years ago, as “predicted by the RTB model.”
• In 2015: 100,000–200,000 years ago, which “still harmonizes with Scripture” and “is consistent with the RTB model.”
• In 2017: 130,000 years ago, which “comports with the biblical account.”
• In 2023: Adam was created somewhere between 45,000 and 250,000 years ago.

None of these dates for Adam can be harmonized with Genesis 5 and 11.

In contrast, we should heed the words of Paul: “Let God be true though every one were a liar”

Now, all of Reasons to Believe’s changing dates for Adam are perfectly understandable, given their complete trust in the evolutionists’ shifting dates for the origin of Homo sapiens. Ross and RTB are treating Genesis like a wax nose or “Silly Putty,” manipulating it however is necessary to make it seem to agree with the ever-changing “proven facts of science.” But all those well-known and respected theologians and apologists who have endorsed and promoted Ross’ writings in the evangelical world don’t see it because they clearly are not reading his books carefully. And they are ignoring the details of Genesis 5 and 11, even though they affirm those chapters as the inerrant Word of God. They don’t see that for over three decades Hugh Ross and RTB have been engaged in a subtle assault on (not a defense of) the truth of God’s inerrant Word.

In contrast, we should heed the words of Paul: “Let God be true though every one were a liar” (Romans 3:4). Don’t believe Ross or the scholars who trust him regarding the big bang and the age of the creation. Genesis 5 and 11 give us accurate chronological information to conclude that Adam and the rest of the universe came into existence only a little more than 6,000 years ago.33