periods from before the Tower of Babel. Biblical archaeologist
Doug Petrovich noted: “They can’t just go away. They can be
shortened, but they have to be counted into the equation.”
40
Thus, the “rather continuous archaeological record” to which
Morris and Whitcomb referred deserves a place in time, but
not the authority to nullify the historically superior biblical
record from either the MT or LXX.
Finally, geneticist John Sanford demonstrated that the
MT-based post-Flood declining lifespan pattern over many
generations fits the hypothesis that increased mutational
load caused systematically diminishing lifespans.
41 Figure 2
replicates his patriarchal lifespan chart and includes the
LXX numbers. The best fit power curve for the LXX data
followed the formula y = 946.21 x 10–0.702. The best fit power
curve for the MT data followed the formula y = 726.71 x
10–0.617. Both sets reveal similarly systematic declines and
show no clear mutational basis for adjudicating between
the two texts.
Ongoing research may more firmly establish or unfasten
the LXX Genesis 5 and/or 11 chronologies. Until then, two
Flood ages present themselves. The LXX Genesis 11 lists
780 more years than the MT. However, as Sarfati showed,
later copies of it show an extra ‘Cainan’, and thus an extra
130 years.
36 Subtracting those 130 from 780 gives 650 years
to add to the MT-based Flood age estimate of 2518
BC to
produce a LXX-based Flood date of circa 3168
BC.
Conclusions
An outline of three steps to assigning biblically and
historically responsible
BC age estimates for Noah’s Flood
has been presented, and it suggests several conclusions.
First, the idea that Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies have
gaps is increasingly difficult to support and irrelevant in
light of the internal textual evidence for complete, gapless
chronogenealogies. Second, one can construct a tight
year-to-year chronology using just the Bible, though it has
taken several generations of chronologists to settle key
questions like the web of numbers in the Kings. Third, recent
scholarship has reawakened interest in the Septuagint’s
early Genesis chronology, which adds about 650 years to the
Masoretic text’s span between Noah and Abraham. Thus,
instead of a continuum of age possibilities from ~2500
BC
to ~3170
BC and maybe beyond, historical evidence suggests
that the Flood occurred at either one or the other tight time
frame. Fourth, the fifth millennium
BC Flood age estimate
that Morris and Whitcomb allowed in The Genesis Flood
lies beyond the age estimates given here and beyond those
of Hardy and Carter, Johnson and Ice, and Sarfati, as cited
0
0
100
200
300
400
500
700
600
800
900
1000
10
Noah
David Roman ave.
Septuagint
Masoretic
Power (Septuagint)
Power (Masoretic) R2 = 0.9149
R2 = 0.9308
20
Post-Flood Lifespan Declines from the
Septuagint Versus Masoretic Texts
30
Generations after the Flood
L
if
esp
an
i
n Year
s
40
50
60
70
Figure 2. Age at begetting of post-Flood patriarchs, plus Noah, from two textual traditions