Genesis 7:7, Noah’s Studly Sons

Posted on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

//According to the Bible, all humans share two common ancestral sets of parents: Adam and Eve, and Noah and his wife. When the flood came, it wiped out all life except Noah’s family, so we all descend from Noah as well. (Note that we descend from other genealogical lines as well, through the wives of Noah’s sons, who accompanied him onto the ark.)

The most recent research in human evolution uses mitochondrial DNA (mitDNA) to trace human origins through mother-to-daughter inheritance, and nuclear DNA to trace through father-to-son inheritance. It turns out all males share a common father, a sort of Y-chromosomal Adam, projected to have lived about 80,000 years ago. Curiously, however, when we trace the matrilineal line to find a common mother, we have to go clear back to 150,000 years ago. Researchers call her Eve.

So, does that mean Adam lived 70,000 years after Eve? How can that be? Should we instead figure the discovered common father to be Noah, not Adam? This leads to a couple conclusions:

[1] The flood happened about the year 80,000 BC, and the creation about 150,000 BC.

[2] It takes 70,000 years for the ancestors of all the wives of Noah’s sons to converge back through time into a single Eve. Wow, just how many wives accompanied these three sons on board the ark? Is that why the ark had to be so big?