World English Bible · Before the nations
Genesis 5
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This is the book of the generations of . In the day that created man, he made him in . He created them male and female, and them. On the day they were created, he named them . lived one hundred thirty years, and became of a son in his own , after his , and named him . The days of after he became of were eight hundred years, and he became of other sons and daughters. All the days that lived were nine hundred thirty years, then he . lived one hundred five years, then became of . 7 lived after he became of eight hundred seven years, and became of other sons and daughters. 8All of the days of were nine hundred twelve years, then he . lived ninety years, and became of . 10 lived after he became of eight hundred fifteen years, and became of other sons and daughters. 11All of the days of were nine hundred five years, then he . lived seventy years, then became of . 13 lived after he became of eight hundred forty years, and became of other sons and daughters 14and all of the days of were nine hundred ten years, then he . lived sixty-five years, then became of . 16 lived after he became of eight hundred thirty years, and became of other sons and daughters. 17All of the days of were eight hundred ninety-five years, then he . lived one hundred sixty-two years, then became of . 19 lived after he became of eight hundred years, and became of other sons and daughters. 20All of the days of were nine hundred sixty-two years, then he . lived sixty-five years, then became of . After birth, walked with for three hundred years, and became of more sons and daughters. 23All the days of were three hundred sixty-five years. walked with , and he was not found, for took him. lived one hundred eighty-seven years, then became of . 26 lived after he became of seven hundred eighty-two years, and became of other sons and daughters. 27All the days of were nine hundred sixty-nine years, then he . 28 lived one hundred eighty-two years, then became of a son. He named him , saying, "This one will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, caused by the ground which has ." 30 lived after he became of five hundred ninety-five years, and became of other sons and daughters. 31All the days of were seven hundred seventy-seven years, then he . was five hundred years old, then became of , , and .
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The world at this moment · Before the nations, 2600 BC to 2100 BC ›
The opening chapters, from creation to Babel, told on a scale that covers the whole earth before the story narrows to one family.
- The neighbours' own stories
- Mesopotamia told its own versions of these events. Atrahasis and the eleventh tablet of Gilgamesh tell of a flood, a survivor, an ark, and birds sent out to find land. Enuma Elish tells of a world made from a defeated sea. The resemblances are close enough that scholars have argued about them for a century and a half, and the differences are where the argument gets interesting: Genesis has no quarrel among gods, no accidental humanity, and a flood sent for moral reasons rather than because people were noisy.
- Babel and the ziggurat
- A tower with its top in the heavens, built of brick and bitumen on a plain in Shinar, describes a Mesopotamian ziggurat exactly. Dozens were built, the best known at Ur and Babylon, of mud brick because southern Mesopotamia has no stone. The detail about brick instead of stone is the kind of thing someone writes who has actually seen one.
- The wider world
- If these chapters are placed anywhere in ordinary chronology, the surrounding centuries are the age of the Egyptian pyramids, the Sumerian city-states, the Indus Valley cities, and the first phase of Stonehenge. Writing was a few centuries old and existed in two places on earth.
All of Genesis