User blog:SouthWriter/The Flood: A Biblical Timeline

The Great Flood forms one of two distinct dividing points in human history. In fact it is more universal than the Christian calendar that is dependent on deciding an exact date in an ancient culture. The exit of  humanity from the ark began a restart, dated early on with the birth of the first post-flood son of promise--Arphaxad--at being born in the third year after the flood ("two years after "). The fact that Shem had lived 100 years ("the son of a hundred years), helps celebrate the time before the flood.

The Messianic Line.
After the murder of Abel split the family of Adam, Adam sired another son, named "Seth" by Eve. This was after Adam had lived 130 years. From this point on, taking the dates strictly on face value, Adam would have sired his son on 1/6/131 AM (Year of the world). For simplicity, then, there would be nine months until the birth on 10/6/131. Each year began at the fall equinox which for simplicity's sake, September 15, can be used as an equivalent. Dates up to the flood will be measured as 360 days long. Dates in months 1--3 are fall, 4--6 are winter, 7--9 are spring and 10--12 are summer. Note that the Flood began "in Noah's 600th year. This is different than "after Noah had lived 600 years". And so, Noah turned 599 on 10/6/1663, with the flood beginning four months later in 1664.

The Year of the Flood
The above chart shows a natural flow of life based on the fathers' ages when they lay with their wives. In doing this, we got a date several years later than the conventional counting of the years. Each son was advanced 9 months, for an increase of 9 years, to a flood year spanning what seems to be 12 months plus 10 days (370 days). If we let the flood change the orbit or slow the rotation of the earth, we can see the calendar "set straight" in but one year. The first 40 days of the flood brought catastrophic change to the earth which began around what we might call late October, in the middle of the second lunar month following the equinox. A full moon had just passed as Noah waited for the rain to begin. The lunar months were affected as events that precipitated the Flood somehow slowed the moon's orbit by about 12 hours a month. Unbeknownst to Noah, the cycle of months alternating 30 and 29 days had begun. As in Genesis, I will name the months by ordinal numbers.

Comparing scripture with scripture, it is not hard to imagine that on the morning of the seventeenth, Noah saw a blood red sky as heavy clouds were forming on the horizon. Perhaps for the first time he would learn that "in the morning, It will be stormy today: for the sky is red and threatening" as Jesus would remind the Pharisees as they were being condemned. Those clouds would block out the sun for the whole world later in the day (see note on 2/17/1664 above) for not three hours, but almost a thousand hours as unimaginable rain fell nonstop.

Conversely, at sunset a solar year later, the red sky would be a beacon to a new world for the taking. Additionally, a special coloring of the sky in the east would be a sign that the world would last a long time, with no watery death in its future. It could be that with a noontime darkening and and evening sacrifice, the flood was exactly 365.25 days. The prophets would hold on to the idea of a perfect 360 days, and thus reflecting, one might surmise, the world as God made it.

This work is under copyright of the author and should not be used without his permission.