8 May 2017 Navigate to scripture index: index-genesis.
Genesis 5 has a simple format. A lives X years, and becomes the father of B. Then A lives another Y years, for a total of Z years, and dies.
Here’s some snippets, as the KJV has it (I’ve shortened numbers to numeral forms for convenience):
And Adam lived 130 years, and begat a son . . . And Seth lived 105 years, and began Enos . . . And Enos lived 90 years, and begat Cainan . . . And Cainan lived 70 years and begat Mahalaleel . . . And Mahalaleel lived 65 years, and begat Jared . . . And Jared lived 162 years, and he begat Enoch . . . And Enoch lived 65 years, and begat Methuselah . . . And Methuselah lived 187 years, and begat Lamech . . . And Lamech lived 182 years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah . . . and Noah was 500 years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
In other words, this is all straightforward, and you can draw a straight 1656-year-line from Adam to the three sons of Noah. As the KJV became outdated, the RV appeared, and it substantially preserved the KJV’s opinion on 5:32. And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Then the ASV came along: And Noah was five hundred years old: And Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Same deal.
Then, all of a sudden, something changed. Suddenly translators started translating 5:32 in a way that makes the date fuzzier.
NIV: After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, instead of fathering his sons at 500 years old, it’s after 500 years old. And this same after appears in the ESV and and NET as well.
Does the Hebrew text of Genesis 5:32 contain something that would indicate that this date is fuzzier than the other dates in Genesis 5? Not at all. In each case, you’ve got two wayyiqtol verbs, in sequence. Nothing exotic and different happens in Genesis 5:32. The KJV reflects the structure of the sentences in Hebrew well (if a bit literally). The NASB, Holman, and NJPS all hold the line as well. 5:32 is grammatically like all the other verses.
So what justifies treating 5:32 differently? Easy. If Shem was born 500 years after Noah, then taking 5:32 alongside 7:6 and 11:10 leads to a discrepancy. And so, without any justification, various evangelical translations of the Bible have decided to “improve” 5:32.
But if 5:32 doesn’t set a clear date, as reflected in the choice to add a gratuitous “after” or “by the time”, why not give consistent treatment to the rest of Genesis 5. Why doesn’t the NIV read that “After Adam was 130” he became the father of Seth, and “after” Seth was 105 he became the father of Cainan, and so on? The answer is clear: mistreating the grammar in this way would make the whole genealogy implausibly weird.
It would make it clear to the reader — even the reader who doesn’t read Hebrew — that something weird is being done to the text. No one would write a genealogy and declare only that each person had a son on or after a particular date. The whole chronology would lose its straightforward meaning.
This choice is particularly surprising for the NET Bible, which gives copious notes. The NET even has a footnote mentioning in this verse that they take the second occurrence of “Noah” in the Hebrew text and render it as “he.” That’s a minor issue. But the major issue at this verse, the addition of an “after” not found in the Hebrew text, does not merit a footnote.
I call shenanigans.
“Noah was five hundred years old, and he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth” is one thing. “Noah was five hundred years old, and [then at some later time, on unspecified dates] he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth” is another.
For more on the chronological issues of the Bible, check out James Barr’s essay on Ussher.