The numbers given in the text are usually similar but do vary between versions. Nearly all modern translations of Genesis are derived from the
Masoretic Text, but there are also two other versions of Genesis: the
Samaritan Pentateuch and the
Septuagint (a Greek translation of a Hebrew text). Translations from the
Masoretic Text are preferred by Western Christians, including
Roman Catholics and
Protestants and by followers of
Orthodox Judaism, whereas the Greek version is preferred by
Eastern Christians, including
Eastern Orthodox,
Coptic,
Ethiopic,
Jacobite and
Armenian. The
Samaritan Pentateuch is held sacred by the
Samaritans. The numbers in the Masoretic, Samaritan, and
Lucianic Septuagint versions of Genesis are shown in this table: The following table lists the patriarchs that appear in the
Vulgate and the Septuagint, but their names are spelled as they appear in the
King James Version of the Bible. Their year of birth differs according to the Vulgate or the Septuagint. Also given is each patriarch's age at the birth of his named son and the age of the patriarch's death. Cainan, born after the flood, is mentioned in the Septuagint but not the Vulgate. Methuselah survived the flood according to the Septuagint (but not the Vulgate), even though he was not on
Noah's Ark. The genealogies of Genesis contain a difficulty with regards to the birth of
Arphaxad. One method of calculating places the birth of Arphaxad 600 years after the birth of Noah, while another places Arphaxad's birth 602 years after Noah. The table below uses the 602-year method; the 600 year method would decrease the date for Arphaxad and all the following figures by two years. This chart counts year totals only.
Anno Mundi (AM, or 'in the year of the world') can be calculated by adding
2 to any given value in either the "Birth" or "Death" columns. The result will give a corresponding date in AM.'' but was taken away by God (at an age of 365). Genesis states that Enoch "walked with God; and he
[was] not; for God took him." 2On this chart Noah is listed as having lived 502 years when he begat Shem and this calculation is based on the birth year of Arphaxad. The extra-biblical
Book of Jasher also mentions that Noah was 502 years old when his wife Naamah bore Shem.
Number symbolism The following table lists all the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Moses in the Masoretic Text, which add up to 12,600. The value of 12,600 is a variant of the symbolic value of 1,260 later used in the
Book of Revelation (e.g. Rev. 11:2–11; 12:4–6, 11; 13:5), although may derive from earlier traditions. Another example of the numerical schema of 12,600 can be found in the
War Scroll discovered at
Qumran, where "the Sons of Light shall fight against the Sons of Darkness in the final days for a period of 35 years. Employing the Jewish luni-solar calendar of the 360-day year, 35 years equals 12,600 days." It is the official method of calculating years for the
Hebrew calendar currently in use. Based on a calculation using the Masoretic Text recorded in the
Seder Olam Rabbah (c 160 AD) of Rabbi
Jose ben Halafta, the first five days of creation in Genesis were in Anno Mundi 1, and the creation of
Adam was on 1
Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah) in Anno Mundi 2 which corresponds to 3760 BC. The official Anno Mundi epoch is Anno Mundi 1. This first year begins almost a full year before creation and is commonly referred to as
The Year Of Emptiness or
The Ascension Year in Jewish tradition and coincides with the years 3761/3760 BC.
Counting years Counting a number of years based on an annual fixed calendar date yields a different result from a rolling year count based on dates such as birthdays which have the possibility of being at any time of the year and change depending on the individual. Using this method has led some chronologists to add or subtract a 0.5 year margin to/from the birth year of each patriarch to account for unknown birth dates. The first mention in Genesis of the use of a fixed method to reckon years is made in Genesis 1 referring to the "lights in the firmament". A fixed calendar system is usually determined by an annual epoch such as New Year's Day (1 January) which is fixed by the alignment of astronomical objects; the reckoning of the year occurs on its epoch. Years represented in Anno Mundi dates could be interpreted to be in alignment with Rosh Hashanah and are counted according to its annual occurrence.
Birth years of Shem and Arphaxad There are several different interpretations as to the exact birth year of Shem and his son Arphaxad. Based on Noah being at least 500 years old when he began to beget children and Noah's sons each having an age difference, it is not uncommon to encounter chronologies that list Shem as being 98 years old when the flood began. Shem begat Arphaxad two years after the flood when he was 100 years old. Since Methuselah was not mentioned in Genesis among those who were aboard the ark, it is possible that his death came in the same year of the flood. Based on the Masoretic Text, counting 1656 years on the above chart will result in being the 600th year of Noah's life, the year of the death of Methuselah and year that the flood began. The two-year discrepancy is commonly resolved by rendering the birth year of Shem in the same year that Noah was 502 years old, and rendering Arphaxad as having been born two years after the death of Methuselah and the flood.
Differences in the numbers A comparison of the Genesis 5 numbers (Adam through Noah) in the above table shows that the ages when the sons were born plus the remainders equal the totals given in each version, but each version uses different numbers to arrive at these totals. The three versions agree on some of the total ages at death, but many of the other numbers differ by exactly 100 years. The Septuagint ages of the fathers at the birth of their sons are in many instances 100 years greater than the corresponding ages in the other two versions; in Genesis 11 some of the Samaritan Pentateuch ages agree with the Septuagint ages and are also 100 years beyond that of the Masoretic and Vulgate versions. The Samaritan chronology has Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech dying in Noah's 600th year, the year of the flood. The Masoretic chronology also has Methuselah dying in Noah's 600th year, but the Masoretic version uses a different chronology than the Samaritan version, with about 350 extra years between creation and flood. The Lucianic text of the Septuagint has Methuselah surviving the flood and therefore the 100 year differences were not an attempt by the Septuagint editors to have Jared, Methuselah, or Lamech die during or prior to the flood. Some scholars argue that the differences between the Masoretic and Septuagint chronologies in Genesis 5 can be explained as alterations designed to rationalize a primary Masoretic system of chronology to a later Septuagint system. According to another scholar, to assume that the Masoretic Text is primary "is a mere convention for the scholarly world" and "it should not be postulated in advance that MT reflects the original text of the biblical books better than the other texts." The present-day Greek Orthodox Septuagint text still offers the Lucianic numbers for Methuselah, which undoubtedly are the numbers as found in the original Septuagint text, most likely based on the Hebrew original that was used for the translation. This opens the possibility that these were the original numbers in the Hebrew tradition also, that only later, after discovering the chronological discrepancy, have been changed by adapting the Methuselah numbers to 167+782=969 (in some Septuagint manuscripts) or to 187+782=969 (in some other Septuagint manuscripts as well as in the present-day Masoretic text). The scholarly Septuagint translation of the Hebrew
Pentateuch into Greek at Alexandria, Egypt, in about 280 BC worked from a Hebrew text that was edited in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. This would be centuries older than the proto–Masoretic Text selected as the official text by the
Masoretes. Attempts to rationalize the ages by translating "years" as "months" results in some of the Genesis 5 people fathering children when they were five years old (if the Masoretic chronology is assumed to be primary). There is one discrepancy between the antediluvian chronologies of different texts of the Septuagint - the age at which Methuselah gave birth to Lamech: 167 or 187 years. Because of this, the date of the Flood is shifted by 20 years. This difference is probably due to the different lists of the Septuagint from which the translation was made. For example, according to Lucianic version of the Septuagint (end of the 3rd century), the Flood was in 2242, and according to the Code of Alexandria of the Septuagint the Flood was in 2262 from cm. (as in the printed editions of the Septuagint, for example, the Frankfurt Bible or the reconstruction of G. B. Sweet; as well as in the Church Slavonic translation of the Elizabethan Bible). ==Priestly source==