A brother in Philadelphia sends the following three questions on one of the Sabbath-school lessons, which he wishes answered through the Signs of the Times:
1. How do you prove that Adam lived 233 years with Methuselah? Smith's Dictionary says it was 243 years. So does the Bible. By an error in copying, the lesson came short just ten years. This was better than to have had the number too large.
2. How do you count to get 352 years in the 20th question? The genealogy of Shem, in Genesis 11:10-26 counts only 262 years from the flood to Abram.
The brother's difficulty arises from the fact that he supposes Abram to have been born when Terah was seventy years old. The fact is that Abram was not born till Terah was one hundred and thirty years old. We learn this as follows:
• Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran; (Genesis 13:4)
• He did not go out of Haran until his father was dead; (Acts 7:4) and
• Terah, his father, was two hundred and five years old when he died. (Genesis 11:32)
Now a very slight mathematical calculation will enable anybody to see that Abram was born when Terah was one hundred and thirty years old: 205-75=130. With this in mind, the brother will have no difficulty in finding that from the flood to the birth of Abraham was 352 years.
3. If Noah was five hundred years old when Shem was born (Genesis 5:32), and Shem was one hundred years old when Arphaxad was born (Genesis 11:10); two years after the flood, how could Noah have been six hundred years old when the flood came? (Genesis 7:11).
The brother has fallen into the same difficulty here as in the case of Abram; he evidently thinks that Abram, Nahor and Haran were all born at the same time, and that Shem, Ham and Japheth were also born at one time. But the Bible does not say so.
Terah was seventy years old when his first son was born, but Abram was not born until sixty years later, so we have seen. So (Genesis 5:32) tells how old Noah was when his eldest son was born; but that oldest son was not Shem. From (Genesis 10:21 and 9:22-23) we learn that Japheth was the oldest son of Noah, and that Ham was the youngest, and that consequently Shem was the second son.
Although Abram was undoubtedly the youngest of the sons of Terah, he is mentioned first because he is the only one of importance. Shem was the second son of Noah, yet he is always mentioned first because he is the one from whom the genealogy of Christ is reckoned.--Signs of the Times, March 9, 1888--Genesis 5:32; 7:11; 9:22-23; 10:21; 11:10-26, 32; 13:4.
E.J. Waggoner