All right, we are back in our creation apologetics type series. And tonight, I had mentioned last time that we might cover a little bit about biblical genealogies. And so I'm gonna do that tonight. It's not super complicated or anything, but there's some stuff that's worth hearing. There's two articles that are Probably of interest, I would say one, William Henry Green, primeval chronology. That would be, I guess, one that would be worth reading, not like you have to agree with everything. The other one is Yagol 11, understanding biblical genealogies. That one's far longer, far more complex, and doesn't seem to have the, probably the same biblical understandings that we do. less helpful in general. So if you're gonna read one, do the William Henry Green primeval chronology. So the reason that we are looking at this, the reason for the examination of biblical genealogies is because that is the sole means used to estimate the age of the earth. That's why it relates to this whole realm of creation apologetics type stuff. Obviously, we disagree with modern science about the age of the earth. So given those biblical genealogies and the way that they are read, the youngest age possible, given the lineages recorded in scripture, the youngest age possible for the earth is around 6,000 years old, just over 6,000 years old. Obviously modern scientists disagree with this. They claim the Earth itself is 4.5 billion, over 4.5 billion. They say seven million years ago is when the first hominins appeared. That's basically the claimed ancestor of man and chimps and that sort of thing. Not humans by any mean, but that's what they claim. that's when they first appeared seven million years ago. Then they say that the earliest species of Homo sapiens, that's what humans are. They think they appeared 1.5 to two million years ago. The primitive Homo sapiens were 300,000 years ago. And then anatomically modern Homo sapiens appeared around 200,000 years ago. So basically they think like humans, close to what we know them as now, Have been on the earth for about 200,000 years and then like with our brain structure something like a hundred thousand years That's their claim and then the earth is obviously they think way way older than that in the billions So obviously they're not even close we're not we're not remotely close here in terms of the ages Some Christians I believe have far too great of confidence in in the proclaimed neutrality of secular scientists to the point where they take them too seriously when they make claims like this. I think that's silly. I think creation science has done a great job of showing not just their non-neutrality, but their inconsistencies, that sort of thing. But there are Christians that trust them too much. And they think they're just, well, they're just neutral about these things. They're not neutral at all. they will challenge, some of these Christians that have this confidence in them, will challenge the use of the genealogies in Genesis by saying that, you know, they were not written for the purpose of constructing a chronology. And perhaps this might surprise you, but we do agree with that. We do agree. Yeah, they weren't written to construct a chronology, necessarily. That's not the reason that they were written. They were written to record the genealogies. That's the purpose of them, literally, to trace the descendants, to write a history. The question is not if they were written to do that thing, to construct a chronology, but If it inherently provides a genealogy, or not a genealogy, a chronology, does it inherently do that anyway? Whether or not it's written for that purpose isn't really the question. Like, for instance, tree rings don't exist for the purpose of telling us the age of a tree. That's not why tree rings are there. Like a tree is thinking, everyone, when they cut me down, needs to know how long I was here. No, that's not the purpose of a tree ring. That's not why they're there. But they do inherently do that. So it's that kind of idea. So nevertheless, we will cover the claims made against using the genealogies at all so that we're familiar with them. And so if you hear some of these things, you're not necessarily like thrown off. There's some things that we can hear that might challenge our assumptions that really shouldn't challenge us in terms of our theology and our understanding of scripture. Just certain things about these chronologies that they're not that big a deal, but you might not have heard them before. And I want us to at least hear them. Not necessarily, I'm not trying to get you to agree with them or anything like that, but I want you to be familiar with them. The claim is that the genealogies themselves are frequently abbreviated by intentionally leaving out some of the less important names or, you know, it skips over and kind of hits the highlights of the genealogies, that sort of idea. It gives the highlights of the president, of the, the history, the descendants. So if you were trying to give a highlight of the presidents of the United States, you'd be like, Washington and Adams, you start with some big names, and Jefferson, and then Jackson, and then Lincoln, Roosevelt, Roosevelt again, JFK, Reagan, Trump, you know, that sort of thing. You skip over a whole bunch, but you give just like a quick rundown, you hit some of the highlights, something like that. We should not oppose the idea of the existence of abbreviated genealogies. That's not a problem for us. We recognize some of the genealogies in scripture are abbreviated, but that's just not even a question because you can compare and contrast them. Some cover the same things and some of them intentionally are abbreviated. However, some will claim that we should pretty much suppose that that abbreviated method of like skipping some, they'll suppose like, well, that's true in every case, or we should always assume that is the case in any genealogy, unless something prevents us from taking it that way. So we all recognize, everybody collectively recognizes, yes, abbreviated genealogies exist, yes, that's a method that is used in scripture, but some will be like, well, we should take them all that way, unless something stops us. We will acknowledge that scripture uses this at some times, that's fine. This method seems to be used in Matthew 1, where there's certain kings left out because we know the full king list, but Matthew 1 doesn't give the entire king list when he's giving the genealogy of Jesus, for instance. And then even at the end of that, the entire genealogy is summed up in just two steps, says Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Obviously that is skipping tons, right? That's not the norm for genealogies, but it's kind of indicative of how they might do genealogies in general. Another obvious instance is in the list of appointments by King David in First Chronicles, 24 through 26 gives some of these. And we're told that there's one example, Shebul, he was the ruler of the treasuries. He said to be the son of Gershom, the son of Moses. Now it's silly, it's a silly idea to think that the historical writer of Chronicles was intending to propose that this Shemuel or Shebuel was actually the grandson of Moses. Like Moses had Gershom and Gershom had Shebuel and Shebuel was appointed by David. a silly idea that he would still be alive in the time of David. They're almost 500 years apart, right? So this is another instance where we can expect that. Generations can be surprisingly spread out. I mean, it can surprise you sometimes. Like, for instance, our 10th president John Tyler was actually born in 1790. A president born in 1790, still today has a living grandchild. So they can be spread out. That's pretty crazy to think of. In 2025, a man born in 1790 has a living grandchild, a famous guy, right? So in 1853, at age 63, John Tyler had a grandchild. Leon Tyler, and then in 1928, at the age of 75, Leon Tyler had a son named Harrison Tyler. He had a second wife. She was 35 years younger than him. And that guy, Harrison Tyler, is still alive today. He's 96 years old. So that's a long time to cover from a father to a grandson. Now, it would be even twice that for, you know, Moses's grandson to be alive at the time of David. So that's wild. But still, a grandson of Moses alive at the time of David is not what the biblical genealogies are trying to claim there. It's just trying to give his family line, where he's from, that sort of thing. That sort of listing is merely explaining that family line of Shebulon. Not trying to give an exhaustive list of Shebul's descendants. There's no reason for that there. Just trying to say he was a Levite from, descended from Moses. Ezra's genealogy is also recorded in the book bearing his name, gives Ezra's genealogy, but there's a large gap of six names that we know about because of the more complete genealogies in 1 Chronicles 6. And again, that's fine. That sort of thing is not an error. It's not like Ezra made a mistake in his own genealogy and just forgot a chunk of six names. These are not biblical errors. The genealogies don't match up 100% because One will be intentionally abbreviated because there's a fuller list somewhere else that it kind of relies on. That's just how genealogies are recorded in some parts, where being exhausted isn't really an essential part of the text. It would only serve to bog down the text. It would take up valuable space that was very valuable with the things that they had to, you know, they're writing instruments and what they had to write about. So it's about methodology of these genealogies. It's not a question of inerrancy. Saying that one genealogy is not complete is not to say, well, the biblical writers made an error here. No, the biblical writers used a different methodology of recording that genealogy there. And one of the reasons they can do that is because they have a more complete list somewhere else. So there's no need for it. So recognizing intentional gapping in a genealogy does not mean that we think there's mistakes in the Bible. Often biblical writers will rely on the existence of, and possibly the access of, or access to, those other biblical books that contain the more complete records. So they just kind of assume like, yeah, you know this, it's there in these other books and I'll hit the highlights. You might know this reference. Some biblical writers will basically yadda yadda portions of the genealogy. They just yadda yadda right over them. Jesus born to Mary who was betrothed to Joseph, Joseph the son of Jacob, yadda yadda, the son of David, yadda yadda, the son of Judah, yadda yadda, the son of Abraham. There's a lot in those yadda yaddas. The biblical writers sometimes do that. Another interesting thing that is done that goes largely unnoticed unless someone does some detailed comparison of the records is that persons of different degrees of relationship are sometimes thrown together in one grouping. This took me a little bit to kind of figure out what is meant here. Usually the ordering of the names and the other records can be used to inform the reader of the intent when there's like groups of names. If we read it, it sometimes looks like, well, these are all the sons of, or these are all the descendants of, and that's not necessarily what it's always saying. There'll be relations that are, So first a primary name may be given and then it might give his son and then additional names are given but those are the brothers and not actually additional children to the primary name and If you read it straight through with our mindset, we think oh, these are other sons. They're not they're actually brothers of that person But you you need to compare and contrast the genealogies to realize what they're doing there. They're kind of just trying to group tribes They're not always giving like straight-up This is the family line following one line or anything. They're just kind of trying to name the names and tribes a lot of times. In 1 Chronicles 1, we see a list of names for the family of Eliphaz. But we know from Genesis 36 that the first five names are sons. of Eliphaz. The sixth name is not actually another son, it's actually one of his concubines, and then the seventh name is the son that he had through that concubine. But you don't know that unless you see it in Genesis and compare and contrast, because in 1 Chronicles 1, they're all just a list of names. They're not even all male. One of them's actually a woman, and then one of his, so you'll find that sort of thing. You'll never realize that without comparing the genealogies. They just don't give the complete details when they do this. The goal of the chronicler is just to connect all those people together in the right family group. It's not to say who is who specifically. Sometimes what looks like a long list of names are not all consecutive generations, but they're a list of fathers and sons, and then a group of brothers, and then a group of fathers and sons again. which seems super confusing to us, but that's only if we intend or we assume that the genealogies are trying to give just father-son lines. And they don't. They'll sometimes give a group of brothers in there and they don't say exactly what they're doing when they do it. We see clear abridgment in the genealogies in Exodus that are detailing the family of Moses and Aaron. So again, that's another section where abridgment is normal, it's expected, no big deal. We see that there are verbs like, you know, we know these verbs, to bear or to beget, you know, so-and-so bore so-and-so, or so-and-so beget so-and-so. So those verbs are used in a wider sense than to mean immediate offspring. Remember, those are Hebrew words. They indicate relationship, but they don't always have that, only that very narrow use of the English translation that we have. Like if we say, I fathered so-and-so, we almost always mean like literally that is my direct descendant. Well, those Hebrew words for bear and baguette don't always mean that so narrowly. They can be used a little bit, broader than that. And not unlike this same sense is the term that's translated, like for instance, uncle, the term uncle, it can be the immediate uncle, right? But it can also be used for a great-great-great-grand uncle, the same word. So if they said so-and-so is so-and-so's uncle, that doesn't mean like literally just their father's brother. It could be up the line farther than we realize. Either way though, it's gonna be the same Hebrew term. So let's not, we don't wanna impose narrowness on Hebrew terms that, you know, our English words might have more narrowness. We don't wanna impose that back on the Hebrew. I'm not saying they're mistranslations, but you know, you gotta pick a word to translate a Hebrew word. Don't forget as well that many biblical characters were known by more than one name, and you guys probably know this pretty well. Abram and Abraham, Jacob and Israel, Joseph and Zaphonath-Paneah was his other name, his Egyptian name. Joshua's got a bunch of weird names. Hasha, Hashaya, Jehoashua, and Jeshua, Gideon and Jerubabal, Solomon was also known as Jedidiah. Azariah and Uzziah, same character. Daniel, also known as Belteshazzar. Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah, also known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Paul and Saul, two different names. Thomas and Didymus, Cephas and Peter. So that kind of thing was common for different names. And because of all of this, I have taken the general approach that whenever I'm confused by genealogies, or if I can't reconcile one with another genealogy, then I just make the very reasonable assumption that there's something I don't understand about who the people are or how they were being recorded. That's how we should just assume it, right? They recorded genealogies different than we might, and some of these people might be the same people or just another name, that sort of thing. So if you have trouble with them, I think that is the reasonable, Assumption is like there's something that we just don't understand Records that are thousands of years old from a different culture completely different culture different part of the world shouldn't be expected to have You know the very specific identical traits of how we would record things today because with ours We just have this idea. We would be very precise and say who would sue exactly you know we're not we're not going to run out of space or have any difficulty adding more information where they probably would and Now one thing does stand out and that is that the more abridged genealogies can sort of get away with being as abridged as they are because of the existence of the more complete genealogies. They rely on them in the sense, you know, the more detailed lists clear up what might be or appear confusing in the abridged genealogies. So I've mentioned that already, but the difference in those later genealogies from the earlier ones are like, you know, the ones in Genesis 5 and 11 are pretty obviously different. You can tell the difference when you read Genesis 5 and 11. Genesis 5 is the record from Adam to Noah. Genesis 11, you know, then there's the flood of it, and then Genesis 11 gives the record of Shem, the son of Noah, all the way down to Abram, Abraham. So Shem is the family line, you know, Noah had three sons, but it follows Shem because that is the redemptive historical line. So the question then becomes, just how extensive are the records in Genesis 5 through 11, or 5 and 11, since those are the ones that are used to give us the age of the earth, or people look to for the age of the earth, and they give us the age of the father when the son is born, who is the next descendant, or seemingly the next descendant. Thus, that's how you get the age of the earth. As you can see, so-and-so was this old when they bore so-and-so. So you can add that, and then they do the next, and it's step by step all the way down the line. Later genealogies don't give Ages, like when people were born. So they cannot be added up like these older genealogies in Genesis 5 through 11. And Genesis 5 through 11, 5 and 11, clearly stand out as being recorded differently than the other genealogies, especially the abbreviated ones. And we have nothing else like them to compare to in scripture to tell us just how complete they are or are not. And they are indeed peculiar. So it's left to assumption. It is left to assumption. Are the genealogies in 5 and 11 abbreviated in any sense at all, or are they not? That's going to be the question, because some of them are. We acknowledge that together. But 5 and 11 look pretty complete. And they look different than these others. So some say the difference clearly means that the older genealogies are not at all abridged like the later genealogies occasionally are. And some will say, we should take that abridgment in the later genealogies, that's the norm. And then we should assume it for, at least in some degree, those earlier genealogies as well. That's gonna be the claim, that's how they get there. Those that assume abridgment would say this, for example. When it is said, for example, that Enosh lived 90 years of Beget Kenon, the well-established usage of the word Beget makes this statement equally true and equally accordant with analogy, whether Kenon was an immediate or a remote descendant of Enosh, whether Kenon was himself born when Enosh was 90 years of age or was born from whom Kenon sprang. So it's basically saying, Enosh had a descendant at age 90, and down that line, Kenan came from that descendant. And the word beget could cover either one. That would be their argument. Thus, there cannot be an account for the duration that's represented by the names that are skipped over. That's what they're gonna argue. This allows for a stretching an expansion a little bit, a stretching of the length of time from Adam until Noah, and then from Noah until Abraham. If there is abridgment there, even with the ages. But then the retort from those that deny any abridgment, and that they see these earlier genealogies as complete, they'll say something like this, they'll say something like, The fact that each member of the series is said to have begotten the next one succeeding is not evidence that links have been omitted, have not been omitted. But do not the chronological statements introduced into these genealogies oblige us to regard them as necessarily continuous? Why should the author be so particular to state, in every case, with unfailing regularity, the age of each patriarch at the birth of his son, unless it was his design thus to construct a chronology of this entire period, and thus to afford his readers the necessary elements for a calculation of the interval from the creation of the flood and from the flood to Abraham? If this was his design, he must, of course, have aimed to make his list complete. So that's basically the argument. You're looking at this and you read it and you're like, this seems silly. This is so consistently, it tells you the ages. Why would it tell you these ages if there's no reason or if he's not intending us to be able to create a chronology here? And which, yeah, it is reasonable to wonder why that sort of thing would be done. That's a reasonable reading. Why give the age of that descendant that was born in every case if there was no reason for it? However, it must be admitted, too, that the author never adds these up. He never adds up these numbers and gives totals, like therefore it was this long. He never says why he does it, so it's going to be left to assumption. Neither he nor any other inspired writer gives us a chronological statement based on those numbers. And why would the numbers be given after the birth of the descendant on how much longer the ancestor lived, since that serves no purpose in calculating the chronology? So that's the question of, well, it says he had his descendant at this age, but then it goes on to tell you how much longer he lived. Well, that number is irrelevant to the chronology. So why is that number being given? So they have an argument there, right? Although I think there is, and this is a side note, but those additional numbers serve an alternative purpose that we can see that gets used to show exponential decay curves in lifespans, because after the flood, it just kind of, lifespans decay exponentially, very, very precisely. Like each generation is about 88% as long as the previous generation, their lifespans, with amazing consistency. And there's a variety of reasons for that decay, you know, the diet, the environmental changes in the air and the atmosphere, possibly, and the genetic bottlenecks that began happening with both Noah and his family and then Babel, there's something called patriarchal drive or older men that father children can kind of cause burst of genetic mutations because the quality of their DNA is not as good. Anyway, there's reasons for it. But back to the larger point about the numbers given in the genealogies. There has to be an assumption there, no matter what. There's got to be assumptions what they're there for. Because we're not told. It's hard to be super dogmatic on certain things when both sides have to make certain assumptions. I think for most, it's just the basic understanding that genealogies are a vehicle to develop a chronological framework to world history by dating important figures and important events. That's how they generally work, and that's pretty normal and pretty expected. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. If that's how you read the genealogies That's how you understand it. That's incredibly reasonable. You know, time is an element in retelling history. So why wouldn't they give timing as they retell the history? That should be expected, should be normal. Totally fine. I kind of land there for the most part. However, one of the stronger arguments that Genesis 5 and 11 do not register every respective name and the lines of descent comes from what may be intentional arrangement. So we see something like this in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. Now, Matthew gaps, right? He abbreviates and he does it intentionally to make in it. a kind of a, what's the word I'm looking for? Equally portioned kind of thing when he gives the genealogy. So he provides a structure or an intentional arrangement by dividing Christ's ancestors into three periods of 14 generations each. And to do that, he drops out some of the names. So he just kind of makes this decision, I'm gonna cover these three periods and I'll get 14 of the generations within each of those three periods. And we know that Matthew does that and it's again, not a question of accuracy, it's a question of methodology, it's fine. But he does drop out some of the genealogical names to do that. And the apparent structure in the primitive genealogies is seen sort of in the same way where it might appear artificial in the same way that Matthew does it, rather than like a natural thing. So here's the structure that they see regarding the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. Each genealogy includes 10 names, Noah being the 10th from Adam, and then Abraham's father, Terah, is the 10th from Noah. And these are like figures where something significant happens. You know, Noah, it's a flood. It's a significant event. So it's like an end of an era. And then Terah is the end of an era because it begins the Abrahamic covenant and the Abrahamic, basically the beginning of Israel in the Hebrews. So there's 10 generations in each of those. Each ends with a father having three sons, and it is likewise the case with the Cainite genealogy as well. The Sethite genealogy in chapter five culminates with its seventh member, Enoch, who walked with God and he was not for God took him. You guys know that story. The Cainite genealogy, which is basically the non-redemptive line, also culminates with its seventh member, which is Lamech, with his polygamy, his blood revenge, and his boastful arrogance. So it seems like there's It's setting a distinction between the Cainite line and the Sethite line, and it uses that seventh man after to kind of highlight the differences in the people. Enoch is assumed into heaven, this godly man. Lamech is a scumbag. He's in the Cainite line. So it seems like the author's doing something with the arrangement of these genealogies. The genealogy descending from Shem divides entirely into its fifth member, Peleg, and in his days the earth was divided. which is sort of interesting as well. This division that comes up with Peleg and then the earth is divided with Peleg. And admittedly, it would be a striking numerical coincidence for these names to fit into this, such a consistent regular scheme in all these successive instances, right? That would be pretty wild that that just naturally happened. So it's not unreasonable to be like, oh yeah, the author with these genealogies is using intentional structure in who he's listing, just like Matthew does. But at the same time, we're dealing with redemptive history, and with redemptive history, there's no such thing as coincidences, are there? No, there's only providence. And God has a tendency to make providence strikingly beautiful at times. So I would say, if somebody said that, I'd be like, yeah, God's doing that because God does awesome stuff like that, and he does it naturally, then I'd be like, yeah, totally reasonable to believe that as well, and see it as that's just what God did. But again, you can see conclusions on this matter will necessarily be grounded in assumptions that we make about these genealogies and the purposes behind why they were written and why the numbers are given and why the names are said. And the last matter that might not get noticed is that if the genealogy in Genesis 11 is complete, If you do want to say, okay, five and 11, they are complete. If the one in 11 is a complete genealogy, then that means then Peleg, who marks the entrance of this new period, he actually died while his ancestors from Noah onward were still living, which is kind of weird. Shem, Arpaxad, Selah, and Eber must have outlived Peleg, and then several generations after him, as far as Terah himself, Abraham's father, So when you read the text, you kind of get a sense from the biblical narrative that even at the time of Abraham, the flood is ancient past, ancient past, long, long in the past. And same from between Adam and the flood and the tower and all this stuff. But if the genealogy in Genesis 11 is complete, then Noah was alive until Abraham was 58 years old. And then Shem, his son, lived past Terah 35 years, or lived past Abraham 35 years. kind of leaves you scratching your head. Because God's doing something with Abraham, with the Abrahamic covenant and the family redemptive historical line, and then it's like, but wait, Shem, what is he doing? He's just out hanging out somewhere else? What? That feels weird, right? None of that is impossible, of course, but it would be a little strange, even theologically. It's a little weird. Abraham's being called out to begin a new people, a new nation, but Shem, is alive that entire time? Shem was alive when Isaac was born, even? You know, it would be unexpected. We can admit that. It would be unexpected at least, but still, even with that, saying, okay, well, that's strange, it's still gonna come back to making assumptions. Obviously, the Bible does not answer every question that we have about the genealogies. So, Here's where I have landed personally, and I'm not gonna impose anything dogmatically on you or say what you should or shouldn't believe on some of these specifics. Here's where I've landed personally. Yes, I believe the six days of creation are literal ordinary days. We've already covered that. That's a hermeneutical question. It's obvious in the text, I think, right? And I consider myself young earth, and I would be more dogmatic on young earth. Am I opposed to a degree of stretch in these genealogies where they did some of the gapping like Matthew does in Jesus' genealogy? Did Genesis 5 and 11 do some of that? Maybe. I'm not opposed to it. It wouldn't bother me. But I would also emphasize only a degree of stretching. You're not going to stretch it and be like, oh, there's That's ridiculous. There's a logical backstop to some of this stretching. I can't fathom shoehorning in tens of thousands of years, let alone hundreds of thousands of years. You're never gonna get there. That's, I think, absurd. The youngest the Earth could possibly be is just over 6,000 years old. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. I will affirm that all day long, and I think there's a lot of creation science that shows it is that young. But if it were 10 or 15,000 years old, because of all this gapping that's in Genesis 5 and 11, that wouldn't change anything for me whatsoever, nothing. Like, okay, therefore what? Nothing, there's just more ages, there's just more, it's still a young earth position. I would not be dogmatic about the specific number between 6,000 and 15,000, and that's kind of like an arbitrary selection, but like I said, I don't think you're going to shoehorn in tens of thousands of years. It's a young earth. And it being just a little bit older is not gonna change anything at all. It's still young earth. So I wouldn't be dogmatic about that specific number. Am I dogmatic about the young earth as a general position? Yeah, more so, definitely. But no matter how much you stretch those genealogies, no matter how much gapping there is, you're never gonna get to an old earth position. Old earth timeframes have to be shoehorned into the creation days debate. not in the genealogies. You're not going to get to old earth. You can get a slightly older earth, but still young earth, but you cannot get old earth. You're not going to get millions of years. You're not going to get hundreds of thousands of years even. The genealogies can only be lengthened just a tiny bit, not tiny, but you know, a reasonable amount. They're not skipping hundreds of thousands of years or tens of thousands of years between these names. That's just plain silly. When you see the gapping, it's like, it's groups. There's sometimes, there's like six generations at once, like Ezra, I think, skips six at once, and that's not crazy to skip six names in between. That's somewhat reasonable, and that would give you a little bit of stretch, but If someone, so no matter how much time is crammed into these genealogies, like even if we stretch it to 10 or 15,000 years, no matter how much you stretch it or cram in there, secular scientists, the modern world, and its adherents are going to continue to think that we are idiots. So just get used to it. No matter what you say, if you're like, all right, it's a little older, they're still gonna think you're a moron. If you think it's young earth at all, If you said the earth was 200,000 years old, they're gonna think you're an idiot. It shouldn't even be a factor. If that bothers someone, if they're driven by how they're perceived by the world or secular science or people that adhere to that, then they're just gonna keep making sillier and sillier assumptions and they're gonna adopt a garbage hermeneutic to interpret scripture. And inevitably, such a person is gonna eventually capitulate on doctrine and the gospel itself, because they're driven by a motive of, well, we have to make these people not think we're dumb. These same folks think, you know, the ones that they're trying to appease, these same folks, you know, they think that a virgin birth and the resurrection is idiotic as well. So you're gonna have to start denying everything that they think is stupid. Of course, they can't define what a woman is, but, you know, that's what we can expect from someone who has become futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts are darkened. People that don't want to be obligated to God are motivated. They're not neutral. We've talked about this a lot. These scientists, these people are not neutral, and it influences the way that they read Scripture. And then the only comment I have left, lastly, our confession only mentioned the creation days, and it talks about them in a traditional sense, the way that we affirm them as literal ordinary days. It doesn't make any question about the gapping in the genealogies. If you are comfortable with a little bit of gapping in Genesis 5 and 11, you're not gonna be unconfessional. It's not absurd to think that that is the case, that there's some intentional structure put in there by the biblical writers just like Matthew does. It's not unreasonable to think that there's a little bit of gapping like some of the other genealogies do. And it's not at all unreasonable to think they are complete lists. There's gonna be difficulties on both sides. You have to make assumptions on both sides. So if you hear some of these arguments, I just want you to be comfortable with a degree of like, maybe they're not complete, but it doesn't change anything doctrinally or our understanding of scripture. It really doesn't. All it is is like, oh, they recorded ancient genealogies in ancient times a little bit differently than we would today. That's all it means. And that is not a doctrinal position. It means nothing, theologically. So, hopefully that doesn't throw you off. I just want you to be comfortable with these, a degree of challenge, but not like, you know, the outlandish challenges about old earth or something like that. Other questions? I assume there's gonna be some questions on that, yeah. It still seems the math, because of the specificity of the number of years listed, there's no stretching of the years. There could be stretching of the generations, but I don't see how there's a stretching of the years. So it would be saying like Enosh fathered a descendant at age 90, and that descendant begat Kenan. So he begets Kenan, not like Kenan was born when Enosh was 90, but that Kenan had a descendant at age 90, and then down the line is Kenan from that descendant. That's the claim anyway. So they're not... No, it would be adding an unknown amount of characters between, so Enosh has an unnamed descendant at age 90, who has another descendant, who has another descendant, who has another descendant, and then eventually Kenan comes from that. Maybe there's three, maybe they skipped three or something. Yeah, that's the claim. Yeah. But there's nothing to compare. That's why I think it's difficult. There's nothing to compare genealogies to where it actually gives the ages at the birth. Which is why I've always tended towards the youngest end of the young earth. But then the intentional structure is the one that's like, oh, that's interesting. Maybe there is, but I don't care. Anybody else? I thought there'd be more on this. Yeah. I sometimes worry about it because when people hear this idea of there is possibly gapping in there, they think this is like a whole new hermeneutic to scripture. And I really don't think it is at all. So please don't hear it that way because I would not be suggesting it that way at all. So on Matthew 1, genealogy, there seems to, I've heard something to this effect, you may have, but the Jews having this fascination, this numerology fascination with David and the consonants D, B, D being four, six, and four. Yeah, it could be, yeah, there's something called gematria where they used, Hebrew doesn't have Arabic numbers, so they use letters that, that's how they wrote numbers, letters would stand for it. And it wouldn't be, I guess, entirely shocking. Like even in the early church, the reason that we have Christmas on the 25th of December is there was an ancient belief that great men died on the same day they were conceived. So they calculated Easter, and then nine months after that, or before that was, I might be doing the before, after mixed up. I'm not gonna think through it rightly right now on the fly, but that's how they came up with December 25th. It was nine months after April, what is it, April, March, one of those, April 25th. And they supposed that Jesus was conceived on, April 25th, and he died on April 25th, therefore, he was born on December 25th. It's just like these weird thing that they have with numbers, and you're just like, what, why? You know, it just, it was there, and that's why we can't be dogmatic about that either. It's just one of those things. But yeah, there's weird stuff with numbers and beliefs and numbers, and sometimes it's meaningful, and sometimes it just seems like superstition. Hard to know. Okay, anybody else? All right, let's pray. Lord God, there are many questions that we do have about scripture still. We do wanna see the beauty of what you do through providence, and we wanna see the beauty of what the biblical writers have done in retelling to us the great story of redemptive history. But we don't wanna be dogmatic about things that we shouldn't be dogmatic about. We wanna be careful about our interpretation and we pray that you would guide us and direct us to be that way. We don't want to trust in secular scientists and we don't want to trust in people with a worldview that ultimately hate you and do not want to submit to you and honor you and give thanks to you. We know that they are untrustworthy, so we pray that they are not an influence on how we understand scripture or our world. But please do help us to recognize the truth of faithful biblical expositors and faithful scholars and to challenge assumptions that we may have. but also not be swayed by some of these things into believing things that are false. We need your spirit to guide us in these things and we ask for you to pour it out on us and guide and direct us into all truth so that we might worship you rightly and give constant thanks and praise and keep our focus on Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose from the dead. We pray it all in Christ's name, amen.