Rethinking the Pre-Flood World

What we often presume.

Our imagination about the world prior to the Great Flood is likely highly inaccurate. We typically think of a planet sparsely populated with limited technological advancements and primitive living conditions. We might speculate that it was more advanced than we typically consider, but nothing like our modern age. Looking at the biblical data might lead us to an entirely different conclusion.

What we know from the biblical text.

There were ten generations from Adam to Noah. These are the named generations. Biblical genealogies are not always complete, they sometimes skip generations. This is not an inaccuracy. In biblical thinking a grandfather is the progenitor of a grandson. Not every generation is necessarily mentioned. But for the sake of our evaluation, let’s take these generations as complete.

The average lifespan before the flood, according to the genealogies mentioned in Genesis 5 was 912 years. The average age of siring a child mentioned in Genesis 5 is 117.3 years. That is we leave out Noah who is mentioned as 500 years old when he has three sons in Genesis 5:32.

The youngest age mentioned for siring a son is 65 and the oldest mentioned is 182 if we leave out Noah. The language in Genesis 5:32 regarding Noah might indicate that Ham, Shem, and Japheth were triplets. We do not know for sure whether the ages and births mentioned in the genealogies are all firstborns, or whether they just represent the line of Noah. Since they are all male children mentioned, it is likely that in at least some of the cases, there were female offspring born prior to the male children mentioned in the genealogy. The text seems to indicate male firstborns but is far from conclusive.

What we can conclude from Genesis 5.

Child-bearing years were much longer both in actual years and in percentage of life before the flood. If men began fathering children at 65 (as Mahalel did) and the average lifespan was 900 years, then men could be fertile conceivably for 700-800 years.

There is no mention about the women or women’s fertility before the flood. We can only guess, but some projections seem reasonable.

If women became fertile at reasonably the same age as men, as they do today, then child-production could have started for women at around 65 at the latest. We do not know if women’s lifespans were as long as men’s before the flood. There would be the potential for complications in childbirth etc. Historically, women’s lifespans are similar to men’s. If this is the case, following the same life percentages as today, women could have been fertile from age 65 until age 450 or so. That would be nearly 400 years of fertility.

There is no reason to think that human gestation would be any different prior to the flood vs after the flood.  The average woman has 1-2 million eggs at birth, but as many as 6 million prior to birth, but this drops over time. We do not know how this worked prior to the flood. However, we assume that general health was better prior to the flood based upon the lifespans mentioned.

According to today’s statistics, a woman of childbearing years who is not lactating, and has unprotected sex regularly in the four days prior to ovulation has an 85% chance of getting pregnant in a year.[i] This number does decline with age.

Based upon these numbers, a pre-flood human couple having as many as 30 children is very likely. In fact, the numbers could be much higher than that, it is just hard to comprehend it. Given the potential time of fertility a woman could be pregnant at the same time her great, great, great, granddaughter is also pregnant. Perhaps there were other complicating factors. Projecting an average of 20 children surviving to adulthood per couple is VERY conservative given the lifespans and years of fertility. In fact, the pre-flood couples would have had to develop some sort of contraceptive technology or methodology to keep the number that low.

A Picture of the Pre-flood World

Population

If each couple averaged 20 offspring, and there were 10 generations between Adam and Noah, then the earth’s population would have been 2 billion by the time of the Great Flood and likely more.[ii]  This is a very conservative number based upon demographic calculations, but could be mitigated by violence, murder, and war. Disease could have existed, but we do not know. It seems the general health of the population was much better before the flood, save death by violence (Genesis 6:5).

Geographic Spread

With the population expanding at a rate of 10-fold or more per generation, geographic expansion would be a necessity. Local agricultural and wildlife populations could not support such a rapid increase in population. Expansion or conflict was the necessary result. Humanity would spread to every possible habitable place on the globe very quickly.

Technological Advancement

If the pre-flood humans were biologically superior, then it is likely to assume that their cognitive functions were superior as well. They had higher I.Q.’s, which means that they had better problem-solving skills than we have today.

Technology would advance very quickly. Imagine what our world would be like if Copernicus, Newton, Tesla, or Einstein had 800 years of life in which to think and develop ideas. This pre-flood society would not have had the time frame that modern humans have had to stumble on to various ideas, like electricity and chemistry, etc. But given our ability to advance in a very short time relatively speaking (consider the changes in the last 150 years), the possibilities are broad for the pre-flood world. They would have excellent problem-solving skills and would have been very good at observing and developing practical engineering skills.

This pre-flood society would have the benefit of many very intelligent people working together. According to the scripture, even after the complete destruction of that pre-flood world, the intellectual pursuits continued. Tower of Babel, in Genesis 11 is where God effectively divided the world into language groups, limiting their ability to interact and develop collective intelligence and technology.

These are all educated guesses but still guesses.

The pre-flood world was almost assuredly far different than what we now imagine. Maybe it wasn’t aliens that built all those prehistoric sites that archaeologists and engineers can’t explain. Maybe if was the people who were part of the world that perished under the worldwide judgment of God.

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For the audio version of this article, see here: Rethinking the Pre-Flood World

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[i] Unprotected Sex: Answers to Common Questions

[ii] 2 (Adam and Eve) multiplied by 10 for each of the succeeding 9 generations. This would be the result of each couple producing 20 children on average.