In Britain, and in many other countries across the world, all important life events are recorded and certificated. Typically this will be births, marriages and deaths. This means that, in theory, there is a complete genealogical record available for interrogation by those who may be interested. The Bible, on the other hand, whilst containing considerable genealogical data, is not a complete record. Its central theme is that of God's Kingdom with the Hebrew scriptures existing mainly to show how the sacred secret of Genesis 3:15 unfolded, how that lead to the nation of Israel and in turn to the Messiah. Jesus's genealogical heritage, and the proof thereof, is an important part of prophecy. The data supplied proves his descent from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, to David, the royal lineage and ultimately to Mary and Joseph. Many family branches are also included where these add significant interest, for example the heritage of the many surrounding nations. But then again, only male lines of descent are included. Females get mentioned only when they play a significant role in the narrative.
It is interesting to speculate on Noah's family. The average age of maturity in the antediluvian record, excluding Noah himself, was 117. Noah's first son, Japheth, appeared when Noah was 500 years old. Why the delay? And were the three recorded sons Noah's only offspring? Given that the ark contained eight individuals it is easy to assume that the three boys, along with the four wives, constituted his entire family. But did they? Given the importance attached to the first-born son throughout the Bible, it is probable that Japheth actually was the first-born son and that other reasons for Noah's apparent lack of fecundity for half a millennium need to be sought. The apostle Peter describes him as a 'preacher of righteousness'. One begins to wonder whether he was a preacher long before God commissioned him. Genesis 6:9 suggests that he walked with the true God before fathering his sons. This raises the possibility that he could have been an antediluvian missionary or pioneer willing to forego fatherhood to focus on his preaching work. Did he have daughters? Did some, or all of them, predate Japheth? Why weren't they on the ark? Did they choose allegiance to 'worldly' husbands over their father? Were there other sons who also displayed a lack of faith, or who were moulded by the world of that day? We just don't know. It is for these same reasons that we can't state what the world population was at any given time. However, we can make reasonable assumptions and play with some numbers that produce some interesting results.
Noah's three sons produced 16 named grandsons according to the Genesis account. Ezra provides Shem with an extra four in 1 Chronicles. Seven of these are directly credited by Moses with producing further offspring. Most of the others are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. Furthermore, verses 5, 20 and 31 of Genesis chapter 10 make it clear why they are all named. They were all fathers of nations. This means that Noah likely had at least 16 grand-daughters too. Unless they did some sharing. Let's not go there! Sisters and cousins were the only available women at that point, so can we assume a world population of 40? There might have been more who were unfortunate to not have a mate from such a limited pool and so were unable to breed. But that's supposition. Looking at the genealogical lists supplied in Genesis 11, it would seem reasonable to assume an average of five sons per family. That's five sons, five daughters, five new families who, in turn, would produce another five families. How does that multiply up? Following the lineage of Shem (generation one), Abraham is generation ten. This would give his generation a total number of births as 11 million and a cumulative total of 14 million births. No immediate reason to raise an eyebrow, on the face of it. But from here the graph goes noticeably exponential.
'I say Jeeves, that's a bit steep'.
'Almost perpendicular, Sir'.
At this rate, the cumulative total two generations later, that of Jacob, has reached 366 million!
It is beyond the scope of this article to calculate death rates, either through natural or unnatural causes, in order to estimate a population at any given point. But it is startling to note that by the time Jacob was in his maturity there could have been a third of a billion births since the flood, using reasonable assumptions. But is five new families per generation too many?
Before answering that, it is interesting to note what Genesis tells us about population growth. The grandson of Ham, Nimrod (not his real name), went forth building cities - Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh in the land of Shinar and Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen in the land of Assyria. The latter is described as the great city (Gen 10:8-12). Chapter 11 describes how that first city, Babel, came about. A group of people traveled eastward and decided to stop in the plain of Shinar, to make and bake bricks and, using mortar, to construct them into a city and a tower with its 'top in the heavens'. How many people did this take? It sounds like quite a lot. But Nimrod was only third generation. In the above model he would have been one of 150 births. But how long did he live? We don't know but his contemporary was Shelah and he lived for 433 years, until after Isaac was born. If Nimrod lived to a similar age, and noting that the typical age of maturity post-flood was about 30 to 35, it is quite possible that he was alive when Abraham was born. Terah would have been one of 2.3 million births so Nimrod could have persuaded many from younger generations to join him, or indeed to have fathered many of these people himself.
What about Abram (Abraham)? He is said to have been living, with his father, in the city of Ur. Archaeologists describe it as an advanced city. Here there is evidence of a royal Sumerian dynasty with many objects of gold, silver, lapis lazuli and other costly materials having been found. Large, well-built, luxurious housing all adds to a picture of a city that was populous and well-founded.
On arriving in the Promised Land he spent some time near Shechem, Bethel and Ai. He then headed south towards the Negeb but a famine arose so he proceeded further into Egypt. Even at this early point in Bible history, Egypt is credited with being something of a local superpower. It had a Pharaoh and princes, all of whom were enamoured of Sarai's beauty. It was a place to get food in a time of famine so it was clearly a well organised society. When Abraham left, he did so with sheep, cattle, asses, camels, men and maidservants. Was Egypt an outpost where a few hardy pioneers were struggling to settle and to come to terms with a new and alien land? That isn't the picture we are presented with.
Abram then returns to Canaan where the narrative describes the first explicitly recorded war in human history. Four kings, under the command of Chedorlaomer, decide to deal with the rebelling king of Sodom and his allies. On the way they defeat six other groups of people. Upon arriving in the Low Plain of Siddim, they defeat the allies and take spoil, including Lot. Abram and his 318 trained men are called into action. With that number of warriors, one can make a case for stating that Abram's entire human entourage could have been up to one thousand strong when including wives, oldies and youngsters. We are building a picture of an area of land, from the Nile to the Persian Gulf, that is well-populated. Yet we have to remind ourselves that we are still, at this point, only nine generations on from when a mere eight people disembarked from the ark.
It is also instructive to think about Abraham's own fecundity. He is well-known for struggling to produce an heir. We know the account of Hagar and Ishmael and how Sarah finally became pregnant with some divine assistance. The apostle Paul kindly describes him as 'as good as dead' in Hebrews chapter 11. But what was 'as good as dead'? Clearly it was the fertility of his union with Sarah. After her death, Abraham takes another wife, Keturah, and fathers another six sons and, given the laws of probability, possibly six daughters too. There was plenty of life left in the old boy! The a priori probability that Keturah had six sons and no daughters is 1 in 64 or 2^6. Rare, but not impossible. Whilst Isaac appears to have remained monogamous, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of women in the account. Abraham fathered children through three, Jacob through four, and there are many others who are noted as being polygamous.
And so Genesis paints a picture of rapid population growth and expansion into ever more distant territories. So is the assumption of five new families per marriage too high? That seems unlikely. Had it been only two, then the cumulative births up to and including Abraham's generation would have been a mere 6,000 and still only 24,000 by that of Jacob. That doesn't seem sufficient to fit the Genesis narrative. Four would produce 2 million and 33 million, respectively. Ultimately, we cannot say. Increased death rates due to war, famine, disease and other disasters all reduce the breeding population, whilst poverty tends to increase the birth rate due to high infant mortality. But playing with the numbers and making inferences from the text is fascinating.
This essay was initially inspired by Psalm 147:4 where we are told that Jehovah counts the stars and knows them by name. With an estimated 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe, each with 100 billion stars, he has to keep track of 1 billion trillion names (21 zeroes). Also by claims that there are more people alive on the earth now than have ever lived before. Whether the numbers are vast or modest, is Jehovah capable of remembering all those 'in the memorial tombs' (John 5:28)? Undoubtedly! This would even include those conceived and then denied the opportunity of life, child sacrifices to the gods of sex, pleasure and convenience. Murder reduced to a medical procedure. The current annual abortion rate in England and Wales is around 180,000. Worldwide it is estimated to be about 50 million. Staggering numbers. Each of these innocent victims is a human with DNA, a personality and a character, if not a name. Can these be remembered and resurrected? Yes! But will he, and how will he? It will be wondrous to find out. It is safe, however, to say that the number of conceptions ever is likely to be orders of magnitude less than the number of stars.
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