Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 13/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Size of antediluvian population..?
Odin, Vilje&Ve
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 14 (3438)
02-05-2002 8:15 AM


In a discussion in another forum on the net, the question came up on the number of people killed by the will of the god of the Old Testament.There are however a number of unknown factors in this kind of calculations, and undoubtedly the number of people killed in the Flood would have great importance on the final number. However, when looking on the net, what I find is from: http://www.ldolphin.org/morris.html
Antediluvian Populations
According to the genealogical records of Genesis 5, there were 1,656 years from Adam to the Flood. However, the population constants were significantly different then from what-they now are. Men lived to great ages and evidently had large families. Excepting Enoch, who was taken into heaven without dying at age 365 (Gen. 5:23-24), the average of the recorded ages of the nine antediluvian patriarchs was 912 years. Recorded ages at the births of their children ranged from 65 years (Mahalaleel, Gen. 5:15; Enoch, Gen. 5:2 1) to 500 years (Noah, Gen. 5:32). Every one of them is said to have had "sons and daughters," so that each family had at least 4 children, and probably many more.
As an ultraconservative assumption, let c = 3, x = 5, and n = 16.56. These constants correspond to an average family of 6 children, an average generation of 100 years and an average life-span of 500 years. On this basis the world population at the time of the Flood would have been 235 million people. This probably represents a gross underestimate of the numbers who actually perished in the Flood.
Multiplication was probably more rapid than assumed in this calculation, especially in the earliest centuries of the antediluvian epoch. For example, if the average family size were 8, instead of 6, and the length of a generation 93 years, instead of 100, the population at the time of Adam's death, 930 years after his creation, would already have been 2,800,000. At these rates, the population at the time of the Deluge would have been 137 billion! Even if we use rates appropriate in the present world (x = I and c = 1.5), over 3 billion people could easily have been on the earth at the time of Noah
(end of quote)
Now, a number given as somewhere between 235 million and 137 billion is a less than helpful estimate.("It is in the price range between a dime and a million dollars..") Undoubtedly there are members of this board who is more familiar with creationist literature then me. If we leave aside the question of whether the flood took place or not, and assume as basis for our calculations that it did take place, what estimates are given by creationists as to the presumed size of the antediluvian population?

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by mark24, posted 02-05-2002 8:27 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied
 Message 8 by Peter, posted 02-12-2002 6:37 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied
 Message 9 by Michael_Welch, posted 12-23-2003 3:16 PM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied
 Message 11 by Abshalom, posted 12-23-2003 3:41 PM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 2 of 14 (3441)
02-05-2002 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 8:15 AM


Was there disease before the Flood? You may need to include an infant mortality rate (not to mention adult) to these calculations if so.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 8:15 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Odin, Vilje&Ve
Inactive Member


Message 3 of 14 (3444)
02-05-2002 9:05 AM


I am merely quoting these calculations; they are certainly not mine!As I do not believe in the Flood or the historic correctness of Genesis, I feel any attempt to calculate the number of people killed in the Flood is best left those that believe in it. After all, if creationism claims to be scientific, would they not themselves be interested in finding out? Whether or not infant morality is an factor I do not and cannot estimate, but the question whether it has to be included or not, merely makes the number even more uncertain....

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by mark24, posted 02-05-2002 9:11 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 4 of 14 (3445)
02-05-2002 9:11 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 9:05 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Odin, Vilje&Ve:
I am merely quoting these calculations; they are certainly not mine!As I do not believe in the Flood or the historic correctness of Genesis, I feel any attempt to calculate the number of people killed in the Flood is best left those that believe in it. After all, if creationism claims to be scientific, would they not themselves be interested in finding out? Whether or not infant morality is an factor I do not and cannot estimate, but the question whether it has to be included or not, merely makes the number even more uncertain....
I quite agree, & don't deny your calculations accuracy, but we need a creationist to tell us whether there's disease or not pre-flood, if not, your conclusion stands.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 9:05 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Odin, Vilje&Ve
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 14 (3448)
02-05-2002 9:20 AM


Eh..what are my conclusions? I do not claim to know, merely searching for a reasonable number.. and one "somewhere between some million and many billions" merely says"I havent a clue". Please, all knowledgeable, well-thaught scientific creationist out there, what do you suppose the number to be? Enlighten me! Enlighten us all!

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by joz, posted 02-05-2002 9:39 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

joz
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 14 (3449)
02-05-2002 9:39 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 9:20 AM


Also they may want to include some sort of limit before the population can no longer sustain itself with less intensive farming methods than are available today.
Also attrition from war and murder should be a factor, after all everyone but Noah and family were goat raping father killers and deserved to die, hardly the sort of people that believe in the sanctity of human life......

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 9:20 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Odin, Vilje&Ve
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 14 (3452)
02-05-2002 9:50 AM


But do any of you have or have read any estimates? The one given above is on the order of:"In the battle either 235 or 3.000 or 137.000 soldiers were killed" Still waiting to hear from anyone with a knowledge of what creationists assume..

Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 8 of 14 (4206)
02-12-2002 6:37 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 8:15 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Odin, Vilje&Ve:
In a discussion in another forum on the net, the question came up on the number of people killed by the will of the god of the Old Testament.There are however a number of unknown factors in this kind of calculations, and undoubtedly the number of people killed in the Flood would have great importance on the final number. However, when looking on the net, what I find is from: http://www.ldolphin.org/morris.html
Antediluvian Populations
According to the genealogical records of Genesis 5, there were 1,656 years from Adam to the Flood. However, the population constants were significantly different then from what-they now are. Men lived to great ages and evidently had large families. Excepting Enoch, who was taken into heaven without dying at age 365 (Gen. 5:23-24), the average of the recorded ages of the nine antediluvian patriarchs was 912 years. Recorded ages at the births of their children ranged from 65 years (Mahalaleel, Gen. 5:15; Enoch, Gen. 5:2 1) to 500 years (Noah, Gen. 5:32). Every one of them is said to have had "sons and daughters," so that each family had at least 4 children, and probably many more.
As an ultraconservative assumption, let c = 3, x = 5, and n = 16.56. These constants correspond to an average family of 6 children, an average generation of 100 years and an average life-span of 500 years. On this basis the world population at the time of the Flood would have been 235 million people. This probably represents a gross underestimate of the numbers who actually perished in the Flood.
Multiplication was probably more rapid than assumed in this calculation, especially in the earliest centuries of the antediluvian epoch. For example, if the average family size were 8, instead of 6, and the length of a generation 93 years, instead of 100, the population at the time of Adam's death, 930 years after his creation, would already have been 2,800,000. At these rates, the population at the time of the Deluge would have been 137 billion! Even if we use rates appropriate in the present world (x = I and c = 1.5), over 3 billion people could easily have been on the earth at the time of Noah
(end of quote)
Now, a number given as somewhere between 235 million and 137 billion is a less than helpful estimate.("It is in the price range between a dime and a million dollars..") Undoubtedly there are members of this board who is more familiar with creationist literature then me. If we leave aside the question of whether the flood took place or not, and assume as basis for our calculations that it did take place, what estimates are given by creationists as to the presumed size of the antediluvian population?

A little off subject, but reading this has made me wonder ::
How do we know that Noah etc. refers to an individual and not
a FAMILY tree ?
In farming communities in the UK, the farmer is usually known bythe name of his farm, and this name is carried forward to all offspring
who inherit the farm.
Does the bible SPECIFICALLY state that it is referring to an
individual when referring to Adam etc. Begat could equally
refer to a dynasty as an individual.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 8:15 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Michael_Welch
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 14 (74885)
12-23-2003 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 8:15 AM


Does it truly matter....?
Does it truly matter how many people there were before the flood? The reality of the situation is that man refuses to accept the fact that during the age innocence man dropped the ball and lost the Garden of Eden. In the age of conscious man loses a golden aged civilization the likes of which man has not equaled. We see hints of this civilization all over the place. Each country and ethnic group has it's tales of a great civilization which fell to the murky waters of the deep. Not to mention the fact that land locked countries have evidence of fossilized sea live where there shouldn't be and at the same time the bibles speaks of huge life spans. Which could infer it isn't the quantity of people but the quality of the genius of the people. I would theorize that their ancient technology rivaled ours and that most of the races we have today have parts and pieces of this technology. China has medical technology that is thousands of years old. Greece had great engineering feats that could not easily be explained how these things were done(Colosus the giant statue). lets just accept the fact the flood happened. Before the flood man's genius gave him the tools to prove his undoing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 8:15 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by AdminAsgara, posted 12-23-2003 3:36 PM Michael_Welch has not replied
 Message 13 by Coragyps, posted 12-23-2003 3:46 PM Michael_Welch has not replied

AdminAsgara
Administrator (Idle past 2302 days)
Posts: 2073
From: The Universe
Joined: 10-11-2003


Message 10 of 14 (74890)
12-23-2003 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Michael_Welch
12-23-2003 3:16 PM


Re: Does it truly matter....?
Do you realize that you are replying to a thread that is almost 2 years old? It was last posted to in Feb 02. Also, this is a "Great Debate" forum. Topics here are now started only by Administrators and are for particular debates between two posters.
Maybe you could take each of your assertions to a more appropriate forum and thread.
Each country and ethnic group has it's tales of a great civilization which fell to the murky waters of the deep.
land locked countries have evidence of fossilized sea live where there shouldn't be
lets just accept the fact the flood happened
------------------
AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Michael_Welch, posted 12-23-2003 3:16 PM Michael_Welch has not replied

Abshalom
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 14 (74893)
12-23-2003 3:41 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve
02-05-2002 8:15 AM


In post #1 of this thread, Odin contends that, "according to the genealogical records of Genesis 5, there were 1,656 years from Adam to the Flood. However, the population constants were significantly different then from what-they now are. Men lived to great ages and evidently had large families. Excepting Enoch, who was taken into heaven without dying at age 365 (Gen. 5:23-24), the average of the recorded ages of the nine antediluvian patriarchs was 912 years." Yadda yadda yadda.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oden, you must also take into consideration:
1) These antediluvian folk were uneducated and were lucky to be able to count above ten, or twenty if using their toes as well as their fingers.
2) These antediluvian folk lived in a climate wherein an extremely dense layer of clouds and greenhouse gasses shielded the sun to the extent that not only were there no rainbows, but the folk had a hard time seeing the sun and moon well enough to tell time and often lost count of the days, months, and years.
3) The young antediluvian ladies, especially the daughters of man, were so busy constantly running and hiding from Nephilim and other horny super-human creatures that they often lost count of their children's ages and birthdays.
4) Antediluvian folk were vegetarians, and if you remember your teachings, after being cast out of Eden, they had to depend upon leafy vegetation for sustenance in addition to fruit. This diet of leafy green vegetation often led to ingestion of psychodelic plants such as Jimson weed, ergot of rye, foxglove, mistletoe, bad mushrooms, and other substances that caused antediluvian folk to lose all track of time. Life often appeared much much longer than the actual time spent breathing under these dire conditions.
5) Since Adam and Eve were the only fully human antediluvian stock (Abel was killed and Cain married into a family of subhuman species), the question of how many millions of the resulting hybrid population died in a flood plainly intended to wipe the earth clean of these inbred, semi-human cretins is moot.
[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-23-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Odin, Vilje&Ve, posted 02-05-2002 8:15 AM Odin, Vilje&Ve has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by AdminAsgara, posted 12-23-2003 3:46 PM Abshalom has not replied

AdminAsgara
Administrator (Idle past 2302 days)
Posts: 2073
From: The Universe
Joined: 10-11-2003


Message 12 of 14 (74897)
12-23-2003 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Abshalom
12-23-2003 3:41 PM


Closing this down as it isn't a forum for general debate.
------------------
AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Abshalom, posted 12-23-2003 3:41 PM Abshalom has not replied

Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 13 of 14 (74898)
12-23-2003 3:46 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Michael_Welch
12-23-2003 3:16 PM


Re: Does it truly matter....?
lets just accept the fact the flood happened.
With no physical evidence whatsoever? Not me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Michael_Welch, posted 12-23-2003 3:16 PM Michael_Welch has not replied

Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 14 of 14 (74902)
12-23-2003 4:11 PM


Thread copied to the Size of antediluvian population..? thread in the The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024