The Bible: Timeline for the Flood

by David Wright on March 9, 2012 Featured in Feedback

So when exactly was the Flood? There are two possible ways of calculating the date. David Wright, AiG–U.S., explains. I can find info on the flood but I am looking for good estimation fixing the date of the flood. So when exactly was the Flood? For an accurate chronology on the Bible, including the time of the Flood, I highly recommend The Annals of the World by James Ussher, Adam’s Chart of History, Newton’s Revised History of Ancient Kingdoms, and Chronology of the Old Testament by Floyd Nolen Jones. There are two possible ways of calculating the date. The first is from creation, and the other is from the present. I will focus on the date from creation since the latter would be much more involved. So here we go. Table 1: Dates of biblical events from Creation Event/Person Passage Total Time from Creation (years) God created everything. Genesis 1–2 0 Adam became the father of Seth at 130. Genesis 5:3 0 + 130 = 130 Seth became the father of Enosh at 105. Genesis 5:6 130 + 105 = 235 Enosh became the father of Kenan at 90. Genesis 5:9 235 + 90 = 325 Cainan became the father of Mahalalel at 70. Genesis 5:12 325 + 70 = 395 Mahalalel became the father of Jared at 65. Genesis 5:15 395 + 65 = 460 Jared became the father of Enoch at 162. Genesis 5:18 460 + 162 = 622 Enoch became the father of Methuselah at 65. Genesis 5:21 622 + 65 = 687 Methuselah became the father of Lamech at 187. Genesis 5:25 687 + 187 = 874 Lamech became the father of Noah at 182. Genesis 5:28 874 + 182 = 1056 The Flood started when Noah was 600. Genesis 7:6 1056 + 600 = 1656 As you can see from Table 1, the year in which the Flood came was 1656 AM1 (Anno Mundi – “year of the world”). From the rest of the Old Testament and other well-documented historical events we understand that creation, as calculated by Ussher, was about 4004 BC. So with a little more math we can calculate the second date.

Calculated BC date for creation: 4004 Calculated AM date for the Flood: - 1656 Calculated BC date for the Flood: 2348 Current Year (minus one2): + 2011 Number of years since beginning of Flood: 4359

Using the Bible, well-documented historical events, and some math, we find that the Flood began approximately 4,359 years ago in the year 1656 AM or 2348 BC. Some may look for an exact date (i.e., month and day), but we are not given that sort of precision in Scripture.