The Biblical Flood
In the Christian Bible and Hebrew Torah, the antediluvian period begins with the Creation according to Genesis and ends with the destruction of all life on the earth except those saved with Noah in the Ark. According to Bishop Ussher's 17th century chronology, the antediluvian period lasted for 1648 years, from creation at 4004 BC and the flood at 2348 BC. The elements of the narrative include some of the best-known stories in the Bible—the Creation itself, Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel—followed by the genealogies tracing the descendants of Cain and Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. (These genealogies provide the framework for the biblical chronology, in the form A begat B in his Xth year).
The Bible speaks of this era as being a time of great wickedness. There were Gibborim (giants) in the earth in those days as well as Nephilim; some translations identify the two as one and the same. The Gibborim were unusually powerful; Genesis calls them "heroes of old, men of renown;" (Enoshi Ha Shem). The antediluvian period ended when God sent the Flood to wipe out all life except Noah, his family, and the animals they took with them. Nevertheless, the Nephilim (literally meaning 'fallen ones', from the Hebrew root n-f-l 'to fall') reappear much later in the biblical narrative, in Numbers 13:31-33 (where the spies sent forth by Moses report that there were Nephilim or "giants" in the Promised Land).
Read more about this topic: Antediluvian, Timing The Antediluvian Period
Famous quotes containing the word flood:
“The great war that broke so suddenly upon the world two years ago, and which has swept up within its flame so great a part of the civilized world, has affected us very profoundly.... With its causes and its objects we are not concerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst we are not interested to search for or explore.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)