Genesis 5 Part 11: An Astronomical Clock

So far we have looked at the different views around the the genealogy of Genesis 5. I have laid out how the Israelites and the ancients saw the Heavens. And now we will uncover what the numbers mean in terms of astronomy.

Genesis 5 v 3 - 11

When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth. And after he had become the father of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. So Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

We can see the format of the genealogy is the name of the patriarch, followed by the year he begat a child, how long he lived after the child was born and then the age at which he died. There are three numbers per patriarch (except Noah, but we find out his date of death later).

Year of Death

If we divide the sidereal orbit of a planet by the age at death, we get a rough ratio.

Mercury / Enosh 90 / 905 = 0.099447

Mars / Kenen 687 / 910 = 0.754945

Venus / Malahalel 225 / 895 = 0.251397

Jupiter / Jared 4332 / 962 = 4.503118

The sidereal orbit is the time a planet takes to orbit the Sun. It is not the synodic orbit as mentioned in a previous post. Also these ratios are rough, because the last two digits of the age at death has a dual purpose, which I will discuss in a later post. So there is likely a reason why they aren’t perfect.

Notice, I only include the second Heaven or the five planets:

Seth / Saturn

Enosh / Mercury

Kenen / Mars

Malahalel / Venus

Jared / Jupiter

We can see the simplified ratios in the table below. [Mars should be 3/4 not 3:4]

If we then consider the meaning of Seth’s name. Seth means compensation, but the root word is set or foundation. These ratios then fit into a wheel set around the Saturnian year or approximately 10,800 days, or 12 segments of 900 days each.

Saturn takes around 30 years to go around the Sun. By assuming Saturn / Seth is the foundation, we then divide 30 into Adam’s age at death, we get 31.

930 / 30 = 31

We can then divide the circle into 30 segments with the final 1 placed on top of the wheel as God’s throne. This circle represents 30 solar years.

Another way of arriving at this is to divide 10,800 days by 360 days (roughly a solar year).

10800 / 360 = 30

We can then map the 5 planets onto the wheel using those ratios. And we get this:

Legend:

Yellow = Saturn /Seth (12 x 900 days)

Blue = Solar Year (30 x 360 days)

Grey = Mercury /Enosh (120 x 90 days)

Red = Mars / Kenen (16 x 675 days)

Green = Venus / Malahalel (48 x 225 days)

Brown = Jupiter / Jared (4.5 x 4320 days)

Mercury flips with Jupiter for several reasons. I think this was done as it makes the wheel easier to create. When I’ve drawn the wheel in the sand at my local beach, Mercury (or Enosh) acted like a minute hand on the outside so I could more easily fill in the other celestial spheres. The Babylonian astronomical texts sometimes swapped the position of Saturn and Mercury. I wonder if it is for a similar reason.

Notice, there is no Adam, Enoch, Methuselah or Lamech in this model.

Adam describes the Highest Heaven and the others describe the First Heaven. This wheel maps only the Second Heaven.

Archeological Evidence

Before we go on, I will share some archeological evidence I discovered online. This is Gilgal Rephaim (or Rujm el-Hiri). It has been estimated to have been built around 3,500 BC. We can see how the inner circle is divided into 12 and the second circle is divided into 30 segments. This correlates with the two outer circles on my model.

You can watch a video about it on the Megalithomania YouTube channel.

This is a controversial discovery. Maybe not for theology, but does raise questions over the history of astronomy and maths. I will discuss these issues in a later post. As I have previously said, this is a white paper and I would appreciate feedback from any theologians, archaeologists or astronomers.

But in the next post, I will discuss Adam, Seth and Enosh.