Genesis 5 Part 18: Why Hide This Data In A Geneaolgy?

I believe this astronomical clock was being used around 3-5,000 BC. And so the cultures using it would have been oral rather than writing communities.

Writing, in terms of what we modern people understand today, started around 3,000 BC in Mesopotamia. This extract from a 19th Century BC poem gives the first account of the appearance of writing.

Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay - Sumerian epic poem Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.

Benefits of Oral Tradition

In our written and Internet culture, we see oral tradition as unreliable. We feel, we can rely more on written and video evidence than hearing something second or third-hand. I think this is an unfair view. Oral traditions are not hearsay, but information shared through ritual language and stories.

Oral cultures share information as part of a community. Important data is carefully remembered and delivered to ensure no essential information is lost.

It has been noted by academics that over time stories told in an oral tradition setting are quite static. The main changes are noticed first in nouns. They adapt alongside the changes in the environment where the community lives. In contrast, verbs change extremely slowly.

A criticism of a written culture is that if someone records information on a piece of paper, and that paper is destroyed, the information is lost forever. In an oral culture, the whole community would need to be killed for the story to be forgotten.

I can see why writing overtook the sharing of information in a verbal manner. A ruler can ensure that his message has been sent and received as he intended. He is not relying on a messenger, who may forget components of the message. Writing also relies less on a community to remember the information and more on the individual author and the owner of the text to ensure it is safe.

Hiding in Plain Sight

For an oral tradition community, I believe the best way to remember a series of numbers is in a genealogy. In addition, the meaning of the names of the ancestors might help give an indication on how to use the numbers. Much like how a mentalist can recall a pack of cards by telling a story to himself to help him to recall its order.

By placing the astronomical information into the Genesis 5 genealogy, the author is able to draw out theological themes as well as useful astronomical data.

Why is Astronomical Data Important?

Imagine a world where we had no calendars or clocks. How would we tell the time of day or what year it was. Well we could keep a note, but what if we forgot to record a day. What if we can’t remember whether we missed recording a day or not?

If we knew the patterns in the stars and planets, we would not only know what time of year it was, but what year it was. This is what Genesis 5 gives us, an astronomical clock.

We see in Genesis 1 v 14:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.

So from the beginning, God told humanity to engage with the stars, planets, Sun and Moon and use them to record the days and years. The astronomical data in the genealogy in Genesis 5 is where the author placed it. Probably recording it the way it was shared with them.

In the next post, we will look at the Sumerian Kings List and the astronomical data within that royal genealogy.