The word “antediluvian” may not come up much in everyday conversations, but it has an important meaning in discussions about the Bible. Antediluvian refers to the earliest biblical period, meaning everything that came before the flood. As the Cambridge English Dictionary explains, people sometimes use antediluvian to mean something connected to ancient history, or perhaps something hopelessly outdated. An old-fashioned monster story might describe tourists in Egypt stumbling into a pyramid and finding a tablet that mentions an “antediluvian creature." Or a politician in a debate may say that his opponent has “hopelessly antediluvian ideas about the economy.”
While antediluvian may be a rarely used word today, that does not mean everything antediluvian is outdated. In this article, we will explore what the Bible tells us about the antediluvian period, and specifically, what God was doing before the time of Noah.
What Does the Word Antediluvian Mean in Biblical Context?
Like many English words, antediluvian is a combination of several Latin words. “Ante” means before in Latin (like “antecedent”), and “diluvial” comes from a Latin word meaning “to wash away” (the same word that “deluge” comes from).
The term was coined by Thomas Browne (1605–1682), who explored many subjects in essays and books, particularly religious and scientific concepts. As the Oxford University Press website explains, Browne often drew on Latin to invent new words to describe whatever scientific or religious idea he explored. He coined words like “electricity,” “medical,” and even “computer” (although he was thinking of someone who computes things, like an accountant).
Browne uses “antediluvian” in his 1640 book Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a kind of early textbook detailing mistakes (“vulgar errors”) he had seen scholars make, then offering better information. Several sections of the book discuss the Bible, especially when Browne considers how languages developed from the “antediluvian” world, where everyone spoke one language, to the many languages created at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11).
Biblical scholars today still use Browne’s word to mean the first historical era mentioned in the Bible. Antediluvian people include the first people who lived in the Garden of Eden, their children, and the first civilizations that existed before God decided to flood the earth and commissioned Noah to make the ark.
Which Biblical Figures Lived in the Antediluvian Era?
Genesis 5-6 details many people who lived in the antediluvian period, from Adam and Eve’s first children (the brothers Cain and Abel) to the first city (built by Cain). There are even references to figures who may not strictly be human, the Nephilim (more on them later).
The most crucial figures in the antediluvian era are 10 men whose descendants form a direct line to Noah, then to Abraham, making them patriarchs in Israel’s history. These men are:
- Adam
- Seth
- Enosh
- Kenan
- Mahalel
- Jared
- Enoch
- Methuselah
- Lamech
- Noah
Our main source of information about these antediluvian patriarchs is the genealogy in Genesis 5, which means we do not get many details beyond their lifespans and their sons’ names. As John B. Davis explains, the antediluvian patriarchs reportedly lived extremely long lives, because God did not limit human beings’ lifespans to 120 years until Genesis 6:3.
We do get some enticing details about three of the later antediluvian patriarchs:
Enoch did not have a particularly long life for his period (only 365 years), but his life took an unusual turn. The Bible reports that Enoch “walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Genesis 5:24). The implication seems to be that Enoch was carried directly into heaven, like the prophet Elijah in 2 Kings 2. Since Enoch has such an unusual reputation, several ancient books claiming to offer mystical advice are attributed to him, particularly the Book of Enoch. These books are not part of the Bible, and most scholars agree that they are neither written by Enoch nor offer sound biblical advice.
Methuselah, Enoch’s son, is the oldest person recorded in the Bible (969 years). Although Methuselah is not mentioned in the later flood narrative, movies about Noah sometimes depict Methuselah as a minor character because he may have been alive when the flood occurred. Genesis 5:25-32 indicates that Methuselah was 187 years old when his son Lamech was born, 369 years old when his grandson Noah was born, and 869 years old when Noah became a father. Britt Mooney observes in his Christianity.com article on Noah that the flood occurred 100 years after Noah became a father (Genesis 7:6). Adding these numbers together indicates that Methusaleh died the same year the flood occurred. The possibilities (was Methuselah a good man who died just before the flood, or a wicked man who did not follow his grandson Noah’s warnings?) have intrigued writers for generations.
What Do We Know about the Antediluvian Era?
Since the antediluvian period is the oldest era of human history, there are many things we do not know about the period. For example, George Frederick Wright explains in his entry for the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia that it is hard to say how long the earth existed before the flood occurred; scholars debate whether the genealogies in Genesis are exact records, estimates, or sometimes have symbolic elements (10 is an important number that appears often in the Bible, so were there exactly 10 patriarchs or were some figures omitted?) Scholars who emphasize reading Genesis 5 as literally as possible argue that 1,600 years of human history occurred before the flood, and that the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 1 indicate 4,000 years between the flood and Jesus’ birth.
Another struggle is how to interpret some details the Bible gives about the antediluvian period. For example, the flood in Genesis 7 is the first time the Bible mentions rain, but does that mean the antediluvian world never experienced rain? It may simply mean the rain came more strongly than before, aided by the “springs of the deep” that opened to increase the flooding (Genesis 7:11).
Phrases like “springs of the deep” highlight a related problem: phrases in Genesis that ancient readers understood based on their culture but which we do not recognize today. For example, Genesis 6:1-4 mentions the Nephilim, powerful offspring of the “sons of God” and “daughters of men.” Scholars debate whether “sons of God” means the Nephilim were fathered by supernatural beings (for example, fallen angels) or humans with special reputations (kings were often treated as divine figures, so a king’s son might have been called a “son of God”).
Granting how much we don’t know about the antediluvian period, the Bible tells us some definite things about the era.
What Was Different about the Antediluvian World?
The Bible’s details about antediluvian times suggest it was very much like our world in some ways, and very different in others. The world experienced three major shifts in this period.
1. First, the antediluvian world experienced huge shifts in technology.
Adam’s son Cain is the first person credited with building a city (Genesis 4:17). One of his descendants, Jabal, is the “the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock” (Genesis 4:20), the first nomadic herder. Jabal’s brother, Jubal, is “the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes” (Genesis 4:21), the first reference to human-made music in the Bible. Their half-brother, Tubal-Cain, is credited with another major innovation: working with iron tools and bronze tools (Genesis 4:22). Many historians have grouped human history into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age because Bronze was a strong alloy made from other metals, and iron was an even stronger metal that outlasted bronze. These details suggest that, by the time the flood happened, at least some communities had made huge technical leaps, although their knowledge may have been lost in the catastrophe.
2. Second, the antediluvian world experienced huge shifts in population.
If literal interpretations of Genesis 6:1-11 are correct (1,600 years of human history before the flood, people living for centuries and reproducing for centuries), anywhere from 500 million to several billion humans could have been born during antediluvian history. Regardless of the exact number, the earth went from a small group of people to having whole societies, with all the chaos (fighting, disease, hunger) that occurs when civilizations grow.
3. Third, the antediluvian world experienced a huge shift from sinlessness to sinfulness.
After Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s order to avoid a particular tree in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2), humanity became disconnected from the perfect union they originally had with God (Genesis 3). From that sin onward, things do not get much better. Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel have conflict with each other, and the first murder occurs when Cain kills Abel (Genesis 4:1-15). Cain’s descendants continue the violence (Genesis 4:23). By the time Noah is born, God has limited how long people can live to keep them from causing too much chaos (Genesis 6:3).
Ultimately, God decided that shrinking people’s lifespans was not enough to contain the damage. He would start over again (Genesis 6:7). He told Noah to build an ark that would hold his family and a selection of animals, to outlast the coming flood.
Noah bridges the end of the antediluvian period and the next chapter of the Bible’s grand story. But the antediluvian period proves to be important to how we understand the rest of the bible.
How Does the Antediluvian Period Fit into God’s Story?
Since most of the Bible stories we learn in Sunday School come after the antediluvian period, we can easily dismiss this period as unimportant. But the details in Genesis 1-6 teach us some crucial things.
1. First, the antediluvian period lays the groundwork for the rest of the biblical narrative.
Genesis 1-2 outlines what kind of relationship God wants with humanity: closeness, honesty, and dependence on him.
2. Second, how antediluvian people lived reminds us that we must hold loosely to human-made measures that promise perfect safety.
Humans built powerful civilizations, with all the resources (armies, storehouses, cities) that civilizations have. They were convinced right up until the day the flood occurred that their resources meant things would be fine (Matthew 24:38). The shift from high prosperity to high destruction reminds us that anything we rely on outside of God will eventually fail us.
3. Third, God’s response to antediluvian sin affirms that for all the damage that sin caused, the story is not over.
God is dismayed at Adam and Eve’s sin in Genesis 3, but does not give up on humanity. He immediately begins working to restore his broken relationship with humanity, telling the serpent that one of Eve’s offspring will crush his head (Genesis 3:15), a foreshadowing of the Messiah who will restore all things.
While the flood is a shocking event, Genesis 6-7 shows the disaster leading to renewal. God makes a covenant promise with Noah to never flood the earth again (Genesis 9:8-17). One of Noah’s sons, Seth, becomes the forefather of the line that leads to new promises. Abraham is born from Seth’s line several generations later (Genesis 11:11-26). Abraham’s descendants through Isaac become the Israelites, and the Israelites become the bearers of God’s special work to show what a community following God can look like. Through the nation of Israel, the figure hinted at in Genesis 3:15 is born: Jesus, who makes right what was broken in the antediluvian period and ushers in a new period: the kingdom of God.
The antediluvian period may not have an easy name or the most detailed stories in the Bible. But what we learn from its sparse details assures us that there is a story God is telling within human history, and it is a good story.
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