Schaeffer poses a compelling question that warrants the study of history. Envision a young child, unaware of being the rightful heir to a throne, living in humble attire, surrounded by a conspiracy to keep this truth hidden. This scenario illustrates a positive incentive for delving into history; it may lead to great gain. Conversely, there's also a negative motivation for understanding historical contexts, as previously discussed. When faced with challenges, individuals naturally seek to unravel the origins of their difficulties, delving into the past to discern the root causes and avoid repeating mistakes. In this final section of his book Schaeffer delivers something more important. Schaeffer emphasizes the paramount importance of understanding a specific segment of our common history.

I am reviewing Genesis In Space And Time by Francis Schaeffer to assess its impact on Christianity amid current discussions about Jewish supremacy. Does this book lead Christians towards a blend of Judaism and Christianity, or does it deepen their understanding of Christianity itself? 

I question the popular use of the term "Judeo-Christian" and equate it with Zionism, a sect many Christians find alluring, but I find harmful (Proverbs 14:12). Unlike these zealots, I seek God based on truth revealed by Him as stated in Romans 10:1-2 and Proverbs 24:5-6.  Zealots have been warned about the only way to life abundant; there is only one way.  (John 10:10; Matthew 7:26-27).

Finally, I seek to understand how God formed one people into a nation; I look at the elements of nationhood. I am skeptical of America's shift since the 1960s towards being a melting pot.  America abandoned foundational principles in favor of globalism and multiculturalism, which harm nation, family, and individual. Drawing parallels from the Exodus story, I stress the importance of remembering our history to avoid passing on a harmful legacy to our children. After all, our children ask for bread and deserve bread, not the snake we are creating and are about to pass on to them (Matthew 7:9-10).

With these thoughts in mind, I invite you to study along.  To go to the beginning of this series click here.   To join me in this study on Gab click here.

The Generations of Shem

Genesis 11:10 takes up the generations of Shem as the Bible carries us still further along in the general flow of history. Here again we need to deal with the problem of genealogy and chronology. There are a number of things to notice.

First, in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament dating before the time of Christ) an extra name (Kainan) is recorded in Genesis 11:12. Kainan is stated to have lived 130 years, the phraseology fitting into exactly the same form as the other names. The intriguing thing (this is purely speculative) is that if this name does belong here, then this genealogy contains ten steps, the same number as the genealogy of the prediluvians in Genesis 5. One wonders, therefore, if this is a parallel to the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, where names are left out and then it is stated that there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, and fourteen generations from David to Babylonian captivity, and fourteen generations from the Babylonian captivity to Christ (Matt. 1:17).

People often ask how Genesis 11:10ff. could not be a chronology with all the detail it contains, for example, in Genesis 11:12, 13: “And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.”

In Matthew 1:8, as I have pointed out, there is a tremendous jump in the genealogy. There could have been no mistake involved in making this jump, because the people who recorded these things knew the genealogies very well. Matthew 1:8 reads: “And Asa begat Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Uzziah” (ASV). But we saw, by comparing this to 1 Chronicles 3:11, 12, that Uzziah’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are omitted in Matthew’s genealogy. So there is a lengthy break here. Therefore, what this passage in Matthew is really saying is: When Joram was a certain unnamed number of years old, he begat someone who led to Uzziah. And then, after Joram begat that unnamed individual, Joram lived a certain number of years and died.

But for the sake of the illustration let’s be a little more imaginative and read it like this: “When Joram was thirty years old, he begat someone who led to Uzziah, and then Joram lived a certain number of years, had other children, and died.” That is what this portion of Matthew 1:8 means. It does not state the number of years, but it does give us the form. And this is precisely the form we find throughout Genesis 11. In other words, the word “begat” in Genesis 11 does not require a first-generation father-son relationship. It can mean, fathered someone who led to.^[1] Adding this phrase to the genealogy in Genesis 11 would not change the situation at all. For example, if you added such a phrase to Genesis 11:14, 15, then you would have exactly the same situation as in Matthew 1:8, because it would simply say that Salah begat someone who led to Eber. That is precisely what Matthew 1:8 says about Joram and Uzziah. Consequently there is no reason to let Genesis 11 change our conclusion that the genealogies do not constitute a chronology.

People have asked why the details are added. The best answer that has been given, I think, is simply that they form a parallel with the prediluvians where the ending of the form was and he died. The present passage doesn’t say and he died, but it seems to involve the same mentality. The details are given, and he lived so many years, and then of course he died. The important names were the ones that were given, for they show the line.

When we realize that these genealogies give no guidance as to dating, we can understand why Professor B. B. Warfield said, “It is to theology, as such, a matter of entire indifference how long man has existed on earth.”

In the flow of history in Genesis 1–11, therefore, I feel there really is no final discussion possible concerning dating. On the Bible’s side there are the questions we have just considered, and on modern science’s side there are certainly many questions as to whether science’s dating systems are accurate. As I said in regard to the use of the Hebrew word “day” in Genesis 1, it is not that we have to accept the concept of the long periods of time modern science postulates, but rather that there are really no clearly defined terms upon which at this time to base a final conclusion.

The First Correlation with Secular History

In Genesis 11:26 we come to an entirely new situation, because here there is a reference to the man Abraham to whom we can assign a specific date. We move from biblical history that is not open to correlation with secular history to biblical history that is open to such correlation. This does not imply that what has preceded is any less historic than what is recorded from this point on. But with Abraham we can assign an approximate date—2,000 B.C.

In Genesis 11:28 we are told that Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees.

We know a good deal about Ur of the Chaldees at the time when Abraham lived there and before because of the excavation that was done by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley in 1922 and 1934. We know, for example, that these people worshiped the moon goddess, but that they were far advanced in civilization and culture. Abraham was not just some strange wanderer, a Bedouin from the back side of the desert who didn’t know anything. The excavations show us that the houses were made of brick and were whitewashed for aesthetic purposes. They stood two stories high. In the larger houses there were up to ten to twenty rooms. They had wonderfully equipped kitchens, a good plumbing system and sanitation. From the evidence that has been found, some people have thought that perhaps they taught cube root in their schools. The University of Pennsylvania has a cup dating two centuries before the time of Abraham that shows the magnificent workmanship these men were capable of. This cup is so marvelously made that no one today can surpass it, and it indicates the luxury of that place. Woolley’s excavation volumes covering the Royal Tomb shows pictures of the same marvelous work in gold and in alabaster as well.

In Genesis 12:1–3 we read:

“Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country [that is, from this highly cultured place], and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: … and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, quotes from this section of Genesis and carefully ties what he is saying into the promise given there:

“Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye, therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then, they who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Gal. 3:6–9).

The promises of God, reaching back to Genesis 3:15, are coming by the time of Abraham into an even more clearly delineated area. The solution, which will be appropriate to the real dilemma of man and will take care of the consequence of guilt before a holy God who exists, will come through Abraham. After Abraham the flow of history goes on, and the promise through the Old Testament continues to become clearer. We come finally to that last prophet of the Old Testament line, John the Baptist, who, when Jesus came and the moment of fulfillment was at hand, said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The Flow of History: The Significance of Man

Thus the flow of history continues. History comes from someplace. History is going someplace. We are not born without a background. And there is a solution to the dilemma of man in the midst of history. What a contrast to modern man who has come to the awful conclusion that history isn’t headed anywhere simply because he doesn’t know that the history in Genesis 1–11 is true! But that goes for all of us. We too must listen, if we are to understand.

Many events happened before we were born, and many others that we cannot remember occurred in our early life. If we are to know about them, our parents or others must tell us. A multitude of things which occurred before my time and which are personally important to me, I must learn from others. History is involved—things which really happened, but which I must be told by another. It is exactly the same with the whole human race.

Historical knowledge is extending back further and further as we find older writing and as our excavations and our understanding of the artifacts increases. Secular history can tell us much about our past as a human race, and therefore our own place in it. But no matter how much writing we turn up and translate, no matter how many excavations we make and how many artifacts we study, secular history has not unearthed a clue to help explain the final why of what we find.

All the way back to the dawn of our studies we find man still being man. Wherever we turn—to the caves in the Pyrenees, to the Sumerians, and further back to the Neanderthal man burying his dead in flower petals—it makes no difference: everywhere men show by their art and their acts that they observed themselves to be unique. And they were unique, unique as men in the midst of non-men. And yet they were as flawed with the dilemma of man, divisions of all kinds, as we are today.

So, just as a child needs to be told something of his personal history, mankind needs to be told of its history. Unless we are told about our beginnings, which secular study cannot trace, we cannot make sense of our present history.^[2] Twentieth-century man is looking at something—himself and the facts of history. He knows that something is really there, but he doesn’t know what. This is exactly what Genesis 1–11 tells him. These chapters give the history which comes before anything secular historians have been able to ascertain, and it is that presecular history which gives meaning to man’s present history. Imagine a little child who hasn’t yet been told that he is indeed the legitimate heir to the throne. He lives in pauper’s rags. Then somebody comes and tells him his previous history, and he takes his rightful place. It is exactly this that we need. And it is exactly this that the history of Genesis 1–11 gives. It sets in perspective all the history we now have in our secular study.

Some people assume that one can spiritualize the history of the first eleven chapters of Genesis and it will make no difference. They assume that they can weaken the propositional nature of these chapters where they speak of history and the cosmos, and that nothing will change. But everything changes. These chapters tell us the why of all history man knows through his studies, including the why of each man’s personal history. For this, Genesis 1–11 is more important than anything else one could have.

In these chapters we learn of the historic, space-time creation out of nothing; the creation of man in God’s image; a real, historic, space-time, moral Fall; and the understanding of the present abnormality in the divisions that exist between God and man, man and himself, man and man, man and nature, and nature and nature. These chapters also tell us the flow of the promise God made from the beginning concerning the solution to these divisions. This is what Genesis 1–11 gives us, and it is climatic. Naturalistic, rationalistic history only sees the results. If I am to understand the world as it is and myself as I am, I must know the flow of history given in these chapters. Take this away, and the flow of the rest of history collapses.

If a man attributes a wrong cause to the dilemma and divisions of men, he will never come up with the right answer, no matter how good a will he has. Man as he stands since the Fall is not normal, and consequently the solution must be appropriate to what we know to be the cause of his problems and his dilemma. A mere physical solution is inadequate, because man’s dilemma is not physical. Nor can it be metaphysical, because the problem of man, as we know it in Genesis 1–11, is not primarily metaphysical. The problem of man is moral, for by choice he stands in rebellion against God. And any appropriate solution must fill this moral need.

He who is the seed of the woman has bruised the serpent’s head. But what good is that to us if we will not listen? If we won’t listen, we won’t understand.

Questions & Notes

1. the word _________ in Genesis 11 does not require a first-generation father-son relationship. It can mean, fathered someone who led to. ↑

2. Unless we are told about our _________, which secular study cannot trace, we cannot make sense of our present history. ↑

Click on the "Genesis In Space And Time" tag below to see all the posts in this series. To go to the start of this series click here.