 All right, the question for Mike in regards to biblical genealogies in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 Mike has said in the past that the genealogies have gaps and they were not meant to be exact ancestry But rather a general bloodline type of thing as well as paralleling the Sumerian Kings list However, it seems an extra biblical literature as well as early church commentaries They assumed that it was direct lineage rather than a telescope ancestry How would Mike reconcile that with the gaps or take for instance Jude 14 where it says Enoch And this is the seventh from Adam. How does that work with genealogical gaps? And does Mike believe that the men listed in the genealogies actually live to the age that it says or is it purely a literary thing? For instance that the Methuselah actually live 969 years Yeah, there's a number of questions here First of all, I would I would say that I haven't said and wouldn't say and frankly I don't know anybody that says that there are gaps in all of the genealogies I would also say that there may be gaps in genealogies doesn't mean that there are you know If you have a gap in one doesn't mean you have a gap in another you know that sort of thing So it's not an all or nothing Kind of proposition in regard to the to the ages people can go up to drmsh calm put in the word genealogy or Mathematical and again, I've blogged about this a number of times I think there is some sort of mathematical thing going on with the genealogies That is Literary it's designed to telegraph something. Nobody's really come up with one that works all the time Although if you search for that on my site, it leads to an article that gives you a summary of the approaches There's certainly something going on with the Sumerian King List in that respect that that people have figured out what what the cipher is People have taken really good shots at the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 to come up with a Cipher and again some of the shots are better than others But I do suspect that there is something mathematical going on there And that would mean that the the patriarchal figures here are these these figures You know, we can't assume that the numbers here are actually designed to give us their actual literal lifespan That there's something else going on here, you know for some theological reason that in the space of the podcast Yeah, that's about all I can say I just say go up to the site Get the article get the summary read through it and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about and why So, you know back to the to the the gap issue again, nobody's saying there's gaps in every genealogy I don't have any problem saying that Enoch is the seventh from Adam like the text says he is now with that in mind though Okay, and I think about this even though I have no trouble thinking Enoch was the seventh from Adam You have to realize that Jude is just quoting what he's reading in the Old Testament It may well be in real time that there were gaps in that genealogy But Jude can't really quote something he doesn't know he can't quote information. He's never given He's just quoting the Old Testament and he's quoting it accurately But that doesn't that doesn't mean that there's something you know else that could be going on here now I think in his case that we do have the seventh from Adam I think the number seven is really important again if you read the mathematical cipher article, you'll find out why I Think especially with Enoch that is a big deal So I would I personally would think that yeah, Enoch is the seventh from Adam and that means something again Theologically Enoch's own number 365. It would be significant again. You can read the material there So this isn't sort of an either or kind of thing that you can parse But my view again is that I'm willing to bet that there are gaps in some of the genealogies and that the numbers There are there's some sort of mathematical cipher going on Now what I would recommend to Derek and and to the rest of the listeners Is a book called and it only exists in kindle. Unfortunately, I don't have kindle, but I went to hear this guy at the last set of academic meetings that the evangelical theological society had a full afternoon session on biblical genealogies Doesn't that sound exciting? But I went to that and and this was this guy was one of the speakers It's a book called God of the gaps gaps in biblical genealogies make it impossible to calculate the date of creation Okay, it's a long kind of clunky title It's authored by two people Hugh Henry and Daniel Dyke And I think as I recall that the right the the guy that was there was Hugh Henry at the last ETS but it was a really interesting session because He had approaches to gaps that I've not heard of before or seen for example He would take comments in the scripture about the number of generations between this or that event Which included the names of biblical figures that also happened to be in genealogies And he showed how either certain names get skipped Or how the time frame between the events could not be reconciled with the number of generations in the genealogies Based on other passages that sort of define how long a generation is And the point of his presentation was that it's not about just looking at lists of names You have to look at statements made about figures and about time periods About x number of years between this and that event or between generations and then go look at the genealogy and ask yourself Well, you know could could this number of generations in the genealogy could it account for that number of years That we know has to take place Because of the bible's own chronology And he actually showed examples of where it just doesn't work And so again his hypothesis was that the genealogical information is selective and in some cases Again, you have to conclude That there's skipping going on and that there there must be gaps in the information and that what is used is used for a specific purpose To highlight someone or something But you can't just use the numbers to do a strict chronology So I would recommend That work just because again, I saw some things in that presentation that were They were just different I'd not seen anybody take some of the approaches that this guy these these two guys did Again the one only one speaker was there at least presenting, but but I just found it really interesting So it's called god of the gaps Gaps and biblical genealogies will just cut the subtitle short, but it's only available in kindle unfortunately So if you don't have kindle like me You can't actually go get you know a hard copy of it I mean, I suppose at some point I'll go get a kindle just to have this But you know, I have what was given at the at the at the session. It was just really interesting