who’s older?

Lately I’ve been having some discussion about whether or not the chronologies of Genesis 5 & 11 can be trusted as an accurate representation of the time lapsed between Adam and Abraham. I’ve been arguing that they can, and that we can use them to estimate the age of the Earth to be somewhere around 6,000 years. But that isn’t the real point of this post.

One of the objections brought forth is Genesis 5:32, which says, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” The reason this is an objection is because Noah’s sons are not given in chronological order. Genesis 9:20-24 says, “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.”

So we know Ham is the youngest. But who is the oldest, Shem or Japheth? Well, this is what I am writing this post about, because it’s rather interesting.

Let me first state that I don’t know two beans about the Hebrew language. I’m just going by my English Bible and its notes for all this. Maybe someone that knows Hebrew can comment on this and tell me something I’m missing.

In Genesis 10:21, we see a verse that says something about Shem and Japheth. In the NASB translation, it reads, ” Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born.” and the ESV translates it as something comparable. The NASB that I own has a note, which indicates another translation of this verse is possible. The other translation is along the lines for the KJV translation, which reads, “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.”

As you can see, they are quite different. One says that Shem is the older, the other says that Japheth is the older.

But if we go back and look carefully at some details in Genesis, we learn something. Genesis 11:10 says, ” These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:”. So, we can determine from this that at the flood, Shem was 98 years old. If we go back to Genesis 7:6, we read, ” And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” And so, roughly, Shem was born when Noah was 502 years old. See how all that works? 100-2=98, 600-98=502.

But, if we go back up to the beginning, and refer to Genesis 5:32 again, “And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” we see that it says Noah was 500 when he begat Shem Ham and Japheth. As I understand it, this means he was 500 when he had the first of his sons, just like in the case of Terah, who was 70 when he “begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran”. But from the other texts we determined that Noah was 502 when Shem was born, so Shem couldn’t have been born when Noah was 500. And Ham is the youngest, which means that Japheth was born when Noah was 500, and is therefore the eldest son.

Some might say that it’s just rounding. Two years isn’t a big deal, so they just rounded to the closest round number. Well, maybe? but doesn’t it seem awfully strange for the author to do that when just a few verses above he wrote, “And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech.” (v.25) and “And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:” (28). Why wouldn’t he have rounded those ages also?

And so the big question is why do the NASB and the ESV both prefer the translation of 10:21 which says Shem is the eldest son?