Gen.11:26 Terah was 70 years of age when Abram was born. Gen. 11:32 Terah dies when he was 205. Upon Terah's death Abram leaves Ur; he was 75, Gen. 12:4. 205-75=130!? Terah was 130 not 70 when Abram was born?
Let's look at the two texts first:
Gen 11.26ff: When Terah had lived seventy years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were two hundred five years; and Terah died in Haran.
Let me make some initial observations about the texts, and then give the TWO-THREE different ways the passages are synchronized:
Gen 11.26 is a summary statement--NOT the same formula that are in the preceding verses (i.e. "X lived Y years and begot Z, and he had OTHER sons and daughers"). Our verse is in a different form, as that at the end of a genealogy like Genesis 5.31: "And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.".
11.26, if interpreted by the other forms, would make Abe/Nahor/Haran all born in the SAME year (triplets, maybe? hmmm...a foreshadowing of the Trinity, eh? eyes glaze over in Christian frenzy here...)! Highly unlikely, esp. since they are apparently the ONLY male children of Terah.
The order of names in 11.26 is probably only related to importance, not chronology. “Genesis 5:32 lists the three sons of Noah in this sequence: (1) Shem, (2) Ham, (3) Japheth. But this cannot be the order of the birth, for 9:24 identifies Ham as the youngest son of Noah.” [NICOT, in loc]
It is possible than Haran was the oldest, since Nahor marries a daugther of his (11.29).
Scholars generally believe that Terah had lived in Haran BEFORE migrating to Ur, and this might suggest that Haran was born there (and named from it as well), indicating his historical precedence over Abraham.
As I mentioned, there are three (but they boil down to two) ways to understand this: (1) Terah was 70; or (2) Terah was 130. And both are 'reasonable' approaches, although I personally side with Waltke and Bruce (i.e., that Terah was 70 and that “205” is a textual error, on the evidence of Philo/SamPent):
Perhaps Abram is mentioned first because he is the most important of the three. Thus Terah was 130 years old, near the end of his life, when Abram was born!” [NICOT]
Bruce favors the “textual” solution:
“The chronological data of Gen. 11:26, 32; 12:4 would suggest that Terah's death took place sixty years after Abraham's departure from Harran. J. Ussher and other chronologers of an earlier day harmonized the present statement of Stephen with the evidence of Genesis by the improbable expedient of supposing that Terah was seventy years old when his oldest son (Haran) was born, and that Abraham was not born until Terah was 130. That Abraham did not leave Harran until his father was dead is asserted also by Philo (On the Migration of Abraham 177), and is implied by the Samaritan Pentateuch, which in Gen. 11:32 gives Terah's age at death as 145, not 205 (MT, LXX). It would follow that Abraham, who left Harran at the age of 75 (Gen. 12:4), did so as soon his father had died. ... Possibly Stephen (or Luke) and Philo relied on a Greek version (no longer extant) which agreed with the Samaritan reading of Gen. 11:32. P. E. Kahle says with greater assurance that "not a single MS. of the Christian `Septuagint' has preserved in Gen. 11:32 a reading which Philo and Luke read in their Greek Tora in the first Christian century" (The Cairo Geniza [London, 1947], p. 144).” [NICNT, “Acts”]
As does Waltke, in his commentary on Genesis:
“205 years. The original text probably read "145 years." This reading is attested in the Samaritan Pentateuch If the Masoretic text is original, Terah was 130 when Abraham was born (see 11:26; 12:4). This seems unlikely for three reasons: (1) it accords badly with the rest of the genealogy from Shem to Terah, who have their firstborn in their early thirties; (2) there would be nothing exceptional in Abraham fathering Isaac at 100 years of age
Now, normally, if the MT and LXX agreed, that would be strong data, but in this case they actually DONT agree on the passage itself. The LXX says “and all the days of Terah in Harran were 205 years, and Terah died in Harran”--making Terah live another 205 years in Haran! But the MT has “And they were, the days of Terah, five and two hundred years; and Terah-died in Haran.” So there is some definite textual confusion in our existing sources.
Additionally, we might note that an ancient Rabbinic source even noted a possible 'dislocation' in the text--suggesting that sequence of events in Genesis was uncertain. Tov explains [OT:TCHB2,54f]:
“In the printed editions one finds inverted nunim... the original meaning of these signs in Greek sources was that the section enclosed by the sigma and antisigma did not suit its present place in the text... An additional case, not attested in the [printed] manuscripts, is mentioned in Minhat Shay and the Mp of the second Rabbinic Bible on Gen 11:32 ('in Haran')... It is possible that the inverted nun in this place showed that the verse did not occur in its correct place, for a chronological calculation reveals that the death of Terah mentioned here ought to have occurred after what is recorded in the following sections (cf. Rashi).”
So, given the textual problems in our modern MT/LXX and the specific references/indications of 145 in Philo, Stephen(Luke), and the SP, I have to go with the “70 years old” conclusion.
Explaination by Glenn Miller.
Topic: Was Terah 70 or 130 when Abraham was born? - Genesis 11:26 (Read 3751 times)