I finished this on Sunday, and I thought you might be interested. I did, however, take a trip with my family up to the top of the nearby volcano, not for sacrificial purposes but to have a picnic lunch, and worked on this after we returned.
As you may recall, I translate and work to uncover the truth, regardless of which side of the Biblical text the answers fall on. Today I was working on the period of the flood, which covered Doggerland near England and caused the Black Sea to overflow, and the Persian gulf to expand to nearly the streets of Ur, in early Sumeria. In other words, the flood covered a great deal of the known world of the Middle Eastern writers of the Bible - although its height was certainly exagerated and it did not wipe out the populations of the Earth; although quite a few locals in Anatolia, Syria and Iran probably died.
My figures, which come from geological surveys and maps from Sumerian hands, tells me that this happened about 7400-7300 B.C., and it was while researching evidence to prove/disprove that hypothesis that I came across something interesting in the text of the Old Testament.
According to Genesis 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 1:19, it was during the time of Peleg, the great-great-grandson of Shem, who accompanied Noah on the Ark, that the earth was divided.
Here is the traditional spin from wakipedia, but you needn't pay it too much attention, because it is off
the reservation, as usual:
The meaning of the Earth being divided is usually taken to refer to a patriarchal division of the world, or possibly just the Eastern Hemisphere, into allotted portions among the three sons of Noah for future occupation, as specifically described in the Book of Jubilees, Biblical Antiquities of Philo, Kitab al-Magall, Flavius Josephus, and numerous other antiquarian and mediaeval sources, even as late as Archbishop Ussher, in his Annals of the World.
[Ussher is the moron that thinks that he can fill in the "gaps" that God left in the Biblical text by reading between the lines - he's the major author responsible for the young earth idea - that mankind is something less than 10,000 years old, and usually they peg it to less than 7000 years old.]
One account, the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, states that "In the days of Phalek (Peleg), the earth was divided a second time among the three sons of Noah; Shem, Ham and Japheth" – it had been divided once previously among the three sons by Noah himself. [I just included this for grins; I don't think we can safely pay attention to the report of a conflict between Adam, Eve and Satan.]
Some Creationists interpret this verse to refer to the continent of Pangaea being split into the modern continents.[And they get this nonsense from using Ussher's calculations and sticking to it.]
So basically, what this tells us is that, again, they have no clue what it means, and one group spins it one direction and the other groups yet another way. So let's discover what the Biblical authors were really trying to tell us, shall we?
It's really all encoded in the names. Nothing too difficult to uncover. Here they are:
OT Hebrew Genesis 10:25
And unto Eber was born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.
The Hebrew word for "divided, split, to divide" is "PLG" or as they pronounce it, Peleg. So he was named for the time (his days on Earth), when the "earth" was divided. We should understand here that the Hebrew word they translate as earth, also indicates "land, lands, dirt" as well as country, territory, etc. So he lived in the days when the lands became divided.
Using my handy Hebrew-Sumerian template (which will be released very shortly) we find that PLG or Peleg translates to "A L Gi".
In early Sumerian, Al = "a hoe, pickax, hoeing, and a reed fence". Gi means "a reed or cane" which is one of their units of length measurement. It's equal to 6 cubits, which is nearly exactly 3 meters and 10 inches, or 10 feet and 10 inches, give or take an inch.
Is it not painfully clear that the name Peleg, associated with "the time of Peleg" and the "lands being divided" translates to "when the lands were divided by reed fences, into 10 foot wide plots, where hoeing or planting activities were performed?"
So, our archaeologists tell us (assure us) that roughly 9500 years ago (7500 B.C.) the people of modern Turkey (Anatolia), Syria, and the Mesopotamian area in general, began farming, and domesticating animals. Yes, they first farmed somewhat earlier - about 10,000 B.C. or earlier, but they don't have evidence that they "divided" the lands into farms until about 7500 B.C. Shortly after this time, some of their group left that area of modern Armenia and Iran and moved into Europe, to begin farming there. That is the commonly held & agreed upon history as it stands.
So, my idea of placing Peleg at three generations after the flood (which I have at 7400-7300 B.C.), which gives us 7400 - 40 X 3 (3 generations) or 7280 B.C., is not so far off from their estimate of 7500 B.C., and in reality it may mean the same dates if we consider that the Hebrew ancestors may not have been the absolute first people to divide land into farms - they may have picked it up from their neighbors a generation or so later.
But what about the brother? Are we to leave poor Joktan out of the historical records?
Joktan is written with Yud Quph Thet Nun in Hebrew, which gives us "ki du te n" in Sumerian.
Ki = land, territory, soil, Earth (same as it does in Hebrew - multiple ideas for "earth".
du = to set out, to come (or go)
ten = to be cool, to become cool, to make cool, to be calm or appeased.
So Joktan, the brother (younger) of Peleg, was part of the group that migrated north
into the Caucasus mountains region, and later passed into Europe and brought their
farming and land division skills with them. Could this be why we have, from ancient
times, had farming rows of roughly that width, or is it only because of the distance between
the width of our plows or the wheels of a horse team or tractor?
Does the timeline match? yes
Do the movements of the people and the regions involved match? yes
Do the accounts of Peleg and Joktan fit with our archaeological guesses? yes
If we leave the Biblical text as it is, and do not try to read anything else into it, nor "help" God with his mathematics nor help fill in the "parts" he "left out", and simply use our brains to examine what they wrote against what our own scholars tell us happened in those early historical periods, we arrive at some truth that does tend to make common sense. And common sense is all that we are missing in this modern day, in my humble (less than humble) opinion.
