The Earth Divided

While the Bible lists Noah’s children and some of their descendants, the primary focus is on Abraham’s ancestors.  Their genealogy gives us a rough timeframe for many of the events described.  Genesis 10:25 tells us, “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.” 

The name Peleg means ‘earthquake.’  In Hebrew, like other Semitic languages, the vowel often incorporates qualifiers such as how many or in what manner that in English would be expressed in prepositions or adjectives and adverbs.  The word translated divided in the statement “in his day the world was divided”  literally means separated by water. 

Geologists believe that at one time all the continents were a single super continent, but that movement of the tectonic plates resulted in their becoming the separate continents we know today.  In fact, the continents are still drifting apart at a measurable rate in our day.  It is that continental drift that causes earthquakes and cracks through which volcanoes erupt.  The flood resulted in the breaking up of the earth’s crust, permitting the continents to drift and cause earthquakes, which in Peleg’s day resulted in the continents separating from one another. 

Genesis 11:10-19 gives us a timeframe for when this happened.  “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.  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.

And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.  And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg: And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.  And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:  And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.” 

According to that genealogy, Peleg was born about a hundred years after the flood and lived two hundred thirty nine years.  This would place the separation of the continents about two hundred to three hundred years after the flood.  After God confused the languages at Babel, the people began to scatter across the original super continent to the furthest reaches.   At first the continental drift was probably comparatively rapid when compared with today, but over time friction would slow the rate of travel.   Even then the rate of travel was probably slow enough that people could easily see and travel between the continents  for many years.   The legends of the lost city of Atlantis may well be based on events surrounding the dividing of the earth.    There are records of Europeans traveling to America dating back to at least 700 Ad, implying that those lands had long been known, and the Polynesians  definitely knew of other islands long before they settled them.   

This explains why the earliest cultures in South and Central America built ziggurats or pyramids similar to what is found around Babylon as places of worship and their ancient religions seem to resemble the oldest religions in the Middle East.  Although they started out with similar cultures, isolation resulted in great differences over the centuries.  A great deal of emphasis has been placed on a land bridge between Russia and Alaska, and considerable geological evidence supports such a belief.  Continental drift explains why such a bridge could have existed for centuries before finally sinking.  The land bridge may well explain the similarity between the various Alaskan peoples and those of northern Siberia, but it does not explain the similarities between the various cultures in Central and South America to those in the Mediterranean and West Africa.   

I find it extremely interesting that while anthropologists, archaeologists, and geologists insist these things happened millions of years ago, their newest discoveries align with what the scriptures state in other ways.     Whether we accept the biblical record or the modern explanations is a matter faith, since we cannot go back in time to check which is right.