Septuagint Chronology: Adam to Abraham

To determine the chronology of events from the creation of Adam to the birth of Abraham is more complicated than one might imagine. To begin with, the chronology of the Masoretic Text (MT) of the Old Testament in Hebrew differs significantly from that of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament in Greek. One must choose between the two.
 
James Ussher based his chronology on the Masoretic Text. In this essay, we will look at the chronology as found in the Septuagint (LXX). This chronology, whether in Hebrew or Greek, comes primarily from Genesis 5 and 11.

What Difference Does It Make? (Kierkegaard)

“‘Whatever difference there may be between two persons, even if humanly speaking it were most extreme, God has it in his power to say, “When I am present, certainly no one will presume to be conscious of this difference, because that would be standing and talking to each other in my presence as if I were not present”’” (Soren Kierkegaard, quoted by Vernard Eller in Towering Babble [1983]).

On Responding Creatively to Challenging Times (Blumhardt)

“The kingdom of God must be the desire of our hearts; then solutions will come. You can be useful when you are willing to bear the greatest misery for God’s sake…It cannot be in vain, bearing what God wills us to bear, when we are following the one who bore the cross” (Johann Blumhardt [or son Christoph], quoted by Vernard Eller in Towering Babble: God’s People Without God’s Word [1983]).

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea has a relatively uniform length west to east for two reasons. One, it begins at the Strait of Gibraltar which is only 9 miles (14 km) wide. Two, the Levantine coast on its eastern shore runs north to south in a relatively uniform way as it stretches from the Bay of Iskenderun to the city of Gaza. So, as a representative measure of length from west to east, from the Strait of Gibraltar to port of Beirut, the Mediterranean Sea is 2,316 miles (3,727 km) long.

Seas South of Slavia

Caspian Sea

When the mighty Volga River enters the Caspian Sea, its journey ends. The Caspian has no outlet. It’s the largest body of water with that characteristic on Earth. The Caspian itself is 750 miles (1,208 km) long from north to south, an average 200 miles (320 km) wide, and has an area of 149,200 square miles (386,400 sq km). It has an average depth of 692 feet (211 m) and a maximum depth of 3,363 feet (1,025 m). Surprisingly it’s a little salty, though with less than half of the ocean’s salinity. The shallow northern portion of the sea usually turns to ice in the winter; sometimes, the southern portion does as well.

Dnieper River

In our fabled land of Olympia, the Dnieper River, at 1,367 miles (2,200 km) in length, is exceeded only by the Volga (2,200 mi/3,520 km) and Danube (1,767 mi/2,850 km). The Dnieper falls wholly within our geocultural province of Slavia. It starts 720 feet (220 m) above sea level in a peat bog in the Valdai Hills 3 miles (5 km) northwest of the rural village of Bocharovo (Russia) and 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Moscow. In its long journey, it flows roughly south through the cities listed below until it empties into the Black Sea.

Don River

The Volga River forms a significant portion of the eastern boundary of our geocultural province of Slavia. The Don River, another in Slavia, lies to its west.

The Don springs from the ground 720 feet (220 m) above sea level in the city of Novomoskovsk, Russia, 125 miles (201 km) south of Moscow and 30 miles (48 km) southeast of the city of Tula. It curves in a semicircular way as it flows south and east following the eastern edge of the range of rolling hills known as the Central Russian Upland. It gets closest to the Volga a mere 40 miles (64 km) from Volgograd and has been connected at that point to the great river by canal since 1952. The Don then veers southwest and, after a total journey of 1160 miles (1868 km), empties into the Sea of Azov at Rostov-on-Don.