DEFINING A GENERATION --

To begin with, a generation is the period from a man's birth to the birth of his son. It can also refer collectively to the people who lived in a like period.

Scripturally, the average length of a generation is most often assumed to be forty years. For, in the wilderness all the men over twenty died within a forty-year time frame. The forty year span of the rule of David and Solomon, and of those four of the judges, adds support for a forty year generation.

However, we also find Scriptural support for a hundred year generation. Yahveh told Abraham that his descendants would be in a foreign land four hundred years and then He would bring them out in the "fourth generation."

Matthew's genealogy further complicates the problem of discerning the length of a generation. His genealogical list gives forty-two generations from Abraham to the birth of Yeshua (Matthew 1:17). It gets complicated when we try to determine the time span of these forty-two generations. If we use hundred year generations, we have a 4200 year spa. If we use forty years, we have a 1680 year span. However, neither of these time spans fits with known history. Further, the general agreement among biblical scholars is the Yeshua was born in 5 or 6 B.C., and that Abraham was born in the period of 2000 B.C. to 2200 B.C.

The answer that solves the dilemma and also fits with history is as follows:

From the flood to the Exodus from Egypt, generations were 100 years long, afterwards, they were forty years long. This reasoning, when applied to Matthew's genealogy, gives us eight, one-hundred year generations: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob's twelve sons, and four generations in Egypt, -- and thirty-four forty-year generations. Using this rationale, (34 x 40 =1360 + 800 =2160), and back-dating from 6 B.C., we arrive at 2166 B.C. as Abraham's year of birth. This is the exact date given by the NIV Study Bible Old Testament Chronology for Abraham's birth. Further, this perception of generations would place the flood some seven to eight hundred years earlier and well within the time frame that is acceptable to the majority of scholars.

After Yahveh had virtually destroyed the ancient world with the flood, we find that His plan to have a people for His own possession is to be accomplished through the descendants of Noah's son, Shem. This means Shem's son Arphaxed, represents the first generation of the post-flood world. And, from Arphaxed to Abraham there are seven generations. Add these seven generations to the forty-two generations from Abraham to Yeshua, and we have forty-nine generations. Thus, Yeshua then came in the fiftieth generation, or the first Jubilee generation: 6 B.C. to 34 A.D.

This, in turn, means the first generation after Yeshua would have begun in 35 A.D., which year is also thought to be the year of Paul's conversion.

Paul's conversion is a key element to the almost 2000 year effort to renew the world spiritually, and to re-gather Yahveh's people. This mission stands in contrast to the mission of Noah's sons, which was to repopulate the world physically.

And, the next fiftieth generation from Yeshua, meaning the second jubilee generation, began in 1996 A.D.!

So, today, in 2007 A.D., we live in the eleventh year of the fiftieth generation from Yeshua, and in the one hundredth generation from the flood!