​I can't come right out and tell you what you need to know about these diagrams you are looking at without offending you to the point that you'll look away. Surely this is the most important of our taboos. It is socially unacceptable for me to tell you that your beliefs are completely wrong. I first have to ask your permission to tell you something you might not want to hear. So let me first ask if you are willing to hear this:

"Your understanding of the Bible is not just wrong. It is wrong to an extent that you probably can't even imagine."

This sounds harsh, but it's not meant to be. It's a simple and to-the-point way of saying what I have to say. My concern is that talking about how much you misunderstand the Bible will offend you to the point that you'll stop reading and go on your way. If you do that, you won't be able to understand the diagrams you see on these pages. You won't understand why the people who wrote the Bible created a fully functional calendar that is more accurate than our modern calendar. You won't understand why the Bible writers thought it was important to put one of the ancient world's great scientific achievements into Genesis chapter 5. 

The unfortunate thing about discussing the Bible, is that most of us dismiss the ideas of anyone who does not already substantially agree with us. The atheists dismiss the theist argument. The Catholics dismiss the Jewish understanding of the New Testament. The Baptists dismiss the Mormons' Book. And when we cannot dismiss the other side's position, we argue without result. My position is that this multi-thousand-year argument continues because all sides are wrong about the Bible. If each side fundamentally misunderstands the Bible, and our first impulse is to divide into camps to defend our understandings, and we insist that our understanding gives us everlasting life, then there can never be agreement. Ever.

I think there can be agreement about the Bible but something has to happen to move each camp off of its old, inaccurate position. And that can't happen until someone actually proves that everyone is wrong. And that will be hurtful, offensive and maybe even devastating. Society says I have to get your permission before I can tell you something no one wants to hear about themselves. Your willingness to read on is a grant of that permission. 

This is a radical, radical, radical thing that I am proposing. You need to know that. Some, if not all of it, will seem ridiculous. You also need to know that. The religious among you will think, "He must be an atheist" and the atheists among you will think "He must be a theist." That each side thinks in these terms emphasizes how radical my view of the Bible truly is. Let me assure you that I am surely not an atheist. Let me also assure you that the God of the Bible is not what you think of as a god. I can hear the atheists telling us: "Regardless of what he's saying, it's clear that he's a theist. Logically, you must be either a theist or an atheist." I can also hear the theists say: "If you don't believe the Bible is talking about God as I believe in Him, then you don't believe in God!" But my position is that when both sides are wrong about the Bible, I can be neither a theist nor an atheist by simply being right about the book.

The Bible writers possessed a calendar significantly more accurate than our calendar. We don't know when they discovered it, but we can estimate that what we're reading in the Bible was written sometime before 500 BCE and maybe as long ago as 1500 BCE.  What you should not miss here is that a calendar of this accuracy was an astounding scientific achievement of this time. It's easily comparable to some of our more significant scientific achievements.

Once you know about the calendar, you might ask: "Why is there science in the Bible? Isn't it a religious book?" And your next two questions will also insist on being asked: "If this is such an amazing achievement, why is it hidden in what looks like a genealogy? Didn't these ancient scientists share knowledge openly like ours do?" And there could be devastating answers to some questions. For instance: "Why hasn't anyone, theist or atheist, discovered this calendar over the last couple of thousand years? Why haven't any of the scholars who study the Bible and the culture that produced it, recognized that the genealogy of Genesis 5 was a riddle? Have we all failed to recognize what we are reading when we pick up the Bible to read it?"

You're not going to like hearing this and I'm truly not going to like saying it: We grossly misunderstand the Bible. The fact that my understanding of the Bible allows me to discover this calendar and everyone else's understanding of the Bible actually prevents them from discovering this calendar implies that I understand the book. It also implies that you really, really misunderstand the Bible. This is true whether you are a theist or an atheist. Whether you are a Gnostic or a Holy Roller. Up to now, you and everyone you've ever met have completely misunderstood the Bible, therefore your back-and-forth arguments have been a complete waste of everyone's time.

​Some will argue that the numbers are in fact there, but they don't mean anything. You can find all sorts of patterns in a collection of numbers as large as the genealogy of Genesis 5 and this particular collection of patterns is no more meaningful than any other. Their argument is that I'm seeing patterns in what is essentially a random collection of numbers since those numbers were simply "made up" by the writers. They're saying that I'm seeing patterns in noise. My argument is that this story is first and foremost an attempt at communication. Like any communication, there is an idea in the mind of the speaker that he wishes to appear in the mind of the listener. The words of the speaker carry that idea, but a strict mathematical analysis of the words will never extract that idea. Extracting it requires that the listener decode the words of the speaker and build what he thinks is in the speaker's mind. Then the listener tries to verify that what he has built in his mind is what the speaker actually meant. Without that verification, communication is pretty much impossible.​My intent here is not to hurt you. It is to provide you with some facts. In the genealogy of Adam through his son Seth in Genesis 5, there are 416 years between the birth of Lamech and the Death of Mahalalel. That's a fact. There are 416 years between the death of Enosh and the Birth of Noah's sons. That is also a fact. You can do the calculation. There are 416 years between the death of Kenan and the death of Lamech. And there are 416 + 2x84 years between the death of Jared and the death of Noah at the end of the timeline. There is a sequence here:

1. 0x84 ~ 416 (death of Kenan & death of Lamech)
2. 1x84 ~ 416 (death of Enosh & birth of Noah's sons & birth of Noah)
3. 2x84 ~ 416 (death of Jared & death of Noah)
4. 3x84 ~ 416 (death of Mahalalel & birth of Lamech & birth of Enoch)

The fact of the matter is that when you are reading the genealogy in Genesis 5, you are reading a brilliantly constructed puzzle/riddle. It was constructed to both preserve and carry this calendar into the future for coming generations and to hide it from those who could not or would not understand it.
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Some of you are going to stop right there, overwhelmed by the numbers. While I don't consider this to be complex arithmetic, you may find it the equivalent of a calculus exam. Find someone you trust who is also good with numbers and ask him or her if the numbers work out. They do.

​​If the words of a speaker elicit hundreds or thousands of ideas in his listeners' minds, then he has failed to communicate on a fundamental level. A speaker whose words elicit a few or a single idea in the minds of his listeners, even if those ideas are in error to some significant degree, he has communicated well. It becomes the listener's responsibility to verify that what he thinks the speaker said is actually what he meant. This interchange is what makes communication possible and even with it, there is no real way to be sure the speaker and the listener have the same ideas in their heads.

​In this same way, a well designed puzzle admits only a single solution even if it is designed only to entertain. Each step in the puzzle's solution will admit many incorrect responses but only the proper response makes the entire puzzle "hang together." These internal checks allow only one correct solution so the person who tries to solve the puzzle can actually know he or she has gotten it right. In this way, the puzzle designer has communicated entertainment to those who solve his puzzle.
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​It is also possible to communicate important information with puzzles. And that's what's being done with the genealogy puzzle of Genesis 5. The important information that's being conveyed is this amazing calendar. We know that the writer intended to communicate this calendar because internal checks are provided that admit a single solution even if at each step there are hundreds or thousands of possibilities. This is true communication from the writers to us, their readers, 3500 years into their future.

Our modern culture doesn't use puzzles and riddles to communicate important information. This culture did. And it worked for them.  There was no inherent reason why they could not use puzzles and riddles as a communication medium. No reason why they could not communicate anything they wanted to using that medium. The only thing keeping us from recognizing this fact is that we don't do it. And it seems this is the only reason we have failed to recognize these puzzles and riddles as a perfectly valid way to communicate.

The next fact is that the people who wrote the Bible and many of the cultures in the surrounding region used this method of communication within their cultures. They liked to trade and to solve puzzles and riddles. Many of them were simple, but some, like the genealogy of Genesis 5 were quite complex. We sometimes use the terms "parable" or "proverb" to refer to these forms of communication. Trading in riddles and using puzzles to communicate was widespread and formed a subculture known as the wisdom culture of the Ancient Near East. The literature produced by this subculture is known as wisdom literature. The Bible contains this kind of literature in the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Other books contain wisdom literature to a greater or lesser degree depending upon which scholar is doing the classification.
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​Here is where the problem arises. We know that this wisdom culture in the Ancient Near East existed for at least a thousand years, maybe much longer. We know that it was the culture of the educated class(es) of this region during this time. We also know that the books of the Bible were written by some of the best educated people of this region. It therefore makes perfect sense that the majority of the Bible was written by members of this wisdom culture and that virtually all of it is wisdom literature, that is, a collection of puzzles and riddles intended to carry valuable information.

No one takes this last step. No one concludes that the entirety of the Bible is wisdom literature.

To do so takes away the spectacular miracles of the believers—they can't have the Bible be just another document intended to teach (even though most of its texts were used in ancient schools). And the dis-believers can't have the Bible make sense in its time, to actually be the work of sensible people trying to solve their issues in what for them were reasonable and logical approaches (even if those approaches weren't how we'd do it).

So here's the pitch for my book, which I would like you to buy and read. It will change the entire way that you look at the Bible and the way you read it. Let me warn you that it can be devastating to read as it wipes away everything you thought you knew about the Bible. It's called From Adam to Noah—The Numbers Game: Why the Genealogy Puzzles of Genesis 5 and 11 are in the Bible. It proves that the genealogy of Adam through Seth in Genesis 5 contains a fully functional calendar that is more accurate than our current calendar. It then explains why it makes perfect sense that one of the major scientific achievements of the ancient world is in the Bible and why those achievements are hidden in this odd and inscrutable fashion.

​This review from Harry Lane on Goodreads says it all:​​

This is a difficult book. Mr. Timmons shows how the genealogies of the patriarchs and the story of the flood conceal a complete and accurate calendar. Having done so, he argues the purpose of the bible has been, to some extent, misunderstood. He posits that the people of the time would have used this material to identify those having insight, and to train them in that skill. He then proceeds to a discussion of the relationship of insight, knowledge and understanding. From that point, he begins a remarkable dissertation interpreting the scripture from that perspective.

I have long been convinced the divide between science and religion in modern society is most often the result of at least one misapprehension. In the first place, they are concerned with two totally different aspects of life. The second is one Mr. Timmons addresses very effectively. We attempt to understand the bible in terms of our culture, rather than that of those who lived in those times, and therefore fail to realize the degree to which the writings, in fact, aligned with science as it was then practiced.

In the course of his discussion, Mr. Timmons offers a number of thought-provoking views. You may or may not agree with him, but if you follow his argument, I can almost guarantee you will never again read the bible with the same understanding you had before.

Buy the Book