Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the creation of life and biological diversity, part 16.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've been discussing the role of the genealogies of Genesis 1 to 11 in ordering the primeval

narratives into a primeval history by providing a sort of chronological backbone to these chapters.

And in our last session together, we examined the claim of Robert Wilson that these genealogies,

even if they were not written primarily for historiographic reasons, Wilson claims that they don't

really have any intention to be historical records, and we saw reasons to dispute that.

The fact that these genealogies merge seamlessly into persons who are indisputably thought to be historical,

like Abraham and his successors, suggests that there's no

differentiation in principle between Abraham and his successors and the predecessors of Abraham.

Still, I think Wilson's work does serve to remind us that ancient genealogies were not the work of disinterested historians,

but can serve other ends. Consider, for example, the segmented genealogy that appears in Genesis

Chapter 10, the so-called table of nations.

These are listed as though they were the sons of Noah and their descendants.

So, for example, in Genesis 10 and verse 1, it states that these are the generations of the sons of Noah. Shem,

Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. And so in verse 2, the sons of

Japheth are then listed. And then in verse 6, the sons of Ham are listed.

And then down in verse 22, the sons of Shem are listed.

Although the table presents these various persons and nations as descended from Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japh.

Nevertheless, the people groups that are listed on the table are not necessarily connected

by blood. Rather, they represent eclectic groupings of peoples based upon geographical, linguistic, racial, and cultural similarities.

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