Bible Contradiction? How many generations were between Levi and Moses?

 

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: How many generations were between Levi and Moses?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Three generations

“And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari; and the length of Levi’s life was 137 years. 17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, according to their families. 18 And the sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel; and the length of Kohath’s life was 133 years. 19 And the sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their generations. 20 Now Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the length of Amram’s life was 137 years.” (Exodus 6:16-20)

“The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 2 The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. 3 The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.” (1 Chronicles 6:1-3)

“David divided them into divisions according to the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 7 Of the Gershonites there were Ladan and Shimei. 8 The sons of Ladan were Jehiel the first, and Zetham and Joel, three. 9 The sons of Shimei were Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran, three. These were the heads of the fathers’ households of Ladan. 10 The sons of Shimei were Jahath, [b]Zina, Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei. 11 Jahath was the first and Zizah the second; but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they became a father’s household, one group for duty. 12 The sons of Kohath were four in number: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.” (1 Chronicles 23:6-12)

Ten generations

“Their father Ephraim mourned for many days, and his relatives came to comfort him. 23 Then he went in to his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Beriah, because misfortune had come upon his house. 24 His daughter was Sheerah, who built lower and upper Beth-horon, as well as Uzzen-sheerah. 25 Rephah was his son along with Resheph, Telah his son, Tahan his son, 26 Ladan his son, Ammihud his son, Elishama his son, 27 Non his son, and Joshua his son.” (1 Chronicles 7:22-27)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. The skeptic tries to pit Exodus 6:16-20, 1 Chronicles 6:1-3, 1 Chronicles 23:6-12 as affirming the claim “There are three generations between Levi and Moses” against 1 Chronicles 7:22-27 as affirming “There are ten generations between Levi and Moses.”  The Skeptic Annotated Bible don’t always give an explanation but here under 1 Chronicles 7:22-27 the author reasoned “There were ten generations between Ephraim and Joshua (Jehoshuah), who was a contempory of Moses. Since Ephraim was Levi’s nephew, there must have been at least ten generations between Levi and Moses.”
4. Exodus 6:16-20, 1 Chronicles 6:1-3, 1 Chronicles 23:6-12 was correctly read by the skeptics as affirming the claim “There are three generations between Levi and Moses.”  However we must remember that the Hebrew term translated here as Son is בֵּן and it can also mean grandson.  See for example Was Jeconiah the son or grandson of Josiah?, Were Naaman and Ard the sons or the grandsons of Benjamin?, Was Jehu the son or grandson of Nimshi? and Was Zechariah Iddo’s son or grandson?Given this point we realize that it is possible there is more than three generations between Levi and Moses.
5. The reasoning the skeptic gave with 1 Chronicles 7:22-27 is problematic in that his argument does not follow; that is, even if everything he said turns out to be true that does not necessitate a Bible contradiction.  Ephraim’s father is Joseph and Joseph was the brother of Levi.  Just because by the time of Moses there are ten generations between the Levi/Joseph generation and the time of Moses does not mean Moses’ own genealogy will be exactly ten generations also (keep in mind too the Hebrew word for son can give room since it can also mean grandson).  
   1. We all can think of some family situations where there can be an uncle younger than the nephew/nieces and this arises when the uncle’s parent had the child at older age while the other siblings of the uncle had their own children earlier.
   2. Also some people can spend a long time before they have a child.
   3. Furthermore some people can live longer.  
   4. Sometimes those who live long also have kids who live longer, hence there are less generations spanning a long time period than another family who have multiple generations having many kids when they are young.
   5. As an example of point four consider how we typically think there’s a new generation about every 20 years.  So over a 150 years period one can postulate that’s seven or eight generations ago.  Yet there’s an article titled “Children of Civil War Veterans Still Walk Among Us, 150 Years After the War” from National Geographic.  That’s just a generation or two ago (for some people)!
   6. When we consider the fact that 1 Chronicles 7:22-27 mentioned misfortunate deaths that can mean life being cut short we are not surprised that this count has more generations for Ephraim’s lineage.  But Ephraim’s genealogy is not the same family branch as Levi to Moses.  Seeing Exodus 6:16-20 mentioned of the longevity of those in Levi’s lineage we can see why there’s a shorter count of generations.
6. There is no contradiction here.  Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
7. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”
    

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