How many times have you been reading through the Bible and completely skipped over Genesis 5, where the descendants of Adam are listed? I’m sure if you’re anything like me, it’s quite a few. For some reason, I just didn’t think it was all that important. Then I was reading through it with my son and it occurred to me, “I wonder if any of these guys knew each other?” So I thought about making a timeline of the years that they were alive.
This gave me a great visual for who was alive with each other. We also kept reading and saw in Genesis 7:6, that Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. Another great part to add to the timeline! It was all very interesting to look at all of their lives.
This would be a great activity to do with children 3rd grade and up who have an idea about graphing. My son was in 3rd grade and had a good grasp of the information and how to do graphing.
Materials:
- Bible
- graph paper
- colored pencils
- regular pencil
- print our example PDF if you need more help
Steps to Take:
- Have the children turn to Genesis 5 in their Bibles
- Give each child 3 pieces of graph paper, a regular pencil, and some colored pencils
- Leave about a 2 inch margin on the left hand side for the names
- Making sure start after your margin, number the top of the graph paper by 50s (or 100s by skipping a line in between)
- Read Genesis 5:1-5
- Write Adam on the first line in the left hand margin
- He was born at Creation, so his life bar will start at 0
- In Genesis 5:5, it says that Adam lived until he was 930, so put a line at year 930 on your graph
- Color in your bar for Adam’s life
- Write the year 0 at the beginning of Adam’s life, and the number 930 at the end of Adam’s life (this is just to have an accurate account of how many years he was alive)
- In Genesis 5:4, it states Seth was born when Adam was 130, so write Seth down in the left margin underneath Adam and start his life bar at year 130.
- Read Genesis 5:6-8
- In Genesis 5:8, it states that Seth lived 912 years, so this is where a little math will come in. Seth was born in year 130 and lived 912 years, so you will need to add 130+912=1042. Put the end of Seth’s life bar at the year 1042.
- Color in Seth’s life bar in a different color
- Continue this until you reach Noah
- Noah’s death is recorded in Genesis 9:28-29
Realize that the dates on this timeline are not BC dates. They are the years after creation. For example, Seth was born 130 years after Creation. Please make sure that this is clear to your students as you are going along.
I have created a timeline for you to use or to reference while you’re making your own. I hope this will enlighten you and your class about how many details that are in the Bible. It is so fascinating how God has laid all of this information out for us.
Don’t miss our creation coloring pages for children or another idea for making a Bible timeline for children.