Confirmation of Biblical Populations

Alice C. Linsley

The first rulers listed in Genesis 4-6 lived in the Chad Basin during the late Holocene. This includes Kain, Seth, Enoch and Noah. At that time Lake Chad had an area of close to 200,000 miles. As the climate changed and the water level receded, what was once a single lake became at least three separate lakes: Lake Chad, Lake Bodele and Lake Fitri. The 10,000 year skeletons unearthed by Paul Sereno at Gobero in Niger were buried on the edge of a paleolake on the northwestern rim of the Chad Basin. The Gobero site is the earliest known cemetery in the Sahara and the large lake was likely another part of Lake Mega-Chad.

Noah and the other Chadic rulers of Genesis controlled commerce on the interconnected waters systems. These were their roads by which they conquered other territories and spread their worldview.

The Oldest Known Language

Chadic is one of the best researched branches of the Afro-Asiatic language phylum. According to Genesis, the first rulers: Kain, Seth and Enoch are associated with the region where Chadic is spoken.  This includes Chad, Northern Cameroon, Northern Nigeria, and Southeastern Niger in an area around Lake Chad. The area is called Bor'No, which means "Land of Noah." This is the only region on Earth that has place names reflecting the rulers listed in Genesis 4 and 5. 

Chadic is the most diversified of the Afro-Asiatic languages and considered the most ancient subgroup within the Afro-Asiatic phylum. The antiquity of Chadic river populations is attested by the discovery of an 8000 year old black mohagany dugout in Dufuna in the Upper Yobe valley along the Komadugu Guna River in Northern Nigeria.  This region was much wetter at the time that the rulers listed in Genesis lived there.

The "Dufuna boat" is about 4000 years older than the oldest boat found in Egypt.

It was a time when the major water systems of West Central Africa were connected.  Around 8000 years ago Lake Chad had an area of 249,000 miles (400,000 km) and a depth of 586 feet. The Komadugu Guna River connected Lake Chad and the Benue Trough, making it possible to travel by boat from Lake Chad to the Atlantic Ocean.

Genesis tells the story of how Kain left his home and went eastward to a place where he married the daughter of a Chadic chief named Nok (Enoch) and built and named a "city" after his firstborn son Enoch.  Enoch the Younger was named by Kain's wife after her father, indicating that she was Kain's cousin and her firstborn was heir to the throne of his maternal grandfather. We can place Kain and Enoch in the region of Northern Nigeria (Nok and Kano).

Genesis then tells us about Lamech who had two wives, typical of the pattern of the Chadic rulers.  By one wife he had a daughter named Naamah who married her patrilineal cousin or uncle Methuselah and named their firstborn son Lamech, after her father.  Lamech the Younger was the heir to the throne of his maternal grandfather.

Lamech the Younger was the father of Noah, a Chadic ruler whose terriotry included Bor'No, meaning "Land of Noah." It is in the region of Lake Chad, which at the time that Noah lived was a very large lake. Noah's flood was likely the result of a monsoon which swelled the lake region over which Noah ruled.

Noah's three sons were Ham, Shem and Japheth. Ham and Shem appear to have been the firstborn sons by two different wives and the leading Chadic lines descending from Noah. The exclusive intermarriage of their lines has been confirmed by analysis of the Genesis 4 and 5 data and by mtDNA studies. The mtDNA (L3f) of Chadic speaking populations involves a relatively homogenous group, with lower diversification than the other Afro-Asiatic branches, including the Semitic and Kushitic. The most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of the L3f dates to about 8000 years ago, the same time period that Noah would have lived with his two wives to whom he was related by blood.

These rulers had two wives. This meant that there were two first born sons. The son of the first wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. The first born son of the second wife served as a sort of Prime Minister in the kingdom or territory of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. 

Other sons were sent-away. As Ham and Shem were the ruling sons, Japheth was likely a sent-away son who moved into the Upper Nile region where some of his descendants have been identified as the Magyar-ab (the Magyar people). Likely there was intermarriage between Nilotic peoples and Chadic, especially in the case of Japheth. This has been confirmed by mtDNA studies of the L3f haplogroup that show that the only non-Chad Basin sequence in the L3f3 subhaplogroup is from the Upper Nile or Nubia. The TMRCA of the L3f3 sub-haplogroup is 8,000 years ago, which aligns with the data from the Genesis 4-5 king lists, as well as the evidence from archaeology, linguistics and biblical anthropology.  Ancient Nubians included red, black, and brown people.

Other of Japheth's descendants moved north into what is today the region of Hungary. Hungarians called themselves "Magyar."

Related reading:  Graveyard Dates to Noah's Time; How Big Was Noah's Flood?; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion