In the structure of the text (Gen.10:21-25) Abraham's ancestor Heber (B5 at the Babel Division) is presented as the origin of the people group called Hebrew, of whom "Abram the Hebrew" is its most famous representative. This affirms the genealogy's purpose as specifically Abrahamic history, and that it is not a time-measure for general chronological purposes.

Note:
Concerning the dispersion of the human race after Babel, language often provides a reflection of movements of populations. For instance –
the Latin 'ignis' (fire) is related to the Indian Sanskrit goddess of fire 'Agni' (modern Urdu for fire 'ag', is derived from this).
The Biblical Hebrew word for Greeks, sons of 'Javan' (Gen.10:4), is related to the name 'Ionian' for the earliest Greeks.

Chronology is not the purpose of Abraham's genealogy. This is affirmed by its stylised structure in the Genesis record (10—10). That is, the stylised nature of the Abraham's ancestral genealogy means that the number of generations cannot be used for chronological purposes as many have mistakenly done in attempts to date Creation and the Flood.

Further, the New Testament (Luke) shows us that our Hebrew copies of Genesis have lost one generation from this genealogy, which has helped hide its stylised structure and also lost the age factor of that ancestor (Cainan).

This irregular use is indicated in the Israel Time-line by the use of "?" after a date. ('c.' abbreviates 'circa' meaning 'about', i.e. approximately).

The warming period ends, beginning the Younger Dryas cold spell or Big Freeze, lasting about 1,300 years.
(Greenland ice core GISP2 indicates that its summit was ~15°C colder during Younger Dryas than today).

Hilazon Tachtit, in Israel's Galilee, a cave grave of a 45-year-old female Shaman from this time is found in 2008.

Warming period begins again, and the Ice Age ends. Bristlecone Pines begin to grow near the California-Nevada border.

Mt. Mazama, in America's Pacific North West, erupts violently leaving ash deposits over stone tools of the earliest inhabitants. These help to date the earlier caucasian Ainu-type (Jomon) 'Kennewick' man's remains from that area. Later a fragment of his fifth left metacarpal, analysed by (AMS) radio-carbon dating, was shown to have an isotopically-corrected age of 8410 +/- 60 Before Present.

Glacial ice-cores on Kilimanjaro indicate the beginning of a 500 year drying period of the lakes of Africa.

c.5600

The Mediterranean Sea breaks through with devastating force to fill the Black Sea basin (~50 cubic km. per day). This shift of water-mass helps trigger earthquakes throughout the region. The catastrophic drowning of such a large area causes vast human migrations. (See 2715 BC also).
(The ancient shoreline of its old freshwater lake now lies some 168 metres below the 1999 AD sea level).

The Nile river changes its course, from feeding the North African lakes, to flowing into the Mediterranean, thus creating Egypt.
World sea level at this time is still about 50 feet below present levels. (Holocene Optimum).

A period of significantly higher Nile floods begins, continuing until c.2500 BC.
The development of cities and city-states begins.

Birth of ARPHAXAD, father (or ancestor) of CAINAN (See Table 1).

The ancient Egyptians begin to develop mummification of the dead. (See: mummification).
Chalcolithic ÖTZI, the world's oldest unsolved murder victim, dies age c.45 in the Ötz valley of the Italian Alps.

Birth of CAINAN, father of SHELAH.
Glacial ice-cores indicate the beginning of a hot dry period collapsing many nomadic cultures.

The first-known political state in history forms – known as the 'Uruk expansion'.
World sea level now stabilizes to near its present level.

February 18: Hindu mythology date for the beginning of the Kali era (in India).

In Egypt – King MENES (Hor-Aha) unites the kingdoms of Upper (south) Egypt and Lower (the Delta) Egypt with his capital at Memphis.

Birth of (H)EBER, father of PELEG, and patronymic ancestor of the Hebrews (Gen.10:21; 11:16).

Birth of PELEG, father of REU, in whose time the human family divided at Babel (Gen.10:25).
PELEG's birth, so named for its association with the division of the human race at Babel, almost certainly long predates the death of Ötzi above, further indicating that Abrahamic genealogy cannot be used for chronology.

Dendrochronology date (tree-ring dating) for a catastrophic Black Sea land subsidence that buries all Early Bronze Age settlements in that region under what is now 8-10 metres of water.

GILGAMESH (grandson of ENMERKAR), king of Uruk (biblical Erech), 'visits' UTNAPISHTIM (Noah) of the Great Flood.

ZOAR (Djoser/Netjerykhet) King of Upper and Lower Egypt of the 3rd dynasty. (His step pyramid, designed by the high priest of Ra, IMHOTEP, is the earliest complete building of hewn stone in Egypt, the complex covering 15 ha / 37 acres).

Earth climate cools, putting once flourishing settlements in the higher latitudes under great stress, such as in the Orkney islands.

The city of Troy (level IIg) is utterly devastated by fire as well as the region to Tell Leilan (possibly by a meteor shower).

NARAM-SIN (grandson of SARGON) conquers the area from Elam (south-west Iran) to Syria, including the city of Ebla.

RIMUSH of Akkad conquers Elam and Marhashi (central Iran).

East Africa, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Gulf of Oman, Aegean, and Indus regions experience an abrupt climatic change.

A period of low Nile floods begins that includes periodic severe famines, until c.1950BC.

Birth of ABRAM in Ur (Urim), capital and port of Sumer.
Akkadian empire under SHU-TURUL collapses.

King UR-NAMMU, founder of Ur's 3rd Dynasty, builds the great Ziggurat Temple.
(He uses column, arch, vault, and dome forms of architecture, with every wall being an imperceptible convex to create an illusion of strength; the so-called entasis principle).

UR-NAMMU dies, his son SHULGI rules the Sumerian empire (2094-2047) and extends it to all Assyria.

ABRAM enters Canaan from Haran (Harran), at the age of 75, and worships at the local sanctuary of Shechem (Gen.12).

ABRAM moves to Egypt because of famine and lies about his wife SARAI to the Tenth Dynasty pharaoh, ruler of northern Egypt.

MELCHI-ZEDEK, Amorite city-king of Salem and priest of God Most High (כהן לאל עליון), supplies food and drink to the troops of ABRAM and his Amorite Allies, after their military action to free LOT.
ABRAM gives the city-king of Salem 10% of his plunder of the Eastern Alliance army (Gen.14:18-20).

Abram adopts the king of Salem's terms for God, El Elyon (אֵל עֶלְיֹון), in rebuking the city-king of Sodom; terms also found in the Ugaritic Poems on clay tablets excavated at Ras Shamra in Lebanon. This language of the Amorites of Canaan/Palestine eventually becomes the language of the family of Abram and ancestral to the Hebrew of our Bible.

promises ABRAM innumerable descendants. Although it seems physically impossible, ABRAM believes God beyond his own understanding and he is therefore considered righteous (Gen.15:6).
God enters into a formal covenant with ABRAM concerning the land of Palestine according to the custom of the time (Gen.15:8-21).

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