Before class
Most of your preparation belongs to the nine pins of pp. 38–39. Read the rest of pp. 37–42 the evening before, but give the pins the time. In your Bible, mark Genesis 9:1, 10:25 and 11:1–9. Print the Big-Print Stretch for Section 5 and tape it at eye level, or keep the book open on a table where everyone can gather round it. Each student needs three colored pencils, green, red and blue; you need a length of thick cord made of three strands twisted together.
Opening · 5 minutes
Let the cord speak first. Lift it where everyone can see and say, “This is one cord. Watch.” Untwist the end until three strands hang loose in your hand. “Genesis tells us that after the Flood every people on earth came from one family, and that family had three sons. Tonight we are going to find the exact place on the chart where Adams shows one line becoming three, and then the year those three were scattered over the whole earth.” Before you open the book, ask one more question and do not answer it yet: “If every nation came from Noah’s three sons, what does that make the person sitting next to you?”
At the chart · 15 minutes
1The black line. Have the class find the only thick black line on pp. 38–39 and read the words at its head: “Noah’s Deluge. 2348 B.C.” Then send them to the box at the top left and let them count the eight souls by name (pin 1, p. 38). Under Noah’s band they will find how long the family was shut in, a year and ten days. Finally point to the two numbers under the black line, 1656 A.M. and 2348 B.C., and let someone take 1656 from 4004 on the board. The answer is the year they read at the top.
2One band, three lines. Ask everyone to put a finger on Noah’s green band, where Adams writes “has 3 sons only,” and follow it right until it splits (pin 4, p. 38). Who goes up? Japheth, whom Adams calls “the elder.” Who runs straight on in red? Shem. Who bends away below? Ham, “younger son.” Let them color the three lines on a strip of paper as they find them. Then count Japheth’s seven numbered shoots together and read Genesis 10:2 aloud to check that the names come in the same order (pin 5, p. 38).
3The dashed line of 2247. Read Genesis 11:1–9 slowly. Then show the note at the top of the chart, 101 years from the Flood to the “Confusion of Tongues” and “Dispersion,” 2247 B.C., and have the class follow the thin dashed line straight down. It passes Peleg’s birth and runs beside Nimrod. Name the key as they find it: Key 6 · Same column, same moment (p. 39). Read Genesis 10:25 and ask what “divided” might have to do with “scattered.” Close the step with Adams’ note on Nimrod, the man who began the first kingdom at Babel (p. 37).
4From tree to map. Turn to p. 40. Ask one student to put a finger on Javan’s shoot on the chart and another to find Javan on the map. Adams believed Javan’s family became the Greeks and their neighbors, and he says the scheme came from commentators before him. Read the three notes of pin 9 aloud and let the class spot the word Adams repeats: “probably.” Then show the race labels beside Noah’s sons, say plainly that this is how the 1870s sorted people, and read Acts 17:26. Go back now to the question you asked at the start.
Talk it over · 15 minutes
God told Noah’s sons to fill the earth, and at Babel the builders tried to stay in one place. What were they afraid of, and what did they want instead?
Listen for: Listen for the two halves of Genesis 11:4: “let us make us a name” and “lest we be scattered.” If the class drifts, read Genesis 9:1 beside it and let them see the two commands pull against each other.
Adams prints eight different dates for the Flood in his box but draws only one. What stays the same in every row?
Listen for: Good answers notice that the Flood comes in the same place in every reckoning: the years change, the order of events does not. Some will ask why the numbers differ; p. 41 explains that the highest follow the Greek Septuagint, which gives many fathers a hundred years more.
Adams writes the races of his own day beside Noah’s sons. How does Acts 17:26 change the way we read those labels?
Listen for: Listen for the idea of one blood and one family. The labels belong to Adams’ century; the family tree belongs to Genesis, and Genesis 10:32 calls every nation the families of the sons of Noah.
To close
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”Genesis 8:22 · KJV
Every harvest and every morning since the ark is a promise you have kept; help us remember it, Lord, the next time we see the rain.
With younger children (6–10)
The box with eight people in it is where small fingers start: let them count the people one by one. Then find the thick black Flood line. Give each child green, red and blue crayons and have them trace Noah’s band until it splits, one color for each son. Show them the rainbow at the bottom edge and the tents on the right. Leave out the arithmetic and the races. They can repeat one sentence at home: every family in the world came from Noah’s family.