World Population Before Noah’s Flood

Is it possible that the population of the earth prior to Noah’s flood was greater than today’s population?

As we know, paradise was lost when Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden with the result that all of creation suffered under a curse. Life changed dramatically because of this sin. But then something else happened which further dramatically changed the earth – God sent a global flood as judgment. It’s hard to understate how significant this flood was in reshaping the world. It rearranged geography, temperature, climate and useable land mass – now seventy percent of the world was uninhabitable and covered in oceans.

Most of us have heard that people had longer life spans in the antediluvian world but I have always wondered how many people lived during this period. While the Bible doesn’t tell us explicitly, it does give us enough information to read between the lines and make an educated guess about pre-flood populations. To do this, we need our Bibles in one hand and our calculators in the other.

According to the Bible, we originated from Adam and Eve. From their lineage came many sons and daughters, including well-known names like Cain, Able and Seth. From these early times the generations prospered, and the population grew. Using the genealogy of Genesis 5, we can calculate the time between creation and the flood. We can go all the way from Adam to Noah and put it at 1,656 years. Some might say that there were gaps in this time period, making it a longer period but, nevertheless, the period seems to be at least 1,656 years between creation and the flood.

Now that we have a reasonably accurate number of years to work with, we can examine the different population growth scenarios and estimate the numbers. First, we need to estimate how fast the population could grow per year, ie, the population growth rate. Thus, if we use a conservative growth rate like that of modern times, would use a number like 1.13 percent per year and if we multiply that over the 1,656 years, we get 241 million people at the time of Noah’s flood. That’s a lot but we know that conditions for life were quite favourable for life before the flood ie., people had longer life spans and were able to have children for longer periods into adulthood.

Methuselah for example lived to be 969 years old: “When Methuselah lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died”. Genesis 5: 25-27.

Thus, Methuselah had multiple children in his days. I should note that it’s possible that people had a lower fertility rate during these times, although there is nothing in the Bible to indicate this. So, when we consider the favourable conditions in the world during this time period, it is reasonable to assume a higher population growth rate than today’s growth rate.

Let us take our numbers from the previous scenario and increase the population growth from 1.13 percent per year to something small like 1.3 percent – only a slight increase. Applying this figure to the time period of 1,656 years, we get a population of 3.9 billion people. This is a significant increase from the previous estimate.

Now let us put this into perspective and look at some of the other examples in the Bible of extreme growth rates.  One of the best examples of a much higher growth rate is Israel in Egypt. When Israel went down into Egypt they spent 400 years there.

“And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him. They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, his sons and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters. All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt”. Genesis 46: 5-7. This chapter details the names of the sons, mothers and daughters and estimates their number at about 70 souls (according to my addition).

However, by the time they left Egypt, their numbers soured to around two million. This indicates a population growth rate of 2.6 percent of actual growth in Egypt. If we now apply this growth rate to the pre-flood world over the period of 1,656 years, the numbers are astronomical. Since I cannot calculate this number, let’s try a conservative rate of growth of 1.5 percent per year. Thus, 1.5 % per year X 1,656 years = 102 billion people at the time of the flood – still an astounding number.

However, we need to remember that this was a time marked by violence, war, murder and so on and this would have impacted the growth rate significantly. We should also note that disease may not have been as prevalent as it is today, but it would have had some impact in the pre flood world as well. It is also possible, as mentioned above, that women did not become pregnant as often as in the present day but despite all these qualifications, the pre-flood population was still very large.

The exact number is uncertain of course, but it’s reasonable to conclude that this population surpassed the present day population by a significant amount. All we can really say is that humans in the pre-flood world lived in ideal conditions. They grew food, they farmed etc. Additionally, these conditions suggest even faster growth rates and we must remember that the habitable land of the time was much greater and therefore able to support a much greater number of people.

     Thus, there is every reason to believe that the flood brought terrible devastation to a heavily populated world