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The Deluge ends the antediluvian (i.e., pre-Flood) period. (Image by Gustave Doré)

The antediluvian (or pre-diluvian - both meaning "before the deluge") period is that period in the biblical history between the Creation of the earth and the Deluge. The story takes up chapters 1-6 (excluding the Flood narrative) of Genesis.

The antediluvian period

The antediluvian period begins with the Creation and ends with the destruction of all life on the earth except those saved with Noah in the Ark, 1,656 years later.

The elements of the narrative include some of the best-known stories in the bible - the Creation itself, Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel - followed by the genealogies tracing the descendants of Cain and Seth, the third son of Adam. (These genealogies provide the framework for the biblical chronology, in the form A begat B in his Xth year).

The Bible speaks of this era as being a time of great wickedness. There were Gibborim (giants) in the earth in those days as well as Nephilim; some translations identify the two as one and the same. The Gibborim were unusually powerful; Genesis calls them "heroes of old, men of renown;" (Enoshi Ha Shem). The antediluvian period ended when God sent the Flood to wipe out all life except Noah, his family, and the animals they took with them. Nevertheless, the Nephilim (literally meaning 'fallen ones', from the Hebrew root n-f-l 'to fall') reappear much later in the Biblical narrative, in Numbers 13:31-33 (where the spies sent forth by Moses report that there were Nephilim or "giants" in the Promised Land).

Writers such as William Whiston (A New Theory of the Earth 1696) and Henry Morris (The Genesis Flood 1961) describe the antediluvian period as follows:

• People lived much longer than people today, typically between 700-950 years, as reported in the genealogies of Genesis;
• The Earth contained many more people than the Earth contained in 1696. Whiston calculated that as many as 500 million humans may have been born in the antediluvian period, based on assumptions about lifespans and fertility rates;
• There were no clouds or rain. Instead, the Earth was watered by mists which rose from the Earth. (Another interpretation is that the Earth was covered completely by a global cloud layer; the upper waters mentioned in the Creation. This is commonly called the Canopy theory).

Other uses

• "Antediluvian" is sometimes used figuratively to refer to anything of great age and/or outmoded; H. P. Lovecraft was particularly fond of the term, using it frequently in his horror stories.

References in popular culture

• Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a 1882 book by Ignatius L. Donnelly that attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from Atlantis. Many of theories mentioned in the book are the source of modern-day concepts about Atlantis.

• "Antediluvian" was the winning word in the 1994 Scripps National Spelling Bee.

• "Anti-Diluvian Chronicles" is a 2005 compilation album by doom metal band My Dying Bride.

• "Antediluvian" is the oldest Vampire in the German story of "Wolfgang Hohlbeins Schattenchronik."

• In the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, the Antediluvians are the most ancient of vampires, who have remained in hiding or suspended animation from the time of the flood of Noah. Their return is a sign of the end times known as Gehenna.

• "Antediluvian" is used to describe the "Kings of Atlantis" in the song "Atlantis" by Donovan.
• In the of Montreal song "Rapture Rapes the Muses" Kevin Barnes sings of "antediluvian Troy"

• "Into the Silent Chambers of the Sapphirean Throne (Sagas From the Antediluvian Scrolls)" is a song by Bal-Sagoth, off the album A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria.

• "Antediluvian Tales" (2007) is a collection of short stories written by Poppy Z. Brite before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.

• In Charles Stross's "Saturns' Children" the religious order who believe in evolution reference the antedeluvian period as the time in which man lived alongside Tyrannosaurs

• Political commentator Arianna Huffington argued on Saturday October 25, 2008 that the campaign of John McCain in the United States presidential election, 2008 was 'antediluvian' because it had not come to terms with Youtube, the internet, and the changing world of information technology.[1]

See also

• Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes
• Sons of Noah
• Sumerian king list