1. Population growth
before the flood
By JanEgil Gulbrandsen January 2015

2. “The flood was the greatest catastrophe the world has ever seen”

3. There are (were) 30.000
vertebrate animal species.
(species with back bone)
They all drowned!
100 billion +/-
animals died

4. Question 1:
How many people lived
at the time of the flood?

5. Calculation of population - Adam to Noah - year 0 to 1656 FC
Background:God's instruction:
Genesis: 9:7 "As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it."
Meaning: God gave mankind a strong and healthy sex drive, good health and terrific genes'. With clear
instructions to multiply and a promise of a long life, many children was born to "all" woman.
Notice the instruction was to populate the earth - meaning the whole earth - not only Iraq, Israel or
the Middle East. There is a lot of space in "the earth" - and work for all, since machines was few.
1) In our time a woman's age is almost 90years - her reproductive period is over at 45(+/-). That is until
she has lived 50% of her expected life - and she will spend 50% of her life as "retired" or unfruitful.

6. 2) In "the old days", Abraham and Sara's generation lived as long as 130 years of age (+/-). A woman's
reproductive age was just like now, 50% of her expected life or until she was 65 years old (+/-). That's why
Sarah laughed in disbelief when she was promised she would have a child at 90+.
3) In "really, really old days" - before the flood, the average lifespan was 820 years.
God made that possible. Why? Well, we read it in Genesis 9:7 - to "speed up" the populating of earth.
It is very logical and likely that woman of that day also spent 50% of their life ( until 400 years of age)
giving birth to babies. A child birth every second year would "make sense" - that would give every
mother as many as 150+ children. After all, birth control was not a priority.
But let's settle for 15 to 30 children each. That will still give an population explosion in the billions…

7. Scenario: 1
Premise: Number of generations: 10 - average generation 165 years (undisputed fact)
Average age: 820 years (undisputed fact)
Child bearing: 15 to 273 years of age (33% of life span)
Surviving children: 16 surviving children (8 girls - 8 boys) ( surviving birth every 16years)
No. of child No. of non-producing Total no.
Year Generations bearing couples old people of people
165 1 1 0 2
330 2 8 0 16
495 3 64 16 144
660 4 512 128 1,152
825 5 4,096 1,024 9,216
990 6 32,768 8,192 73,728
1155 7 262,144 65,536 589,824
1320 8 2,097,152 524,272 4,718,576
1485 9 16,777,216 4,194,176 37,748,608
1650 10 134,217,728 33,553,408 301,988,864

8. Scenario: 2
Premise: Number of generations: 10 - average generation 165 years (undisputed fact)
Average age: 820 years (undisputed fact)
Child bearing: 15 to 273 years of age (33% of life span)
Surviving children: 20 surviving children (10 girls - 10 boys) ( surviving birth every 13 years)
No. of child No. of non-prod Total no.
Year Generations bearing couples old people of people
165 1 1 0 2
330 2 10 0 20
495 3 100 20 220
660 4 1,000 200 2,200
825 5 10,000 2,000 22,000
990 6 100,000 20,000 220,000
1155 7 1,000,000 200,000 2,200,000
1320 8 10,000,000 1,999,980 21,999,980
1485 9 100,000,000 19,999,800 219,999,800
1650 10 1,000,000,000 199,998,000 2,199,998,000

9. Scenario: 3
Premise: Number of generations: 10 - average generation 165 years (undisputed fact)
Average age: 820 years (undisputed fact)
Child bearing: 15 to 273 years of age (33% of life span)
Surviving children: 24 surviving children (12 girls - 12 boys) ( surviving birth every 11 years)
No. of child No. of non-prod Total no.
Year Generations bearing couples old people of people
165 1 1 0 2
330 2 12 0 24
495 3 144 24 312
660 4 1,728 288 3,744
825 5 20,736 3,456 44,928
990 6 248,832 41,472 539,136
1155 7 2,985,984 497,664 6,469,632
1320 8 35,831,808 5,971,944 77,635,560
1485 9 429,981,696 71,663,328 931,626,720
1650 10 5,159,780,352 859,959,936 11,179,520,640

10. Scenario: 4
Premise: Number of generations: 10 - average generation 165 years (undisputed fact)
Average age: 820 years (undisputed fact)
Child bearing: 15 to 273 years of age (33% of life span)
Surviving children: 28 surviving children (14 girls - 14 boys) ( surviving birth every 9 years)
No. of child No. of non-producing Total no.
Year Generations bearing couples old people of people
165 1 1 0 2
330 2 14 0 28
495 3 196 28 420
660 4 2,744 392 5,880
825 5 38,416 5,488 82,320
990 6 537,824 76,832 1,152,480
1155 7 7,529,536 1,075,648 16,134,720
1320 8 105,413,504 15,059,044 225,886,052
1485 9 1,475,789,056 210,826,616 3,162,404,728
1650 10 20,661,046,784 2,951,572,624 44,273,666,192

11. Conclusion: Our 4 scenarios with every woman giving birth to between 16 and 28 children over 1/3 of
her lifespan, will give an average population of 14.5billion people before the flood.
By using only 3 scenarios with every woman only giving birth to 16 to 24 children,
the average population will be reduced to 4.6billion.
A population of 7 to 10 billion is therefor very likely.

12. The end
And comments?
Please contact me at:
gulbrandsen@islandnet.com
JanEgil Gulbrandsen