December 8, 2007

  • Updated: 12/10/07
    A reference to Peleg contained a typo and was corrected.

    Insights

    In experimenting on how to do readable charts in Visio, I thought I'd share the work that
    I had done on the genealogical study from Noah to Abram to  Jacob's entry into Egypt as
    it related to the descendants of Shem and specifically Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    It seems to look ok on my monitor. Any comments out there on "visual clarity"? Is the
    chart too big overall? Is it just right?  Mr.Vee

Comments (11)

  • This is an awesome chart! It is really, really interesting to see the overlap. I hadn't realized before how many of these people were alive at the same time. I wonder if they had any interaction with one another. What was Shem doing all those years? Really thought provoking! Are there any known years when any of these men were born?

    Thanks a lot for sharing this. I don't think it's too big, and it is very clear.

  • Wow this is cool. I think it's very clear, a fine size, and also very easy to read. It also puts things into a nice order I think so that the lives of all these people (time wise) can be seen. Thanks for sharing!

  • I don't think I would like living 950 years...

  • Hi, BookForMe.... I have been looking into the years (historically) that these men would have lived and one source said wisely that since there would only be a few people in the very beginning that would grow into a larger population, this would necessarily mean that archaelogical finds would be increasingly difficult as we would go back in time (to physically date them). About Shem's long life... we can certainly see that he outlived some of his grandsons. Re: interaction... actually I think that before the Tower of Babel's dispersing of the people by languages, this was certainly very possible to a great extent. After Babel, less so but certainly with the case
    of Abram, he probably wasn't too far from any of these folks since Ur wasn't too far from Babylon/Babel.

    Thanks, j_trune. The feedback is really helpful. After working on this before, I wondered if I had finally found the
    secret.

    Hi, vrbanabanana... yeah, I have a suspicion that Noah didn't get run down physically as quickly as we do these days. However, it would seem to be a tiring thing to be seeing sin repeated over and over and watch mankind learn very little from the Flood. It might have been frustrating.

    Thanks to all, Mr.Vee

  • The graphics are excellent. Your labelling was a little confusing. Even with the note at the bottom...

  • Thanks, Professor. You, being a technical writer, can really help me on this. What portion of the labeling was the most difficult to understand? Its too easy for me to understand what "I meant" so I don't want to assume that I was at all clear.

    I do know that since each person's name, written out, was a variable size, it became a problem to start at the
    left side of the box containing their name and still keep the time scale correct for each person unless I used the same size box for all of them (that's an alternative... I might look at that). So I chose to overlay their "name box" over the lifetime span and use the middle of the "name box" as the time of their birth so that I could properly use the "dimensioning tool" to insert the correct labels for their lifespans. That's why the lines appear under
    the "name boxes". They denote the "birth of father to son" time span as given in the scriptures.

    I would sincerely appreciate any comments that you might have to make it better. I have a lot of other charts that I could post but it would be good to understand how to really do them correctly. Thanks so much in advance. Mr.Vee

  • I did catch a blooper, though... Peleg was born 99 years after Arpachshad, 101 years after the Flood. I left out the words "Arpachshad, 101 years after". I'll do an update on that soon. Since it was a typo on a "notation", it doesn't affect the actual "timeline". Now you know that Mr.Vee is not infallible. Thank you, Lord, for another round of "humility practice". Mr.Vee

  • The Peleg typo was corrected. Mr.Vee

  • This chart looks wonderful!

  • I can see it fine, it's wonderful

  • I found the "mid-name" starting point very puzzling. I wouldn't try to put the name in a special box unless you simply put the names off to the left. It would be hard to explain anything else without actually drawing it. I've got a couple of crude drawings here: http://www.xanga.com/FKIProfessor/414994816/item.html. Yours is generally much easier on the eye. I've wanted to do a better chart for a long time, but it just hasn't gotten high enough on my priority list. Aside from the mid-name oddity I like your chart better than mine.

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