Did Methuselah survive the flood--LXX wrong?

[Brian_Crane]

There are differences between the septuagint and the masoretic texts about the age of Methuselah at the time of the flood. The LXX makes it appear as if Methuselah survived the Great Flood which is not possible:

**LXX: **Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27)
**MAS: **Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27

**LXX: **Meth. 167 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)
MAS: Meth. 187 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)

LXX: Lamech 188 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)
MAS: Lamech 182 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)

**LXX: **Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)
**MAS: **Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)

LXX: 167+188+600=955 years old when flood began
**MAS: **187+182+600=969 years old when flood began

Thus, according to the LXX, Methuselah lived another 14 years after the flood began. How do we reconcile this? On the surfact, the Hebrew text seems to make more sense.

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

That is an outstanding question. Where did you hear of it?

Are the numbers right out of the LXX or is it perhaps a misprint from a translation of the LXX?

 

[mchale]

Just my thought on the matter, but I would say that you are taking those passages in scripture to literally. Like the other chapters of Genesis prior to Abraham, the Flood Story is not really meant to be natural history. Rather the important point of the story is to show that the price of sin is death, and even the righteous cannot save themselves without God’s help.

In any case, there is no garuntee that any individual translation of the Bible is correct. The oldest books of the Bible are much older than our oldest extant copies of said books. So, again, it doesn’t pay to get hung up on what is kind of an unimportant detail.

–
Bill

 

[Turtullian]

There are differences between the septuagint and the masoretic texts about the age of Methuselah at the time of the flood. The LXX makes it appear as if Methuselah survived the Great Flood which is not possible:

**LXX: **Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27)
**MAS: **Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27

**LXX: **Meth. 167 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)
MAS: Meth. 187 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)

LXX: Lamech 188 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)
MAS: Lamech 182 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)

**LXX: **Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)
**MAS: **Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)

LXX: 167+188+600=955 years old when flood began
**MAS: **187+182+600=969 years old when flood began

Thus, according to the LXX, Methuselah lived another 14 years after the flood began. How do we reconcile this? On the surfact, the Hebrew text seems to make more sense.

No, The LXX is not wrong as Genesis 5l27 has Methuselah’s age to be 969 years old. A good website knocks down the claim the LXX has him living 14 years after the Flood. Not only that but Genesis 5:26 has Lamech’s age at 802.

ecclesia.org/truth/defense.html

 

[FraterInChristo]

No, The LXX is not wrong as Genesis 5l27 has Methuselah’s age to be 969 years old. A good website knocks down the claim the LXX has him living 14 years after the Flood. Not only that but Genesis 5:26 has Lamech’s age at 802.

ecclesia.org/truth/defense.html

I tend to agree with mchale, though this website that you point out is interesting. The problem with this argument for Methuselah, though, is that his debating logic is not correct (either). He doesn’t even address the issue of the LXX math adding up to Methuselah living 14 years after the flood. He just goes on to prove the other guy wrong in saying that Methuselah lived to be 955 (when actually all he said was that he “should have” been 955 at the flood…according to LXX ages).

I did some poking around the Internet and it is interesting to see all of the different theories behind the large ages in Genesis and the “wrong” numbers for the LXX Methuselah. That being said, it is fun to entertain some of these theories without them detracting from your faith in the stories and morals from Genesis. One interesting and highly probable solution to the Genesis numbers can be found here: noahs-ark-flood.com/ages.htm. It basically says that the Genesis numbers were mistranslated because of the different numbering systems used during the times of the actual events and the times of the writings and the times of the translations. This link shows this person’s adjusted ages and years in a table format: noahs-ark-flood.com/adam.htm.

I do not endorse any of the information found on this website, but I do find them to be a “satisfying” real-natural-history answer to the numbers in Genesis.

Peace of Christ,
Nick

 

[Turtullian]

I tend to agree with mchale, though this website that you point out is interesting. The problem with this argument for Methuselah, though, is that his debating logic is not correct (either). He doesn’t even address the issue of the LXX math adding up to Methuselah living 14 years after the flood. He just goes on to prove the other guy wrong in saying that Methuselah lived to be 955 (when actually all he said was that he “should have” been 955 at the flood…according to LXX ages).

I did some poking around the Internet and it is interesting to see all of the different theories behind the large ages in Genesis and the “wrong” numbers for the LXX Methuselah. That being said, it is fun to entertain some of these theories without them detracting from your faith in the stories and morals from Genesis. One interesting and highly probable solution to the Genesis numbers can be found here: noahs-ark-flood.com/ages.htm. It basically says that the Genesis numbers were mistranslated because of the different numbering systems used during the times of the actual events and the times of the writings and the times of the translations. This link shows this person’s adjusted ages and years in a table format: noahs-ark-flood.com/adam.htm.

I do not endorse any of the information found on this website, but I do find them to be a “satisfying” real-natural-history answer to the numbers in Genesis.

Peace of Christ,
Nick

Also, From what I understand is that this maybe an error in the editions of the LXX that have survived. From what I understand what we have remaining are copies from the Third and Fourth Century, There maybe earlier copies that may not have this error. I any event, the Syriac Peshitta IIRC, Doesn’t have this problem either.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I tend to agree with mchale, though this website that you point out is interesting. The problem with this argument for Methuselah, though, is that his debating logic is not correct (either). He doesn’t even address the issue of the LXX math adding up to Methuselah living 14 years after the flood. He just goes on to prove the other guy wrong in saying that Methuselah lived to be 955 (when actually all he said was that he “should have” been 955 at the flood…according to LXX ages).

I did some poking around the Internet and it is interesting to see all of the different theories behind the large ages in Genesis and the “wrong” numbers for the LXX Methuselah. That being said, it is fun to entertain some of these theories without them detracting from your faith in the stories and morals from Genesis. One interesting and highly probable solution to the Genesis numbers can be found here: noahs-ark-flood.com/ages.htm. It basically says that the Genesis numbers were mistranslated because of the different numbering systems used during the times of the actual events and the times of the writings and the times of the translations. This link shows this person’s adjusted ages and years in a table format: noahs-ark-flood.com/adam.htm.

I do not endorse any of the information found on this website, but I do find them to be a “satisfying” real-natural-history answer to the numbers in Genesis.

Peace of Christ,
Nick

Robert Best’s book on the Flood narratives, to which those links relate, is well worth reading.​

Methuselah would be an ideal patron saint of the elderly ##

 

[drafdog]

I was playing around one day and decided to look at the numbers in Genesis. I added up all of the ages and years of birth and so forth and although many names listed had extremely long lives, the antedeluvian list is indeed cut short by the Flood. All numbers were taken from RSV/CE.

Matthew

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Perhaps we should see Methusalah as a metaphor.
There is a calendar, which was used until quite recently, based on a year of exactly 52 weeks, intercalated every seven years by an extra week, and every 28 years, by an extra week.
In the simple form, this was equivalent to the Julian calendar, giving a year length of 365.2500 days.
actually, the year length, to a very fine accuracy is
365.2421875 days, or 365 + 31/128 days.
So the Julian calendar is in error by one day every 128 years, and the simple 52 week calendar is out by one week in 896 years.
The correction was to omit the intercalation of the second week, when the 28 year cycle corresponded with the 896th year.
Not the purported inventor of this calendar is Enoch, and Enoch was the father of Methuselah.
It is notable that the length of the calendar era is 896 years, which is not far different from the life of Methuselah.
This calendar was in use in Galilee and Samaria in the time of Our Lord’s ministry.
The day started at sunrise, and the year started at the vernal equinox, or the nearest ‘Wednesday’, or ‘Fourthday’ thereto.