The long lives of the Old Testament people . .?

[catholic1seeks]

Did people around the time of Abraham really live to the age of 99? How?

 

[Nita]

Hi Catholic1seeks,

They probably ate their vegetables and didn’t smoke and carouse!!

Abraham lived longer than 99 years if my memory serves me right. But 99 is not all that unusual. My mother is 92; and I know of at least two women in our area who are 100+ (and I live in a very small town).

Nita

 

[Fidelis]

Modern skeptism aside, there is really no reason not to take the particular issue of long lifespans in Genesis at face value. True, there are many symbolic elements in Scripture, but there’s no evidence that this is one of them. There’s also no evidence that people could not live that long. Even if it was provable that it wasn’t possible at some earlier time in history, if God wanted to effect it (or anything else), he could. The main point is that God presented these events with the expectation that we would take them at face value. Why not just leave it at that?

This is not directed at the OP but I don’t know why people seem to think themselves so sophisticated and knowledgable when they take the skeptical approach that they have to regale others with their predjudices in this area as if they were proven and incontrovertable facts. How does it increase the faith of another to impose an anti-supernaturalist interpretation of Scripture on them? Why not just keep it to yourself and your own skeptical circle of acquantances and if it increases your faith, bully for you?

 

[patg]

Did people around the time of Abraham really live to the age of 99? How?

The most common explanation I have heard is that people who were creditied with excessively long lives in ancient Jewish writings were essentially being honored for thier stature in Jewish history. The greater you were, the longer a lifespan you were given when you were written about. There is no reason to believe that the great Jewish leaders somehow lived hundreds of years at a time when the average life expectancy was less than 35 years. There is no evidence to suggest the need for a literalistic reading of these stories which are clear to many scholars to be in the literary form of a legend.

The church has no doctrinal statement on this (of course) so you are free to believe just about any explanation.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

If, as believed by some scholars, Tatian Syrus, and Ammonius Saccas were one and the same, then he lived to the ripe old age of 120 years, and never became infirm in mind or body.
99 years is a spring chicken.

 

[Ruthie]

My *personal *take on it is that short life spans are a more recent phenomenon than the long-lived OT people.

Adam and Eve were physically perfect. As made by God, there were no mutations such as allergies and susceptibility to diseases built into them. The only way for them to die (outside of violence) would be by simply wearing out. And they may not have done that, if they had stayed in the Garden. And since the world was perfect back then, there were probably no bacteria or viruses that could harm us.

Gradually, over time, mutations and susceptibilities to disease would have worked their way into the generations, bit by bit. Plus bacteria and viruses would mutate into harmful forms; various parasitical creatures would evolve, etc.

So our life spans got progressively shorter, until medical science came along and began to reverse things.

And now we have genetic science. Who knows? Maybe we will be able to eliminate some of the mutations that make us susceptible to allergies… and bit by bit our life spans will begin to increase.

Until the Second Coming, of course!

God bless us all,

Ruthie

 

[Dtmccameron]

The most common explanation I have heard is that people who were creditied with excessively long lives in ancient Jewish writings were essentially being honored for thier stature in Jewish history. The greater you were, the longer a lifespan you were given when you were written about. There is no reason to believe that the great Jewish leaders somehow lived hundreds of years at a time when the average life expectancy was less than 35 years. There is no evidence to suggest the need for a literalistic reading of these stories which are clear to many scholars to be in the literary form of a legend.

The church has no doctrinal statement on this (of course) so you are free to believe just about any explanation.

By that thinking, Methuselah is more honored than either Abraham, Issac, Jacob or Moses. Unless you want to consider that Enoch never officially died, in which case he’s the most important man in history.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

By that thinking, Methuselah is more honored than either Abraham, Issac, Jacob or Moses. Unless you want to consider that Enoch never officially died, in which case he’s the most important man in history.

Methuselah was the son of Enoch, who was credited with the invention of a solar calendar based on a year length of exactly 52 weeks with periodic intercalations of a whole week, over a cycle counted in sevens of years, (jubillees), and sets of four jubillees.
This calendar had a known error, which required that after 32 cycles of 28 years, one interpolation is omitted.
32 x 28 = 896.
A very good approximation to 900 years.
I believe that in this case, we can accept that the 900 years allocated to Methuselah are indeed an honour to Enoch’s calendar, which was still in use until very recently.

 

[Dtmccameron]

Methuselah was the son of Enoch, who was credited with the invention of a solar calendar based on a year length of exactly 52 weeks with periodic intercalations of a whole week, over a cycle counted in sevens of years, (jubillees), and sets of four jubillees.
This calendar had a known error, which required that after 32 cycles of 28 years, one interpolation is omitted.
32 x 28 = 896.
A very good approximation to 900 years.
I believe that in this case, we can accept that the 900 years allocated to Methuselah are indeed an honour to Enoch’s calendar, which was still in use until very recently.

Why bother with all that? Why not say, “And he invented the calendar”? Heck, it’s written about three brothers, one who invented stringed instuments, the other the father of those that herd cattle (I think) and the other, smelt metals. I may be confused, but it was very much so to that affect.

And nothing was at all said about their decendents’ ages being the mathematical details of a properly tuned lyre. Further 896 might be close to 900, but not Methuselahs actual age, 969.

Also, aren’t you referencing the apocryphal and non-canonical Book of Enoch?

 

[strngrnrth]

Maybe they did. Maybe not. but the words for generation, dynasty and years of life were the same, so maybe Methusela just held territory his descendants retained for a thousand years. That’s also impressive. But the point is to show how much of the world he influenced, not to recommend the Methusela fitness lifestyle program, AFAIK.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

By that thinking, Methuselah is more honored than either Abraham, Issac, Jacob or Moses. Unless you want to consider that Enoch never officially died, in which case he’s the most important man in history.

It doesn’t - Genesis 5 is part of the primeval history & is before the Flood: so it’s not surprising the 10 patriarchs from Adam to Noah all have lifespans that would be incredible today.​

Abraham, OTOH, is set in a recognisably historical human world of city kings, pharaohs, pacts, & semi-nomads. He belongs to a Middle East with a fairly well-known history, unlike Adam, Noah, Jared, or Methuselah: there is no historical background in Genesis 5; people do nothing more than live, beget the next generation, & die. The world Abrahamis set in - at some point or points between 2000 & c. 1400 - is very different: no Pharaoh was 150, & Abraham’s steward Eliezer was probably not 170 when he went to woo Rebekah.

Abraham is fantastically old because his age of 175 fits the pattern to which Noah, Shem, & Shem’s descendants through Arpachshad & Eber belong: there is a gradual
decline from Noah’s 950 years, to Shem’s 600, to Arpachshad’s 438 over the ten generations from Shem to Abraham’s 175. Abraham’s sons Ishmael & Isaac are 137 & 180, & Jacob son of Isaac is 147, while Joseph son of Jacob is a mere 110.

Noah the tenth patriarch from Adam has three sons; ten generations later, the tenth patriarch is the ancestor of three sets of people. As for Enoch, he is the seventh froim Adam, & for that reason is significant: his comparative lack of years is counter-balanced by his assumption: unlike Adam (& the rest in the list) he does not die. His walking with God may be the reason he is the father of the oldest man. Noah “walked with” God, & Abraham was told to “walk before” Him. Nimrod was “a mighty hunter before JHWH”: perhaps all four passages are statements of approval.

The ages in Genesis are very high from some POVs - they are nowhere close to the reigns of the kings before the Flood in the Sumerian King List:

• After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years.
• Alalĝar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridug fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira.
• In Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-ana ruled for 43200 years.
• En-men-gal-ana ruled for 28800 years.
• Dumuzid, the shepherd, ruled for 36000 years. 3 kings; they ruled for 108000 years. Then Bad-tibira fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Larag.
• In Larag, En-sipad-zid-ana ruled for 28800 years. 1 king; he ruled for 28800 years. Then Larag fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Zimbir.
• In Zimbir, En-men-dur-ana became king; he ruled for 21000 years. 1 king; he ruled for 21000 years. hen Zimbir fell (?) and the kingship was taken to Šuruppag.
• In Šuruppag, Ubara-Tutu became king; he ruled for 18600 years. 1 king; he ruled for 18600 years. In 5 cities 8 kings; they ruled for 241200 years.
• Then the flood swept over.
  It continues in the same way:
• After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kiš. In Kiš, Ĝušur became king; he ruled for 1200 years.
• Kullassina-bēl ruled for {960} {(ms. P2+L2 has instead) 900} years.
• Nanĝišlišma ruled for (ms. P2+L2 has {670} (?) years.
• En-tarah-ana ruled for (ms. P2+L2 has {420} years ……, 3 months, and 3 1/2 days.
• Babum …… ruled for (ms. P2+L2 has {300} years.
• Puannum ruled for {840} {(ms. P2+L2 has instead 240} years.
• Kalibum ruled for {960} {(ms. P2+L2 has instead 900} years.
• Kalūmum ruled for {840} {(mss. P3+BT14, Su1 have instead 900} years.
• Zuqāqīp ruled for {900} {(ms. Su1 has instead 600} years. (in mss. P2+L2, P3+BT14, P5, the 10th and 11th rulers of the dynasty precede the 8th and 9th)
• {Atab} {(mss. P2+L2, P3+BT14, P5 have instead A-ba} ruled for 600 years.
• Mašda, the son of Atab, ruled for {840} {(ms. Su1 has instead 720} years. Arwium, the son of Mašda, ruled for 720 years.
• Etana, the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries, became king; he ruled for {1500} {(ms. P2+L2 has instead 635} years…Then Kiš was defeated and the kingship was taken to E-ana.
  And so on.
• etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.2.1.1&display=Crit&charenc=&lineid=t211.p1#t211.p1
  These are reigns rather than lives: apart from that, the ages in Genesis & those in the SKL are significantly alike. The Genesis lists are legendary in the lifespans recorded - they are anti-legendary in being lists of the ages of men rather than of semi-divine men. They make two points:
• there is an unbroken succession from Adam onwards of generations to experience the blessing & command of Gen. 1.26 f.; & they make the point that the human race is very ancient, without being super-human. This sets the scene for Abraham & Genesis 12.

So the ages are not true life-spans - nor do they need to be; the emphasis is on the enduring faithfulness of the One God, not on the human beneficiaries. As the Canon says: “Again & again you offered a covenant to man…” - to Noah & Abraham certainly, & maybe to Adam. But if God is to be enduringly faithful, there have to be beneficiaries: which where those ages fit in

I hope that makes sense