One of the many anomalies part and parcel of Biblical texts are those “Book of Genesis” genealogies that inform us that various characters in the Bible apparently spend way more time in retirement and collecting pensions and other old age social security benefits than they ever did gainfully employed. Methuselah is often the person cited as king of the pensioners. The question is, are those Biblical old ages fact or fiction? If factual, what are the possible explanations?
I’d normally sooner trust a card shark, used car salesman, even a politician before I’d trust any of those Biblical tall tales. However, there’s always the ‘what if’ game, as in ‘what if’ this particular Biblical tall tale is really true. ‘This’ in this case is the ripe old ages of a few of the Old Testament characters. Where does that lead us?
The following Biblical characters and their ages at death are listed on Wikipedia, but since there are several versions of the genealogies in the Old Testament (Genesis) the ages don’t always agree. Regardless, relative to you or me, these fine Biblical folk are up there getting their pensions and other senior citizen benefits and have been for quite some considerable time assuming they retired at 65. If you’re getting close to your ‘use by’ date, don’t you wish you had been born a Methuselah?
Methuselah = 969 (or 720) years.
Jared = 962 (or 847) years.
Noah = 950 years.
Adam = 930 years.
Seth = 912 years.
Cainan or Kenan (pre flood) = 910 years.
Enos or Enosh = 905 years.
Mahalaleel = 895 years.
Lamech = 777 (or 753 or 653) years.
Shem = 600 years.
Arphaxad = 535 (or 438) years.
Eber = 464 (or 404) years.
Cainan (post flood) = 460 years.
Salah = 460 (or 433) years.
Enoch = 365* years.
Peleg = 339 (or 239) years.
Reu = 339 (or 239) years.
Serug = 330 (or 230) years.
Nahor = 304 (or 148) years.
Terah = 275+ (or 205) years.
Abraham = 175 years.
Oldest human verified = 122 years.
Reasonable life expectancy = 80+ years.
While there’s no theoretical reason(s) for a human to die after X number of years, 969 is pushing that envelop a bit even if you did have all the right stuff, inherited good genes, didn’t smoke or drink, ate your vegetables (and an apple a day), got eight hours of sleep and some reasonable exercise every day, avoided stress and all those other sorts of things your quack general practitioner keeps on telling you to do.
One now needs to ask to what purpose were these select few individuals given, in most cases, 900+ years instead of three score and ten. I mean that’s just not a little bit of difference from the norm, it’s a massive difference. Further, these Biblical pensioners aren’t of the ‘over-the-hill-and-off-the-pill’ set. That is to say, if you want to live to a really ripe old Biblical age, it’s better to have been born a male (which somehow runs counter to expectations today where females tend to live to collect more pension checks than males).
The Bible itself apparently offers no explanation for these extraordinary life-spans. Therefore, we have open slather when it comes to speculations upon the explanations.
To be continued…
*Enoch didn’t come back from his interstellar sightseeing excursion to die a peaceful and natural death back on Terra Firma. Apparently was whisked away from his terrestrial abode by God for reason(s) unknown – raptured, abducted, died on the voyage, joined the crew, whatever – and so we don’t really know when Enoch snuffed it.
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