How long is too long?
03/07/13 05:35
Dates and ties in the Bible, especially in the Hebrew texts that are often called the “Old Testament,” are a topic that has generated a lot of discussion and conversation over the centuries. Not all versions of the scriptures agree precisely about specific dates and times. This may be due to errors in copying and translation. For most of the history of the written Bible, the method of getting another Bible has been to hand copy the original. Hand copying carries with it a certain level of mistakes. Even with the most careful scrutiny, it is quite easy to make a simple mistake when copying.
So here is a bit of Biblical trivia for you. The most common age assigned to Methuselah in the Bible is 969 years old, although there are versions that have him dying as young as 720. He either died in the year of the Great Flood or six years before the Flood or fourteen years after the Flood, depending on the version of the scriptures that you consult.
Methuselah makes his Biblical appearance as a part of genealogies – lists of Biblical characters. The genealogy connecting Noah with Adam shows up three times: in Genesis, in Chronicles and again in Luke. Only Genesis contains a chronology – dates and times. In the King James Version (not the most accurate translation, but arguably the most common) Methuselah is mentioned as follows:
“And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah. An Enoch walked with God after he began Methuselah three hundred years, and Enoch begat sons and daughters. And all of the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty five years. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech; And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters; And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years; and he died.”
It is interesting to note that while the text talks about Enoch walking with God twice and describes Enoch’s death as his being taken by God, no such credit is given to Methuselah, who simply “died.”
Literalists take the words to mean 968 solar years, despite the difference between such a lifespan and contemporary maximum life span. According to the Gerontology Research Group, Jeranne Calment, a French woman who lived to 122 years of age, had the longest lifespan with verified dates of birth and death. The maximum human lifespan has increased from 103 in 1798, to 110 in 1898 , to 115 in 1990 and finally to 122.45 years when Calment died in 1997. We had a member of our church who died in 2012 at the age of 111, which isn’t bad, when you consider longevity. None of these people approach the age reported of Methuselah, however. Heck, Methuselah fathered a son at 187. That would make the newspapers these days.
There are other explanations about the dates. Some scholars theorize that the dates themselves are the product of mistranslation - that the meaning was “months” not “years.” The math of all of that doesn’t work out very well. If you work it out that way, Enoch would have fathered Methuselah at the age of 5 years, which doesn’t seem likely. Another interpreter suggests that everything has been inflated by a factor of ten, meaning Methuselah lived to the age of 96.9 years, but that makes Enoch a father at 6.5 years.
There are plenty of symbolic interpretations of the texts. 10 is symbolic of completion, 8 symbolizes the mundane world, and 7 symbolizes the divine. Enoch, who does not die but is taken by God, is the seventh patriarch. Methuselah, the eighth, dies in the year of the flood. There are ten generations from Adam to Noah, making the sequence complete.
Scholars and some not so scholarly voices argue about these dates all the time. I prefer to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. It is clear in many different places in the bible that God’s time and our time are not the same thing. I think that the attempt to measure God’s time in human terms is likely to end up with human confusion, which appears to be the case when it comes to ages.
All of this is a very long introduction to the concept of Methuselarity, a term coined by Aubrey de Grey. It is the term applied to a future point in time when all of the medical conditions that cause human death would be eliminated and death would occur only by accident or homicide. There is even a private Methuselah Foundation, of which de Gray is a primary founder, that supports studies about extending the human lifespan. The Methuselah Foundation even sponsors the Mprize. The Mprize awards money to researchers who can extend the lifespan of a mouse. The normal lifespan of a mouse is generally between 1 and 2 years. I think that the prize has upped the record to somewhere near 5 years. The prize winner was subjected to a reduced calorie diet with nutritional supplementation to keep vitamins and minerals in balance. The research appears to hold out the promise that it might be possible to more than double your lifespan through diet manipulation. That probably is an oversimplification. After all the experiments were conducted on mice, not humans.
Actually, I find it a bit surprising that anyone is willing to invest money in such a goal. It makes more sense to me to invest time and energy in figuring out how to improve the quality of life than to increase the lifespan. The Bible reports that Noah died 350 years after the flood at the age of 950. Lifespans in the Bible get short after Noah. Moses is said to live only 120 years. But Noah didn’t exactly have an idyllic retirement. About all we know about it is that he planted a vineyard, got fall down, naked drunk and got into a fight with his son. If you want my opinion, that’s not the best way to spend a 350 year retirement.
So count me out on the Methuselarity diet. I have no need to live any longer than Moses did.
So here is a bit of Biblical trivia for you. The most common age assigned to Methuselah in the Bible is 969 years old, although there are versions that have him dying as young as 720. He either died in the year of the Great Flood or six years before the Flood or fourteen years after the Flood, depending on the version of the scriptures that you consult.
Methuselah makes his Biblical appearance as a part of genealogies – lists of Biblical characters. The genealogy connecting Noah with Adam shows up three times: in Genesis, in Chronicles and again in Luke. Only Genesis contains a chronology – dates and times. In the King James Version (not the most accurate translation, but arguably the most common) Methuselah is mentioned as follows:
“And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah. An Enoch walked with God after he began Methuselah three hundred years, and Enoch begat sons and daughters. And all of the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty five years. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech; And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters; And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years; and he died.”
It is interesting to note that while the text talks about Enoch walking with God twice and describes Enoch’s death as his being taken by God, no such credit is given to Methuselah, who simply “died.”
Literalists take the words to mean 968 solar years, despite the difference between such a lifespan and contemporary maximum life span. According to the Gerontology Research Group, Jeranne Calment, a French woman who lived to 122 years of age, had the longest lifespan with verified dates of birth and death. The maximum human lifespan has increased from 103 in 1798, to 110 in 1898 , to 115 in 1990 and finally to 122.45 years when Calment died in 1997. We had a member of our church who died in 2012 at the age of 111, which isn’t bad, when you consider longevity. None of these people approach the age reported of Methuselah, however. Heck, Methuselah fathered a son at 187. That would make the newspapers these days.
There are other explanations about the dates. Some scholars theorize that the dates themselves are the product of mistranslation - that the meaning was “months” not “years.” The math of all of that doesn’t work out very well. If you work it out that way, Enoch would have fathered Methuselah at the age of 5 years, which doesn’t seem likely. Another interpreter suggests that everything has been inflated by a factor of ten, meaning Methuselah lived to the age of 96.9 years, but that makes Enoch a father at 6.5 years.
There are plenty of symbolic interpretations of the texts. 10 is symbolic of completion, 8 symbolizes the mundane world, and 7 symbolizes the divine. Enoch, who does not die but is taken by God, is the seventh patriarch. Methuselah, the eighth, dies in the year of the flood. There are ten generations from Adam to Noah, making the sequence complete.
Scholars and some not so scholarly voices argue about these dates all the time. I prefer to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. It is clear in many different places in the bible that God’s time and our time are not the same thing. I think that the attempt to measure God’s time in human terms is likely to end up with human confusion, which appears to be the case when it comes to ages.
All of this is a very long introduction to the concept of Methuselarity, a term coined by Aubrey de Grey. It is the term applied to a future point in time when all of the medical conditions that cause human death would be eliminated and death would occur only by accident or homicide. There is even a private Methuselah Foundation, of which de Gray is a primary founder, that supports studies about extending the human lifespan. The Methuselah Foundation even sponsors the Mprize. The Mprize awards money to researchers who can extend the lifespan of a mouse. The normal lifespan of a mouse is generally between 1 and 2 years. I think that the prize has upped the record to somewhere near 5 years. The prize winner was subjected to a reduced calorie diet with nutritional supplementation to keep vitamins and minerals in balance. The research appears to hold out the promise that it might be possible to more than double your lifespan through diet manipulation. That probably is an oversimplification. After all the experiments were conducted on mice, not humans.
Actually, I find it a bit surprising that anyone is willing to invest money in such a goal. It makes more sense to me to invest time and energy in figuring out how to improve the quality of life than to increase the lifespan. The Bible reports that Noah died 350 years after the flood at the age of 950. Lifespans in the Bible get short after Noah. Moses is said to live only 120 years. But Noah didn’t exactly have an idyllic retirement. About all we know about it is that he planted a vineyard, got fall down, naked drunk and got into a fight with his son. If you want my opinion, that’s not the best way to spend a 350 year retirement.
So count me out on the Methuselarity diet. I have no need to live any longer than Moses did.