No, the reason is that back then genealogies frequently used symbolic numbers for ages of important people. It has nothing to do with any model of inspiration or inerrancy.
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Great post. I think our rationalist biases also come into play here.
I mean, is the belief that Jesus truly and literally rose from the dead (which is a mandatory belief for Christians, and indeed the very foundation on which our faith rests, as Saint Paul made perfectly clear) really so much less “incredible” and “more believable” than the idea that God may have granted certain people exceptionally long earthly lives? Or is it really so much less incredible than the teaching that there exist beings of pure spirit (angels, both fallen and unfallen) who have been present since the beginning of creation itself (which we know it was a long ass time ago, more than 13 billion years)? And belief in angels is definitely not peripheral to Christianity. So…
I am, of course, aware that, historically speaking, we have very good reasons to believe in the Resurrection. But even the Resurrection itself is, by rationalistic standards, “impossible” (standards which have effectively decreed that the material world is all that exists, because materialism is just this, a philosophy among many which tries to sell itself as factual truth).
Yes, BioLogos even allows YEC folks like me to post. Thank you. BioLogos allows, perhaps even encourages the posting of ideas by those who do not agree with BioLogos’s position.
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- Genetic entropy, additional genetic copying errors with each passing generation.
- Less genetic variability, with the gene pool narrowed down to eight people.
- Perhaps environmental changes including less food and varieties.
- Increases in kinds and virility of disease producing organisms.
These are some possible explanations.
“How to lie with statistics” by Darryl Huff?
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No, but that also sounds familiar.
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@Christy I think the bible is a brilliant mirror of its readers. If you want to declare the writers liars and idiots that did want to communicate nonsense to trap their readers / listeners in darkness and confusion you can confirm your favourite conspiracy theory. If you believe they were interested in trying to convey information that allows their readers/listeners to form a theological worldview you will try to make sense out of the information which will help you towards finding it.
I always wondered if the cycles actually came from calendar cycles based on month rather than years, but not starting from date of birth but from the date of becoming a member of society like Mitzvah
This works well for genesis but produces fatherhood at age 15 in Gen11. But then Mitzvah only became fixed later in AD so the original time of ritual induction might have been a later one and with an offset of 20 the model gains traction.
ChatGPT - Lunar Cycles in Genesis might be an interesting read, so its worthwhile investigating further and perhaps spinning off a new thread
An interesting concept. Truthfully though, these ideas require such gymnastic flexibility in thought, that I still am most comfortable with keeping my interpretation that of metaphor and mystery rather than trying to fit it into a literalistic box. But to each their own.
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It’s a false dichotomy. I suspect most ancient authors/hearers/readers literally thought their ancestors lived very long lives that tapered after the great flood. We find this view to be common throughout the ANE and in the Bible it tapers (Abraham 175). That the Biblical numbers have symbolic meanings can go in many ways which includes:
*God’s providence in history and they are correct.
*Exact numbers were less important but their gist is true.
It doesn’t have to mean: these are literary devices completely detached from the physical reality they describe. That is a logically possible option that apologists love to uncritically move to.
Inexactitude is quite common in ancient history and bios. I suspect if a number was fitting or appropriate why not? Irenaeus famously thought Jesus lived to 50 because he came to save everyone and should have gone through all the stages of life. Whether correct or not, he really believed this. Suitable speeches could be constructed as could details to write a smooth narrative. I’m not hip to every ancient writing practice but also who had records of any of this? My understanding is many people in antiquity (at least those not pharaohs) probably didn’t know their own birthday to begin with.
Requiring high levels of precision to be historical is a feature of modern history starting around the 1900s. This dichotomy is not reading the Bible in its ancient context. These numbers need to be a straightforward factual list of numbers but that does nothing to thwart ancient belief in entropic origins. I also see no reason to suppose various people who had specific lists of numbers may not have thought numbers were true anymore than they thought the solid firmament in the sky was true. As I noted, some of the different numbers seem to be corrections which means they took these lists seriously.
So when Jim Stump writes this
The question is whether it is a better explanation to interpret the numbers as having some symbolic or rhetorical significance to the original audience (even if we don’t know what that is), or that they were just a straightforward listing of numbers the way we would use them today. Knowing what we do about the culture, and in the absence of any persuasive reasons for thinking that the ages of these men were so radically different than they are today, it seems that a symbolic or rhetorical interpretation is a legitimate option and maybe even a preferable.
He has tension with this:
But of course Genesis was not written in 21st century English, so our concern is not with what these words would mean if they were written by us today. Instead, as biblical scholars regularly remind us, we should ask, “What do the words mean in the language and culture in which they were written?”
He has reason to think the ages were different because nothing scientific indicates they could or should be and ‘I think bones found all over the world many thousands of years do not support this view. But that is not the view of an ancient reader/hearer of Genesis.
This interpretation is just harmonization. Neither Walton, Marshall, Stump or you have escaped this in trying to make these non-literal. Now Stump notes as a Christian, if God wanted to miraculously make Methuselah live to an old age he could have. That is true from our perspective because we think we know people never lived that long based on the evidence. So it would be a miracle. As I told Marshall, if we read Genesis in context, this approaches the issue backwards. For them God supernaturally intervened (Gen 6:3) to reduce the long live spans pre-flood. The shorter life span was a miraculous change. To them it was normal that people pre-flood lived to long ages for whatever reason.
Purporting to want to read/listen to the text as people would 2500 or 3000 years ago then harmonizing it based on modern thoughts is what I have critiqued from the beginning.
What scientific mechanism do you propose for Jesus walking on water or rising from the dead? If the gist of these numbers are accurate, which I have not assented to, these people walked with God in antiquity at a time shortly after the first two ensouled full humans. Adam and Eve had access to immortality. Going forward one line that obeyed God lived longer, another didn’t. As a Christian, if I took that literally I don’t need to scientifically justify why these people lived longer. They walked with God who changed things after the flood. I don’t need genetic entropy or anything else. The Lord is enough .
One could argue that a small group of people—the first humans—walked with God and lived to very old ages, push the flood back tens of thousands of years and say this is what caused widespread belief in the ANE of pre-flood long lifespans. This will still have lots of problems but it would certainly soften a lot of difficulties and we could say God’s grace and preternatural gifts allowed these original people to live longer but sin thwarted that somehow. Seeking scientific reasons for acts of God is a category error and if took these as historical I would connect them to how I understand Adam and Eve as the first two genealogical humans (souls).
Vinnie
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just for a proposed table of ages:
Using 12.37 lunar months per solar year gives:
| x= | 13 | years | 20 | |||
| Patriarch | Fatherhood (Genesis) | Lifespan (Genesis) | Fatherhood (Months + 13) | Lifespan (Months + 13) | Fatherhood (Months + 20) | Lifespan (Months + 20) |
| Adam | 130 | 930 | 23.5 | 88.2 | 30.5 | 95.2 |
| Seth | 105 | 912 | 21.5 | 86.7 | 28.5 | 93.7 |
| Enosh | 90 | 905 | 20.3 | 86.2 | 27.3 | 93.2 |
| Kenan | 70 | 910 | 18.7 | 86.6 | 25.7 | 93.6 |
| Mahalalel | 65 | 895 | 18.3 | 85.4 | 25.3 | 92.4 |
| Jared | 162 | 962 | 26.1 | 90.8 | 33.1 | 97.8 |
| Enoch | 65 | 365 | 18.3 | 42.5 | 25.3 | 49.5 |
| Methuselah | 187 | 969 | 28.1 | 91.3 | 35.1 | 98.3 |
| Lamech | 182 | 777 | 27.7 | 75.8 | 34.7 | 82.8 |
| Noah | 500 | 950 | 53.4 | 89.8 | 60.4 | 96.8 |
| median | 155.6 | 857.5 | 25.6 | 82.3 | 32.6 | 89.3 |
| mean | 117.5 | 911.0 | 22.5 | 86.7 | 29.5 | 93.6 |
| SD | 129.8 | 181.2 | 10.5 | 14.7 | 10.5 | 14.7 |
| CV | 110% | 20% | 47% | 17% | 36% | 16% |
| Solar age = Genesis number ÷ 12.37 + 13 | ||||||
| Patriarch | Father at (Genesis 11) | Lifespan | Fatherhood (Months + 13 years) | Lifespan (Months + 13) | Fatherhood (Months + 20 years) | Lifespan (Months + 20) |
| Shem | 100 | 600 | 21.1 | 61.5 | 28.1 | 68.5 |
| Arphaxad | 35 | 438 | 15.8 | 48.4 | 22.8 | 55.4 |
| Shelah | 30 | 433 | 15.4 | 48 | 22.4 | 55.0 |
| Eber | 34 | 464 | 15.7 | 50.5 | 22.7 | 57.5 |
| Peleg | 30 | 239 | 15.4 | 32.3 | 22.4 | 39.3 |
| Reu | 32 | 239 | 15.6 | 32.3 | 22.6 | 39.3 |
| Serug | 30 | 230 | 15.4 | 31.6 | 22.4 | 38.6 |
| Nahor | 29 | 148 | 15.3 | 25 | 22.3 | 32.0 |
| Terah | 70 | 205 | 18.7 | 29.6 | 25.7 | 36.6 |
| median | 43.3 | 332.9 | 16.5 | 39.9 | 23.5 | 46.9 |
| mean | 32.0 | 239.0 | 15.6 | 32.3 | 22.6 | 39.3 |
| SD | 24.9 | 153.4 | 2.0 | 12.4 | 2.0 | 12.4 |
| CV | 78% | 64% | 13% | 38% | 9% | 32% |
| average age ratio | 3.59 | 2.58 | 1.55 | 2.06 | 1.39 | 1.90 |
| 0.72 | 1.33 | 1.37 |
Not only that, but they thought their ancestors lived exceptionally good and consequential lives. This was indeed a common view – and still is. People shown to be profoundly flawed in Genesis (such as Abraham and Jacob) or Judges (such as Samson and Gideon) are airbrushed into saints by later readers. Ezekiel 16:45–47 was sometimes banned from reading in synagogues because of how it demeaned Israel’s ancestry. Everyone wants to believe that their forebears were a cut above.
The lionizing impulse was certainly strong among readers of Genesis, but I don’t think it leads to a good reading of Genesis. More on that below.
I don’t know. I think most people then also knew the limits of human lifespans. Sure, some may have thought it was different in the distant past, just as some might have thought animals in the distant past could talk, but I don’t think that leads to a good reading of either the genealogies or the serpent in Eden.
Sure, and they might have read the Eden account as God supernaturally intervening to take the legs/wings off snakes and repurpose their mouths for eating dust rather than speech. They may have taken the mute and low nature of current snakes as due to a miraculous change. And to some degree, that doesn’t seem foreign to the text. But to leave it at that – to see the etiology and nothing else – misses the real point of the story.
An explanation for why snakes have such a humble body even though they seem so intelligent has been used to teach us about temptation and the roots of sin. To just stay at the biological level sounds like the same mistake as those who treat Genesis like a science text.
This is at odds with the earlier view you offered in which people pre-flood simply lived longer and God’s change was to shorten lives afterward. Now you have God lengthening lives in Seth’s line or shortening lives in Cain’s.
But this whole distinction between the lines of Cain and Seth is drawn out of silence. The only ages Genesis gives of pre-flood people are long ones. Nobody is given a “normal” lifespan. One can as easily say Cain’s ancestors all lived short lives as say women back then all lived short lives – since the only ages we have are for men in Seth’s line.
Instead, I think the lines of Cain and Seth tell the same basic story different ways, just as the creation week and Eden account tell the story of creation two ways. Rather than pitting the doublets against each other, we see how each draws different things into focus while largely agreeing on the main points. We get a better view by listening to them both, not by looking for discrepancies nor by harmonizing them into a single smooth story.
I think the lines of Cain and Seth are both intended to show the gravity of these early people. Both seem to be preserving similar memories, using mostly the same names, but with some differences in spelling and sequence. In Cain’s line, the gravity of early humans is shown by how they originate human civilization and culture. In Seth’s, it’s shown through their ages. Both ways, these people are shown to be larger than life. The clearest example is the Lamech of each line. The Cainite Lamech vows 77-fold revenge based on the 7-fold pattern of Cain. The Sethite Lamech lives 777 years. Both use three 7s to make the gravity of Lamech clear.
But importantly, while both accounts magnify the people they list, they also show them as flawed. Seth’s line is not immune from God’s verdict that every inclination of their hearts was only evil continually. Only two in that line are singled out as exceptions, Enoch and Noah (and Noah’s flaws are later shown as well). The general magnificence of these lines of people, whether portrayed by their ages or their ingenuity, is not tied to their goodness. And so, I think it misuses these genealogies to try to find a pattern of especially holy people especially blessed by God.
It would be strange for such a memory to lead to a genealogy where the only person said to walk with God has the shortest life (Enoch, at 365). I don’t think it’s viable to think the Genesis 5 genealogy is trying to show a connection between walking with God and long life. Yes, it may have sometimes been read that way, but no, I don’t think such a reading is faithful to the text.
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This is certainly possible in my view. I wouldn’t say that this is definitely what happened but I wouldn’t rule it out either.
I also regard Adam and Eve as the first two genealogical humans. I have written quite a bit on this subject in the past.
One error we should avoid is conflating genetic ancestry with genealogical ancestry, since they are not the same thing. In population theory, a person can be your genealogical ancestor without having contributed any detectable DNA to you today, because DNA is broken up and lost through recombination over many generations.
That is why universal genealogical ancestry can spread much faster than universal genetic ancestry. Any defensible account of a historical Adam and Eve must (and can) place the original pair early enough that all historically known human populations already belong to the same genealogical human family. The later successful dispersal out of Africa is commonly placed around 70,000–50,000 years ago, and the first unambiguous evidence of modern humans in the Americas dates to around 14,000–15,000 years ago. Therefore, if one posits a real original pair at all (as Catholics are bound to do, since the Church teaches that an original pair elevated by God to a state of holiness actually existed) that pair must be placed early enough for all historical populations to descend from them, at least genealogically.
So what do you do with the enormous number of humans that mate/marry into the “family” of A&E?
So why should genealogy, which is really just lines on a piece of paper when you ignore the DNA, have anything to do whatever it is you are trying to do with it?
I will reply between today and tomorrow. :))
And I just had another thought. How long would it take for the the genealogical descendants of those outside the A&E “family” to die off / be assimilated? Is there anyway to even try to put numbers to this?
ALL the long-life genealogies have symbolic meanings.
I don’t want to harmonize it with anything, I want to read it in its context.
False equivalency: what you set out represents a systemic change, not individual instances.
I think I stumbled across a much better than a symbolic Ages of Patriarchs - #174 by Gerhard
After all I am a Christian because I can see logic in Christ, not magic, and instead of believing that our ancestors wanted to hoodwink people to control the masses as sceptics claim, I think they wanted to help other people to gain a better understanding of reality in history and future. This helps me to get away from interpreting the text as in magic intervention by God to manipulate biology to punish or favour us but as observations sometimes described poetically to speak to the illiterate and the intellectual alike
Is leaving the biological level so far behind and coming up with any spiritual connection to sin not stretching to the opposite extreme? I see the language as a mythological description of Adam and Eve getting booted from their sacred space. What the snake cursing does beyond that is difficult to figure out for me–if I need to at all.The deeper truth is about humanity–Adam and Eve sinning and being kicked from the sacred space God prepared for them. Everything else may or may not be window dressing.
Not inconsistent. That was their view. If we were looking for a way to make these long ages fit with a genealogical Adam and Eve and the scientific evidence for human life spans around the world going back in time, this or something along these lines is how I suppose we can do so.
Fair point about the silence on the ages.
While both lines might have flaws, one still seems to be the good one (at least better one) and one the bad one. I suppose we can see it as a theological lesson about sin bringing death and decay into the world.Or just generically as sin leads to death/judgement and bad things.
That isn’t quite true. His life never ended. Enoch was taken into heaven (which I didn’t even know they believed in at the time?). At any rate, you call this strange but when people all over the ancient would–including history writers, profess long life spans before the flood, and even update and correct them to fit with new information, how can any other reading get any stranger than claiming the Bible --which professes long life spans before the flood that God limits afterwards, is not actually claiming the Bible teaches there were long life spans before the flood that God limited? I mean, no reading can get stranger than this in light of the evidence for entropic origins and a massive change with the flood an antiquity. If we want to read the account in context, I suspect this it. If was want to salvage inerrancy, well that is the strange reading where the text is just saying my ancestors were cool (which does zero for me spiritually). That is Walton’s approach:
- A long lifespan may be intended to extend honor to the individual
- Remote ancestors are given greater honor
This may be why Seth’s line is giving the long ages and not Cain’s.
Walton also wrote earlier:
Studies indicate that in such cases, the long ages are intended to make a point about the utopian nature of the primeval past, contrasted to the nature of the present. As such, we need not imagine that people actually lived that long.
I think he is spot on about the “utopian nature of the primeval past, contrasted to the nature of the present” but I’m still confused. Am I supposed to accept this utopian past? Am I supposed to accept it and reject the life spans of the pre-flood utopia? Defending inerrancy by having one problematic section of Bible (long ages) defend something else untrue (utopian past) seems odd.
I don’t think you are being fair to ancient people. There is nothing incredible about thinking their ancestors lived to long ages at that time. There was nothing scientific to prove it true or false to them. They didn’t have a recorded history like us with textbooks and written records showing things have been the same for hundreds or thousands of years. You are imposing your own understanding. They certainly knew their own life spans from observations (grandpa, mom, dad, big extended families, etc) but I am not sure why you think they should automatically extend this view all the way back to human origins like good modern uniformitarians? Especially when the ANE is saturated with evidence to the contrary. I quoted Josephus and he referenced a host of others who wrote their own diverse histories and accepted this as well.
So what is the good reading of the the long ages? What am I to make of of the account of people pre-fall living many hundreds of years and God limiting their ages after the flood given this never happened? What is this teaching me? The wages of sin is death? Seems a bit lackluster.
Vinnie
Literal ones as well. Entropic origins. Pre-flood individuals had long life spans. This is common in antiquity and how the text should be read using historical-critical methods (context).
Then you should understand its dual meaning. The numbers, even if symbolic, point to a reality accepted as true.
Not taking that bait. A miracle is a miracle. Whether Jesus walked miles across the Sea of Galilee or God limited ensouled human lifespans after the flood. Assuming the later is true (I’m sure we both accept the former actually happened), both are God doing what God does and I have zero need to provide anyone with a rational or scientific explanation of how God wills any miracle, whether it is one off or systemic. It’s a category error on your part to expect that of either type. If I could explain it, it wouldn’t be a miracle proper in the “beyond nature” sense.
Genesis has a few systemic changes anyway. Since I accept a literal Adam and Eve in a sacred space who would not have tasted death before sinning, I accept them as accurate. Their children would also have had access to the tree of life and any other preternatural gifts God’s grace bestowed upon them. So death, toiling and the lot can all be seen as systemic effects to me given my take on origins that heavily relies on the soul to distinguish full humans from anatomical animals that looked like us in the past.
Vinnie
The long lifespans mentioned were not recorded because they were the norm, but because they were extraordinary. So whether you take them as miraculous or whether they indicate some other cultural numerical meaning, they still have importance. While personally I lean toward the later, the former may be possible. What I do not see as possible is that such long lives were the norm for that time.
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