How Old?

You must be joking!

Did you ever watch the film "2001 a Space Odyssey".

It ends with a very, very old man reaching for a block of something that's filled with stars. I never understood the ending but it was, apparently, very meaningful; very "spiritual".

But that's not in the Bible, is it?

But you were asking about those ancient bods who, apparently, lived for huge numbers of years.

And I can't believe that this was ever true!

When Jared was 162, he had a son, Enoch, and then lived another 800 years. He had other children 20 and died at the age of 962.

When Enoch was 65, he had a son, Methuselah. After that, Enoch lived in fellowship with God for 300 years and had other children. He lived to be 365 years old. He spent his life in fellowship with God, and then he disappeared, because God took him away.

When Methuselah was 187, he had a son, Lamech, and then lived another 782 years. He had other children and died at the age of 969.

How old are the oldest people today?

JEANNE CALMENT died (in France) in 1997 at the age of 120 and is the longest living human being ever. Actually the oldest person to be accurately recorded at that age.

HENRY ALLINGHAM was Britains oldest living man.

Henry William Allingham (6 June 1896 to 18 July 2009) was a British supercentenarian, First World War veteran and, for one month, the verified oldest living man in the world. He is also the second-oldest military veteran ever and at the time of his death, he was the 14th-verified oldest man of all time.
 
But he wasn't 969? I still can't believe that.

There are several possible explanations.

 1  The translators of the Bible simply got their numbers wrong. Ancient Hebrew didn't have numbers like we have, so used letters. It can be difficult to work out what these letters actually mean.

 2  Some people think the numbers refer to the longevity of tribes, not individual people; so, for example, the Methuselah tribe lasted for 969 years.

And what do you think?

 3  Well, the Bible reminds us that God limited the span of human life, reducing it over the years until the best life expectancy became, firstly 120 and then "three score years and ten". That's 70 in modern english. So it is possible that in very ancient and primitive times, long long before recorded history, people did live very long lives. And then God ...

Let me guess ...

... cut life short because mankind continued to be sinful.

You are beginning to understand.

How old are you?

68

So you've only go 2 years to go.

Charming! We need to remember that the Bible was never, never, written to be an accurate history, science of human ethnology book. For the writers, the sort of detail we might expect today was simply not relevant to the story of how God dealt with his people. It was the principles that mattered.

But this is yet another list of names that mean nothing to me or anyone else.

But the links are absolutely vital in the culture of Bible times; they create a chain of people like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and the rest of them linking with the first Bible super-hero.

Who is?

 Next Bible Blog : Sunday 25th November