Was Methusalah Really 969 Years Old?
Recently I had a conversation with a Christian Lady, lets call her Miss. M. She had been a member of her church for over 40 years, attended Sunday school regularly, and weekly women’s Bible studies. She told me that her Sunday school Bible study had recently started in the book of Genesis.
I ask her, “Do you believe it?” She nodded her head and said, “Only some of it. I detected a bit of sarcasm in her voice, and asked her, “What part don’t you believe?” She said, “I don’t believe people before the flood lived to be as old as the Scriptures presented them to be.”
Phil. “Why not?”
Miss M. “Because!”
Phil. “Well, How long then do you think they lived?”
Miss.M. “I don’t know, but it was not 8 or 900 years.”
Phil. “I know you are not calling God a liar, or that God is not able to communicate to us the events as they happened!”
Miss. M. “No. But I believe this part of Scriptures has been interpreted incorrectly by men.”
Phil. “Do you not believe that God over-saw the writing of the Scriptures?”
Miss. M. “Yes, but men have made mistakes.”
Phil. “What does your Pastor, or Sunday school teacher have to say?”
Miss. M. “Some think its incorrect also.” She went on to say, “You know the Bible was written by men, and they may have written it down incorrectly, or maybe, it was miss-interpreted.”
Phil. “Miss M, you know that every word of Scripture has been inspired by God, and that every word is God breathed. This is what my Bible teaches. The writers were only the tool by which God gave to them this information.”
Miss.M. “Well I still don’t believe they lived that long.”
I thought for a few moments, hmmm, what’s the best way to respond to her? I was sure that whatever I communicated to her would be rejected anyway. But I had to defend the Scriptures. So I said to her,
Phil. “Let’s examine these verses in Genesis from your point of view. For the sake of discussions let’s say the Scriptures don’t mean exactly what they say. Scriptures state that Methuselah was 969 years old when he died. What then would be a reasonable age for him to have lived?”
Miss M. “I don’t know.”
Phil. “Would you say 200 years would be reasonable?” Miss M. shrugged her shoulders, and her posture appeared to say no. “Well then how about 150 years old?” See nodded and agreed that this was most likely the case, seeming much more reasonable to her. I added, he was the oldest man to ever live. She agreed.
Phil. “O.K! One hundred and fifty is 1/6th the age Scriptures represent Methuselah to be. Divide 150, into 969, and we get, 1/6. So when Methuselah died, that would make him about 161 years old according to your thinking.
Phil. “Now we need to calculate every other person’s age in Genesis by this formula.
Miss. M. “I agree.”
Phil. “O.K. lets go with these numbers. By adding the age of the ancient patriarch, and their genealogies it is estimated according to Scriptures, that the earth was about 1600 years old when the great flood of Noah occurred. Do you agree?” She nodded yes.
Phil. “Now if we divide 1600 by 6, then the earth would have been about 276 years old when the flood came.” She gave me a funny look, but I continued.
Adam’s third son Seth was conceived by Adam when he was 130 years old, Adam having already fathered both Cain and Abel. So if we divide Adams age, 130 by 6 according to your calculations, Adam would have been 21 when he fathered Seth. So Adam would have been a very young man when he conceived both Cain and Abel. Scriptures seem to imply that Cain and Abel were adults when Abel was killed.
If this is true, than Cain would have had to kill his brother when he was what? 4-5-6?
Now Seth was 105 years old when he had Enos. Now if we divide that by 6, Seth would have been 17 when he fathered Enos. Now Enos was 90 when he begot Cainan; divided by 6, Enos would by your account have been 15 when he fathered Cainan. Well if we continued on with this math lets see what happens. As the generations passed, we come to the man Enoch.
Enoch was 65 when he begat Methuselah. By these calculations he would have been almost 11 years old when he fathered Methuselah.” I asked, “Miss M., “do you see how ridiculous that proposition is when people tell you that Scriptures do not mean what they say because it usually leads to many other problems?”
The men that teach these things are false teachers, teaching false doctrines. Without saying it in words, they are calling God a liar. I reminded her that mankind was created to live forever. Sin destroyed that. We also read of the steady decline in the ages of men after the flood.
So if I were to ask you, when does one year begin to mean one year in Scripture? Is it after the flood, if so why, what changed? The Hebrew language is consistent throughout the O.T.
Miss M. had nothing to say. The expression on her face was, I don’t know, don’t care, and even if Jesus Christ told me in person I would not believe it. She concluded “That’s your opinion.” As for me, it was the end of the discussion.
Phillip LaSpino