As we look at the numerous ways people have responded to the long lifespans of the individuals named in Genesis 5, we will split this large topic into two blogs, as one blog would be too wordy to take in. Today, we will look at six responses and proposed explanations that (to me, at least) do not hold much credence. Then, in next week’s blog, we will study four other responses and plausible explanations that seem much more credible (again, in my opinion). To be honest, there is no archaeological evidence that substantiates incredibly long ages for people in the past—either in Mesopotamia or anywhere else. It is known that humans living in the Bronze Age (the time of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) had an average life span of about forty years, based on human skeletons and legal documents of the time. If infants and children are included in that lifespan average, it would be even lower. Examination of skeletons in a number of graves at al’Ubaid (one of the oldest known archaeological sites in Mesopotamia) has indicated that some people lived to be over sixty—a great age at that time.
Starting with the possible explanations for the lengthy lifespans, the most common response in our world is the first one below, that the huge numbers were:
1. Fictional. The really long lifespans, such as Methuselah’s 969 years of age, is a stumbling-block to faith for many people. This must be admitted by people of faith, both Jews and Christians. People might believe in UFO’s, beings from outer space, sasquatches, and Nessie, the monster who supposedly lurks in the deep waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness, but when they read the huge numbers in Genesis 5, they say, “That’s impossible”, and they dismiss anything else the Bible says. This is unfortunate.
2. The long lifespans were a result of shorter years in ancient times. This explanation points out that Greeks divided the year into ten months (which produced a moving calendar in which crops and seasons were not tied to a certain date), and ancient Egyptians divided the year into twelve 30-day months which meant that the years were 5 or 6 days too short. The suggestion is that the ancient Hebrews may have done something similar, thus resulting in shorter years and thus supposedly longer life-spans. This makes no sense in that the Hebrews obviously knew about the “proper” length of the year, as Genesis 6 shows.
3. The lengthy lifespans were due to a “year-month-season” understanding of a year. This theory proposes that a “year” was perhaps only a month, or a season, as indeed really ancient Greeks seemed to have done. This explanation of possible one-month or three-month equivalents of a year was later taken up by early Christian theologians Pliny and Augustine, among others, in an attempt to understand the huge numbers of Genesis 5. However, this theory doesn’t work for it would mean that dividing Adam’s age of 930 by 12 (1 year = 1 month) would mean that Adam was eleven years ago when he fathered Seth. Similarly, Noah’s age when he first started having sons, if divided by the four seasons, (thus by four and having 1 year equalling 1 season, thus four seasons would equal four years), would mean Noah was 125 years old when he and Mrs. Noah (we don’t know her name) began having children, again another unlikely event).
4. Astronomical explanations. Other proposed solutions to the question of the Genesis 5 long lifespans state that there was an astronomical cause to the lengthy lifespans. For example, the rotation period of the Earth has changed, so that the days prior to Noah were not equivalent to those we have now: they were much shorter. As well, it has been suggested that perhaps a supernova damaged the Earth’s ozone layer, thus increasing ultraviolet radiation and systematically decreasing the age of humans over time. Some scientists have furthermore speculated that the transfer of angular momentum from the Earth to the moon over time resulted in an appreciable increase in the length of a day. But there is no scientific support behind any of these astronomical suggestions. If there was any concrete evidence for these suggestions, we would pay attention to them, but there is none. For example, there have been no known supernova explosions within the last 10,000 years that could have accounted for the long ages of the patriarchs and a supposed decrease in the age of humans over time.
5. Tribal, dynasty, or “clan” explanations for the lengthy lifespans of the individuals in Genesis 5. Another explanation is that, when the Bible makes a statement that, e.g., “Adam was the ‘father’ of Seth,” it means that the Adam “clan” had exercised dominion for 130 years (the age of Adam when Seth was born). In this view, Seth would be a direct-line descendent of Adam (grandson, great-grandson, etc.), but not the immediate son of Adam. Then, Seth’s “son” descendants would have become part of the Seth dynasty or tribe. Again, there is evidence of this.
6. Canopy theory explanation. Other people have tried to explain the long ages of the patriarchs by suggesting a different type of world for pre-Flood humans, an explanation which says that the long ages were due to a vapor canopy over the earth. Before Noah’s Flood this “canopy” supposedly shielded Earth from harmful radiation, thus ensuring that people could live to a very old age. After the Flood, harmful radiation slowly increased as the canopy dissipated so that the patriarchs’ ages exhibited a slow and steady decline down to the biblical life span of normative 70 years mentioned in Psalm 90:10. The problem with the canopy theory is that there is not one shred of geologic or physical evidence to support it.
In next week’s blog, we will study four other responses to and plausible explanations of the lengthy lifespans found in Genesis 5.
