18 April, 2018 - 14:01 Dean Talboys
Can the Babylonian Calendar Help Explain the Ages of Patriarchs Recounted in the Book of Genesis? - Part 1
The ages of Adam and his descendants in the Book of Genesis appear incredulous when compared to the average lifespan of Man throughout history. Though there have been several attempts to justify the numbers mathematically, none can be applied to all cases equally. Can these outlandish figures be explained?
A Mixed-up Interpretation?
The problem is, not only does Genesis list the age of the patriarchs, it lists their age at the time of their firstborn child. For example, Methuselah was 187 when he had his first son and he died at the age of 969. Had the scribes incorrectly interpreted months as years in the source data, the figures would be exaggerated by a factor of 12, and Methuselah would have been a more believable 15 and 80 years respectively at each event. Unfortunately, that does not work so well for his father, Enoch, who was 65 when Methuselah was born, which equates to 5 years old, and less so for the generations after the flood, the majority of whom were less than 36 when the first son was born, which would imply they were only 3 years old.
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