I’M WORKING IN GENESIS at the moment and I’ve hit that speed bump about folks living 900 years or more.
I’ll give you what I’ve got so far. See if you can finish it.
There are certainly theories about how to handle the numbers, and I’ll report on some of those. Do you know about any of them?
Here’s what I have so far:
If people today lived as long as Genesis says folks did before the Flood, we could watch live television interviews of:
- George Washington (1732-1799) offering advice about how to grow a cherry tree—and how to keep your teeth.
- Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484), who authorized the Spanish Inquisition, telling us what he thinks about Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”
- Richard the Lionheart (1157-1199) comparing the Palestinian/Israeli struggle for the Holy Land to the Christian/Muslim battles and negotiations he led during the Crusades.
The very idea that “Adam lived 930 years” (Genesis 5:5) is just a little too Gene Roddenberry for most folks today.
As the Genesis writer tells it, Adam and the nine generations that follow him are going where no man has gone before. At least no man we’ve ever known.
I’ll give some of the theories in the next blog, on Monday. Deal?
See also Did people really live hundreds of years.
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