Q. Did the ancient people actually live as long as the Bible says they did, as, for example, in Genesis 5?
Editor’s Note: The Register posed this question to Dr. Vern Steiner, president of The Emmaus Institute for Biblical Studies in Lincoln.
A. In addition to challenging our pronunciation skills (kudos to lectors who do their best!), some of the Bible’s genealogical lists greet us with another apparently insoluble problem: Are we actually supposed to believe that the average lifespan of the 10 individuals named in Genesis 5 was 875 years?
Even with all the medical advancements, health measures, and safety protocols up and down the millennia, the average life expectancy across the 193 countries in the world today stands at only 73 years. If, as anthropology informs us, human longevity has gradually increased, rather than decreased, from prehistoric to modern times, how shall we account for these enormously elongated lifespans, from Enoch’s 365 years to Methuselah’s 969 years? (Incidentally, these are modest compared to the fantastical figures in the ancient Sumerian King List, which boasts of individual kings reigning for up to 72,000 years!)
So the immensely long lifespans of the 10 fathers from Adam to Noah presents one of the great interpretive mysteries of the Bible. Do they reflect an English mistranslation of the Hebrew and Greek numerals? Did writers calibrate years differently in the ancient world, say, 30 days per year instead of 365, or did the biblical writers confuse months for years, so that Methuselah actually lived only 969 months, that is, about 81 years? Neither of these hypotheses, nor any of the other proposals on offer (e.g., the expansive numbers are symbolic of astronomical or synodic periods; they are codes with mysterious honorary significance or a literary technique of idealization; they represent the cumulative years of families, clans, tribes, or dynasties, not the ages of the named individuals), provides a credible accounting of either the biblical text or the historical record.
In the absence of a consensus among commentators ancient and modern, we are advised to proceed with humble caution. Some important clues in the context of Genesis 5 point us in a helpful direction. First, the precise figures of the ages of these patriarchs draw attention to their historicity; these are real people with specific lifespans.
Second, God created humans in his image and likeness, and God blessed them (1:26-28). The imposing ages of the patriarchs likely has something to do with the perpetuating of this imago Dei and the divine blessing.
Third, the Fall impaired the longevity of human life; having lost the preternatural gifts, humans are henceforth mortal, doomed to spiritual and physical death because of sin in the Garden (3:17-19).
Fourth, and most significant, the genealogy of chapter 5 focuses on Adam and his antediluvian (pre-Flood) descendants. The ages listed there represent the lifespans of 10 selected ancestors before God sent the deluge to cleanse the earth. We might imagine that favorable climactic, environmental, and genetic conditions enabled the exceptional duration of life, and that something changed in the cosmology of the earth and/or in the physiology of humans after the Flood, resulting in a rapid decline in longevity, finally stabilizing at a “normal” life expectancy of 70 or 80 years (cf. Pss 90:10).
More likely, Genesis 6:3 cites the LORD’s response to the increasing moral corruption which precipitated the Flood: “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’” This is a large and important clue: In response to the plunging depravity of humanity’s fleshly nature (read Gen 6:5-7), the LORD declared that he would limit his life-giving “breath” and would no longer enable and preserve the extraordinary lifespan of the human creature. In other words, because humans persisted in corrupting what God made good (Gen 1–4), God cleansed the earth in the Flood and thereafter limited the number of years humans may live here (Gen 5–6).
In this light, it is noteworthy that recorded ages steadily decline after the Flood, rarely exceeding 120 years (cf. Gen 11:10-26; Deut 31:2; 34:7)—not for the naturalistic reasons suggested above, but for supernatural reasons. God’s retracting his life-sustaining Spirit effects a shortening of humanity’s existence on the earth due to the corruption of mortal flesh. This also hints that the remedy for sin and death will have to come by the renewal and restoration of God’s Spirit; for if the withdrawal of God’s life-giving Spirit results in a shortening lifespan, it will be the bestowal of God’s life-giving Spirit that brings about the ultimate prolongation of life—eternal life!
To summarize, in this straightforward and realistic reading of Genesis 5, we are reminded of three profound biblical truths: First, God’s plan is for humans to live not just 365 years (like Enoch) or even 969 years (like Methuselah), but forever—eternally.
Second, humans forfeit that blessing as a consequence of sin, in response to which God withdraws a measure of his enabling Spirit required to sustain long life.
Third, this abbreviation of life (in the form of death) can be overcome only through participation in the divine life and the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the Bestower of eternal life (see Jn 3:5-6; 5:21; Rom 8:10-11). It is then that “a thousand years in [God’s] sight [will seem] as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Pss 90:4). Such is the hope of all who are reborn by God’s Spirit and are alive in Christ. They will live not just 875 years on average, but in everlasting glory!
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