Methuselah's Record-Breaking Age

Genesis 1-11, Part 3

Cain’s wife, the long ages, the genealogy of Christ, Archbishop Ussher’s scholarship

Bonus - Mrna vaccines - were they approved a little to quickly?

Was big pharma money behind it all? Justin Hart’s ‘Rational Ground’ substack brought up this and other charts from a report by UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing that all through 2022, “a disproportionately high percentage of people who had been vaccinated compared to the overall vaccination level in the population. This was the case in every single month”. There are lots of other studies out now that show that masking didn’t do any good, either. No wonder people don’t trust the media or the CDC.

now onto Genesis…

Where did Cain get his wife?

It had to be one of his sisters.

“Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters.”

Their genomes were new and pure; no time had passed for mutations yet, so no biological reason not to marry sisters. After a couple thousand years, this was forbidden in the Law of Moses.

What about the long ages?

Methuselah lived a record 969 years. We don’t know how they lived so long, although, as I said, genetic mutations wouldn’t have had time to accumulate in the early days, and that may have had something to do with it. Higher oxygen levels in the atmosphere have been proposed as another possible explanation. Not having any pesticides and other noxious chemicals in the air and the meat and plants also may have been a big factor.

I believe the long ages in Genesis are absolutely true. For one thing, why are the ages even recorded? Most genealogies just give a record of birth dates and death dates and leave it to you to figure out how old they were when they died. But the bible seems to make a point of emphasizing the ages, to make sure we get the timeline. A further point is that these specific ages are only given in what we call the “royal line”, that is the line leading us to father Abraham and on to Jesus, the Messiah. (Matthew gives the rest of the genealogy to Christ, without the emphasis on ages.)

I like to speculate on how much wisdom could be gained if I lived 900 years! Perhaps knowing how to build a gigantic boat was a piece of cake for Noah when he was 500-600 years old!

The genealogy timeline

A recent sermon claiming there were 8000 or 9000 years from Adam to the birth of Christ caused me to revisit the whole basis for believing the bible is true and accurate in the timeline we’re given in the genealogies in Genesis chapters 5 and 11. The sum of the ages of each father at the birth of each son that was chosen by God to be in the genealogy of Christ, up to Abraham, (Isaac and Jacob ages added in later chapters) combined with well-established secular history from the time of Isaac and Jacob give a time of about 4000 years; not 8000 or 9000.

I knew the speaker couldn’t have gotten the 8000 figure from the bible, so he had to have gotten it from secular sources. In other words, from men; not from God’s Word.

About this time, my wife Bev and I received a newly published letter from Ken Ham, responding to the recent election results.

“Many news sources give credit to “Gen Z”, the young, new voters, for giving so many votes to “evil people – people who want children killed in their mothers’ wombs; want children born alive after a botched abortion to be left to die;…support children mutilating their bodies to supposedly change their gender”, and so on.

“Over the years, in my presentations, I had been warning that if the church continued to compromise Genesis, as the majority of leaders were doing, and didn’t teach apologetics to equip younger generations with answers to defend the Christian faith, most of these young people would be lost to the world.”

“…we are losing the younger generations to the world…by 2021, Generation Z and millennials were down to less than 9% church attendance.”

“…we had the late researcher Britt Beemer …conduct research [in 2008] into why young people were leaving the church. One of the major factors we found was the lack of teaching of apologetics to answer skeptical questions and equip these younger generations. Many churches did take note of this research and began using Answers in Genesis materials to incorporate apologetics and worldview training into their churches. Many pastors have told me this revolutionized their church, and they saw incredible positive impact on their young people.”

Answers in Genesis now has Answers Bible Curriculum, “a four-year Bible curriculum for all age groups (synchronized for K through adult) which is now being used in thousands of churches. It is a powerful, chronological curriculum that teaches ‘meat’, not ‘milk’, with an emphasis on doctrine, worldview, apologetics, and, of course, evangelism.”

Why is this important?

Because all the major bible doctrines begin in Genesis. For example, sin and its consequences, sickness, disease, and death are explained in Genesis, and that leads to the necessity of a blood sacrifice for atonement, and that leads to the realization that God’s Son is the only One worthy to die in our place if we are to receive forgiveness and salvation. If Genesis is undermined, the foundation of the gospel is undermined.

Following are some charts, facts, and comments on the biblical genealogies. I found the genealogies to be very detailed and precise. Since “all scripture is inspired by God” (2Tim.3:16) I’m sure there was a reason why God had the ages of the patriarchs listed in such a way. God knew that the culture would question His Word in the last days, just like Peter prophesied in 2Pet.3:3-6 – that mockers would come. I think the ages of each of the fathers in Gen.5 and 11 were given us to make sure we would know that the long ages of earth history claimed by secular archaeologists and other scientists are wrong. To take the word of mere men over the Word of God is indeed foolish.

Notes:

Gen. ch.5  Adam to Noah

Gen. 7:11 The Flood – Noah was 600

Gen.10:21-25 Shem to Peleg; repeated in ch.11

Gen. ch.11:10-26  Noah’s son Shem to Abraham

Continuing the genealogy…

Gen. 21:5 Abraham was 100 when Isaac born

Gen. 25:26 Isaac was 60 when Jacob was born

   Adding the ages of the fathers takes us to 2108 years from creation week, or approx..1896 B.C.*

   *By the time of Jacob, we have enough secular and biblical history from those days to the birth of Jesus

Ruth 4:17-18  Perez to David identical to Luke 3:31-33.*

1Chron.1:1-27 Adam to Abraham, plus a record of other sons not direct ancestors of Jesus

1Chron.2:1-15 sons of Jacob to David.

1Chron.3:5 sons of David. Solomon and Nathan by Bathsheba

1Chron.3:10 sons of Solomon

Matthew’s genealogy

Mt.1:1-17 Abraham to Jesus, but with some liberties. Matthew deliberately included Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba.  It was unusual enough in a patriarchal genealogy to mention any of the mothers, but why these particular women? Tamar and Bathsheba were taken by Judah and David, respectively, before marriage. Rahab was a prostitute and a Gentile. Matthew was making the point that anyone can be saved, whether Jew or Gentile, and regardless of their past. Another point of Matthew’s genealogy is the emphasis on Jesus being the fulfillment of prophecy; especially the prophecy about the throne of David.

From the gospelcoalition.org:

“One of God’s most significant promises was to King David (2 Sam. 7)—and even the form of the genealogy points to David’s importance. Clearly this is a theological retelling. …His emphasis on 14 is purposeful and an example of gematria—when a set of letters’ numerical value makes a theological point. In Hebrew, David consists of three letters and has the numeric value of fourteen (dalet [4] + waw [6] + dalet [4]).

The periods are then divided to emphasize both the kings and the success or failure of the kingdom. This fits Matthew’s theological retelling of the Old Testament story in the triadic structure of three. The name David is also placed at the 14th and 15th spot in the genealogy, putting him at the pivot of the list (1:6). He is also named at the beginning and the end (1:1, 17).

From the outset, Matthew wants readers to see Jesus through the person of David. The genealogy—and Matthew’s entire Gospel, for that matter—is about how Jesus is David’s son.

God made a binding promise to David concerning one of his sons; the genealogy shows how he’s fulfilled it.” 

Luke’s genealogy

Lk.3:23-38 traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Adam. The section from Jesus back to Nathan, son of David, is believed to be the ancestry on Mary’s side, to follow the biological “seed” of Abraham. (see Gal.3:16)

Going back from Nathan’s father David to Abraham, Luke’s genealogy is identical to Matthew’s, and from Abraham back to Adam, it’s identical to Genesis.*

Another way to illustrate it

In Genesis, the ages of the fathers are recorded in the genealogy up to Jacob, for a total of 2108 years from the creation of Adam on day 6.

Another way of illustrating it is simply listing and adding the ages of the fathers when the chosen son was born.

Gen. ch. 5

Adam            130 Adam was 130 when Seth was born, and so…

Seth              105

Enosh             90

Kenan             70

Mahalalel       65

Jared             162

Enoch             65   confirmed in Jude 14

Methusalah 187  died in year of the Flood (see chart)

Lamech        182

Noah            502  

Shem year 1558

         year   1656  the Flood; Noah was 600

Gen.ch. 10:21-25, and Gen.ch.11:10-26

Shem            100     year 1658

Arpachshad  35

Shelah           30 possibly a grandson; because Luke adds Cainan as a son of Arpachshad

Eber               34

Peleg             30 earth divided (Babel?) 1787

Reu                32

Serug             30

Nahor            29

Terah             70

Abram, yr  1948

Abraham     100

Isaac              60

Jacob, yr    2108   4004-2108=1896 B.C.

Genesis is real history. 2Tim.3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God…” Here are a few examples supporting that truth:

The genealogy of Christ is continued in Ruth 4:17-18, 1Chronicles, Matthew1, and Luke3.

The ages of the fathers are not included, but the lineage from Adam to Abraham is precisely confirmed in Chronicles and Luke.

No difference in timeline whether sons or grandsons

*Luke adds Cainan between Arphaxad and Shelah, but that makes no difference in the total of the timeline. Luke was a meticulous historian. If he discovered Cainan as another son in the royal line, Shelah could have been a grandson instead of a son of Arphaxad. This does not create a ‘gap’ in the timeline. We still have the statement that Arphaxad was 35 when Shelah was born, whether Shelah was a son or a grandson.

Luke also adds Admin as the son of Ram, so Amminadab might have been Ram’s grandson.

No wiggle room

So in summary, there is no ‘wiggle room’ in the timescale from Adam to Jacob, and the time from Jacob’s birth in year 2108 to the birth of Christ (1896 years of history) is barely disputed by any historians. There are secular differences over Egyptian chronology and the time of the exodus, but we’re only talking about a few hundred years in dispute; not thousands (or millions!). So Ussher’s date of 4004 B.C. for the creation of Adam is completely in harmony with a straightforward reading of scripture. A denial of this undermines the inspiration of the bible.

last comment - about Archbishop Ussher

James Ussher, archbishop, 1581-1656 has been mercilessly ridiculed over the ages for taking Genesis literally, and adding his knowledge of history, to conclude that the Creation could be dated to 4004 B.C. What people don’t know is that Ussher was a “noted historian and Hebrew scholar.” His “Annals of the World”, a 1300 page history of the world to AD 70, written in Latin, is an awesome work. Ironically, most of the people who mock Ussher couldn’t hold a candle to him intellectually. “Annals of the World” has been translated into English by Larry and Marion Pierce and re-published. I have a copy and often refer to it. It’s a fascinating collation of historical events giving a broad picture of what else was happening at the same time as bible history. Ussher’s work is well documented with his many historical sources, some of which have been lost to us today. Only an ignorant person would ridicule it. Johannes Kepler, “who formulated the laws of planetary motion, calculated a creation date of 3992 B.C.”,and Isaac Newton, no slouch in intelligence or scientific acclaim, “defended a creation of about 4000 years”. (quotes from J.Sarfati’s interview of the Pierce’s)

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psa.11:3

Next week – the Ark and the Flood