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"Someone slipped up the distinction between years and generations and a legend was born" still seems enormously more probable than anomalous longevity existing
by jjoonathan 7y ago
"Someone slipped up the distinction between years and generations and a legend was born" still seems enormously more probable than anomalous longevity existing but somehow never making it into the wider gene pool.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoDo you (they) mean "distinction between years and months"? That would be between solar cycles and lunar cycles: seems enticing. That would make Methuselah 80yo when he reportedly died; but there are problems still as Seth (for example) became a father at 105, which if it were months would be 8¾ years. Another possibility is that when it says Methuselah it just means "Methuselah's blood line" or "Methuselah the tribe"; it's a Hebraic thing (elsewhere in the OT) to refer to a tribe as if referring to the founding person. Or, the person writing down the numbers used a different system, through error or otherwise.
- jjoonathan 7y agoYeah, they would both account for being off by a factor of 10-20. As would any of a dozen other simple mistakes or embellishments, in all likelihood. IIRC the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has a bunch of direct numerical self-inconsistencies if one needs proof that this sort of slipup is possible, which one shouldn't, because of course it is.