Are the ages meant to be taken literally?
Please don't delete my thread again, it violates no board rule and I am Christian…
Genesis chapter 5
Gavin Barnes
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Angel Long
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Oliver Moore
Origen is alexandrinian and alexandrinians don't take the Bible literally. This is ok, in fact the explanation of the Pentateuch by St.Cyril of Alexandria is my favorite. But it also means we can not use reliably the opinion of Origen in order to answer the question of the OP.
Pleads like "Please don't delete my thread again, it violates no board rule" and posts like >>>/christ/16916 make me sad.
How is this thread related to ?
Liam Hill
Wasn’t he a heretic?
Can I please get a quick rundown?
Christian Cruz
Unfortunately there is no English translation.
The interpretation of St.Cyril is highly symbolic. At first it seemed to me arbitrary (because St. Cyril never explains his reasoning). But after a while I changed my mind and now I think that there is a system that governs the interpretation of St.Cyril, a system that makes the text of the Bible meaningful. I'll give you an example, however I will do this by memory and lots of what I write here will be my own interpretation and not St.Cyril's.
The crossing of Jordan river by the Hebrews symbolizes the baptism and transition from the Old to the New testament. The Hebrews who enter the promised land are the Christians and their community in the promised land is the Church. Moses is not permitted to enter the promised land, he only sees it from afar from a mountain. In the promised land we are led not by Moses but by Jesus (in the Septuagint the name of Joshua is translated as Jesus). The tribe of the firstborn of Jacob – Ruben – is among the tribes that settle on the east from Jordan. This firstborn son symbolizes the Hebrews during the Old Testament. Ruben settles together with Gad, a son of a slavegirl. So Ruben is like Ishmael, the firstborn of Abraham from the slavegirl Hagar who, however, doesn't have firstborn rights. In chapter 22 of the book of Joshua the "old testament" tribes build a temple. This temple symbolizes the temple in Jerusalem. However, no sacrifices are permited in the temple of these tribes which can tell us that the sacrifices in the temple of Jerusalem are not real but only images of what is about to come in the New Testament. The extermination of the pupulation in the promised land symbolizes the spiritual war every Christian has to do. In this war God fights with us and we overcome adversaries stronger than us. One of the tribes, that of Dan, however, didn't want to exterminate the population in their portion of the promised land. The Danites said – these people are very well armed and stronger than us, we can not win. So what did Danites do? They went to the nord, outside the official borders of the promised land, in a place with some worriless and lazy people, they killed these people and settled in their land. The Danites symbolize those of the members of the Church that are worriless and lazy. They will not enter the Kingdom of God and they will hear "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’" (Matthew 22:12)
Although St.Cyril explains the various numbers in the Pentateuch (such as the sizes of the Ark and the Tabernacle), he doesn't do this for the years of the patriarchs in chapter 5 of Genesis. He only notices that the descendants of Seth are given specific years in the Bible while the descendants of Cain are not given. This is to tell us that God doesn't want to know the lifes of the sinners who will hear ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ (Matthew 25:12)
Carson Russell
As a Catholic?
Yes the ages are literal. Unless someone comes with a better explanation that agrees with Tradition.
Caleb Young
Interesting but it seems unlikely that it's "all just symbolism"…
Is there an italian, french, spanish or portuguese translation?
Yes.
Christian Myers
The funny thing is the ages seem to make 'sense' if you substitute years (365 days) for lunar months (29.5 days). And the Hebrew calendar happens to be lunisolar.
Adam 930 years 930 lunar months = 75 years
Lamech 777 years 777 lunar months = 63 years
Enoch 365 years 365 lunar months = 29 years
Methuselah 969 years 969 lunar months = 78 years
Noah building the ship at 600 years lunar months old = age 48 years
I'm not saying there was a scribal error early on that substituted lunar months for years, but it's an interesting coincidence.
Dylan Mitchell
Look, you can plenty of spiritual and allegory to draw from Scripture, but be careful.
At the end of the day, what's recorded in Holy Scripture actually happened.
Did it foreshadow certain things? Absolutely. Did it also have secondary meanings? You bet.
But they did happen.
If you don't take the ages literally, why take anything else?
Levi Sanchez
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
Because with our current knowledge of the world and genetics, humans existing for a few millennia is less credible than God Incarnate resurrecting from the dead.
Jonathan Taylor
There's a containment thread specifically for these types of questions but no one likes to use it.
Jose Hall
Yes
Jaxson Barnes
How old is the Earth then?
Angel Flores
No, it doesn't. That means Enoch begat Methuselah at 7 years old.
Logan Murphy
6300
Wyatt Jenkins
Hudson Kelly
I'm sure he's going to say something about how (((academia))) is nothing but godless heathens or something. Also don't use Wikipedia
Hudson Cruz
Or if you substitute 10 years for 1, taking the last digit, which always is 0, 2, 5 or 7 as an indication of the season, spring, summer, autumn or winter. Things become even "funnier" when one notices that with the numbers in the Septuagint not only the ages, but also the years of birth seem to make 'sense' after such a substitution.
Anyway, I also think that this is merely an interesting coincidence. This theory has been proposed by Robert Best in the book "Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic: Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth".
No scribal error is possible in these numbers because the text states the years before birth, the years after birth and the sum of these two numbers. There were, however, intentional editions of the text. Not only in Genesis 5, but of the entire Bible, as evidenced by the texts in Qumran. Contradictions were removed, the meaning of unclear things was explained by small additions in the text, the grammar was revised, etc.
But does 'older version' always equate 'better version'?
Hint 1: The author of 1 Chronicles in chapters 1-9 didn't use the original version of the Pentateuch but a "newer" version.
Hint 2: Although the masoretic version of Pentateuch is surprisingly ancient (only the numbers in Genesis 5 seem to be edited), in the books of Samuel the situation is opposite: the masoretic version is very new. The version of Samuel in Septuagint was old, this old version, however, is not entirely preserved because in the Greek text we have now large parts have been replaced by the so called Kaige recension which is a new translation from the Masoretic text, most likely by Teodotion. It seems to me that if God wanted us to use the original version of Samuel (and Kings) then He would have preserved this original text, if not in Hebrew, then at least in Greek translation.
What is your problem?
According to the Masoretic numbers, Earth was created 4000 years before the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem by the Hasmoneans, 4000 years before the festival of Hanukkah was instituted in 167 BC. Coincidence?
Use the numbers in the Septuagint. ☺
Carson Walker
4.54 ± 0.05 billion years
Zachary Reyes
Why?
Nathan Wright
It's just better to look up the sources used firsthand than use a wiki page. Some people have a tendency to tweak pages or put unsourved info in there.
Jackson Fisher
Augustine already refuted that theory.
The longevity of the patriarchs is needed to explain the propagation of the human race. Hadn't Adam lived 900 years and something he wouldn't have made enough kids to populated the earth.
Isaac Cooper
4.543 billion years
Ian Ramirez
Can't I look up the sources from the wiki page? The ones that are usually posted at the bottom.
Gavin Moore
Just because anatomical modern "humans" appeared 40k years ago nothing can tell us if they were animals or had a soul. And even if they had souls nothing would disprove that Adam and Eve were our first parents.
That's the key thing here. One can even consider the ages of the patriarchs non literally since it isn't an heresy per se, but one must recognise that Adam and Eve were historical, otherwise the Catholic foundation of the original sin crumbles.
Austin Butler
That's what I said though.
Benjamin Foster
Gorillas can't talk by gestures or using symbols on a computer.
Doesn't prove anything. How can you say that they had the desire to know God for instance?
Some people say that the hate rites for their dead, but also do some animals like elephants that cry when one of them dies, they just can't bury them for obvious reasons.
Cameron Richardson
*gorilla's can talk
Ethan Evans
But here's the difference: humans taught her to do so. We learned it on our own, same with tools and art.
How can I prove isolated tribes desire to know God? I think we could make an educated guess and say yes.
That does raise interesting questions, but I have no answer at this point.
Jeremiah Martin
Neat
William Hughes
Because they have their gods. Normally they are animists or something.
so did your parents teach you how to talk. And besides chimps also use tools and they teach their kids how to use them as well. I guess it can't be used as an argument for this matter.
The question of art is another thing, unless we admit that the paintings had a practical purpose for hunting and/or to teach them stuff about their environment instead of saying they did the paintings for the same reason an artist does it.
Noah Reyes
And yet people from 40,000 years ago who seem to show the same cultural development as any modern tribesman today, and look identical to us were fundamentally different?
We're talking on a species-wide frame here, not individuals.
They use rocks to smash nuts, and twigs to catch termites. The earliest oldowan tools show clear signs of deliberation in their construction, meaning a different level of cognition from any chimp.
And considering the level of detail shown in the paintings, it seems aesthetic rather than practical.
Landon Jones
The only thing we've got on them is their rites of the dead which on itself doesn't give us any more info. We can say nothing about a supposed religion.
It still can be traced back to their antecessors who gradually learned to do certain things.
The human body is better suited to make tools than the one of a monkey. That's an argument on part of the materialists that explains mankind success over the other animals.
That's just an opinion based on what we understand as art for them it could mean nothing at all. There are beautiful landscapes that seem they were carved by an artist and sometimes it really looks like an object or animal, when it reality the rock was just sculptured by the wind.
Jose Perez
PS. Even if we consider that those people 40k years ago were real humans body and soul nothing stop us from saying Adam was made 40k years ago.
There would just be a problem with the ages and stuff, but that's a minor issue.
Camden Carter
Homo ergaster was not an anatomically modern human, but he was able to colonise the islands of Indonesia. Animals don't build boats or rafts for organized migration to unknown land.
Neanderthals had bigger brains than modern humans and they put flowers with their dead. Animals don't do this.
In the past the scientists considered the white race superior to the other races. And yes, I am talking about very normal scientists; this opinion was normal in the past. Modern scientists are no better because they consider the "anatomically modern human" superior to the other humans. Only because these other humans don't look like them.
The good thing is that the scientists are slowly changing their mind. Most of them no longer consider Neanderthals stupid and the intelligence of
Homo ergaster is also under discusion.
Jace Rivera
The argument of intelligence doesn't convince me.
Certainly one day AI will be capable of that and much more. Still doesn't make it human.
Some tiggers in certain parts of Africa and people with mental disabilities have lower IQ than some gorillas, but that doesn't mean that the gorilla has a soul and they don't. In that case tiggers have souls while although smarter chimps are just animals.
William Moore
"And the LORD God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7)
The following is by St. Gregory Palamas:
"In the begining God breathed into the face of the first created. What did He breath? "The breath of life". What is this breath of life? A living soul. Let Paul teaches you: "The fist man became a living being". (1 Cor. 15:45) What does "living" means? Ever-living, immortal, or what is the same, rational (λογική). Because immortal means rational, and not only this, but also divinely engraced. Because such, indeed, is the living soul."
Logan Rogers
I don't mean intelligence to solve problems = rational.
Try this. Explain the Christian faith to a dog and the to a human. Who from the two are capable of understanding it a bit? Only the human because the animal has no desire of God nor can't even think about it.
The same thing with hominids. There's no proof that they were rational in this sense.
Gabriel Lee
Why do you care? I could give you some argumentation, but this would be pointles because, as St. Gregory Palamas says it "it is impossible to invent words that win conclusively and don't know defeat; this has been demonstrated by the followers of the Greeks and those whom they consider wise, for they refute each other all the time with stronger in appearance verbal proofs".
The Church teaches us that there is Adam from whom all people descended. This is something we have to believe. But for the rest it realy doesn't matter what you think. If you want you can think that the other hominids were not humans or if you want you can think that they were humans. If you want you can think that Earth existed for few thousand years, or if you want you can think that Earth existed for few bilion years. About this St. Gregory says:
"All that the Spirit has omitted and that others have invented, even if it is true, is useless for the salvation of the soul, because the teaching of the Spirit can not omit anything useful. It is no accident that we do not blame disagreements on insignificant issues and we do not praise when someone knows more about them than others."
Michael Ross
We're hominids, we're in the family Hominidae. What exactly do you mean?
Ryan Collins
I mean not yet humans
This tbh
Mason Taylor
Septuagint says Methuselah survived the flood by 14 years
LXX: Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27)
MAS: Methuselah lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27
LXX: Meth. 167 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)
MAS: Meth. 187 years old when Lamech born (Gen 5:25)
LXX: Lamech 188 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)
MAS: Lamech 182 years old when Noah born (Gen 5:28)
LXX: Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)
MAS: Noah 600 years old when flood began (Gen 7:6)
LXX: 167+188+600=955 years old when flood began
MAS: 187+182+600=969 years old when flood began
ecmarsh.com
Thus, according to the LXX, Methuselah lived another 14 years after the flood began.
Colton Howard
Shh, you'll cause mental dissonance.
Isaiah Garcia
A shame the original Hebrew text was lost.
All we've got now is the version of the dudes that say jesus is in hell
Connor Cruz
...
Ayden Cooper
He means "hominid" the older sense before the classification got revised again. Basically any bipedal ape that preceded humans proper, and that goes for anything from heidelbergensis to australopithecus, and maybe even Ardi and Orrorin.
Easton Butler
No Jew will be able to erase the original word of God. I'm disappointed that you think they were able.
Benjamin Brown
Isn't the masoreric text different from the original since its lost?
Mason Turner
If we are about to throw mental dissonances at each other, then take this.
According to Genesis 46:11 Kohath was among the children of Israel who originally entered Egypt. According to the genealogy in Exodus 6:14-25
Kohath lived 133 years
Amram lived 137 years
Moses was a son of Amram.
According to Exodus 7:7 Moses was 80 years when he first confronted Phararoh. Since this was supposed to have happened during the final year of Israel's stay in Egypt there can be no more than 133+137+80=350 years between the entering of Kohath in Egypt and the Exodus.
According to the masoretic version of Exodus 12:40 Israel spent 430 years in Egypt.
According to the Septuagint and the Samaritan version the stay in Egypt was only 215 years, so there is no contradiction either with the above calculations, nor with Galatians 3:17.
—————————
Anyway, my opinion about all this is this: if you worry about such discrepancies then you are missing the point of the Bible. These discrepancies exist in order to give us a hint that we must not be smart guys when we read the Bible. Remember that "the “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up" (1 Cor. 8:1), that "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6) and that nobody can understand the Bible without grace.
Gavin Collins
Fellow, if you think the original version is lost, what precisely are you doing here?
Psalm 12:6-7
The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
Isaiah 59:21
As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Zachary Edwards
Oh yeah and by the way, Amram the father of Moses is not the same as Amram the son of Kohath. We know this because the number of descendants of Kohath's four sons was 8,600 according to Numbers 3:28.
If "the Amramites" were the sons of Moses' father, that would mean Moses (since he had two sons) had roughly 2,147 brothers plus nephews. That's not even counting females.
Hunter Morales
My friend I was talking about the age thing. Both texts contradict each other on the matter of ages so having the original would settle the dispute.
I wasn't implying that we need the originals otherwise everything is a lie.
I agree with your post btw.
Hudson Edwards
You can have the original words without having the ancient manuscripts at your hands. And with God behind it, it's possible. I think Isaiah 59:21 makes it quite obvious that the very exact "words which I have put in thy mouth" have never left this world, and that no Jew has the power to prevent that. Even in one case where a Jew got hands on the original: see Jeremiah 36 for a nice example.
Austin Bailey
Read again Exodus 6:16-20. This is a genealogy of Moses son of Amram son of Kohath son of Levi. Don't twist the word of God only because you have found another discrepancy between the Bible and your smart way of thinking. ☺
Robert Russell
Numbers 3:28 my fine friend. Get back to us when you're done with that.
Liam Cox
I've done that, of course. It's just another discrepancy in the Bible which is there to teach us how we are supposed to read the Bible. Don't overthink, have a simple mind.
Sebastian Walker
God's word is infallible, whether or not you or I see it. It can be trusted. That's how we got saved, that's how churches function. 1 Thessalonians 2:13, John 17:17.
Ian Sanders
James Evans
Also BTW the way that "contradiction" is in the LXX also so you proved literally nothing.
Aiden Peterson
And proving the MAS wrong doesn't make the LXX right. And you didn't explain the genealogy in Gen 5.
Brody Carter
If you think I am trying to prove LXX right, then you didn't understand my point. Accordign to Exodus 6 Moses is son of Amram son of Kohath son of Levi. This, however, contradicts Numbers 3:28 and Exodus 12:40. Face this contradiction, accept it. Don't twist the word of God only because your weak but unrestrained human intellect does not know how to deal with the infinite wisdom of God. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Corinthians 1:25)
Read this again:
"And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari […] And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel; […] And Amram took Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses" (Exodus 6:16-20)
And this:
"And Kohath begat Amram. And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister." (Numbers 6:58b-59)
If you deny the plain and very obvious meaning of these two places, then you risk to be left with sola ratio humana instead of sola scriptura.
Dominic Fisher
If you think I am trying to prove LXX right, then you haven't understood my point. Accordign to Exodus 6 Moses is son of Amram son of Kohath son of Levi. This, however, contradicts Numbers 3:28 and Exodus 12:40. Face this contradiction, accept it. Don't twist the word of God only because your weak but unrestrained human intellect does not know how to deal with the infinite wisdom of God. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Corinthians 1:25)
Read this again:
"And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari […] And the sons of Kohath: Amram, and Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel; […] And Amram took Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses" (Exodus 6:16-20)
And this:
"And Kohath begat Amram. And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister." (Numbers 26:58b-59)
If you deny the plain and very obvious meaning of these two places, then you risk to be left with sola ratio humana instead of sola scriptura.
Charles Diaz
You're still not getting it. Amram father of Moses was multiple generations down from Kohath.
The same exact generation skip happens in Ezra 7:3. It goes Amariah, Azariah, Meraioth. But you'll notice if you go backwards from Seraiah in 1 Chronicles 6:14, you'll eventually get to Azariah at the beginning of 1 Chron. 6:11. Then the Ezra 7:3 geneology jumps seven generations to Meraioth in 1 Chron. 6:7, effectively omitting the names of:
-Johanan
-Azariah
-Ahimaaz
-Zadok
-Ahitub
-Amariah
So according to Ezra 7:3, Azariah the direct son of Johanan, was also called the son of Meraioth in Ezra 7:3. So it happens. And Christ was also called the Son of David and this is accurate as well. In fact Revelation 22:16 our Lord is the root and the offspring of David, but that's another story in itself.
The key note is that the geneology of Moses is not important for deriving a chronology because we already know how long they were in Egypt— 430 years to be precise. All of the chronologically significant geneologies (like those outside of the 430 years, the 40 year wilderness or the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:1) and also those of Christ have been given and are available.
Now stop and look at yourself, you're simply playing the Devil's advocate in this conversation. There is no need to be in disagreement about this. Maybe you're stressing out over details that God didn't want to give us. Kind of like how the census was intentionally limited; yet we still got all the details that were necessary. God has a purpose in all this.
I'm hoping you aren't simply coming to a presupposition that scripture must be flawed. That would be a very tragic mistake.
Matthew Mitchell
Also Numbers 3:28 independently is enough to verify that there are two different Amram's here. I didn't even need to bring it up. In fact all I really needed to show was that it had to be 430 years from all the other references, because the Bible never contradicts itself.
Connor Evans
But this is what you say, not the Bible. The Bible says that Amram took Kohath's sister to wife.
No, the scripture is not flawed. However your interpretation 'is flawed and this follows from the fact that you need to deny the very obvious and clear meaning of Exodus 6:16-20 and Numbers 26:58b-59.
You have no other choice: either you will accept all of the word of God and learn from the apparent contradictions, or you will deny the word of God by imposing your logic over it.
Michael Garcia
Search for Kent Hovind
Liam Young
Don't tell /ss/