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IFRAME: [1]age_patriarchs_files/header.html
Exagerrated Ages of the Sumerian/Babylonian Kings
Compared with those of the Hebrew Patriarchs
by Edward T. Babinski
IFRAME: [2]age_patriarchs_files/news_04.html
According to ancient Sumerian/Babylonian "king lists," their kings
could live for tens of thousands of years, but of course the worthiest
of the kings lists were not merely men, but gods or demigods ("kings
from heaven"), whose ages could consequently be recorded
astronomically. The Hebrew authors dealt only with men, and therefore
the ages they assigned to them are comparatively modest, less than a
thousand years, because above one thousand years is a perspective
proper to God alone. (Ps. 90:4). (The Hebrews were partial to that
number, "1000," as anyone can see who does a "search" for it
throughout the Bible.)
Interestingly, both the "king lists" and the Hebrew list of the
patriarchs are composed of ten kings/patriarchs. And in both lists the
number of years that a king reigned (or patriarch lived) dropped after
"the Flood." (The Sumerian/Babylonians had their own "Flood" story
that pre-dates the one found in Genesis.) In fact the Babylonian
king's ages dropped after their "Flood story" to ages appropriate to
the ages of the Hebrew partriarchs before the Flood, i.e., none of the
kings after the Flood reigned longer than 960 years.
Professor Bruce Vawtner in A Path Through Genesis, suggests that "Both
the Hebrews and Sumerians/Babylonians knew that many more than ten
generations had elapsed during these periods. To bridge over the
enormous gaps in time, therefore, both of them assigned tremendous
ages to the few names that they possessed. While the Babylonians
simply set down astronomical figures, none of them under twenty
thousand years, the Hebrew author has been comparatively moderate, and
above all, he made his ten generations serve a religious purpose."
But before discussing the ages of the Biblical patriarchs further, one
must note that there are three different sources for the Hebrew Bible,
the ancient Masoretic text, the Septuagint text, and the Samaritan
text, and they record slightly different ages for the patriarchs, and
different totals as well if you added all their ages up in a straight
line one after the other. The MT gives a total of 1656 years, the
Septuagint gives 2242 years, while the Samaritan text gives 1307 year.
The MT is the one used in most modern day Bible translations.
According to the MT text, Noah is the first man to be born (in the
year 1056) after the death of Adam (in the year 930). Thus the author
singles out Noah at birth as the beginning of the new generation of
post-Adamic man that will follow after the Flood. This contrivance is
further strengthened by the Hebrew author's choice to have Methuselah,
the longest lived man of the old generation (before the Flood) die
precisely in the year when the Flood begins. A clean sweep, therefore,
is made of all the patriarchs that preceded Noah and the Flood. And
this neatly excludes any implication that the patriarchs were linked
to the corrupt world that had to be destroyed, since the last, and the
most aged of them dies immediately prior to the Flood. At least that's
according to ages given in the MT version of the Old Testament.
Secondly, in the MT the age at which the patriarchs "begot," drops
progressively till the beginning of the second half of the list is
reached, i.e., Jared.
Adam, who precedes the first five on the list, and Jared, who precedes
the last five of the original ten patriarchs, also lives an identical
length of time after "begetting," i.e., 800 years. Jared also begins
his "begetting" 32 years later than Adam, which happens to be 1/2 of
the 65 years at which Mahalalel and Enoch (on either of Jared) begin
"begetting."
Enoch, the traditional holy man of the period, who occupies the
symbolic 7th place on the list (and whom God "took") also lived a
symbolic number of years (365 being the number of days in the solar
year). And simply by doubling Enoch's year at "begetting," you arrive
at Adam's. In fact, all of the numbers of the MT for the ages of the
patriarchs, aside from the total age of Methuselah, are in multiples
of five or in multiples of five with the addition of seven (seven
being the most popular number in the Bible, appearing in various
capacities at total of over 500 times). The ancient
Sumerian/Babylonian kings list employed a similar fancy of "adding
seven" to numbers, like when in two places it explicitly stated that
the total length of the monarchic period preceding the Babylonian
Flood was "a great sar plus seven sar."
Other aspects also hint of artifice: In Gen. 6:3 God "allows" man 120
year to live. Subsequently Moses, the supposed author of that passage,
goes on to live exactly 120 years. (Yet in Ps. 90:10 we are told that
man lives only 70 years, ah, there's that "seven" again.) Joseph went
to Egypt, and lo, lived to be the ideal Egyptian age of 110 years,
then Joshua retrieves Joseph's bones from Egypt and also lives 110
years. Lastly, compare how awkwardly the author of Gen. 11:10-26 and
Gen. 25:8 juxtaposes the scene at Abraham's death with the age of his
distant relative, Shem, as though he had no idea that people still
lived so long as Shem. For the author states that Abraham died "at a
good old age, an old man, after a full life," while Shem, Abraham's 7X
great grandfather lived to SEE his 7X great grandson die "at a good
old age, an old man, after a full life!" For Shem was, if we take Gen.
11:10-26 literally, alive and 565 years old when Abraham died at a
mere 175 years of age.
Vawter's book in chapter 6 and 7 discusses some of the other
artifices. All in all, the ages of the partriarchs like the ages of
the Sumerian/Babylonian kings, appear mythically larger than life,
growing less so the nearer each king (or patriarch) came to the
author's actual day. "The Flood" was of course a major disjunction in
both their mythologies, separating the world of demi-god-kings (or
patriarchs whose father was "born at the creation and walked with
God") with the latter world nearer to the author's own day.
- E.T.B.
EXAGERRATED AGES OF THE BIBLICAL PATRIARCHS It is certain that one
cannot build up a chronology on the spans of years attributed to the
Patriarchs, nor regard it as factual that Abraham was seventy-five
years old when he left Harran and a hundred when Isaac was born and
that Jacob was a hundred and thirty when he went into Egypt, for the
evidence from the skeletons in the Jericho tombs shows that the
expectations of life at this period was short. Many individuals seem
to have died before they were thirty-five, and few seem to have
reached the age of fifty.
- Dr. Kathleen Kenyon (the eminent excavator of the city-mound of
Jericho)