2 Genesis, Chapter 5 - the begatitudes
And lest we forget, there are some literally incredibly long lifespans.
In 5:3-5, we’re told that Adam lived a hundred and thirty years before He begat His son, Seth, after which, He lived another eight hundred years begetting other sons and daughters too insignificant to merit birth announcements. Adam died at the ripe old age of nine hundred and thirty.
Seth (5:6-8) was a hundred and five before He begat Enos, then lived another eight hundred and seven years begetting unnamed sons and daughters, before finally taking the big dirt-nap at nine hundred and twelve.
Enos wasn’t quite so patient - He was a mere lad of ninety (5:9-11) when He begat Cainan, then lived eight hundred and fifteen more years begetting various assorted offspring. It’s rumored that on His nine hundred and fifth birthday, He simply fell face forward into the cake, and considering the number of candles, became the world’s first cremation. I know the rumor’s true, because I started it.
Cainan was only seventy (5:12-14) when He begat Mahalaleel, followed by a succession of other children, then gave it up at nine hundred and ten.
Mahalaleel really jumped the gun (5:15-17), being just a stripling of sixty-five when He begat Jared, then lived another eight hundred and thirty years, for a total of eight hundred and ninety-five in all. At His funeral, weeping ladies were overheard to bewail, “But he was so young...!”
Jared (5:18-20) showed a little more restraint, in that He waited a hundred and sixty-two years before begetting Enoch, then spent the next eight hundred years begetting yet another unnamed brood before packing it in at nine hundred and sixty-two.
Enoch was also sixty-five (5:21-24) when He begat Methuselah, after which He “walked with god,” while continuing to beget another passel of descendants.
Now Enoch lived only three hundred and sixty-five years, as far as we can tell. It seems that one sunny Mesopotomian day (5:24), “...Enoch walked with god: and he was not; for god took him.”
“...and he was not....” - an interesting choice of phrases, to say the least.
Note that it’s automatically assumed that god took Him. Were there any witnesses? To the writer of the Bible, there’s absolutely no possibility that Enoch fell into a hole, couldn’t get out, and died of thirst. Or that while walking in the desert, He was eaten by an Asian lion. Or that He just got tired of all of those unnamed kids bouncing off the tent walls and took a long walk over to Nod County to see if there were any more spontaneously-generated women with whom He could start all over under a different name and skip out on His child-support.
Now Methuselah (5:25-27) was a hundred and eighty-seven years old before He begat His first son, Lamech (there was something said at the time about a narrow urethra, but that was never firmly established). He then lived another seven hundred and eighty-two years while continuing to help populate the neighborhood, finally handing off the standard at a record nine hundred and sixty-nine years.
Like father, like son, Lamech (5:28-31) spent the first hundred and eighty-two years trying to have a son and was finally rewarded for all of His selfless effort when Noah was born. And for the next five hundred and ninety-five years, He continued to sire children until - a mere piker when it comes to longevity - He flatlined at a mere seven hundred and seventy-seven.
One could really question Noah’s interest in heterosexual activity, as He was a whopping five hundred years old before He fathered His sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Since all three were listed at once, whereas with the others, only the firstborn was named, one must wonder if these were triplets.
Age-wise, a hundred years ago, one’s fifties and sixties were considered old age. Today, there are fears that all of the “Baby Boomers,” those born during the nineteen forties and fifties, are going to use up all of the funds reserved by the government for Social Security, i.e., that portion left after politicians siphoned off most of it for pork-barrel projects that will never be repaid, but that’s outside the scope of this book, so don’t get me started on that!. Oh, that’s right - you didn’t. You’ll have to forgive me - I went away for awhile, but I’m back now --
Through scientific advancements, such as vaccines for Polio, Smallpox and Diphtheria, and through better health care and better dietary habits, we Humans - at least in America - have raised that barrier to seventy-five years. In biblical times, there was no health care to speak of. There are records of Egyptian “physicians” of the time actually drilling holes in the skulls of living, presumably feeling, patients, in an effort to allow evil spirits to escape. As late as the 1800’s, leaches were still in use to rid the ill of “bad blood.”
No sane, rational Human could possibly believe the incredibly long lifespans attributed to the Men in this chapter. But it must be admitted that such a literary device is an expedient way, if not a wise one, of filling in vast amounts of time, about which little or nothing is known.
I once heard a Television Evangelist defend the incredible lifespans of those ten men, from Adam to Noah, by saying, "they ate better in those days." Certainly, they didn't have a lot of Big Macs and chili-cheese fries (ummmmm, chili-cheese fries....) - sorry - but their diet consisted primarily of meat, thus the herds of sheep and cattle they all seemed to have, and as they historically had been nomadic, moving from location to location when grazing for their herds petered out, any veggies they may have added to their diets would have come from trading with those they met during their migrations. Consequently, their cholesterol levels were likely through the roof. Presumably, one has to study to become a minister, to actually take classes in Theology, and one would certainly hope, a crash course in Common-Sense 101 and a mandatory class in Ethics - that tells me that he knew better, he simply hoped that his audience didn't.
The New American Bible shares with us this little side-note to Chapter 5, in fine print, but at least openly and honestly, certainly more so than the Evangelist in question: "The long lifespans attributed to these ten antediluvian patriarchs have a symbolic, rather than a historical value. Babylonian tradition also recorded ten kings with fantastically high ages, who reigned successively before the flood." We'll explore this weak link in the chain of credibility and many others, when we come to Noah.
I made it a point to look into that claim, and boy, were they ever right! I know you'll recall that at least a couple of times, I've said that the first liar doesn't stand a chance - at least in this instance, I may have been
In this instance, the Sumerians were the original liars, the Hebrews only got the idea from them. If there's an exception to the "first liar doesn't stand a chance" rule, it would be when the first liar tells such whoppers that the second liar knows that if he tries to go the first liar one better, no one is going to believe him, so he deliberately tones his story down. That's clearly what happened with the Hebrews. Those Sumerians stretched the truth so far, it almost snapped!
They had a list of their kings, from the first king they could remember, to the last king they had before the Euphrates River overflowed its banks in 2900 BCE, (about which you'll read shortly), which the Sumerians called, "the flood." Not altogether surprisingly, they named their list, "The Kings' List" - one look at this and you'll understand why the Hebrews felt a need to downplay things and keep those exaggerated lifespans under a thousand years. I found it in Robert W. Rogers' The History of Babylonia, Assyria and Chaldea.
Actually, six different Sumerian Kings Lists have surfaced over the years, each written by a different author and though they agree on some of the kings, they disagree on others. One lists seven (or eight) kings, another eight, and two, ten. The figure below is that of one such list, written in cuneiform on a clay tablet.
Sumerian Kings List
Four of the recovered Kings Lists are provided below. It should be noted that the fourth was written by a Babylonian priest named, Berossos, who wrote his list, not in Sumerian, as one might expect, but in Greek. Berossos, whose name itself is Greek (whose Akkadian name was Belreusunu), wrote after the conquest of Alexander the Great, so the names on the list will not appear to match any of the Sumerian names on the other lists, but a translation from Greek to Sumerian was not available with a minimum of effort, so I've not provided one for you. I will point out however, that the king, Xisuthros, corresponds with the Sumerian flood legend of Ziusudra from Gods r Us, Part 6, a seemingly historical king who actually DID experience a flood when the Euphrates River overflowed its banks in 2900 B.C.E., to a depth of 22.5 feet and flooded a couple of counties in ancient Iraq, from which Ziusudra, as mentioned earlier, escaped on a trading barge loaded with cattle, cotton and beer.
These each end with, "Then the flood swept over."
On a sidenote, pay close attention to just how many of those kings' names begin with "En" - that will be important later, when we try to determine just where the Bible's god originated.
On a sidenote, pay close attention to just how many of those kings' names begin with "En" - that will be important later, when we try to determine just where the Bible's god originated.
But do you see what I mean? Even the Hebrews, who plagiarized heavily from Mesopotamian folklore to fill in the blanks of their own history, knew that no matter how gullible their population may have been, they weren't likely to accept without question, 42,000-year lifespans. As long as it was kept under a thousand though, they'd buy it, or at least put up a down payment.
The literature goes on to say,
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
The literature goes on to say,
"Excavations in Iraq have revealed evidence of localized flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities. A layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to ca. 2900 BC, interrupts the continuity of settlement, extending as far north as the city of Kish. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (3000-2900 BC) was discovered immediately below the Shuruppak flood stratum."Wait a minute - "localized flooding at Shuruppak and various other Sumerian cities"? That's IT?! That's THE FLOOD?! I'm confused, didn't THE FLOOD cover all the earth, even 15 cubits higher than the highest mountain? I know I read it somewhere - I'm pretty sure it's in the book --
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
Posted by archaeopteryx at 6/5/2011 9:03 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Religion atheism Ham Shem Japheth Sumerian Kings' List Bible Enoch ten Hebrew Patriarchs Seth Enos Cainan Mahalaleel Jared Methuselah Lamech The New American Bible Sumeria Sumerians Hebrews Berossos/Belreusunu Akkadian Ziusudra/Xisuthros Akkad Shuruppak Christianity Judaism Islam god biblical inerrancy biblical mythology Babylonia
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Religion atheism Ham Shem Japheth Sumerian Kings' List Bible Enoch ten Hebrew Patriarchs Seth Enos Cainan Mahalaleel Jared Methuselah Lamech The New American Bible Sumeria Sumerians Hebrews Berossos/Belreusunu Akkadian Ziusudra/Xisuthros Akkad Shuruppak Christianity Judaism Islam god biblical inerrancy biblical mythology Babylonia
I gotta a huge problem with this. On this planet today there are 1000's and 1000's of people who believe the bible is the literal word of god, but a side-note in the bible says this long life thing was more symbolic than factual. DOESN'T THAT OPEN THE FLOODGATES FOR THE WHOLE BOOK! Just maybe the entire bible is one big symbolic existence for god having thrown the universe into existence, wishing it well, and possibly saying, "Don't forget about me." Is it any wonder that the bible is categorically placed in the library along side Greek mythology, Norse mythology and all other long-winded bed time stories.
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Fizzbinn, RE: "a side-note in the bible says this long life thing was more symbolic than factual"
It sounds as though you use the Catholic Bible, which does indeed actually admit just that. The King James version, however, is strangely silent on the subject.
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432,000 and all its "harmonics" are very important numbers. 4320 is found in Luke Chapter 1 when all the numbers are multiplied. It represents "The Children of Light" (Gospel of Thomas). 4320 divided by 2 = 2160 (dia. of moon)
432,000 x 2 = 864,000 (dia. of sun)
432 x 432 = 186,624, (awfully close to the speed of light).
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Paula - you're likely aware that the "Gospel of Thomas" is considered "apocryphal," as is the "Book of the Jubilees," so determined by the Nicene Conference of 335 AD, that decided which of the myriad biblical books would, and which would not, be included in the Bible. I intend discussing that conference when the New Testament is discussed.
"Apocryphal," for those who don't know, means the authenticity of authorship is in question, but the truth is, that many of the books the conference INCLUDED into the Bible are equally apocryphal.
As for the numbers you mention, how would you account for that seeming coincidence?
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
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