doctrbill writes:
quote:
I believe doctrbill has offered an efficient answer to this question:
http://www.sun-day-school.us/many_moons.htm
Specifically, this states that when the Bible says "year," it really means "month."
There's a problem with this...in the same geneologies where these people are described as living for hundreds upon hundreds of years, they are also listed as having children.
If we take the ages to be months instead of years, these people were fathering children when they were 8 years old. While this might be acceptable when it comes to Adam, who was seemingly created as an adult, it doesn't make any sense when it comes to any of the others. For example Cainan, great-grandson of Adam, fathered his first child, Mahalaleel, when he was 70:
Genesis 5:12: And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel:
Now, if "years" really means months, then Cainan was only 5 when he did this. Note that the next verse says that Cainan lived an incredibly long time:
Genesis 5:13: And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:
This makes him 910 when he died. Again, if "years" are really months, this is fine since this would put him in his 70s but if so, his parents are guilty of heinous abuse of their child not to mention the biological miracle of being potent at that age.
But wait...later on we hear of the generations of Shem, son of Noah. These people, too, are living incredibly long lives. For example, Salah, grandson of Shem, lived to be 433. But, he had a son when he was only 30. If "years" really means months, he died when he was 35 and had a child when he was only 2.
Somehow, I don't think the claim of it being months instead of years can be claimed as the real interpretation.
Instead, it's just another incredible, mythological trait.
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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!