A lot of people have
spent an inordinate amount of time doing some really neat calculations with the
ages of the ancients given to us in Genesis 11 and elsewhere. These numbers have been used to estimate the age of the earth, to
speculate about the synchronization of human history to a 50 year Jubilee cycle, and so on.
Despite the fact that
we don’t know anyone in our day who has lived to 600 (or especially to 969,
like Methuselah), I take these rather strange accounts quite literally. If you
don’t, and you can find another logically consistent explanation for the
existence of such a careful and apparently historical record, good for you: I’m
not looking for a debate about it.
I find it interesting
to read and meditate on such things, though I don’t go to the lengths some do
in analyzing them.