Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Tory wrote:

"At least in this tradition Terah does not predecease any of his ancestors. 
Its actually a bit more believable, credible, than the outcome of the figures 
preserved in the MT."

OK. But now the next step is making individuals living for centuries 
believable. These genealogies just do not reflect the real world in the 
1-to-1 way this discussion assumes. It might reflect perceived relations and 
particular views of the past, but to claim that humans actually lived for 
centuries is really pushing it. I think we can deal with someone living for 
150 years (just), but beyond that, we're getting into the realm of creative 
literature. Are we also going to post that dogs lived longer, too?

I don't want to dredge up the discussions we've had in the past about what 
'year' means in this context, but if anyone does some comparative research, 
they'll see that there is a common practice in the ancient Near East to make 
your ancestors live unbelievably long lives. In Mesopotamia, we have records 
of kings reigning for thousands of years. This is just a literary device to 
portray a golden pristine age, and no actual chronological details can be 
plausibly gleaned from them.

Add to this the fact that Genesis shows evidence (esp. Gen 10) of an Iron II 
context (at the earliest), and this entire line of reasoning is quite 
questionable.


Regards,

GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au