Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Karl.

What I meant by "Ok..." is that even if you've made one part of a text 
'believable', there are still other parts of the text that also need to be 
made 'believable'. You have to agree that people living for centuries is 
beyond what we can tell as 'normal'. Just think about Ps 89.10 - 70 or 80 
years is a good life. You have to come up with a believable hypothesis for 
how people lived for centuries at one point in time. My hypothesis is that 
this is a literary device and that people didn't actually live for centuries. 
This is not the same as saying it's lying or incoherent, which is what you're 
implying your 'third option' is about. It's simply saying that at one point, 
this is how people talked about the past.

Finally, I know my beliefs mean nothing to you, which is why I added "FWIW". 
If you like, we can talk about that offlist.


Regards,

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