penguinfan

I had read in one study Bible I have that the longevity of the Biblical patriarchs from Genesis 5, in which ten patriarchs with exceptionally long lifespans are named, is seen as a sort of 'borrowing' from the Sumerian King list - in which ten kings are listed before the flood with exceptionally long lives, if I'm not mistaken.

This is especially apparent when one reads the life spans of Sumerian kings before and after the flood where, like the life spans of the Patriarchs in the Bible, are significantly shorter in the post flood world.

My question is mainly to Jews and Christians (although anyone can contribute) - what would have been the significance, theologically speaking, to borrow these long lifespans from the Sumerians?

I can understand borrowing the creation story from other cultures and re-interpreting the creation of the world and man, but I fail to see what would be the significance of attributing long life spans to the Patriarchs just because the Sumerians also had a list of their kings with long life spans.

Hopefully my question is clear.

Susan2

Does a long life span suggest peace? Obviously, Sumerian is a single individual nation that existed amongst other nations as it's own nation?

Then comes the global flood, the desire to own all, or that all be a global one; one great big happy family. Is that realistic? Or, is it an overwhelming, daunting endeavor that drowns us according to the OT, or sends us to hell according to the NT?

Monotheism?


Immediately afterwards nations are short lived, and the peace promised is never achieved, even unto this day. Isn't this what happened to Rome?

storytime

I don't think the length of age in number of years is about an individual, but instead, about the number of years the peopled community held that name. Adam, for example "begot" people as alliances or confederates to his name, called them "sons of Adam", "the family of Adam", "Adams family", thus, Adam "lived" 930 years and then he died. (His name died out)

The most popular name in America is probably "Smith". There are thousands of "Smiths". "Smith" may live 930 years and then die out. "Brown" is a close second.

Failte

I was taught that it was, indeed, the actual lifespan of an individual (raised RC). Adam lived, what, 900 years? It certainly makes more sense for it to be 'their legacy lasted...", but my fundy friend tells me that it was simply because "people lived longer before the flood".

Susan2

So, people and/or nations live longer, prosperous, and peaceful when they are not flooded with burdens.

Failte

Except that he meant the literal flood, of course.

Does that mean you believe that a human being actually lived over 900 years? Why?

Anat

Well if you read Genesis it looks like God created humans to be long-lived, but it turned out it just gave them more opportunities to do evil so he brought along a flood to wipe (all but a few of) them out and reprogrammed them to live shorter lives. So it looks like part of the interpretation of the flood as punishment for human evil.

semiopen

Why not post a link in the OP?

Sumerian_King_List

The first 8 kings were ruling for an average of about 30,000 years.

Maybe the bible borrows the tendency for long life spans, but this seems like a different type of delusion.

Sai

i wonder how it was for them when their teeth wore out after less than a hundred years.

semiopen

Maybe the concept seemed so ridiculous that the bible writers cut down the life span to something more plausible. Guess the joke was on them though, because at least the Sumerian list has more years since creation and is therefore more accurate.

The bible lifespans were pretty fluid, they were easy to edit to get a certain number of years. I think there are differences even between LXX and the Masoretic text (for example, Methuselah is not dead when the flood happens in LXX).