Methuselah
This article is about the Biblical character. See Methuselah (disambiguation) for other uses.Methuselah or
Metushélach (
Hebrew מְתוּשֶׁלַח /
מְתוּשָׁלַח "Man of the dart", or alternatively "when he dies, it shall be sent"
Standard Hebrew Mətušélaḥ /
Mətušálaḥ,
Tiberian Hebrew Məṯûšélaḥ /
Məṯûšālaḥ) was the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the
Hebrew Bible. He reportedly reached the age of 969 years. According to the
Book of Genesis 5:27: "And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died" (
American Standard Version). The name
Methuselah has become a general synonym for any living creature of great age.
He is mentioned in
Genesis as the son of
Enoch and the father of
Lamech (father of
Noah), whom he fathered at the age of 187. A close reading of the dates in the
Old Testament reveals that Methuselah is said to have died in the year of the
Great Flood, but the Bible does not indicate if the cause of his death was by drowning. Some have interpreted his name as a prophecy: when he dies, the Flood will come. In that case, the long life has an allegorical dimension, showing that God withheld judgment on mankind for a very long time.
Methuselah is mentioned in the
Book of Enoch as being the son of Enoch and as having brothers. The writer tells Methuselah of the coming Deluge and of a future Messianic kingdom. [
1]
Modern science puts the natural limit on current human longevity well below 150 years.
Guinness Records for the oldest living person have long remained within the range from age 112 to the all-time record of 122 years held by
Jeanne Calment, but the process of sorting genuine
supercentenarians from
longevity myths is hampered by the often questionable birth certification records from the late
19th century. Guinness Record ages are not likely to eclipse Methuselah's age any time soon. Further,
Biblical literalism may miss the meaning of the story"some interpret Methuselah's age as allegorical.
Many theories have been put forward to explain why the ages of Biblical patriarchs so far exceed the modern human lifespan. Some maintain that the unusually long lives of these patriarchs are the result of translation errors, perhaps translation errors in ancient times.
There are three serious problems with the Genesis 5 numbers: humans do not live to be 900 years, men do not father children when they are over a century old, and why did they wait so long to have children? All three of these problems disappear if we make two simple assumptions: the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation of an early Hebrew text) has the original numbers and each of the numbers has one decimal place in modern notation. However, the original Genesis numbers were not written in decimal notation. Instead the numbers were recorded in an archaic, pre-
cuneiform,
Sumerian number system called SHE-GUR-MAH in sign-value notation, similar in some ways to Roman numerals. About
1700 BCE, a Babylonian scribe mistranslated these archaic numbers into cuneiform in the classical Sumerian sexagesimal number system. These were retranslated into Hebrew about
500 BCE and became Genesis 5. Except for Noah, each young man in Genesis 5 fathered his first son during his late teens or early twenties, just as young men do today, and they lived into their seventies or early eighties. Methuselah lived to be 85 after fathering his son Lamech at the age of 17. This is argued in detail in chapter 7 of the book
Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic.
Another theory suggests
lunar cycles were mistaken for the solar ones, making their actual lives 12.37 times shorter. This gives 78 years for Methuselah"still an impressive number, bearing in mind the life expectancy of Biblical times. Methuselah's fathering of Lamech would correspondingly have occurred at solar age 15 (187÷12.37). This theory, however, seems doubtful to others since patriarchs such as Mahalalel (
ibid 5:15) and Enoch (ibid 5:21) were said to have become fathers after 65 "years." If the lunar cycle theory were accepted, this would translate to an age of about 5 years and 2 months.
Creationists have speculated on reasons for the dramatic decrease in lifespans following the Great Flood of Noah's time. One reason claimed is that conditions before the flood caused much less
ultraviolet light from the sun to impact the earth, and that this allowed for longer life spans. The
Institute for Creation Research has posited that a vapor canopy surrounded the earth before the Flood, and that it was the source of the floodwaters. Such a canopy would also have protected mankind from the aging effects of the sun's ultraviolet rays. After the dissipation of the canopy during the Flood, according to this theory, lifespans dropped rapidly to what they are today. In the opinion of mainstream scientists, proof of this canopy and its putative effects on human lifespan is lacking. Frank Steiger has a
1996 analysis of the "vapor canopy" theory.Young Earth creationist Carl Wieland alternatively speculated that the decline in lifespan is the drastic reduction in population due to the Flood, causing a
genetic bottleneck in which the
genes that coded for longevity were lost. [
2]
For some Bible believers, the cause of the decrease in human longevity is that God sets a specific lifespan for human beings, as per the passage of Genesis 6:3: "Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with [or "remain in"] man forever, for he is mortal [or "corrupt" (NIV)] ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.'" In addition, a cosmology of "sin""that man was once potentially immortal, but became mortal through four "falls" and thus had his life shortened in four successive stages (from potentially everlasting in the Garden of Eden to less than 1,000 years afterward; then to less than 500 after the Flood; then to 250; then to 120) and that equated early death with sin (and thus long life with respect) all mean that early Biblical ages have allegorical, not merely literal, meaning. But most commentators regard this as the time that mankind as a whole had left before the Flood came, because individual lifespans as given in the Bible were much longer for some time.
The name
Methusalah has entered popular parlance as a synonym for any living thing that has attained unusually great age. In addition, there is a host of references to the name in film, television, and literature. Some of those references are listed below.
Barbara Kingsolver's 1998 postcolonial epic novel
The Poisonwood Bible, set in the
Congo and spanning 30 years from 1959, contains a
parrot called Methuselah who, when he is freed from his cage after a lifetime of captivity, finds he is unable to fly. His death coincides with the collapse of the country's
Belgian colonial regime.
Robert A. Heinlein wrote a
science fiction series about rejuvenation and a project called the "Howard Families" that was working to extend the human lifespan beyond 150 years. The first volume was called
Methuselah's Children and the series continued in
Time Enough for Love and later novels.
Richard Morgan's debut novel
Altered Carbon explored a method of keeping the rich alive, via clones and uploadable memories, for several centuries. The common slang for these people is "Methuselah" or "Meth". This has been argued to be simply a nod to Heinlein's "Howard Family" novels, but this theory is unlikely.
Edward Einhorn's absurdist comedy
The Living Methuselah, appearing in his book of plays entitled
The Golem, Methuselah, and Shylock, gives another perspective on Methuselah. In it, Methuselah has lived to modern days, through all the major disasters of human history, along with his wife,
Serach, the oldest living woman.
In the roleplaying system
Storyteller, specifically the source material "Vampire: The Masquerade", a Methuselah refers to the eldest vampires dating after the Great Flood. Vampires predating this (largely thought only to be the clan founders) are referred to as Antediluvians.
In the card game
Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, the players are known as "Methuselahs", most likely because they are supposed to be ancient vampires.
In the
Star Trek episode "
Requiem for Methuselah", a "Mr. Flint" living on a distant planet is revealed to be an immortal man born on Earth in the year
3834 BCE. According to the episode, past identities assumed by Mr. Flint included
Leonardo Da Vinci,
Merlin,
Solomon,
Lazarus, and
Johannes Brahms. But at the end of the episode,
Dr McCoy revealed that Flint, having left Earth's sustaining environment, was finally dying. Flint was played in the episode by actor
James Daly.
In
The Simpsons episode 9F21, there is a reference to a "Methuselah Rookie Card" that pictures a very old man.
Ned Flanders is distributing free religious trading cards. And in
The Simpsons Bible Stories episode AABF14, Abe Simpson plays Methuselah and is killed by Goliath II (played by
Nelson Muntz). David (
Bart Simpson) mourns Methuselah as "my oldest friend" and vows revenge.
The movie
Blade Runner makes passing reference to Methuselah Syndrome, a
glandular condition that causes accelerated aging.
In the
manga series
Immortal Rain one of the main characters, Rain, is also known as the "meteor Methuselah", and the character Yuca is actually the "spirit of Methuselah". Both characters are immortal.
In the
anime RahXephon, the head of the Babaĥem Foundation is referred to as a modern Methuselah. In the anime
Witch Hunter Robin the name is mentioned as "the Methuselah
Witch" or the Immortal clan said to be able to control the powers of other witches and live forever unless killed by fire. In another anime,
Trinity Blood, vampires are also known as Methuselah as opposed to mortal human beings who are known as Terran.
In the
Brian Jacques series
Redwall, Methuselah is the name of a very old mouse.
The
Smashing Pumpkins recorded a demo of a song entitled "Methuselah" during the sessions preceding the recording of
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Methuselah is the name of the world's oldest living organism, a 4,700 year old
bristlecone pine tree.
Scientists planted a seed from an extinct, 2,000-year-old
date palm species; the unexpected sprout it produced was named Methuselah. [
3]
The song "Razzle Dazzle" from the musical
Chicago contains the lines, "Back since the days of old Methuselah, Everyone loves the big bambooz-a-ler".
In
Charlotte Bronte's novel
Villette, Methusaleh is an old tree in the garden under which Lucy Snowe buries letters from Dr. John.
In the television series
Highlander, "Methuselah's Stone" was said to be an ancient stone that could turn any mortal into an immortal. The stone could also make any immortal ten times stronger.
The band
Dragonlord has a song entitled "Mark of Damnation", which has the lyric "Immortal Methuselah, smash the grail".
In Doris Lessing's "Play with a Tiger," Methuselah is the name of Mary Jackson's cat.
Methuselah is referenced in the feature film
Bicentennial Man by Madam Chairwoman when annoucing Andrew's acceptance as a human and his age.
Yoda in the
Star Wars saga is like Methuselah, aging to 900 years old, until he dies.
The nanotechnology used to simulate immortality in
Yukito Kishiro's
GUNNM/Battle Angel Alita manga universe is called "Methuselah Technology".
In the musical
Porgy and Bess by
George and
Ira Gershwin, Methuselah is mentioned in the lyrics of the song "It Ain't Necessarily So"::''Methus'lah lived nine hundred years:''Methus'lah lived nine hundred years:''But who calls dat livin' when no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred yearsOn a day (July 22, 2006) of "extreme" races for thoroughbred horses,
Calder Race Course held the Methuselah Starter Stakes. Only thoroughbred horses older than five years old (old for thoroughbred race horses) were eligible to compete in the race. The race was won by El Segundo Joe, a five year old
gelding.
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Longevity*
Longevity myths*
Maximum life span*
Methuselah Mouse Prize*
Ageing*
2000 Year Old Man, a recurring Methuselah comedy routine by
Carl Reiner and
Mel Brooks.
*
The Numbers in Genesis 5 Were Mistranslated, by Robert M. Best. Explains the long lifespans as an ancient mistranslation when archaic number signs were translated into sexagesimal numbers. Methuselah lived to be 85 and fathered Lamech at the age of 17.
*
Living for 900 years, by Carl Wieland,
Answers in Genesis. A
creationist explanation of the lifespans recorded in the Bible.
*
The Methuselah Mouse Prize: is the premiere effort of The Methuselah Foundation; a scientific competition designed to draw attention to the ability of new technologies to slow and even reverse the damage of the aging process, preserving health and wisdom.
*
Why did people live longer before Noah's Flood than they did after it? - another possible explanation of the Biblical lifespans
*
Complete Bible Genealogy Family tree of Methuselah
