Methuselah

The epitome of an extended life span lies in the biblical tale of Methuselah or Metushélach (

), the longest living Hebrew patriarch. Humankind's quest toward great longevity has been a common mission throughout the generations. from scrutinizing ancient texts to the exploration of advancing modern sciences humankind has endlessly sought a proverbial fountain of youth.

Methuselah is credited with having lived 969 years, making him the oldest person in recorded history, yet little else is stated. He is mentioned in Luke 3:37 (King James Version) when tracing Jesus of Nazareth's lineage and is noted as being the father of Lamech, Noah's father, in Genesis 5:25–27:

And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

In the year of the Great Flood, or the Deluge, he eventually died.

As long as Methuselah lived, the Flood did not come upon the world. And when Methuselah died, it was withheld for another seven days after his death to fulfill the period of mourning. (Avot d'Rabbi Natan 32:1)

The direct etymology of the word Methuselah is “his death shall bring”; this translation comes from the roots mÛth, meaning “death,” and shelach, meaning “to send forth.” Based on the etymological translation, the year of his death, and his remarkable age, Methuselah has often been cited as an allegory in which God withheld judgment upon humankind for a great period of time.

Some scholars, however, dispute Methuselah's age and theorize that it is in fact merely an error resulting from mistranslations of text and loss of documentation through the ages. within several early biblical texts, the numbers were written in an archaic, precuneiform Sumerian number system in which the decimal is placed differently than in latter Sumerian number systems. Their theory is that in the year 1700 BCE the scriptures were initially mistranslated into a later Sumerian system and then mistranslated again in 550 BCE when compiling the Hebrew Genesis 5.

Another theory speculates that certain dates are based on a standard using lunar instead of solar cycles. This theory would convert Methuselah's age upon death to 87, and to 15 when he fathered Lamech. However, this lunar theory also has met with skepticism, because it results in other patriarchs, such as Enoch and Mahalel, being merely 5 years old when they fathered their own children.

Other scholars have accepted Methuselah's remarkable age as fact, yet have speculated how such a prolonged age was once feasible. Numerous theologians hypothesize that human life expectancy was shortened due to humankind's falling from God's grace. This credence is marked by the biblical examples of Adam, Methuselah, and Moses. Adam marks the end of possible immortality, Methuselah marks humankind's potential life span preflood, and Moses sets the modern standard of 120 years. A recent theory as to why Methuselah lived to be nearly a millennium old is that the human gene pool experienced a massive bottleneck at the Great Flood. This theory speculates that a drastic loss in population, caused by events such as the Deluge, would result in small gene diversity and a loss of certain inherited gene qualities. This could have resulted in the trait for longevity to be lost or hidden deep within our genetic code. Currently, numerous scientific efforts, such as the Human Genome Project and [Page 867]the Methuselah Mouse Prize, are striving to discover the secrets of increased longevity.

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