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andersent
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| First Name: | Todd | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Formerly united methodist, now Catholic |
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 12:11 am |
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| One other question, but I'll start a new thread on this. As a fundamentalist I was always taught that when the bible says that people prior to the flood lived 900 years or 700 or whatever that this must be taken literally. What is the Catholic position on this? Do we think that this is just a hebrew way of saying that mankind became gradually more and more corrupt and that it moved away from Eden and the original purity of Adam and Eve more and more as time went on? Or are we to believe that people really lived that long back then? Wouldn't there be evidence of this long life span from other cultures writings or from scientific evidence?? If they did not live this long then what of the attempt of genesis to write about the history of people--he lived so many years and had so many sons, etc....
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CajunRick
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 12:32 am |
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andersent wrote: Wouldn't there be evidence of this long life span from other cultures writings or from scientific evidence?? If they did not live this long then what of the attempt of genesis to write about the history of people--he lived so many years and had so many sons, etc....
The first footnote in the NAB to Genesis Chapter 5 reads,
[1-32] Although this chapter, with its highly schematic form, belongs to the relatively late "Priestly document," it is based on very ancient traditions. Together with Genesis 11:10-26, its primary purpose is to bridge the genealogical gap between Adam and Abraham. Adam's line is traced through Seth, but several names in the series are the same as, or similar to, certain names in Cain's line (Genesis 4:17-19). The long lifespans attributed to these ten antediluvian patriarchs have a symbolic rather than a historical value. Babylonian tradition also recorded ten kings with fantastically high ages who reigned successively before the flood.
So the NAB is hypothesizing that the reason the writings include such a long life span is to equal or surpass the Babylonian legends. We certainly have no scientific basis for believing in such long life spans. However, to the best of my knowledge, the Church does not officially say whether these passages are literally true or not, so we may choose to believe them as written or not.
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andersent
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| First Name: | Todd | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Formerly united methodist, now Catholic |
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 10:04 am |
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| Thanks Rick. This is helpful. I see this sort of thing going on a lot in early Genesis--trying to "out do" the competing ideas of who God is and why events (i.e. flood) may have occured. It's sort of a beginning of the contemplation of the true God in ancient culture--this makes sense to me, and is helpful to modern scientific minds. One thought though...and this is more of an academic question than scriptural i suppose.. How is it that all of these surrounding peoples around the Hebrews had basically no konowledge of the true God? Do we think this was once had and was lost over time due to sin/idolatry, etc, or do we think that God just never really revealed Himself to them and only to the Hebrews? In other words, I'm contemplating whether all of these competing ideas of relilgion back then was a falling away from the knowledge once had by these other nations or whether it was a knowledge that was just never revealed to them in the first place...I realize this is speculative and there is no clear answer from scripture (that i am aware of).
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed May 2nd, 2007 10:08 am |
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While it adds nothing substantial to what Rick has cited, I thought the following viewpoint on Genesis 5:5 from the older Haydock Commentary would be of interest:
God prolonged the lives of the patriarchs to a more advanced age, that the world might be sooner filled. Their constitution was then more excellent, the fruits of the earth more nourishing, &c. But the sole satisfactory reason for their living almost a thousand years, while we can hardly arrive at 70, is, because so it pleased God, in whose hands are all our lots. There is a great difference in the number of years assigned by the Hebrew and Vulgate, from that which the Samaritan copy mentions; and the Septuagint differs from both. Whether the difference be real, or only apparent, we shall not pretend to determine. The Church has not decided which system of chronology is the most accurate.
Note that this opinion was current among Catholics of the 18th century. It assumes that the ages listed in the ancient texts are historically accurate. I am of the opinion that one ought always to assume the accuracy of the bible as received unless there is a grave reason to believe that it has become corrupt. In the case of the advanced ages listed for the pre-patriarchs, the evidence is universal, even if not in perfect agreement from all sources. The question then becomes whether this was a literary device (for which we would have to supply a reason) or historical fact. There being no hard evidence either way, we must leave the question open.
David
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DWB
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Posted: Fri May 4th, 2007 11:57 am |
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This discussion thread brings to mind the old question that kids often ask: Where did Cain get his wife? The established fundamentalist/evangelical answer is that these other people were also children of Adam. But I always thought it strange that the Bible did not specifically mention these others being born to Adam as it does for Cain, Abel and Seth.
I also vote for taking the Bible literally on the patriarchs' longevity. Although I am not a young-earth creationist, I think it important to take the Scriptures at what they say as much as possible.
take care,
Dan
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Juanita
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Posted: Sun May 13th, 2007 01:22 am |
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DWB wrote: This discussion thread brings to mind the old question that kids often ask: Where did Cain get his wife? The established fundamentalist/evangelical answer is that these other people were also children of Adam. But I always thought it strange that the Bible did not specifically mention these others being born to Adam as it does for Cain, Abel and Seth.
I also vote for taking the Bible literally on the patriarchs' longevity. Although I am not a young-earth creationist, I think it important to take the Scriptures at what they say as much as possible.
take care,
Dan
Although the Bible doesn't give the names of their other children, it does say that others were born to Adam and Eve:
Genesis 5:4 The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters.
Regarding the ages of the descendents of Adam (through Seth), if you plot out their life spans on a time line, a couple of interesting things show up:
1) All of the listed descendents except Noah could have talked to Adam.
2) All except Noah and Methuselah had died before the year of the flood. Methuselah died the year the flood began.
Nita
Last edited on Sun May 13th, 2007 01:25 am by Juanita
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