Are the Old Testament ages true?

Answer 1

Yes the Old Testament is very true my friend. as the old testament is linked to the New Testament. And the prophesies are still to be fulfilled.

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Probable 5 % is true; the remaining is a collection of oriental legends, Jewish fantasies, stories for children. And propheties exist only in the in the minds of naive people far.

Answer 2

Certain things in the old testament have been corroborated by independent historical sources. Other things have not. To be perfectly fair, for a lot of them we wouldn't really expect to find corroboration ... the Egyptians built these honkin' huge stone monuments to their kings, and there are quite a few of themthat we don't know all that much about either.

It's likely that some of it's true, some of it's legends, and some of it's opinion that can't clearly be said to be either true or false.

Answer 3

Strictly speaking, no. Adam was portrayed as living to 930 years and, for example, Abraham was portrayed as living for 175 years, but the tradents who first told these biblical stories knew they were not literally true, but based on numerology using the magic number 17.

Name ................. Lifespan ........PatternAdam ................ 930 ...............7x9 + 51x17 [3x17x17]

Seth .................. 912 .............. 5x9 + 51x17

Enos ................. 905 ............... 8x9 + 49x17

Cainan ............. 910 ............... 6x10 + 50x17

Mahalalel ........ 895 ............... 5x9 + 50x17

The very oldest man, Methuselah, supposedly lived to the grand old age of 969, which is 57 X 17, and even had his first child at the age of 187, which is 11 X 17.

Then if we look at the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we see:

1. Abraham lived to 175 (5 X 5 X 7)
2. Isaac lived to 180 (6 X 6 X 5)
3. Jacob lived to 147 (7 X 7 X 3
· Each lifespan involves a perfect square (5, 6, then 7 in a numeric series),
· the third factor also forms a series (7, 5, 3)
· in each case the sum of the factors is 17.

Genesis says Sarah lived to 127 years, which is the sum of these consecutive square numbers plus 17 (127 = 52+62 + 72 + 17). Joseph, sometimes called the fourth patriarch, lived to 110 years, which is the sum of these consecutive square numbers (110 = 52+62 + 72).

Ancient people, quite apart from the Hebrews, portrayed their legendary heroes as living to great ages, but one would also have to ask why, for example, reliable Egyptian and Mesopotamian records never show people living to such great ages even prior to the biblical flood, or why fossil evidence going back many thousands of years invariably shows relatively early deaths.

The great ages in The Bible are not historically true, if indeed the biblical characters even existed, but were the outcome of numerology and myth.

Answer 4

Yes. Any statement to the opposite effect would be mere personal opinion, flying in the face of the unbroken tradition of the Jewish nation and their Israelite ancestors. The idea "bothers" us only because it seems impossible today. Seeming impossibility, however, is not disproof. Any disproof would have to come from physical evidence, not conjecture or number-games.

Many ancient nations and historians have records of "unnaturally" long lifespans of the ancients:Manetho, Berosus, Mochus, Hestiaeus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, Ephorus and Nicolaus all state that the ancients lived around a thousand years.

Such records are found in the histories of ancient Sumeria, China, Greece, Persia, Vietnam and India. Such widespread agreement can only be because it (like the Creation) is a worldwide tradition based upon more than mere myth.
See also:

Longevity

Reliability of the Hebrew Bible