Age of Patriarchs

By Dr. Elaine Follis

Categories: Abraham and Sarah, Noah, Old Testament

Question

Why did Noah, Abraham, Sarah and others live so long? Noah starts building an ark at 480 years of age. Sarah gives birth to a son at age 90. Are these real ages?

Answer

Some say the numbers are literal. Some say they are total fabrication.

In between are ideas like this:

• Numbers are symbolic of a 'long time.' (But then, why so specific??)
• The numbers reflect the time span of direct descendents. (This is nice because it goes along with the family solidarity that characterized the Hebrew sense of things; but if true, the numbers should decrease by generation--and they don't always do that.)
• A year is not the same today as it was then. (Then, there were lunar--not solar--years. But the difference between lunar and solar time is not large enough to account for the long years.)

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