What's With the Ages of the Patriarchs? (Part 2)

In my last post I touched on alternative explanations for the ages of the ancient patriarchs. However, I also noted that Joseph Smith's revelations embrace those ages, thus seeming to tie his credibility to them. So it would seem that if you want to uphold Joseph, you have to accept the ages at face value. But it turns out not to be so simple.

First there is the question of which ages to use. The numbers in the Masoretic Text (MT) (our Old Testament) are somewhat different from the Septuagint (LXX) (the Old Testament in Jesus' time). The Book of Moses, which comes from the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of the Bible, follows the MT except that Enoch's age is increased from 365 to 430. Although they were not incorporated into our Book of Moses, apparently Joseph and/or Oliver Cowdery also changed other ages in their work on the JST.

To get an overview of the situation I did what many curious Bible readers have done: I calculated the dates of the various ages [1]. Below are graphs of the ages as described by the MT, the LXX, the Book of Moses from the Pearl of Great Price, and the fuller JST [2]. The year of birth, priesthood ordination (all taken from D&C 107, except Adam, who presumably always had the priesthood), and death are indicated, as is the Flood. To make comparisons easier, the years count up from zero. (Click images to enlarge. Note the slightly different scale for the LXX.)

MT

LXX

PofGP

JST

It turns out that no matter which scenario you choose, there are things that don't make sense. Here is a list of the problems I have identified.

D&C 107 says that everyone down to Methuselah was ordained by Adam, and they are specifically named as having attended the gathering three years prior to Adam's death. But in the LXX Adam dies before Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah are born.

According to the PofGP, Enoch was translated at age 430. This means that Enoch established the city of Zion, which existed for 365 years, at age 65 (which is also the year Methuselah was born). This timing puts the founding of Zion well before the death of Adam, which doesn't seem to fit with the scriptural context. More specifically, the account of Enoch in the Book of Moses suggests that when Enoch began his preaching Adam had long since died.

[Moses 6] 45 And death hath come upon our fathers; nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam.
46 For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language.

But according to the MT, PofGP, and JST, none of Enoch's 'fathers' had died when he said this [3].

According to Moses 8:2, Methuselah was not taken up with the city of Zion,

...that the covenants of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he made to Enoch; for he truly covenanted with Enoch that Noah should be of the fruit of his loins.
3 And it came to pass that Methuselah prophesied that from his loins should spring all the kingdoms of the earth (through Noah), and he took glory unto himself.

But according to the MT, PofGP, and JST, Methuselah's son, Lamech (Noah's father), was born and ordained to the priesthood well before the city of Zion was taken up.

Speaking of being left behind, depending on the scenario, between three and five patriarchal ancestors of Enoch died sometime after Zion and Enoch were translated. Why weren't they also translated?

D&C 107:53 specifies that Adam called together Seth through Methuselah, "who were all high priests". But in the MT and PofGP Lamech was also alive and had been ordained to the priesthood. Perhaps to correct this, adjustments in the JST have Lamech as having not been born yet.

D&C 107:52 says that Noah was ordained to the Priesthood at the age of ten. However, Moses 8:12-14,19 seems to suggest that Noah was ordained after the birth of his sons, the last named of which was born when Noah was 500 years old.

The bottom line is this: no matter which scenario you choose (including the two canonized ones), if you take the ages and relationships of the ancient patriarchs at face value you end up with problems of scriptural internal consistency. It seems clear that further adjustments or clarifications are needed.

In my final post in this series we'll look more closely at D&C 107.


Notes:

1. I have checked and double-checked my work, but I can't be certain it is free of mistakes. Please let me know if I've made any. Here is an image of my spreadsheet. (Click to enlarge.) Highlights represent differences from the MT.



2. These four sources were chosen for convenience. Other ancient sources contain additional variations.

3. Technically this problem could be resolved by pushing Enoch's statement into the last 50-120 years of his life. But it seems clear from the text that Enoch made this statement at the beginning of his preaching, before the establishment of Zion. Alternatively, Enoch could be referring to death rhetorically. But that does not explain why Enoch appeals to written records as supporting evidence for the existence of Adam.

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What's With the Ages of the Patriarchs? (Part 1)

One of the well-known curiosities of Genesis is the long ages of the ancient patriarchs, particularly from Adam to Noah. With the exception of Enoch, who was translated, all of them are said to have lived over 700 years--some of them almost 1,000 years. To say that such long lifespans seem implausible is an understatement. What are we to make of these ages?

Carol Hill's 2003 article, "Making Sense of the Numbers of Genesis" (PDF) in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation) argues that the numbers of Genesis should be understood in terms of numerology rather than arithmetic. She makes the following basic points:

• In ancient cultures numbers often had symbolic value independent of their numeric value.
• The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt are known to have exaggerated lifespans of important persons.
• Mesopotamians used a sexagesimal (base 60) number system, often symbolically. However, the Egyptians--and later the Hebrews--used the decimal (base 10) system. The decreasing lifespans after the flood may reflect a change in the usage of numbers by the Hebrews as a result of their time spent in Egypt.
• All of the ages given from Adam to Noah can be broken down into favored numbers.
• There are clear examples of numerical symmetry in scripture.
• Genealogies in the Bible sometimes omit generations, and "begot" doesn't always mean begot.

Read the paper for more details. I think she makes a good case for exercising care in taking Biblical numbers (especially in Genesis) at face value. This frees us from having to accommodate such fantastic lifespans as part of real history.

BUT...

The Genesis lifespans are repeated in the Book of Moses, which is Joseph Smith's revision of Genesis, and Doctrine and Covenants 107:42-53 gives the ages at which the ancient patriarchs were ordained to the Priesthood. Not only were several of them hundreds of years old at the time of their ordination, but before he died Adam assembled his posterity to bless them. All of the patriarchs down to Methuselah (Adam's great-great-great-great-great grandson) are named as having attended.

So now we are back where we started. Or are we? In my next post we'll look at the ages of the ancient patriarchs a little more closely and see what we find.

Part 2
Part 3

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Lehi and the Creation of Opposites

In a recent post I discussed the need to be careful about imposing our own culture and questions upon the scriptures. Specifically, I was discussing the Creation as depicted in Genesis 1 and how it may not have been formulated with our sense of science and history in mind.

While reading Conrad Hyers's The Meaning of Creation I came across the following passage (p. 89; an almost identical paragraph is here):

Since cosmologies are concerned with the establishment and maintenance of order in the cosmos, central to the achievement of order is the act of separating things from one another. Without acts of separation, one would have chaos. Thus ancient cosmologies commonly begin with a depiction of a chaotic state, where there are no clear lines of demarcation, and then proceed to indicate ways in which the present world-order (cosmos) with its lines of demarcation, has been organized. In other cultures this was achieved by divine births, wars, etc. Here cosmos is accomplished by separating things out from one another, and by creating other things (e.g., light or firmament) that aid in the separation. Everything is thus assigned its proper region and allowed to have its own identity, place and function in the overall scheme of created things. The key concept, therefore, which is applied to the inanimate as well as the animate, is the cosmological concept of separation to achieve order.

I have often thought that this universe and life on Earth can be described in terms of separation, gradients, and compartmentalization (and for you physics folks, broken symmetries?). And until I read the above passage, I've always thought of these separations in the context of Lehi's opposites in 2 Nephi 2.

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility....

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

It is clear from the context that Lehi had been reading about the creation and subsequent events in the Garden of Eden. Scholars believe that Genesis 1 and 2 contain separate creation accounts that were merged together, probably after the Babylonian exile--and therefore after Lehi. But let's put that aside for now.

Although Lehi's discussion of opposites is focused on the fruit of the two trees, it is interesting to me that in our text (if, perhaps, not Lehi's) the opposites of Eden are preceded by the creation of opposites through separation.

I guess my point is that the suggestion that the creation narratives can be understood in ways other than literal science/history is not mere ivory tower sophistry, nor is it meaningful only in an ancient context. In addition to other symbolic meanings of Genesis 1, Lehi provides us one more: Genesis 1 represents the creation of a universe of opposites and both foreshadows and complements the opposites of Eden.

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LDSSR Turns Five Today

Today is the 5th birthday of LDSSR. I started the blog because I thought scientific topics were not getting enough coverage among Mormon blogs (the bloggernacle) and I had some thoughts I wanted to get out. Although science can be very interesting, the day-to-day work of science is often repetitive, boring, and discouraging. Blogging has given me something to occupy my mind. I also hoped--and continue to hope--that people would find the material covered here helpful. I plan to keep blogging as long as I enjoy it and circumstance of life permit.

I started out with ambition and have settled into a more comfortable pace. A look at my archives reveals the number of posts each year:

2005 - 224
2006 - 147
2007 - 91
2008 - 86
2009 - 60

There have been a few highlights over the years. Deseret Book sent me a copy of Mormon Scientist to review, and that was followed by an email Q&A with the author, Henry J. Eyring. The blog has also been mentioned in the Salt Lake Tribune once (that I know of) and has been highlighted at Mormon Times on several occasions. A little over two years ago I did several guest posts at By Common Consent (that don't appear to exist anymore), followed by another recent guest post. And LDSSR has hosted one guest post by David Bailey.

Blogs are great for running commentary, but good stuff gets buried quickly and is rarely seen again. I'm kicking around the idea of establishing a more permanent web presence. I don't know if I'll get around to doing so or not, but in the meantime I would like to organize links on the sidebar to some of the better posts. So here's your chance for input. If you remember a particular post that you think new readers would enjoy, please suggest it for inclusion on the list.

Thanks to all you readers and commenters for making it so that I'm not just talking to myself, and for the things you have taught me. And thanks to the various blog aggregators listed on my sidebar--especially Mormon Archipelago--for sending readers my way. And of course, thanks to my family for indulging me in my hobby.

[Orchestra begins playing, indicating it's time for me to shut up.]

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The Disconnect Between Weathermen and Climate Change

According to an article in Columbia Journalism Review there is a surprising disconnect between climate scientists and weathercasters/meteorologists on climate change. (Technically, weathercasters lack formal degrees and credentials.) The Weather Channel founder John Coleman has called it "the greatest scam in history." According to one survey:

Twenty-nine percent of the 121 meteorologists who replied agreed with Coleman—not that global warming was unproven, or unlikely, but that it was a scam. Just 24 percent of them believed that humans were responsible for most of the change in climate over the past half century—half were sure this wasn’t true, and another quarter were “neutral” on the issue.

The exact reason for this disconnect is unclear, but two issues seem to stand out: education and difference of perspective. Historically, weathercasters had little formal training in atmospheric sciences. This has improved over the last few decades, but there are still many with non-science backgrounds (e.g. journalism). Thus many of these visible ambassadors of science don't really have a strong background in science. This is a problem. Everybody knows a local or national weathercaster from TV. How many people know a single climate scientist? Or any other kind of scientist, for that matter?

And then there is the confusion between weather and climate. Weather is what we experience on short timescales and is difficult to predict. Climate refers to the big picture--trends over decades or longer. Confusion between these two is everywhere. Even meteorologists that appreciate the conceptual difference may still project the short-term uncertainties that they confront every day onto the models and methods of climate science, with which they are less familiar.

Of course politics or journalistic skepticism can play a role. And then there is this:

The biggest difference I noticed between the meteorologists who rejected climate science and those who didn’t was not how much they knew about the subject, but how much they knew about how much they knew—how clearly they recognized the limits of their own training.

The American Meteorological Society is working to better educate its members about climate science. It's the same as their philosophy back when few weathercasters had any real background in science:

If viewers are going to assume weathercasters are experts anyway, we might as well try to make them experts.

On a different but related note, I once saw one of the Salt Lake City weathermen field a question about Noah's flood and the Grand Canyon on the air. I don't remember what he said; I think it was a respectable response. To a layperson there's a superficial plausibility that the weatherman would have insight into that question, and the TV presence gives an added aura of authority. In reality...um, no.

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Taking Joseph and Brigham's Advice with Genesis

I have a key by which I understand the scriptures. I enquire, what was the question which drew out the answer or caused Jesus to utter the parable? -- Joseph Smith

Do you read the Scriptures, my brethren and sisters, as though you were writing them a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? -- Brigham Young

Biblical inerrancy is a Christian doctrine that Mormons have always rejected. However, in practice we sometimes replace biblical inerrancy with our own brand of prophetic inerrancy, especially when it comes to Joseph Smith's revelations. This puts us in a similarly uncomfortable position as that of evangelical Christians when scientific, historical, archaeological, linguistic, textual--whatever--evidence clashes with scripture. A number of evangelical Christian scholars argue that the key to resolving at least some of these tensions is to realize that (i) God accommodates himself to our level of understanding, and (ii) that things that make sense in an ancient culture/worldview may not make sense in ours.

An introduction to this approach to scripture is Inspiration and Incarnation (2005), by Peter Enns. I learned of the book from a post at FAIR Blog, where it was highly recommended. Enns uses an analogy to the incarnation of Jesus: just as Jesus was both human and divine, so the Bible is both a work of humans and inspired. He then applies this analogy to three Biblical difficulties: (i) similarities between the Old Testament and broader ancient Near Eastern culture and literature, (ii) theological diversity within the Old Testament, and (iii) the use and interpretation of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Enns clearly believes in the divinity of the Bible, but apparently his suggestion that the Bible bears marks of humanity was too much. In 2008 he was forced to leave his 15-year professorship at Westminster Theological Seminary.

There are several things that one should know about the world of the ancient Near East--the world in which the ancient Israelites lived. First, their view of the cosmos was something like this [1]:


If the ancient Israelites and their neighbors thought of such expressions as "pillars of the earth" or "windows of heaven" as exclusively figurative, as we do, they apparently did not indicate it.

Other things to know include:

• The ancient Israelites were surrounded by polytheism, where elements of nature were considered gods that were related to one another in various genealogies. Compared to the gods of the surrounding mighty empires, Yahweh was considered a small and insignificant tribal god.


• Other ancient Near Eastern creation myths have similar elements to that of Genesis, including overcoming chaos, division into seven periods, and resting at the end.


• In some Near Eastern creation myths humans are created as slaves to serve the gods.


• In addition to their numeric value, numbers also served symbolic purposes in ancient cultures.

Tie these things together and you can begin to see how the scriptural creation accounts deal with very different issues than we think of. For more information I recommend the resources below. Unfortunately, these issues seem to have largely gone untouched by LDS scholars. The few that I know of are noted.

Further Reading:

First let me highlight some of my own blog posts. I suggest reading all of my scriptural concordism posts, but especially see Genesis in Context and Rejecting Concordism.

Books:

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, by Peter Enns. The book only spends a couple of pages on Genesis and creation. It is really more focused on developing the general argument.

The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science, by Conrad Hyers. Actually I haven't read this book yet; it's in the mail. But if his writings available on the internet (see below) are any indication, it should be well worth reading.

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament, by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Dana M. Pike, and David Rolph Seely. This recent book published by Deseret Book describes the context of the Old Testament with LDS sensitivities. For the purposes here, its value is in background information. It does not synthesize the information in the same way as the other listed sources do.

Online Articles:

Creation according to Genesis: Literary Genre, Cultural Context, Theological Truth (PDF), by Daniel Harlow, professor of religion at Calvin College. This is a very nice treatment of the above issues. If you read nothing else, read this.

by Conrad Hyers:

Biblical Literalism: Constricting the Cosmic Dance
The Fall and Rise of Creationism
Dinosaur Religion: On Interpreting and Misinterpreting the Creation Texts
The Narrative Form of Genesis 1: Cosmogonic, Yes; Scientific, No
Comparing Biblical and Scientific Maps of Origins

LDS:

Adam's Navel, by Keith Norman. Originally published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 1988.

[1] A Mormon Midrash? LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered, by Anthony Hutchinson in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 21, No. 4, Winter 1988.

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