Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. – 1 Chronicles 1:3

Today's Scripture Reading (June 22, 2025): 1 Chronicles 1

It appears that every culture has its own set of longevity myths. It is the foundation of ideas like "The Fountain of Youth," movies like" Cocoon," and rumors of the benefits of inaccessible places, usually high up in a remote portion of a mountain range, like "Shangri La." There, people live, but time refuses to take a toll on their bodies; at least, it refuses to have an effect as long as the person remains in this location of longevity. We are still creating these myths. Several people believe that there is no reason that anyone who reads these words should die unless they are involved in an extraordinary accident. According to these dreamers, medical science will soon advance to a place where all diseases can be cured and where aging can be slowed down to an imperceptible crawl. While these dreamers are far from the majority, these people walk among us and share their beliefs with anyone willing to listen. Shangri-La has been found and is located throughout the Earth.

There was a belief in the early Christian church that the Apostle John would never die. The Apostle himself addresses this immortality rumor at the end of his Gospel. John concludes his telling of the Gospel story with these words, part of a conversation between Jesus and Peter about John;

Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you" (John 21:22-23)?

I have often wondered if this comment might be the real purpose behind the writing of John's Gospel. Perhaps John's Gospel was simply a tool the disciple used, not just to fill in the blanks left by the other Gospel writers but also to say goodbye to Christians in far-flung places of the known world. He had heard rumors that he would live forever, but deep inside, John knew they were false. He may have survived the attacks of the power structure around him that were intended to result in his death, but he also knew the ravages with which age was impacting his body. Maybe his hand shook now as he wrote the end of his story. Death was coming, and the Gospel was just one way of letting them know that soon he would be gone.

According to the Bible, the person who lived the longest in all of creation was a man named Methuselah, who died at the age of 969. Scholars have attempted to assign an alternate meaning to the ages recorded in Genesis; perhaps they were simply indicating the length of certain family dynasties, or maybe the word we have translated as 'years' should be understood as 'months.' If Methuselah died at the age of 969 lunar months, he would have been approximately 78 years old, which falls within a much more comfortable age range for our skeptical minds. However, the problem with this idea is that if it is to be applied to all the ages mentioned in the early sections of the Bible, then Enoch would have become the father of Methuselah when he was about five years old.

But if we take Genesis as we find it if we can find it in our hearts to admit that maybe God kept these saints alive longer in the early days than he does now (and this meaning would seem to be supported by what appears to be a change of heart on the part of God in Genesis 6:3 - Then the Lord said, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years"), then Methuselah died during the same year that the great flood occurred. He was the last of this list of men, other than Noah himself, to live until the flood. And part of me has always wondered if God was waiting for Methuselah to die before he brought the flood or if Methuselah perished in the flood.

Ancient traditions have sought to answer that very question. According to the Book of Enoch, a work that dates back to approximately 200 years before the birth of Christ, Enoch tells his son Methuselah that God will one day bring a great flood upon the Earth. This revelation might explain why Noah accepted the news of the flood so easily from God; the story of the impending flood had already been told in his family for a few generations. It was a story that Noah had heard directly from his grandfather, Methuselah.

According to the Book of Jasher, a rabbinic text from the 16^th Century, Methuselah and Noah went around together trying to encourage the people of the Earth to return to God. But they failed. Jasher tells us that Methuselah lived to see the building of the Ark but died seven days before the flood began because God had promised that this good man would not die with those who were unrighteous. 

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 2