Methuselah in The Bible
Methuselah is mentioned in one passage in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 5:21–27, as part of the genealogy linking Adam to Noah. The genealogy is repeated, without the chronology, at 1 Chronicles 1:3, and also appears at Luke 3:37. The following is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
(21) And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: (22) And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and Enoch begat sons and daughters: (23) And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: (24) And Enoch walked with God: and he not; for God took him. (25) And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: (26) And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: (27) And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (KJV)
The verses are available in three manuscript traditions, the Masoretic, the Septuagint and the Samaritan Torah. The three traditions do not agree with each other. The differences can be summarized as follows:
| Text | Age at son's birth | Remainder of life of Methuselah | Age at death | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masoretic | 187 | 782 | 969 | Methuselah died in 1656 AM, the year of the Flood at the age of 969 |
| Septuagint (Alexandrinus) | 187 | 782 | 969 | Methuselah dies in 2256 AM, six years before the Flood (2262 AM) |
| Septuagint (Vaticanus) | 167 | 802 | 969 | Methuselah dies in 2256 AM, fourteen years after the Flood (2242 AM) |
| Samaritan | 67 | 653 | 720 | Methuselah dies in the year of the Flood (1307 AM) |
There have been numerous attempts to account for these differences – the most obvious being accidental corruption by copyists and translators. Some errors may be the result of mistaken attempts to correct previous errors. Gerhard Larsson has suggested that the rabbis who translated the Septuagint from Hebrew to Greek in Alexandria around the 3rd century BC, aware that the Egyptian historian Manetho makes no mention of a Deluge, lengthened the patriarchs' ages to push back the time of the flood to before the first Egyptian dynasty.
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