Tackling Tradition 37: Genesis 5

Some well meaning & theologically conservative Christians (and others) commonly read Genesis 5 as a genealogy of individual people who lived for literally expansive numbers of years.   I myself grew up among Baptists who did that very thing. 

As I think about the text, I think that particular point of view does a disservice to the text, insofar as we should keep in mind that the authors/editors lived in an age in which paper was at a premium.  Scrolls, ink, paper - the sorts of items that are common today all over the world - were not easily obtained by modern standards.  Paper/papyrus was made by hand & pressed in order to have anything resembling paper on which to write. Ink was made from organic materials.  Scribes had to be incredibly precise - more than one or two mistakes meant a scribe had to start over if possible.

These sorts of considerations affect the content of their work.    It’s much easier to write a short fictional or semi-fictional account than it is a detailed history in the modern sense of the word.   In addition, we can see from the form in which the writers chose to embed pertinent information that they were concerned with conveying their ideas in the form of a suzerain covenant.  This for is repeated several times in the Penteteuch in general & in Genesis 1 - 11.   

Genesis 1 begins in the form of a suzerain covenant & Genesis 11’s story about the Tower of Babel follows the same form.   Adam & Eve’s union follows this form.  The content of the Edenic, Antediluvian, & Aegis Covenants are written in this form, &, later on the 3 repetitions of the Patriarchal Covenant follow the same form. 

Jude (which is also written in suzerainty form) connects to Genesis & highlights eschatology embedded in the text. Jude has some very strong ideas about false teachers who do the sorts of things demons do.   By choosing to write his letter in suzerain prophet-speak, he is reminding his foil and his wider audience that the LORD rules over them.   

The writers of Hebrews remind us in Chapter 11 that these stories about people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samson, David, Elijah, & many more are there to teach us how to live (and not to live) and that these people are part of a Great Cloud of Witnesses, as if they are now spectators surrounding us while we ourselves stand in the Roman Coliseum.  

Genesis also includes genealogical material.  These genealogies are there to remind the audience that God is faithful to His covenant from generation to generation & that their claim to the Promised Land is part of a much larger narrative that extends back to Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, & to the very creation of the cosmos itself.  

Matthew & Luke both deliver genealogies that are for Christ Himself.  In addition, the 7 Churches in Revelation (which is also written in suzerainty form) delivers us an eschatological, covenantal history of the cosmos, not just the People, and these 7 statements are also written in suzerainty form.    

So…we would do well to do our best to connect our understanding of these (and other) genealogies to the overall concept of covenant.   Here, I think, is a good place to start: 

God created the universe with the appearance of great age.  It looks like the planet & cosmos might be billions of years old, but the truth of the matter is that if you pay attention to the text, it begins in medias res - the Spirit of God is hovering over the deep, which is probably the infrastructure of the cosmos itself or everything except the planet, on which the text then zeroes in. 

The creation narrative, the building of the ark, & the tabernacle narrative are also parallel.   The creation has 3 revealed Tiers - Upper, Middle, & Lower.   The ark has 3 floors.  The Tabernacle has 3 courts.     

The ages of the people aren’t meant to be taken literally as to their corporeal age.   The Bible is conveying to us in highly telescoped form the generations of people from Adam to Noah.   Each name isn’t just name of a single individual; it’s the name of an entire generation of people who lived during the first covenantal epoch after the Edenic Covenant & prior to the Aegis/Noahic Covenant.  

The generation of Adam lived 930 years.   That not Adam’s corporeal age when he died.  That’s a symbolic number with a gematria value that tells us something about them & about God’s covenantal activity among those people.  

Genealogies in the Bible also have eschatological significance as well as general historical significance.  The genealogy is also meant to tell us something eschatological about the different tribal nations of the Earth both then & now. 

They function like the 7 churches in Revelation.  The words to those churches aren’t just about them - they apply to each covenantal epoch both equally as to the condition of the peoples of the Earth & the peoples in a particular covenant administration in chronological order. 

Methuselah lived 969 years. As an individual living in that era, his literal age is likely much shorter, whereas his figurative age (969) was quite long.  What does the gematria calculation tell us about him & the generation of people represented in him/by him. 

What is the significance of 187, 782, & 969? 

These numbers have something to do with 3 major periods in his life, the lives of the people living under the Antediluvian/Adamic Covenant, & for people alive today.

Mathematical formulae might be helpful in a talk with an atheist as your foil - but your overall theme is a call to wisdom.  In the Bible, no matter what someone’s views on the age of the Earth & how literally we ought to understand Genesis 5, wisdom is defined as conformity to God’s moral will.  We are to know it, understand it, & live it out.   How might a covenantal & eschatological understanding of Genesis 5 or Matthew 1 help us do that?

O LORD, Hear our prayer(s)!