Okay, so here is the deal. I am going to spend the week putting the Attributes of God teachings into a pretty word document so that I can post here, and I think we will open a Facebook group page as well.
Rather than finish the last series as planned, I realized in putting together the Attributes of God lessons that what I would have said there gets covered. No sense in beating a point to death.
For this week I'm going to be a bit of a hair puller and throw some annoying questions out there for you all to think about. I kind of like stirring the pot so I'll do my best to have some restraint.
I was going through Genesis as I seem to do a lot recently, and something stuck out to me in Genesis 6.
3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I took the now horribly ridiculous position that this meant God limiting the lifespan of humanity to 120 years.
If that's the case, then what's up with everyone living past that post Flood? Perhaps we take another ridiculous position in thinking these were super pious people that God gave special blessing to. Really? I'm not saying that God didn't bless His people with long life. Come on, without antibiotics and refrigeration you'd need God to get above 30.
The 120 years God is laying out is the time He is giving the people to respond to Noah's calls for repentance. There are two interpretations of this view.
One is that 120 is a way of communicating 3, 40-year generations. This way of calculation is sometimes used to reckon the time of the Exodus and other OT events. The problem is that it doesn't work consistently, and you have to say, "well give or take a few years."
The second interpretation is the one that I lean towards. That much of the dating in the OT is reckoned by sexagesimal or Base-60 mathematics. My reckoning is that this is the mathematics used in the Ancient Near East from earliest history until Base-10 mathematics and decimals showed up with the Greeks. When we use base-60 and the sacred numbers 5 and 7, the dates and ages begin to fit.
With this interpretation you get dates that match more closely with archaeological data. This isn't twisting the Bible to natural science, rather it is confirming the Bible with observable data. The 120 years for the Flood comes out to 60 literal years. 60 months= 5 years.
Wouldn't this make more sense? Noah's boys didn't have children. Were they to have been childless for 2 or 3 generations? Was Noah to be childless for 2 generations then have children at the right time that they were old enough to be married but not with their wives long enough to have children? Why would Canaan be cursed out of inheritance if he wasn't the first born off the Ark?
I don't want to get into the weeds on that nerdy stuff, but I thought it would be something interesting to think about the next time you hear some prosperity teacher shouting about how they expect to live to 120. Another example of "not being able to read too good." Also, in the event that someone is hard up on literal years; do the math. You will end up with patriarchs out living either their reported deaths or out living people like Abraham. It gets weird fast.
Please don't let these side bars distract you from the real point of the Bible and that is Jesus. When the Flood happened is of no consequence so long as you have faith that it did happen for a reason that God willed. Noah living for any period of time doesn't matter so long as you believe he did. It's just interesting to examine scripture with a mind more similar to the original intended audience.