What about the ages in Genesis 5?

Is Genesis 5 saying that some individuals lived have for almost 1000 years? That doesn’t match anything in our world today or in ancient history. Is what it sounds like to us what it meant to them? Or did it mean something to them that isn’t obvious to us? Honestly, I don’t know. At this point, I’m uncertain what to make of it.

Some have combined the lists from Genesis 5 and 11, assumed each name is an individual and that list covers all generations, performed math on the numbers, and concluded that the universe was created less than 2000 years before Abraham. But several things warn against copying these numbers into spreadsheets like this:

Genesis 5	Age when heir born		Genesis 11	Age when heir born	Total
Adam	130		Shem	100
Seth	105		Arphaxad	35
Enosh	90		Shelah	30
Kenan	70		Eber	34
Mahalalel	65		Peleg	30
Jared	162		Reu	32
Enoch	65		Serug	30
Methuselah	187		Nahor	29
Lamech	182		Terah	70
Noah	500		Abraham
Total	1556			390	1946

Firstly, the assumption that these are complete genealogical lists doesn’t hold water. Luke 3:36 lists another generation between Arphaxad and Shelah, a guy named Cainan.

Secondly, nothing in the history of the world supports the idea of individuals living for centuries. Do the numbers in the list represent something that would have been obvious in their culture but isn’t obvious to us? Are there any similar lists from the ancient world that could help us understand what it meant to them?

The nearest analogy from the Ancient Near East is the Sumerian King List. The Sumerians (the region Abraham came from) compiled a list of their kings around the time of Abraham or shortly before (circa 2000 BC).

According to the mathematical system of the Sumerians (sexagesimal), each king reigned for thousands of years. But if the numbers are read as decimal (as the Hebrews did), the numbers of the Sumerian King List are intriguingly similar to Genesis 5. Evangelical scholar John Walton says:

If the notation is read with decimal values rather than sexagesimal values, the numbers are in the same range as the biblical numbers, and the totals of the lists are nearly identical.
— John H. Walton, Genesis, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 281.

Now, Genesis 5 is not a list of kings. In Genesis, God does not authorize human government until after the flood (Genesis 9). In the early chapters, God reigned directly. Yet, this is a list of heirs—a patriarchal list (always sons, never daughters) identifying the head of the family through the generations. While Cain went out from the Lord’s presence to his own city (4:16-17), these generational leaders represent the authority God gave to Adam (1:26-28), the authority Adam passed on to them (5:1-2). In that sense, a kingship list of who inherited God’s world is not a bad analogy.

That might help us to understand why this list is in the Bible. It’s about those who inherit the promises and represent the heavenly ruler’s reign in their generations. That helps us frame what the list would have meant in their world. And there’s another striking similarity: the very next story in the Sumerian King List after the list of kings is the account of the flood.

But we still haven’t resolved the question about what the numbers in this list represent. We don’t know enough to be sure what these numbers meant to them.

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