DID YOU KNOW?

A scholar says: "A pattern like the one in Genesis, where the first people live for centuries and later ones live far less, is found outside the Bible too." Agree or disagree?

The answer

Agree. The Sumerian King List, a list of early kings from Mesopotamia, gives its first kings reigns of 28,800 and 36,000 years. Then comes a flood. After it the reigns fall to hundreds of years, then to 30, 15 and 9. Michael Coogan and Cynthia Chapman, two Bible scholars, say the King List and Genesis share this pattern. Beside the King List, they add, the Genesis numbers look almost realistic.

Why it’s interesting

The New Oxford Annotated Bible, a study Bible, notes that the Genesis ages keep falling, down to the 100 to 200 years of Israel's ancestors. Gilgamesh himself appears near the end of the King List, ruling the city of Uruk for 126 years.

Scholarly consensus

Learn the Bible.

Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.