Fixing the Bible   

There is, unfortunately, an unprecedented growth of agnosticism and atheism in our country today. Such skepticism is especially often applied to what the Bible teaches about creation and other details found in the early chapters of Genesis.

For instance, Genesis 5 tells us that men often lived to a very old age during that time. Adam lived 930 years, his son Seth lived 912 years, and Methuselah takes the record at 969 years! Skeptics scoff at the idea of such. Perhaps worse, some Christian scholars try to “fix” the Bible record by suggesting some changes that might be more believable.

Since some cultures have been known to use the moon as a measure of age, maybe that’s what the writer meant. In other words, it is suggested that Bible readers change “years” to “months.” Accordingly, Adam did not really live to be 930 years old, but rather a more reasonable 77 years old. And, likewise, Seth lived to be 76 years old instead of 912. And Methuselah still gets the record at a well-seasoned 81.

But there are some problems with that idea. If “years” is changed to “months” in calculating the ages of the patriarchs, then some interesting things happen. Genesis 5:3 says that Adam became the father of Seth when he was 130 years old; divide that by 12 and the result is that Adam fathered a child at age 11. Furthermore, if adjusted accordingly, Seth later fathered Enosh when he was 9, Enosh fathered Kenan at age 7, and Enoch fathered Methuselah at the age of only 5!

So which is easier to believe? That men one time lived to be 900+ years old? Or that those same men were fathering children while they themselves were only 5 years old?! Genesis 8:13, in regards to the end of the flood, says, “Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up on the earth.” Moses, the inspired writer, apparently had no trouble understanding the difference between a month and a year.

The world was a much different place after the flood, and people did not live near as long as they once did. Genesis 25:7-8 says Abraham died at the “ripe old age” of 175, and in Genesis 47:9, Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty: few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.” Surely no one is here advocating that “years” really means “months.”

The Bible doesn’t need to be fixed; it needs to be believed. God is so big and so powerful, He really did create the universe in only 6 days. And God is so loving and gracious, He really did send His Son so that we can belong to and live with Him now and for all eternity. Isn’t God great?!