Thursday Thoughts - September 1

I find it hard to believe that some of the ancients lived to be hundreds of years old. I’d wager that when this scenario presents itself in the biblical text, it’s more likely that these legends were probably out to bolster the credibility of Israel’s national founding narrative and to draw attention to its God. Longevity, at one time, had national and theological concerns attached to it. Seems like this type of portrayal would have been typical ancient Near Eastern procedure for expressing competing interests between nations and how the gods were viewed as attached to them. In the biblical story, the nation of Israel is remarkably similar to, yet radically different from all the rest.