Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

The Peshitta of the Old Testament - Part 6

The table of ages for the patriarchs from Adam through Lamech is repeated here from last week’s column.

The reader can see a number of things by looking at this chart. The first is that the age of the patriarch at the birth of the named son is inconsistent in the MT, ranging from 65 years for Mahalalel and Enoch to 187 years for Methuselah. On this phenomenon one point should be made. That is, the named son is not necessarily the first-born son, though interpreters often assume that to be the case. The accounts of the later patriarchs in Genesis, however, should lead us to realize that such might not be the case. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were all younger brothers, as was David. So the age of the patriarch at the time of the birth of the named son does not necessarily imply that that was the firstborn son. Hence, the inconsistency of the ages should not be seen as a difficulty. Even today, men become fathers at different ages, and younger sons may be much younger than older brothers.

The second thing to note about this chart is that the numbers from the LXX (and the Peshitta) show a relatively consistent drop in the ages of the patriarchs (when the named son is born). With the first seven patriarchs, the age at the birth of the named son is one hundred years greater than in the MT, with the exception of Jared. In a similar fashion in the SP the ages of these same patriarchs is the same as that in the MT, except for Jared, whose age is one hundred years less. In both cases (that of the LXX and of the SP) the result is a regular drop in the ages of the patriarchs at the age of the named son, bottoming out at about 165 (in the case of the LXX) and about 65 (in the case of the SP). That suggests that both the LXX and the SP have deliberately adjusted the numbers they received from the MT in order to make the ages show a consistent drop. The LXX accomplished this by adding one hundred years to the ages of the earlier patriarchs to bring the regular drop in ages in line with the age of Jared. The SP, on the other hand, seems to have retained the MT numbers for the first seven patriarchs except in the case of Jared. This enabled the SP then to retain the regular drop in ages with significantly less changing of numbers than the approach of the LXX required.

The problematic patriarchs are the last two—Methuselah and Lamech. The difficulties caused by their numbers will be examined next week.

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