MISCONCEPTIONS


Longevity: the Bible and modern Science

When I used to teach Hebrew school and my Grade 1 class  came to Genesis ch 5 where it mentions that Methuselah lived 969 years (Genesis 5:27) and lists many others who had very, very long lives (see the list at end) , I would ask my students if they believed these numbers.

My students, who were not Orthodox and came from very modern and educated homes, universally believed the text’s numbers.

They suggested the following explanations:

1. Maybe their counting of a year was different than ours; maybe a year was one of our ‘seasons’

2. They did not suffer from air pollution as we do today

3. Their food would be free of pesticides  

4. They had healthier diets than we do and did not suffer from being overweight, diabetes, etc.

 

I was amazed at their knowledge of current medical concerns and, in this light, wish to share new findings from the realm of genetics as published in Maclean’s , May 27, 2013, “How Long Will You Live?” (pp.  65-68).

The article starts by noting that the number of Canadians age 100 and over is rising.  In 2001 there were 3,795 and 5,825 as of 2011, and the projection is over 17,000 by 2031!

Most of these people are still alert and active, as is the similar generation on the island of Okinawa that has been studied for years.

Doing gardening, cooking or Tai Chi at age 105 is nothing unusual for these East Asians -- despite the hardships and trauma of the Japanese invasion and subsequent  World War II bloodbath that was the Battle of Okinawa.

Other communities have also fostered longevity in small pockets in Italy and elsewhere and genetic causes have long been suspected as the key.

Now, science has found that exact key: telomeres – tiny bits of DNA – that coat the tips of chromosomes.

As people age, these telomeres shorten, but people who live longer also maintain their telomeres length better.  (Though overly long telomeres are also harmful.)

As the article highlights, “those with shorter than average telomeres had a 25 per cent greater risk of dying”. ( p. 68)

In 2010, Dr. Ronald DePinho  published a study in Nature which showed that telomeres can be made longer in mice and this ‘rejuvenated’ the mice: restoring brain mass, improving cognition, reversing skeleton degeneration and muscle atrophy,  and even reviving  fertility . (Maclean’s, p. 68)

Drug companies are now in high gear to apply these findings to humans.

 

Naturally extending telomeres life

Other, natural ways to encourage telomerase length and longevity, according to recent studies (Maclean’s, p. 68), include:

1. the diet long recommended by Canada’s food guide:

a)      eat whole grains:  whole grain breads, wild rice, quinoa, oatmeal

b)      eat fruits and vegetables

c)      eat  foods rich in omega-3:  fish such as sardines, salmon, halibut;  egg yolks (Yes, they are good for you);  flax seed, walnuts, soybean, tofu and lean BEEF.   (Info on eggs from Wikipedia “Omega-3” and rest from http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=84)

2. regular, moderate exercise – such as walking  or swimming for a half-hour  4 or 5 times a week

3. yoga or other meditation for stress management

4. join groups and build a sense of community

 

Moses’ 120 years seemed impossible to reach in 1960 when Canadian life expectancy figures were 68 for males and 74 for females. (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/health26-eng.htms )

But life expectancy figures are rising steadily, so 120 may soon be here.      A Methuselah may yet be in reach in a few generations to come – thanks to healthy eating, moderate exercise, etc. and medical science.

So after all, my young students by and large got it right.

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Bible’s top 10 for longevity:

 Methuselah - 969 Genesis 5:27; Jared - 962 Genesis 5:20;  Noah - 950 Genesis 9:29;  Adam - 930 Genesis 5:5: Seth - 912 Genesis 5:8; Kenan - 910 Genesis 5:14; Enosh - 905 Genesis 5:11;  Mahalalel - 895 Genesis 5:17; Lamech - 777 Genesis 5:31; Shem – 600 Genesis 5:8 (See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Ten_oldest_people_in_the_Bibleong lifetimes,)

History, Archaeology and Biblical Criticism

 

The Argument from Silence: History 101

One of the first principals I was taught when taking History 101 was NEVER to argue from silence.  This fallacy has been the bane of Biblical studies for over 150 years and continues to this day.

The fallacy is simply this: if one cannot find ‘corroborating proof’ to substantiate what a text says – either in other texts or through archaeological digs - then the text must be wrong and its author lying.

This mindset goes well beyond the legitimate historical caveat and principal of bias: that a given source might slant, embellish or vilify someone or some event out of personal prejudice or to gain favour with the intended audience*.

But such is the mindset of modern ‘historians’, archaeologists and Biblical Critics that in the absence of supporting evidence, anything stated in the Bible is  ‘suspect’ a priori.

 

So what should one do with silence?   The answer is be patient, wait and don’t pre-judge.

Two famous illustrations are the Trojan War and the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Homer’s Iliad and its central tale were long viewed as ‘fictitious’, as a story created for amusement with little if any basis in fact.  Troy was unknown outside of Homer and archaeological efforts to find the lost city failed – until Heinrich Schliemann – using clues from the text -- did uncover such a site on the coast of Turkey.

Another example is the Great Sphinx at Giza. According to the ancient Greek Herodotus, a spectacular and huge sphinx sat in front of the giant pyramids of Giza.  But anyone who visited the site, just outside of Cairo, in the last 500 or so years before 1798, found no such massive stone creature, and no signs of it ever having been there.  The desert landscape is flat to the horizon and only the pyramids are visible; so Herodotus must have been ‘misinformed’.

But thanks to Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, someone noticed a bit of stone sticking out from the sand.  Ultimately, after five years of excavation – literally removing tonnes of sand – the Great Sphinx was reborn.  It had not been fictitious or demolished, just buried by hundreds of years of sand blowing against its long, flat sides.

To quote Wikipedia:

It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 73.5 metres (241 ft) long, 19.3 metres   (63 ft) wide, and 20.22 m (66.34 ft) high.^[1] It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafra (c. 2558–2532 BC).

 

Great Sphinx

 

 

 

 

 

So patience, and giving credence to one’s surviving sources, is key.

This is especially true as what has survived from the past both in the form of texts and archaeological remains is ‘fragmentary’ and often a matter of ‘luck’.

Similarly, except for another chance find during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, we might still not know how to read and understand hieroglyphics.  The language lapsed into disuse and became ‘lost’ well over a thousand years ago.  But thanks to the discovery of a stone fragment – now called the Rosetta Stone –  which is translated into 3 languages, including well known Greek, linguists were eventually able to work backwards and unlock the ancient Egyptian language of the pyramids, tombs and Book of the Dead.  The Rosetta Stone also introduced archaeologists and the world to a second, and until then unknown, later Egyptian script now called Demotic.

Put briefly, to argue from silence is a no-no, but a common temptation among archaeologists, historians and Biblical Critics -- who rely on the ‘luck of the dig’.

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* For instance, today’s newspapers and other media have biases along capitalist-socialist-communist lines and on a variety of issues from global warming to women’s rights.  Ownership hire staff who share their  ‘world views’ and slant stories and information to fit ownership’s ‘agenda’.  That is why one should try to read and view broadly, to get as many perspectives on a given issue as possible.

But even bias or slant is not the same as lying and concocting fictitious events.

History, Archaeology and Biblical Criticism

The Argument from Silence and human folly: a non-biblical example

As stated in my First Principles list, arguing from silence, that is, distrusting a source because what it says is not corroborated by other available evidence, is foolish and an act of hubris. Yes, hubris, the Greek word for excessive pride that comes before a great fall.

While this has been regularly used to discredit the Hebrew Bible, the lack of respect for the written texts has been an ongoing problem since the start of archaeology.

Put simply, without corroborating archaeological ‘proof’, written texts have been ‘rejected’ as if the authors had nothing better to do with their time and money – don’t forget that only educated people know how to write and it costs a fair bit in previous generations to buy paper, papyrus, parchment or even clay tablets, styluses, inks, etc.

A case in point is the recent discovery of a teenage girl’s skeleton buried in the ruins of the early Jamestown Virginia settlement in the USA. (Globe and Mail, May 2, 2013, A18, “New evidence of cannibalism in colonial U.S. revealed”)

The body, according to forensic analysis, showed clear signs of cannibalism and is the first such corpse found on the site.

It is being linked to the famous “starving time” winter of 1609-1610, for which written evidence of cannibalism by then leader George Percy and by Captain John Smith has long been rejected or deemed suspect by historians and archaeologists.

Their writings spoke of people digging up the dead for eating, and one case where a man killed and then ate his pregnant wife.  The colony, of course, tried and executed the man “as he well deserved’ -- as Captain Smith put it in his written account.

Now, 400 years later, the reputations of George Percy and Captain John Smith have been vindicated and their writings corroborated.

How sad that such leaders -- who had better things to do with their time and money than to randomly concoct and write down fantastic events -- had to wait 400 years to have their reputations and credibility exonerated.

So much for the heavy-handed dependency on archaeology as the ‘ultimate’ and almost ‘only’ form of proof!

So much for relying on the Argument from Silence!