Einstein was correct when he made this famous statement. Science and Religion are not inherently enemies, and an understanding of both is key for any theologian. Today, I hope to use that understanding to answer the question sent to us by S. M. Onster, which is as follows:
“Explain how it is SCIENTIFICALLY possible for Jonah to be swallowed by a fish and survive for three days.
How is it SCIENTIFICALLY possible for Methuselah to have lived 969 years, and be fertile after 200 years?”
These are both very interesting questions, and very difficult to answer scientifically at first glance. After all, how could a man live inside a Whale, or live to be nearly a thousand years old? Clearly, analysis is needed.
In the case of Jonah, the analysis has already done. In 1891 a man named James Bartley went overboard and was swallowed by a whale. Several hours later the crew of his ship had captured and killed the whale, and afterwards found James still alive, passed out in the whale's stomach. Of course, Jonah would have been inside the whale for more than a few hours, but accounts say that James passed out of fear, not lack of oxygen, which makes quite a bit of sense. The stomach acid of the whale would not digest him, though it may have caused him to grow very ill as accounts say his skin grew white as parchment while he was in the whale. In the end, Bartley was proof of the modern day Jonah. While there are many people who dispute Bartley's account, it was collaborated by the Encyclopedia Britannica in an article called “The Authenticity of Stories about Whales Swallowing Men”, which confirmed the story after extensive research. So, scientifically? It is more than possible for Jonah to have survived for three days within a whale.
Now, Methuselah is more difficult, and requires more theoretical reasoning. With it, we must establish a few things. First, Genesis 3:17-19 says: “And to the man he said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.” This meaty verse describes what we call “The Fall”, or what happened when Sin entered the world. The Earth became cursed, and what was a perfect creation began to decay and rot.
This is not mere theological speculation, however. Science supports this theory, it is a well documented fact that this world is in a worse state than it was when it first began. We have observed the decline of the world, be it at our own hands or through natural processes. New diseases appear, species eradicate each other, and natural disasters change the face of the world. It is an unavoidable fact that this planet has been a decline since its beginning, whether that beginning is 12 thousand or 12 billion years ago. The lifespans of humans has decreased over the years, and only in relatively recent history have we started reversing that through uses of medicine and environmental control. Even now, scientists are working to expand the human life-span to as long as 800 years(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/who-wants-to-live-for-ever-a-scientific-breakthrough-could-mean-humans-live-for-hundreds-of-years-772418.html). This is not a far-fetched idea. If we could preserve the state of the average human body at its prime, that person could theoretically live forever. Aging is generally regarded as a disease in medical culture, a disease which has no cure and has infected the entirety of mankind. This disease can be assumed as existing in Creation, however, for there was a Tree of Eternal Life in the Garden that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from. Why then is it so much more pronounced today? The answer is a simple, but somewhat uncomfortable topic: inbreeding.
While today many societies find the concept of incest to be abhorrent, this is a relatively recent development when one considers the majority of humanity's existence. In the ancient world it was not only the norm, it was required. The only marital partners to be found for many years would have been those related by direct or indirect bloodline. How is this important? Well, inbreeding is well known to cause genetic deficiencies, the main reason it is banned in many countries today. This led to the Catch-22 of mankind's first generations: To continue to exist the species' genetic strength had to be considerably diminished, making each generation weaker than the last. Events such as the Great Flood, which some scholars hold occurred seven days after Methuselah's death, would have set humanity back at least a handful of generations in terms of genetic material. By the end of this process, our susceptibility to the effects of aging would have been concentrated many times over until it plateaued at the point that we know it today. This is supported by the genealogy given in Genesis.
When we look at the genealogy of the line from Adam to Noah, we see that in most cases there has been a decrease between the life-span of the son and the father. There are a few notable exceptions, namely Jared(Methuselah's grandfather), Methuselah, and Noah(Methuselah's grandson). There is a steep decline in life-span after the Flood, as this model would predict. It is not only in future generations that this decline is present, but also in the current generation: Noah lived to be 950, while his son Shem lived to be only 600. I would theorize that 900 years was not so much an average life-span, but rather that Methuselah's line was merely exceptionally healthy even by the standards of the ancient world. We are given a brief snap-shot of this world, but we know there are cities full of people that who's lifespans may have varied as much four hundred years from that of Methuselah. Even Adam, the first man and the physically uncorrupted figure of humanity's health, only lived to be 930 years of age, shorter than Methuselah, Noah, and Jared. These factors, combined with the relative lack of disease and environmental corruption, would have created a perfect-storm of longevity for humanity.
So, as a recap, how is it possible for Methuselah to have lived 969 years? Good genes. We know that aging is a genetic disability, even if we do not know how to reverse it, and Biblical time lines support this theory. While the story of Methuselah may sound like fantasy at first, the science behind it couldn't be more real.
In Christ,
Wesley E. Freeland