During the period in which Genesis was written, people measured dates by the reigns of the kings. A good date from the bronze or Iron ages usually reads, "In the 3rd year of ______." Whenever someone measures time, they have to have a fixed point, and in ancient times, the standard seems to be the start of the reign of the king. There was no BC or AD or fixed year that all years were measured from.
Genesis follows this model as well, but the Biblical chronology is irregular for the time it was written in one way. It gives an extra piece of information - the age of each patriarch at the time his son was born. This information is only good for one reason. It is used to calculate the total number of years from creation to flood. The author intended for the reader to perform this exercise. There's no other reason to include those dates.
So far so good. But here's the rub. The years listed in our Bibles today are based on a translation of the Hebrew text compiled by the Masoretes, in the 5th-10th centuries AD, 500-1000 years after Christ. And the Masoretes, Jews during a time when there was antipathy between the church and Judaism, were profoundly anti-Christian. If every other source basically matched them, we would overlook that blip on their resume'.
But that isn't the case. The Greek Old Testament (LXX) contains a number of differences in the dates in these chapters. The LXX is a collection of Greek translations of earlier Hebrew texts. The translations are said to have been done in 70BC, and we have manuscripts and fragments of them dating from the 2nd century onwards, as well as quotations from them (included in your New Testament) dating from the 1st century. Essentially, this was the Bible that the 1st century church used.
Here are some of the differences found in LXX versions of Genesis:
Enoch is said to have fathered Methusaleh at 165 instead of 65.
Enoch is said to have lived 200 years rather than 300 years before being raptured.
Methusaleh is said to have fathered Lamech at 197 instead of 187.
Methusaleh is said to have lived another 802 years after the birth, rather than 782.
Something interesting here - this would mean that Methusaleh lived to be precisely 999 years old. That's a significant number because it's 1 short of 1000, and given the "day = thousand years," and "you shall surely die in the same day you sin" verses.
Something else interesting here, being born 100 years later, and living an extra 30 years, would mean that if we "do the math," Methusalah lived through Noah's flood. We know that he wasn't on the ark with Noah ("8 souls were saved through water" says the Bible). That's a problem... unless you don't believe the flood to be global, I suppose.
So which text is right? Who corrected who? Should I go with the Masoretes, as most translators have? Or should I go with the LXX, which the New Testament authors frequently quoted, and apparently gave weight to?
Jarrod
(this is re-posted from another forum, which is why it reads like an OP)