Methuselah (Hebrew: מְתוּשֶׁלַח / מְתוּשָׁלַח, Modern Mətušélaḥ / Mətušálaḥ Tiberian Məṯûšélaḥ / Məṯûšālaḥ ; "Man of the dart/spear", or alternatively "his death shall bring"^[1]) is the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Extra-biblical tradition maintains that he died on the 11th of Cheshvan of the year 1656 (Anno Mundi, after Creation), at the age of 969, seven days before the beginning of the Great Flood.^[2] According to Rashi on Genesis 7:4, God delayed the Flood specifically because of the seven days of mourning in honor of the righteous Methuselah. Methuselah was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah.

The name Methuselah, or the phrase "old as Methuselah," is commonly used to refer to any living thing reaching great age.

Methuselah in the Bible[link]

Methuselah is mentioned in one passage in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 5:21–27, as part of the genealogy linking Adam to Noah. The genealogy is repeated, without the chronology, at 1 Chronicles 1:3, and also appears at Luke 3:37. The following is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

(21) And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: (22) And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and Enoch begat sons and daughters: (23) And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: (24) And Enoch walked with God: and he [was] not; for God took him. (25) And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: (26) And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: (27) And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. (KJV)

The verses are available in three manuscript traditions, the Masoretic, the Septuagint and the Samaritan Torah. The three traditions do not agree with each other. The differences can be summarized as follows:^[3]

There have been numerous attempts to account for these differences – the most obvious being accidental corruption by copyists and translators. Some errors may be the result of mistaken attempts to correct previous errors. Gerhard Larsson has suggested that the rabbis who translated the Septuagint from Hebrew to Greek in Alexandria around the 3rd century BC, aware that the Egyptian historian Manetho makes no mention of a Deluge, lengthened the patriarchs' ages to push back the time of the flood to before the first Egyptian dynasty.^[4]

Extra-Biblical mentions[link]

Methuselah appears in two important Jewish works from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. In the Book of Enoch,^[5] Enoch (as the narrator) tells Methuselah of the coming worldwide flood and of the future Messianic kingdom. The Book of Jubilees names Methuselah's mother and his wife – both are named Edna – and his daughter-in-law, Betenos, Lamech's wife.

The 17th century midrashic Sefer haYashar ("Book of Jasher")^[6] describes Methuselah with his grandson Noah attempting to persuade the people of the earth to return to godliness.^[7] All other very long-lived people died, and Methuselah was the only one of this class left.^[8] God planned to bring the flood after all the men who walked in the ways of the Lord had died (besides Noah and his family).^[9] Methuselah lived until the ark was built, but died before the flood, since God had promised he would not be killed with the unrighteous.^[8] The Sefer haYashar gives Methuselah's age at death as 960^[10] and does not synchronize his death with the flood.

The Sumerian king list mentions a character named Ubaratutu who seems almost identical to Methuselah. He was the son of Enmunderana the Sumerian Enoch, and king of Sumeria until the flood swept over the land. Although their ages are different their father and year of death remain the same.^{[citation needed]}

Interpretations[link]

Bartolomé Bermejo, Christ Leading the Patriarchs to Paradise, c. 1480. In this depiction of the Harrowing of Hell, Methuselah is portrayed as leading the procession of the righteous behind Christ, along with Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, Adam and Eve.

The meaning of Methuselah's age has engendered considerable speculation, but no widely accepted conclusions. These speculations can be discussed under four categories and their combinations: literal, mistranslation, symbolic, and fictional interpretations.

Literal[link]

Literal interpretations take Methuselah's 969 years to be exactly 969 solar years. This conflicts with the current human lifespan. Some literalists suggest possible naturalistic explanations: the patriarchs had a better diet, or a water vapor canopy protected the earth from radiation prior to the Flood.^[11] Others introduce theological causes: man was originally to have everlasting life, but sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve, its influence became greater with each generation, and God progressively shortened man's life, particularly in the postdiluvian era.^[12]

Mistranslation[link]

Some believe that Methuselah's extreme age is the result of an ancient mistranslation that converted "months" to "years", producing a more credible 969 lunar months, or 78½ years,^[13] but the same calculation applied to Enoch would have him fathering Methuselah at the age of 5^[14] using numbers from the Masoretic Text. Another commentator^[15] suggested that the Genesis 5 numbers "might for convenience have all been multiples of 5 or 10". If the Septuagint numbers are divided by 10, Enoch's 165 when he fathered his son would be 16½ years, and Methuselah's 969 when he died would be 96.9 years.

Another commentator^[16] argued that the Septuagint Genesis 5 numbers are in tenths of years, which "will explain how it was that they read 930 years for the age of Adam instead of 93 years, and 969 years for Methuselah instead of 96 years, and 950 years for that of Noah instead of 95 years"... "Surely it is much more rational to conclude that Noah lived 50 years instead of 500 years before he took a wife and begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." The same commentator's Table III ^[17] lists the Septuagint total ages with decimal points: 93.0 for Adam, 91.0 for Cainan, 96.9 for Methuselah, 95.0 for Noah, etc. Another commentator^[18] provided a similar table of the same Septuagint Genesis 5 numbers with decimal points inserted in the same tenth position.

Symbolic[link]

Symbolic interpretations begin with the observation that the Biblical chronology routinely uses numbers for their symbolic value: for example, 10 symbolizes completion, 8 symbolizes the mundane world, and 7 the divine. So Methuselah's father Enoch, who does not die but is taken by God, is the seventh patriarch, and Methuselah, the eighth, dies in the year of the Flood, which ends the ten-generational sequence from Adam to Noah, in whose time the world is destroyed.^[19]

Fictional[link]

Among those who believe that all the numbers of Genesis 5, including Methuselah's age, have no meaning at all, Kenneth Kitchen calls them "pure myth",^[20] Yigal Levin believes they are intended simply to speed the reader from Adam to Noah,^[21] and Claus Westermann believes they are intended to create the impression of a distant past.^[22]

Derivative words[link]

The word "Methuselarity" was coined by Aubrey de Gray to mean a future point in time when all of the medical conditions that cause human death would be eliminated and death would occur only by accident or homicide.^[23]

Use of the word in modern life[link]

One of the leading non-profit organizations supporting scientific research aimed on human life extension is Methuselah Foundation. There are several breakthroughs made within the programs of this organizations, including extending life of mice 2.5 times and rejuvenation of mice. These developments give hope to apply scientific means to stop or delay aging and extend human life in nearest future.^[24]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Methuselah

References[link]

External links[link]

• Methuselah at the Open Directory Project
• Complete Bible Genealogy Family tree of Methuselah
•  "Methuselah". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

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John By
John By
Born	(1779-08-07)7 August 1779 Lambeth, London
Died	1 February 1836(1836-02-01) (aged 56) Frant, East Sussex
Nationality	English
Education	Royal Military Academy
Spouse	Elizabeth Baines Johnson (1801) Esther March (1818)
Children	Harriet Martha By 1822-1842 Esther By Ashburnham 1820-1848
Parents	George By and Mary Bryan
Work
Engineering discipline	military engineering
Significant projects	Rideau Canal Quebec City fortifications

Lieutenant-Colonel John By (7 August 1779 – 1 February 1836) was a British military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and, in the process, founding what would become the city of Ottawa. ^[1] Born in Lambeth in London, England in 1779 to George By and Mary Bryan. By studied at the Royal Military Academy. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery on 1 August 1799 but transferred to the Royal Engineers on 20 December the same year. In 1802 he was posted to Canada for the first time, where he worked on the fortification of Quebec City and on improving the navigability of the Saint Lawrence River. During the Napoleonic wars he returned to Europe, where he served in Spain under the Duke of Wellington from 1811 until 1815.

Sculpture marking location of his residence in Major's Hill Park, Ottawa

With the end of the war By retired from the military but in 1826, in view of his engineering experience in Canada, he was recalled and returned to Canada to supervise the construction of the Rideau Canal. Since the canal was to begin in the wild and sparsely populated Ottawa River valley, his first task was the construction of a town to house the men who were to work on the canal, and associated services. The resulting settlement, called Bytown in his honour, would later become famous under the new name of Ottawa.

The canal was completed in six years, and was acclaimed as an engineering triumph. Colonel By was recalled to London, however, to face accusations that he had made a number of unauthorised expenditures. The charges were spurious and a parliamentary committee exonerated him, but the damage was done and he was never given a formal commendation for his work on the canal.^[2] He died in 1836 and is buried in the village of Frant in East Sussex in the South East of England.

Personal[link]

By was married twice, first to Elizabeth Baines in 1801, who died in 1814. He remarreid in 1818 to Esther March (who survived hime until 1838) with whom they had two daughters Harriet Martha By (1822-1842) and Esther By Ashburnham (1820-1848).^[3]

By was survived by two brothers^[4]:

• George By - died in 1840 without children
• Henry By - died in 1852 and predeased by his son in 1847 (whom had no children)

Legacy[link]

Joseph-Émile Brunet's statue of John By in Major's Hill Park, Ottawa

John By's name lives on in a number of contexts:

• The Byward Market area of Ottawa's Lower Town
• His statue, executed by Joseph-Émile Brunet and unveiled in 1971, stands in nearby Major's Hill Park
• Ottawa's Colonel By Secondary School
• The scenic parkway of Colonel By Drive, which follows the first stretch of the canal through the city from Lower Town to the falls at Hogs Back
• The engineering building of the University of Ottawa
• In 1979, to commemorate the bicentenary of his birth, Canada Post issued a stamp bearing his image
• In Ottawa, Colonel By Day is the name given to the Ontario August civic holiday
• The Kichesippi Beer Co. (formerly the Scotch Irish Brewing Co.) out of Ottawa, Ontario brews a 'John By Imperial Stout' beer, with the likeness of the Colonel on the label.

Plaques[link]

A plaque was erected by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board at Jones Falls Lockstation commemorating Lieutenant Colonel John By, Royal Engineer, the superintending engineer in charge of the construction of the Rideau Canal. The plaque notes that the 123-mile long Rideau Canal, built as a military route and incorporating 47 locks, 16 lakes, two rivers, and a 350-foot-long (110 m), 60-foot-high (18 m) dam at Jones Falls, was completed in 1832.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John By

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• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Biography from the Dictionary of National Biography (1901)

References[link]