Methuselah

According to the Hebrew Bible, Methuselah  is purported to be the oldest person to ever live. 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. 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 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:

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.

Extra-Biblical mentions

Methuselah appears in two important Jewish works from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. In the Book of Enoch, 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") describes Methuselah with his grandson Noah attempting to persuade the people of the earth to return to godliness. All other very long-lived people died, and Methuselah was the only one of this class left. 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). Methuselah lived until the ark was built, but died before the flood, since God had promised he would not be killed with the unrighteous. The Sefer haYashar gives Methuselah's age at death as 960 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.

Source: wikipedia