Longevity myths are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but for which scientific evidence does not support the ages claimed or the reasons for the claims.[1][2] While literal interpretations of such myths may appear to indicate extraordinarily long life spans many scholars[3] believe such figures may be the result of incorrect translation of numbering systems through various languages coupled by the cultural and or symbolic significance of certain numbers.
The phrase "longevity tradition" may include "purifications, rituals, longevity practices, meditations, and alchemy"[4] that have been believed to confer greater human longevity, especially in Chinese culture.[1][2]
Modern science indicates various ways in which genetics, diet, and lifestyle affect human longevity. It also allows us to determine the age of human remains with a fair degree of precision.
Age claims for the earliest eight Sumerian kings in the major recension of the Sumerian King List were in units and fractions of shar (3,600 years) and totaled 67 shar or 241,200 years.[5]
In the only ten-king tablet recension of this list three kings (Alalngar, [...]kidunnu, and En-men-dur-ana) are recorded as having reigned 72,000 years each.[6][7] The major recension assigns 43,200 years to the reign of En-men-lu-ana, and 36,000 years each to those of Alalngar and Dumuzid.[5]
In the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, Joshua, Job, and 2 Chronicles claim several individuals with long lifespans. Students of the Bible hold various positions regarding the ages given in the Bible. Some assert a literal translation while others search for a less dogmatic interpretation. ". . . patient research has gone a long way towards resolving this knotty problem. [8]
Some literary critics explain these extreme ages as ancient mistranslations that converted the word "month" to "year", mistaking lunar cycles for solar ones: this would turn an age of 969 "years" into a more reasonable 969 lunar months, or 78 years of the Metonic cycle.[9]
Donald Etz theorized that the Genesis 5 numbers were multiplied by ten by a later editor.[10] A similar scenario is believed to have led to some confusion as the mystery of Plato's Atlantis.[11] Critics, however, believe this would be inconsistent as the ages of the first nine patriarchs at fatherhood, ranging from 62 to 230 years in the manuscripts, would then be transformed into an implausible range such as 5 to 18 years.[12]
Numbers from the ancient near east are recognized as inflated through some source of number manipulation complex patterns are suggested. The Sumerian tradition suggests certain kings reigned for 36,000 years.[13] This makes the current numbers in Genesis for the antediluvians seem extremely conservative. The number of years each Sumerian king reigned, as Dwight Young has pointed out, is often a square number or the sum of squares. For example, reigns of 900 years (302); 324 (182); 136 (102 + 62); and 116 (102 + 42) are recorded.[14] This ancient tradition of manipulating numbers can also be found in the ages the Old Testament assigns to the patriarchs. Abraham is reported to have lived, according to the Hebrew Bible (Leningrad Codex), to the age of 175. His son, Isaac, lived to be 180. Abraham's grandson, Jacob, lived only to the age of 147. And Joseph, Jacob's son, lived the shortest life of all110.[15] However, like the reigns of some of the kings in the Sumerian King List, the ages of the patriarchs are products of a multiplier and a square and in one case the sum of squares. There is a mathematical progression in the ages of the patriarchs.
This leaves students of the Bible to speculate the reasons why translators of the text would format numbers in such a manner. Several suggestions are below.
Others point out that Biblical genealogies contain generational gaps. For example Paul Y. Hoskisson pointed out that between Ozias and Joatham in verses 8 and 9, Matthew left out Joash, Amaziah, and Azariah (Joash was the son of Ozias [Ahaziah in 2 Kings 11:2] and the father of Amaziah, grandfather of Azariah and great grandfather of Joatham [Jotham in 2 Kings 15:7]). The Gospel of Luke more realistically has 56 ancestors from Abraham to Christ.[16] Hoskisson further suggested that the gematria of King David's name may have something to do with Matthew's choice of the number "fourteen." The Hebrew letters in David's name, , given their numerical value, add up to the number fourteen. Since the writer of the Gospel of Matthew divided the genealogy into three sections, each containing 14 generations in accordance with the numerical value of David's name; Abraham to David, David to the Exile, and the Exile to Christ[17] certain names would have been omitted which the author of Luke had access to. Nineteenth-century critic Vincent Goehlert suggests the lifetimes "represented epochs merely, to which were given the names of the personages especially prominent in such epochs, who, in consequence of their comparatively long lives were able to acquire an exalted influence."[18]
Biblical scholars that believe in literal translation give explanations for the advanced ages of the early patriarchs. In one view man was originally to have everlasting life, but as sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve, its influence became greater with each generation and God progressively shortened man's life. The Biblical upper limit of longevity was categorized by the Bible scholar Witness Lee as having four successive plateaus of 1,000, 500, 250, and finally 120 years,[19] and "four falls of mankind" correspond to these four plateaus.[20] In a second view, before Noah's flood, a "firmament" over the earth (Genesis 1:68) contributed to people's advanced ages.[21]
The reigns of several shahs in the Shahnameh, an epic poem by Ferdowsi, are given as longer than a century:
Lucian wrote about the "Seres" (a Chinese people), claiming they lived for over 300 years.
Some early emperors of Japan ruled for more than a century, according to the tradition documented in the Kojiki, viz., Emperor Jimmu and Emperor Kan.
In Roman times, Pliny wrote about longevity records from the census carried out in 74 AD under Vespasian. In one region of Italy many people allegedly lived past 100; four were said to be 130, others even older. The ancient Greek author Lucian is the presumed author of Macrobii (long-livers), a work devoted to longevity. Most of the examples Lucian gives are what would be regarded as normal long lifespans (80100 years).
In legend, Praotec ech ("forefather Czech", 342680) lived 338 years.[citation needed] And Pemysl, the Ploughman (founder of the Pemyslid dynasty) could have lived for more than 180 years (561745).[citation needed]
Social Security:
A 1973 National Geographic article on longevity reported, as a very aged people, the Burusho or Hunza people in the Hunza Valley of the mountains of Pakistan.[57]
Deaths officially reported in Russia in 1815 listed 1068 centenarians, including 246 supercentenarians (50 at age 120155 and one even older).[30]Time magazine considered that, by the Soviet Union, longevity had elevated to a state-supported "Methuselah cult".[58] The USSR insisted on its citizens' unrivaled longevity by claiming 592 people (224 male, 368 female) over age 120 in a 15 January 1959 census[59] and 100 citizens of Russia alone ages 120 to 156 in March 1960.[60] Such later claims were fostered by Georgian-born Joseph Stalin's apparent hope that he would live long past 70.[58]Zhores A. Medvedev, who demonstrated that all 500-plus claims failed birth-record validation and other tests,[58] said Stalin "liked the idea that [other] Georgians lived to be 100".[60]
Swedish death registers contain detailed information on thousands of centenarians going back to 1749; the maximum age at death reported between 1751 and 1800 was 127.[63]
Swiss anatomist Albrecht von Haller collected examples of 62 people ages 110120, 29 ages 120130, and 15 ages 130140.[65]
The idea that certain diets can lead to extraordinary longevity (ages beyond 130) is not new. In 1909, lie Metchnikoff believed that drinking goat's milk could confer extraordinary longevity. The Hunza diet, supposedly practiced in an area of northern India, has been claimed to give people the ability to live to 140 or more.[68] There has been no proof that any diet has led humans to live longer than the genetically-recognized maximum[citation needed] (currently the oldest verified person, Jeanne Calment, died at age 122.45 years),[69] however Caloric restriction diets have increased lifespans of rodents significantly.
Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity include alchemy.[4]
The Fountain of Youth reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. The New Testament, following older Jewish tradition, attributes healing to the Pool of Bethesda when the waters are "stirred" by an angel.[73]Herodotus attributes exceptional longevity to a fountain in the land of the Ethiopians.[74] The lore of the Alexander Romance and of Al-Khidr describes such a fountain, and stories about the philosopher's stone, universal panaceas, and the elixir of life are widespread.
After the death of Juan Ponce de Len, Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo y Valds wrote in Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535) that Ponce de Len was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.[75]
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