Can We Learn Anything from the Ages at Death of Joseph, Moses and Joshua?

Would accepting that the ages of Joseph (110), Moses (120) and Joshua (110) when they died were ‘idealised’ ages, (as Prof. Gary Rendsburg proposes in his Genesis book) rather than necessarily their actual ages challenge your understanding of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible (assuming you actually believe in the Bible’s  inspiration and inerrancy)?

Are you confident and relaxed enough in your understanding to read on?

Would you be surprised to learn that your understanding of what it means for the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant Word of God could actually be improved and enhanced, and even enhanced by learning of its less than perfect origins, authorship and accuracy?

Sometimes knowing more about the miraculous makes it less miraculous, but the opposite can also be true.

Sometimes, as your depth of understanding and appreciation grows, your awe and wonder at the ‘ways’ of the Almighty; at His nuances, His working out His purposes through people;  His justice being seen at times to  long-suffering yet always perfectly enacted, can bring a deepening sense of His presence and power, His mercy, His loving kindness and restorative justice.

So if you have got this far, let me introduce the challenge.

Firstly the Tanakh gives us their ages of 110, 120 and 110 years respectively as I stated:

Genesis 50:26 “So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 34:7 And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Joshua 24:29 “And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being a hundred and ten years old.”

But, we have a lot of evidence, both from Genesis and from much Egyptian archaeology that Joseph was really accepted as an Egyptian and this has certain implications, especially when the author of the text, and his original readers/audience,  would have understood a lot more of the contextual detail that this entailed than we do today.

Genesis contains several Egyptian words such as ’abrek’ (41:43), which literally means, “heart to you,” and is understood idiomatically to mean “hail,” which was an appropriate expression to use when Joseph bestowed with the authority of being second only to the Pharaoh, and was paraded through the city.

There is much in the story of Joseph especially, that gives great authenticity to these events, at least in terms of the author clearly knowing much about the customs and reality of life in Ancient Egypt.

These include the use of authentic Egyptian personal names (such as Potiphar); Potiphera (a variant form of the same name, the father-in-law of Joseph), Asenath (Joseph’s Egyptian wife), and Zaphenath-paneah (Joseph’s Egyptian name, meaning something like “the god has spoken and he has life”), and the presence of Egyptian customs, such as mummification.

Joseph also shaves (Gen 41:14). This clearly indicates an Egyptian lifestyle. While the Semites (including the Hebrew tribes like those descended from Avraham) wore beards, Egyptians were clean-shaven.

There is also much evidence that the ideal lifespan of an Egyptian was considered to be 110 years, even though there is little evidence of many living to this age.

So Joseph may have been given a lifespan of 110 years to show that he was the ideal or ‘perfect’ Egyptian, someone that all Egyptians and even all Israel could look up to and follow his example of moral character and behaviour.

And then Moses is given another 10 years, possibly to demonstrate that he was, at least in the eyes of the people, superior even to the ‘perfect’ Joseph.

To this day the Jewish people recognize Moses as the greatest of all Prophets, and the miracles of the Exodus as the greatest miracles until the even greater miracle of the present day’s return of the people to Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel).

And then continuing the theme, the next great leader after Moses is Joseph who then is said to live to 110, to again possibly demonstrate his ‘ideal’ or perfect example.

So, it is possible that these three ages really are ‘idealised’ and not actual ages, introduced to impart a message about the relative merits of these three great men of God.

Remember, to date we have no other evidence outside of the Tanakh for the existence of Joseph in Egypt, we don’t even know with any certainty the name of the Pharaoh, but we can certainly appreciate the Egyptian colouring of the story which clearly lends credence to it.

Consequently, we have no way of verifying the lifespans of Joseph, Moses and Joshua, but we can see that if the ages given are there to convey meaning to the listening audience of the time (remembering that the text would have been presented aurally, that is, read out loud).

What such a possibility does though, is add an extra layer of linguistic and contextual depth to the narrative, which to my mind, only enhances the brilliance of the Book of Genesis, and therefore also further amplifies the underlying spiritual guidance and inspirational nature of the text.

How about you? Does this cause you considerable cognitive dissonance or are you open to leaning more?

If you are open to gaining a greater appreciation of the linguistic brilliance of the text and many of the subtle alliterations and other clever word plays, then I strongly recommend Rendsburg's book.

If can purchase it on Audible.com - see

http://www.audible.com.au/pd/Religion-Spirituality/The-Book-of-Genesis-Audiobook/B00FO6WQAW