Doug Van Pelt

Lonnie Hurley: The Life of a Hippie Preacher

Genesis 5 gives us the geneology from Adam to Noah. It's amazing how long these guys lived back then: Adam 930 years; Seth 912; Enosh 905; Kenan 910; Mahalalel 895; Jared 962; Methuselah 969; Lamech 777; and Enoch only 365 (cause God "took him away").

This is amazing, considering that we're lucky if we live to be 100. Some scholars say that it was perhaps the lack of radiation on the earth at the time. Before the flood, the earth was like a biosphere dome, with moisture for life not coming from open sky rain. Maybe this atmosphere blocked out the harmful ultra-violet rays and radiation of the sun. Perhaps that is what kills us "prematurely." Who knows? When the flood did happen, the sky opened up and the water from below came up as well. This probably set apart the continents, or at least some of them, and wiped out that biosphere climate in some way.

Now Enoch was "taken away" by the Lord. How did that happen? What happened there? Was it a mystery, where God took him to Brazil and Moses wasn't given privilege to that information? Or was he taken up to heaven? This is infered by the writer of Hebrews, where Enoch is listed in the "Hall of Faith" of chapter 11. It says he did not experience death, so we can probably safely assume that means he was transported to eternity in heaven.

That's some amazing stuff. I wonder how the skin and hair of these 900+ year old guys looked like. Can you imagine living just 200+ years in our times? Think of all the technology that's happened since the late 1700s.

Well, it's 10 days, 3 hours, 0 minutes and 0 seconds until the deadline for this issue. Have I told you that this issue is going to have a "flip cover?" Pages 1-49 will be right-side up and the last half of the mag will be upside-down -- at least until you flip it over and start from that cover and work towards the middle.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at September 12, 2006 09:00 AM