I’m not a huge Lord of the Rings fan, but I read the
books more than once when I was younger, and something that always sort of
struck me was Tolkien’s tendency to wax poetical about the age of things. The Forest of Fangorn, for instance, owes its
great power and mystery to its extreme age.
The Old Forest in the Shire, too, is ominous especially because it is an
old forest. The enigmatic and much-loved character Tom
Bombadil, for all his youthful mirth and frivolity, is of immeasurable age (his
elven name is Iarwain Ben-adar, the Oldest
and Fatherless). Even the One Ring
itself owes something of its power to its great age.
In Middle Earth, ancient things are powerful, magical, ominous
and revered, and powerful things, magical things, ominous things are,
especially, old.
Okay, maybe I’m more a fan than I care to admit.
But the reason I’m pointing all this out is because, in
its deep respect, even awe, for all things ancient, the world of Middle Earth
is, I think, very much like the world of the Bible, and very unlike our own world; and seeing how
this theme plays out in a work of mythic fiction may help us hear something
important that the Bible is trying to say about the theology of aging.
The word that best captures what I’m trying to get at here
is itself an old fashioned word (sorry): the word is, venerable. According to
Google, the word “venerable” means “accorded a great deal of respect,
especially because of age, wisdom or character.” Whatever else the Bible has to say about
growing and/or being old, it recognizes, and asks us to recognize, that there is something venerable about great age.
Like I say, “venerable“ is not an adjective we use that
much anymore. At least, it’s not the
first word that jumps to mind for me when I think of “old age.” In the Scriptures, old age tends to give
things (be they people, objects, teachings or ideas) a certain degree of
credibility, authority and weight; old age tries, tests and proves things true. In our world, by contrast, it’s not old age
but youth, novelty, originality that has credibility and authority. The long line-ups to get the latest iphone is
not hard data, of course, nor is the dismissive tone we use when we call something “old-fashioned,” but they
are, I think, subtle markers of this cultural difference. Where the authors of the Bible tend to give
special credence to old-ness, in particular, we tend to give it, especially, to
new-ness.
This helps us to make sense of one of those parts of the
Bible that often leaves people scratching their heads: the table of ages in
Genesis 5. If you’re unfamiliar with the
passage, let me explain. Genesis 5
contains a long, carefully structured genealogy of Adam’s descendants, from
Seth to Noah, and what stands out as especially curious to modern readers is how
old everyone on the list was.
Supernaturally old, you might almost say. Methuselah, the oldest, lived to the ripe old
age of 969; and Lamech, the youngest on the list, lived to a meager 777.
Without getting mired in circular debates about the
historicity of these figures or the biological likelihood that anyone really
lived 969 years (I’ll leave those posts to bloggers who know more than I), let
me just point this out: there are
exactly 10 generations in the list, and the last one, Lamech, lived exactly 777
years (that is 7 (the number of completeness) times 111 (the sum of whose
digits is 3)). This suggests to me that
there is something very symbolic going on in this genealogy.
What we are seeing here, among other things, is a tribute
to human venerability, the Creator’s original intention that human beings should
live to a ripe old age, and that in their great age, they should grow wise and
knowing and experienced and, for lack of a better word, venerable. Of course, the “great age” that the author of
Genesis has in mind was, in fact, eternally
old—we were meant, originally, not to die at all (which is why He planted
the Tree of Life in the Garden (Genesis 2:9), and it’s only after the Fall that humans are prevent
from eating of it (3:22)). This is a
pretty standard reading of Genesis 1-3, but what’s seldom mentioned in
discussions of eternal life, Edenic or otherwise, is that Biblically, in some
sense or other, it would have meant, also, eternal aging.
The fact that eternal
aging seems almost a monstrous fate
to us is probably more evidence that we don’t really share the Bible’s
perspective on old age in the first place.
We have come to see it, especially, as a kind of loss; the authors of
the Bible tended to see it as a kind of gain: age expands our heart and layers
our wisdom and enriches our character and, especially, deepens our experience
of God; and if life was meant to be eternal, then there was not meant to be,
originally, any end to the expansion of the human heart or the layering of human
wisdom or the wealth of human character, or, especially the depth of our life
in Him.
If I’m on to something here, then it’s worth noting that as
we get further and further away from the “ground-zero” of the Creation Event in
Genesis 1, we see human life-spans contracting rapidly. Noah
lives 950 years, his son Shem 500, and his great-great-great-grandson Abraham
died at the still-ripe old age of 175. As Eden shrinks into the distant past, it
seems, our potential to reach a venerable old age diminishes, too. Eventually it’ll settle on the infamous Three
Score and Ten (Psalm 90:10).
But it’s also worth noting that among Christ’s many
titles and attributes is this one: he
is, according to the prophet Daniel, “The Ancient of Days” (Dan 7:9), the Truly
Venerable One who existed before time began, who is now and ever will be. From a biblical point of view, this is, in
fact, one of his claims to authority, that he is both Ageless and Ancient.
Like any true theology, a theology of aging must start
here, with Him; and when we do, what we find is the thought that, in restoring
to us the eternal life we lost with Eden, he restores to us, also, our
potential to become truly venerable in our old age.
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