Who is the oldest person in the Bible? Methuselah, 969 years, and the longest lives

The oldest person in the Bible is Methuselah, who lived 969 years: "And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died" (Genesis 5:27). He was the son of Enoch and the grandfather of Noah. The next longest lives are Jared (962), Noah (950) and Adam (930), all recorded in Genesis 5 and 9.

If you add up the ages in Genesis 5 as written, Methuselah died in the very year the flood began. The Bible never says he died in the flood; it's simply where the numbers land. We'll show the arithmetic below.

This article gives the ten longest lifespans with their verses (each one checked against the KJV text), the steady decline in Genesis 11, a timeline from Adam to Abraham, the oldest woman in the Bible, and how Christians have understood these extraordinary ages.

The 10 oldest people in the Bible

Every age below is stated in the text (or, for Shem, added up from two consecutive verses). We checked each reference against the KJV.

One name is missing from Genesis 5's list of deaths: Enoch. He lived 365 years on earth, and then "he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Hebrews 11:5 says he "was translated that he should not see death". So Enoch isn't the oldest, but he's the only father in the chapter whose life ends without "and he died" (Noah's death comes later, in Genesis 9:29).

Here's Methuselah's own entry, the source for the most famous age in the Bible:

And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech: And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.

If you'd like to meet these people beyond their numbers, the app's character profiles tell each life in order, with key moments, strengths, weaknesses and lessons for today.

A timeline from Adam to Noah

Genesis 5 gives three numbers for most of the fathers: their age when the named son was born, how long they lived afterward, and their total age. That means you can lay the generations on a timeline. The years below are counted from Adam's creation, using only the numbers in the KJV text (which follows the Hebrew Masoretic text).

What the timeline shows:

• Methuselah died in year 1656, the year of the flood. Noah was 600 when the flood came (Genesis 7:6, 7:11), and 1056 + 600 = 1656. Methuselah, born in 687, was 969 that year.
• Lamech died five years before the flood, in 1651, at 777.
• Adam was still alive when Lamech was born. Their lives overlapped by 56 years (874 to 930). In other words, by these numbers Noah's father could have known Adam.
• Methuselah's life overlapped Adam's by 243 years.
• Noah was born 126 years after Adam died, and he lived 350 years after the flood (Genesis 9:28).

A note of honesty: this timeline is our arithmetic, not a statement of the Bible. Genealogies in the ancient world sometimes skip generations, and the Greek Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch give different numbers for several of these fathers' ages, which changes the overlaps. The ages at death in the table above are the ones in the KJV.

You can read the whole chapter in context in our Genesis book overview, or the story of the man who "walked with God" in Enoch walks with God.

After the flood: lifespans fall fast

Genesis 11 continues the line from Shem to Terah, Abraham's father. Unlike Genesis 5, it doesn't state most totals; it gives each man's age at his son's birth and the years he lived afterward. Adding the two gives his full lifespan.

The pattern is striking: about 900 years before the flood, then 600 for Shem, about 430 to 460 for the next three generations, and under 240 from Peleg on, down to 148 for Nahor. Then come the patriarchs:

Jacob, at 130, told Pharaoh his years had "not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers" (Genesis 47:9). He was right: Abraham lived 175 years and Isaac 180.

By the time of the monarchy, recorded ages look much like ours. Eli was 98 (1 Samuel 4:15), Barzillai was "a very aged man, even fourscore years old" (2 Samuel 19:32), and David died at about 70, having become king at 30 and reigned 40 years (2 Samuel 5:4). Psalm 90:10, a prayer of Moses, puts the normal span at "threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years".

The latest person in the Old Testament with a recorded age over 120 is Jehoiada, the priest who protected the boy king Joash, at 130 (2 Chronicles 24:15). You can read his part in Joash, the king hidden in the temple.

Who is the oldest woman in the Bible?

The oldest woman whose age the Bible records is Sarah, who died at 127:

And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.

Sarah is remembered not for her age at death but for her age at the birth of Isaac. She was about 90 (Genesis 17:17), and she laughed at the promise before she held its fulfillment (Genesis 18:12, 21:6). Hebrews 11:11 lists her among the heroes of faith.

Another very old woman appears in Luke 2: Anna, the prophetess who saw the infant Jesus in the temple. The KJV says she "was a widow of about fourscore and four years" (Luke 2:37). Readers take that two ways: either she was about 84 years old, or she had been a widow for 84 years after seven years of marriage, which would make her over 100. The Greek allows both, so we can't rank her with confidence.

Is Methuselah really the oldest? Common questions

What about Job? Job 42:16 says that after his trials, "lived Job an hundred and forty years". We aren't told how old he was before, so his total is unknown. It was clearly long, but no total is given to rank.

Were there two Lamechs? Yes, and it's a common trivia trap. Genesis 4 has a Lamech in Cain's line, a violent man with two wives, Adah and Zillah (Genesis 4:19-24). Genesis 5 has Lamech the son of Methuselah and father of Noah, who lived 777 years. Cain's line also has an Enoch (Genesis 4:17) and a Methusael (Genesis 4:18), not to be confused with Enoch and Methuselah in Seth's line.

Does Genesis 6:3 set a 120-year limit? God says, "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years". Christians read this in two main ways: as a new limit on human life, or as a 120-year countdown before the flood. Supporters of the first point to Moses dying at 120; supporters of the second point out that people lived far longer than 120 for centuries after the flood (Shem, Arphaxad, Abraham and others).

How should we understand these ages?

Christians hold a range of views, and it's worth knowing them.

• Literal ages. Many Christians, especially in conservative traditions, read the numbers as real years. Some suggest that conditions before and just after the flood were different, and the steady decline in Genesis 11 fits a world in which something had changed.
• Numbers with a literary or symbolic purpose. Others note that ancient Near Eastern king lists also give enormous reigns, and suggest that Genesis uses numbers to honor these ancestors and to show the long reach of the promise from Adam to Abraham, while still meaning them to be taken seriously as history.
• Gaps in the genealogies. Some argue that biblical genealogies, like others in the ancient world, can skip generations, so the lists aren't meant to be added into a precise chronology. That affects the timeline above, though not the ages given for each person.

What all these views share is the point Genesis 5 makes by repeating "and he died" eight times: even the longest life ends. The chapter's one exception, Enoch, points to the hope of a life with God that death doesn't end. And Psalm 90 turns the numbers into a prayer:

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Test yourself on Genesis

Here are three questions from the app's Genesis quiz:

Quick quiz: Genesis

How long did the rain of the flood fall on the earth?

7 days40 days150 days120 days

What did the LORD count to Abram as righteousness?

His circumcision at 99The tithe given to MelchizedekHis trust in the LORDHis departure for Canaan

What new name does Jacob receive after his wrestling at the ford of the Jabbok?

IsraelEdomBenjaminAbraham

Continue the quiz

There are many more questions like these in Bible Academy, each with its explanation and verse. Start free, no card needed.

You can take the full Genesis quiz or the Noah quiz, and read the Noah and the flood story with its own short quiz. For more people records, see the most mentioned person in the Bible, and for a mix of surprising facts with their verses, our list of interesting Bible facts. To see where these early generations fit in the whole sweep of Scripture, start with our overview of the Bible story.

In the app, every one of the 100+ character profiles ends with a short quiz, and every answer cites the verse it comes from.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the oldest person in the Bible?

Methuselah is the oldest person in the Bible. Genesis 5:27 says, "all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died." He was the son of Enoch, the father of Lamech and the grandfather of Noah. The next oldest are Jared (962 years), Noah (950) and Adam (930).

How old was Methuselah when he died?

Methuselah was 969 years old when he died (Genesis 5:27). He became the father of Lamech at 187 and lived 782 more years (Genesis 5:25-26). Adding up the ages in Genesis 5, his death falls in the same year the flood began, Noah's 600th year, though the Bible does not say how he died.

Did Methuselah die in the flood?

The Bible doesn't say. By the ages in Genesis 5, Methuselah was born 687 years after Adam's creation and died at 969, in year 1656. Noah was born in year 1056 and was 600 when the flood came, which is also year 1656. So Methuselah died in the flood year, but whether before or during the flood is not stated.

Who is the oldest woman in the Bible?

Sarah, Abraham's wife, is the oldest woman whose age at death the Bible records: 127 years (Genesis 23:1). She gave birth to Isaac at about 90. Anna the prophetess in Luke 2 may have been older, but the KJV's "a widow of about fourscore and four years" can mean either that she was 84 or that she had been widowed for 84 years.

Why did people live so long in Genesis?

Genesis doesn't explain it. Many Christians take the ages as literal and see the sharp decline after the flood as a sign that the world had changed; others think the numbers also carry a literary or honorific meaning, as in other ancient genealogies. All agree on the chapter's lesson: even 969 years ends with "and he died", except for Enoch, whom God took.