Skip to main content

Genesis 5: The World's First Navels

Image
By
Curtis asks the question.




Seth wasn’t Adam’s last kid.  Adam was 130 when Seth was born, which means Seth was something of an afterthought.  Adam didn’t give much thought to the sons and daughters born after Seth, though, since no one has bothered to remember their names.  He probably had a lot more children, though, because if he was still virile at 130, he probably had more than a little life left in him between then and his death at age 930.

Seth, the third person in the world to have a navel (unless you count those other, unnamed people,) had a son named Enosh and a bunch of other children who weren’t named, and lived to be 912.  Enosh had one child of note, Kenan, and lived to be 905.  Kenan’s only noteworthy child was Mahalelel, and Kenan lived to be 910.  Mahalalael’s only noted child was Jared, Mahalalel lived to be 895.  Jared lived to be 962 and his only noted child was Enoch.  Enoch died young, at a mere 365 years, taken too soon from this earth to truly have lived a full life.  His only noted son was Methuselah, who made up for it by living to be the oldest person ever, sticking it out until age 969, bringing only one noteworthy child into the world: Lamech.  Lamech also died young, surviving a mere 777 years, and fathering only one noteworthy child, Noah.  Noah lived a long time, himself, but waited until he was just past middle age, at age 500, to father three boys: Shem, Ham and Japheth.  But, strangely enough, that’s not the remarkable story that Noah is famous for.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the Lemon was Invented

By
Lemons How do you make a lemon?  Silly question, isn’t it?  You just take the seeds out of one and plant them, and wait for the tree to come up, right?  That’s true, but it hasn’t always been that easy.  Lemons today are a widely cultivated citrus fruit, with a flavor used in cuisines of countries where no lemon tree would ever grow.  You might think that it was just a matter of ancient peoples finding the trees, enjoying their fruit and growing more of them, but that’s not true.  The lemon is a human invention that’s maybe only a few thousand years old. The first lemons came from East Asia, possibly southern China or Burma.  (These days, some prefer to refer to Burma as Myanmar .  I’ll try to stay out of that controversy here and stick to fruit.)  The exact date of the lemon’s first cultivation is not known, but scientists figure it’s been around for more than 4,000 years.  The lemon is a cross breed of several fruits.  One f...
6 comments
Read more

The Massachusetts Codfish License Plate Fiasco of 1928

By
A 1928 Massachusetts license plate with a bad omen! 1928 was a bad year for the Massachusetts codfish yield.  Whose fault was it?  The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles', of course—or you might think so, to listen to some of the irate fishermen that year. The problem started with the new license plate design.  At the time, it was common for states to issue brand new license plates every year, and Massachusetts was no exception.  The new plates for 1928 featured something revolutionary, too: it was the first time any state put a picture of anything on the plate.  Since Massachusetts was known for cod, the picture the RMV chose was, logically, a codfish.  It appeared at the bottom of the plate.  In the bottom left-hand corner was the year, 1928.  In the bottom right-hand corner was the state, written “Mass.”  And in the middle was the codfish—the first picture of anything that ever appeared on an American license plate...
10 comments
Read more

Origins of the Word Hoser, eh?

By
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as cultural icons Bob and Doug McKenzie These days we often hear Canadians referred to as “Hosers”.  It’s a strange word, and it sounds a little insulting, but it’s sometimes used more with affection than malice.  Any such word is difficult to use correctly, especially if you don’t belong to the group the word describes.   I can’t say I feel comfortable throwing the word around, myself, but I can offer a little information about it that might shed some light on what it means. First off: is it an insult?  Yes… and no.   The word hoser can be used as an insult or as a term of endearment; the variation hosehead , is certainly an insult.  It’s a mild insult, meaning something like jerk or idiot or loser .  Its origin is unclear, and there are several debatable etymologies of the word.  One claims that it comes from the days before the zamboni was invented, when the losing team of an outdoor ice hockey game...
1 comment
Read more