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True. The literal interpretations were more of a more modern view of scripture. The early church tended to view these stories as symbolic:

Some of the early Church Fathers didn’t believe all the stories in the Old Testament were supposed to be taken literally. They thought some of them were more like symbols or lessons to teach us about God. Here’s what a few of them thought:

1. Origen of Alexandria (c. 184–253)
Origen thought a lot of the Bible stories were symbolic. Like, he didn’t think the Garden of Eden was a real garden with a talking snake. He thought it was more of a lesson about how people make mistakes and need God. He also didn’t get how there could be mornings and evenings before the sun was made, so he figured the story wasn’t literal but meant to teach something.

2. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215)
Clement thought the Bible was written to help people grow closer to God. He didn’t think the six days of creation were actual 24-hour days. He thought they were more like steps in a process. He also believed Noah’s Ark wasn’t just about a real boat with animals but was a symbol of how God protects people who trust Him.

3. St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
Augustine thought the Bible was true, but not everything in it actually happened the way it says. He thought the creation days in Genesis weren’t regular days but stages of how God made everything. He also thought the story of Jonah and the whale might have been a way to show how Jesus was in the tomb for three days before coming back to life. In his autobiography he says before he converted to be a Christian, he had difficulty accepting things from the Old Testament. The Bishop told him to read it as an allegory and he then lost his reservations.

4. Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE–50 CE)
Philo wasn’t Christian, but some of his ideas were really similar to what Christians believed. He thought Adam and Eve weren’t real people but symbols of the mind and senses. He said the snake was temptation, not a real snake. He also thought the story of Cain and Abel was about choosing between good and bad.

It works out when you plot out the ages-at-next-generation birth indications.

About 6,000 years.

Check it out yourself.

You’ll find that Noah’s last remaining ancestor, Methuselah, died within weeks or a couple of months before the flood.

Thus Guy was curious about that. Can you imagine Noah’s grief if any of his ancestors proved recalcitrant, and ended up dying in the deluge? Fortunately, anger burying Grandpa M he was a flat-out orphan.