While listening to Christian radio as i often do, i was fascinated by a discussion about the extreme ages of biblical figures like Noah. I don't feel the need to try and refute these claims of extreme longevity in this post (but maybe in future post) because a ridiculous idea has me completely distracted. It is a well documented fact that the human ears and nose never stop growing. When this fact is applied to a biblical figure like Methuselah who was supposed to have lived 969 years, i started to wonder just how large the human ears might grow if given such a life span. Here is a list of a few biblical figures and their ages according to the bible:
Adam lived 930 years. (Genesis 5:5)
Seth lived 912 years.(Genesis 5:8)
Methuselah lived 969 years.(Genesis 5:27)
And Noah lived 950 years. (Genesis 9:29)
I did a bit of Internet research to try and determine if there was a documented growth rate for the human ear, and as i turns out there was not at least in the form that i was looking for. However, i did find a site that posted a documented average of ear sizes for different points in human life. Unfortunately the website i found only dealt with metric but i will do the conversion for the end results. The male ears yielded larger results in all ages of life, and since the bible mostly deals with the ages of males i will post only the male results to illustrate my point.
The average male ear size at birth was 52mm at birth, 65mm at adulthood (20 yrs old) and 78mm at 70 yrs. By taking this information i have created my own formula by assuming that after reaching full physical development at the age of 20, within the next 50 years our ears grow an average of 13mm per fifty years of adult life. I would like to point out that i feel this is at least mildly accurate for this concept and would not even bother trying to defend my formula since it is scientifically irrelevant.
If we take the formula: Age at death minus 20years of pre-adulthood divided by 50 with the result multiplied by the known growth rate of 13mm plus 65mm (average ear size at 20yrs) it should yield a number that we can determine how large these biblical figures ears were. Here is the formula if you don't like story problems.
[(Age-20)/50] x Growth rate} + 65mm = ear size
And here are the results:
Adam's ear size at 930 years old: 301.6mm or 11.87 inches
Seth's ear size at 912 years old: 296.9mm or 11.86 inches
Methuselah's ear size at 969 years old: 311.74mm or 12.27 inches
Noah's ear size at 950 years old: 306.8mm or 12.07 inches
The results of this research are completely circumstantial and irrelevant, yet still totally hilarious! To imagine these biblical figure and their giant ears makes me chuckle every time. Yet still it brings a larger question to mind: Did these giant ears, enable these religious icons to better hear the voice of God? While this is certainly a preposterous notion, it could explain why my prayers were never answered, by suggesting that my ears were simply too tiny to hear Gods voice! If it were true this problem would be of no concern to famous televangelist Pat Robertson and his tremendous ears, and would definitely confirm the means by which he stays in direct communication with God.
The results of this research are completely circumstantial and irrelevant, yet still totally hilarious! To imagine these biblical figure and their giant ears makes me chuckle every time. Yet still it brings a larger question to mind: Did these giant ears, enable these religious icons to better hear the voice of God? While this is certainly a preposterous notion, it could explain why my prayers were never answered, by suggesting that my ears were simply too tiny to hear Gods voice! If it were true this problem would be of no concern to famous televangelist Pat Robertson and his tremendous ears, and would definitely confirm the means by which he stays in direct communication with God.
