Genesis 11:10-32

10 This is the account of Shem.
Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. 11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah. 13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber. 15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg. 17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu. 19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug. 21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor. 23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah. 25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

27 This is the account of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.

31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.

I stopped posting for a while in part because my interlocutor Missy has been taking a break to deal with some personal issues. (Don't we all have 'em?) I hope she'll be back soon, but meanwhile, I've decided to press on.

Here we have a lengthy stretch of begats. If the Bible is indeed the literal and innerant word of God, one might wonder why God thinks it so important that we know the names of these long-dead non-entities and their familial relationships. The reason the Torah is full of this stuff is, of course, that it was not a Bible for all people, but rather the putative record of a specific people, the Hebrews. As we see elsewhere, the Hebrew God (excuse me, G_D) was not a God for all people's either, but exclusively the God of the Hebrews. Back in the times we are revisiting now, the Hebrews did not believe their God was the only God, just that he was the only God they were permitted to worship.

So, this is their specific, individual history, or rather legend. Note that the society was patriarchal, which is why we are given only the male line of descent and the names of women aren't even mentioned, until we get to Abram and his family. The barrenness of Abram's wife Sarai turns out to be an important plot element, so she requires an introduction.

In the strict social science sense, patriarchy means only that the people trace descent through the male line, but in ancient Hebrew society, it meant far more than that. Women were chattels, with no economic or political rights. The action in the Old Testament is heavily male dominated. Men make all the decisions, issue all the laws and commandments, and women are their property. These patriarchal begats are just one manifestation of what was a man's world.

As for the people living hundreds of years, pish tosh. The life expectancy in that era, based on skeletal remains which have been extensively studied, was in the 40s.