#like in the Sumerian King List time is measured in sars

[spiocean]

Yeah no... What if Solomon doesn't tell his age not because of any sacred reasons, but because the ancient chronology is so fucked up that he just can't recalculate it in normal years.

[foggynightdonut]

Sanatin and Aman (Years) of Noah age

Sumerian Kings and their ages and how it fits with religion

Here are the Kings list and how long they ruled for.

Alulim 8 sars (28,800 years)

Alalngar 10 sars (36,000 years)

En-men-lu-ana 12 sars (43,200 years)

En-men-gal-ana 8 sars (28,800 years)

And so on and so forth. I think the reasonable explanation here is that the Kings did not live for thousands of years but rather the measurement of time for these kings was different and it was recorded as being thousands of years. I think living for 43,000 years is not really plausible but if they were using a different time measurement then it would make sense why different years are recorded.

Notice it ends with "Then the flood swept over."

Now, bearing this in mind, take this verse from the Qur’an 29:14

[Quran 29:14] We sent Noah to his people, and He stayed among them for a thousand years minus fifty years. Then the flood swept them; for they were wrongdoers.

It does not say 950 years directly. It says 1000 minus 50 years. The first word used when describing 1000 years is "sanatin" which means years and when it says minus 50 years, the word used is "aman". This also means years. It's interesting how there are two different words used for years and it does not say 950 years, it says 1000 years using a different word for years and it says minus 50 years using different word for years

1000 years (Arabic word "Sanatin")

Minus 50 years (Arabic word "aman")

This verse then mentions the flood. While this is not explicitly mentioned, it would be reasonable to assume that both the sumerian Kings and Noah were from the same region hence why they have a similar method of calculating age. Furthermore, there is also a flood myth in sumeria

"After kingship came down from heaven .... the kingship was taken to Shuruppak. In Shuruppak, Ubara-Tutu became king; he ruled for 5 sars and 1 ner. In 5 cities 8 kings; they ruled for 241,200 years. Then the flood swept over"

So it does seem that the method for calculating age was different and that 241,200 years is not literal, this could be a plausible explanation why the Qur’an uses two different words for years and why it says 1000 minus 50 years instead of 950. It seems that the 1000 years is their measurement of years and 50 is our measurement and so his actual age is whatever the age of 1000 is and minus fifty from that. It's also interesting how the Qur’an mentions and then the flood swept over almost like the account, it does seem that the Quran is almost drawing a parallel. Then after the flood, the amount of rule they had didn't just slightly decrease, it drastically decreased

Jushur 1,200 years

Kullassina-bel 960 years

Nangishlishma670 years

So it's reasonable to assume that they did not live for thousands of years or even hundreds of years but rather the measurement of time was different and that's why in the Qur’an it parrelels the story of them writing the flood swept over but it uses different measurements of time. I don’t think the Qur’an actually copied the flood myth in all honesty and I'm not just saying this because I believe in the Qur’an but to think that someone in Arabia living thousands of years somehow made a parrelel between what they were writing and used the correct measurement of time is dubious at best.

There is also a flood myth of a boat being built, similar to that of Noah. It does seem that both the old testament and the Quran are actually speaking about Noah and the fact that he built an ark.

In order to figure out how long each year was or the age of Noah, you simply have to work out how they were measuring their time. The purpose of the Qur’an nor the Bible is to tell you how to measure Noah's age but it seems to be focusing on the flood. The reason why this measurement is included seems to be because Noah was likely from Sumeria and so it has been included for historical purposes.

[foggynightdonut]

Antediluvian rulers

None of the following predynastic antediluvian rulers have been verified as historical by archaeological excavations, epigraphical inscriptions or otherwise. While there is no evidence they ever reigned as such, the Sumerians purported them to have lived in the mythical era before the great deluge. Some modern scholars believe the Sumerian deluge story corresponds to localized river flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other cities as far north as Kish, as revealed by a layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to c. 2900 BC, which interrupt the continuity of settlement. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3000–2900 BC) was discovered immediately below this Shuruppak flood stratum.[18] Alan Dickin has criticized this theory in favor of a larger riverine flood c. 5700 BC. He believes this time frame to be much more consistent with the cataclysmic descriptions of the ANE flood myths:

It is concluded that the Flood most likely occurred around 5700 BC, before the settlement of Oueili, corresponding to the radiocarbon age of the upper part of the sapropel layer dated by Aqwari. This early date makes the extreme effects described in the Flood narratives much more credible. At this time, lower Mesopotamia had only recently been colonized by people migrating southward from the villages of northern Mesopotamia where the agricultural revolution began. These people would have been living in small settlements on the immediate banks of the Euphrates, and their nascent civilization would have been completely overwhelmed by the greatest flooding event that Mesopotamia has ever seen.[19]

The antediluvian reigns were measured in Sumerian numerical units known as sars (units of 3,600), ners (units of 600), and sosses (units of 60).[20] Attempts have been made to map these numbers into more reasonable regnal lengths.[21]