Did Methuselah really live to be almost a millenium old?

[12th Doctor]

No.  Biblical numerology is a very complex study, and much of what the numbers represented has been lost.  The point of the author was mostly just to get the idea across that he lived to be very old.

[12th Doctor]

Numerology was extremely widespread in the ancient world, and the Hebrew scriptures are packed full of it.

Likely, the number of the age of someone like Methuselah once meant something specific, but we will never know, because the number structure itself has been lost.

The reason his age is set at exactly 969 is the same as the reason why the answer to "life the universe and everything" is "42"... which is to say that we don't know, because we don't know the question... ie the process.

We must also remember that we are dealing with a text that predates Job, and it was simply taking as a granted that righteous people lived long lives.  The longer the better.

[12th Doctor]

Do I think that it is impossible that these Biblical figures lived to be these ages?

No.

Matthew 19:26

With God, all things are possible.

But, like Genesis 1 etc, I really don't think that the exact specifics are the real message the author was trying to get across.  It is one thing to have the faith of a child, but some people have the faith of someone who suffers from Asperger's... it simply must be that specific way, that the text explicitly states, because we are incapable of reading even an inch beneath the surface.

When you think like that, you quickly lose the point.

Is the point of Genesis 1 really to tell us exactly how the Earth was created in the exact time table?

Or is the point of Genesis 1 the same point that is repeated in the text six times which is to say that God created the world (universe) and saw that that creation was good?

The historical context would seem to back up the later.