How old was Methuselah?

The Old Testament describes Methuselah as having lived for 969 years, dying in the year of the Flood recorded in Noah's lifetime. Methuselah was the oldest of the characters described in Chapter 5 of the Book of Genesis, but their collective age extremes could be errors attributable to mistranslation.

Although it is written that Methuselah outlived his son Lamech, who died at the age of 777 — just a few years ahead of the Flood of Noah's day — a different translation of the ancient numbering system used to describe the age of each of the characters in the fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis bears more comprehensible results. Based on an alternate translation, Methuselah lived to the age of 85 rather than age 969.