A friend of mine posed a question about how they used to keep track of the years. We read that Adam was over 900 years old when he died. How did those keeping track of the years know this? I know in Genesis it says that the sun and the moon and the stars were there for signs and such…is this how they kept track of everyone’s number of years?
According to historical accounts, all civilizations have measured the passage of time. They have used the changing seasons, phases of the moon, etc to do this. From earliest times the months had names in both the Hebrew and pagan cultures. Where the Genesis account is concerned, Moses had the additional knowledge of the Creator at his disposal. Every event of every person’s life is contained in the Book of Life, and Psalm 139:16 says all the days of our life were written there before one of them came to pass.