In the Biblical era, the oldest recorded human was Methuselah, who died at age 969. However it should be noted that women live longer than men on average, and women’s ages were generally not recorded in the book of Genesis. So it’s possible that Methuselah’s wife outlived him. If so, they would likely have also held the record for longest marriage, at 950+ years. However, a marriage of that length strains credulity.

After Methuselah, the Bible fixes 120 as the upper age limit (Genesis 6:3). Only one person has been documented to exceed that number, Jeanne Calment, a French woman who lived to 122 years and 164 days, finally dying in 1997. For those who might wish to follow in her footsteps of extreme longevity, it is worth noting she enjoyed fencing, mountaineering, shooting wild boar, and other typical hobbies. Calment was known to eat more than one kilo (2.2 pounds) of chocolate a week, which was more than two percent of her body weight (45 kg or 99 lb). Most doctors recommend a weekly chocolate intake of significantly less than one percent of body weight.