Ah, but that's where miracles come in. Or, if you prefer, miracles masquerading as microevolution.

I'd tend to suspect that the horse was based on Methuselah's name anyway, if only because of the excessive similarity between them. And, after all, living 969 years is an impressive enough accomplishment that the name's crept out into our culture. The Wikipedia article has the following under "see also:"

# Back to Methuselah, a set of plays by George Bernard Shaw
# Methuselah Mouse Prize
# Methuselah (tree)
# "Requiem for Methuselah", an episode of Star Trek
# 2000 Year Old Man, a recurring Methuselah comedy routine by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks.
# Methuselah's Children, a work of fiction by Robert A. Heinlein about long lived humans as a result of genetic selection.
# The Methuselah Factor, a book by Vernon Eric Bridges, a far-fetched story of longevity.

Might you be familiar with any of those?

But there are like three separate creation myths in that one bit of Genesis all going one into the other. It makes for a fun theological discussion, but isn't very useful.

Ah well. It's a nice name for a horse regardless of where it came from.

--Mystia