'Understanding expressions such as 5000 as such symbolic expressions and not ridiculing the user of such expressions for historical inaccuracy, more, not attributing motives to such usages, is a healthy tendency' is what I said.
when I said "symbolic" I didn't mean that "5000" is a necessarily a claim for great antiquity. Often it is, but sometimes things are older than "5000". I mean that "5000" is - strictly - not a number, but a feeling.