Why did people in the bible live so long?

yeah but what about remote cultures, aboriginies, they live off the land, which is prety much the best food source available. there lifespans are no shorter or longer than most of the other average lifespans of countries. their way of life is the same way of life it would have been thousands and thousands of years ago, therefore it cannot be broken down to the fact that we have too many preservatives. it is true that our 21st century diet will shorten some people's lifespan, maybe young generation are all being affected now but were not going to find out the consiquences until were about 30 or 40.

the only way i think we could ever slow down the aging process would be to mess around with our dna and which ever gene tells us to keep aging etc and somehow slow that down. then again if you could live until you were 900, whats to say you would get hit by a bus, get cancer etc. so fate would have it that if we could live until we were 900, then we probably wouldnt because of events that would be more likely to happen to us over a period of 900 years.

You wanted serious replies? Amet gave you one.

Originally posted by Amet Khan
Because the stories in the bible are not accurate.

The first fully complete bible was compiled 300 odd years after it was supposedly written. Therefore it cannot be considered even remotely accurate in regard to events it states or the people it describes within it.

Ask an historian.

Simply question, simply answer.

Originally posted by ShawNee922

Originally posted by instar
Maybe we did live that long ,so long ago. It may be part of our evolutionary path. huge lifespans would mean severe overpopulation. The more the populations grew the shorter we lived as a result.


[edit on 063131p://31016 by instar]

You brought something to mind that I read awhile back.

A guy had created a cpu program. He devised a single cell organism and programmed it to split thereby creating a double cell organism. From there the double cell organism was to split and so on and so on.... Well, there was only so much space in the program and the guy figured the thing would bog down when space ran out(not unlike a calculator).
Lo and behold , DEATH entered his program univited and started preying on the weak and the old and created space for the program to keep running ....

I cannot recall all the details but it lends merit to what you speak ....Seeing how the first organisms created knew nothing of death until death was somehow mandated into the program,

~peace

Thats very intresting, Thanks, can you try to find some more info about it please?

Originally posted by instar

Originally posted by ShawNee922

Originally posted by instar
Maybe we did live that long ,so long ago. It may be part of our evolutionary path. huge lifespans would mean severe overpopulation. The more the populations grew the shorter we lived as a result.

A guy had created a cpu program. He devised a single cell organism and programmed it to split thereby creating a double cell organism. From there the double cell organism was to split and so on and so on.... Well, there was only so much space in the program and the guy figured the thing would bog down when space ran out(not unlike a calculator).
Lo and behold , DEATH entered his program univited and started preying on the weak and the old and created space for the program to keep running....

Thats very intresting, Thanks, can you try to find some more info about it please?

i find only one problem with this concept. the fact that we lived to 900 years, then it went down to probably an average as low as 30 or 40, then only in the last 100 years or so has it started to rise. according to your program it shoudn't rise especially when the population on earth has never been bigger, yet we still see a rise in the average lifespan. i know medicine is getting better, however the earth is in some parts over-populated thus according to that theory our lifespans should be less by nature...yet they continue to rise.

Originally posted by TruthStrgnrThanFiction
Somewhere in Gensis God says that although man is flesh like he is (very interesting alone..that God also has some form of "flesh") he will not strive with him forever ..and cuts mans life to three score and ten. This was around the flood time period. Before God did this men supposedly lived for hundreds of years. So thats the biblical view. King James bible seems to have alot more of this than modern versions, especially the bit about man being flesh like God...image and likeness anybody? Either the KJV is a fake bible, or it is the real deal because every other bible either changes the translation or totally leaves out entire passages.

No where in the bible does it say God has flesh like Man or any other form of flesh. You are referring to the passage which says, god created man in his own image. That is far from saying God has flesh. Personally I always thought this passage meant Man was alike to God in a spiritual way, and spiritually we are all created in God's image. That would make more sense wouldn't it? I suppose God could be whatever he/she/it wanted to be, but flesh is imperfect and flawed. God should be perfect in all ways, at least thats what I want to believe. Also notice the bible says we are created in God's image. Doesn't that imply we are not exact copies of God himself, but rather a copy of his ...shadow?

[edit on 9-1-2007 by kpkp]

[edit on 9-1-2007 by kpkp]

[edit on 9-1-2007 by kpkp]

Originally posted by elmariachi
I think the problem here is that the bible is either open to interpretation or is literal. The problem extends itself when it is open to interpretation- that it can be interpreted in many different ways. If you 'believe' in science, than many things in the bible cannot be literal. So how much faith are you willing to put into the bible?

Now, as far as lifespans...

In the bible, people lived for hundreds of years. This apparently dropped off sharply to where people were only living to maybe their 40s. Only with the assistance of a better standard of living and medicine do we live up to the 100's now. As far back as the 1800's people in some areas of the world still weren't living to be very old. So, I don't necessarily see how our lives have gotten shorter from any sort of inbreeding or whatever.

Since we've opened the bible to interpretation, its possible that these biblical characters didn't actually live 900 years.

Modern science is still in its infancy, despite what we percieve as huge advancements in science. The way things are now, we'll never reach an age in science needed to explain events in the bible. Its more likely to believe this, than to say events in the bible could not have happened.

To the person that said we used to live shorter lives and now in current times we live longer. Thats true, but only because we eliminated certain diseases and found cures for others. Which has nothing to do with potential life spans in those early days of disease. In fact, there were people who did live to an age that is considered normal for our time.

[edit on 9-1-2007 by kpkp]

[edit on 9-1-2007 by kpkp]

dude you're answering questions that were asked two years ago
the answer to the long lives of the patriarchs has already been answered
they fictional characters who were loosely based on the sumerian kings of kish
the sumerians used a different numbering system which meant that the figures used in the early part of their king list were 60 times greater than our way of numbering things
so a king having a 20 year reign was shown to have ruled for 1200 years

this means by comparison that if Methuseleh were a real person he would have died just past his 16th birthday

the rest of your reasoning is faulty
if you take the bible literally then earth was created in 4004bce
this puts your idea of early disease stages outside of any possibility because surely god designed all the diseases and released them right at the start.
when in reality the species homo sapiens sapiens had been around for 100,000 years and so have many of the diseases which are variants of those that affect other primates anyway
if you don't take the bible literally then its fiction and is easily explained by science
the thing that makes me laugh about you god types is your inability to think past the next chapter and verse
the idea of God being omnipotent omnicogniscent and fundementally unknowable as you claim reduces the bible to an attempt by man to explain the omnipotent omnicogniscent and unknowable
and that is the only thing here that is impossible to be quantifed by science
so a book written by a small semitic cult in Babylon 2500 years ago hardly counts does it

you take the bible literally then earth was created in 4004bce

I think not. The bible never states an exact date for the creation of the earth. Personally, I believes the 7 days of creation isn't meant to be taken literally. I believe it represents seven periods of time, which can be written as "days".

I do take other events in the bible literally, but as yet they cannot be explained by modern science. I believe God created the laws of science and all his creations and indeed even his "miracles" abide by those laws.

this puts your idea of early disease stages outside of any possibility because surely god designed all the diseases and released them right at the start.

I was simply pointing out that diseases in the 19th and 20th century (or earlier, take your pick) were in some part, the cause of short life spans for many people. To humor you, no. God definitely did not release all present and future diseases in all of present and future human history, at the start of time.

when in reality the species homo sapiens sapiens had been around for 100,000 years and so have many of the diseases which are variants of those that affect other primates anyway

Seriously besides being off on a wild tangent, I have no idea what you are talking about. Further, I even agree with you but I don't see the relevance to my previous post.

if you don't take the bible literally then its fiction and is easily explained by science
the thing that makes me laugh about you god types is your inability to think past the next chapter and verse

As with life, things are not as simple as they seem. I do take the bible literally, yet for some parts of the bible I don't take literally. The point is theres no need to fuss over one detail. One unexplained "miracle" isn't an excuse to disregard the message as a whole. I believe the message as a whole is infinitely more important.

the idea of God being omnipotent omnicogniscent and fundementally unknowable as you claim reduces the bible to an attempt by man to explain the omnipotent omnicogniscent and unknowable

Quite the opposite, God is not fundamentally unknowable. Oh and I seldom waste time trying to explain the "miracles" written in the bible. I leave that pointless search to the self proclaimed intellectuals of the world. The need to explain is part of the distraction from seeing the messages that God wants us to see.

and that is the only thing here that is impossible to be quantifed by science
so a book written by a small semitic cult in Babylon 2500 years ago hardly counts does it

If I were someone who believed God to be omnipotent and omnicognisent, then I would tell you the bible I read today is exactly what God wanted me to read. He wouldn't be much of a God otherwise now would he.

[edit on 10-1-2007 by kpkp]

[edit on 10-1-2007 by kpkp]

If I were someone who believed God to be omnipotent and omnicognisent, then I would tell you the bible I read today is exactly what God wanted me to read. He wouldn't be much of a God otherwise now would he.

and which version are you currently reading ?
anyone but the original I bet

do you know why people lived so long in the bible?

because myths need larger than life figures
and what better way to make a character larger than life?
if you make somebody live to be 300 years old they become viewed as a paragon of wisdom

Originally posted by dlbrandt
Yes, one day, at a christians physical death or the return of Christ, He will change us christians and we will no longer be able to sin, and when eternity begins sin will be no longer.

We can not proove the existance of christ... but for the sake of contravercy lets assume he existed....

So Jesus will only change/save YOU christians, thats what you state, right?
I dont think Jesus was bias or a religious fanatic, like you, who would have just cared about one sect of people. He loved all no matter what. And thats what god is all about. Just because you are christian and I am not does not mean Jesus or God wount care for me.

People like you make me sick. Get a life man.

Why did people in the bible live so long?

Because the bible is a work of fiction, and when you write fiction you can say whatever you want because the truth is like Silly Putty.

Just because you are christian and I am not does not mean Jesus or God wount care for me.

actually if you check your bible I think you'll find that its the Jews who are the chosen people
everyone else is going to hell
but at least it has a bar

People in the bible did live this long.

Human DNA is programmed to run for 950 years

Our life spans have been greatly reduced since then because as constantly returning souls it was necessary to have shorter lives in order to speed up the karmic engine of the planet.

Originally posted by stgeorge
Another channeler (long since removed off the Internet) said "No harm may come to any abductee.None will commit suicide."
I am a personal testement to that,having contemplated doing away with myself in a fit of depression. That is when these "angels" or "demons" came to the rescue. You have heard of such interventions before.
Well,good to feel wanted.As to longevity,it was remarked that I seem youngish for my 45 years. I remember some operations they performed.

[edit on 9-8-2004 by stgeorge]

I'm forty but I look twenty-five (so I've been told), and I've never been up in a UFO. I guess some people just have better genes than others and it's nothing to do with 'visitors'.

Maybe the gene theory someone mentioned earlier in the thread had something to do with the longer life-spans before the flood.

the only evidence that anyone lived a long time comes from the bible
there is no dna evidence that supports this and no archaeological or any other kind of scientific evidence whatsoever
in the biblical case it specifically says that only hebrew patriarchs lived a long time
so you can bet that
either
1) Hebrew genes are superior to ours because like the bible says they are gods chosen people which means that the rest of us are all going to hell
or
2) its fiction

can't have it both ways can you

Originally posted by ZUFFI
People in the bible did live this long.

Human DNA is programmed to run for 950 years

Our life spans have been greatly reduced since then because as constantly returning souls it was necessary to have shorter lives in order to speed up the karmic engine of the planet.

um...
950 years?
got anything to back any of those statements up?

because that seems like nothing more than a personal belief to me
which i can respect
but it just doesn't seem scientific

Originally posted by instar

Originally posted by ShawNee922
You brought something to mind that I read awhile back.

A guy had created a cpu program. He devised a single cell organism and programmed it to split thereby creating a double cell organism. From there the double cell organism was to split and so on and so on.... Well, there was only so much space in the program and the guy figured the thing would bog down when space ran out(not unlike a calculator).
Lo and behold , DEATH entered his program univited and started preying on the weak and the old and created space for the program to keep running ....

I cannot recall all the details but it lends merit to what you speak ....Seeing how the first organisms created knew nothing of death until death was somehow mandated into the program,

~peace

Thats very intresting, Thanks, can you try to find some more info about it please?

I'm surprised you haven't seen this. It's a very old computer game called "Life" and there are about a thousand or more variants of it. It's been around since the early 1960's and was designed by mathemetician John Conway.

Here's one of them:
www.bitstorm.org...

More about it here:
math.com...

Note that it's not a good predictor of populations and so forth. It's just a type of cellular automation and has applications in a number of fields ... but not in general human populations.

Originally posted by jimboman
Maybe the gene theory someone mentioned earlier in the thread had something to do with the longer life-spans before the flood.

There wasn't any global flood... and there's plenty of evidence to back that statement up.

Folks really didn't live long in "the old days." As others have said, this was a device to make long-dead ancestors look mythic. The tale would be told that MumboJumbo lived to be a very very old man, older than anyone around and this got changed to "Oh, about 900 years" the first time a kid asked "how old is that??"

There are other examples of tales with people living ridiculously long lives (like "the vampire, Lestat"; creation of modern writer Anne Rice.) In the Sumerian king lists, some are shown to be living 900,000 years or so. The long lives are easily shown to be fiction.

like "the vampire, Lestat";

surely Marius or queen Akasha would be a better example
not that I've read those books or nothin
a friend told me OK

and you're wrong
its all real i tell ya