Why did people in the bible live so long?

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.

Originally posted by hetman
Byrd - You're asking a lot for this evidence to survive a global catastrophe like the flood. If you accept the assumption that all things continue in the same way as they always did as truth, then your observations could be deemed accurate.

There's no evidence of a global flood. In fact, to the contrary, there is plenty of geological and archaeological and written evidence that there was NO flood.

Flood theorists generally pinpoint the date sometime about 2,500 BC or thereabouts, and are completely unaware that records from Egypt and other ancient civilizations exist for that time period. No flood.

No global sedimentation, distribution of material, burial, distribution of old bones, etc -- no proof of an ancient flood covering the world. We know what it would look like, because we have evidences of local floods at different times and different places... and some yearly floods (like the Nile.)

There is no evidence of a global flood in any of the living ancient things (like the Bristlecone pine, the redwoods, and certain other ancient plants that live to be thousands (and tens of thousands) of years old.

Originally posted by elmariachi
In the bible, people lived for hundreds of years.

MMmkay... let's approach it from the other way: Prove that they lived this long.

Now, if you say "it's in the Bible," then remember that just because it's in a book that's holy to you does not mean that this is proof incontrovertable. I can cite things from the Koran that you might not agree with -- and yet those things would be incontrovertable proofs to Muslims.

So...not using religious arguments that end up with "My holy book is better than YOUR holy book!" I offer a challenge to you to prove that people actually lived that long.

I don't know if you're aware of it, but a lot of "really old" natives that you see in photos are of people who aren't that old. With no dental care, they tend to lose their teeth early (sunken faces) and with no sunscreen or protection, they wrinkle easily. The pastoral life isn't easy; lots of people die from animal borne diseases and from falls and other injuries. We can look at old cemetaries and old skeletons and see that the number who died before age 50 was pretty high.

So, if you're going to prove 'hundreds of years old', then let's look at the data. So far, we have religious myths from several sources that say this... but religious myths also say carpets can fly, and I'm a bit hesitant to accept them.

Have you ever thought that maybe the bible is a tad mabe possibly innaccurate or not completely correct?

I believe and know that there was a global flood in Noah's day. God has not left us aimlessly walking around here on earth. He has given us the Bible. The thing with the Bible is you can't pick the parts you like and deny the parts you don't like. You either believe it all from cover to cover or you don't. Someone asked if God is going to do away with sin someday. Yah, He is. First of all, Christ conquered sin for us. He lived a life free of sin and was therefore able to die for our sin because He had none of His own. He rose again to prove who He was and that His death was sufficient payment for our sin. Do christians still sin, absolutely. If someone tells you different they are lying. Do we have to sin, no. We have the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to say no to sin, but we still live in a fallen world and we are still living in our fallen flesh, so we will sin, but that sin was paid for at the cross. If we are growing in our relationship with Christ we will sin less in frequency and intensity. 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.

I don't believe this post was to debate theories, but to enjoy various ideas on "how did people live so long according to he Bible".

Below is a interesting point about how unique we are pointing at the fact we can even have this type of conversation.

"Physicists have stumbled on signs that the cosmos is custom-made for life and consciousness. It turns out that if the constants of nature - unchanging numbers like the strength of gravity, the charge of an electron, and the mass of a proton - were the tiniest bit different, the atoms would not hold together, stars would not burn, and life would never have made an appearance.. It tums out that the largest size imaginable, the entire universe, is 10 with 29 zeros after it (in centimeters) The smallest size describes the subatomic world, and it is 10 with 24 zeros (and a decimal) in front of it. Humans are right in the middle. Our minds, which invent mathematics, conform to the reality of the cosmos. We are somehow tuned to its truths. Since pure thought can penetrate the universe's mysteries, this seems to be telling us that something about human consciousness is harmonious with the mind of God''

Originally posted by Byrd
Flood theorists generally pinpoint the date sometime about 2,500 BC or thereabouts, and are completely unaware that records from Egypt and other ancient civilizations exist for that time period. No flood.

There is no evidence of a global flood in any of the living ancient things (like the Bristlecone pine, the redwoods, and certain other ancient plants that live to be thousands (and tens of thousands) of years old.

www.pbs.org...
Last I knew this tree was the oldest tree. 5,000 years.
2,500 BC + 2,000 AD = 4,500 years. Granted it's still a few hundred years off, but not as much as you are making it out to be.



[edit on 7-6-2004 by zero_snaz]

I have this old page ripped out of some magazine but it doesn't have the magazines name written on it. It just says "October 1995." It is about the bristlecone pines. Its only a paragraph, so I'll post all of it. :-D Don't have my scanner hooked up so it won't be accompanied by the cool picture.

The trees that tell all

The bristlecone pine lives in one of the toughest neighborhoods on earth. The Southwest's dolomitic soil at 9,000 to 12,000 feet is incredibly poor, causing these trees to grow slowly and without much competition. Trunks and limbs grow so dense and resinous that insects can't penetrate them. Even after bristlecones die, they endure, standing or lying for thousands of years. Noting all this, scientists at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research realized that the rings represent the planet's oldest living calendar. Turns out it's a pretty accurate one, too - carbon-dating labs frequently use the bristlecone calendar for calibration. How far back does it go? Checking core samples of live trees in California's White Mountains, researchers have dated living trees at more than 4,700 years old. Using ring samples from dead wood takes the continuous calendar back to 8,700 years ago. Is our weather changing? Did drought drive the Anasazi from Mesa Verde? These are the sorts of questions scientists are asking the bristlecones, who remember.

I'm sure there might have been more of an article to it, but I don't remember. I don't even know why I kept it - I have it in a folder, lol. Oh wait, I remember now, because I think they are one of the most interesting trees. I've seen them in areas near Price, Utah.

Originally posted by GriBiT
I've always been intersted in the long life spans spoke about in the bible. Life spans of 100's of years. Over 900 in the case of Adam. Then they slowly decrease over time. After "Noas flood" they decreased even more until they reached the average age that we have now (70 years give or take). Whenever I think of this I recall a book by Irwin Ginsburgh, Ph.D. and his book "First, Man. Then Adam!". He reviews Genisis from a different perspective. Implying that travelers (with long life spans) crashed and were marooned here and mixed with humans here on Earth, then over time the "Alien" age span decreased as it was diluted over the many generations until modern times. He also goes into other aspects of Genesis like that when God said l"let there be light" it may have refered to the big bang. Also passages such as something refering to old scripture saying Adam came to the third planet from the sun, as if from outside out solar system. My excerpts don't do his thesis justice, but you get the general idea.

Wanted to get this started while I continued research on this.

This link shows a chart of ages in the bible as a start.
On this site they have a different hypothethis, but I don't fully agree with it. They talk about the age dropping after "Noas flood" but it took quite a while for the life span to slowly decrease. I really added this link just to show a visual of the life spans in the bible in a chart.

Bible Life Span Chart

I really want to find something online to link to about the book "First, Man. Then, Adam!" I'll keep searching. In the mean time....Your thoughts?

I think people lived so long in the Bible Age because:

1. There was more Oxygen in the atmosphere.
2. They drank their own urine providing a feedback
mechanisim for the bodily immune system, thereby
extending their own lifespan.

Quote from Soul Reaper:

"I think people lived so long in the Bible Age because:

1. There was more Oxygen in the atmosphere.
2. They drank their own urine providing a feedback
mechanisim for the bodily immune system, thereby
extending their own lifespan."

Wow...I'm gonna start carrying around an oxygen tank and drinking my piss!!!


Sorry, I had to! Couldn't resist.

Originally posted by zero_snaz
www.pbs.org...
Last I knew this tree was the oldest tree. 5,000 years.
2,500 BC + 2,000 AD = 4,500 years. Granted it's still a few hundred years off, but not as much as you are making it out to be.
[edit on 7-6-2004 by zero_snaz]

Ooops!!

There's a plant older than the bristlecone (still living)... but I'm in a rush and not able to look it up right now. I thought the oldest still-living thing was around 9k years, but I could be completely mistaken, here!

Originally posted by Soul Reaper
[
I think people lived so long in the Bible Age because:

1. There was more Oxygen in the atmosphere.
2. They drank their own urine providing a feedback
mechanisim for the bodily immune system, thereby
extending their own lifespan.

And your source for this is...?

Drinking your own urine is rather unhealthy, you know. It does nothing for the immune system.

I found this at user.pa.net...
Do a search for "pre-Flood" to find below:


When the Earth was created, the weather was always clear and sunny. There was never any rain. The vegetation was watered by the morning dew, which was why the people scoffed when Noah warned of an impending flood� because they didn�t know what rain was. The pre-Flood calendar was a perfect year of 12 months, with 30 days in each month. Now we have 365 a days in a year. According to scientists, the reason for this is that the Earth has been moved away from the sun by a million miles, resulting in 2% less heat; and the tilt of the axis is now 23-1/2 degrees, which accounts for the harshness of the seasons. The magnetic field was also changed. This upsetting of the delicate balances of nature has been blamed for the reduction of the human life span. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, while Moses lived only to be 120.


Could be a possible explanation??

Originally posted by TruthStrgnrThanFiction
I found this at user.pa.net...
Do a search for "pre-Flood" to find below:


When the Earth was created, the weather was always clear and sunny. There was never any rain. The vegetation was watered by the morning dew, which was why the people scoffed when Noah warned of an impending flood� because they didn�t know what rain was. The pre-Flood calendar was a perfect year of 12 months, with 30 days in each month. Now we have 365 a days in a year. According to scientists, the reason for this is that the Earth has been moved away from the sun by a million miles, resulting in 2% less heat; and the tilt of the axis is now 23-1/2 degrees, which accounts for the harshness of the seasons. The magnetic field was also changed. This upsetting of the delicate balances of nature has been blamed for the reduction of the human life span. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, while Moses lived only to be 120.


Could be a possible explanation??

Great find, that explains the theory much better. I still don't think this alone could change life spans, especially so drastically in a relativly short span. I also don't beleive that "God" changed the life spans after the flood because the change in life spans was gradual not instant, granted they did change faster than future trends. If the life spans went from 100's of years before the flood, then after the flood noone lived longer that 120 years I would tend to believe this theory in some way.

Also, Moses lived much longer than 120 years according to info I have found and also presented earlier in this thread.

Originally posted by TruthStrgnrThanFiction
I found this at user.pa.net...
Do a search for "pre-Flood" to find below:


When the Earth was created, the weather was always clear and sunny. There was never any rain. The vegetation was watered by the morning dew, which was why the people scoffed when Noah warned of an impending flood� because they didn�t know what rain was. The pre-Flood calendar was a perfect year of 12 months, with 30 days in each month. Now we have 365 a days in a year. According to scientists, the reason for this is that the Earth has been moved away from the sun by a million miles, resulting in 2% less heat; and the tilt of the axis is now 23-1/2 degrees, which accounts for the harshness of the seasons. The magnetic field was also changed. This upsetting of the delicate balances of nature has been blamed for the reduction of the human life span. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, while Moses lived only to be 120.

Could be a possible explanation??

It is, if you completely ignore the written records of several civilizations, geologic records, ice core records, and a lot of other things.

Seriously -- theories like this have even been discounted by most of the creationists. I believe it's only the DrDino followers who still promote this. Even the Answers In Genesis folks have stepped away from a lot of the things mentioned because they've been proven false -- even to their own standards.

Well sh_i-t im just looking for answeres

Came across it online, thought of this thread and posted, thinking why the fu-c-k not

"the byrds landed foul on the grass..while the players tried for a forward pass ..." don mclean American Pie

The explanation is simply that cycles of the Moon were used to compute time, hence age. In fact, the lunar cycle is known as an important feature to primitive people throughout history. Moreover, the lunation figures prominently in ancient Hebrew historical timekeeping and remains as such. Given that the Moon revolves around the Earth roughly 13 times a year, the ages given for prediluvian patriarchs are divisible by that number. Hence, a lifetime given as 900 years is actually a much more realistic 69. And because "900 years" is counted among the longest spans of life, typical longevities of around 40 to 50 actual years were common. Such is much more consistent with the reality of lifespans under primitive conditions.

Antediluvian tribes later adopted a solar calendar but the Moon remained an important feature in their history, which was an oral tradition.

Genesis 5:15-17

"And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and beget Jared: And Mahalaleel lived after he beget Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and beget sons and daughters: All the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died."

-King James version

If the ages given in the pre-flood account were meant to be in Lunar cycles(months) then Mahalaleel gave birth to Jared when he was only 5.4 years old.

That's 65/12=5.416
Was it a mistake in the written record or are the dates truely based on the Solar Canendar?

Originally posted by TruthStrgnrThanFiction
I found this at user.pa.net...
Do a search for "pre-Flood" to find below:


When the Earth was created, the weather was always clear and sunny. There was never any rain. The vegetation was watered by the morning dew, which was why the people scoffed when Noah warned of an impending flood� because they didn�t know what rain was. The pre-Flood calendar was a perfect year of 12 months, with 30 days in each month. Now we have 365 a days in a year. According to scientists, the reason for this is that the Earth has been moved away from the sun by a million miles, resulting in 2% less heat; and the tilt of the axis is now 23-1/2 degrees, which accounts for the harshness of the seasons. The magnetic field was also changed. This upsetting of the delicate balances of nature has been blamed for the reduction of the human life span. Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, while Moses lived only to be 120.


Could be a possible explanation??

Its very interesting to note that it is recorded, in the Genesis account, that Enoch was taken exactly when he was 365 years old.

The Book of Enoch the Prophet states:

Chapter LXXI [section XIII]

The book of the revolutions of the luminaries of heaven, according to their respective classes, their respective powers, their respective periods, their respective names, the places where they commence their progress, and their respective months, which Uriel, the holy angel who was with me, explained to me; he who conducts them. The whole account of them, according to every year of the world for ever, until a new work shall be effected, which will be eternal.

This is the first law of the luminaries. The sun and the light arrive at the gates of heaven, which are on the east, and on the west of it at the western gates of heaven.
I held the gates whence the sun goes forth; and the gates where the sun sets.
(the passage continues with the circuit of the sun and the lengthening days and then an equalization between night and day and then the days being shorter. The northern view of the seasons.)

Another interesting chapter says this:

Chapter LXXIV

These are the leaders of the chiefs of the thousands, those which preside over all creation, and over all the stars; with the four days which are added and never separated from the place allotted them, according to the computation of the year.
And these serve four days, which are not computed in the computation of the year.
Respecting them, men greatly err, for these luminaries truly serve, in the mansion of the world, one day in the first gate, one in the third gate, one in the fourth, and one in the sixth gate.
And the harmony of the world becomes complete every three hundred and sixty-fourth state of it. For the signs,
The seasons,
The years,
And the days, Uriel showed me; the angel whom the Lord of glory appointed over all the luminaries.

Chapter LXXIX

In those days Uriel answered and said to me, Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch;
And all these things I have revealed to thee. Thou seest the sun, the moon, and those which conduct the stars of heaven, which cause all their operations, seasons, and arrivals to return.
In the days of sinners the years shall be shortened.
In those days the fruits of the earth shall be late, and not flourish in their season; and in their season the fruits of the trees shall be withholden.
The moon shall change its laws, and not be seen at its proper period. But in those days shall heaven be seen; and the barrenness shall take place in the borders of the great chariots in the west. Heaven will shine more than when illuminated by the orders of light; while many chiefs among the stars of authority shall err, perverting their ways and works.

[edit on 14-6-2004 by lostinspace]

Originally posted by TruthStrgnrThanFiction
Well sh_i-t im just looking for answeres

Came across it online, thought of this thread and posted, thinking why the fu-c-k not

"the byrds landed foul on the grass..while the players tried for a forward pass ..." don mclean American Pie

Truth
You have Bible knowledge and express it well. One is lead to assume that you are saved but the foul language blows any christian witness that you. have.