What do you think of the improbably long lifespans referenced in the Bible?

well, in harmony with what the Bible says, people started out perfect, and with each generation, we get more imperfect. This probably explains why some lived 600, 700, 800 even 900+ years at that point. It seems that after Noah, this dropped off to the 200s or so (Abraham and Moses being two examples). So being closer to the “perfect” standard allowed for this.

This also explains why there is some degree of intermarriage at that point, without severe defects we see today. Cain, for example, took one of his sisters as his wife.

As noted elsewhere, I think looking for objective truth in the Bible is a fool’s game—if you do that, you don’t make it past Genesis 2. I’m not so inclined to think that Methuselah reached that age, and I think it was poetic license or incremental exaggeration in the oral tradition.

I heard that out bodies where made to last forever. Think of all the chemicals we put in every food, and all the stress we have each day. That might have an effect.

@eponymoshipster, Life spans are getting much longer then they were even 100 years ago. Are the longer lifespans that we are currently enjoying directly because we are getting more perfect? I guess every generation is a little more perfect then the last… Either that or you can believe nonsense medical science is keeping you alive longer.

Eponymoushipster—I’m curious if your perfection theory was something you came up with on your own or if it was inspired by something in the Bible. Also if lifespan correlates to some preset standard of human perfection what do you think of the fact the lifespans have been lengthening for hundreds of years in (dare I say it?) more developed areas of the globe.

PIXEL—but if bodies were made to last forever why don’t they? Adding chemicals to food is a very new practice, and as I mentioned to Eponymoushipster lives are getting longer, not shorter. Albeit not anywhere near as long as in the Good Book.

I tend to agree with Cwilbur but I’m fascinated by the various attitudes toward aging, realistic and mythic.

i’m not exactly that knowledgeable on the bible, but my guess is that, like everything else in the bible (seems to be), it is an exaggeration. i mean. if you can justify a man being able to get 2 of every single animal in the entire world and actually fit them in a boat, i think you can justify absolutely anything by saying ‘god made it so’. and i’m not intending to be disrespectful to anyone who does believe that, i’m just saying, if god can make people, i guess he can make them live as long as he damn well pleases.
i wonder about this question too, but i can’t just stop at questioning the ridiculous ages; i tend to question the whole shabang

Other ancient traditions (like the Sumerians) depicted the pre-flood (ante-diluvian) fathers having extraordinarily long lives. For instance, in Sumerian king lists, kings lived as long as 64,000 years! The purpose of emphasizing long life spans is probably to prepare for the flood and the limitations placed on human life (like the Bible, the Sumerian account also has a flood). Notably, the ante-diluvian fathers in Genesis have interesting life spans. For example, Enoch’s life span is 365 years (the number must be symbolic—a solar year), plus he is the seventh member in the genealogy (a place of prominence). The genealogy has ten members, with Noah as the tenth. This follows a theological pattern in Genesis to emphasize the number ten. In the Genesis account, part of God’s judgment on humanity is to limit the lifespan in response to humanity’s repeated attempts at immortality. Thus, the long life spans serve a theological rather than historical purpose.

Not that I particularly agree with this but I have heard it theorized that before the flood a “year” may have been what we call a month in todays time. I will say that when divided out their ages come to be fairly close to todays avarage lifespan.

The justifications and rationalizations people come up with to make reality out of myth always amaze me.

They’re counted in seasons not solar years.

I wonder if there is any way to determine the age someone died from 5000-to-7000-year-old bones? Won’t the fossil/historical record give some indication whether people lived significantly longer then? Or maybe it’s just the people in the Bible and not other people (i.e. the folks that lived 100,000 – 10,000 years ago in Africa, Europe, Australia) who had longer lives?

@Lightlyseared 969 / 4 =~ 242… still a ripe old age. Unless there were like 10 seasons in a year? (Months perhaps?)

@Grisson Fair point.

in a large part, it depends (as we can see here), whether or not you are a religious individual and or believe in the Bible.

as regards medical science lengthening lifespans, i haven’t met anyone 900 yrs old yet. besides the fact that a lot of people died in the past at a very early age due to poor conditions and so on.

in some countries, the lifespan is like 32 right now. or 54 for men in Russia. Why? Because conditions and lifestyle choices cause it to occur.

@eponymoushipster Moreover it depends on whether you take the Bible as accurate, literal history or something else. (e.g. a set of stories to teach people about God).

In any culture, there are two kinds of time – the “present/historic past” and the “mythic past.”

The present and historic past are pretty self-explainable; it’s the time we’re living in and that our ancestors who we can name lived in (like parents, grandparents, etc). It’s measured. It’s the way things are.

Then there’s the “mythic past.” This is the time before our named ancestors, where the line trails back into the distant past. Australian aborigines call this the “dreamtime” – most cultures place their origins in the mythic past. Things are often kind of odd in the mythic past; some cultures have stories of giants or talking animals or Gods that walked on earth – but whatever it is, it happened before people started keeping track by writing. Usually oral history plays a great part in remembering the mythic past, and you know how stories grow and change.

My guess is that these inexplicably old people are stories from the mythic past. It’s a cultural heritage, a story of origin, but not necessarily true in the way that things now are true. I’ve read that some Biblical scholars would agree with this view. There are sections of the bible that seem to deal with a mythic past and some that seem to belong to a time of more careful record-keeping, and some in between.

Genesis 6:3 (King James Version)
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

What is that supposed to mean?

God is putting a limit on the length of our lives.

I would rather read Grimm’s Fairy Tales, more realistic and less sexist!

I don’t know that Grimm are any more realistic or less sexist…but I do think they’re a bit less violent. Which is interesting since the Brothers Grimm tended to weed out the sex and up the violence each time a new edition was published.

There was a firmament when God first created Earth, which gave much more oxigen percentagewise and God was still walking[being close] to those people he chose as His prophets, if creation of a Creator is close to Him you have more life from His energy being so close.
www.DrDino.com is a great site about dinosaurs in the bible,age of earth,age of people in the bible,etc etc I highly recomand it.

seVen, you owe me a new keyboard. I looked at that site and laughed until I vomited all over my keyboard.

just like hours (the “hours” mentioned in the New Testament when Jesus was on the cross were 180 mins each), years were also arbitrary in those days. A year was not necessarily 365.24 days, and could have easily refered to one full moon phase, or a season or something. We keep forgetting that what we read today are (crude) translations that do not take into consideration the historical and social context of the stories.

if your explanation is that the translation is flawed and misunderstood how can you possibly know what in the bible is the word of God and what is just accumulated detritus? How do you square that with Gods words here:

2 Timothy 3: 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Ps 119:160: The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

Ps 12:6–7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

2 Peter 1:20–21 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Proverbs 30:5–6: Every word of God is flawless.

I apologize, for the varied translations, but according to the bible each is perfect anyway.

yes, but again what you quote is the english translation of a latin text translated from Greek, which in itself was based on 50 or 100-year-old heresay in Hebrew. So, without any other reference, try and write a book on Pre-1939 Germany, based entirely on what I tell you on fluther. Which in itself will be nothing more than stories I heard from people who were too young to remember during my 4 years in Dresden.

I am sorry, but if you think God sat down and wrote a book himself, then please ask him to send you a newer version. Personally I think (and know from historical sources) that it was written by fallible humans some 2000 years ago. And since I speak fluent Greek (and can understand at least some ancient Greek) I can tell you for a fact that what you read in your english version already has some differences. The most notable of course being the 300-year-old misunderstanding on whether or not Jesus’ mother was a virgin. As if a holy book would be dealing with God’s mother’s sexuality of all things.

In any case, my point was that we should take into account the context of what was written. People keep forgetting for example that Jesus was a Jew. Which is where most of the misunderstandings stem from.

so you’re essentially saying when God says his word is perfect and will always be perfect he’s wrong. I get that people wrote and transcribed the book and translated it and made mistakes, but surely God would have known that too? He’s God, he’s omniscient. So assuming he did know people would goof it up, why would he say otherwise? And more importantly why would he put his sacred words in a position where he knew they would get goofed up?

And strictly from our side of the book, if God let it get goofed up, and even his statement that, “Every word of God is flawless” is questionable, how can you know what, if anything, in the Bible remains of his teaching.

What I want to know is how you can follow a book as the Word of God when you don’t think it is.

Personally if I were an omniscient, all powerful god, I would want people to know what I said. I would definitely not want my words to get corrupted (that would make me look bad) and ultimately, as an all powerful god, I could ensure that my teachings did remain perfect. Failure to do those seems to indicate that God is either not omniscient or all powerful and if he is and just doesn’t care about preserving what said, ie he has a character flaw.

I would love God to send me, not a newer version, but the one he intended me to have. It’s in his best interest anyway.

I won’t even bother to answer.

But here’s a story, and as a Bible character once said “he who has ears may he listen, and he who has eyes may he see”.

I have this friend called Mike. And one day we were talking about food, and he told me that there was this restaurant that served the best meat in town. Everything was fresh, and tasty, and generally amazing. It made me drool. So the next day I tried it out, and the food was crap. Undercooked and hard, and certainlty nothing like he described. Next time I saw Mike I complained. “Why did you tell me that restaurant was so good? have you ever eaten there yourself?”
“No, but I know the owner, and he insisted his restaurant was the best in town”.

You’re evading my question.

and you’re using narrative to cloud the issue, kinda like Jesus.

Mark 4:10–12
And when he(Jesus) was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
And he said unto them,

“Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”

@fundevogel: so even a bad translation, or a willful mistranslation, is as valid as the original Word of God?

And if your answer is that a bad translation is valid, but a willful mistranslation is not, how can you tell the difference?

@cwilbur
I think you misread my post because I was pretty much posing that questions to Jack79.

This is one of my favorite circles of argument ever.

The Bible is the perfectly preserved word of God.
How do you know?
It says so in the Bible.

If, for some reason, it is not the perfectly translated word of God (just play along with me for a minute, if you don’t believe that), might not any statement within the Bible that says it’s perfect be therefore imperfect?

If I have a blue t-shirt that says in green letters, “This sweatshirt is red,” we must either believe that the T-shirt is really a red sweatshirt, or we must believe that the message is flawed. Either way, the fact that something claims to be perfect is not a guarantee that it is perfect.

@fundevogel: I read your response accurately, but missed that you were presenting an intentionally absurd point of view.

Translation matters. The Bible was recorded by imperfect humans and translated by imperfect humans. 1 Corinthians 13:9–10—For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

Like all other earthly things, our understanding of the Bible is imperfect, because we only know in part. This is why hermeneutics is so important, and why every single person who claims to be Christian needs to get involved with the actual words.

The Word of God is pure. The Bible is the closest thing we can get to the Word of God, until that which is perfect is come.

I think laureth got my point
Matthew et al were amateur historians. Far from infallible. And certainly not gods. And let us not forget that some assumptions we have today were not even in the original Bible. But this debate will only end up in someone who has not even read the bible getting offended. Which is why I’d rather shut up now.

cwilbur, If our understanding of the bible is flawed, what’s to say that our understanding of the words in the bible is perfect.

For example, Maybe God’s definition of hell is something that’s cloudy and filled with eternal love. Maybe his definition of heaven is buring eternal pain.

If I sign a contract, I want a perfect understanding of that contract. Anything less and I’m probably being taken advantage of.

@bodyhead: when you spend four years getting a law degree and four more years arguing things over with other lawyers to make sure you have a perfect understanding of your mortgage documents before buying a house, I’ll believe that argument.

Good point. I have bought a house. I did get the mortgage contract to where I could read it overnight before I stopped by the lawyer’s office in order for him to witness me signing the paperwork. I read over it several times. I understood all of the words on that contract. I understood how they were put together. Now, someone could have a different interpretation of those words… which I think is the point you are getting at.

Maybe I took it too far with alluding to the contract.

My main point is that if our understanding of the bible is imperfect. How imperfect is it? Is it way the hell off base or only a little imperfect? Either way, how can you be sure that you are doing God’s will?

You read the Bible for yourself, and you consider what it means, and you do research as to what the words originally meant, and you try to reconcile things that seem contradictory, and you make your best effort.

One of the basic principles of Christianity—something that has come down through centuries of tradition as well as Scripture—is that we are all imperfect, and we are all sinners, and God knows this and loves us anyway; and so as long as we accept His sacrifice of Jesus as atonement for our sins and imperfections, He will forgive us.

So we don’t know for sure how imperfect it is. To take a recent thread on here: there is some disagreement over whether the Bible prohibits homosexual acts and physical homosexual relationships. It really is not crystal clear, especially when you throw the question of biased translators and human imperfection into the mix. One side of the argument says that the prohibition on homosexual acts is consistent with the admonitions in Leviticus and Paul and the conventional understanding of the account of Sodom and Gomorrah; the other side of the argument says that there are accounts of same-sex relationships that were probably sexual in the Old Testament, portrayed in a positive light; that the conventional understanding of the account of Sodom and Gomorrah and the understanding of the letter to the Romans as a condemnation of homosexuality depend on translations of questionable accuracy; and that relationships based on love and mutual respect are more in line with the bulk of Christ’s teachings.

But—the Bible and the contemporary Christian authors, and the theologians of the early church, all of them agree on God’s forgiveness. So based on that, you study the Bible, you figure out the best way you can what it means, and you base your decisions on that—because if you’re right, you are living according to God’s will, and if you’re wrong, well, a God who is capable of forgiving adulterers, idolaters, thieves, and liars should have no problem at all forgiving a well-intentioned mistake.

So you’re saying that the same God that would forgive Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and priests who molest choir boys would forgive a mistake on interpretation. Ok, I get that.

I just have a hard time swallowing that Christianity can be so open to interpretation. (As seen above) God said that all the translations are perfect. But some of the interpretations conflict with each other which either makes one or both of them wrong. If the foundation of my house is flawed, my house falls down. If the foudation of my religion is flawed, the foundation of my already loose morals falls down (I mean come on, God will forgive me if I rape people)

All you have to do is believe and you can kill and rape whoever you want. God forgives.

Um, no. God did not say all the translations were perfect; @fundevogel did. He is confusing the Word of God with the imperfect copy of the Word of God which is the best thing we have available to us. And some of the interpretations differ, and yes, that means that necessarily one of them is wrong.

You’re struggling with one of the things that a lot of Christians struggle with. If Christ’s sacrifice means that everything we do is forgiven, so long as we accept the forgiveness, then that means that we can do any sort of evil thing and God will still love us, as long as we repent of the evil thing we did and accept His grace. This means you’re allowed to be imperfect, you’re allowed to make mistakes.

Some religions based on Christianity revive older purity codes to handle this, or invent new ones. People who dress in a way they don’t approve of, or who watch TV, or who dance in ways they don’t approve of are shunned. This seems to be what you want out of a religion, and if you want that it’s available, but it’s not essentially Christian.

God has one thing going for Him that’s important here, though: He is omniscient, and He knows our intent. He can tell the difference between honest repentance and self-delusion. So the line of thinking that goes, “God will forgive me, so I can do anything I want”—do you really think that someone capable of that kind of psychopathic manipulativeness is likely to truly repent? God’s forgiveness is freely given but not automatic: the recipient needs to recognize that he or she needs it in the first place.

And sin is not just sin because God says not to do it; sin is sin because it has negative consequences across the board. God’s forgiveness is good for your soul; the negative consequences of your action still follow you around.

@cwilbur—I was quoting the Bible and then referring to the quotes I posted, take a look at the post I made with the verses (or look below where I recopied them). While they are not all the same translations they all have their proper notations. You can look them up yourself.

2 Timothy 3: 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Ps 119:160: The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

Ps 12:6–7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

2 Peter 1:20–21 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Proverbs 30:5–6: Every word of God is flawless.

And on a side note I’m of the cloven gender.

cwilbur, Now I think I get it. God had the power to make a perfect bible but didn’t. Well, he either didn’t or couldn’t. That either makes him not all powerfull or just an asshole.

@bodyhead: No, God got to choose between making everything perfect and giving us free will, and He chose the latter.

If you want to play silly semantic games, feel free. You have free will.

@fundevogel: Yes, and as I said, you are confusing the Word of God with the imperfect translation that has been handed down to us—confusing the Word of God with the work of translators.

It’s a completely unfounded leap to go from the verses you quote to the notion that all translations, even ones made maliciously and with intent to deceive, are equally good and equally accurate a reflection of the Word of God.

Please point out my silly semantic game.

Also where does it say that God can either make everything perfect or give us free will? What bible verse reflects that? Did he only have those two options? He seems like a pretty crappy God if he only has two options when creating humanity. Wouldn’t it be more fair to say that he had millions upon billions of options instead of just two?

“If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so big He can’t lift it?” is a semantic game. Substitute any other inherently contradictory thing in for the second clause—such as “create perfect beings who have free will”—and the semantic game is just as idiotic.

Creating something perfect and creating something with free will are contradictory, because if you are incapable of making a choice that is not perfect, you do not have free will. The only way to make a perfect world and perfect humans is to make it so that humans could only ever make the correct choices. And the way you know you have free will is that you are able to make poor choices.

I am not here to respond to every one of your poorly-thought out inanities about God. If you really are interested in these things, you should take a theology course. If you’re just interested in asinine nitpicking, you are welcome to find another interlocutor.

Thank you for that response. It’s actually a reponse to my arguements. I also have to commend you on the use of ‘interlocutor’. Most people wouldn’t haven chosen that word.

(really though the personal attacks are a bit much)

If I wanted to really get the ball moving with semantic games I would have asked if any of us really have free will. I would also want proof of course.

You’re recommending that I take a theology course. We would never do anything that resembles semantic games in a course like that, right?

You say that something can’t be perfect and have free will. I disagree. For simplicities sake, lets say that each decision is a choice between two outcomes. If you always pick the ‘right’ outcome then you would be perfect. Statisticly, this would eventually happen.

I wasn’t arguing semantics, I just read the Bible and found it to be contradictory. And then I pointed at it and said, “that doesn’t make sense,” and stated why I found it to be contradictory. It’s not semantics at all.

But I don’t really want to distract from your current conversation.

Do research and you will find out that those from the Bible days did not live in America. Back then, in other countries they did not have the 12 month calendar. Therefore, there were more birthdays. Hence “older” people. And come on folks, expand your minds. When Christ says you shall live forever, He means eternal life. When you die, your soul either goes to Heaven or Hell. But either way, you will live. Whether you spend eternity in Heaven or the firey pits of Hell is completely your choice…

-Sellz

@Sellz

Actually I have, the Hebrew calendar was a twelve month sensation. It was based on the sun and the lunar cycles (29.5 days). Each month was based on the lunar cycle and there were roughly 12 in a year. So while it is not the same calendar as today it is just enough to account for one extra year of living, every 73 years (if you round your lunar cycle up to 30, since 29.5 is a weird way to count your months).

I mentioned nothing about Christ or living forever in my question, and I don’t recall anyone else mentioning eternal life either. So I’m not sure who you think you’re rebutting.

Unless we are going backwards and The Bible was written by aliens from another Planet who had already discovered how to prolong life and somehow we lost the knowledge :prolonging life is something Scientists seem to suggest may happen in the future.What is the oldest recorded Age a person has ever lived more than likely they were Japanese, Chinese or Indian, why is this?Then again they could have just forgotten when their Birthday was.Is God forgiving?No-in the Bible he states I am a jealous and avenging God-or words to that effect.So why do we ask God to forgive us?Jesus sounds a lot more forgiving than his Father.Maybe we should say, Jesus, forgive us, because we know his Father won’t.Jesus sounds like the nice guy and it was him who took all the pain not his Father.I wonder if God feels physical pain or mental pain?