Dyz

Hey all,

I am new to this forum. I won't get into my background too much but let's just say it all started with a search for Bible origins and an eye-opening read by Richard Carrier. At any rate, I have been religiously soaking it all in for the last few months (pun intended), and have actually started reading the Bible. I just finished with Genesis and was wondering if you all would mind if I dropped in from time to time to ask annoying questions which have probably been answered a hundred times already? The problem is all this research is consuming literally hours of my day, and as fascinating as I am finding all this, my family also desires to eat. Imagine that!

So that being said, my first question is concerning the ages of the patriarchs. Is there any argument concerning how passage of time was recorded back in Genesis? Obviously I have difficulty with the concept of 1000 year old men, but then I am no Anna Nicole. My first attempt at critical thinking was that 1000 years might have meant 1000 lunar cycles which would have lead to an appropriate lifespan but that also lead to 7 year olds fathering children, though possible I imagine, not particularly probable. In any case, I am hoping one of you can set me on the right path with a link or an answer.

Thanks in advance,

Dyz

Jedi Mind Trick

I read where the lifespans are evidence that the author of genesis was taking his info from, and misinterpreting, earlier Mesopotamian sources. But I read that a long time ago and I've forgotten the references.

Doug Shaver

When I started applying critical thinking to the Bible, I immediately concluded that whoever wrote Genesis actually believed that people of an earlier era lived much many times longer than people in his own era.

I think any alternative explanation, absent very compelling evidence, runs afoul of Occam's razor.

tjakey

Dyz, if you are trying to read Genesis in a way that makes it believable while still hanging onto you senses...mmmm...good luck.

Schmoikel

Dyz...

just started a quick search to help you out. Keep in mind, I'm about as far from being a scientist as Hovind is. But I think it only fair to present creationist information (not necessarily facts) that explain how/why people lived so long. If only to show the errors in their reasoning.

Life Span

I eagerly await the responses from those real scientists here with regards to the 'facts'.

Dyz

Heh no fog has pretty much lifted well above the firmament. But I kind of like to think that even the writer had an origin for his beliefs. In that either the writer actually believed people lived for 1000 years, the writer(s) made up the ages to give the story more flavor, or that some obsolete system was used to account for the years.

I guess like Shaver said I am interested in the compelling evidence that there existed some sort of time measurement system prior to the writings, something akin to the Mesopotamian sources Blackwater suggested.

As for Occam's Razor, my question isn't made in an attempt to justify belief. My questions are purely out of a desire to know what there is to be known. Actually reading the Bible with this new found perspective has proved absolutely fascinating... albeit enjoyably time consuming.

Hopefully someone will present with the compelling evidence I seek. If not I will take delight in the fact that the first question I have decided to ask a group of bible fluent scholars is one that hasn't yet been answered. (though I doubt that is the case)

By the way I am halfway through Exodus now done with the plagues. I notice that God no longer feels remorse for killing as he did following the flood. The Egyptians never got a rainbow.

Be well
Dyz

Dyz

Lol Schmoikel, Halfway through that article and I think I am going to need an interpreter or an apologist for the apologist at the least. On the bright side maybe someday I will get to look 30 when I'm 90 and many great leaders will mistake me for my husband's sister.

Be pro smiley.
Dyz

Diogenes the Cynic

The attribution of long ages to the patriarchs in Genesis is probably derived from the same convention that was used to attribute great ages to antediluvian kings in Sumerian kings lists. A lot of Genesis is derived from earlier Mesopotamian mythology.

Elijah

1000 year old monkey

Just to frame this a little so I don’t seem totally crazy. Currently I’m working on a comic book about us being able to have 1000 year lifetimes. While I really do believe it’s possible, it is a comic book.

I think the older lifetimes are from an oral tradition that finally got written down when pen and paper got mastered. I believe that what originally separated man from the rest of the animal kingdom is that thru trial and error nature had finally came up with a complex life form that wouldn’t die. That extra time is what helped us make the mental jumps that we’ve made.

If you had a monkey that lived a thousand productive years I think he could get pretty good at tools and could further his language development. To me this is the only real logical solution for where we came from. I can’t see angels or aliens or random mutations, but I can see an attempt by nature to create life increasingly complex with survival in mind as being a source of our origin.

Nobody believes this of course because no one has seen anyone live past 123. This is because we are no longer living in the way or the environment we were when the long lifetimes were present. Modern living has fat, barely breathing, and far far away from the sun.

I also think that Jesus was in the know of this. I think his eternal life stuff is really eternal life stuff. I think something happened in the desert while fasting for 40 days and he understood what made man special so many years ago.

Schmoikel

Not sure if this is what you are looking for....

Yom (age)

Don't know if my eyes can take much more of those 'scientific' creationist sites.