Jayco

I've always wondered about this question and how Christians/Jews would combat it if someone actually did live past 120. Well, as it turns out, there's actually been a couple, but the most prominent (and more importantly, undisputed) is Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122 years and 164 days.

If there are any Christians/Jews floating about, how do you account for that stark contradiction? And for all the rest, does anyone know the apologetics for this?

Her pinkness saves

Calment was a woman, the bible says his days, and no man is known to have lived longer then 120 years.

:P

Not so hard, this apologetics stuff.

Loki

Methuseleh (sp)?

Ray Moscow

As a Christian, I always took the "120" to be an average lifespan during that period, until it was updated to "70" in one of the psalms. I saw no problem with someone occasionally living a bit longer.

I wonder where the idea of "120 years" really comes from, though.

Ray

NZSkep

but to god a day is like a thousand years....

Come back when you can find a man that lives longer than 1000 x 365 x 120 = 43,800,000 years

OripahsTrebor

I plan to upload myself into a computer eventually, I really do...


Then I won't die...

We would be able to surpass 120 years easily with nanobots, just read The Singularity is Near.

xrey

So what was the infant mortality rate at the time? Pretty high, I'd imagine.

In order to pull up the average to 120 years, it would require many individuals to live hundreds or thousands of years.

Like when Bill Gates walks into a room. Suddenly everyone is a millionaire, on average.

Ray Moscow

I probably should have said "typical lifespan, excluding causes of premature death like being smitten by Philistenes or emrods" instead of "average".

None of this has any real-world data behind it, of course.

Ray

ksen

I don't think that 120 years was meant as some sort of ceiling for the lifespan of a human. I believe that God is talking about how much longer the earth had and the people alive at the time had before the flood would occur.

Clouseau

It's quite possible that this is nothing to do with longevity. It could mean that God would allow 120 years (a 'nice round figure' by Babylonian numeration) before sending the flood. The Living Bible takes this time as a 'grace period':

'Then Jehovah said, "My Spirit must not forever be disgraced in man, wholly evil as he is. I will give him 120 years to mend his ways."' Ge 6:3 TLB